ABRAMS: David Freedman, longtime North Carolina attorney, what are some of the legal community in North Carolina saying about this investigation, about the indictment, about the arrest, et cetera? </p>
<p>DAVID FREEDMAN, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, that everything has been mishandled from the start. You had a district attorney coming out and making potentially unethical statements, saying he believed a crime occurred, which he should not do. He should not be commenting on the evidence. He took an adversarial position from the start.</p>
<p>We had a situation recently in Winston-Salem that could have been racially divisive represented, Wake Forest, black football player, white female student. If the D.A. who was actually a former Duke lacrosse player himself, Jim O’Neill (ph), had taken the position and come out strong like Mr. Nifong had that something definitely occurred and sort of played the race card, it would have been very racially divisive. </p>
<p>Instead, he listened to the evidence. He let everyone be interviewed. We were all able to meet in a more congenial fashion and after a careful determination they determined that there was no charges that needed to be brought. Nobody was hurt. Nobody’s face was plastered all over the front of USA Today…</p>
<p>ABRAMS: But if he’s gone forward with the charges anyway, you know, yes, you can make an argument that it hasn’t served the public well. To me, that’s a political issue. The issue strictly as a legal matter, I understand that there are ethical cannons, et cetera, OK. Let’s move on from that. Strictly as a legal matter, based on the evidence that we know et cetera, are youit sounds like you are surprised that the D.A. moved forward. </p>
<p>FREEDMAN: I’m real surprised. It’s not the D.A.'s job to get a conviction. It’s the D.A.'s job to make sure justice is done, to make the truth is found out and rather than rushing and doing indictments two weeks before the primary is held, he should carefullyand because once you charge someone with offenses like thisI do a number of sex offensesonce the charge is brought, that’s something that will tar these two students the rest of their lives, whether the charges are dismissed, whether they’re acquitted, there will always be questions about that and it’s just a D.A. should take his time and make a careful determination and look at all of the evidence and if he hadn’t taken such a strong stand, he would have been able to view this evidence and the timeline beforehand before making thisgoing to the grand jury.
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