I agree too:

By all appearances, we need more remedies for illegal conduct by officials. And if damages are inappropriate, Congress can always legislate an appropriate scheme.

I've always found it absurd that the only penalty for illegally procured evidence or prosecutorial misconduct was to throw out the evidence. Of course, it's not always practical to get damages, but perhaps if North Carolina had to pay damages for what Nifong did, they'd be a little more careful about how they hire prosecutors. And the notion of electing them seems (again, from the same case) problematic...

It might be more effective to have them disbarred than to allow damages.

Disbarring should be only the first step. Prosecutors are protected from being sued ONLY when they do their jobs correctly and legally. Niphong committed the ultimate crime outside that protection. For personal gain he falsely accused citizens of crimes and then hid proof of their innocence.

Adrasteia if you had been falsely accused of a crime that could send you to jail for life, would you still feel that taking away his license to work would be sufficient? That's all disbarring does. For that matter disbarring in NC doesn't mean he can't go to 49 other states to practice.

I'm a tax paying citizen of the State of North Carolina. If these men sue the state, I will have to pay for that meny they get. I hope they win for several reasons.

It will show the liberal voting morons of this state that the Democrats in tis state need to be removed.

It will show the liberal voting morons of this state that the "good ol' boy" network is not a good system for choosing positions as important and as powerful as District Attorney.

It will show the liberal voting morons of this state that having white skin and a sports scholarship to a private school does NOT make you automatically guilty of any crime.

This issue will hang over the heads of these men for the rest of their lives. Some people will always wonder if they actually did something, others are already sure the evidence has been tampered with to let rich white people avoid jail. Niphong should be sued and so should the state. I'm way way conservative, but damages need to be paid for not only the legal fees incurred but for defamation of character and future harm for that defamation. As a taxpaying person here I truly feel that's fair.

If you really want to get a bureaucrat's attention, cut his budget. In this context, I believe any damages should come from the offending department's budget instead of them just turning to the taxpayers to pay for their mistakes (or crimes). If the consequences of their misconduct was a loss of a substancial portion of their budget for that year (with the subsequent cuts in staff and perks), I suspect we'd see them being a bit more careful.

Larry,
in this case the taxpayers get hit either way. Niphong originally got his job FROM the governor. He was embroiled in the scandal during his run for office. The voters in Durham county, who are mostly black, liberal or both, elected him based on the drum beating he did over this case. The county would need a state bailout if the suit was against just the county. They'd be unable to run the county D.A.'s office otherwise for lack of funds.

The original problem was caused by Niphong's appointment from the state leader, our idiotarian governor. So the state should pay. Let me reiterate, I'm one of the taxpayers who'll pay this bill. I'll also vote against the current Democrat stranglehold here.

I wasn't clear about my "modest" proposal. What happens today when a government agency gets hit with a fine is they hand the bill to the taxpayers and go about business as usual. Their operating budget isn't affected. My idea is to make that agency take the fine out of their operating budget for that year. If the fine is a million dollars, then they'll have to cut their payroll and other office expenses by $1 million. The result would be fewer perks (e.g. travel at taxpayer expense to conferences, etc.) and reduced staff - things they would directly feel. Of course, it'll never happen because that would force bureaucrats to be held accountable for their actions. That just wouldn't do.

Larry,
I'm just not sure how doing that serves the people? If the Durham County District Attorney's office looses millions of dollars to a law suit, it can't put bad guys behind bars where they belong. Plus, that penalizes all the citizens with a loss of services because of the idiot decisions or as in this case someones selfish decisions. As much as I hate to sound like I think that the "states money" isn't really the "taxpayers money" I think this burden has to be spread out over the state to absorb not just a single county.

I'm a very fiscally conservative type voter. This situation was caused by the liberal governor, who was our AG before he ran for governor, appointing one of his buddies to do a job he evidently wasn't up to. Now the Democrat liberals can pay the price for electing the governor and for electing Niphong.