The rat leaves the sinking ship

From The Washington Post:

After months of stinging criticism about his handling of the Duke University sexual assault investigation, Durham District Attorney Michael B. Nifong sought to bow out of the case yesterday, requesting that the North Carolina Attorney General's Office handle the prosecution.

His decision to recuse himself was welcomed by the defense team representing the three Duke lacrosse players initially accused of raping a 28-year-old stripper at a team party.

"We feel very good about this. It's a fresh set of eyes looking at the case," said William Cotter of Raleigh, one of three attorneys for Collin Finnerty of Garden City, N.Y. "We think it's more likely that they will listen to us and we will certainly be cooperative with him or her."

The defense believes that another prosecutor would, after reviewing the contradictions of the alleged victim's accounts and the paucity of physical evidence, drop the case.

Nifong wants out so that he won't be the prosecutor of record when the case is dropped or dismissed. This is not going to help him, however. By abusing the power of his office to ruin the lives of a group of innocent men in order to further his own political career he has exposed not only his own immoral, unethical and corrupt nature, but the excesses to which any out of control district attorney can commit.

In other words Nifong has pulled aside the curtin and the rest of the criminal justice establishment will not forgive him for it.

Others who will not forgive him include the families of the men he has tormented. From CBS:

The fact that Nifong withheld the information and knew it before he indicted their sons has outraged the parents of the accused. "You felt like someone hit you with a baseball bat. … It was almost too much to bear, as we sat there," says Kathy Seligmann, whose son, Reade, is among the three indicted players. "And [Nifong is] sitting 10 feet away from us."

It enraged Mary Ellen Finnerty, mother of Collin Finnerty, another indicted player. "I think [I felt] one of the strongest feelings of rage that I've had … I literally had to turn to my husband, because I was shaking from my head to my toe, and say, 'Hold me down,'" recalls Finnerty. Adds Seligmann, "And we had to hold on to each other because when you sit there and put two and two together and realize that it was calculated … set up to make these boys appear to be guilty of something they didn't do."

When asked what they would say to Nifong if he were in the room, Rae Evans, the mother of indicted player David Evans, says, "I would say with a smile on my face, 'Mr. Nifong, you've picked on the wrong families … and you will pay every day for the rest of your life.'"

The size of the law suit which the families will bring against Nifong and Durham County, and which they will win, will be greater thant the gross national product of several African, South American or Asian nations.

There is a way in which Durham County can exempt itself from a judgment. If it is found that Nifong knew that the young men were innocent and proceeded with the prosecution anyway for personal reasons then the County can argue that Nifong was not simply doing his duty.

If a court will find that Nifong was not acting in good faith then he will lose the indemnification normally enjoyed by government workers in the performance of their duties and the County, and its insurance carriers, can divorce themselves from Nifong and leave him alone - twisting in the breeze. This would leave him personally responsible for any award of damages.

Goodbye house, car, investment portfolio, bank account, job, law license, reputation and probably wife and friends.

OK Nifong, repeat after me, "Do you want fires with that?".