Here is some more analysis for you: http://blog.georgetownvoice.com/2008/04/26/more-cooney-analysis/

I also find it troubling that in your article you claimed to have access to court documents that aren’t public, and you are the only one reporting that the defense “intended to challenge the credibility of the witness,” but you gave no indication of how or why you thought they were going to do that. Do you have information that others don’t have about what exactly would have made the victim not credible (other than the obvious conflicting accounts about hearsay in the classroom being the cause of the original i.d., whereby the person identified as having the conversation denied it to police prior to the arrest). You don’t even hint at what it was they had that would have put his credibility at risk. You devoted a lot of room in your story, however, to Professor Rothstein’s totally fictitious meanderings about how basically he (having nothing to do with the case), speculated that the prosecutor could prove Cooney was there and that he probably did it, but not beyond a reasonable doubt, and then allowed him to continue with his schtick on how since the Duke scandal, prosecutors are REALLY afraid now to go after people who might be able to defend themselves against baseless charges. What was the point of this? Is Rothstein saying that it’s too bad that people with money can afford to defend themselves when they are falsely accused, or is he saying that only poor people should be falsely charged with crimes by prosecutors now because we know they can’t afford to defend themselves? It sounded like he thought it was really too bad that prosecutors would have to think twice before ruining the lives of white males in college with access to money. The whole inclusion of his comments was bizarre.

I thought you told Chavez you were in the midst of getting some answers; check back tomorrow. You didn’t answer any of the questions about the state of the charges at the time of the arrest compared to the time of when they dropped the charges, pressure form the community, or the angle of bullying the defendant in order to get a plea. You do know that they offered to drop the hate crime aspect if Cooney would plead guilty to simple assault, right? Would they offer that to someone they thought committed a hate crime? Your inclusion of the wildly speculative quote from Georgetown Law Professor Paul Rothstein was a shocker; that is, in terms of reading it and going, “There is no possible way that a law professor with no information on the case actually just made that wild leap that the prosecutor could place Cooney at the crime and probably had evidence he committed the assault - huh? What?” Where in the world did that come from?

Good questions all. I’m in the midst of getting some answers; check back tomorrow for a more in-depth article.

If it is insufficient now, why was it sufficient before?

(Was the arrest made only to satisfy the community?)

Was it necessary for the defendant to have to go through the expense (including the emotional expense) of being in legal jeopardy for several months, because the US
attorney’s office needed that much time to make up its mind about the insufficiency
of the evidence?

Was the entire charge merely an exercise in bullying a defendant (and his pocketbook) in hopes of getting him to plead (which would therefore let the US attorney’s office off the hook as to why it brought charges in the first place)?

Is this typical of the way prosecutors work?