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Attorneys Misbehaving I am often critical of the legal profession, which is my profession, because of some of the cases which are pursued by some attorneys and the results which are reached. Most attorneys are good, but some times attorneys pursue questionable goals for improper reasons. There are two recent examples which I find particularly disgusting - the Duke lacrosse team rape case pursued by Mr. Nifong and the Libby case pursued by Mr. Fitzgerald. Regardless of what one thinks of the parties who were being pursued, the actions of the two attorneys were either completely wrong or at least questionable. In Mr. Nifong's case the actions were wrong. He took up the claim of a black "exotic" dancer that she was raped by three Duke lacrosse players and effectively had them convicted without first obtaining evidence. As it turns out, the evidence exonerated the players, but that exonerating evidence was withheld while Mr. Nifong pursued the case. The apparent reason for this lack of disclosure is that Mr. Nifong was in a tough primary race for re-election, and the black vote was critical to his campaign. As regards Mr. Libby, apparently the fact that Richard Armetage in the State Department had leaked Valerie Plame's name to the press was already in the files presented to Mr. Firzgerald. Yet a long investigation followed which found no wrong doing on behalf of those being investigated - the Bush Whitehouse - but resulted only in charges of lying to investigators and the grand jury. While these charges may be serious, the proof supported bad or different memory of the parties involved as much as lying. The point in both cases is that there should not have been any charges brought in either case if the prosecutors had behaved properly. Nifong would have waited for the DNA evidence and then stopped everything at that point. Fitzgerald would have reviewed the existing files and information and filed a report at that time indicating no wrong doing. Yet we lawyers wonder why people do not have as much respect as they once did for our profession.
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