Durham guilty? It takes a city...

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iuW7qKAM_1J7v0axi7e5yXdnGfHgD8U78R7O1

snip

Durham: Don't Blame Us for Lacrosse Case
By AARON BEARD – 4 hours ago
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The city of Durham says it should be dropped from a lawsuit filed by three former Duke lacrosse players wrongly accused of rape, arguing that the plaintiffs were overreaching in an effort to put taxpayers on the hook for a prosecutor's mistakes.
In its response to the former players' federal lawsuit against it and several other defendants, the city said it had no responsibility for the actions of disgraced former district attorney Mike Nifong, or for the DNA laboratory that conducted key testing in the case.
The response, filed Tuesday and publicly posted in a federal court database Wednesday, said that since Nifong's employer, the state of North Carolina, has immunity, the plaintiffs were making "overreaching conspiracy claims and other novel legal theories" in an effort to make Durham, city administrators and police officers liable.

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Well, I don't know about this being "conspiracy claims" and not being worth investigating. As a frequent panelist on juries I know that the cities usually have a tight relationship with its judicial employees. Do not mayors and so forth claim credit for good prosecutions and so forth? How can they claim credit for the good but have nothing to do with the bad? Hmm. *ponders*