Mike Nifong and Michael Vick
Today, former Durham, North Carolina district attorney Mike Nifong began serving a 24-hour jail term for his role in the Duke University sexual assault case. On December 10, Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick will be sentenced to up to 5 years in prison — probably between a year and a year and a half — for financing, running and taking bets on a dogfighting ring.
At the risk of getting getting hate mail from animal lovers, I think it’s important to point out here that while what Vick did was reprehensible, these are dogs. Even a PETA member would be hard pressed to argue that what Vick did was 500 times as serious as what Nifong did.
Let’s consider what Nifong did to earn his 24 hours behind bars: He created a rape case against three Duke University lacrosse players for the sake of political gain. He was aware that the accuser had offered several conflicting, drug-addled accounts of the alleged attack. He was aware that there was no physical evidence, and that there was credible evidence showing that one of the defendants was not even present at the time. Within a few weeks, DNA test results showed that the defendants did not have sexual contact with the accuser, and he with-held this information from the defense. Pandering to the black Durham voters he considered vital for his re-election, he publicly referred to the alleged attack (three white students accused of raping a black exotic dancer) as racially motivated.
The damage to the defendants included suspension from Duke University, nine months as rape suspects, reportedly over a million dollars in legal fees each, and permanent Wikipedia pages devoted to the accusations.
But let’s put aside the specific effects on the defendants, and even most of the specific charges against Nifong, and focus on this: As a prosecutor, he had three people indicted for rape, knowing that they were probably innocent, with-holding and lying about evidence indicating that they were innocent, all for the sake of trying to advance his career. And he wasn’t just anybody, he was a man given an enormous public trust and the power that accompanies it.
“Scary” shouldn’t even begin to describe it: If this is what a prosecutor could do to three young men whose families were well-connected and able to spent millions of dollars to fight the charges, what chance would the likes of us have?
Back to Vick, I’m actually fine with him going to prison for a year and a half — but the proportionality is all wrong: Nifong is guilty of offenses against not only the defendants but against our faith in the legal system. I understand that he’s lost his job, was disbarred and faces civil actions, but the criminal justice system should be demonstrating in the most severe way that this behavior can’t be tolerated.
A 24-hour sentence, on the other hand, was the court’s way of saying “We have to find you guilty, but we’re doing all we can to close ranks and protect our own.”