updated 2:36 p.m. ET Oct. 9, 2006

DURHAM, N.C. - There’s not much middle ground in the legal community when it comes to opinions of local prosecutor Mike Nifong’s most famous case.

His law school classmate Patricia McDonald, citing “an utter lack of evidence that a crime even occurred,” wrote to Gov. Mike Easley and urged him to pressure Nifong into stepping aside in the Duke University lacrosse rape case.

“Mr. Nifong has lost his moral compass despite his claim that he is a ‘committed advocate for the truth,”’ wrote McDonald, a former assistant in the Maryland Attorney General’s office.

That’s not the Durham County district attorney whom John Bourlon knows.

The criminal defense lawyer has faced off against Nifong hundreds of times over the past three decades. He’s seen the prosecutor drop a weak case the day before trial.

Despite the supposed flimsiness of the evidence in the Duke case, Bourlon keeps coming to the same conclusion:

“I’m CONVINCED he has something.”

Untold hours of television air time and countless drums of ink have been spent parsing what the Duke case — with its three white, private-college defendants and the poor, black stripper who accused them — says about race and class in our society.

More recently, the question has been: What does the case say about the fairness of our justice system — and the power of those who run it?

If the American legal system is a machine, the prosecutor is the On/Off switch. The prosecutor decides whether a person should be charged with a crime and, if so, which among a wide array of statutes should be used. Ultimately, it’s his choice whether to go to trial or drop the case.

These are decisions, of course, that can upend a person’s life, says Joshua Marquis, a vice president of the National District Attorneys Association. “Accusing a man of sexual misconduct ... is just about the worst scarlet letter you can paint on somebody. And there is enormous responsibility that comes with that.”

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Nifong’s critics say he has abused his discretion, prejudicing the case with unethically loose talk, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge contradictions in the accuser’s statements and ignoring strong exculpatory evidence. The players’ defense lawyers accuse Nifong of using the case to woo black voters in a tight election.

But fellow prosecutors say the job’s wide discretion cuts both ways.

“What happens if he decides, ‘I’m not going to present it to the grand jury. I’m going to play judge and jury, and these guys are going to walk’?” says Charles M. Hatcher Jr., a former West Virginia prosecutor who successfully overcame a misconduct complaint. “Damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.”

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