![\"120813Cooper\"](\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/120813Cooper.jpg\")
Aug. 26, 2013<\/p>\nAug. 26, 2013<\/p>\n
\u201cAttorney General Roy Cooper stopped far short of apologizing to (Greg Taylor and Floyd Brown). He said that the SBI had better investigative practices now and that \u2018It was in the best interest of the state to settle these cases.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd maybe in the best interest of justice, too?<\/p>\n
\u201cThese two men lost their youths thanks to agents of the SBI. That is an outrage for which they can never be adequately compensated. State officials have been encouraged to offer profuse apologies, and that is not unreasonable, though it\u2019s a little late for it now….<\/p>\n
\u201cBut let no one involved in prosecuting these two men believe that the debt for their \u2018mistakes\u2019 is paid in full.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 From \u201c<\/em>Two former prisoners’ lives, valued<\/em><\/a>,\u201d editorial in the News & Observer (Aug. 15, 2013)<\/em><\/p>\n As compensation for their flagrantly corrupted prosecution, Taylor received about $4.5 million from the state, Brown about $8 million. Attorney General Cooper seems to find such an outlay easier to swallow than offering an apology \u2013 providing yet another example of the \u201cMistakes Were Made (But Not By Me<\/a>)\u201d approach to accountability.<\/p>\n By contrast, in 2007 the Duke lacrosse case moved Cooper to give the defendants a \u201cstatement of innocence\u201d and to at least\u00a0brush up against remorse<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cIn the rush to condemn, a community and a state lost the ability to see clearly…. I think a lot of people owe a lot of apologies to a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n But in 2009, after yet another wrongful conviction settlement \u2013 this one for $3.9 million \u2013 Cooper declined to give murder defendant Alan Gell a statement of innocence. ”The Duke case was a clear case, very unusual,” he explained. “There was no crime committed….\u201d<\/p>\n