I just got back from Attorney General Roy Cooper’s press conference and also the press conference held by the attorneys for Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans. I’ll have a video up later tonight and a couple of photos, but I had a few observations before I head home from the office.

1) The biggest losers today are Durham DA Mike Nifong, The Herald-Sun and the City of Durham. Nifong, for obvious reasons, is in big trouble. But Seligmann attorney Jim Cooney took special pains to single out the cowardice of The Herald-Sun, a newspaper where I spent 19 years as an editor. If the hometown paper had just once pointed to Nifong’s abuse of process, Cooney said, all of this might have been avoided. But they didn’t, to their everlasting shame. I’ve said before that if the previous regime — pre-Paxton Media — had been in charge, we would not have abandoned our duty as the public watchdog the way the Paxton-led Herald-Sun did. And also, Durham. Durham came off as a Third World cesspool of corruption today. First, the state’s attorney general blasted the district attorney in the strongest terms. Then Evans attorney Joe Cheshire and Cooney both cited the lack of professionalism among Durham’s police and DA’s office, and also the behavior of so-called “community activists,” white and black, who fanned the flames of racial hatred for political ends. Durham should hang its head in shame tonight.

2) The media took a beating. All of the lawyers made clear that it was the media nationally, like The Herald-Sun locally (and, I might add, The News & Observer, which is certainly not without fault), that ignored the facts for what they thought was a better story: rich, white lacrosse players rape poor black mother just trying to make her way through college. It was always a crock, and now they know it. Cheshire pointed out their sins to them in person today. Katie Couric, Harry Smith and Greta Van Susteren were there to hear it first-hand. It was wonderful to see.

Also, Roy Cooper. Well, he got a lot of people’s votes today. His statement was much stronger than I had ever hoped. He came through with what Cheshire called a “crystal clear and powerful” statement that proclaimed the innocence of the three players in explicit terms. It was a masterful performance and each lawyer and each player pointed that out.

Another impression: These three guys are incredibly smart and eloquent. As Cooney said, you only had to spend 10 minutes with any one of them to know they weren’t capable of the crimes that Crystal Gail Mangum (yes, that’s her name) accused them of. Their statements were wonderfully crafted, not vindictive, and were pointed toward the future.

As I said, I’ll have video later and a photo or two.

UPDATE: Photos have been added above. Also, here are links to PDFs of Cooper’s statement and the dismissal orders for Reade, Collin and Dave.

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