Your union conveyed to the league that due process for players is not a luxury, it’s a rightWhile the league currently has great concern for its brand, fairness and justice for our members is more important. For us, the starting point for these discussions must be the desire to agree upon a fair personal conduct policy and domestic violence rules from a standpoint of prevention and education. We will not accept a world where all players are viewed as perpetrators first and husbands, fathers, sons and brothers second.

DeMaurice Smith to executive committee and player representative wrote:

I think this is an excellent point. Erik Walden, for instance, his case was dismissed and still I believe he received a single or double game suspension. Why?

I still say there should be some legal precedent that states these cases (for anyone) cannot be publicized until conclusion to avoid guilty by association stigma.

Primary example for Packers fans is the type of cases like Mark Chmura's from many years ago. We will NEVER assume the male is innocent in those cases, never. Even if the court finds the defendant innocent, he is guilty by association. Granted, in Chmura's case, he's an idiot for even being in that position in the first place, but surely you get the principle being illustrated here.

Originally Posted by: Zero2Cool 

The NFL is not a democracy. Someone who has been given the privilege of playing in it has the obligation to abide by its code of behavior.

Think of NFL discipline like the Navy's Captains Mast. You may not be found guilty by the standards of the legal system, but if your actions bring disrepute on the Navy you are up sh*t creek.

The fact is, if I were a coach/GM/owner and one of my players was accused of something, I would call him in to explain himself and I don't need a jury to decide whether I want that guy on my team. Because unless it's a case of mistaken identity (like the recent Lynch case) I don't want the stink on my team's reputation, regardless of whether a slick lawyer or fat payoff got him out of trouble.

Maybe a jury decides that beating a 4 year old with a branch isn't legally child abuse but that a-hole never plays on my team again.

Originally Posted by: OlHoss1884 

So if it was a big lie that got him into trouble in the first place the guy is SOL with you just because he was accused?

The Peterson and Rice cases were one thing because the evidence was more or less available from the start of the accusations but in many cases it is not and accusations fly long before any evidence one way or the other is available.

Someone accuses your player of assault or some other crime and you cut his ass then its found out two or three weeks or more later that the entire thing was made up and you already judged the guy simply because he was accused. Nice.

Originally Posted by: sschind