Dec. 30, 2011

“As the May 2 (2006) Democratic primary nears, (Duke lacrosse prosecutor Mike) Nifong has gotten an earful from his two opponents….

“ ‘I feel for him; no matter what he does, he can’t win,’ said Elizabeth City lawyer H.P. Williams, a former district attorney for 16 years who in the early 1990s prosecuted the high-profile sexual abuse case against the owner of the Little Rascals Day Care…

“ ‘I felt as a prosecutor that anything I didn’t say, I didn’t have to take back. So it all goes back to my No. 1 philosophy: “You have the right to remain silent.” ’ ”

–  H.P. Williams, sharing with Mike Nifong his “No. 1 philosophy”
(The Charlotte Observer, April 17, 2006)

Whatever the shortcomings of the Little Rascals prosecutors, excessive openness wasn’t among them. In fact, their entire case depended on withholding any verbatim record of how therapists extracted accusations from the supposed child-victims.

Williams most recently called on his right to remain silent when I asked whether he might have changed his mind about the defendants’ guilt.