Duke Lacrosse Team Rape Case

Non-Sequiturs: 04.01.10

By Elie Mystal

* What we talk about when we talk about federalism: University of Chicago law professor Alison LaCroix, author of the just-published Ideological Origins of American Federalism, discusses the relevance of federalism for current policy debates. [Political Bookworm / Washington Post]

* Speaking of the Founding, if there’s another Constitutional Convention, I demand that all delegates wear wigs. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Mother sues hospital after the staff gave her the wrong baby to breast feed. So, I guess she won’t be appearing on the Project Wet Nurse reality show I just made up in my head. [BL1Y]

* What does Google think about the LSAT? [LSAT Blog]

* Minorities do better than whites when it comes to getting hired into tenure track positions at American law schools. But don’t start getting melanin injections just yet. [ABA Journal]

* Becoming a lawyer for the Catholic Church is a lot like becoming a lawyer for any other organization. [Slate]

* Former Duke lacrosse head coach Mike Pressler settles his lawsuit with the university. I’d say that he should go to a strip club to celebrate, but that would probably look bad. [NewsObserver]

Musical Chairs: Gilbert Randolph To Add Jerry Oshinsky
Dickstein Shapiro, ‘Morin & Oshinsky’ To Change Stationery

By Elie Mystal

gilbert randolph soon to be old logo.JPGGilbert Randolph has added Jerry Oshinsky to their partnership ranks. The firm will change its name to “Gilbert Oshinsky” to highlight this new acquisition. Firm chairman Scott Gilbert announced the new hire via a firm-wide email:

I have a number of exciting announcements.

First, I am extraordinarily pleased to tell you that Jerry Oshinsky will be joining the firm, likely as early as next week. A number of us were Jerry’s colleagues at Dickstein Shapiro, Morin & Oshinsky; indeed, it was the prospect of combining our respective practices that ultimately led me to leave Covington & Burling after 18 years and join Dickstein in the first place. Jerry is simply THE preeminent litigator and advisor in insurance law, and we certainly now can say that there rarely has been a coverage decision or settlement of any significance in the United States that did not directly involve Jerry or other of our firm lawyers. Of course, as anyone who knows Jerry can readily attest, he also is a tremendous human being, in every sense of the word. As his friend of 30 years and an ardent admirer, I just could not be more pleased and excited that Jerry has chosen to begin this new, and yet to be the most satisfying and successful, chapter of his storied career with us.

Second, as soon as Jerry is able to join the partnership, the firm will be changing its name to Gilbert Oshinsky LLP. This name best reflects our new, or in some cases reestablished, relationship with Jerry, as well as the merger of our two substantial practices. And yes, on several levels, we henceforth will be known as the GO to firm.

“GO to firm.” Nice touch.

The email went on to say that GO would be opening a Los Angeles office and that Oshinsky would be operating out of that new facility.

But the email does not mention Jerry C. Randolph, co-founder of the firm. Is there a limitation on the number of “Jerrys” allowed as name partners? Does he sleep with the fishes? Were they so excited about the “GO to” stuff that Randolph’s name became a marketing causality?

Dickstein Shapiro responds (sort of) after the jump.

double red triangle arrows Continue reading “Musical Chairs: Gilbert Randolph To Add Jerry Oshinsky
Dickstein Shapiro, ‘Morin & Oshinsky’ To Change Stationery”

Mike Nifong Is Bankrupt (and Not Just in the Ethical Sense)

By David Lat

Mike Nifong small Michael Nifong Michael B Nifong Michael Byron Nifong Above the Law maybe not.JPGFrom the Smoking Gun:

Disgraced and disbarred, Mike Nifong is now bankrupt. The former North Carolina prosecutor, whose career imploded with his botched handling of the Duke University rape case, today filed for bankruptcy, listing liabilities in excess of $180 million. A summary schedule from Nifong’s Chapter 7 petition can be found below. Almost all of that sum represents legal claims filed against the former Durham County district attorney by members of Duke’s 2006 lacrosse team, including the three players who were accused of raping a stripper at a team party.

Included among Nifong’s assets are a 2003 Honda Accord, about $9000 in personal property, and his $235,000 home. He lists nearly $5000 monthly in pension or retirement income and describes himself, charitably, as retired.

A sampling of reader comments from the WSJ Law Blog:

“I would have liked to have been his ‘credit counselor’… Now Mr. Nifong – I see you have $180 million in debt. Let’s go over ‘how to balance your checkbook’ chapter in your pamphlet…ahahah”

“Mr. Nifong can now talk to Simon & Schuster without any apprehension.”

“I know that this question is immaterial, but what nationality is the name “Nifong”? I have asked several individuals and none of them had a clue.”

“The name Nifong is of Scottish Ancestry and this member is a disgrace to that proud family.”

Mike Nifong Bankrupt: Disgraced Duke prosecutor lists $180M in liabilities [The Smoking Gun]
Michael Nifong Files for Personal Bankruptcy [WSJ Law Blog]

Mike Nifong to N.C. State Bar: The Dog Ate My Law License

By David Lat

Mike Nifong small Michael Nifong Michael B Nifong Michael Byron Nifong Above the Law maybe not.JPGQuite literally. From TSG:

In a pathetic end to the Mike Nifong saga, the disgraced North Carolina prosecutor who handled the Duke rape investigation has turned in his law license, noting that he never framed or displayed the document because it had been damaged “by a puppy in her chewing stage.”

Additionally, in an August 7 letter to the North Carolina State Bar, Nifong noted that the law license also contained a misspelling of his middle name (which is Byron).

From the tipster who drew this to our attention: “Astounding.” But sadly appropriate, too.
Nifong: The Dog Ate My Law License [The Smoking Gun]

When the Headline Says It All

By David Lat

Mike Nifong Michael Nifong headline Abovethelaw Above the Law blog.jpg
It’s official: Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong was disbarred over the weekend. From the AP:

The five-day ethics trial ended Nifong’s three-decade legal career, which he spent entirely as a prosecutor in Durham County. He was generally viewed as an honest lawyer before taking over the case of a woman who told police she was raped at a March 2006 lacrosse team party where she was hired to perform as a stripper.

Is it any wonder that a Google search for “honest lawyer” generates results like this?
(Oddly enough, the top result for “honest lawyer” is the Honest Lawyer hotel, in Durham — but a different Durham.)
Disbarred Duke Prosecutor’s Future Dim [Associated Press]
Prosecutor in Duke Case Disbarred by Ethics Panel [New York Times]
An honest lawyer [Aha! Jokes]

Breaking: Mike Nifong To Resign as Durham District Attorney

By David Lat

Mike Nifong Michael Nifong Michael B Nifong Durham District Attorney.JPGIt’s a Friday afternoon in June. Of course it couldn’t pass without a high-profile resignation. From WRAL:

Mike Nifong made the announcement at the end of his testimony Friday at his State Bar ethics trial to the surprise of the families and defense attorneys of the cleared lacrosse players.

“Throughout the years I have served as a prosecutor I have always tried to do the right thing,” a tearful Nifong said. “In this case, I was trying to todo the right thing. Much of the criticism directed to me in the is case is justified. The allegations that I’m a liar, however, are not justified.”

But is Michael Nifong… a plagiarist?
Michael Nifong headline Mike Nifong Abovethelaw Above the Law blog.jpgMonica Goodling crossed the line Abovethelaw Above the Law blog.jpg
(No, of course we’re not serious. We just like to connect every story to Monica Goodling.)
Embattled DA Mike Nifong Resigns [WRAL.com via Drudge Report]

Mike Nifong: The Doodoo Deepens

By David Lat

Mike Nifong Michael Nifong Michael B Nifong Durham District Attorney.JPGDurham District Attorney Mike Nifong, who rose to international infamy due to his handling of the Duke lacrosse team “rape” case, must now face the music. His trial on ethics charges brought by the North Carolina State Bar started today.
According to WRAL.com, Nifong’s lawyer, David Freedman, offered this argument in his opening statement:

“It is not unethical to pursue what someone may believe to be an unwinnable case.”

Well, that depends. If the case is unwinnable due to a manifest lack of credible evidence, and you decide to “pursue” it by making over 100 prejudicial statements to the media, that might be a problem.

Freedman said Nifong made about 98 percent of his statements early on in the case before suspects were identified and charged.

Does that make things better or worse? Should Nifong get off the hook for the speed with which he broke out of the gate — what North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper described as a “tragic rush to accuse”?
P.S. The article reminds us that the stripper involved was Crystal Magnum.* Isn’t that what those Skadden summer associates recently enjoyed?
* Correction: Whoops, sorry about that.
Lacrosse Attorney: Nifong Went ‘Far Over the Line’ [WRAL.com]

The Duke Lacrosse Case: Naming the Accuser?

By Laurie Lin

Duke logo.jpg
The NYT’s public editor, Byron Calame, reviewed the paper’s coverage of the Duke lacrosse case yesterday, focusing on the review of the case that ran in the Times last August. Critics lambasted that piece for its uncritical reliance on a police officer’s memo written “from memory” four months after the witness interviews it described. (Among other things, that memo contradicted another officer’s contemporaneous notes on the accuser’s descriptions of her attackers — and substituted descriptions that miraculously matched the three indicted players.)
But all this has been hashed over elsewhere. We were most interested in Calame’s discussion of whether the Times has acted correctly by continuing to withhold the name of the accuser:

My first instinct was that The Times should strongly consider adopting a policy of naming false accusers. Then I decided that the mental health of the Duke accuser and the failure of Mr. Nifong to limit the harm she caused by doing his job responsibly combined to keep this case from being a good one on which to debate such a policy change. But I hope Times editors will soon consider holding a discussion, free of deadline pressure, about what purpose the tradition of not naming sexual assault victims serves when their accusations are proved to have no merit.

We don’t have a problem with decision of many news organizations to name the accuser once the players had been declared “innocent” by the NC Attorney General. That said, Calame makes a very good point: This was not the ideal time to create policy from scratch.

Breaking: Duke Lacrosse Team ‘Rape’ Case Going Away

By David Lat

Look for an official announcement later today:

The office of North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper will announce that he is dismissing all charges against three Duke Lacrosse players, ABC News has learned from sources close to the case….

Cooper will announce his decision regarding the case at the North Carolina Attorney General’s office in Raleigh, N.C., at 2:30 p.m.

What took them so long?
Duke Lacrosse Case Charges to Be Dropped [ABC News via Drudge Report]

Morning Docket: 04.11.07

By B Clerker

* Creepy smut producers gone wild. [MSNBC]
* Pacman Jones suspended for the 2008 season, Chris Henry out for eight games. [SI]
* It’s Birkhead! [CNN]
* Duke lacrosse charges likely to be dropped. [CNN]

Mike Nifong’s Response: ‘I Didn’t Mean To’

By David Lat

Mike Nifong 2 Michael Nifong Michael B Nifong Durham District Attorney.JPGThis is what you’d to say your mom when you were five years old, and you accidentally broke her favorite vase while playing freeze tag in the living room. But apparently it works for prosecutors charged with ethical violations, too.
Durham District Attorney Michael Nifong didn’t say these exact words. But “I didn’t MEAN to” isn’t a bad summary of the response he just filed in the ethics case against him.
For detailed dissection of the Nifong motion to dismiss and answer, check out what KC Johnson has to say over at Durham-in-Wonderland.
Nifong Says He Didn’t Intentionally Break Rules [Associated Press]
North Carolina State Bar v. Nifong: Motion To Dismiss and Answer [WRAL.com]

Morning Docket: 01.16.07

By B Clerker

* “Utah’s highest court says don’t diss the judiciary, or else it might diss-miss your case.” [How Appealing]
* Major legal issues continue to arise at Gitmo. [Washington Post]
* Libby trial jury selection should take a few quick…months. [MSNBC]
* Should district judges appoint prosecutors? [New York Times via Concurring Opinions]
* North Carolina’s Attorney General, Roy Cooper, answers Mike Nifong’s cry for help. [New York Times]

ATL Week in Review: January 8 – 12

By David Lat

Donald Stout house Blackbery RIM NTP NPT.JPG* Over at the Justice Department, the bad-ass Shanetta Cutlar, Chief of the Special Litigation Section of the Civil Rights Division, takes no prisoners.
* Not even summer interns can escape her wrath.
* But hey, at least they get to go back to school. Full-time attorneys can escape only by leaving the Section — provided that Shanetta doesn’t get to them first.
* Speaking of job changes, meet your new White House counsel: Fred Fielding, of Wiley Rein & Fielding (who served as White House counsel under President Reagan).
* Next time you go out for pizza, leave the corporate lawyers at home.
* Pentagon official Charles Stimson doesn’t like how Guantanamo Bay detainees are getting pro bono representation from some of the country’s top law firms. Don’t they have better things to be doing with their pro bono time?
* Michael Nifong manages a Houdini-like escape from the debacle known as the Duke lacrosse team rape case.
* Celebrity law professors Noah Feldman and Jeannie Suk, whom you have just dubbed Feldsuk, have a really nice house.
* But not as nice as the $7 million mansion of patent lawyer Donald Stout (aerial view at right).
* Federal judicial nominees: Out with the old, in with the new.
* Chief Judge Michael Boudin (1st Cir.): You like him, you really like him.
* Maybe it’s because he’s such a big feeder judge. Interestingly enough, though, he has only placed one clerk so far at the Supreme Court for October Term 2007.*
(But Chief Judge Boudin feeds mostly to Justice Breyer and Justice Souter. The former isn’t finished hiring yet, and the latter hasn’t even started.)

Breaking: Michael Nifong Wants Someone Else To Clean Up His Mess

By David Lat

Mike Nifong Michael Nifong Michael B Nifong Durham District Attorney.JPGBig news in the Duke lacrosse team rape sexual assault and kidnapping case. From ABC News:

District Attorney Mike Nifong has requested that he have himself removed from prosecuting the Duke Lacrosse rape investigation, ABC News has learned.

A source close to the investigation said Nifong sent a letter to North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper asking his office to assume responsibility of the case. Calls to the Attorney General’s office and Mike Nifong’s office were not yet returned.

Smart guy, that Nifong. We wouldn’t want to prosecute this case either.
And from the New York Times:

“Michael B. Nifong, the Durham district attorney, faxed the request to Jim Coman, head of the state attorney general’s special prosecution unit, today, the official said. Mr. Nifong decided he had no choice but to hand off the case because he faces a conflict of interest with ethics charges pending against him for his public comments on the case, the official said….”

“The official said the attorney general’s office was expected to accept the referral. But the fate of the case is uncertain: Many experts wonder if the attorney general or another prosecutor will quickly drop the charges after assessing weaknesses in the credibility of the accuser….”

This exit strategy isn’t half-bad. Mike Nifong has turned lemons (ethics charges) into lemonade (escape from a sinking ship).
(What are Nifong’s thoughts on Iraq?)
DA in Duke Rape Case Asks to Be Taken off Case [ABC News via Drudge Report (w/siren)]
Prosecutor Asks State to Take Over Duke Case [New York Times]
Update (5:57 PM): Matt Drudge has downgraded this story by removing the siren.
Earlier: You Don’t Say: Duke Accuser Contradicts Herself

You Don’t Say

By David Lat

A nice bit of understatement, from the sober New York Times:
duke accuser contradicts herself.jpg

Does she contradict herself?
Very well then
She contradicts herself
She is large, she contains multitudes.

Of accounts of the alleged rape. Plus, a baby.*
Duke Accuser Contradicts Herself [New York Times]
* We realize that the alleged victim no longer “contains” a baby, since she recently gave birth to a baby girl. We took some liberties with the facts, for the sake of our snarky quip. Call it poetic license.

Non-Sequiturs: 01.04.07

By David Lat

Rachel Brand Rachel Brand Rachel Brand Above the Law.jpg* Some interesting comments about Harriet Miers getting a Fifth Circuit nomination, as well as speculation about who might replace her as White House counsel. [ConfirmThem]
(We second the suggestion of Rachel Brand (at right). Brand previously worked in the White House counsel’s office, before her appointment to head the Office of Legal Policy at the Justice Department.)
* From an Instpaundit correspondent: “I’m no law prof, but isn’t the presumption of innocence most useful before a pile of facts come out indicating that the accused are, in fact, innocent?” [Instapundit]
* Speaking of which, check out Best Defense, which “seeks to place the presumption of innocence front and center.” [Bag and Baggage]
* Jeez, he’s even more of a tool than we thought. Can someone please talk some sense into him about 2008? [Althouse]
* Backlash to the backlash against (allegedly) excessive executive pay. [Point of Law via Dealbreaker]
* Amen. With the exception of news aggregators, blogs are by their nature idiosyncratic, rather than comprehensive. So don’t get your briefs in a wad when we fail to write about your pet topic. [Volokh Conspiracy; Althouse]

ATL Week in Review: December 18-22

By David Lat

kwanzaa happy kwanzaa kwanza candles.gifThe week before a major holiday is usually pretty slow. And the Friday before the holiday weekend is usually dead — the perfect time for Mike Nifong to announce he’s dropping the rape charges against the Duke lacrosse team defendants.
Other highlights from the past week in legal news and ATL:
* Get to know this year’s Alito clerks!
* And help us get to know the current Breyer clerks.
* Dean Harold Koh’s Christmas gift to Yale Law School conservatives: newfound warmth and friendliness.
* Speaking of Yale Law School, YLS grad Yul Kwon just won Survivor. Congrats, Yul!
* Stuff you knew already: Supreme Court clerks are cooler than you. Lawyers have mediocre sex lives. Pro se litigants are insane.
* Last week dragged in a few more law firm bonus announcements, but nothing exciting. To skim the coverage, click here, then scroll down through the headlines.
* On the subject of bonuses, Biglaw associates: Please take our 2006 bonus poll (first announced here):

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HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

While We Were at the Company Holiday Lunch

By David Lat

The Duke lacrosse team rape charges were dropped.
The timing isn’t surprising. This is the just the sort of news you break on the Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend.
But the three lacrosse players still face sexual assault and kidnapping charges.
Rape Charges Dropped in Duke Case [Associated Press]

ATL Week in Review — Bonus-Free Edition: December 11 – 15

By David Lat

smell smelly NYU law library.jpgHere’s our recap of the past week in ATL, completely free of Biglaw or bonus news (which will be summarized in a separate “Week in Review” post).
The theme for this week’s news: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
* Hardworking lawyers are still unhappy with their sex lives.
* Celebrities still get in legal trouble (and so do state court judges).
* Borat-related lawsuits still keep getting filed.
* The Duke lacrosse team rape case is still FUBAR.
* Law school libraries are still foul-smelling at the height of final exams.
* Pro se litigants are STILL AWESOME.
* Senator Orrin Hatch is still on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
* Justice Breyer is still concerned about sectarian violence in the 17th century.
* Eumi Choi is still our idol.
* Working for the government still offers many young lawyers more interesting work, and greater responsibility, than Biglaw life (but without a five-figure bonus).
* Also, public interest work still attracts some of the most promising law school graduates.
Have a good weekend, everyone!

Morning Docket: 12.15.06

By B Clerker

* Justice Scalia on judicial paychecks. [Associated Press]
And meanwhile…
* “It was just a matter of time before well-heeled business and other interests would expand their influence-peddling efforts, and begin pouring large amounts of money into previously sleepy judicial campaigns.” [TimesSelect (pass-through link) via How Appealing]
* No more melting coins for the value of the metals. [ABC]
* Natalee Holloway’s family files wrongful death suit in Aruba. [MSNBC]
* “Accuser in Duke lacrosse case about to give birth.” [SI.com]
* HP board terminates advisory relationship with Silicon Valley superlawyer Larry Sonsini. [New York Times via Dealbreaker; WSJ Law Blog]