XDA

In Colorado, attorney discipline is handled by the judiciary branch--the Supreme Court's disciplinary counsel. However, in most states, it is the bar association that polices its brothers and sisters and brings ethics complaints against bad lawyers and, in this case, seriously out of control Durham prosecutors. Usually, it's kept pretty secret until the results are in--either a deal or a guilty finding. I guess they do things differently in North Carolina.

In the first of what I predict will be at least three complaints, the North Carolina State Bar has brought an ethics complaint against Durham DA Mike Nifong. You can read the complaint at the Smoking Gun blog. It's 17 pages long. It's all about statements, either inflammatory or purposefully misleading (both unethical activities almost everywhere) Nifong made to the press last Spring. I think this will be the least of his problems--he will almost certainly face complaints for failure to turn over exculpatory DNA evidence and lying to the judge about his failure to turn over exculpatory DNA evidence, which are, in my opinion, much more substantial and serious complaints. He may face a complaint for allegedly directing the police to change the way photo line ups were usually run and put no fillers in a line up of nothing but the white Duke lacrosse players, which last line up contained many photos already shown the 'exotic' dancer (at least two of the photos in the earlier ones were of the currently accused) and in which earlier photo arrays she had failed to pick anyone as her attacker. I won't absolutely predict that last action will result in an ethics complaint, though.

If the truth be known, DAs are constantly violating, here and there, the general gag order they have in the ethics rules which prohibit them from lying, purposefully stirring up the populace against the accused, commenting on their personal feeling about, for example, the truth of the charges, the reliability of a witness, or the guilt of the accused. I'm pretty sure they're not supposed to talk about the accused's refusal to talk to police or co-operate with the investigation either. The complaint has about 50 statements which the Note Kay-o-lina Bah says Nifong said and which violated the rules. It is a bad sign for Nifong that they are coming after him for the statements. If he gets a hefty censure or sanction for these, he's toast from the ones that are coming.

Powerline reported that the Complaint concerned the "dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation" in connection with the exculpatory DNA evidence that [Nifong] apparently tried to conceal." It did not. But one will in the near future.