Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong may be headed to the unemployment line as a result of his blatant disregard of law and procedure in falsely accusing the Duke Lacrosse players of rape. But all may not be lost for the 56-year old Nifong, who might find a welcoming job in Texas. In fact, when you compare the North Carolina prosecutor's outrageous actions to some of those by his Lone Star State counterparts, he could go quickly from the bottom of the ethical ladder in North Carolina to the top tier in Texas.

Take first the example of the district attorney in Swisher County, who imprisoned more than 40 people in the small Texas town of Tulia, most of whom were African-American, on drug charges that he knew were false. The abuse was later uncovered and the defendants released, but only after the innocent victims spent close to two years in jail.

But the king of prosecutorial misconduct reigns in Texas — the famous Ronnie Earle, who brought down U.S. House Republican leader Tom DeLay.

Earle was able to obtain an indictment against DeLay only after going through six grand juries, finally convincing a newly empaneled one to indict DeLay right before the statute of limitations was up. Moreover, Earle charged DeLay with breaking laws that were not even on the books. Nifong, who charged the Duke lacrosse players with crimes based on no evidence, would fit right in.

Earle worked long and hard to lay the groundwork for his action against DeLay, adding money and a media angle to help him along. Earle also trumped up charges that eight large corporations, including Sears and Cracker Barrel, made illegal campaign contributions, but then dismissed the indictments. The dismissals followed an agreement between the corporations and the prosecutor whereby Earle said nice things about the companies, which in turn agreed to make significant "contributions" to the University of Texas (after first balking at making multi-million-dollar payments to Stanford University in California). The funds went to an educational project highlighting Earle's pet theory of an unholy relationship between business and politics — tying in nicely with the theory of Earle's prosecution of DeLay.

Of course, prosecutorial abuses are not limited to North Carolina and Texas. Ask Kobe Bryant, Michael Jackson and even lesser luminaries like Richard Jewell and former government scientist Wen Ho Lee about their run-ins with overzealous investigators.

Still, the blatant manner in which modern-day prosecutors like Nifong and Earle have been able to manipulate the system raises troubling questions about the integrity of the prosecutorial process.

The silver lining, at least in the Duke case, is that persistent public attention resulted in sufficient public pressure to cause an authority higher than Nifong — the North Carolina attorney general — to step in and override the abusive behavior of the lower prosecutor. Were it not for such publicity, it is likely the now-exonerated college athletes would still be under the cloud of felony indictments.

In the DeLay case, massive publicity surrounded Earle's investigation, at least until the point DeLay resigned his congressional seat in 2006. But the inherently political nature of the prosecution and the intimidating nature of the unique power wielded by Earle, who alone among his Texas colleagues enjoys statewide reach in cases involving allegations of corruption, has kept the prosecution alive.

Must all defendants like the Duke lacrosse players and DeLay, who find themselves on the receiving end of overly zealous if not unethical prosecutors, rely only on public pressure and the acumen of their own lawyers to rein in their tormentors? Are there additional remedies — such as strengthening the power of state bar associations to halt clearly unethical prosecutors; bringing some level of openness and fairness to certain, if not all grand jury proceedings; and empowering state attorneys general to intervene or at least be afforded tighter supervisory power over local district attorneys — that might be employed?

Perhaps these recent and ongoing examples of prosecutorial abuse will push states, including Georgia, to seriously consider such steps.

• Former Congressman and U.S. Attorney Bob Barr practices law in Atlanta.
Web site: www.bobbarr.org

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