Disbarred Duke lacrosse prosecutor Mike Nifong is back, along with more misconduct allegations

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Last edited Tue Aug 30, 2016, 01:08 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: Washington Post

Disbarred Duke lacrosse prosecutor Mike Nifong is back, along with more misconduct allegations

By Tom Jackman
http://twitter.com/TomJackmanWP

August 30 at 5:15 AM

The spotlight of injustice in the criminal system is back on Durham County, N.C., made famous by the misadventures of former district attorney Mike Nifong in the Duke University lacrosse case in 2006. Nifong ultimately stepped out of the case when it was revealed he had withheld exculpatory DNA tests on the players, and he was subsequently forced out of office, disbarred, convicted of contempt of court and jailed for a day in 2007.

But that wasn’t the only case Nifong ever handled, or mishandled. As an assistant district attorney, he also prosecuted the double murder case against Darryl Howard in 1995, who was convicted and sentenced to 80 years in prison. That conviction has since been overturned, and ex-lawyer Nifong was back in Durham County Superior Court Monday to explain his role in withholding a key police memo and other evidence from the defense 21 years ago. A Durham judge overturned Howard’s conviction in 2014, calling the case “a horrendous prosecution,” but a North Carolina appeals court ruled in April that prosecutors were entitled to contest the reversal with a full evidentiary hearing. Which brings the notorious Mr. Nifong back to the courthouse where he was last seen surrendering (above) in September 2007.

On Monday, Nifong, now 65, waited in a conference room like any other witness, and spoke briefly to WRAL-TV’s Julia Sims. “Somebody believes I have relevant testimony to this, and I’m going to give it just like anyone else would,” Nifong told her. “I’ll get on the stand and tell the truth and make of it what they wish.”

The truth, from Mike Nifong, should be interesting. It’s worth noting that Nifong’s successor and former protege, Tracey Cline, was also forced out of the top prosecutor’s office due to misconduct, and that Cline’s successor and top deputy, Roger Echols, continues to battle to uphold Howard’s conviction. The Innocence Project has taken on Howard’s case, won the 2014 reversal of the conviction, and is now seeking sanctions against the Durham prosecutors for further withholding of evidence from 2011, which may be another component of this week’s post-conviction hearing for Howard.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2016/08/30/disbarred-duke-lacrosse-prosecutor-mike-nifong-is-back-along-with-more-misconduct-allegations/

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[font color=red]Full disclosure: I am an administrator at an online lacrosse forum. Being in such an esteemed position (add emoji of rolling eyes here) does not prevent me from having an open mind.[/font]

"The Innocence Project has taken on Howard’s case,..."

Guess who is working for the Innocence Project?

Where are they now?

A look at the main characters involved in the lacrosse case

By Claire Ballentine and Samantha Neal | Thursday, March 10

Reade Seligmann

Reade Seligmann, at the time a sophomore on the men’s lacrosse team, was charged with first degree forcible rape, first degree sexual offense and first degree kidnapping April 18, 2006. Like Finnerty, Seligmann turned himself in and was released on a $400,000 bail. Charges against Seligmann and his teammates were dropped April 12, 2007. Although he was allowed to resume classes at Duke in Spring 2007, Seligmann did not return to campus.

Seligmann transferred to Brown University in 2007, where he continued to play lacrosse and graduated in 2010 with a degree in history and public policy. He attended Emory Law School and is currently an associate for Connell Foley, according to his LinkedIn page.

Since his wrongful accusation during the lacrosse case, Seligmann has been involved with the Innocence Project—a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals. Seligmann raised $50,000 in 2010 for the Innocence Project and organized the Eyewitness Identification Symposium at Brown, which focused on discussing ways to improve the accuracy of the eyewitness identification process.

“I’d like to say I’m a noble guy and I would have done all that stuff,” Seligmann said to the Newark Star-Ledger in 2010. “But I probably wouldn’t have gotten involved in that if my life hadn’t been so impacted by a similar cause.”

Cue DU's 1%ers, who will try, again, to argue that "they did it."

Crime August 29, 2016 7:54 PM

Defense questions Durham police investigation that led to Darryl Howard convictions

By Anne Blythe
[e-mail]

DURHAM — A forensics science professor at Virginia Commonwealth University offered testimony Monday that was critical of the Durham police investigation that led to two murder convictions against Darryl Anthony Howard.

Marilyn Miller, an associate professor at the Richmond-based campus, testified on the first day of a hearing in a case that brings more allegations of police and prosecutorial misconduct in the same city where the Duke lacrosse case occurred.

Called to testify by a defense team that includes attorneys from the New York-based Innocence Project, Miller said her look at the evidence made her think a sexual assault occurred in 1991 before Doris Washington, 29, and her 13-year-old daughter, Nishonda, were found dead at a Durham public housing complex.

Both mother and daughter were found naked and dead on a bed in an apartment where a fire had been set. ... Howard, who was convicted in 1995 of two counts of second-degree murder in the case, maintains he had nothing to do with the crime.
....

Anne Blythe: 919-836-4948, @AnneBlythe1

[bluestateguy]

1. That horrible asshole. Fuck him.

And fuck all the PC shitheads who demanded lynch mob justice for the lacrosse players.

There were even some here on this site too.

Not a surprise that Nifong's methods would lead to dubious conviction of citizens without the resources to fight back.

[pnwmom]

3. It felt like the majority here believed Nifong. The media had helped railroad them.

Luckily for every subsequent person who has NOT had to be prosecuted by Nifong, at least two of the Duke students had parents with the means to fight back.

[GummyBearz]

4. It was an easy majority here

Anyone who advocated to wait for the facts to come out got shutdown by accusations ranging from sexism, elitism, white privilege... Amazing how quickly those threads vanished after the truth came out.

[Akicita]

5. That majority didn't vanish. They just moved on to different cases and did the same thing.

They're still at it.

[LanternWaste]

8. Unlike yourself-- who never speculates prior to all relevant facts being presented.

Unlike yourself-- who never speculates prior to all relevant facts being presented. Never...

[Akicita]

13. I might muse or wonder, but I try not to convict without the facts.

[bluestateguy]

6. They reeeeely wanted their Lifetime Movie Channel storyline

So perfect: Helpless young black woman, raped by the mean old, rich white Duke lacrosse players, and the crusading Atticus Finch (Nifong) out to get justice.

Barf.

[Chakab]

7. I assume that by "PC shitheads" you mean people who didn't know at the time

(because they didn't have any reason to) that it was a malicious political prosecution ordered by Nifong so that he could win reelection.

[LanternWaste]

9. You place too much stock in the consequences of expressing a sentiment on a message board

You place too much stock in the consequences of expressing a sentiment on a message board. Honestly, you appear somewhat melodramatic... hysterical even. Maybe you should calm down a little bit-- no one was actually raped and that's a good thing, right?

Or do you actually believe there are in fact, measurable, testable and observable results of an opinion on the internet? If so, seriously calm down-- shrill behavior causes stress, and that's not very good for a person.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

10. The three falsely accused players were facing far greater consequences than anything that

Last edited Wed Aug 31, 2016, 01:48 PM - Edit history (2)

could result from the expression of "a sentiment on a message board."

This was not some abstract notion, or a classroom exercise in the theory of jurisprudence. Had the three lacrosse players who had been arrested not had the wherewithal, they would have been sent to prison for the rest of their lives.

To this day, has anyone in the Group of 88 expressed the slightest remorse? Their lives went on uninterrupted and without repercussion. Almost predictably, the originator of the Group of 88's statement declared herself a victim:

Karla F.C. Holloway

....
Group of 88

During the Duke lacrosse case of 2006-07, in which the men's lacrosse team were falsely accused of raping a black woman at a party, Holloway coordinated the so-called "Group of 88" statement. This was an advertisement that she and Professor Wahneema Lubiano crafted for the Duke student newspaper, describing concerns about racism and sexism that the incident allegedly raised, and discussing "what happened to this woman". Historian KC Johnson and journalist Stuart Taylor, Jr. note that Holloway and Lubiano made it a point to publish the statement before the release of DNA results, which prosecutor Mike Nifong had said would be determinative, and before any indictments. The ad proved polarizing.

As the facts of the case became clearer, Duke president Richard H. Brodhead, who had barred the indicted players from campus, invited them back. In response, Holloway resigned from a campus committee, stating that she "could no longer work in good faith with this breach of common trust", and she charged the university with failing to wait for a critical judicial decision. According to Johnson and Taylor, Holloway had previously shown little deference to judicial decisions when she said that, "the seriousness of the matter cannot be finally or fully adjudicated in the courts" because "justice inevitably has an attendant social construction."

Holloway also announced that she had overheard that there was a witness to racial slurs by lacrosse players. No such witness was ever produced, say Johnson and Taylor, but the Wilmington Journal printed the story, and "Holloway was never disciplined or criticized" by Duke. In 2006, Holloway said that she was a "victim" of the case, and that she would sign the Group of 88's ad again “in a heartbeat.”

Those advocating trial by hysteria were only narrowly defeated. It didn't always look as if that would be the outcome.

I can dig up the old threads, if it will help newer members recall the tenor of the times.

Thanks for writing.

[ms liberty]

11. I remember...

I remember well. I had reason to know some details about that house and the area as my MIL grew up in the neighborhood and knew that house pretty well. The woman's claims had some very glaring inconsistencies from the beginning, and I commented on some threads at the time. Anyone raising questions or advocating to reserve judgment here at DU were vilified for it. Those members were ugly to others and were proved wrong, but the behavior we saw at DU during that time unfortunately remains.

[Sand Rat Expat]

14. I've seen it in just the little time I've been here.

Something happens, and people immediately condemn (or exonerate) based on their preconceived notions and preferred narratives. Anyone who plays devil's advocate or suggests waiting for more facts to come out is vilified, accused of being a troll, etc.

I find it bizarre, really. As progressives we pride ourselves on being the "reality based community" and on using logic and reason to arrive at our conclusions, and then some of us turn around and rush to judgment before a single fact is known. It's just peculiar.

[pnwmom]

2. I wonder how many other innocent people Nifong framed. His false prosecution

of the Duke lacrosse students had one good result -- getting him permanently out of office and helping people like Darryl Howard get a serious investigation during their appeals.

[bighart]

12. I think it had at least two good results.

I did not know the path that Reade Seligmann chose to travel included work with the innocence project.
I commend this young he took what could very easily have been the defining moment of his life in the most negative way and turned it into the motivation to reach beyond himself and his comfort zone to help others that are unjustly incarcerated.