OT - Patriots Deflate Report

[Peter_Spaeth]

Steve, the path for a labor dispute under a collective bargaining agreement is very different from the path of a court case typically initiated in a trial level court. Here, the "appeal" is in the first instance to the Commissioner and THEN to a federal district (trial) court. A normal federal court case would be initiated at the district court level, with an appeal to a federal appeals court, and a (typically) discretionary appeal from there to the US Supreme Court. There is a similar path for state court cases.

[steve B]

Cool! I've learned a few interesting things today

Steve B

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

Steve, the path for a labor dispute under a collective bargaining agreement is very different from the path of a court case typically initiated in a trial level court. Here, the "appeal" is in the first instance to the Commissioner and THEN to a federal district (trial) court. A normal federal court case would be initiated at the district court level, with an appeal to a federal appeals court, and a (typically) discretionary appeal from there to the US Supreme Court. There is a similar path for state court cases.

[Peter_Spaeth]

In a court case, you don't hear about motions for reconsideration all that much because the grounds are very narrow. You can't just ask a court to take another look at what it just did. And even at that, the overwhelming majority are denied.

[nolemmings]

While motions for reconsideration are somewhat unusual, motions for new trial are not, and in fact are often a pre-requisite to an appeal. Such motions are another example of letting the same judge re-visit the outcome over which he himself presided, by arguing that certain errors in the trial require that a decision be reversed. Again these are not widely granted, but they represent situations where the same decision-maker is basically asked to undo what was done before. The fact that your chances of winning are not good does not make the process fundamentally unfair, as again these provide an opportunity for correction of errors while still preserving a party's right to appeal to another forum.

[nolemmings]

What do you think about not using the existing rule and penalty? It seems to me that without the public outcry, it would have been the required 25K fine, maybe for each ball and that would be the end of it. (Probably another example of the laymans understanding of legal stuff being incomplete at best - I hear fairly often that someones prior record can't be used. Maybe at sentencing it can but not earlier? )

Steve you raise some good points. I believe part of the issue here was not just the footballs from the game in question, but that upon investigation it seems this activity had been going on for awhile or at least on previous occasions. This made the league concerned about a team trying to gain an unfair competitive edge--cheating-- on possibly a regular and systematic basis, which could be perceived as affecting the integrity of the game. Brady's response and manner of handling the matter was seen as evasive or maybe obstructionist, which took this thing way beyond just an equipment violation. And yes, the Patriots' history was quite possibly a factor. Prior bad acts generally are not admissible when determining whether someone is guilty/liable of a new charge, but there can be exceptions--although as noted, this being a labor dispute, civil or criminal court rules do not necessarily translate and apply.

I think I'm going to take a break from this whole thing for awhile-- I doubt many or maybe any have changed their positions since this story first broke and I really have no strong preference as to the outcome.