Mike Nifong will serve his twenty four hours in jail beginning this morning.

Mike Nifong, the former Durham County District Attorney who led the now-discredited Duke lacrosse rape case, reported to jail Friday to begin serving a 24-hour sentence for contempt of court.

Nifong was disbarred for his handling of the highly publicized case, and a judge found him in contempt for lying to the court when he insisted he had given defense attorneys all results from critical DNA tests.

While the disgraced prosecutor can contemplate how he will spend the balance of his life, the young men who were the target of his false accusations have begun negotiations with the city of Durham seeking restitution.

The players attorneys, meanwhile, have proposed a settlement with the city of Durham that includes reforming the legal system.

If the terms aren’t met, the attorneys will file a civil rights lawsuit early next month, the person close to the case said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the proposed settlement wasn’t complete.

Durham’s police department helped Nifong secure the indictments, and a special committee probing police handling of the case stopped working last month because the city’s liability insurance provider warned that findings could provide material for civil lawsuits.

During a discussion Wednesday with Durham officials, players’ attorneys Brendan Sullivan and Barry Scheck stressed that the money they are seeking in the settlement — about $10 million each for David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann over five years — must be accompanied by legal reforms, the person said.

While the settlement would help settle all of the legal bills that this rogue prosecutor forced upon these families, it would be interesting to see what legal reforms could be gained stemming from this case. A good start might be that you cannot prosecute a high profile case while running for office.

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