Duke Lacrosse DA Nifong Says He'll Resign

A tearful Mike Nifong said Friday he will resign as district attorney after admitting that he made improper statements about three Duke University lacrosse players who were once charged with raping a stripper.

"My community has suffered enough," Nifong said from the witness stand at his ethics trial on allegations that he violated rules of professional conduct in his handling of the case.

The players were later declared innocent by state prosecutors.

The North Carolina State Bar said Nifong withheld DNA test results from the players' defense attorneys, lied to the court and bar investigators, and made misleading and inflammatory comments about the three athletes, who were cleared of charges they raped a stripper at a team party in March 2006.

Nifong said he did not make all the mistakes alleged by the bar, "but they are my mistakes."

"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," Nifong said.

Nifong was on the witness stand for most of the day, but he took nine sometimes awkward, sometimes tearful minutes to try to save his name and his law license, reports CBS News national correspondent Byron Pitts.

"As my parents raised me to try to do the right thing, and i have always been willing to take responsibility for the things that I have done, right or wrong. I take responsibility for the things that I have done in this case," he said.

Then, for the first and only time on the witness stand, Nifong turned to Reade Seligmann and his parents seated in court, and Colin Finnerty and his parents one row behind them.

"When I saw Mr. Seligman on the stand today, I thought that his parents must be very proud of him. I am very proud of my son and I want him to be proud of me. And I felt that it was important for him to see this because I've always told him that in this case, although I've made mistakes, I was trying to do the right thing," Nifong said.

Nifong's soft-spoken statements were barely audible in the courtroom, where observers leaned forward in their chairs as they struggled to hear Nifong through his tears. He stunned even his own attorneys and staff with the news, who said they had no idea what he had planned.

While Nifong's wife and son wept openly, most showed little sympathy for Nifong's words. Earlier, Seligmann spoke of a man who had ruined his life, reports Pitts.

"It felt like a sick joke. Like we were being toyed with. Like he was doing it maliciously on purpose to us."

But since-cleared Dave Evans' attorney rejected Nifong's attempt to take responsibility.

"It was an obvious cynical ploy to save his law license, and his apology to these people is far too little and comes far too late," defense lawyer Joseph Cheshire said.

Nifong started in the Durham County prosecutor's office nearly three decades ago as a volunteer attorney fresh out of law school. If convicted by the disciplinary committee, he could lose his license to practice law in the state.

The inflammatory statements the bar cited included Nifong calling the players a "bunch of hooligans" and confidently proclaiming he wouldn't allow Durham to become known for "a bunch of lacrosse players from Duke raping a black girl."

On the stand Friday, Nifong said: "The comment about race was not a comment that should have been made."

He also testified about the DNA tests, saying that when he turned over the report to the defense, he "believed at the time that I had given them everything." He said he didn't realize until months later that additional DNA information was missing.

"My first reaction was a variation of 'oh crap,'" Nifong said. "'I didn't give them this?'"

One of the accused players testified earlier Friday that he and his teammates had been confident that the DNA testing would quickly clear them.

The results failed to show any physical contact between the accuser and the members of the lacrosse team, but Nifong still pressed ahead with the case and obtained indictments against Seligmann, Evans and Finnerty.

"We went from being viewed as athletes to being viewed as rapists," Seligmann testified Friday.

Seligmann broke into tears as he described how his attorney got a call from Nifong notifying him of the indictment last year. He said the attorney glanced his way and said, "She picked you."

"My dad just fell to the floor, and I just sat on the ground," Seligmann said. "And I said, 'My life is over.' ... The first thing I thought about was, 'How am I going to tell my mom.'"

His attorneys pulled together ATM receipts, cell phone records, time-stamped photos and the testimony of the cab driver who took Seligmann home the night of the off-campus party where the woman, hired to perform as a stripper, said she had been attacked.

"I don't know much about the law," Seligmann said. "But you hear the word alibi, and you think that's one of the first things a prosecutor would want to have. You don't charge an innocent person. I could never understand it."

The three-member panel hearing the case is expected to deliver a verdict not long after the trial concludes, perhaps as early as Saturday.

Nifong has declined several requests for interviews in recent months. His last public comment on the case before the ethics trial was a one-page statement released the day the case collapsed. In it, he apologized, but only "to the extent that I made judgments that ultimately proved to be incorrect."

North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper, who in April said the three athletes were "innocent" victims of a rogue prosecutor's "tragic rush to accuse," declined to comment. Gov. Mike Easley, who appointed Nifong to the job and will be called on to pick his replacement, also had no comment, a spokeswoman said.