HERALD SUN SHOCKER

Durham Herald Sun readers had to be shocked this morning when they turned to the editorial page.

Right there below a Bob Ashley editorial was an Other Voices column. H-S readers are used to seeing Other Voices columns on the page opposite the editorial page. Seeing an OV column in “precious” space usually occupied only by editorials was a shocker. But it was only the first.

Shocker two? The OV column was given as much space as the H-S editorial that preceded it.

And what H-S reader would have believed the next shocker?

The OV column was headed :

Nifong’s many victims

WHAT?!!!

Talk about a shocker! Number three was the biggest of all.

For weeks leading up to last Tuesday’s election, Ashley and his H-S “news team” were telling their dwindling but faithful readers that DA Mike Nifong had protected them and the community from wild Duke students and just about everything else bad in the world except maybe this season’s latest flu strain.

But today, less than a week after the H-S’s “campaign reporting” helped elect Nifong, Ashley turned around and gave H-S readers that awful third shock:

Nifong’s many victims

Why? Does Ashley worry that after opening his paper, readers will start snoozing?

Anyway, H-S readers who were awake and alert after reading the H-S’s first two shockers, and were still on their feet after reading the headline, “Nifong’s many victims,” know the headline was followed by a Joseph V. Cheshire column.

Cheshire is lead attorney for David Evans, one of three former Duke lacrosse players indicted following what attorneys across America and millions of citizens view as a series of travesties.

Cheshire's column is a response to remarks the H-S attributed to Durham attorney Kerry Sutton in a H-S post-election story, “Lawyers: Nifong right pick for DA.”

Here first are Sutton’s remarks in full as reported by the H-S:

"I believe the right person won," attorney Kerry Sutton said of the local campaign. "While I disagree with Mike's handling of the lacrosse case, he had a right to take the stance he did, and he is doing his job. If I ever mess up a case myself, I hope people won't judge my entire career based on that case alone."

Sutton, who has done some work for lacrosse rape defendant David Evans and who also represents an unindicted Duke lacrosse player, said she thought outsiders had meddled too much in the district attorney race.

"The fact that people from around the nation put their noses and money into the politics of Durham kind of skewed people's perspectives on what goes on here and what should go on here," Sutton added. "I don't think that's appropriate."

To those remarks, Cheshire responded (excerpts):

As David Evans' attorney, I feel it is my duty to respond to comments attributed to Kerry Sutton. …

[While Sutton] did render substantial assistance to us in the logistics of Evans' surrender, Sutton does not represent Evans, nor is she authorized to speak for him or on his behalf. …

I understand the need for lawyers whose livelihood and clients' fates are often governed by the whim of the elected district attorney to remain as close as possible to that DA no matter what he does.

But it must be noted that Nifong's only "right" and "job" as a prosecutor in this or any other case is to satisfy his oath to see that justice is done. …

Justice is not done in any criminal prosecution when a DA who assumes the role of chief factual investigator and does not bother to talk with the chief prosecuting witness about her allegations to assess her credibility, and instead lets forth a stream of pure speculation about the "facts" of the case to conform to the evolving investigation: speculation that, in fact, contradicts materials in his own case file and sworn statements made by his own investigators and assistants in the investigation.

Those actions are hardly a prosecutor's "right" or "job" as defined by his oath.

Sutton also takes exception to the people from around the country who have taken an interest in this case, who include the parents of the scores of young men whose lives have been unalterably affected by the ongoing miscarriage of justice in this case.
These people are victims of Nifong's actions in the same way that the people of Durham are, and their interest in this case is just as real and proper. …

Cheshire said much more. It’s all here.

I wonder what Attorney Sutton thought when she looked at today’s H-S editorial page and saw not only shockers one, two and three but shocker four as well.

Shocker four, for those of you who don’t get a hard copy of the H-S, is this: Ashley chose to highlight in bold in a sidebar the words Cheshire used as his "hammer of Thor:"

“I understand the need for lawyers whose livelihood and clients' fates are often governed by the whim of the elected district attorney to remain as close as possible to that DA no matter what he does.”

Now there’s an editor playing rough with someone who just appears to have given an H-S reporter the kind of pro-Nifong quote Ashley’s been peddling for weeks.

What’s changed? Does Ashley think the Feds are coming to town to investigate Nifong and his cronies?

Stay tuned. There’s more to be told about this story.