Can prosecutors be made to pay a price at the ballot box for malfeasance? Durham, North Carolina, county district attorney Mike Nifong is up for re-election, and has run well in polls despite his hounding of three Duke lacrosse players — perhaps the year’s banner case of abusive prosecution (see Oct. 11, Oct. 12, Oct. 30, etc.). One challenger, County Commissioner Lewis Cheek, “has said he won’t serve if elected, instead allowing Gov. Mike Easley to appoint a new prosecutor”; a third candidate, Steve Monks, has been waging a write-in campaign. (Ray Gronberg, “Durham DA race is hot”, Durham Herald-Sun, Nov. 6; Ruth Sheehan, “Turning the tide in Durham”, Raleigh News & Observer, Oct. 30). For some recent developments in the case, incidentally, see here, here and here (witnesses say accuser soon after incident performed dances inconsistent with alleged injuries), here (Nifong never interviewed accuser), and here (“Go ahead, put marks on me”). Update: and yet more doubt cast here (Nov. 11).
Nifong faces Durham voters
Can prosecutors be made to pay a price at the ballot box for malfeasance? Durham, North Carolina, county district attorney Mike Nifong is up for re-election, and has run well in polls despite his hounding of three Duke lacrosse players — perhaps the year’s banner case of abusive prosecution (see Oct. 11, Oct. 12, Oct. […]
One Comment
I think it’s too soon to tell – the whole point of his malfeasance has been to GET himself (re)elected… the price at the ballot box would only come after his shenanigans are fully brought to light to the constituency for whom he is performing them… and even then, only if they consider what he did to be bad. (That is, IF the people to whom he is pandering don’t care about justice, so long as he sticks it to whitey, then what he is doing is the OPPOSITE of what would punish him at theee ballot box. Of courseee, one still hopes that higher courts and ethics groups remove him from office by putting him in prison and/or disbarring him, etc.)