Panel Presses DNA Expert

. . . with a headline like this it is hard to tell if the article is about the Nifong Trial or the Judge who is suing the cleaners.

by Anne Blythe, Benjamin Niolet and Sarah Ovaska - June 14th, 2007 - News & Observer

Brian Meehan, head of DNA Security in Burlington, got prickly when Lane Williamson, chairman of the Disciplinary Hearing Commission panel deciding Nifong's fate, suggested that he put himself in the role of a juror.

Meehan protested that the request was unfair. "I know I have to answer the question, but so ... I don't feel that I should be trying these children, these kids or these young men."

But Williamson pressed on with questions that pushed to the heart of the N.C. State Bar's most serious accusation against Nifong -- that the prosecutor knowingly withheld evidence favorable to the three Duke lacrosse players accused of sexual assault and then lied about it to judges and other court officials.

This trial is slowly losing the public, and that is a shame. Nifong must be punished, however it is not necessarily in the interest of the public that he be punished. Why do I say that? Because this kind of conduct goes on constantly and the D.A.s get away with it. The only reason the bar and the court system are going after Nifong so hard is he embarrassed them publicly.

The case is already starting to lose the public anger that resulted when the people thought that three innocent boys were being railroaded. If Nifong is punished, the courts and the bar can go back to business as usual, when D.A.s casually convicted anyone, whether guilty or innocent, through their power to crush the defendant. The public rage will completely disapate after Nifong is punished, and our court system will still be corrupt.