Quote for the Day

Early on, Easley’s attorneys had asked Kenerly for a chance to speak with him before he made any final decision on how to proceed in the case.

Kenerly agreed to make himself available, mainly because he didn’t want to miss something that could be crucial.

“I didn’t want to make a Mike Nifong mistake,” Kenerly says, referring to the former Durham County DA’s handling of the Duke University lacrosse case.

--from a Salisbury Post profile about retiring DA Bill Kenerly's handling of the Mike Easley case

Of all of the disgraced Mike Nifong's ethical misdeeds (lying to the court, withholding exculpatory DNA evidence, making improper public statements, ordering the police to violate their own procedures and instead run a suspects-only lineup), perhaps the most inexplicable was his refusal (on three separate occasions) to meet with defense attorneys who said they possessed evidence of their clients' innocence. It's hard to come up with an innocent explanation for that Nifong maneuver--because, of course, there isn't one.

So it's good to see that, at the very least, Nifong is remembered as an example of grossly unethical conduct for all high-profile prosecutors to avoid.