CORRECTION

A summary paragraph on the front page Sunday misstated why detractors want Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong punished for his handling of the Duke lacrosse case. They allege that Nifong violated rules of the N.C. State Bar and the civil rights of the three suspects who have been indicted.

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In the war that is the Duke lacrosse case, Mike Nifong's fierce fight will not end with the trial.

Durham's district attorney will face a barrage of attacks on the federal and state level from foes who are determined to have Nifong investigated, punished and disbarred for his actions in the rape case against three Duke University lacrosse players.

Dozens of people, some connected to the accused, have asked the governor and the state attorney general to intervene. Many have complained to the N.C. State Bar, the agency that licenses and disciplines lawyers. And a lawyer for one of the indicted players has urged members of Congress to have the U.S. Department of Justice open a civil rights investigation.

The request for federal intervention is aggressive and rare, said Richard Myers, a UNC-Chapel Hill law professor and former federal prosecutor.

"It's a fairly strong indication the defense has nothing to hide if they want more eyes on the ground," Myers said. "How effective it's going to be, who knows? You cast a wide net and hope someone gets interested."

The attacks are a sign of the long and vicious battle ahead in the Duke lacrosse controversy.

Three former players, Dave Evans, 23, of Bethesda, Md.; Collin Finnerty, 20, of Garden City, N.Y.; and Reade Seligmann, 20, of Essex Fells, N.J., are charged with rape, kidnapping and sexual offense. They are accused of gang-raping a woman hired though an escort service to dance at a team party in March.

Nifong has been criticized for statements he made in the week after the investigation became public, when he called the players "hooligans" and said he was certain a racially motivated rape had occurred.

After that first week, Nifong's torrent of comments slowed to a trickle. In his silence, the players and their attorneys have attacked Nifong, using his own documents and statements to accuse the veteran prosecutor of misconduct and to highlight weaknesses in the case.

Nifong declined to comment for this report. But in court, news releases and at news conferences, the prosecutor has responded to the criticisms against him, at times using language that sounds like an opening argument he might make to the State Bar in his defense.

At a July news conference, Nifong explained his early statements to the media by saying he was trying to inform the public that an investigation was in progress and to encourage cooperation from witnesses. Bar rules specifically allow prosecutors to make public statements for those reasons.

The request for a federal investigation came from Michael Cornacchia of New York, one of Finnerty's attorneys. He wrote to the U.S. attorney general, the FBI director, the congressional delegations of North Carolina and Long Island and others, saying Nifong had violated the civil rights of the three players. The case merits an immediate investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, wrote Cornacchia, a former prosecutor who recently served as chief investigative counsel for the probe of the United Nation's oil-for-food program.

N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper and Gov. Mike Easley received scores of letters requesting that they take over the case, something North Carolina law does not allow. These letters ranged from well-researched, artfully composed missives to profane rants from phony e-mail addresses. They came from family friends and business colleagues of the accused. Some were from outside observers. Many were sent from out of state, and a good number came from Durham.

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