First he quits.

Michael B. Nifong, the Durham County district attorney, announced Friday that he would resign, as he faces disciplinary charges for his handling of a sexual assault prosecution against three former Duke University lacrosse players who were later declared innocent.

Speaking in a barely audible voice in testimony before a disciplinary hearing panel, Mr. Nifong apologized to the players, their families and the North Carolina justice system.

His resignation came as a surprise on the fourth day of a hearing by the North Carolina State Bar, which has charged him with “systematic abuse of prosecutorial discretion” for withholding evidence and making improper pretrial statements.

“It has become increasingly apparent, during the course of this week, in some ways that it might not have been before, that my presence as the district attorney in Durham is not furthering the cause of justice,” Mr. Nifong said.

Joseph B. Cheshire, a lawyer for one of the three former players, said of Mr. Nifong’s promise to resign: “I believe it is a cynical political attempt to save his law license. His apology is far too late.”

Not only did Nifong not further the cause of Justice, he actually ripped off her blindfold, forced her onto her knees and sodomized her on the steps of the courthouse in Durham on a regular basis last year. Cheshire is correct -- this apology is far too late, as well as woefully inadequate.

And now Nifong waits for justice.

UPDATE: Nifong found guilty by bar panel. JUSTICE SERVED!

Mike Nifong broke several rules of professional conduct during his disastrous prosecution of three Duke University lacrosse players falsely accused of rape, committing "deceit and misrepresentations," a disciplinary committee ruled today.

The committee must now decide if the longtime prosecutor in Durham County, who has already pledged to resign his post as district attorney, should be stripped of his law license.

The North Carolina State Bar charged Nifong with breaking several rules of professional conduct, including lying to both the court and bar investigators and withholding critical DNA test results from the players' defense attorneys.

Let's see -- guilty of "dishonesty, fraud, deceit and misrepresentation." But then again, we already knew that.

Here's hoping that the penalty s disbarment -- followed by a criminal prosecution for the violation of the civil rights of these three young men.

UPDATE II: NIFONG DISBARRED IN NORTH CAROLINA!

In a case that has brought one surprise after another, a disciplinary hearing panel found Michael B. Nifong, the Durham County district attorney, guilty today of ethical violations while pressing a false accusation of sexual assault against three former Duke University lacrosse players. The panel then ruled that Mr. Nifong should be disbarred.

But the ruling was almost an anticlimax to the case because in the penalty phase of the five-day ethics hearing, David Freedman, one of Mr. Nifong’s lawyers, told the panel that Mr. Nifong believed that disbarment was “the appropriate punishment in this case.” The state also said it felt disbarment was appropriate.

After deliberating for less than an hour, the panel stated that any punishment short of disbarment would not be appropriate in the case.

In a lengthy statement, F. Lane Williamson, chairman of the disciplinary committee, said that Mr. Nifong had received due process, “and that’s what was nearly hijacked in the case of the Duke lacrosse defendants.”

Six of the charges against Mr. Nifong involved “dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation,” the most serious of the accusations against Mr. Nifong.

SOme questions remain:

1) When will the criminal charges for civil rights violations be brought against Nifong?

2) When will Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and the other professional racists who presumed guilt on the part of the falsely accused young men offer their apologies?

3) What sanction will Duke administrators and professors whose words and deeds explicitly and implicitly damned the falsely accused young men face? This especially applies to the Duke 88, who have expressed no remorse for their condemnation of the innocent students (and their teammates) before any evidence was in the public domain?

4) When will the false accuser face some sort of justice?

Justice was done today in Durham -- but there is still a long way to go.

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