Monday, June 18, 2007

Marsha Goodenow Testimony

In his closing comments, Lane Williamson noted that the discipline panel found particularly compelling the testimony of Charlotte prosecutor Marsha Goodenow. This clip shows why.

33 comments:

Anonymous said...

She came out of nowhere and show how all this could have been avoided if Nifong had behaved ethically. A very strong presentation.

Anonymous said...

I thought she was, along with Brad Bannon, one of the most credible people in the courtroom. She was just terrific. Is she available for Governor?

Anonymous said...

The dark-haired man in glasses to the left of Joe Cheshire is David Rudolf.

They must be planning for the civil suits already.

Debrah

Anonymous said...

Who is David Rudolf? I guess he's famous, but is he from around here?

Anonymous said...

Of course they're planning the civil suits---probably have had them drafted at least since the rape charges were dropped, and the others left in place. If not then, surely by the time the AG deemed the guys completely innocent.

I'm not a big litigation advocate but in this case, I hope it goes on for years and names everyone it should!

Anonymous said...

Can somebody help me with a bit of history? I heard it mentioned that this hearing only happened because of a one vote margin. Is there somewhere I can get more details? I would love to ask people that voted no what they were thinking!

kcjohnson9 said...

The State Bar grievance committee voted 9-8 to file a grievance. Without that decision, there would have been no trial.

Anonymous said...

The 8 were circling the wagons.

Anonymous said...

David Rudolf is a well-known civil litigator. Google is probably your friend on this one, too.

Anonymous said...

TO 12:11PM--

David Rudolf is a high profile attorney with a base in Chapel Hill and another office in Charlotte. He's originally from New York and initially taught at the University of NC School of Law.

He's been on Court TV a few times definding high profile clients.

Michael Peterson, who was convicted of murdering his wife.....

.....and Rae Curruth, a professional athlete who hired a friend to shoot his girlfriend because she got pregnant and he obviously didn't want to continue that relationship.

He's done lots of important cases and I know he's salivating to go after all parties in this lacrosse fiasco and their civil suits.

Debrah

Anonymous said...

Can we get the 8 names of those who were driving the wagons? They need to be held to public accoutability.

GaryB said...

Though impossible to get, I would love to hear the reasons why the 8 people on the State Bar committee voted not to file a grievance.

If not in this case, then when? Do they have skeletons of their own they wish to keep buried (aka falsely imprisoned) or do they just think that the Bar has absolutely no business governing itself?

Anonymous said...

defending

Debrah

Anonymous said...

David Rudolf isn't a civil attorney but a criminal one...of obvious repute. Isn't civil litigation a specialty in which a person would want a highly experienced attorney in that field?

Anonymous said...

If the invertebrate powers-that-be at the News&Observer would give the OK, I think Joe Neff should do an exposé on this grievance committee and why almost half of them voted NO.

Reveals what kind of two-bit ambulance chasers run the justice system.

Debrah

GaryB said...

Another possibility I can think of for the non-file vote of 8 out of 17 State Bar people: Could there be a "Damn Yankee" kind of mentality going on? I lived in North Carolina for a few years, and there still is an active resentment of the North for wrongs long past (Civil War) and present (migration down gentrifying areas). These board members may feel this is just Yankee interference with good 'ol local law enforcement.

Anonymous said...

TO 12:27PM--

I'm very sure that the lacrosse players, their families, and their attorneys believe that there was criminal behavior in this case.

Anyway, David Rudolf can do almost anything he wants.

Debrah

Anonymous said...

It is really scary that you have to have such egrigious facts to get the Grievance Committee to vote to even file a grievance against the perpatrator and by a minimal margin at that.

I am more and more convinced that it takes money and pre indictment status to get justice in this country.

The people in power stay in power because they watch out for each other when they do bad. The Defendants in this case were the worst possible group for some moron DA to try and frame and he wasnt that far from getting the cases in front of a racist jury.

There are corrupt people in the justice system on every level and justice is not available to the poor or middle class.

Anonymous said...

Why would you hire Rudolph for your civil case? There are so many better civil lawyers in this state then him.

Jay Trehy. Doug Adams. Just to name a couple.

Anonymous said...

Several years ago, I had a colleague who was not doing his job (and this directly impacted me, as I was one his "team.") I spoke to him about the problem, and he blew me off--he didn't have to listen to me. I then spoke to my principal, who had no other way of knowing there was a problem. The principal didn't relay on my word alone; he spoke to the teacher about the complaint and started watching him carefully. By the end of the year, that teacher was gone.

At a local teacher association meeting, another teacher spoke up and said that we had to "stick together" and that we shouldn't speak to the principal about colleagues; if someone wasn't doing his job, we should just cover for him (!).

I replied, "I will NEVER cover for a bad teacher. I will not "tattle" to a principal, but if after soeaking to a collegue I am ignored, I'm going to follow the chain of command."

I take great pride in my profession, but we teachers too need to clean house and set up some kind of disciplinary system. One bad teacher, like one bad DA, casts a shadow on everyone else.


gotc
PS I live in PA, not NC

Anonymous said...

So I hear Debrah saying David Rudolf is there not so much to sue DU, DUMC, DPD, et. al. for damages but to proceed with the criminal charges against Nifong and perhaps LE? I'm loving Mr. Rudolf!

Anonymous said...

RE: Grievance Committee.

I wonder if some of the NO votes came from the fact that the case was still ongoing (Apparently unprecidented). Not attempting to make an excuse, yet a possible explanation.

Regards,

Anonymous said...

Nifong handed in his resignation per WRAL...but won't leave for a month~

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't touch Jay Trehy with a ten-foot pole.

Debrah

Anonymous said...

JLS says...,

I think 8 voted the wrong way, but I would not attribute circling the wagons to all of them. As was said in the hearing only because of this very unusual hearing did the system SORT OF work. The NC Bar did not have a history of charging DAs while a criminal case was pending and I can certainly understand why they would not want the Bar procedure to become a parallel legal system where the charged are always filing ethics complaints against DA and these complaints are being heard simultaneously with the criminal case moving forward in the regular court system.

The 8 may very well have thought the Bar's past proceedure of not charging a DA while a case was pending was the correct way to go. And in fact by only dropping the rape charges Nifong may have pushed that addition vote from no to yes.

Had the bar not charged Nifong then, at the Feb hearing Mangum's testimony would have been suppressed and the charges dismissed. Then the bar would have charged Nifong. Nifong already had one letter of notice that the bar was investigating. The vote that was a near thing was the vote to charge while the criminal case was pending.

It was important because it forced Nifong to recuse. That was important because it led to a declaration of innocent by the AG.

Anonymous said...

One of the best aspects of MG's testimony was she kept saying "well a fair prosecutor..." It was a real slap in the face.

Great job KC

Anybody know about the other rape case involving a duke student (white female) and AA male... the one that did not/does not seem important to the potbangers? I thought there was an important date with that.

Anonymous said...

Interesting point about Nife's resignation - he is still the DA until July 13 - how can he do that? Does his disbarment not start immediately?

Anonymous said...

Looking in from another, northern state.
There have to be a hell of a lot of people in NC shaking in their boots right now.
From judges, prosecutors, police officials, college facaulty, medical facilities. media.
I think a handful of people from each of these should be worried about lawsuits.

Anonymous said...

"Sometimes the worst evil is done by good people who do not know that they are not good."
Reinhold Niebuhr

Anonymous said...

Gary said
"Could there be a "Damn Yankee" kind of mentality going on? I lived in North Carolina for a few years, and there still is an active resentment of the North for wrongs long past (Civil War) and present (migration down gentrifying areas). These board members may feel this is just Yankee interference with good 'ol local law enforcement."

Yes and no.
From our relatives in Durham yes, at first there was hostility in the community to the athletes across racial lines because they are Northerners. (Our family are all Tar Heels.) But as Nifong racialized the case lots of people started to get uneasy.
UNC is a land grant school and out of staters are capped by state law to 18% iirc making it the school for locals, and Duke is the out of towners school, by definition less popular.

But I doubt doubt that affected the vote by the Bar. Filing ethics charges while a case is ongoing is usually not done, and rightly so. There should be a high threshold (and immunity) to permit prosecutors to do their job. But the facts in this case were so dramatic that the reputation of the Bar was at stake.

Anonymous said...

She was great and reassured me about NC ADAs and DAs. Can we get her for DA in Durham? I think it will be the black ADA who came to the office, a couple of months ago. I would like a special election. Wish those folk were consulting with me, but they are not.

Anonymous said...

Don’t be too hard on the eight who voted against the complaint. I sat on a similar Bar Committee as the public member in Oregon. I would have had a hard time voting for starting the disciplinary process until the case was dismissed. I could completely agree with the case and not find authority to commence it until April 12.

Anonymous said...

I like the way her testimony was in a non-dramatic common sense tone. This is the way things should be; there are good reasons for it; every competant laywer knows this; every ethical lawyer abides by it.