Incredibly, Mr. Nifong continues in office as the chief law enforcement officer in Durham County, making life-altering decisions about who should be the subject of prosecution and handling the most sensitive and important cases . . . [AG Roy] Cooper branded Mr. Nifong as a 'rogue' and 'unchecked' prosecutor because he had three innocent, young men, arrested, indicted and prosecuted for crimes that General Cooper found did not occur.
Cornacchia also urged appointment of a special prosecutor to open a criminal investigation of Nifong. This would seem like a long-overdue move.
28 comments:
A sound recommendation and a long overdue move indeed. That is very good news.
Observer
Somewhere far beyond amazing is the fact that Nifong is still in place and functioning as the DA - and without direct supervision or special oversight. Words fail.
I have to agree with P Rich at 5:45, words fail. But I see the backlash is starting. I hope it gains enough momentum to bring about some meaningful justice
Lets get the dam show on the road.
How can this most corrupt of DA's be allowed to even be in his office after the AG's statement?
Another wonderful practice in the North Carolina justice system exposed.
Nifong should be placed on unpaid leave until he has been investigated not only by the State Bar, but federally or the NC,SBI.
Talk about leaving the "Fox" in with the chickens after the farmer has caught the little devil?
At the very least this should force Orlando off high center to rule on the motion to remove Nifong .
from a non-accountant / retired professor: I am just so perplexed how Nifong can still exercise the power of being a sitting DA. Now that it has been proclaimed by the NCAG that Nifong is essentially a "rouge DA", who can have any confidence in Nifong? Shouldn't Nifong, at the very least, be placed on paid administrative leave until these issues are resolved? Just imagine Nifong prosecuting a case before a jury. Who would believe him?
Too bad Brodhead wasn't in charge of the Durham County Courthouse! Brodhead would have pressured Nifong for his resignation,
cancelled all other cases, closed the courthouse for the rest of the year and sat closed mouth while protesters called for Nifong's castration and circulated nationwide WANTED posters plastered with photos of ALL the Durham prosecutors and law enforcement agents!
Equally as amazing is the fact that that feckless stumblebum brodhead is still in place as is Steel and as are the 88 airheads. The depth of stupidity in this case is unfathomable.
Trinity60
Judge Orlando Hudson, "on the Court's own Motion", ought to consider moving forward on Beth Bewer's pending petition to remove Nifong from office.
Hudson took the "safe" (if legally inventive) way around the statute, by holding the Motion in abeyance pending the outcome of the Bar Association trial (in Jane).
But I think that the AG's report, soon to be supplemented with his detailed summary of the facts, ought to satisfy all sane people that there's no reason for Durham to endure this foul excresence as DA until June.
Finally. I would fully understand if the wrongly accused players want to move forward and leave Durham and gang88 behind (best revenge is living well), but for the society at large it is absolutely critical to investigate Nifong and DPD. It is not just one rogue prosecutor but it was most likely a conspiracy, consisting DA, ADAs, police officers, and one private investigator working under DA.
We could do another round of mailings to Senators requesting Federal intervention.
well, this was fast..
www.thehoaxmovie.net
Seriously, in the forthcoming Duke Hoax movie or Law & Order episode, the inconvenient facts are altered to fit to the Hollywood agenda, as usual. Nifong is a republican conservative who tries to win republican primary. Wrongly accused players are black.
Local newsreporters (played by Matt Damon, Charlie Sheen) at HS are heroic reporters. Gang88 is advocating due process and in the end, Jane Fonda (as a New York Times reporter) exposed the conspicary led by Karl Rove and evil republicans.
I expect that calls for his resignation will really heat up once the DA releases his detailed report of the case next week. I would expect that the report will be devastating, and at that point the pressure will become unbearable, I hope.
Right now Nifong may be cutting deals with ruthless killers in order to create his own personal thug army. "I'll ask for the death penalty for you, OR you agree to take out a particular defense attorney who is causing me some indigestion. I'll botch your prosecution in exchange for a favor." Get this dangerous S.O.B. out of power yesterday!!
There was a time when, if a state refused to do its duty, the federal government would step in; Selma and Montgomery Alabama come to mind. Of course, that was when we had an Attorney General with gonads. Alberto Gonzales couldn't find his testicles if he had a road map, so we can forget any federal civil rights investigation of Nifong and his motley crew. And now would be an ideal time to do it.
Not to be repetitious, but just to make a point - it is the end of yet another day and he is still D.A.
Remember the Iran Hostage crisis in which Nightline counted each day (I think it was 444 days).
I guess this has been 395 plus the days since they were declared innocent.
Am I correct in believing that private civil rights actions can be brought.
KC - How do I reach you directly to ask a question which I do not want on the blog?
My email is:
kcjohnson9@gmail.com
I hope you are optioning the movie as well as the book. I think the movie should also be called Durham-in-Wonderland. great great title.
Listen to you people! Do you want to deny Nifong his civil rights and presumption of innocence? Well OK then, me too!
Commenter abb on the Liestoppers hoax board:
I'm going to give credit for the "ignition point" to the NandO. With the Anne Blythe/Samiha Khanna article of 3/25/06 this whole thing goes nowhere. It provides cover for the Fong, precipitates the potbangers, stampedes Brodhead, elevates Mangum to angelic status and smears the Lax team. True enough all the elements of fire were there - the fuel of the accusation and the oxygen of race and class - but the NandO was the spark.
And they knew what they were doing. In the finest tradition of William Randolph Hearst, "You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."
K.C.,
I really think that Linwood Wilson is the "soft underbelly" of this case. First, he does not have immunity. Second, he left a paper trail when he engaged in witness intimidation. Third, he does not have the personal resources to fight against the prosecution.
All of this makes him vulnerable to being rolled by prosecutors, and people who are rolled will take out their superiors. The Durham police officers involved in this scam and Mr. Nifong better have good lawyers. They are in deep trouble.
Hudson could at any moment solve the Nifong as DA fiasco or he could threaten Nifong with solving it forcing him to take a leave until the bar case is finished.
My concern about a movie about the Hoax, is how they would present the party in the movie. It might be pretty boring if they shoot the way it really was.
"Somewhere far beyond amazing is the fact that Nifong is still in place and functioning as the DA - and without direct supervision or special oversight. Words fail".
Two words come to mind: It's Durham.
We already know Nifong doesn't have good lawyers.
Granted, he didn't give Freeman and Witt much to work with, but in news show interviews and in court, they've thoroughly demonstrated, they ain't no Johnny Cochrane.
Keeping Nifong in office goes beyond ridiculous. He has by now been so thoroughly discredited that it would seem like every case he touches would almost automatically warrant a retrial on appeal.
By the time the civil suits get done, Nifong will have cost Durham and North Carolina a bundle. Having to pay for hundreds of retrials would up the ante that much more.
By the same token, every Durham PD officer that was involved in this is, professionally speaking, a dead man walking, when it comes to the impeachability of their testimony as well.
Letting the Bar disciplinary committee take their own sweet time to come to a decision is well and good, but the people of Durham are going to be paying ...through their taxes....for every moment of delay until Nifong is gone and the blue pond scum in the Durham PD that aided and abetted him are gone.....
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