Most of my experience with government cases has been that the government is not interested in settling at all when it believes it has immunity. I'm guessing this is a very tough case to win, but obviously there are lots of details yet to come out. Obviously TJ and his attorneys think there is value; hopefully they are right.
TSJ files lawsuit against Douglas Co. DA, Lawerence PD
Those initial police reports, which appear to have been cobbled together haphazardly well after the fact, will serve as some strong evidence in TSJ’s favor.
It's some greedy lawyers behind it really,but since they did cost him about 8 months of unnecessary shame and at least ten spots in the draft...It's kind of a great precedent to set for any of the municipalities to learn from
I believe Terrance innocent and found it appalling that they took him to trial with the level of evidence, to say nothing about the obviously stronger suspect who was present and wasn't even investigated. Potentially this later fact is part of why his lawyers think they have a case here. That said, I'm surprised he is bringing this. I very much hope he wins. I also very much hope he has a contingency fee agreement with his attorneys rather than an hourly fee. I don't know anything about the elements of the KS statute they are invoking but I would assume it is in general quite difficult to win. I am a lawyer (not in Kansas, don't know this statute) but I'm less optimistic about this than I was the criminal case where I perhaps naively, but ultimately correctly always thought the jury would get that one right. I don't post much, but when I do it's to remind the world this is a good guy. Living in Champaign and being involved in youth sports, I have seen many of the Illini players in numerous sports volunteer their time, including Terrance to support local kids with their attention and enthusiasm. I don't know the man, but I was struck by his graciousness with the kids. Good luck TJ!
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One concern I have regarding Shannon's case is that at least three involved in the DA's office will have left the office by the end of the investigation and will have deleted anything related to Shannon before an investigation can get to it.
Isn't that a little obstructiney?
Joel Goodson
- dawgville
the bar here is really high (and rightfully so). that said, Shannon has a legit case, IMO (not a lawyer). wouldn't surprise me one bit if the county ends up settling
I would think they have a records management plan like most (all?) other govt offices. If those files/emails have been deleted and cannot be restored, methinks that is evidence.
Epsilon
M tipping over
- Pdx
Once there was the sniff of a potential lawsuit the local DA’s office would probably have to place a legal records hold on anything related to the case - and that includes everything potentially related to the lawsuit, even things like sticky notes with material that could be related. If it ever came out that anything was destroyed that would be obstruction of justice, and those DA’s would potentially face disbarment. Not saying it doesn’t happen but there is a gigantic disincentive to do so.
Valdez (and others) can plead ignorance when it comes to record retention, especially if the records were on their personal devices. They might get admonished (when they've already left the office so who cares) and Shannon's case ends with a lesser settlement because without the incriminating records his claims can't be completely confirmed, but there's enough possibility so neither side will risk a court battle and settle.
Look at the result of that hearing against Valdez, with the result being a public censure. With that precedent set do you think if she said she may have deleted some texts related to the case, she'd get any worse of a punishment than that?
Epsilon
M tipping over
- Pdx
If you’re a lawyer you know better than that. As a former banker, we had annual training on exactly this kind of stuff. Bar is higher for them.
I imagine personal device records (texts, calls, emails) will be part of the material hold request. Not a lawyer, but have had legal hold request before, when a former employee had a lawyer contact and threaten a lawsuit.
Well, it's not our pocketbook that got effected nor our reputation blasted.
He would have been a first team All American and a lottery pick, but instead was mocked in every arena for two months, fell about 12-15 spots in the draft(what was the money lost there?) and took a reputational hit that carried right into draft night.
That whole situation had no merit from the get go and it was the DA who caused the pain and they should be held accountable. JMO
There are very strict laws and compliance measures around data retention scope and length for all kinds of corporate and government entities. Anything digital should already be scoped for a specific retention period. And knowingly deleting anything would be obstruction and probable jail time.
When you leave a company, they generally hold all your data and email for a predetermined amount of time before deleting.
IlliniKat91
- Chicago, IL
I think your last line is the crux of it. If they'd investigated properly, they might have spoken to TSJ, but there's no way they would have carried through with charges. Taking it all the way to trial is what got us here.
I wonder if his agent would be willing to testify to the flow of endorsement offers, etc., and how they stopped after the charges and if that would be persuasive evidence.
There's a pretty long record of corrupt prosecutors getting away with this, so "probable" jail time isn't supported.
"Gosh, aw shucks, did I really do that? I didn't mean to." That line has gotten a lot of people off of late.
The banker comment got me thinking how we could perhaps clean up our criminal justice system with some of the digital reforms in the finance industry. Much harder to hide your misconduct there.