Why was nifong disbarred

In doing so, he committed "a clear case of intentional prosecutorial misconduct" that involved "dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation. Williamson specifically cited Nifong's comments in the early days of the case, which included a confident proclamation at a candidate forum that he wouldn't allow Durham to become known for "a bunch of lacrosse players from Duke raping a black girl. Appointed district attorney in , Nifong was in a tight race for the office when a stripper told police she was raped at the party.

During the ethics trial, Nifong acknowledged he knew there was no DNA evidence connecting Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty to the year-old accuser when he indicted them on charges of rape, sexual offense and kidnapping.

Nifong later charged Dave Evans with the same crimes. But months later, state prosecutors concluded the three players were "innocent" — a fact Williamson hammered home on Saturday. Williamson said it appeared that throughout his investigation, Nifong was looking for any evidence to link a lacrosse player to the accuser's story in order to support his initial comments that he was sure an attack occurred.

That saga was itself strongly affected by two earlier death penalty cases where prosecutors also failed to provide exculpatory information to the defense. The constitutional doctrine in Brady v. Maryland that requires the disclosure of exculpatory evidence and the related ethics rule produced no evidence in the Duke lacrosse case or the other two prosecutions.

The reversal of nine North Carolina capital cases in the last decade, since open-file discovery was mandated for capital post-conviction litigation, demonstrates the ineffectiveness of solely relying on voluntary Brady disclosures, even when the consequence of an unjust conviction would be execution.

Evidence Commons. Two DNA tests found no match between any of the three men and evidence in the case, but Nifong -- who was up for re-election at the time -- pursued the prosecution anyway. North Carolina's attorney general eventually took over the case and in April of this year determined the charges were unfounded and said Nifong would face a state bar disciplinary hearing.

As the three former Duke students and their families looked on, Williamson said Nifong practiced "dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation.

Read the ethics complaint. Williamson said that racially inflammatory remarks Nifong made last year "were to further his political ambition. The bar committee found Nifong lied to the judge in the rape case about whether he knew of any evidence that would exonerate the defendants.

After that lie, "in his mind the facts remained that way in the face of developing evidence that that was not in fact the case," Williamson said. After a recess in the hearing, Nifong's attorney surprised the panel by saying his client believed he deserved to be disbarred. Nifong, and he has told me [that] in light of the findings of fact this commission has made -- and he's told me that he believes this has been a fair and full hearing of the facts -- that he believes that disbarment is the appropriate punishment in this case," defense attorney David Freedman said.

A tearful Nifong told the court Friday that he would resign as district attorney, regardless of what the committee decided. He also apologized to the players and their families and to the community.

One of those testifying Saturday was Evans' father, David Charles Evans, who said the ordeal caused extreme stress to him and his family. Evans said his son "believes that when he dies, no matter what he does in his life, he will be [remembered as] one of the three Duke players accused of rape. He said he recently "Googled" the phrases "Dave Evans" and "Duke Lacrosse," and that the search turned up more than five million hits.

Evans said his son and the other players "stepped up to the plate'' and cooperated fully with investigators. He said that Nifong has now acknowledged he "crossed the line'' of ethical conduct and "maligned an entire team -- 47 players, their parents, their grandparents.

David Evans Jr. He couldn't understand. He was consumed with the case. As it moved along he would call several times a day.

He'd say, 'Why is this district attorney going forward? Look at all this information? The accuser is not credible. Why isn't the system working?

In a statement that seemed to both echo and mock Nifong's tearful claim Friday that the case will be associated with him until he goes to his grave, David Evans Sr. Next up was Colin Finnerty's mother Mary Ellen Finnerty, who said that after 26 years as a parent, learning her son was indicted for rape and kidnapping was "the hardest moment as a mother I have ever had.

From that day on that was our job as parents. How do you explain to a year-old that her brother has been indicted for rape? When her son's name was finally cleared in the wake of an investigation by North Carolina State Attorney General Roy Cooper, "it was an answer to all our prayers," she said. During closing arguments Friday, attorney Doug Brocker of the North CarolinaState Bar said Nifong engaged in a "systematic abuse of prosecutorial power and discretion in the Duke Lacrosse case.