I’m referring to Jonah’s post yesterday. If the AP report is true, and the quotes from Nifong are accurate, that is just breathtaking incompetence. It is unethical to indict a case — not talking mere arrest here, but indictment, which is a much weightier step — unless a prosecutor is personally convinced that a rational jury would find a defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt at trial based on the facts that are known at the time of indictment. How can you indict a he-said-she-said case without first satisfying yourself about what she would actually say?

Nifong is not a social worker, he’s the prosecutor. It’s not his job to inform himself about how the witness is doing. Of course, as a human being and as someone who has to work with a witness, you always ask such questions. But the prosecutor’s principal task is to get the witness’s testimony and evaluate it against other known evidence. Indictment can ruin lives. You don’t do it unless you’re confident you’ve got the goods.