State Bar Attorneys at Odds with DA Nifong Motion

Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong's lawyers have moved for dismissal of part of the North Carolina State Bar ethics complaint, according to an article written by Anne Blythe of the Raleigh News and Observer.

The embattled DA's attorneys filed briefs late Friday (March 16^th) to meet a deadline set by the Disciplinary Hearing Commission. The Commission acts as judge in the bar's case against Nifong.

District Attorney Nifong is accused of breaking the rules of professional conduct during his handling of the case in which an escort service dancer alleged she was gang-raped by three members of Duke's lacrosse team at a party held in March 2006.

Nifong, under pressure from many sources, turned the case over to the N.C. Attorney General's office in January 2007. The ethics case against him has made him the defendant as he fights to keep his license to practice law.

The attorneys for the bar, Katherine E. Jean, Carmen K. Hoyme and Douglas J. Brocker, argue that Nifong intentionally withheld evidence favorable to the defense. Then, they claim, he lied about this to the court and to the bar.

The bar's attorneys called the motions a request to "undertake statutory construction, interpretation of case law, and semantic hair-splitting." According to these attorneys, "These are not appropriate tasks for the tribunal."

Nifong's Winston-Salem based attorneys, David Freeman and Dudley Witt argued that the defense lawyers received a DNA report and underlying data before any trial.

Their arguement is that while Nifong may have disclosed the DNA data later than the defense preferred, this does not result into a constitutional violation.

In the article, David Freedman is quoted as saying in a Monday interview, "It was apparent to both sides that all the underlying data had not been turned over."

Nifong's lawyers provided several court cases to support their claim that the defendants' constitutional rights were not violated.

They also argued that neither state law nor court orders required Nifong to write a report on what the head of the private DNA lab had told him.

One of the State Bar ethics complaints is that Mike Nifong instructed Brian Meehan, director of DNA Security, to withhold DNA results favorable to the accused.

Nifong did not turn over the DNA data until September 2006 even thoughhe became aware of the results in April and May 2006.

In the Friday filing, Nifong's lawyers did not address the allegations that Nifong caused pretrial prejudice and "public condemnation of the accused" during statements he made to the media.

His lawyers expect a hearing to be set on the motion to dismiss the ethics complaint.

The lacrosse team members, Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann, still face charges of sexual offense and kidnapping in the case. The rape charges were dropped after the DNA evidence became public.

Raleigh News 14 website
Raleigh News and Observer
NC State Bar website

Note: The complete documents filed with the bar are available on the newsobserver.com website.