Monday, June 18, 2007

Arrogant Indifference

As everyone knows by now Michael Nifong, the prosecutor in the Duke "rape" case, has been found guilty of gross professional misconduct and disbarred.

Incredibly, the guy was so arrogant and so indifferent to the harm he was inflicting on the young men he charged, that he broke 27 of 32 rules of professional conduct in order to try to get his conviction. How he thought he would get away with it is beyond me.

Go here to see a list of his derelictions. It really is amazing.

Disbarment may be the least of his worries right now. No doubt the parents will press suit against him and take him for everything they can get. When next we see Mr. Nifong he'll be wearing a barrel and holding a cup on the street corner.

It's too bad there's not some way to disbar the Duke president, Richard Brodhead - who's now making himself sound like a victim - and the faculty members who went out of their way to pronounce these students guilty when there was no evidence against them except the completely unsubstantiated claim of an unstable black woman that she had been raped. In the intellectually arid precincts of left-wing faculty lounges any allegation of a minority against rich white kids is evidence enough, I suppose, but that seems likely to change after this sleazy episode. If so, then something good will have come from Nifong's abuse of prosecutorial power.

UPDATE: Duke University has settled with the families of the victims. The report doesn't name the amounts, but one wishes that they'll garnish the salaries of the faculty who were ready to hang these kids from the nearest tree to pay for it.

RLC