It's been almost a year and a half, but Mike Felletter can finally relax. 

The night of Oct. 25, 2008 was an incredible one for the State College and Penn State communities. The Nittany Lions had just defeated the hated Ohio State Buckeyes in an edge-of-your-seat kind of game, and people were ready to celebrate.

Beaver Canyon became a standing-room-only party with an open invitation. 

For a short while, this impromptu outdoor party remained calm and orderly. But then it got out of control. From my vantage point (a good 50 yards away from the amoeba-esque gathering), I could personally see seven or eight students scaling telephone polls, drinking beers from glass bottles and disposing of them in the street or just generally trying to create havoc. I didn't stay much longer. This was a big story, and I couldn't risk ending up part of it.

At the time, I was editor in chief of the independent student newspaper, The Daily Collegian. And that night would go on to be one of the most memorable experiences of my one-year term, but not for the right reasons.

The Collegian had a big team of reporters, photographer and videographers at Beaver Canyon that night, documenting the biggest news story of the year so far. Among them was Felletter, a tall, hard-working photographer who had, until this night, flown under the radar at the Collegian.

As the celebration went on around him, Felletter snapped photo after photo. This was history in the moment, after all. But at one point, a police officer told Felletter he needed his ID. A few days later, he was charged with disorderly conduct and failure to disperse. 

The case against Felletter was weak but still was a cause for concern. If he, as I maintained throughout the proceedings, had been a photojournalist and not a rioter that night, his arrest was the beginning of a slippery slope.

The relationship between the media and the police department is a symbiotic one. As long as the journalists stay within the boundaries of the law, they can access a great deal of information. In return, the media help police distribute information to the public rather quickly. When that relationship is strained, the community suffers. 

Felletter had a big camera (no Powershots for Collegian photographers), which police said made him rile up the booze-fueled crowd. Essentially, the argument was that by him doing his job, he was participating in the riot. The facts of the case didn't strongly support that notion, and the case was dropped (and re-filed, and dropped again). Then-district attorney Michael Madeira appealed to the Superior Court.

Then, last week, the new district attorney, Stacy Parks Miller, called off the appeal "in the interest of justice." In a press release, she did not address the First Amendment concerns we raised throughout the proceedings, but it was the result I thought would have come more than a year ago.

Parks Miller ought to be commended for this decision. The case was a waste of the county's time and money, and a photojournalist no longer stands charged for doing his job.

Case closed.