Yes It’s Double Jeapordy

The appeal hear­ing for Ray Rice con­clud­ed Thursday in New York after two days of tes­ti­mo­ny, NFL Media’s Judy Battista report­ed. Rice left the hear­ing after just less than six hours of tes­ti­mo­ny on Thursday (his wife Janay depart­ed before, per Battista). There were just under ten hours of tes­ti­mo­ny on Wednesday. The for­mer Ravensrun­ning back seeks to over­turn the indef­i­nite sus­pen­sion hand­ed down by the NFL at the begin­ning of the sea­son after video footage sur­faced of him punch­ing his then-fiancée in Atlantic City. According to Battista, Ravens gen­er­al man­ag­er Ozzie Newsome and team pres­i­dent Dick Cass were also present dur­ing Thursday’s hear­ings. Newsome spent a lit­tle under two hours giv­ing tes­ti­mo­ny, pre­sum­ably con­cern­ing “what he heard Ray Rice say in that June dis­ci­pli­nary meet­ing and what he inter­pret­ed it to mean,” per Battista. Rice and his wife also had the chance to tell their ver­sion of events.Meanwhile, Commissioner Roger Goodell was not present Thursday. The Commissioner gave tes­ti­mo­ny for approx­i­mate­ly two and a half hours Wednesday, NFL Media Insider Ian Rapoport report­ed. The basis of Rice’s argu­ment, per Battista, is that he was sub­ject­ed to dou­ble jeop­ardy when the league indef­i­nite­ly sus­pend­ed him (after orig­i­nal­ly ban­ning him for two games). Rice believes that the NFL received no new infor­ma­tion when the video became pub­lic — and that Goodell knew what happened.

“(Rice’s legal team is) say­ing Ray Rice was can­did in what he told the Commissioner when he met with him dur­ing the off­sea­son,” Battista told NFL Network. “Of course, the Commissioner has said that Ray Rice’s ver­sion of events then was ambigu­ous. “So the crux of this appeal is, what did the Commissioner know? What did he under­stand Ray Rice was say­ing to him? And was it unfair for the league to go back and sus­pend Ray Rice a sec­ond time indef­i­nite­ly?” Former U.S. District Judge Barbara S. Jones will hear and decide the appeal. In October, Jones ordered Goodell to tes­ti­fy in the hear­ing. Goodell was expect­ed to take ques­tions from Ginsberg, and from NFL Players Association out­side coun­sel Jeffrey Kessler, who will lead the ques­tion­ing. Rice also has filed a griev­ance against the Ravens for wrong­ful ter­mi­na­tion of his con­tract. nfl​.com

Whether you like Ray Rice or not is not the issue here.

Look the guy is a bad rep­re­sen­ta­tion of a man peri­od. But lets look at what occurred.

Rice beat the crap out of his then Fiancé Janay , then dragged her out of the ele­va­tor as if she did­n’t even mat­ter. To me that is wor­thy of Prison time. But wait . Rice said he told Roger Goodell what he did. Goodell gave Rice a two game sus­pen­sion . On the Criminal end of it, On March 27, 2014, a grand jury indict­ed Rice on third-degree aggra­vat­ed assault, with a pos­si­ble jail sen­tence of three to five years and a fine of up to $15,000.^[23] Rice mar­ried Palmer on March 28, 2014.^[24] For the inci­dent, Rice was sus­pend­ed for the first two games of the 2014 NFL sea­son on July 25, 2014.^[25] The crim­i­nal charges were lat­er dropped after Rice agreed to under­go court-super­vised coun­sel­ing.^[26] In a news con­fer­ence announc­ing longer sus­pen­sion lengths for future domes­tic vio­lence inci­dents, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said that he “did­n’t get it right” in decid­ing Rice’s pun­ish­ment.^[27].

But wait, lat­er the video of the inci­dent found it’s way into the pub­lic domain, after the web­site TMZ​.COM released addi­tion­al footage of the inci­dent. The Baltimore Ravens ter­mi­nat­ed Rice’s con­tract as a result. Shortly after­ward, Goodell announced that Rice had been sus­pend­ed from the NFL indefinitely.

Rice con­tends that Goodell was told the entire­ty of what had occurred before the Commissioner met­ed out the ini­tial sus­pen­sion. Ravens General Manager Ozzie Newsome said Ray Rice did not lie to him. In an inter­view with the Baltimore Sun, Ravens gen­er­al man­ag­er Ozzie Newsome was asked if Rice described what hap­pened accu­rate­ly. In the video released by TMZ ear­li­er this week, Rice is seen knock­ing out his then-fiancée with one punch.

“You know. Ray had giv­en a sto­ry to John [Harbaugh] and I. And what we saw on the video was what Ray said. Ray did­n’t lie to me,” Newsome said. “He did­n’t lie to me.” Conversely NFL Commis­sion­er Roger Goodell main­tains that he was not ful­ly aware of the extent of the assault when he decid­ed on Rice’s punishment.

Why would Rice tell Newsome the truth then lie to Goodell? law enforce­ment offi­cial says he sent a video of Ray Rice punch­ing his then-fiancée to an NFL exec­u­tive three months ago, while league offi­cers have insist­ed they didn’t see the vio­lent images until later.

Why would League offi­cials not look at the Video involv­ing such an explo­sive case which was still being dis­cussed in the pub­lic sphere? Rice who has since apol­o­gized to his fiancé and mar­ried her believes he was pun­ished twice for the same offence.

Everyone is on the band­wag­on includ­ing New Yorks Junior Senator Kirsten Gilibrand who threat­ens if the NFL does not pun­ish domes­tic abuse offend­ers the Congress would be forced to inter­vene. It seem that all Gillibrand is in office to do is to look about wom­en’s affairs. Obviously she was elect­ed to be a New York Senator for wom­en’s issues. Ray and Janae Rice are con­tend­ing dou­ble jeop­ardy . It is now up to Barbara Jones, who served as a U.S. dis­trict judge in the Southern District of New York from 1996 to 2013, to hear the appeal.

I believe Ray Rice was sub­ject­ed to dou­ble jeop­ardy. Who knows what Barbara Jones’ agen­da is ?

I haven’t heard New York Junior Senator mak­ing state­ments regard­ing Hope Solo female Soccer star, charged with assault yet still play­ing Soccer for the US. We will await her response on that .

If Jenae Rice can for­give her hus­band who the hell are oth­ers to decide they should not move on with their lives? Too many Political and spe­cial inter­est are at play in this case. I agree what Rice did was egre­gious , but he is human . If he told Roger Goodell what he did , Roger Goodell needs to go and Ray Rice needs to be back in uniform.