To Duke accused: I'm sorry

Members of the men's Duke lacrosse team: I am sorry.

Surely by now you know I am sorry. I am writing these words now, and in this form, as a bookend to 13 months of Duke lacrosse coverage, my role in which started with a March 27 column that began:

"Members of the men's Duke lacrosse team: You know. We know you know."

That was when Durham police and District Attorney Mike Nifong were describing a "wall of silence" among the men who attended the now-vaunted lacrosse party at 610 Buchanan Blvd. Nifong, now described by the state attorney general as a "rogue prosecutor," was widely respected as solid, even understated.

Though wrong, my initial column was cheered by hundreds of readers.

Last weekend, our public editor, Ted Vaden, laid me low for that first column, and the second, which called for the firing of lacrosse coach Mike Pressler. According to Don Yeager, a former Sports Illustrated staffer who is writing a book about the case, Pressler blames me for his dismissal. I'm sorry he ended up coaching at a Division III school.

But, lest my reporting on Duke lacrosse over the course of a year be reduced to two early columns, let me remind you that I did not just throw those two Molotov cocktails and remain mute for nine months before declaring myself "naive." My lacrosse columns numbered 14.

On April 13, 2006, two weeks after the first column, I drew comparisons between the Alleged Victim and Tawana Brawley: "If lying, take her to task."

In June, I said it was time for a special prosecutor to step in.

And on Jan. 1, I called on Nifong to do what the attorney general finally did: drop the charges. I also acknowledged publicly how wrong I had been.

For many, that wasn't enough. When the former players were declared innocent, I received 75 copies of my March 27 column (or parodies of it) and as many requests for an apology.

Here it is: I am sorry.

I would have written sooner, but for my husband's quadruple bypass surgery.

Now the lacrosse case heads to the State Bar, which barely slapped the wrists of prosecutors whose misdeeds have nearly gotten two men wrongly executed. But this one may be safe enough even for the Bar's rubber-vertebraed disciplinary committee to tackle. We'll see.

Meantime, beyond the apology, I wanted to commend the three men wrongly accused in this case for looking beyond their own troubles to other cases of injustice.

In particular, I was impressed with the statement of former team captain Dave Evans, who noted that without his parents' resources, and the fine lawyers they hired, "this could simply have been brushed underneath the rug just as another case, and some innocent person would end up in jail for their entire life."

My challenge to readers is to take up Evans' larger cause -- reforming the state's grand jury system and ensuring fair treatment for all people accused of crimes. Not just the privileged.

With that, I'll end what I hope will be my final column on the Duke lacrosse case.

This has been difficult territory. I'm paid to write about what I think as things happen. But rest assured, I know my errors. And now you know I know.