Mike Nifong

Michael Byron Nifong (born September 14, 1950) is an American former attorney and convicted criminal.

He served as the Durham County District Attorney until he was removed, disbarred, and very briefly jailed following court findings concerning his conduct in the Duke lacrosse case, primarily his conspiring with the DNA lab director to withhold exculpatory DNA evidence that could have acquitted the defendants.

Nifong was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, and attended New Hanover High School.

He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) in 1971 with a degree in political science.

He registered as a conscientious objector and participated in anti-war protests during the Vietnam War.

After working as a teacher and social worker, Nifong returned to UNC in 1975 and earned a J.D. degree from the University of North Carolina School of Law in 1978.

He was admitted to the North Carolina bar.

After spending a year as a per diem assistant with the Durham County District Attorney's office, Nifong was hired on a full-time basis in 1979.

He eventually worked his way up to chief assistant.

After District Attorney Jim Hardin was appointed to a North Carolina Superior Court vacancy in 2005, Governor Mike Easley appointed Nifong to fill out the remainder of Hardin's term.

Nifong was sworn in on April 27, 2005.

As the Duke lacrosse case unfolded, Nifong won the Democratic primary on May 2, 2006 for Durham County District Attorney.

He won the general election in November 2006 by a close margin of 833 votes.

In 2006, Nifong pursued rape, sexual assault, and kidnapping charges against Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans, three white members of the Duke University men's lacrosse team.

The accusation of sexual assault was made by Crystal Mangum, one of two local black women who the lacrosse team had hired to work as strippers for a party.

The case attracted national and international media attention.

Former New York Times public editor Daniel Okrent wrote, "It [the case] conformed too well to too many preconceived notions of too many in the press: white over black, rich over poor, athletes over non-athletes, men over women, educated over non-educated."

In the first weeks of the case, Nifong gave an estimated 50 to 70 interviews.

On the day he received his first briefing by police, March 27, 2006, he told the press, "The circumstances of the rape indicated a deep racial motivation for some of the things that were done."

By April 1, he had made 48 statements to the press, including assertions that others present at the party where the alleged assault took place were covering for the accused players, saying, "I would like to think that somebody who was not in the bathroom has the human decency to call up and say, 'What am I doing covering up for a bunch of hooligans?'" Initial media reports on the case largely reflected Nifong's statements and opinions.

Nifong said in a court hearing on October 27, six months after the arrest of Seligmann, Finnerty, and Evans, that he had not yet interviewed the alleged victim.

"I haven't talked with her about the facts of that night...We're not at that stage yet."

According to Nifong, none of his assistants had discussed the case with her, either.

On December 22, 2006, Nifong dropped the rape charge (while the sexual assault and kidnapping charges were still being pursued) against the three lacrosse players after Mangum changed her story, saying that she was no longer certain whether she was penetrated vaginally by one or more of the men.

This was a few days after it was revealed in court that Nifong had withheld evidence from the defense concerning DNA tests.

Nifong was strongly criticized for pressing ahead with what appeared to many to be a weak case without any physical evidence.

The defense argued that Mangum had given at least a dozen different accounts of the incident, changing the number of attackers from twenty to three, and modifying the methods by which she was assaulted.

From early April 2006, however, Nifong generally refused to talk to the media.

In January 2007, Nifong sent a letter to then-North Carolina Attorney General Roy A. Cooper, asking his office to assume responsibility of the case.

This came days after Mangum changed her story again, claiming that suspect Seligmann was not involved in the alleged attack.

Previously she had accused him and two others of the alleged rape.

The next day, Cooper announced that his office would take over the case.

In April, he announced that charges against the three players would be dropped and that "based on the significant inconsistencies between the evidence and the various accounts given by the accusing witness, we believe these three individuals are innocent of these charges".

Defense lawyers and media outlets were strongly critical of Nifong's handling of the case.

Nifong said that the criticisms were the product of a defense strategy to malign the prosecution and intimidate the alleged rape victim.

As the details of the case emerged, Nifong was attacked not only from advocates of the indicted students but by news sources such as The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.

They claimed he went public with a series of accusations that later turned out to be untrue; that he exaggerated and intensified racial tensions; that he unduly influenced the Durham police investigation; that he tried to manipulate potential witnesses; that he refused to hear exculpatory evidence before indictment; that regulations on the conduct of an identification exercise were breached by failure to include "dummy" photographs of anyone who was not at the party; that he had never spoken directly to the alleged victim about the accusations; and that he made misleadingly incomplete presentations of various aspects of the evidence in the case (including DNA results).

Additional coverage critical of the prosecution's case included that expressed by: 60 Minutes, Charlotte Observer, Fox News, Greensboro News & Record, National Journal, Newark Star-Ledger, The News & Observer, Newsweek, New York Daily News, New York magazine, San Diego Union Tribune, Washington Times, The Star-News (Wilmington, N.C.), and the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News.

Nifong gave more than 50 interviews, many with the national media, according to his own account and confirmed by the News & Observer.

In these interviews, Nifong repeatedly said that he was "confident that a rape occurred", calling the players "a bunch of hooligans" whose "daddies could buy them expensive lawyers."