All you need is a rope and a tree

RALEIGH, N.C. — More than a year after shocking allegations emerged about Duke University's lacrosse team, prosecutor Mike Nifong is heading to trial -- as a defendant.

The North Carolina State Bar has charged Nifong, the district attorney in Durham County, with several violations of the state's rules of professional conduct, all tied to his handling of the lacrosse case.

Nifong arrived shortly after 9 a.m., escorted by his wife and teenage son. As they took up a seat in the front row behind the defense table, he disappeared into a side room with his attorneys. He is expected to testify at the trial, which will last for five days.

"This didn't have to happen and the horrible consequences were entirely foreseeable," State Bar Counsel Katherine E. Jean said during her opening statement. "The harm done to these three young men and their families and the justice system of North Carolina is devastating."

In her opening statement, Jean detailed at length statements Nifong made to the media as well as meetings he had with the director of the DNA laboratory he hired, at which she said Nifong learned that none of the players' DNA matched that material found in and on the accuser.

The Bar has accused Nifong of keeping those test results from the defense and that he lied to both the court and Bar investigators.

It is unfortunate that the NC State Bar cannot send Nifong to jail to serve every minute of the sentence which he attempted to railroad these innocent young men into. Because that would be the only true justice which could come out of this.