Ethics Newsline®

DURHAM, N.C.
The North Carolina state bar leveled new and potentially more serious ethics charges last week against the district attorney in the Duke lacrosse sexual assault case.

The Associated Press reports that the bar association has accused Durham County district attorney Mike Nifong of withholding evidence favorable to the defendants and lying to the court and to bar association investigators.

According to a report from the Duke Chronicle, the Duke University student newspaper, the new charges come on top of previous bar accusations that Nifong made prejudicial public statements about the defendants.

According to legal experts interviewed by the Charlotte News and Observer, the new charges against Nifong involve allegations that he withheld DNA evidence that was favorable to the defendants and lied about the existence of the evidence to judges.

Nifong withdrew from the case earlier this month after the first round of ethics charges.

The case centers on allegations that several Duke lacrosse players sexually assaulted an African-American stripper hired to perform at an off-campus team party. Fallout from the case fanned racial tensions in the sleepy college town of Durham. Nifong stated the alleged attack was racially motivated and characterized the team as “hooligans,” according to press reports.

The case began to unravel when the woman who claimed she was attacked gave conflicting stories of the incident and failed to identify the alleged attackers. Rape charges were dropped, and it was expected that assault and kidnapping charges that remained on the books could be abandoned in February.

But the Washington Post reports that while the new prosecutorial team, part of an office that handles cases in which the county prosecutor has an apparent conflict of interest, declined to be interviewed, they are known to be hardnosed and unconcerned with public pressure, meaning that the case against the lacrosse players is not necessarily dead.