Deadly 1997 confrontation between Shan Carter and Tyrone Baker

NOTICE OF ERROR in blog of December 3, 2010: The case against Shan Edward Carter defies all logic and rationale, therefore making even the simplest assumptions error-prone. In the December 3rd blog, which introduced a firearms altercation between drug-dealer Keith Richardson and Shan Carter, I attempted to present a situation similar to the Tyrone Baker shooting for comparison. Simply stated, Carter’s actions were defensive in dealing with Baker and Richardson. I stated that the prosecution ignored this, when in fact, they used the Richardson situation in the trials of Brunson’s murder as well as that of the deaths on Tenth and Dawson. However, the prosecution stated Richardson was unarmed. Refer to the blog posted on December 13, 2010 for further details.
- December 13, 2010


The blog of November 28, 2010 which introduced the outrageous legal inequities and injustices, including two capital convictions, against Shan Edward Carter, contained some errors of significance which, in my haste to post the story, did not carefully vet. Unlike Duke University, and most of the media (especially MSNBC) which refuse to man up and accept responsibility for their mistakes and errors, I have religiously followed the principles of “restorative justice” when I have erred. First, I accept full responsibility for the mistakes in that blog, although completely unintentional. I should have been more diligent in fact-checking the complex cases involving Shan Carter. Second, I give my sincerest apologies for misleading my readers. You deserve better, and I am glad that you challenge me when you feel that I got the story wrong. I am grateful for your vigilance. Third, if I have caused injury to anyone because of my misstatements, I would like to make them whole. I definitely have made efforts to correct the errors by posting a notice at the beginning of the November 28th blog alerting readers to the errors therein. The main text of the blog that was initially posted, however remains untouched. Fourth, I will try to see that such errors never recur by doing a better job of researching and never allowing assumptions to take the place of certainty of facts. When at all possible, if not much of a delay is involved, I will send my blog to Shan to review and make sure its contents are completely factual.

Although I had intended to discuss the shooting of Tyrone Baker with Shan during my visit with him at 11:00 am in Central Prison, a couple of hours before, when I went to the post office to mail some letters (see receipt on LINK), there was a letter from Shan in my post office box. In it, he informed me of errors in my November 28th blog even though we had not communicated about it previously. You will find that this letter is indicative of the credibility of the man, Shan Carter (see LINK). Below is the narrative of what transpired the day that drug-dealer Tyrone Baker and 8 year-old Demetrius Green lost their lives.

DECEMBER 6, 1996 – Shan Carter, Kwada Temoney, and Damont White burglarized drug-dealer Tyrone Baker’s apartment and steal $40,000 in cash, which they later split among themselves.

Tyrone Baker was a drug-dealer from New York, who dealt cocaine in the Wilmington, NC area, and a friend of Carter who knew Baker when he was in New York, warned Carter that Baker followed through on his threats. Word on the street was that Baker intended on killing those responsible for stealing $40,000 from his residence. Shan had heard from several sources that Baker was looking for those responsible for the burglary and that he was going to kill them. Carter was somewhat comforted by a gun he purchased on the street for his protection, a .357 Magnum revolver, which held six rounds, and which he kept in holster under is left arm.

FEBRUARY 16, 1997 – Shan Carter was parked on Dawson by the intersection with Tenth Street, and was approaching a store on the corner. Kwada Temoney was with Carter to his right. Before entering the store, Carter caught, out of the corner of his right field of vision, Kwada Temoney being struck in the face with a fist by a man Carter did not know. Kwada related to Carter later that he had been knocked out by the punch. The man then turned and began to approach Carter with a menacing look and without saying a word. Believing the man to be Baker, Carter began to back up. Although the weather was sunny and warm, especially for February, the man carried a heavy Army field coat folded over one of his arms, as if to conceal a weapon. Shan pulled his weapon from his holster, and Baker momentarily froze. Holding the weapon in one hand only and aiming low in an effort to wound and not kill, Shan fired two shots in quick succession as Baker turned to his right. The first bullet Shan believed struck Baker in his thigh, however, as Carter suggests the second shot when higher from the discharge after the first shot. Baker was struck just below the left rib cage as he was turning, and he then began running up Tenth Street. Carter, concerned that Baker might use the corner of the building as cover to in order to return fire, walked to the corner to take it out of the equation. As Baker ran up Tenth Street, Shan fired three more times to shepherd him along… at no time exposing his left side to Carter. Even when Baker crossed Tenth Street, his right side was exposed to Carter. Shan Carter noticed that Baker’s legs seemed wobbly before he fell, and Shan then proceeded to get into his car parked on Dawson, along with Temoney, who had recovered, and they drove off.

Renee Barnes, who admitted to knowing Tyrone Baker and who had braided his corn rows in the past, allegedly sold crack cocaine for Baker, too. She lived on the corner of Tenth and Dawson, across from the store where the incident took place. Accounts state that she allegedly ran from her apartment to the site where Tyrone Baker lay mortally wounded. He was gurgling and made a few statements to Renee before he died. Renee picked up the Army field coat (and possibly a weapon), and ran back to her house before the police arrived… which was not long after the shooting. She used the car keys in the coat to drive Tyrone Baker’s jeep (which may have been a rental) to the residence of Tyrone’s girlfriend. The coat eventually wound up in New York, and it was from New York that the detectives finally got possession of the coat in 1998. According to Renee, it had dried blood on it.

The prosecutions’ case of the premeditated murder of Tyrone Baker by Shan Carter simply does not hold water. It was strictly self-defense, and forensically the case supports the contention that Baker was struck with the first two bullets out of Carter’s gun, and not the three fired as Baker was fleeing. The autopsy medical examiner stated that an examination of the body showed that the bullet entered the front of Baker’s thigh and exited the back. Prosecution tried to debunk this finding by the SBI so-called ballistics expert stating that according to his examination of the pants Baker was wearing, the bullet had an entry wound on the back of the thigh and an exit on the front.

Although the prosecution stated that Shan Carter ran 30 feet up Tenth Street in pursuit of Baker, crime scene reconstruction of the bullet paths etc. determined that the shots came from the corner of Tenth and Dawson, as Shan has maintained.

Approximately two weeks before the Tenth and Dawson shooting, there was a similar incident involving Carter, which prosecution wished to ignore altogether. On February 5, 1997, Carter was walking with Julius Jones when another drug-dealer Keith Richardson approached them. Also a burglary victim of Carter, Richardson pulled a gun and asked Carter if his name is Shawn. Shan grabbed his gun and fired four or five times, striking Richardson in the forearm. Richardson ran one way, and Carter briskly walked away in the other. This, like the case with Baker, was self-defense, and Carter made no attempt to pursue and kill the drug-dealer. But, prosecutors never brought this case up, and never had anyone testify to the incident.

This case against Shan Carter is one of the most flawed I have ever seen and once some more of the evidence is presented, there is no doubt that you will agree that Shan Carter, instead of being on death row, should be released from prison. I believe that he has been rehabilitated and that to hold him on Death Row, or even in prison, is a waste of valuable taxpayer dollars.

LINK letter from Shan Carter:
http://justice4nifong.com/direc/irepoDirec/irepoC/irC1.htm

LINK post office receipt:
http://justice4nifong.com/direc/irepoDirec/irepoC/irC2.htm

MSNBC Phil Griffin… a paragon of ethics?

It’s like de ja vu all over again. MSNBC President Phil Griffin is again chastising his network’s television hosts by meting out suspensions. The latest victim, according to a Bloomberg News article by Ronald Grover that appeared in the November 20, 2010 edition of The News & Observer is Joe Scarborough. He was placed on a two-day time out for making scintilla-sized donations of $500 to his brother and three of his longtime friends who were involved in local political races. The article did not mention whether or not Scarborough would be docked pay for the two day suspension.

Now, it appears that what Mr. Scarborough and Mr. Keith Olbermann, who underwent a similar suspension just weeks earlier, did was to violate the MSNBC policy which requires that political contributions be cleared in advance by the network. Scarborough and Olbermann did not consult the network before doling out their miniscule campaign contributions. It is obvious that the reason for the MSNBC policy requiring that contributions be cleared is so that the network can control which politicians receive campaign contributions. If, for example, Joe Scarborough wanted to contribute to a politician whose views were not to the liking of the MSNBC bigwigs, his request would be denied. Or, if Keith Olbermann wanted to make a donation to a politician whose goals were similar and/or favorable to those of MSNBC, then he would receive the go-ahead. So, the MSNBC policy requiring that contributions be cleared in advance, is, itself, unethical and sleazy.

A contrite Mr. Scarborough was quick to accept responsibility for his misstep, which was the right thing to do… especially if he wanted to remain employed at the network. This is the kind of bullying that keeps MSNBC employees “in their place.” That is why Mr. Scarborough, Keith Olbermann, and Rachel Maddow won’t comment about MSNBC Senior Legal Analyst Susan Filan’s libelous online statement about former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong. Let’s face it, if I were in their shoes, I probably wouldn’t either, especially if I had a family to support, a mortgage to pay, and wanted to live a luxurious lifestyle. It is never wise to bite the hand that feeds you. So, I do not fault them for choosing to look the other way when it comes to Ms. Filan’s misdeeds.

For those unfamiliar with Ms. Filan’s June 17, 2007 article in which she stated that Mike Nifong asked his son to attend his hearing before the North Carolina State Bar, and then trashed him for doing so and suggested that he used his son to gain sympathy and pity, a full Investigative Report is available on our website: www.justice4nifong.com. The problem with the June 17th article by Ms. Filan is that she fabricated the part about Mr. Nifong asking his son to attend his hearing. She just made it up out of thin air. No one gave her such information and she never viewed a recording in which Mr. Nifong made the statement. Fact of the matter is, after I spoke with Mrs. Nifong, who is privy to private Nifong household conversations, told me that Mr. Nifong specifically asked his son not to attend, but that his son insisted on doing so to show support for his embattled father. This illustrates that although it was Ms. Filan who accused Mr. Nifong of using his son for his personal gain, it was Ms. Filan who used Mr. Nifong’s son to her benefit… and her objective was to carry out a Jedi Mind-trick on the public. Her actions were sanctioned, no doubt, by the head honchos at MSNBC who were in cahoots with others in the media, the state of North Carolina, the North Carolina State Bar, the triumvirate of barristers representing the Carpetbagger families of the Duke Lacrosse players, and others conspirators to destroy Mike Nifong.

Because the media closely adheres to the Carpetbagger Jihad agenda against Nifong, it goes out of its way not to broadcast or publish articles about events which shine a positive light on Mr. Nifong, or events which cast a negative shadow on his detractors. Such is what happened at Duke University on April 14, 2010, when I attended an event on the Duke campus which was advertised as open to the public. At the conclusion of the informal interview of guest Justice Stephen Breyer, I was approached by security and asked to leave the campus. I was targeted not for anything I said or anything I did. I was kicked off campus because of my thoughts, opinions, and beliefs about Mike Nifong. In other words, I was discriminated against because I was an openly known supporter of Mike Nifong. The security guard, who was sent to oust me in this premeditated and malicious incident, had no idea why I was being evicted, and as he stated repeatedly, he was “only doing my job.” And, I believe him, but, just because I tried to ascertain from him the reason for my being escorted off campus, he repeatedly threatened me with arrest. The majority of my conversation with the security guard is on audio record along with a transcript now available on the Investigative Report section of our website.

The media has no problem covering other instances of discrimination, such as that at Raleigh’s Cameron Village Shopping Center recently, during which a security guard asked two lesbians who were showing a little public affection to leave the property. Coverage was intensive and extensive… including the incident, the apology, the meeting between the aggrieved and the employer of the security guard, and the rally which celebrated the concessions won to protect rights of gays and lesbians on Cameron Village grounds. Even CNN gave the incident heavy news air time, and an appearance on the Joy Behar show. However, I am told by a media-type that Duke’s discrimination against me (based solely upon what was contained within my cranium) is not newsworthy. It is obvious that the definition of “newsworthy” is applied by a separate set of standards when it comes to Mike Nifong… and that is not surprising, because everything having to do with Mr. Nifong (his disbarment, persecution, and denied rights) is singular.

So the ethical Mr. Griffin, who probably made political contributions which he cleared with himself, will most likely continue to do his part to keep the masses ignorant of the egregious and blatantly false writings of MSNBC Senior Legal Analyst Susan Filan, as well and the inexcusable lapses of judgment on the part of Duke University in its discriminatory actions against me. That, unfortunately, is the reality of today’s media, a place wherein there is no room for ethics.

MSNBC hypocritical in its suspension of Olbermann

Phil Griffin, MSNBC President, made the decision to suspend Keith Olbermann without pay from his program on that cable station after he became aware that Olbermann had made political contributions to three Democratic campaigns last month. According to the New York Times article, Mr. Olbermann donated $2,400 to three campaigns, which evidently violated policies in place at MSNBC. In reaching his decision to act against Mr. Olbermann, Mr. Griffin consulted first with Steve Capus, President of NBC News, and Jeff Zucker, CEO of NBC-Universal. Mr. Griffin was actually quoted in an early Friday, November 5th, afternoon statement as saying, “Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay.”

To add fuel to the fire, Bob Steele, the Director of the Prindle Institute for Ethics at DePauw University, issued the following comment on the subject, “When a journalist becomes an activist, the principle of independence is not just eroding, it’s corroding from within.”

Donating a paltry sum to a several political campaigns pales in significance to the outlandish act of brazenly lying to the public… as Susan Filan did in an online article. Ms. Filan is the Senior Legal Analyst for MSNBC, and in an article in 2007 titled “Nifong’s punishment severe, appropriate,” she fabricates a story in which she accuses former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong of asking his son to attend his hearing before the North Carolina State Bar. The statement is given as fact, as though she was in the Nifong living room and heard it firsthand. She compounds the libelous statement by using it to attack Mr. Nifong’s character… suggesting that he had selfish motives in “asking” his son to attend his hearing… possibly to gain pity or sympathy she conjectures.

Since I first read the article by Ms. Filan, I had doubts about its veracity as I wondered how she would be privy to such information. Surely she was not a guest in the Nifong household when the comments were made. I thought that she most likely had caught a video tape in which Mr. Nifong might have mentioned that he asked his son to attend his hearing. I didn’t know exactly how she came about her information, but because she used it as a basis to denigrate Mr. Nifong’s sensitivities and parenting skills, I thought that she had a basis for making the claim that Mr. Nifong asked his son to attend his hearing. So, I thought that I would just verify her statement by asking the Nifongs directly. I must say that I was not at all surprised to learn that the MSNBC Senior Legal Analyst statements were nothing more than a figment of her imagination. It never happened. In fact, what happened was to the contrary. Mr. Nifong asked his son not to attend the hearing, but he insisted on showing support for his embattled father… like any good son with proper upbringing would do.

MSNBC Senior Legal Analyst Filan accused Mr. Nifong of using his son and taking advantage of him, but as it is now clearly apparent, Ms. Filan is the one who took advantage of Mr. Nifong’s son. She used him to get in a flagrant below the belt jab at Mr. Nifong. The evidence is all laid out in the Investigative Reports section of the official Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong website (www.justice4nifong.com).

As was plainly pointed out in the writings in the investigative reports, including several other blogs on the topic, what is truly alarming is the unwillingness of the individuals at MSNBC to investigate themselves or take any action whatever. I wrote to Ms. Filan in December 2009, asking for any documentation or source for her statement about the alleged conversation between Mr. Nifong and his son. She refused to respond. When I wrote to Rick Cotton, the General Counsel of NBC-Universal and Jeff Zucker, the CEO of NBC-Unversal, all letters sent to them by certified mail were returned with the word “refused.” They are doing their best to protect Ms. Filan and to continue to mislead viewers who go online to read her 2007 article.

Now I don’t know if Mr. Steele would consider fabricating a story to use in order to attack someone’s character unethical, but I certainly do. In fact, I would consider it to be a far more egregious act than doling out a few bucks to the campaign coffers of a few politicians. MSNBC Senior Legal Analyst Susan Filan’s article and the reaction (or more accurately, inaction) of Mr. Cotton and Mr. Zucker to my queries about it directly bring the credibility of NBC News into question.

One thing is apparent to me, however, and that is that the mainstream media, and most media in general, have a well entrenched bias against Mr. Nifong. To them, any story that sheds any favorable light on Mr. Nifong is not “newsworthy.” They go to extremes to ignore it. Will New York Times writers Brian Stelter and Bill Carter write about Susan Filan lying to the public? I doubt it. Not because they do not want to, but that the Powers-That-Be who pay their salaries and upon whom their livelihoods depends will quash any attempt to do so. As has been pointed out in the News section of our website, Rae Evans, mother of Duke Lacrosse defendant Dave Evans, worked as an executive at CBS News for more than a decade… and of course she has strong ties with many in the news media.

Phil Griffin can levy sanctions against Keith Olbermann for a bit of trifle, but when it comes to serious matters of intentionally lying to the public as documented in the Susan Filan incident (the Senior Legal Analyst of MSNBC), you can count on him to go along with Rick Cotton and Jeff Zucker… acting like an ostrich and sticking his head in the ground… acting oblivious to the potential for great harm she’s doing to his company, and to the news media in general.

As far as suspending Mr. Olbermann indefinitely without pay, I think it was an ill-advised and petty response. Reinstate Keith Olbermann immediately. The person who is deserving of suspension and other punitive actions for fabricating stories is the person that all of the MSNBC and NBC-Universal executives are circling the wagons to protect.

Susan Filan LINK: http://justice4nifong.com/direc/irepoDirec/irDirec.htm

MSNBC legal analyst needs more than a pretty face... objectivity and fairness would be a good start

Susan F. Filan, senior legal analyst for MSNBC TV, authored an online editorial in mid-June 2007, titled: "Nifong's punishment is extreme, appropriate." Although opinion pieces have a bit more leeway than news articles, they should at least consist of facts, statements should be substantiated within the text, and there should be a modicum of objectivity. In fact, the entire article is misleading, inaccurate, and flagrantly biased, beginning with her initial premise that disbarment of a lawyer is as rare as a "unicorn sighting." Nothing could be further from the truth. Since its inception in 1933, the North Carolina State Bar has disbarred thousands of attorneys. According to their own web page posted in the past, approximately 350 attorneys were disbarred during a ten year period, an average of nearly three a month. This blatantly false statement is made for the purpose of making former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong's disbarment reflect more harshly on his actions in the Duke Lacrosse case.

Had Ms. Filan stated that disbarment of prosecutors is as rare as "unicorn sightings," then that would be right on. During its 76 years in existence, the North Carolina State Bar has only disbarred one prosecutor... Mike Nifong. This, despite the fact that North Carolina lags just behind Illinois and Louisiana in the number of death row inmates who have been exonerated. Many of them, such as Alan Gell, were convicted due to prosecutorial misconduct by their prosecutor (in this particular case, David Hoke, who is now serving as assistant director of the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts). However the state, the Duke Lacrosse defense attorneys, and the media, including Ms. Filan, purposely keep the fact that Mr. Nifong is the only prosecutor to be disbarred hidden from the public. That is what makes his treatment so selective, also when you adopt our view which is that Mr. Nifong did nothing wrong in pursuing prosecution in the Duke Lacrosse case.

Ms. Filan presumptuously states that Mr. Nifong will not receive his pension and not be able to retire, which is exactly what he is doing. And, he is not starting "from scratch" as Ms. Filan again falsely predicted. The article by Ms. Filan is filled with a lot of baseless speculation (or "bs"), and misleading and false statements. Most outrageous is the accusation that Mr. Nifong used the Duke case to get re-elected. What information does she have to base this upon? The only television ad I recall appearing during the campaign season which used the Duke Lacrosse case for his/her advantage was run by Attorney General Roy Cooper... "The Duke Lacrosse Decision." In prosecuting the Duke Lacrosse case, Mr. Nifong was merely doing his job. By suggest that performing his duties as district attorney while running for re-election is a conflict of interest is absurd. Does she expect Mr. Nifong to remain idle until the election returns are in? F. Lane Williamson of the State Bar also buy into this ridiculous belief, which they both know to be false. These statements are made purely to mold the impressionable minds of the lay public.

Ms. Filan really gets in the gutter when she accuses Mr. Nifong of using his son as a ploy to gain sympathy, leniency, and pity. I seen nothing wrong with a knowledgeable older teenage son wanting to show support for his father by attending his hearing. What I find reprehensible is Ms. Filan's attempt to spin this positive family gesture into something sinister. It is Ms. Filan, not Mr. Nifong, who is guilty of taking advantage of Mr. Nifong's son by needlessly bringing it up in her article in order to get in yet another cheap shot at Mike Nifong. Ms. Filan's actions here are truly shameful, and unbefitting a respectable news outlet.

One of the most ludicrous accusations penned by Ms. Filan is that Mr. Nifong damaged the reputation of Duke University. I would like to know how? She also insinuates that he damaged the reputation of the sport of lacrosse? Again, how?

I don't have a law degree, but I did take a civics class in high school, and I learned about the three different branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. An attorney general, who belongs to he executive branch, cannot make a judicial pronouncement. Yet the media and Ms. Filan give Roy Cooper's "innocent" proclamation the validity as that coming from a judge or jury. This is wrong, period! She also claims that Mr. Nifong damaged the lives of three "innocent" young men. How? They never spent one day in jail, they each received $7 million from Duke University in an out-of-court settlement for reasons unbeknownst to me, they are heroically depicted in books, there is an upcoming HBO movie about these wonderful lads, and individually, Collin Finnerty's celebrity moved a judge to expunge an assault charge from his record. Furthermore, they have all continued on with their lives, one graduating, the other two being offered reinstatement at Duke but deciding to enroll in other prestigious institutes of higher learning with lacrosse teams. Also, the families of these boys are currently seeking an additional $10 million from the cash-strapped city of Durham (which has already spent well more than a million dollars to defend). In the annals of North Carolina jurisprudence, there are many far more compelling instances of truly innocent people whose live have been severely damaged, and by and large, they are the disenfranchised, poor, and/or people of color.

One of the most outrageous statements made by Ms. Filan suggests that Mr. Nifong, in prosecuting the Duke Lacrosse case, damaged the public's confidence in the criminal justice system (of North Carolina). Ms. Filan fails to place blame for the public's sour perception of the criminal justice system where it is due... not on Mike Nifong, but on actions of Prosecutors Hoke, Graves, Honeycutt, Brewer, Parker, Wolfe, Keith, Ford, Black, Hardin, McFadyen and a multitude of others. Hoke and Graves won a conviction by withholding exculpatory evidence which resulted in an innocent man being convicted of capital murder and spending more than nine years in jail. Bill Wolfe charged the teenager James Arthur Johnson who solved the Brittany Willis murder, rape, kidnapping, and armed robbery with those crimes based solely on the word of the killer, who implicated Johnson only after investigators told him that Johnson "snitched" on him. After the killer recanted, Wolfe brought forward two "eyewitnesses," both with connections to the police department. These witnesses disappeared when media scrutiny became a factor. Johnson served 39 months in jail without a trial before charges were finally dropped by a special prosecutor. Michael Parker charged mentally retarded Floyd Brown with murder based on a confession which experts said Brown could not possibly made. Brown was held for fourteen years without a trial for the murder, and charges were reluctantly dismissed. Prosecutor Tom Ford tried to force Gregory Taylor to falsely implicate a black suspect for a murder. Ford threatened Taylor that if he did not cooperate, then he would charge Taylor with the crime (which is what he did). Without cause and no physical evidence linking Gregory Taylor to the crime, Ford won a conviction against him based on solely on the testimony of a jailhouse snitch and a prostitute. Their testimony was given in exchange for a decrease in their jail sentence, a fact which the prosecutor willfully withheld from Taylor's defense attorney. Prosecutors were so incensed with Theodore Jerry Williams for complaining about the District Attorney, that correction guards beat him up while in custody, his face pulverized and arm broken. They then charged Williams with assaulting a guard. When the case was dismissed because the prosecution destroyed material evidence that the defendant had requested, Attorney General Roy Cooper appealed. These are only a few of the cases that shed a disfavorable light on the North Carolina justice system. Not Mr. Nifong's actions in the Duke Lacrosse case.

Mr. Nifong's actions in prosecuting the Duke Lacrosse case were well within the acceptable standards practiced by other prosecutors. He did not withhold evidence, as the defense attorneys had all DNA lab evidence no later than October 27, 2006, at a time when a court date had yet to be set. In addition, the DNA evidence Mr. Nifong is accused of "withholding" was not exculpatory, as the defense attorneys and media would have the public believe. Mr. Nifong did not lie to the court when he stated that "this is the first that I have heard of this situation." He was without a doubt referring to the first he had heard that the defense attorneys had accused him of withholding evidence. Chairman of the Disciplinary Hearing Commission F. Lane Williamson is no mind reader, and a reasonable person would not accept his interpretation of Mr. Nifong's statement over Nifong's own interpretation. The statement itself was not material and should never have been given the attention it was given, however, the State Bar was so desperate to find a reason to disbar Mr. Nifong that they grasped at all straws. Finally, pre-trial statements made by Mr. Nifong were benign, made prior to indictments being handed down, and were intended to encourage witnesses to come forward. The majority of pre-trial statements made to the media were done so by the attorneys of the Duke Lacrosse defendants, yet Ms. Filan wants to accuse Mr. Nifong of going "Hollywood" and trying the case in the press.

If Mr. Nifong was guilty of any wrongdoing in his prosecution of the Duke Lacrosse case you could not tell by reading Ms. Filan's article. Never once did she explain what he did that was deserving of disbarment. She is not alone, because law professors at Duke University School of Law are unable to explain why Mr. Nifong was disbarred. I asked more than two dozen of them, and they were even afraid to discuss what has become a taboo topic. Taboo because the attorneys, and individuals with a knowledge and understanding of the issues surrounding Mr. Nifong's disbarment, know that the actions by the North Carolina State Bar are selective and unjust. Had the Bar's disbarment of Mr. Nifong been justified, attorneys and law school professors would not be hesitant to enter into dialogue about it.

I have no problem with opinion pieces that are accurate and based on facts, however I take umbrage when such statements are based on lies, rumor, unsubstiated pronouncements, and baseless speculation. In her article "Nifong's punishment is extreme, appropriate," MSNBC Senior legal analyst Susan Filan not only does a disservice to her professions in the legal and media arenas, but an even greater disservice to the impressionable media consuming public. The article is a disgrace.

That said, I believe in fair play, and I would like to offer Ms. Filan the opportunity to respond on our blog site (www.justice4nifong.blogspot.com), our website (www.justice4nifong.com), or in any other venue or forum over which the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong has control. Any response would be published in its entirety without editing or direct rebuttal. Shortly after the posting of this blog, I will send by postal mail an invitation to Ms. Filan asking for a reply not only to issues covered in her article and this blog, but on any other related or unrelated subjects upon which she may wish to expound.