Prosecutor: Nifong Did It All Wrong: Marsha Goodenow of Charlotte Says Prosecutors Across the State

Jun 15, 05:58 AM

Current Headlines: By Anne Blythe, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.

Jun. 15--RALEIGH -- Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong, pummeled by witness after witness the past three days for his handling of the Duke lacrosse case, will finally get his chance today to explain himself.

The veteran prosecutor is expected to take the stand in the N.C. State Bar's professional misconduct case against him.

His testimony would come the day after the top homicide prosecutor in the state's busiest courthouse -- Marsha Goodenow, an assistant district attorney in Charlotte -- picked apart Nifong's actions in a case that she said had heightened skepticism across the state about prosecutors in general.

Goodenow said that if she had known that DNA from unidentified men was found on the rape case accuser -- as Nifong had known in April 2006 -- she would immediately have told defense lawyers.

Information that defense lawyers can use to prove the innocence of their clients, Goodenow said, "is about the most important thing you possess. ... You have an obligation to turn it over right away."

Goodenow's testimony to the Disciplinary Hearing Commission came right after a defense lawyer methodically explained how Nifong over six months stonewalled repeated requests for that DNA evidence.

In response to questioning, Goodenow criticized nearly every aspect of Nifong's behavior in the case -- his handling of the DNA evidence, his decision not to interview the accuser, Crystal Gail Mangum, for eight months, his public statements and his directions for running the police photo lineup in which the accuser picked out lacrosse team members Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann as her attackers.

The three were indicted soon afterward, but were cleared two months ago by N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper, who called them "innocent" victims of a rogue prosecutor's "tragic rush to accuse."

In the early days of the case, Nifong had asserted that Mangum had been raped at a team party and threatened to charge lacrosse players with aiding and abetting the crime if they didn't come forward with evidence. Goodenow said that could be considered coercion.

The Mecklenburg County assistant district attorney said Nifong was wrong to disparage lacrosse players for exercising bedrock constitutional rights, such as hiring a lawyer or remaining silent. Nifong was wrong to inject race into the case and to call the players hooligans, she added.

And Goodenow said she didn't understand Nifong's unwillingness to meet with defense attorneys who offered to share alibi information: "If you're playing poker with someone and they offer to show you some of their cards, I'd look."

Doug Brocker, one of two lawyers for the bar, said Thursday he plans to call just one more witness. Brocker didn't say who, but Seligmann's lawyer, Jim Cooney, said he expects his client to testify.

Nifong's defense team will then put on a case that is expected to rely heavily on the testimony of the prosecutor himself.

Two of the three former defendants were at the proceeding on Thursday. Collin Finnerty arrived with his parents, and sat close to Seligmann, who has been in Raleigh with his parents since Wednesday. Dave Evans was not there, but his mother, Rae Evans, has attended every day, and his father, David Evans, showed up for Thursday's testimony.

None of the players would comment on Thursday, but they shook their heads while witnesses talked about Nifong, the prosecutor who turned them into rape suspects for 13 months of their lives.

DNA testimony

Raleigh lawyer Brad Bannon, known as the defense team's DNA code-cracker, spent much of the day Thursday detailing the defense's numerous requests for DNA evidence.

From April 28, 2006, until January, Bannon said, the defense team requested DNA evidence from Nifong in letters, in open court and in motions.

The bar's most serious charge is that Nifong withheld favorable DNA evidence.

Nifong, in letters responding to the bar's complaints, contended that defense lawyers would not have known about the DNA evidence they sought had he not given them the information to find it.

On Thursday, Bannon detailed how, from 1,844 pages of technical documents delivered Oct. 27 under court order, he found one page that included cryptic information that led to his discovery of the DNA of other men.

Goodenow, the Charlotte prosecutor, said that Nifong's waiting until October to hand over that information was wrong. She said Nifong should have shared that information immediately after an April 10, 2006, meeting with Brian Meehan, director of the private Burlington lab that did the DNA testing.

Jim Fox, a lawyer from Mount Airy and chairman of the State Bar's Grievance Committee, testified on Thursday about Nifong's history of conflicting responses to the bar.

In August, the grievance committee formally notified Nifong that it was considering charging him with making inflammatory pretrial statements. Nifong wrote back and said he'd done nothing wrong, Fox said. "He denied all of them," Fox said.

The committee notified Nifong in December that it was contemplating additional charges concerning the withheld DNA evidence. Again, Fox found more problems with how the district attorney responded.

Nifong didn't mention that the SBI told him on March 30, 2006, that the initial DNA tests had come up empty, Fox said.

And Nifong wrote that he had not spoken with lab director Meehan before indicting Finnerty and Seligmann. "I believe evidence reflects a meeting" one week before the indictment, Fox said.

Is it important for a lawyer to respond fully and fairly to the Grievance Committee? asked state bar counsel Katherine Jean.

"It makes a tremendous difference," Fox said.

(Staff writer Sarah Ovaska contributed to this report.)

Staff writer Anne Blythe can be reached at 932-8741 or anne.blythe@newsobserver.com.

Staff writer Sarah Ovaska contributed to this report.

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