· The prosecutor in the Duke University lacrosse team rape case was disbarred Saturday for unethical conduct, and the chairman of the disciplinary committee blamed "political ambition" for his downfall.
· The Durham prosecutor’s investigation and eventual charges against three Duke lacrosse players were paraded on local and national television and in all forms of public media. Nifong, a virtually unknown DA at the time, granted interview after interview touting his confidence that a horrendous crime had taken place on March 14, 2006 at the house rented by three Duke …
· News / By Law Admin / June 24, 2007. April 9, 2013. / 3 minutes of reading. The misconduct that cost the prosecutor in the Duke lacrosse case his career certainly seemed to …
The case, which involved false rape charges against three Duke University lacrosse players, began with gang rape allegations by an exotic dancer at a team party in March 2006 and ended with …
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.
She was convicted of Daye's murder and sentenced to a minimum imprisonment of 14 years, 2 months and a maximum of 18 years. The three men Mangum accused in 2006—Seligmann, Finnerty, and Evans—all seem to be doing well.
Collin Finnerty He was at ESPN for a year and a half before taking a job Deutsche Bank in New York as an Equity Salestrader. He's been there since July 2012.
Duke lacrosse case. In 2006, Nifong pursued rape, sexual assault, and kidnapping charges against Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans, three white members of the Duke University men's lacrosse team.
The three students were David Evans, Collin Finnerty, and Reade Seligmann. The accuser was Crystal Mangum, a student at North Carolina Central University who worked as a stripper and dancer.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- The three Duke lacrosse players who were falsely accused of rape are seeking a $30 million settlement and reforms in the legal process, a person close to the case said Friday, the same day the case prosecutor was due to start his 24-hour jail sentence.
Today, he works as a law clerk at the U.S. District Court in New Jersey. Finnerty also left Duke as a sophomore, and finished his degree at Loyola College in Maryland. Today, he works as an analyst at Deutsche Bank.
He has also continued to work with the Innocence Project, recently working to organize a symposium at Brown of experts who look at current ID'ing procedures for criminals. Seligmann hopes to attend law school after graduation and perhaps one day work with those who are wrongly accused.
He was fired in 2006 in the wake of allegations of rape against three athletes in the program that proved to be baseless. Pressler's firing was publicly portrayed by Duke as a resignation, which gave rise to the implication that the coach resigned due to the students' presumed guilt.
He said Nifong was driven to prosecute the Duke Lacrosse case out of "self-interest and self-deception." "Sometimes character is called upon ... and it is found wanting," Williamson said.
rapeThe actions of Mr. Nifong, who will now continue to lead the prosecution of the case, have come under sharp criticism by lawyers for the two students who have been indicted for rape, as well as from his two political opponents, who suggested that his aggressive posture was intended to win over black voters.
Kirk Osborn, a lead defense attorney in the Duke lacrosse sexual assault case, died early Sunday, a fellow defense attorney in the case said. Kirk Osborn, a lead defense attorney in the Duke lacrosse sexual assault case, died early Sunday, a fellow defense attorney in the case said.
Editors’ Note: This article first appeared in the Wake County Bar Flyer and is reprinted with permission from the authors.
In 2004, the State Bar brought disciplinary proceedings against two former state prosecutors for failing to provide exculpatory evidence to defense counsel during a capital murder trial, which resulted in a death sentence (hereafter, “Hoke & Graves”). The DHC reprimanded these two lawyers for their conduct.
Mr. Brock called the prosecutor “a minister of injustice” who had hurt the Duke lacrosse players, their families, real victims of sexual assault, and the reputations of lawyers, prosecutors and the justice system.
David C. Evans , the father of one of the lacrosse players, said: “My reaction is we take no pleasure in this and that people should realize that the North Carolina criminal justice system is strong.
Nifong’s lawyers, told the panel that Mr. Nifong believed that disbarment was “the appropriate punishment in this case.”. The state also said it felt disbarment was appropriate.
Nifong said her accusation and identification were the main reasons he filed the case. He said most police officers and the sexual assault nurse believed the woman, but there was no other evidence. Mr. Nifong says he agreed with the attorney general’s decision to drop the case.
Mr. Freedman said Mr. Nifong, 56, a prosecutor for nearly 29 years, would have never risked his law license and career on hiding DNA evidence that he knew the defense would find.
The case touched nerves of race, class and privilege, fueled by Mr. Nifong’s public comments in a weeklong series of media interviews.
Mr. Brock, the bar prosecutor, said a poll by Mr. Nifong’s political opponent in the election for district attorney showed Mr. Nifong was trailing, by 20 percent to 37 percent, on March 27, 2006, the day the police first briefed him on the case. But he went on to win, by 45 percent to 42 percent, after all the media attention.
At a hearing nine months after the party, Nifong tried to take the defense by surprise, presenting Meehan as his DNA expert before they had prepared to cross-examine him. The defense team decided to have Bannon question him on the spot.
The three defense teams for the accused put together a timeline for the night in question using cell-phone records, receipts, eyewitness reports, and the accuser’s story. It became clear that there was no time during the window alleged in which all three young men and Mangum were in the same place for long enough for an attack to happen.
Nifong handed over 2,500 pages of raw, technical DNA data to the defense. Bannon bought a book on Amazon about forensic DNA and went to work. He discovered unidentified DNA for numerous men in and on Mangum and her clothing that hadn’t been reported. He found notes indicating lab director Brian Meehan’s DNA was also present.
Cooney also emphasized the seriousness of the accusations to Seligmann: “Reade, whatever life you had before March 13 is over. That life is never going to happen,” he said.
One of the most frequently spotted protest signs in Durham in the wake of the Duke lacrosse case indictments was “Get a Conscience, Not a Lawyer.” The signs were a reference to the alleged “wall of silence” the players had employed to protect the team.
Nifong put his hands over his ears and said I don’t want to hear it,” said Wade Smith, attorney for accused player Collin Finnerty. “He literally put his hands over his ears,” said Jim Cooney, lawyer for accused player Reade Seligmann.
The Duke lacrosse case would be a comedy of errors if it were funny to destroy the lives of innocent people.
Duke University and the three players reached an undisclosed settlement shortly after the charges were dropped in 2007.
The players were exonerated of sexually assaulting an exotic dancer at a party in 2006. Durham will give $50,000 to the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission.
The city has settled with former players David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann , who were wrongly accused of a sexual assault at a party.