Cooper ad highlights Duke lacrosse case

RALEIGH -- A campaign ad for state Attorney General Roy Cooper showcases his dismissal of charges against Duke University lacrosse players last year.

The TV ad includes a videotape of Cooper's news conference in April 2007, when he announced that the charges "were the result of a tragic rush to accuse and a failure to verify serious allegations."

The ad credits Cooper for modernizing the state's crime lab by adding DNA experts. In the lacrosse case, analysts found no DNA evidence to tie the players to an escort service dancer who claimed they had raped her.

"We use the same technology to establish innocence as we do guilt, and North Carolina's a better state because of it," Cooper says in the ad.

Cooper's campaign manager, Stephen Bryant, said the ad highlights "real leadership" by the attorney general in improving the crime lab and in guiding the state through a difficult time for the justice system.

"The improved DNA technology of the SBI crime lab is just one of the campaign issues that we will highlight," Bryant said this afternoon.

Bryant declined to discuss how widespread the ad is running but said, "it went up here today, and you'll see it for a while."

Cooper, a Democrat, is seeking his third term as attorney general. His faces Republican Bob Crumley of Asheboro in the November election.

Cooper's decision last year ended the criminal charges against the players, but the case rages on in civil court. The city of Durham and former District Attorney Mike Nifong are battling suits by former lacrosse players.