DURHAM, N.C. -- The chairman of the Durham County Republican Party plans to challenge the district attorney prosecuting three Duke lacrosse players charged with rape, saying many people are uncomfortable with how Mike Nifong is handling the case.
No Republicans ran in last month's primary election, in which Nifong defeated two Democratic challengers and appeared set to remain in office following an uncontested general election in November.
Steve Monks, a lawyer in private practice who became county GOP chairman last year, said he will have to file a petition with 6,500 signatures by the end of June in order to appear on the November ballot. Durham County Commissioner Lewis Cheek has said he is considering a write-in campaign.
Monks has no experience as a prosecutor and has never run for elected office. Still, he said he thought it was important that someone challenge Nifong.
"We in Durham are very tired of all the publicity," Monks said during a brief news conference in front of the Durham County Judicial Building. "I think (Nifong) led with his heart and not with his head and that's a difficult thing to do. It says a lot for his heart. It doesn't say a lot for his head in that particular case."
In April, a grand jury indicted team members Reade Seligmann of Essex Fells, N.J., and Collin Finnerty of Garden City, N.Y., on charges of rape, kidnapping and sexual offense. David Evans, a team co-captain from Bethesda, Md., was indicted on the same charges in May.
The three players all have court hearings scheduled for Thursday, although none are expected to attend in person and will instead be represented by their attorneys.
Defense lawyers and some community members have questioned Nifong's work on the case. In April, before any players were arrested, he said publicly he believed a rape had occurred during a March 13 team party and that he ordered DNA evidence because he needed "information about who will be charged."
The DNA evidence, as described by defense lawyers, found no link to any of the players. The defense has also argued that the accuser, a 27-year old college student hired to perform as an exotic dancer, told authorities different stories about the night of the party and that her photo identifications of the players charged were flawed.
The defense has also suggested Nifong has not given them all the evidence he might have, as required. Last month, Nifong provided nearly 1,300 pages of discovery, saying that was all he had to turn over.
Nifong has consistently declined to be interviewed in recent weeks, and an article published in Newsweek magazine this week said the prosecutor sent an "angry" e-mail turning down an interview request. In the e-mail, Nifong said he still believes the accuser was raped.
"None of the 'facts' I know at this time, indeed, none of the evidence I have seen from any source, has changed the opinion that I expressed initially," Nifong said in the e-mail to Newsweek.
Nifong released a copy of the e-mail Monday with a statement saying the Newsweek report "mischaracterizes the tone of my response." In the e-mail, he said he is ethically bound to not comment now that charges have been filed; he granted numerous interviews early in the investigation.
"That has left the field pretty much open to the defense attorneys," Nifong wrote, adding he is surprised by "the lack of any degree of skepticism" regarding claims made by the defense attorneys, "many of which are misleading and some of which are absolutely false."
Nifong said the defense's job is to create reasonable doubt, "a task made all the easier by an uncritical national press corps desperate for any reasonable detail, regardless of its veracity."
"The lesson I have learned from all of this is that I would probably be best served in the future by avoiding speaking to the press at all," he wrote.
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