The Newark Star-Ledger (Reade Seligmann’s home-state paper) blasts DA Mike Nifong in an editorial Saturday (sorry, have been out of state without internet acces). It’s aptly and correctly titled “The prosecutor is guilty”:
Whether the product of incompetence, overzealousness or outright misconduct, Nifong’s ill-conceived behavior has reopened racial wounds in Durham, led to the resignation of the Duke lacrosse coach, the cancellation of the Duke lacrosse season and ripped apart the lives of three young men who so far have only been proven boneheaded enough to attend a party with strippers as the entertainment.
Nifong’s conduct is particularly reprehensible because prosecutors are supposed to put justice first — not winning re-election. Rather than go where the evidence led, Nifong exaggerated and misrepresented the facts and continues to cling to the statements of a woman whose story is so full of holes that even another stripper at the party initially called it a “crock.”
Uh, I think that is what many, many bloggers have been saying since last spring. I think this is what anyone in Durham with a lick of sense has known all along (which tells you a lot about the citizenry here since Nifong actually won re-election in November).
(link via Durham In Wonderland)
