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The state legislature's action helped expose misconduct in the infamous Duke University rape case in 2007. Durham County District Attorney Michael Nifong's mishandling of the prosecution of lacrosse team members who had been falsely accused led to his disbarment and subsequent personal bankruptcy. Nifong was accused of hiding excul-patory evidence.

"Virtually every standard is being revised," says U.S. District Judge John Tunheim of Minneapolis, who chairs the task force. The revisions, which are not yet public, will be reviewed initially by the Criminal Justice Section's Standards Committee. A final version will take several years to wend its way through the approval process.

In Santa Clara County, for instance, the colleagues of suspended deputy DA Field rallied against the threat of more oversight. Last year the Government Attorneys Association—the bargaining unit for the county's deputy DAs, public defenders, and child-support lawyers—drafted legislation that would shift the investigation and prosecution of misconduct charges against State Bar prosecutors from the Office of Trial Counsel to the state attorney general's office. The measure, titled the State Bar Fairness Act, also would establish a statute of limitations: Any investigation must begin within three years of the discovery of the alleged misconduct; formal charges would have to be filed no more than a year later. And under the proposal, prosecutors acquitted of charges could recover defense costs.