Prosecutorial misconduct isn't all that rare in North Carolina. Nine years ago, two prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence in a murder case which resulted in the defendant being put on death row. The prosecutors suffered no disciplinary action.

The national attention the Duke rape case has gotten and the obvious prosecutorial misconduct with reference to the DNA evidence has created the need for an "example to be made". Nifong is almost certainly going to be disbarred and perhaps worse.

The State Bar alleges, among other things, that Nifong and DNA Security Director Brian Meehan improperly agreed last year to give defense lawyers an incomplete scientific report. As a result, the lawyers were told that no DNA matches to their clients or any other lacrosse players had been found, but they weren't informed of genetic links involving other men, the bar complaint says.

Prosecutors, however, have an ethical and statutory duty to surrender information that could be considered favorable to criminal defendants.

Testifying at a preliminary hearing in December, Meehan admitted he and Nifong agreed to give the lacrosse defense team only positive DNA matches involving their clients or other lacrosse players.

But he said Nifong did not instruct him to deliberately withhold information about other DNA links.

Either way, defense lawyers found out what they needed to know only through a laborious data analysis of their own, they contend.