Disbarment alone isn’t punishment enough for Mike Nifong, but that’s what’s happened so far. From The News & Observer:
The disciplinary commission for the state bar dismantled Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong’s career Saturday afternoon, officially stripping him of his right to practice law in North Carolina.
The move was anticlimactic. Shortly before, Nifong’s attorney David Friedman announced to the panel that his client wished to surrender his license and forgo any right to appeal.
“He has told me that he believes this has been a fair and full hearing,” Friedman said, moments before the panel heard from lawyers on both sides about the proper punishment for Nifong. “He believes that disbarment is the appropriate punishment.”
The disciplinary hearing commission was obligated to continue with its deliberations and find an appropriate punishment for breaking more than two dozen professional codes of conduct. The commission found evidence that Nifong knowingly made statements to the media that would bring condemnation to the accused Duke Lacrosse players. The panel also found he lied on several occasions when he told lawyers and court officials he had provided defense attorneys all the DNA evidence available to him.
Nifong’s career already began crumbling Friday, when he announced he would step down as the district attorney regardless of the outcome of the state bar hearing.
The players’ attorneys will be seeking criminal contempt charges next week. The only fitting justice would be for him to be looking at the possibility of a multi-year sentence himself…
