When the defense comes out with video footage showing the suspects elsewhere, it will hopefully result in an extreme embarrassment for this moron of a DA. And he should be made to cover the state's costs and the suspects' attorney's fees from his own personal pocketbook. He caused all this lunacy, after all.
They can qualify their actions with all the 'merely's they want. The charged these students and then went out look for evidence.
Something disgustingly wrong here.