The NFL's clownish personal conduct policy implemented by Emperor Roger Goodell is an absolute joke. Not to mention a travesty of football justice.
Here's the deal -- one of the first things you learn in law school is that tough cases make bad law. That's because the facts of bad cases are difficult, if not impossible, to apply to future cases and facts. No matter how hard we try, we can't see all the implications of a tough case that will arrive in the future.
For instance, there is no doubt that the drumbeat of bad news surrounding Pacman Jones was a tough case. Even if, oh by the way, none of this bad news surrounding Pacman has resulted in a single conviction for him since he started receiving paychecks from the Tennessee Titans.
Pacman (and others) created a series of tough cases for a new commissioner, Roger Goodell, who cloaked himself in the garments of an emperor and had the power to be judge, jury and executioner for NFL justice thanks to a compliant union that has been asleep at the scales of justice. As if that weren't enough power, he also had the right to sit as his own appellate judge to rule upon the legitimacy of his own previous rulings.
Unfortunately, Emperor Goodell didn't go to law school and has never practiced law. If he had he would recognize how misguided his newly announced personal conduct policy is. It's significant that former commissioner Paul Tagliabue (an NYU Law School grad and by all accounts an amazing lawyer) did not feel the need to make the NFL an arbiter of off-field justice. Nor have other lawyer commissioners like David Stern of the NBA (Columbia Law School) or Gary Bettman of the NHL (NYU Law School) in their own league conduct policies.
While Stern has been criticized for his draconian control of the NBA's image, none of his off-court directives have come anywhere near the sweeping power of Goodell's personal conduct policy. To a large degree I think that's because these men are lawyers and recognize how difficult consistently meting out justice is. All of these men have seen in their life, in their schooling, or in their professional dealings that tough cases make bad law.
Emperor Goodell thumbed his nose at such legal nonsense, "It is not enough to avoid merely being found guilty of a crime," and "Persons who fail to live up to this standard of conduct are guilty of conduct detrimental and subject to discipline, even where the conduct itself does not result in conviction of a crime," Goodell said. I keep repeating this language because its very sweep is so astounding.
And just 35 days ago I warned that Goodell's decision on league suspensions created far more legal headaches for the NFL than it actually solved. Emperor Goodell took a tough case and made bad NFL law. You didn't have to be a genius to see that applying this law to future NFL facts was going to be difficult, inconsistent, and arbitrary.
In fact, Pacman and his lawyers pointed this out in their appeal to the league by documenting hundreds of off-field legal issues involving hundreds of different NFL players that have not resulted in league suspensions or any particularized brand of NFL "justice."
Read through this list and tell me why each of these off-field actions since the year 2000 did not merit preemptive league punishment and these current situations do.
We can't see, none of us can, the tortured reasoning that applying one legal precedent can cause when that same precedent is applied to an entirely new set of facts. Particularly when these facts have to be applied, as here, before the actual judicial system has even rendered its verdict.
Even now, I would implore Emperor Goodell to clarify his new personal conduct policy and announce that the NFL simply will take no action against players, coaches, or employees until the American judicial system has rendered judgment on these cases.
If the NFL feels the need to have a precise legal framework upon which to consistently base its punishments, bang, there is one. It's easily understood and easily applied. More importantly, it leaves the initial application of justice and the determination of guilt or innocence where it should be, within our country's judicial system.
