Nifong accepts merits of criticism

Durham DA says he is right for job

DURHAM -- District Attorney Mike Nifong said Friday that some of the criticism over his media statements in the Duke University lacrosse rape case is justified but that he is still the right man to be the county's top prosecutor for the next four years.

Nifong used the news conference, his first in months, to launch the second phase of a campaign that was all but over until a petition drive, backed by four Durham residents, put an unwilling candidate on the November ballot. On Thursday, county Commissioner Lewis Cheek announced that he would not campaign for the job or accept it if he wins.

But Cheek did not discourage voters from choosing him. If he were to win and not take the job, the governor would select the next district attorney -- creating an election in which it's Nifong versus anyone but Nifong -- unless Gov. Mike Easley, who appointed Nifong in the first place, decided to keep Nifong where he is.

A third candidate, Steve Monks, a lawyer and chairman of the Durham County Republican Party, has said that if he can raise enough money, he will mount a write-in campaign.

Nifong would not discuss the specifics of the rape case against three Duke lacrosse players. But his half-hour news conference was his most candid and open exchange with reporters since the media began a virtual siege of the prosecutor, who was once a fountain of information on the rape investigation.

Nifong acknowledged mistakes in his early comments to the media when the rape investigation first erupted onto a national stage in March.

"My handling of the media coverage of this case has occasioned substantial criticism, some of which is undoubtedly justified," Nifong said. "I both underestimated the level of media attention this case would draw and misjudged the effect that my words would have."

Those statements, given to scores of news outlets in more than 50 interviews, have been the target of lawyers representing Dave Evans, 23, of Bethesda, Md., Collin Finnerty, 19, of Garden City, N.Y., and Reade Seligmann, 20, of Essex Fells, N.J. The three are each charged with rape, kidnapping and sexual offense after a woman who was hired through an escort service to dance at a lacrosse team party told police she was raped in a bathroom.

Widespread criticism

Since Nifong defeated two challengers in the Democratic primary in May, he has come under intense criticism from lawyers, pundits, bloggers and observers who question whether the prosecutor has any real evidence of a crime. Nifong said Friday that he has not backed off from his initial assessment of the rape case.

"Obviously there were some things that we hoped we would have in terms of evidence that we ended up not having," he said. "The statements that I made were based on the facts that I had, and the basic facts that I based statements on, I don't have anything to change about that."

When asked whether his early remarks about the case heightened condemnation of the lacrosse players, Nifong said, "Well, that certainly wasn't my intent. It is possible that that happened.

"The first message I intended to portray was that the community was in good hands with respect to this case, and they did not need to worry about it," Nifong said. "The second message during all this period of time was a message to the people who were present but not involved in the hopes they would come forward and give us information that would help us resolve the case."

A narrow sample

Nifong told reporters that the job of the top prosecutor in a county with more than 50,000 criminal cases a year has been reduced to one case.

"How many of you thought that we would still be talking about a case, a single case in Durham, this far down the road? I did not," Nifong said. "My job is not just about this case, and although that may be the only part of my job of interest to you, it's not the only part of my job I have to do."

Nifong said the petition drive that placed Cheek on the ballot was an effort by a few Durham residents to try to buy the District Attorney's Office.

He said that during his primary campaign earlier this year, Cheek and two men who eventually backed Cheek's petition drive -- Ed Pope and Roland Leary -- visited him to give campaign advice. Nifong said he did not take the advice. He said that later he thought that Pope, a state juvenile justice official, and Leary, a former sheriff, wanted to control the district attorney.

"I realized that their concern had not been with the concept of a small group of people owning the District Attorney's Office but with the concept of it being owned by someone other than them," he said.

Cheek, Pope and Leary could not be reached Friday.