Wm'son: Have to assume that prosecutors have some ability to detect what is exculpatory evidence.
Witt's claim that Nifong is an "old-fashioned" guy--but throughout the claim has always been that Nifong opposed the "old-fashioned" approach and turned over discovery data.
Nifong made false statements, but he didn't know they were false. Why wasn't Nifong looking for all the evidence. "Because he wasn't."
Admits that Nifong made false statements to court--but claims they were unintentional.
Sharon Alexander (panelist): You can commit fraud by being silent.
Witt: Nifong was just talking about underlying data.
Witt: "Mr. Nifong is his own unique person. His mind is just his mind . . . This is a reasonable explanation of what happened."
Witt has now just conceded that Nifong made knowingly false statements--but not intentionally false statements.
Wm'son: the basic argument appears to be that Nifong is "in effect clueless"--"isn't that reason enough to say this man should not be doing what he's doing?"
Wm'son: this conduct was repeated several times over many months.
"There are certain things that are so fundamental"--lying, cheating, stealing
Don't get free pass on serious errors just because they hadn't done it before.
Wm'son: We don’t give anyone a free pass on appropriating funds because a lawyer has practiced for 30 years without stealing his client’s money
This was not an isolated lapse of judgment. This was conduct over an extended period in a very high profile case [with much scrutiny.] So that the conduct was repeated a number of times.
“It was an egregious mistake but it was not intentional conduct.”
But the Innocense Project woman said Nifong was so up-to-date and "open file"!
ReplyDeleteJLS says...,
ReplyDeleteThis is silly, they did not have everything Nifong had. He knew it. Nifong's expert said he told him not include all the results.
I think the red light just came on
ReplyDeletehere comes "it depends upon what 'is' means"
ReplyDelete11:35: Your comment doesn't enhance this site at all.
ReplyDeletewow...tap dancing by Nifong's mouthpiece that would have made Mr. Bojangles proud!!
ReplyDeleteI love her. Saying right out that she has problem leaving this at the "negligence" level and mentioning "fraud".....
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeletewell, be careful what you wish for
ReplyDeleteWow! She is toasting Nifong! "You can commit fraud by staying silent..."
ReplyDeleteWitt saying Nifong "should have gone back and done something else [about the non-disclosure of eveidence] but he is own unique person."
ReplyDeleteROFLMAO!!!!!
The "HE IS HIS OWN UNIQUE PERSON DEFENSE"!!!!!!!!!
"his mind is just his mind" "that's a reasonable explanation" sheesh!!
ReplyDeleteOkay...the panel is now coming unglued in letting Witt know that they can see how full of.....uh...ahh...HOLES his logic is.
ReplyDelete"Nifong is his own, unique person."
NOW THERE'S A QUOTE THAT SUMS UP THIS PROCEEDING!!!"
Witt now saying he concedes this could be beyond "negligence."
ReplyDelete"His mind is just his mind"
ReplyDeleteThat line of defense could be used to get a serial killer off.
Williamson sick of the "last 28 years" defense.
ReplyDeleteWilliamson SO RIGHT that the conduct was not "one little mistake" -- it was over a LONG PERIOD, repeated a number of times in a high profile case.
Go Williamson!
OMG...Williamson is cooking this guy's butt!!!
ReplyDeleteWitt brought up a case about there being no rule about having sexual relations with a client, so they finally passed a rule and now all attorneys supposedly know an attorney can't have sexual relations with a client.
ReplyDeleteHe then says that was analogous to what happened here.
That's crap. There was a rule already in place concerning turning over exculpatory evidence and Nifong violated it.
What Witt is asking is that Nifong be given a pass because even though there was a rule in place, Nifong didn't really understand that the rule meant something, but in the future attorneys should know that the rule will be enforced. In other words, Nifong should be given one freebie in violating the rule before he is held accountable to it. Does every other prosecutor also get one freebie? Or is Witt willing to concede that now that this has come to light, the rule is really the rule and it means something and no one else gets a freebie?
His argument is ridiculous.
"Should get a mulligan on this one..."
ReplyDeletehee! hee!
Witt is defending less and less ground. Now admitting "multiple aggregious mistakes". Has already admitted "knowing violation", just not "Intentional violation."
ReplyDeletehow can a statement be knowingly false but not intentionally false? talk about your all time bad closing arguments...I feel like I am watching a bad episode of Boston Legal.
ReplyDeleteWe don't give a guy a pass for stealing because he practices for 30 years without misappropriation of client funds.
ReplyDeleteI wanna go play golf with Witt and Nifong...I could shoot eight below par with all the Mulligans I could ask for using their rules!!!
ReplyDeleteLMAO
"multiple egregious mistakes, but not intentional conduct"
ReplyDeletePlus, he's already trying to argue sentencing.
Witt Just conceded his client is guilty.
ReplyDeleteTom E.
He is now making exactly the point that I made earlier about Old School...they didn't need written rules, they had a sense of honor.
ReplyDeleteSpeculation is useless but I cannot help myself. For the first time I think his license will be revoked permenantly.
ReplyDeleteWho will have the ball to get the criminal charges rolling?
After all that this panel is saying, is there really a chance he does not get disbarred?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteYes laxhool -- I'm glad he said that. You both made a great point.
ReplyDeleteThey have no respect for Mr. Witt
ReplyDeleteOh, since no one was wrongly convicted, it's not so bad.
ReplyDeleteWitt: "Uncle! Uncle!" hee hee
ReplyDeleteWitt: "help, Mr. Wizard!!!"
ReplyDeleteQuit beating that dead horse.
ReplyDeleteThe argument about no wrongful conviction yet...is like arguing that "My client wasn't arrested ten years after murdering somebody and hiding the evidence....he was caught at the scene with the smoking gun, so he should get a lighter sentence."
ReplyDeleteWHAT A PILE!!!
new thread.
ReplyDeletethe defense now appears to be: "hey, these boys hadn't been murdered in prison...yet!"
ReplyDeleteClearly North Carolina is a State to avoid!
What punishments have been meted out to lawyers who had 30 years of impeccable records, and then appropriated even large amounts of funds?
ReplyDeleteNew thread.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete"how can a statement be knowingly false but not intentionally false?"
ReplyDeleteAsk the prosecution, because they were the party to have argued that one was not the other well before Mr. Witt's testimony this morning. Were you not paying attention earlier?
So we see the Williamson is going to go easy as an egregious mistake is not intentional conduct.
ReplyDeleteMeehan should be brougt back, Nifong is throwing him under the bus.
that nifong continues to maintain that he can't recall the first meeting at the dna lab (a 2 hour drive with others) is in itself evidence of his willful and knowing efforts to suppress the dna results. it undermines all of his claims of honesty and disingenuous intent before the panel. they can only view his testimony as contemptuous and deceptive throughout the hearing and proof of his unethical conduct in the entire matter.
ReplyDeleteThe defense now appears forward looking, beyond the Bar hearing.."Nifong the clueless incompetent" is geared, I think, not to protect his Bar license, but to establish Mikey as a good faith fool. Someone who shouldn't be sued or criminally prosecuted for acts of malice because he was simply too lazy, sloppy, stupid to know what he was doing.
ReplyDeleteI think the hope is that the Bar can do what they will, and Mikey will accept that and then raise the claim that "the poor bumbling fool he is" has been punished enough. The Bar should be the end of it - so "healing" can start.
Cedarford,
ReplyDeleteThat won't work. These bar reps seem pretty sharp.
I think Mikey should be thinking about how to protect his anus.
"Anus"--LOL
Pun, that.
Debrah
Looking at the circus now unfolding, it is easy to forget that there was no trial. The DA brought an indictment against three youths who had been accused of rape during a frat party. The threshold for a grand jury indictment were obviously met. Instead of waiting for the trial, they chose to try the matter in the media though a well funded media campaign during which the alleged victim could not defend herself nor the alleged perpetrators cross-examined. Nobody really knows what happened that night since there was no trial but to have the DA lose his law license is just simply bizzarre.
ReplyDeleteTo Freedman's question as to why Nifong, who supposedly has a 28 year career where he did nothing that got him sanctioned in the past, all of the sudden do something that got his ass in the wringer:
ReplyDeleteAbsence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
To the anonymous person who posted at
ReplyDelete1:02:00 pm, you have your head in the sand.
You don't want to know the truth.
As Jack Nicholson said in "A Few Good Men":
"You can't handle the truth"
1:02,
ReplyDeleteYou don't know what you're talking about. Even if the former LAX defendants had been guilty, and they weren't--they were innocent, Mr. Nifong's ethical violations would still be ethical violations for which he could and should be disbarred. The fact the defendants were obviously innocent only serves to fan the well justified outrage.
Observer
Also to 1:02:
ReplyDeleteit was Nifong who chose to bring
this case to the public arena with all
of this early outrageous statements,
the defense lawyers had no choice to
rebut him in the public arena
One more thing to 1:02:
ReplyDeleteI feel I must respond to your totally
irresponsible statement that "nobody
knows what really happened that night"
Besides the fact that we know with 100%
certainty from the DNA evidence that the
3 boys indicted absolutely did NOT assault
Ms Magnum in any way, shape, or form,
we also know with 100% certainty, that
Ms Magnum lied about what happened that night.
Of many examples proved with 100% certainty
that she lied, she said that she was raped --
it has been proven with 100% certainty
that she was not raped that night.
And one thing we are also sure of is that
the Grand Jury that served up the indicements
was lied to.
To 1:02
ReplyDeleteMany of us having been interested, sometimes obsessed, with this case for a year or more. We tend to know a lot of the details of the case.
For us, today was a good day. If today was not so good for you maybe you should try to connect that to the fact that you obviously know virtually nothing about this case.
For the record, poster 12:52PM is the mental case, JC Clyne/Polanski engaging in more blog identity theft by signing my name to his idiocy.
ReplyDeleteDebrah (the real thing)
1:02 is Polanski, also.
ReplyDeleteHe just likes to pretend to
be one of the people he hates
so much.
Unless he has a multiple personality disorder.