Can Henderson Consider The Other Stuff?

[Beast_from_East]

Can he say that the evidence of DV is too shaky to suspend for, but there was that time Zeke pulled that girl's shirt down...........so suspension reduced from 6 games to 2 games".

Can the arbitrator do that? Basically overturn the DV charge but say the other stuff warrants a game or two? I am getting worried this is what is going to happen, he will vacate the suspension of domestic violence based on lack of evidence, but will give Zeke a game or two for "conduct unbecoming" like pulling that girl's shirt down and being in the bar when the DJ got his nose broke, ect.....

So to any of the lawyers on this site, can Henderson do this or does he have to rule simply on the DV charge?

 

[FuzzyLumpkins]

It's a completely arbitrary process. He can do whatever he likes. The question is how much colluding is he doing with the league office in all of this. He doesn't exactly put the independent in independent appeal.

 

[TrailBlazer]

Yes. He was suspended for violating the personal conduct policy. Not DV

 

[MRV52]

No he can't. This is DV and nothing else.

 

[blindzebra]

The report said no penalty for the shirt thing, and the cleared him in the night club thing, so no it is the DV or nothing.

 

[ConstantReboot]

Yes. He was suspended for violating the personal conduct policy. Not DV

Nope it was s DV case. Thats the reason why he got 6 games suspension. They even threw out the pulling down the skirt incident. So its either a lower game suspension based on DV, or nothing at all.

 

[big dog cowboy]

Since this will end up in court (unless Henderson does the right thing) it doesn't really matter.

 

[Beast_from_East]

Since this will end up in court (unless Henderson does the right thing) it doesn't really matter.

I don't think that is true.

Its my understanding that the court is not considering guilt or innocence, but if the process laid out in the CBA was followed. Zeke's team is contending the process was not followed because information like Kia Robert's report was left out.

So they are trying to get the suspension thrown out because the proper process was not followed. Now if Zeke is being suspended for lifting that girl's shirt, the league could just say that it is under conduct unbecoming and it will be very difficult to prove the process was not followed. I think that is why Jerry kept saying there was zero proof of any DV, but there was other stuff the league was looking at.

So yea, it kinda does matter what Zeke gets suspended for.

 

[Wolf2k5]

Since this will end up in court (unless Henderson does the right thing) it doesn't really matter.

After all this evidence being withheld is coming out they should take it to court regardless...

 

[newera]

Based on everything that is coming out, I can find no justification for the 6 game suspension. The pro-Zeke side is using the NFL's own report and making them look silly (remains to be seen if enough people are paying attention). The NFL, to this point, has only tried to sully Zeke's name with information that is unrelated to the incident at hand all the while promising that they have more "evidence" to support/prove that Zeke did something. If they had this info/evidence I would think that they would have leaked it by now.

It may wind up not mattering (because Henderson can do whatever he wants and the courts are somewhat limited on what they can rule on) but unless there is iron-clad proof that makes its way out, the NFL is going to look horrible to anyone paying attention. This could be a major step into killing the proverbial golden goose and its a shame because this could have all been easily avoided.

 

[csirl]

No. Its an appeal of the penalty for a specific series of incidents. Can't bring in other incidents.

 

[Melonfeud]

Offhand, I'd say no, he's only there to handle the appeal pertaining to the six-game suspension of domestic violence,I've not seen any documents filed stating #21's in violation of conduct unbecoming or anything else,,, just this lame hamstring attempt for the maximum 6 games on D.V. count,,, I don't think he's authorized to issue a separate sentence ,,,kinda like throwing a penalty flag when team Elliott just walks through the door?
Ain't gonna happen.

 

[JackOfNoTrades]

gotta love the internet......ask a question and get a dozen different answers, all with conviction!!

Here's my go at it.....on the surface, no. Zeke was suspended 6 games for violating the personal conduct policy associated with the alleged DV incidents that took place over a few days in July 2016. Behind closed doors and no one would ever admit publicly, the NFL and HH can consider anything they want.

This unspoken but widely believed free for all process the NFL uses to administer its conduct policy is the crux of Zeke's court delay action.

 

[bark]

I believe the NFL already made statements that he was cleared in the blouse gate and nightclub incidents.
It appears to me that if they now were to move away from that and suspend him for things not related to DV, it would only strengthen Zeke's count case.
They gave him 6 games based on what any reasonable person would call the shakiest of evidence, so who the heck knows.
I'm thinking HH gives 2 games and hopes Zeke goes away.

 

[jazzcat22]

Maybe Henderson has and uses some common sense, especially for the bigger picture.
Sees it is a scam from the NFL. Says 0 games. And tells the NFL. He reduced it to 0 for the NFL to save face. As they do not want it to go to court.

They tried to take a stance and suspend him, to appease certain groups and people, knowing they could lose in court. However all of it backfired with all the evidence coming out of how they botched it. So for the greater good, just say zero games, and all move on.

Though the NFL should somehow be ridiculed for this for a long time

 

[jazzcat22]

Another reason for Henderson to say zero games, is that if it goes to court and Zeke wins, the NFL could be subject to a court case in ma y more suspending.

So zero games, close the books before the can of worms it opened becomes a nuclear can of worms.

 

[Pants]

the (almost) irony of all of this is that the NFL is looking to make an example of this with one of their stars being the focal point; the irony being that when they lose this, THEY will be the focal point of what not to do....they had better be sure on this one because every loser, idiot out there is going to come forward and say "(fill in the blank) player abused me!" just to get players from rival teams a suspension....

 

[Bullflop]

Nobody knows for sure what Henderson is going to do until he does it. The CBA allows for judgments to be made even if they don't coincide with this nation's legal processes. That has already been exemplified by the fact that charges have been levied by the NFL league office that directly conflict with the police reports and their ultimate decision to drop charges. There should rightfully be no place in this country to be assumed guilty until proven innocent.

It does appear that Ezekiel's lawyers will be obligated to show proof that the NFL has acted in violation of the Collective Bargaining Agreement in order to completely erase the 6-game suspension that they unfortunately opted to sentence Ezekiel to. Let's simply wish them Godspeed in doing so. The well being of many players is very likely to depend upon their success.

 

[Yakuza Rich]

Henderson could, but it would give EE's team a likely slam dunk when it's taken to court because the NFL stated in a letter that it was not suspending EE for the St. Paddy's Day incident and they reiterated that in the appeal.

That would be considered 'unfair' because there's never been a case where the NFL where they specifically stated a player wasn't suspended for something...twice...and then said 'oh, we didn't get you on what we wanted...so we'll just suspend him for something else that we told him he wasn't suspended for.'

Types like Henderson, Goodell and Friel tend to band together from my experience. Personally, I think the best decision for Henderson to make is to stay far away from Goodell's decision making as you have a mountain pile of evidence that supports EE far beyond a shadow of a doubt and nothing that corroborates TT's story. You have a doctor from the NFL that lied about a medical condition so she wouldn't have to be interviewed by Kessler. You also have an officer of the law that went out of his way to contact the NFL and the NFL, once again (like they did with Ray Rice)...ignored the call. Then you have evidence of Thompson stating that because she's white and EE is black, they'll believer her based on her race.

From reading the transcripts, Kessler is a very smart attorney. One of the basic rules of combat is to always give your opponent and out. Because if you don't give them an out you will paint the opponent in a corner and then the opponent will have no choice to but to fight you with a fury that you may not be able to handle.

That's what Kessler did for Goodell. He made the argument that Goodell possibly was not informed about some information from Friel and had that not been the case, he may have made a different decision.

Personally, I think Goodell knew, but at leas the 'out' is there for Goodell to blame Friel for this.





YR

 

[TheHerd]

Any lawsuit isn't 100% about CBA process being followed. As I state in the big thread, there are some rights which can't be signed nor negotiated away at least according to my lawyer buddy. I think some lawyers on here basically corroborated that statememt with some details.

For instance, when I race, I sign release forms. That doesn't release the race company from certain liabilities, no matter what I sign. In the caae of labor law, no CBA can negotiate away certain rights. 46 gives the NFL and sir Roger a ridiculous amount of power and leeway, but not unlimited. Capricious and arbitrary was quoted by one of the lawyers in the site as a no no. The burden of proof is tougher, but in this case Zeke has a legit case.