The Duke Lacrosse Rape Frame-Up Case continues to go very badly for hack prosecutor Mike Nifong. Now even his peers are urging him to step aside so that justice can be done in this case.

In yet another moral blow to Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys called for the prosecutor to step down from the Duke lacrosse case.

The group, which represents district attorneys from across North Carolina, said in a statement that "it is in the interest of justice and the effective administration of criminal justice that Mr. Nifong immediately withdraw and recuse himself from the prosecution."

"It's extraordinarily unusual and it means a great deal," said Joshua Marquis, a district attorney in Clatsop County, Ore.

The district attorney group also called for the case to be reassigned and handed over to "another prosecutorial authority."

The statement was prompted by charges of ethics violations against Nifong filed Thursday by the North Carolina bar. Those allegations accuse Nifong of making inappropriate comments about the case in a series of press interviews early in the proceedings.

The recently filed ethics charge have created a true conflict of interest for Nifong. Dropping all charges and conceding the obvious innocence of the accused would be an implicit concession that he had engaged in the sort of wrong-doing of which he is accused, and so it is virtually impossible for any prosecutorial decision he makes from this point forward to not be seen as tinged with self-interest.

And speaking of those ethics charges brought by the NC Bar against Nifong, there could yet be even more, according to Time magazine.

The Dec. 28 ethics charges are expected to be expanded when the state bar's grievance committee meets again Jan. 18. Like a grand jury, the committee meets periodically; the current ethics charges stem from its most recent meeting in October and cover public statements Nifong made about the case last March and April. At its next meeting, the committee will deal with revelations from a Dec. 15 court hearing in which the state's DNA expert admitted he and Nifong agreed to keep secret from the defense early DNA results showing no Duke lacrosse player could be implicated in an attack upon one of two exotic dancers hired for the March 14 house party.

In other words, some of Nifong's most egregious misconduct in this case had not even been exposed when these charges were drawn up, and so there is a whole lot more to delve into.

And that doesn't even get into the question of possible criminal charges against this hack DA.

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The crap is hitting the fan for DA Mike Nifong in the Duke Lacrosse Rape Frame-Up Case.

The North Carolina bar filed ethics charges Thursday against the prosecutor in the Duke lacrosse case, accusing him of saying misleading or inflammatory things to the news media about the athletes under suspicion.

The punishment for ethics violations can range from admonishment to disbarment.

Among the four rules of professional conduct that District Attorney Mike Nifong was accused of violating was a prohibition against making comments "that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused."

The charges will be heard by an independent body called the Disciplinary Hearing Commission, made up of both lawyers and non-lawyers.

In a statement, the bar said it opened a case against Nifong in March 30, a little more than two weeks after the party where a 28-year-old student at North Carolina Central University hired to perform as a stripper said she was raped.

Another rule the rogue prosecutor is alleged to have broken is the one against dishonesty, fraud, deceit, and misrepresentation".

Here's the whole complaint.

Methinks that DA Nifong is going down fast.

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Despite claiming the power to reinterpret the state's constitution in a manner contrary to the intent of the drafters and to legislate from the bench to create homosexual marriage, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has finally found something it lacks the power to do under that constitution -- require the legislature to follow it.

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that it had no authority to order the Legislature to vote on a ballot initiative to ban gay marriage, but the justices gave Governor Mitt Romney a symbolic victory by scolding lawmakers for shirking "their lawful obligations."

The SJC, the same court which legalized gay marriage in 2004, issued the unanimous 11-page ruling this morning in response to a lawsuit spearheaded by Romney, who is expected to run for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination as a social conservative.

The justices wrote that all the legislators took an oath to uphold the Constitution and will "ultimately will have to answer to the people who elected them."

Eric Fehrnstrom, a spokesman for Governor Mitt Romney, hailed the ruling as vindication for the plaintiffs even though the court dismissed the suit.

"We are very pleased that the court has confirmed once and for all that the Legislature has a constitutional duty to vote on the marriage amendment and that any failure to do so would be a violation of their oaths of office," Fehrnstrom said.

Interesting, isn't it, that the judges here find a violation of the constitution with no remedy, while a couple of years back they found a remedy with no actual violation of that constitution. I guess that their activism does have limits -- and those limits are exceeded when it might allow the people of Massachusetts to vote in a non-liberal manner.

UPDATE -- 12/31/06: An interesting piece on the topic from Opinion Journal.com.

The petitioners sued the legislature for abrogating its constitutional duty, and the state Supreme Judicial Court took the case. In its ruling last week, it agreed that the legislature's duty to vote on the measure was "unambiguous." But it claimed to be powerless to compel a vote. So the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, whose own arrogation of power created this mess, has suddenly discovered the limits of its power to clean it up.

All in all, this is quite the political spectacle. First judges usurp the power of the legislature to dictate their own social policy. Then the legislature uses a procedural ruse to deny voters a say on the gay-marriage issue. And these are some of the same people who say Iraqis aren't ready for democracy.

Have we reached the point where the federal government can intervene on the grounds that Massachusetts no longer has a functioning "republican form of government"?

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But corrupt Prosecutor Mike Nifong has still left two heavy-duty felony charges in place, even after dismissing the rape charges because the alleged victim suddenly can't recall if she was ever penetrated by a penis -- regardless of her earlier versions of the story of her alleged assault.

Prosecutors dropped rape charges Friday against three Duke University lacrosse players accused of attacking a woman who had been hired to strip at a team party, but the three still face counts of kidnapping and sexual assault.

District Attorney Mike Nifong faxed a copy of the notice of dismissal to defense attorneys on Friday at 11:45 a.m. EST. The move took defense attorneys by surprise

In a news conference Friday afternoon, lawyers for the three players called on Nifong to drop the other charges as well, saying there is no evidence that their clients kidnapped or assaulted the woman in any way.

Nifong did not immediately return calls seeking comment about the dismissal.

The mere lack of evidence or a credible accuser, however, was not enough to get Nifong to dismiss all charges. Neither was the disclosure of prosecutorial misconduct on his part last week. And his actions still leave these young men facing a potential 20 years in prison. So Nifong tried to hide the story in by announcing it just before lunch on the Friday before Christmas, in the hopes that the disintegration of his case would be missed by the press.

The Washington Post's Andrew Cohen believes, as I do, that this ultimately bodes ill for Nifong's case.

There are two ways to digest today's big news about the dismissal of rape charges against the Duke lacrosse students. You can say that a very weak case against the three defendants has just gotten measurably weaker, which makes it almost non-existent. Or you can say that by getting rid of the rape charge, the prosecutor, and presumbly his complaining witness, now can move forwad on more solid legal and factual ground. While I think there is some truth to Option B, I'm going with Option A.

Why? Because whatever shred of credibility the alleged victim had-- whatever residual confidence people may have had in her story until now-- is now lost. If the woman is now unsure she was raped why should anyone believe her beyond a reasonable dobut going forward that she was sexually assaulted-- touched in a way short of rape? I think this likely loss of credibility will more than offset the fact that the prosecution's case, without rape, is much easier to prove against any or all of the three defendants. For them, Christmas came a few days early.

The dismissal documents may be found here.

Indeed, Nifong may be on the hook for criminal and or civil misconduct -- having possibly acted in a fashion that overcomes the presumption that he is immune from damages.

Great covrage at Durham Wonderland and LaShawn Barber.

More at Gay Orbit, A Blog For All, HuffPo, Florida Cracker, Alas, A Blog, Outside The Beltway, Digger's Realm, American Pundit, Opinipundit, Independent Conservative, NixGuy, Lead & Gold, Sensible Mom, Bitch Girls, HoyStory, Tapscott, Michelle Malkin, Talk Left, American Pundit, Hot Air, Johnsonville News, Mary Katherine Ham, Betsy Newmark, Leaning Straight Up, Bill's Bites, JammieWearingFool, Stop the ACLU, Unpartisan, Kevin Show, It Shines For All, Booker Rising, Hit & Run, Ace of Spades HQ, Pardon My English, Dartblog, Astute Bloggers, Six Meat Buffet, Wizbang, QandO, Don Surber, Mrs. Gribbit's Word

UPDATE: The New York Times has this great piece on the ongoing disintegration of the case.

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If the Supreme Court does not use this case to sharply limit -- if not completely overturn -- the Kelo decision, then private property means nothing and eminent domain will have become nothing more than a shake-down tool.

Claiming he is the victim of legalized extortion carried out under eminent domain powers, a landowner in New York is asking the Supreme Court to hear his case.

Landowner Bart Didden claims in a petition that a developer convinced the village of Port Chester, N.Y., to seize his land through eminent domain after Didden had refused to pay the developer $800,000.

As part of a 1999 redevelopment plan, the council had designated Didden's land as a "redevelopment area." This gives the council the power to condemn the property and hand it over to a developer of its choice.

Didden planned to build a CVS Pharmacy on the site, but the developer, Gregory Wasser of G&S Investors, wanted to build a Walgreens there. According to the petition, Wasser threatened to convince officials to condemn Didden's land under eminent domain if Didden did not pay him $800,000 or make him a 50 percent partner in the CVS project.

Didden says he refused the offer on Nov. 5, 2003. On Nov. 6, 2003, the village of Port Chester filed a condemnation petition to acquire the land and transfer the lease to G&S to construct a Walgreens.

Didden calls the case "extortion through the abuse of eminent domain" justified by the 2005 Supreme Court decision in Kelo vs. City of New London, in which the court ruled that the Fifth Amendment "takings clause" allows the government to condemn private property for redevelopment purposes.

"Essentially, the courts have ruled Kelo turns any redevelopment zone into a Constitution-free zone for property owners confronted by politically connected developers," Dana Berliner, a senior attorney with the Institute for Justice, said in a statement.

Frankly, we simply need to go a step further, and ban the use of eminent domain in any case where the land will leave government hands in less than 50 years -- or at least permitting land-owners and their heirs the right to repurchase their property for $1 if the land is to be turned over for private development in any time period less than half a century.

And if not, we simply need the Supreme Court to declare that private property, as understood by Americans since the founding of the Republic, no longer exists in this country.

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That is the issue that this country struggles with in the wake of the decision by Gov. Jeb Bush to suspend executions in his state and a federal judge's order that California revamp its execution protocol.

Executions by lethal injection were suspended in Florida and ordered revamped in California on Friday, as the chemical method once billed as a more humane way of killing the condemned came under mounting scrutiny over the pain it may cause.

Gov. Jeb Bush (R) ordered the suspension in Florida after a botched execution in which it took 34 minutes and a second injection to kill convicted murderer Angel Nieves Diaz. A state medical examiner said that needles used to carry the poison had passed through the prisoner's veins and delivered the three-chemical mix into the tissues of his arm.

In California, a federal judge ruled that the state must overhaul its lethal-injection procedures, calling its current protocol unconstitutional because it may inflict unacceptable levels of pain.

Judge Jeremy D. Fogel of the U.S. District Court for Northern California ordered the state to revise its procedures and consider eliminating the use of two drugs: pancuronium bromide, which causes paralysis, and potassium chloride, which causes cardiac arrest.

The judge did not order executions halted, though they have been effectively on hold since February while he conducted a review.

The "pervasive lack of professionalism" in the executions, Fogel wrote, "at the least is very disturbing."

Forgive me, but since when did it become a moral, much less constitutional, requirement that executions be painless, bloodless procedures that spare teh convicted killer pain? Yes, I know we do not permit "cruel and unusual" punishment, but is it really cruel that a condemned man might be conscious of his punishment being carried out? Does it really shock the conscience that the guilty might feel some level of fear and pain, just like his victims did as he snuffed out their innocent lives? No, it does not.

But this illustrates the fundamental problem with the jurisprudence in this area. We have allowed judges to set themselves up as philosopher kings, deciding on the basis of some undefined standard what constitutes "cruel and unusual". We have judges who are intent upon ensuring that the condemned not experience on bit of suffering as their lives ebb away in payment for their crimes. The ultimate end is likely to be a ban on lethal injection -- currently considered to be a "humane" method of execution, on the grounds that any suffering on the part of the condemned constitutes cruelty which shocks the conscience.

However, I would argue that your average American holds a very different position on the issue. We recognize that capital punishment is, in the end, punishment. And while we do not want ancient spectacles like those in the Colosseum, burning at the stake, or crucifixion, we are not troubled that a killer might feel some discomfort as he experiences his much-deserved demise. I'd bet that your average American would have no problem with seeing the return of firing squads or the hangman's noose as the standard form of execution. Indeed, only the horrors of the Holocaust render the gas chamber unacceptable to me, the method of execution indelibly linked to the Hitlerian genocide and therefore morally unacceptable.

So I'll say it plainly -- rather than a lethal injection of three drugs, let's go back to the lethal injection of lead by a team of marksmen.

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1 The Founders' definition of "Cruel and Unusual" punishment was different from ours. Back in the day (until about 1843) the penalty for treason (which the Founding Fathers were facing, had the Revolution not worked out)was being "Hanged, Drawn, and Quartered".

The prisoner was dragged behind a horse to the place of execution, hanged by the neck until semi-concious (the neck-breaking noose was not then in use), cut down, emasculated and disemboweled, forced to watch as his genitals and intestines were burned in front of him, then beheaded and his body cut into four parts, which were sent to different towns as a warning to others.

Women had it easier. The penalty for treason for them was burning at the stake.

Some people define "Quartering" as being ripped into four pieces by four horses, but that was a French punishment, not practiced in England.

That, my friends, was "cruel and unusual."

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One could completely derail the prosecution case -- and the other may or may not have anything to do with the case.

The first is a motion to throw out the photo lineup.

The woman who said she was raped at a party thrown by Duke's lacrosse team misidentified her alleged attackers in a photo lineup that was "an incoherent mass of contradiction and error," defense lawyers argued in court papers filed Thursday.

Attorneys for the three indicted players filed a motion asking a judge to bar prosecutors from using the photo lineup at their clients' trial and prevent the accuser from identifying the players from the witness stand.

Duke University law professor James E. Coleman Jr. said the case would be "effectively dismissed" if the court finds the lineup inadmissible "and rules that it is so suggestive that there can't be an in-court identification."

What evidence would be left without the identification? None, based upon yesterday's information about the DNA testing.

And then there is this -- which may be irrelevant, but could be a bombshell.

The woman at the center of the Duke lacrosse rape case is pregnant and due to give birth any day, roughly nine months after the team party where she says she was raped by three men.

The pregnancy was confirmed late Thursday by a person familiar with the case, speaking to the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. Fox News and WRAL-TV in Raleigh reported that she gave birth Thursday night.

There had been no prior indication that the woman, a 28-year-old college student who already has children, was pregnant. She has not spoken in public since granting an interview to the News & Observer of Raleigh shortly after the party.

The person who confirmed the pregnancy to the AP had no information about the father. Defense attorneys have stressed for months that no sex occurred at the party. They have cited DNA testing that found genetic material from several men in the accuser's body and in her underwear -- but none from any member of the lacrosse team.

If the baby's father is not one of the accused, it probably won't impact the case at all. On the other hand, if one of the accused is the father, that takes the case in an entirely new direction. (UPDATE: She is not due until February. A judge has ordered a paternity test anyway.)

UPDATE: The fraud appears to be confirmed. Where is the US Department of Justice to deal with this obvious conspiracy to violate the civil rights of these young men?

The head of a private DNA laboratory said under oath today that he and District Attorney Mike Nifong agreed not to report DNA results favorable to Duke lacrosse players charged with rape.

Brian Meehan, director of DNA Security of Burlington, said his lab found DNA from unidentified men in the underwear, pubic hair and rectum of the woman who said she was gang-raped at a lacrosse party in March. Nurses at Duke Hospital collected the samples a few hours after the alleged assault. Meehan said the DNA did not come from Reade Seligmann, David Evans, or Collin Finnerty, who have been charged with rape and sexual assault in the case.

Meehan struggled to say why he didnÂ’t include the favorable evidence in a report dated May 12, almost a month after Seligmann and Finnerty had been indicted. He cited concerns about the privacy of the lacrosse players, his discussions at several meetings with Nifong, and the fact that he didnÂ’t know whose DNA it was.

Under questioning by Jim Cooney, a defense attorney for Seligmann, Meehan admitted that his report violated his laboratoryÂ’s standards by not reporting results of all tests.

Did Nifong and his investigators know the results of all the DNA tests? Cooney asked.

“I believe so,” Meehan said.

“Did they know the test results excluded Reade Seligmann?” Cooney asked.

“I believe so,” Meehan said.

Was the failure to report these results the intentional decision of you and the district attorney? Cooney asked.

“Yes,” Meehan replied.

This farce needs to be ended immediately -- and Nifong needs to go to jail.

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One of the more egregious examples of judicial silliness by the judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has been overturned by the Supreme Court in a remarkable stand for common sense.

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the federal appeals court in California overstepped its authority when it granted a new trial to a murder defendant whose victimÂ’s relatives sat at the trial, in the view of the jury, wearing buttons with the victimÂ’s picture on them.

The appeals court, in granting a writ of habeas corpus, found that the buttons were inherently prejudicial and deprived the defendant, Mathew Musladin, of the right to a fair trial.

Voting 9 to 0, the Supreme Court overturned that ruling in an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas that did not actually decide whether the buttons were prejudicial. That was, and remains, “an open question in our jurisprudence,” Justice Thomas said. And that was precisely where the appeals court had gone wrong, the justices agreed; it had based a grant of habeas corpus on a legal principle that the Supreme Court itself had not adopted.

The short answer is that the justices unanimously decided that there is no basis in law or precedent for holding that the actions of private individuals (wearing buttons showing the victim in a murder case) constitutes state action depriving a defendant of due process.

I do find it of concern, however, that some members of the court seem to leave open the door for the possibility that the buttons do constitute a violation of the defendant's rights.

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