Even today, certain feminist bloggers are claiming that Mangum was raped in the bathroom, and that if it wasn't for Nifong's acts the Duke students would be in jail.

I don't believe such beliefs are good for feminism or society.  I wish more feminists were interested in fair trials and free speech for everyone.  (At times Jeralyn, you and free speech feminists like Wendy Kaminer have been dismissed by more "mainstream" feminists.)

I suspect the criminal contempt finding is being sought to defeat any claim of qualified government immunity in the civil suits, but since I'm not a civil lawyer, that's just a guess.

I've commented/blogged here about this issue before, but I can't remember where so I'll just synopsize. I've defended about 10 civil cases where the prosecutor was sued by a defendant for alleged violations of civil rights or tortious conduct.  These cases are losers for the plaintiffs. I never lost one and never heard of one being lost save where there was actual criminality by the prosecutor.  The cases are usually disposed of on motions to dismiss - even before discovery gets started.

The short version is this.  The prosecutor is entitled to at least three species of immunity from civil liability and, even, against the prosecution of a civil case.  These are:
(1) absolute prosecutorial immunity;
(2) qualified immunity;
(3) judicial proceedings immunity.

There are several more, too, which I discuss later.  You usually address them in this order:

(1) absolute prosecutorial immunity - This comes from the US Supreme Court case of Imbler v. Pachtman, a late 60s case out of California where, IIRC, the prosecutor knowingly got a conviction of the wrong guy for a murder.  In short, if the conduct which allegedly gives rise to liability involves the individual performing any of the duties of a prosecutor - meeting witnesses, presenting evidence, trying cases, representing to the court, deciding which evidence to put on or produce in discovery, withholding evidence, etc., then the prosecutor is deemed to be acting as a prosecutor.  When a prosecutor is acting as a prosecutor, he is absolutely immune.

Imbler and prosecutorial immunity means there is absolute immunity from civil liability for things like:  Brady violations, knowingly putting on perjured testimony, withholding relevant evidence, tampering with witnesses, securing indictments against known innocents (e.g., by giving the grand jury a partial view of the facts - the one which supports an indictment), misconduct (i.e., lying) to support warrants, lying to the judge, trial misconduct.  The list goes on, but you get the idea - the examples I list are from reported cases.

Anything which survives absolute immunity then gets to address -

(2) qualified immunity - this is the same immunity any other law enforcement person gets against civil rights claims.  The question is, in short, whether a reasonable law enforcement official in the position of the defendant knew or should have known that the conduct allegedly giving rise to the liability was unconstitutional/ a violation of the plaintiff's civil/constitutional rights.  This would apply to any conduct of the prosecutor where he was not acting in the core functions of a prosecutor.  Such things as press conferences that go beyond a mere "we have arrested X and charged Y, look at the pile of guns, money and dope we took" are about the closest a prosecutor ever gets to liability (and those are probably immune depending on the words used).  The scope of qualified immunity keeps getting larger, as every time Scalia and his buddies get their hands on a case, they find in favor of law enforcement (viz. the recent car-chase case).

Then you address -

(3) judicial proceedings immunity - this is the immunity given to lawyers, judges, witnesses and all the other personnel involved in courtroom activity, so they can say bad things about defendants and witnesses and do the investigating they have to do, in order to try cases effectively.  The scope of this immunity is defined by state law, so I won't go further.

These usually have the effect of knocking out all claims against a prosecutor under the Civil Rights Act (42 USC sec. 1983).  

Then you address claims grounded in state law.  

He may also be entitled to immunity:
(4) under N.C.'s version of its Tort Claims Act
That's a state law issue which I don't have any knowledge about other than to say that most states' TCAs have immunity for public employes except where the act in question is willful, criminal, or outside the scope of employment.  

Again, this is a state law issue I won't address because these Tort Claims Acts and their annotations usually merit a whole book unto themselves.  My guess is that the lacrosse players' lawyers are going strictly under state law-based claims, as federal civil rights claims will go nowhere fast, and the criminal contempt finding may open the door to state law liability for Nifong.

Then, depending on the State's constitutional structure and the place the prosecutor plays in it, he might get yet another bite at immunity -

(5) Under the Eleventh Amendment, there can be immunity from federal civil rights suits under particularized circumstances through a narrow, but growing, area of Eleventh Amendment law.  This is really subtle and involved, and I won't get into it here.

Finally,

(6) In appropriate cases, I also used to drive plaintiffs (and their lawyers) nuts by invoking the Rooker-Feldman doctrine in particular cases to eliminate subject-matter jurisdiction.  There was a Supreme Court decision last year (i.e., several years since I did these cases) in which the scope of Rooker-Feldman was narrowed, so I haven't looked at whether my syllogism would continue to apply (and I won't share it because it was my original idea - and wickedly powerful, too.).

Immunity is addressed before discovery begins.  Only the claims which survive immunity are proper fodder for discovery.

My suggestion would be for you to take some time and read TL's Duke Case Blog and at least educate yourself as the facts of the case.