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Ray Rice suspended & cut - trouble for Goodell?

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Soda said:
This, I don't understand. The prosecutor wouldn't release the video to the NFL? Obviously, Rice's lawyer gets it if there are charges pursued (because it's evidence)... Charges weren't filed, though. The NFL can't ask the hotel?

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This is clearly bullshit. How did TMZ get the video then? I'm pretty sure it wasn't from the prosecutor.
 
Jack Brickman said:
You realize what a hypocrite Goodell would look like if he criticized law enforcement after giving Rice a slap on the wrist penalty, right?
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No. I don't see him as a hypocrite at all because the NFL is not the criminal justice system. They shouldn't be the ones punishing this shit in the first place. The NFL exists to play football and entertain. Goodell should just come out and say:"The NFL is a sports league. We don't employ real judges, there are no juries of peers, and we don't have the power to subpoena evidence. There is no legislature creating a criminal code that has specific penalties for various crimes, nor an independent judiciary to assign punishments for convictions. It shouldn't be our job to determine guilt or innocence for criminal acts that occur outside our sport because we lack the expertise to do that. That's the responsibility of the criminal justice system, and as citizens, we should all be calling the responsible parties to account when they fail in that trust. When we are forced to take action because the public authority fail in that responsibility, it's inevitable that we're going to screw that up sometimes precisely because we are not law enforcement."

He'd be absolutely right, too.

Law enforcement obviously dropped the ball on this too, but that doesn't make Goodell's weak two-game suspension acceptable. It just means both sides handled this horribly.
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I disagree. First, there was no "ball-dropping". This was a considered, deliberate decision on the part of that jurisdiction not to prosecute Rice. They have acknowledged no error and made no promise to do anything differently. That is a fundamental error on a policy level that is essentially being ingored because this has been turned into a Kardashian/TMZ celebrity issue. Which is pathetic, because this outrage completely ignores the plight of the average woman in the same situation whose husband isn't a football player.

A society can function perfectly well without professional sports leagues punishing players who commit criminal acts. For most of the time I've been watching football (since the 70's), the expectation was that if a player was accused of engaging in a criminal act, it was the job of the justice system to handle that. The NFL wasn't expected to do anything because that's not it's job.

But a society cannot function properly if the criminal justice system fails to punish people who commit criminal acts. Because when that happens, and you start relaying on independent entities like the NFL that don't (and can't) have a criminal code or actual judges, punishment for crimes is going to lose all proportionality and consistency. One wife-beater gets away scot-free because his employer doesn't get involved or isn't aware. Another wife-beater becomes a cause celebre because he happens to play football.

That is messed-up in my view. People are barking up the wrong tree to make ourselves feel good that this offends us. Whether it actually addresses victims overall appears beside the point.
 
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Adding on to the suspension isn't "double jeopardy". A case can be reopened when new evidence is presented after the ruling.
 
I created a Ray Rice thread and moved a lot of the Rice talk out of the Josh Gordon thread. Although both players were suspended their actions were not similar and the topics need to be separated.

Keep the Rice talk in the Rice thread and the Gordon talk in the Gordon thread. Thanks
 
Interesting read from a hit-or-miss site. I am no huge fan, but I also don't think they make stuff up.

http://deadspin.com/someone-is-lying-about-whether-the-nfl-saw-the-ray-rice-1631901404

Now that we've all seen video of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice knocking out his then-fiancée Janay Palmer, a set of related and legitimate questions comes up. Who all saw this video before today? When did they see it? Did the NFL use it to determine Rice's two-game suspension?

Here's SI's Peter King, back in July:

There is one other thing I did not write or refer to, and that is the other videotape the NFL and some Ravens officials have seen, from the security camera inside the elevator at the time of the physical altercation between Rice and his fiancée.

And here's ESPN's Chris Mortensen, also from July.

We saw the TMZ video of what happened outside—when he was dragging her out unconscious—but inside, I'm told from those who have seen the video, it wasn't pretty. In fact, she attacks him—we don't know the reason why—and he strikes her, strikes herhard. And her head—according to the sources I've spoken to—struck the rail inside the elevator and she was unconscious.

Here's ESPN's Jane McManus, today:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Re Ray Rice knockout punch: I was told NFL had access to same evidence the police did when evaluating a 2-game suspension.</p>&mdash; Jane McManus (@janesports) <a href="">September 8, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

And what evidence did police have? Back in July, Ravens PR told us this in an email:

Only thing we know for sure is that police who arrested Ray and Janay and then let them leave together that night saw the video.

But outwardly, and possibly for reasons having to do with both the legal elements of the case and with public relations, the NFL itself was opaque on whether it had seen the video.

Privately, top reporters were told in no uncertain terms that the video existed, that the NFL had seen it, that it showed Janay Palmer acting violently toward Rice, and that, if released, it would go some way toward mitigating the anger against him. One of the league's most devoted mouthpieces described the video for us on an off-the-record basis. The implication was clear:If you saw this video, you'd know why Rice only got two games.

Now that the video's out, the NFL and the Ravens are reversing course.

There are three possible explanations here. The first is that every single reporter who said the NFL had seen the video was lying. This seems unlikely, since they were all telling the same lie, both for public consumption and in their off-the-record talks with us.

The second is that the NFL was lying to all of the top football reporters back then about having seen the video, in some attempt to smear Janay Palmer.

The third is that the NFL is lying now about not having seen the video—that league officials saw what everyone has now seen, for whatever reason actually found it exculpatory, and are now making false claims to protect the league's image. This interpretation is supported by an employee of the Revel, the Atlantic City casino where the fight took place. He tells TMZ that the NFL saw the footage before disciplining Rice.


Whatever the case, it's almost certain that the NFL lied at some stage here, and that the league played a handful of its most loyal reporters in the process, suborning them into a smear campaign against a victim of domestic violence. Those reporters, who regularly and uncritically pass along the league's party line but are rarely exposed like this, are the ones who look foolish now. Maybe it's time for them to cut these particular puppet strings and name the sources who burned them so badly, which would do something to show that they're reporters, and not stooges. If you'd like to outsource the job to us, feel free to email us.
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polska2211 said:
Adding on to the suspension isn't "double jeopardy". A case can be reopened when new evidence is presented after the ruling.
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It's not double jeopardy because it is not a criminal case. The concept doesn't apply in any manner to what the NFL does, which is governed by the CBA.

But if it was a criminal case, there is no way in hell that a judge can up the sentence after someone has been sentenced just because some new evidence of the crime came out.

But this does kind of raise an interesting point. The NFL has established a new baseline penalty for domestic abuse -- 6 games. So does that same penalty apply no matter how hard you hit? Does a shove equal a punch? Do two punches give a greater penalty than one? What if there is a dispute as to what happened, and no conclusive evidence? For that matter, who determines how conclusive the evidence is?

The NFL is just not equipped to resolve those kind of issues in any way that won't provoke outrage on someone's part.
 
The thing that I keep thinking back to when I think about his suspension is the Ben Rothlisberger.
2010 suspension
On April 21, 2010, the NFL's Commissioner Roger Goodell announced that Roethlisberger would be suspended without pay for the first six games of the 2010 season due to a violation of the NFL's personal conduct policy. Roethlisberger was ordered to undergo a league-mandated "professional behavior evaluation" and "must adhere to any counseling or treatment that is recommended by the professional evaluators."[17] The suspension was subsequently reduced to four games.[18]

Goodell used the personal conduct penalty against Ben and gave him six games. Neither case involving Ben went to trial and had much less evidence. Ben deserved a suspension and got one. With the video that is out there Rice should have gotten at least what Ben got if not more. I think i is a bunch of crap if the NFL says that they didn't see this video. If TMZ can get the copy then the NFL could have gotten it as well. But it's all ok the NFL will show how much they care about women in October when they are putting out all the pink merchandise
 
Soda Popinski said:
Goodell used the personal conduct penalty against Ben and gave him six games. Neither case involving Ben went to trial and had much less evidence. Ben deserved a suspension and got one. With the video that is out there Rice should have gotten at least what Ben got if not more. I think i is a bunch of crap if the NFL says that they didn't see this video. If TMZ can get the copy then the NFL could have gotten it as well. But it's all ok the NFL will show how much they care about women in October when they are putting out all the pink merchandise
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The worst part is how everyone involved kept repeating what a great guy Ray was. It really makes them all look like idiots now that this video came out.
 
It's crazy because on one hand, I can see wanting Ray Rice nowhere near or affiliated with the NFL.. However, it should be considered reckless of the NFL to cut this guy loose in case he really does have a problem with hitting women. They should probably exhaust the avenues that end in rehabilitation prior to going for the banishment. I can see the NFL doing the former first, though.
 
ESPN can eat a fat dick for what just was talked about on NFL Insiders. They were discussing the fantasy football implications after the suspensions. I haven't taken the network serious for quite a while but I think that this is a new low for even them. Twenty minutes of indignant responses about how outraged they are, now how does this effect fantasy for this week.. GTFO
 
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