Duke LaCrosse Team

[funkytown]

Well, let's hear your comments about this subject! Now that the charges have been dropped, I think those kids from the LaCrosse team should sue Nifongs ass and make him as miserable and a social derilict as he's made those young men.

[Uglyowl]

The Rutgers girls basketball team were much more damaged by Imus’s comments than the Duke lacrosse players from the black stripper’s lies; lets not try to change the subject.

By the way I hate Don Imus and him scamming people out of money for his ranch (his palace).

[funkytown]

This is a new thread or did you miss that class in remedial reading?

[Uglyowl]

Mr. Funkytown, I was being sarcastic. I bet the Duke case will be buried at the end of the news tonight after 10 minutes of IMUS talk.

I am amazed how this Don Imus story has taken off and how “damaged” the Rutgers girls basketball team is. The news is acting like this is the worst thing that has happened to anyone ever.

Compare that to the damage that these kids from Duke have endured is laughable. The Duke case is a hundred times worse than what these Rutgers girls have been through.

These kids should get paid a lot of money for the crap they have endured and Nifong should go to jail for a very long time. I doubt either will happen.

[funkytown]

Much agreed.

[NCAces]

Legally, this could make for an interesting case. Nifong obviously has certain immunity protection for prosecuting people ... otherwise everyone who was ever found not guilty would sue the DA. That said, there are some limitations to this immunity that I think Nifong would have a hard time defending against. From what I have read, his actions could easily be found to have been grossly negligent with a reckless disregard for the consequences of his actions, the standard I believe the students would have to prove.

NCAces

[AlexM]

[ QUOTE ]
Legally, this could make for an interesting case. Nifong obviously has certain immunity protection for prosecuting people ...

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure, but if he's trying to convict people when he has evidence that they're innocent or similar, he should at the very least be fired, if not sued or more.

[NCAces]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Legally, this could make for an interesting case. Nifong obviously has certain immunity protection for prosecuting people ...

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure, but if he's trying to convict people when he has evidence that they're innocent or similar, he should at the very least be fired, if not sued or more.

[/ QUOTE ]

Alex ... did you read my entire post? I obviously agree with what you say ... he has serious problems here. I believe that the students will be able to get past his immunity.

NCAces

[ojc02]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Legally, this could make for an interesting case. Nifong obviously has certain immunity protection for prosecuting people ...

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure, but if he's trying to convict people when he has evidence that they're innocent or similar, he should at the very least be fired, if not sued or more.

[/ QUOTE ]

Shouldn't they at least be able to sue him for deliberate infliction of emotional distress? I normally really hate when people sue for that because it's usually BS but in this case they've seriously been [censored] with.

[slickpoppa]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Legally, this could make for an interesting case. Nifong obviously has certain immunity protection for prosecuting people ...

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure, but if he's trying to convict people when he has evidence that they're innocent or similar, he should at the very least be fired, if not sued or more.

[/ QUOTE ]

If all Nifong did was file the initial charge against the students, then legally he would have done nothing wrong. Even though the accusser's story was shady, all that a prosecutor needs to file charges is probable cause, which is a very low standard. The accuser's story in and of itself is enough to constitute probable cause.

Although it really sucks that someone can be brought into court and charged with a serious crime with just probable cause, that's how the system works, so Nifong was within his prosecutorial discretion to file the charges. One could argue that maybe Nifong should have given the players the benefit of the doubt and waited a little bit to file charges. He certainly could have done that, but he was definitely not legally required to.

Nifong's blatantly violated legal ethics rules, though, when he made prejudicial statements about the defendants to the media. He also withheld exculpatory DNA evidence from the defense and even lied to a judge about the existence of such evidence. While those violations are definitely enough to get disbarred, I am not sure if they are grounds for a private suit by the defendants against Nifong and/or the government.

I think there are many lessons that we can learn from the case, but perhaps the most important one is being overlooked by many people. By focusing on Nifong's misconduct, people are overlooking the bigger systemic problem. Even if another prosecutor had been assigned to this case from the beginning, the defendant's lives would still have been f'ed up by this case. All the media condemnation and overreaction occurred well before any of Nifong's misconduct. As I mentioned above, Nifong was well within his prosecturial discretion to file charges, and I would bet that almost any other prosecutor would have filed charges as well. So even if a more ethical prosecutor had taken this case, the players probably still would have had to go through the hassle of getting lawyers, getting suspended from school, and being virtually condemned as rapists by media pundits.

So I think the real lesson that needs to be learned here is that although Nifong was a jackass, he was not the only problem. The real problem is the combination of a judicial system that has a very low threshhold for filing criminal charge and a media and popular culture that are willing to assume that defendants are guilty until proven innocent.