cur-mud-geon:
anyone who hates hypocrisy and pretense and has the temerity to say so; anyone with the habit of pointing out unpleasant facts in an engaging and humorous manner
Unless you’ve been in a cave without access to the world for the past year, you probably know who Mike Nifong is, and you remember the case against the Duke La Crosse team members accused of the rape of a dancer at a fraternity party.
As Nifong began playing out the “evidence”, any sane person had to think there was an extremely good likelihood that these three were guilty. Nifong had complete control of the situation, the news conferences, and the evidence.
He was also running a distant second in his race for re-election as the District Attorney. He seized upon this unfortunate situation as his ticket back into the office. There is a significant black population and Nifong is white. The victim was black. Nifong played up the “race card” as that approach has come to be known.
DNA evidence was collected and tested. DNA samples were again collected and tested. We heard nothing about those results other than Nifong continuing to rail against the innocence of three young men whose lives had been ruined for all intent and purpose. Once accused, one can never regain one’s innocence in the eyes of most of us.
As we subsequently learned, the DNA evidence had completely exonerated the three young men…except Mike Nifong didn’t see fit to tell us or anyone else about that. In fact, Nifong schemed with the owner of the laboratory that did the DNA tests to conceal the evidence.
Nifong told no one, not the defendants, not the defense attorneys, not the judge; he told no one. Finally, a North Carolina court threw the case out at the urging of the Attorney General based on the fact there was no sustainable evidence to tie these three young men, whose lives were ruined, to the “alleged” event. The alleged rape victim even came out with a different story that cast great doubt on the veracity of her initial and subsequent stories.
But Mike Nifong hadn’t the decency to admit his wrongdoing. He had won re-election.
He has been been disbarred and is therefore unable to practice law in North Carolina. He had already pledged to resign his office as D.A. He has finally apologized, meekly and almost without anyone able to hear his words, to the three young men.
One of those young men testified and brought everyone in the courtroom, except possibly Mike Nifong and his attorney, to tears as he recounted his thoughts and feelings, as he anguished over having to tell his Mother that he’d been arrested for this heinous crime of which he stood accused. He related the expulsion from Duke and the La Crosse team. The La Crosse team coach was relieved and went without income for months until he signed on with a Rhode Island college to coach their La Crosse team. Duke officials had over-reacted with their "housecleaning" that included an almost immediate end to the La Crosse team and its season.
Nifong must be sufficiently punished, and simply the loss of his job and his license to practice law is not sufficient. He must somehow be held truly accountable for his malfeasance in office. He should actually be tried for criminal intent, if that were possible, for his scheming to get re-elected in spite of his knowing then that he had no evidence to convict. He should be, and hopefully will be, subject to civil suit by the three young men whom he so seriously defamed and injured. He must be the example that he'd planned to make of those young men.
I am not an attorney, as is probably obvious to those of you who are, but I know right from wrong when I see it. I think Nifong also knew right from wrong and did this despicable act of wronging so many innocents knowingly.
Mike Nifong deserves disbarment PLUS!
