stlrunner
jakeyjakey
- St Louis, MO
Considering you could have received bed bugs from a Motel 6, maybe that's a good thing.
TSJ Thread
- Status
Chad Fleck
- Eureka, IL
I'm guessing this is what makes Lville mad.
Doesn't sound promising. Chances of TSJ playing again is dwindling?
Prob the university trying to get the case moved to federal court and/or the judge refusing him or herself. I'd say he is referring to the university. This will cause a delay. I presume they are aware of the facts of the case and are still choosing to make things difficult for TSJ. The university is making a choice to make it difficult for him at this point.
This case may ultimately result in significant policy changes across NCAA, but my fear is that its outcome will be too late for TSJ's college basketball career.
I think the TRO and the motion to dismissal are two separate things, that’s how I’m reading it but I’m not a lawyer so not quite sure.
Well this is about the worst news I think we could’ve gotten today. I’d guess any hope of TJs return is all but done now?
What is the purpose of having this moved up to a Federal level? Seems a little excessive given everything that has come out.
danielb927
Orange Krush Class of 2013
- Rochester, MN
I've been storing up a lot of thoughts, and in light of the release of more information last night, wanted to share some of them. I apologize in advance for the long post.
First of all, a lot of posts are addressing the prevalence of false accusations, unreported crimes, and topics one might consider part of the "culture wars" of our time.
The first thing to recognize is that many people are convicted for crimes they didn't commit, while many others did commit crimes and aren't convicted. Both things can be, and very much are, true.
The prevalence of both types of mistake also can and should guide the questions we ask around how we handle criminal cases. How many actual offenders walking free is too many? How many wrongful convictions is too many?
It's all well and good to say that, morally, one of either is too many. But realistically, we will never make both numbers zero. Even more unfortunately, efforts to reduce one number will most likely lead to an increase in the other. Want to be tough on crime? Fewer criminals will walk free - but you're going to lock up a few innocent people too. Or is "innocent until proven guilty" the most important thing? In that case, more innocent people will see justice prevail - but more victims won't, because the burden of proof can't be met.
In the case of sexual violence, the trend that has been playing out over the past decade is a recognition of (and response to) the fact that this ratio was heavily skewed towards guilty persons going free.
I am not an expert, and I can't prove this as fact, but I'm still choosing to use the word "fact" because it seems so thoroughly supported by everything I've attempted to learn. This trend manifested itself in many ways: overt victim blaming or shaming; non-reporting due to low expectations for any justice being done or relief given; reframing of acknowledged acts as appropriate rather than inappropriate. The response to that, then, has been to make efforts to ensure more actual crimes are reported and prosecuted. And this involves a whole host of efforts: awareness campaigns; efforts to encourage belief in those making an accusation; likely an increase in decisions to prosecute cases with less concrete evidence.
That is the context we're in on a societal level - a shift away from the heavy presumption of innocence in cases of possible sexual violence.
Second, the strength of this particular case is a topic of ongoing discussion.
This is where "IANAL" comes in, of course. That said, in trying to read the documents that were released yesterday with an impartial, disinterested mind, I arrived at the conclusion that this is, at present, a "he said, she said" case. It sounds neither like something that absolutely had to have happened, nor like something that absolutely could not have happened. It also sounds like something that, if it did happen, matches what was charged.
That's really about all I can say from what I read. The caveats and ongoing questions are much more numerous and significant. We (or at least I) have no idea if there's additional evidence that has yet to surface. Personally, I have no idea what the standards are for conviction on either charge - what they were, whether they've changed in light of the societal changes above, or to what degree judge or jury variability weighs in. To my untrained eye and (probably futile) attempts to be impartial, the case seems to be on the weaker side. But, I put very little confidence in that assessment. The posts by others with more expertise, which I greatly appreciate, seem to have some level of variability, confirming my view that this is not a straightforward assessment to make.
That, in summary, is where the legal case seems to be at - a case of conflicting accounts with a huge amount still uncertain.
My last point is the one I feel is perhaps the most challenging. As important as these discussions are - as relevant as first is to the world we're constantly re-shaping, and as critical as the second may be in determining whether we see TSJ play again - to me, they amount to approximately zero information about whether what's alleged did or didn't occur.
And that's hard, because we all want to know. How could we not?
Like most of us, I had a good impression of TSJ's character before the charges were filed. He seems like a nice guy, a hard worker, and a good teammate. But I have to be honest with myself - the impression I have is based on watching him play basketball, on thirdhand message board reports, and on the curated media personality that every high-profile athlete works hard to polish. In other words, I like the guy, but would be seriously kidding myself to feel like I know him.
And yet, despite my best efforts to be impartial, I still want to know whether TSJ is "good" or "bad". I want to know if he "did it" or not. I want concrete information to tell me whether to root for him unequivocally or to write him off entirely. I'm not proud of this inclination, but at our core, morality and the desire to be one of the "good guys" is really what drives us all, and this is no more than an expression of that desire. The fact that I regard almost everyone in the world as striving for good within their own worldview, though I hold that at the core of my identity, helps only a little.
Unfortunately again (as so many things are in this case), I don't hold out much hope that we ever will know what happened. Even if the case turns out to be the thinnest of thin, barring something specifically exonerating, that would only amount to an absence of evidence - not an evidence of absence. On the flip side, if there's enough evidence to lead to some sort of conviction, it will still be natural to question that evidence, or even to go a level deeper and concede the action but wonder about the motivation.
In summary, time - a lot of time - will eventually tell us how we as a society chose to change our response to sexual violence claims in this era. Trying to assess that via what happens to TSJ is short-sighted; not useless, but of the same value as any other single sample. Time - a bit less of it - will also tell us whether TSJ is criminally guilty or not. That is the key question of the day, the one that impacts us as fans and, on some level, the only one that matters to us as participants in a society governed by the rule of law.
No amount of time, in all likelihood, will reveal what really happened in that bar on that day at that hour. The challenge, as I see it, is to make peace with that uncertainty.
First of all, a lot of posts are addressing the prevalence of false accusations, unreported crimes, and topics one might consider part of the "culture wars" of our time.
The first thing to recognize is that many people are convicted for crimes they didn't commit, while many others did commit crimes and aren't convicted. Both things can be, and very much are, true.
The prevalence of both types of mistake also can and should guide the questions we ask around how we handle criminal cases. How many actual offenders walking free is too many? How many wrongful convictions is too many?
It's all well and good to say that, morally, one of either is too many. But realistically, we will never make both numbers zero. Even more unfortunately, efforts to reduce one number will most likely lead to an increase in the other. Want to be tough on crime? Fewer criminals will walk free - but you're going to lock up a few innocent people too. Or is "innocent until proven guilty" the most important thing? In that case, more innocent people will see justice prevail - but more victims won't, because the burden of proof can't be met.
In the case of sexual violence, the trend that has been playing out over the past decade is a recognition of (and response to) the fact that this ratio was heavily skewed towards guilty persons going free.
I am not an expert, and I can't prove this as fact, but I'm still choosing to use the word "fact" because it seems so thoroughly supported by everything I've attempted to learn. This trend manifested itself in many ways: overt victim blaming or shaming; non-reporting due to low expectations for any justice being done or relief given; reframing of acknowledged acts as appropriate rather than inappropriate. The response to that, then, has been to make efforts to ensure more actual crimes are reported and prosecuted. And this involves a whole host of efforts: awareness campaigns; efforts to encourage belief in those making an accusation; likely an increase in decisions to prosecute cases with less concrete evidence.
That is the context we're in on a societal level - a shift away from the heavy presumption of innocence in cases of possible sexual violence.
Second, the strength of this particular case is a topic of ongoing discussion.
This is where "IANAL" comes in, of course. That said, in trying to read the documents that were released yesterday with an impartial, disinterested mind, I arrived at the conclusion that this is, at present, a "he said, she said" case. It sounds neither like something that absolutely had to have happened, nor like something that absolutely could not have happened. It also sounds like something that, if it did happen, matches what was charged.
That's really about all I can say from what I read. The caveats and ongoing questions are much more numerous and significant. We (or at least I) have no idea if there's additional evidence that has yet to surface. Personally, I have no idea what the standards are for conviction on either charge - what they were, whether they've changed in light of the societal changes above, or to what degree judge or jury variability weighs in. To my untrained eye and (probably futile) attempts to be impartial, the case seems to be on the weaker side. But, I put very little confidence in that assessment. The posts by others with more expertise, which I greatly appreciate, seem to have some level of variability, confirming my view that this is not a straightforward assessment to make.
That, in summary, is where the legal case seems to be at - a case of conflicting accounts with a huge amount still uncertain.
My last point is the one I feel is perhaps the most challenging. As important as these discussions are - as relevant as first is to the world we're constantly re-shaping, and as critical as the second may be in determining whether we see TSJ play again - to me, they amount to approximately zero information about whether what's alleged did or didn't occur.
And that's hard, because we all want to know. How could we not?
Like most of us, I had a good impression of TSJ's character before the charges were filed. He seems like a nice guy, a hard worker, and a good teammate. But I have to be honest with myself - the impression I have is based on watching him play basketball, on thirdhand message board reports, and on the curated media personality that every high-profile athlete works hard to polish. In other words, I like the guy, but would be seriously kidding myself to feel like I know him.
And yet, despite my best efforts to be impartial, I still want to know whether TSJ is "good" or "bad". I want to know if he "did it" or not. I want concrete information to tell me whether to root for him unequivocally or to write him off entirely. I'm not proud of this inclination, but at our core, morality and the desire to be one of the "good guys" is really what drives us all, and this is no more than an expression of that desire. The fact that I regard almost everyone in the world as striving for good within their own worldview, though I hold that at the core of my identity, helps only a little.
Unfortunately again (as so many things are in this case), I don't hold out much hope that we ever will know what happened. Even if the case turns out to be the thinnest of thin, barring something specifically exonerating, that would only amount to an absence of evidence - not an evidence of absence. On the flip side, if there's enough evidence to lead to some sort of conviction, it will still be natural to question that evidence, or even to go a level deeper and concede the action but wonder about the motivation.
In summary, time - a lot of time - will eventually tell us how we as a society chose to change our response to sexual violence claims in this era. Trying to assess that via what happens to TSJ is short-sighted; not useless, but of the same value as any other single sample. Time - a bit less of it - will also tell us whether TSJ is criminally guilty or not. That is the key question of the day, the one that impacts us as fans and, on some level, the only one that matters to us as participants in a society governed by the rule of law.
No amount of time, in all likelihood, will reveal what really happened in that bar on that day at that hour. The challenge, as I see it, is to make peace with that uncertainty.
Any reasoning on making it go to federal court?
The fact that the initial judge recused himself, and that the case is being transferred to the federal court reminds me that, back in the day, I tried a couple cases in the federal court there. One judge went out of his way to criticize me for simply wearing an orange and blue tie, saying he had no pro-Illini sentiments. Yes, the comment was very strange at the time, and no, I didn't win that case.
His attorneys are not arguing that the university was not "smart enough" to keep him on campus and letting him go to Lawrence, they instead are planting the seeds to argue that TSJ is actually an "employee" of the University because the University (through the grad assistant) drove him and Harmon to the game, and "controlled" his actions while there by requiring the grad assistant to check in with coaching staff, etc.
By arguing that he was an "employee" of the University, it bolsters the notion that he should be afforded more protection than if he was just a student athlete governed by the University policies and bylaws. It is a strategic move that to assist their argument that Title 9 was violated and that the DIA hearing violated his due process by not allowing him to appear at the hearing or to testify on his behalf.
More impartial judge, which I do understand. It is not as bad of a look to the university if it's granted on a federal level. Still frustrating
You can check out but you can never leave.
Just want to say that my post has nothing to with this situation. But I would like everyone to become more educated on million dollar athletes and the struggles they go thru in dealing with false allegations. These allegations and those that find them guilty in the court of public opinion, do irreparably harm to their lives and their families lives. Also, many are forced to a settlement just to keep the allegations from becoming public instead of fighting for their innocence because they know how the public will judge them no matter the real facts.
JMO. I'd think Shannon would have a better shot with a state court Judge than a federal judge. now that its federal, all filings should be available electronically when filed as long as you have a pacer account so news should come out quicker...
TSJ's attorneys in their Complaint and Motion in Support made numerous arguments that the University violated Title 9 by not affording TSJ due process and by not complying with Title 9's safeguards and by not complying with Title 9's required "risk analysis" of TSJ remaining on campus and being a "danger" to others.
From a civil procedure standpoint (the process of determining which court has "jurisdiction" to hear a case), removal of a state court action to federal court can happen for a number of different reasons, of which I will not go into details on because it is not relevant to his case. (See here https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1446).
My prediction as a licensed Illinois attorney is that it is based on "federal question jurisdiction", meaning the University is arguing that federal law governs TSJ's claims, and that the more appropriate "venue" or court is federal court, not Champaign County Court.
This was always going to be what happened in this instance, the matter will now appear before the Central District of Illinois Federal Court.
- Status