DA in Duke Case Says He Will Resign

Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, right, speaks with an unidentified member of the audience during a break in his North Carolina State Bar trial in Raleigh, N.C., Thursday, June 14, 2007. The North Carolina State Bar has charged Nifong with breaking several rules of professional conduct when investigating the Duke lacrosse rape case, including keeping those DNA results from the defense. If convicted by a disciplinary committee, Nifong could be stripped of his license to practice law in the state. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome, Pool) (Gerry Broome - AP)

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Breaking down in tears at his ethics trial, Mike Nifong abruptly said Friday he would quit as district attorney and admitted he got "carried away" during his discredited rape prosecution of three Duke University lacrosse players.

Catching even his attorneys by surprise, Nifong said he would resign and regretted making improper statements about the players.

"My community has suffered enough," Nifong said at his trial on allegations that he violated rules of professional conduct.

State prosecutors who took over the case have declared the players innocent.

The North Carolina State Bar alleges 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'd been charged with raping a stripper at a team party in March 2006.

Nifong said he wanted to own up to his mistakes, but that he did not make all the mistakes alleged by the bar.

"I will go to my grave being associated with this case. And that's OK," Nifong said. "Whatever mistakes I made in this case were my mistakes. But they're not all the ones that the bar says I made, but they are my mistakes."

Nifong's soft-spoken statements were barely audible in the courtroom, where observers leaned forward in their chairs as they struggled to hear him through his tears.

The families of players Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans watched with little emotion, and 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," Evans 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.

Nifong acknowledged he was likely to be punished by a disciplinary committee for maybe getting "carried away a little bit" when talking about the case. He said he regretted some of his statements, including a confident proclamation that he wouldn't allow Durham to become known for "a bunch of lacrosse players from Duke raping a black girl."