In a Wednesday afternoon press conference, Attorney General Roy Cooper exonerated the three accused lacrosse players, saying they were innocent of all charges, and laid the blame squarely at the feet of Durham County D.A. Mike Nifong.

He also said, among other things, that:

• There was a tragic rush to judgment and a failure to verify evidence
• That the I.D procedure was flawed
• That there was no DNA to verify the charges
• There are no confirming witnesses
• There were too many contradictions in the allegations made by Crystal Gail Mangum for them to be taken seriously. These include contradictions with phone records and her many shifting accounts of what happened
• That he was proposing a law which would give the N.C. Supreme Court the ability to take over cases like this in limited circumstances
• That there needs to be a better system of check and balances for district attorneys
• That a lot of people owed a lot of other people apologies

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