Dallas News: Mike Nifong, meet Alberto Gonzales

[pnwmom]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-lithwick_16edi.ART.State.Edition1.42fa67e.html

Last week we had one of those serendipitous moments in which two scandals merge. Where the denouement of one national outrage – the Duke rape fiasco – reveals something incredibly important about another one – the U.S. attorney purge. Both cases highlight the stunning power of prosecutors and the need for those prosecutors to be as independent and honest as possible. If the statement by North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper – announcing that all charges had been dropped against the three former lacrosse players – clarified anything, it was that the catalyst for all of the harm in the Duke case was Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, whose "tragic rush to accuse and failure to verify serious allegations" has ruined lives. Mr. Cooper didn't mince words. "Rogue prosecutor" can't really be parsed in a gentle way.
That's a thought worth holding onto as we reflect on the U.S. attorney purge.

It's easy to be distracted, even slightly amused, by the banal shenanigans that make up the day-to-day coverage of the scandal. Increasingly, the Justice Department is revealed in all its wacky Dunder Mifflin glory. Alberto Gonzales is unmasked as The Office's Michael Scott – in so far over his head that he has no idea what his youthful employees are up to.

Mike Nifong and Alberto Gonzales - let us not forget how much power they can wield.
The Duke case is a useful reminder that the little plastic game cards being shuffled around and swapped by Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling were, in fact, loaded weapons.

Federal prosecutors, like state district attorneys, have tremendous power and almost limitless discretion to launch investigations, to subpoena, to file charges, to question witnesses, and to drop charges when the facts don't bear them out. And if the Duke case reminds us of anything, it's that the innocent targets of such investigations and indictments have only one power: to wait it all out and hope for the best.

SNIP