Whipped Cream Difficulties

Lawrence sent over two stories that I don’t think justify a blog post individually, but together might make a good one.

Story #1, which is actually getting a surprising (to me) amount of press coverage: Adrian Wojnarowski is leaving ESPN to become the GM of the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team.

The GM role has become more common in college basketball in recent years, as the transfer portal has made wholesale roster turnover an inherent part of the sport. The role includes name, image and likeness allocation, recruiting and supporting successful Bonnies coach Mark Schmidt.

The New York Post says he could be walking away from up to $20 million dollars. I probably wouldn’t have noted this, since it isn’t a firing, but Lawrence tells me this is a big freaking deal for basketball fans: Mr Wojnarowski has a reputation for breaking NBA news on Twitter.

I saw in another story (which, of course, I can’t find now) that Mr Wojnarowski had talked for years about his fantasy of throwing his cell phone into the ocean when he retired, as he was pretty much tied to it 24/7/365. “Kemosabe kiss my ass, I bought a boat, I’m going out to sea” indeed.

Story #2: Erma Wilson had her lawsuit against Midland County and former prosecutor Ralph Petty dismissed by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in a “plurality decision”, which apparently means that it doesn’t set a binding precedent. The decision was on somewhat narrow technical grounds: the Court of Appeals felt she hadn’t exhausted her remedies in state court yet.

Why was she suing?

…Wilson had been convicted in Midland County 23 years ago on felony possession of cocaine charges and given an eight-year probation sentence.
Long ago, Wilson had appealed her conviction to the state’s 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and lost.

Okay, so? Turns out that prosecutor Petty was moonlighting. He was a prosecutor by day…and a law clerk for “several district judges” at the same time.

By day the prosecutor was making the case against the defendants, while by night he was siding with himself from the judge’s chambers.

And I’m going to pause here to insert a quote from one of the greatest philosophers currently walking the earth, Judge Don Willet.

“This was a DEFCON 1 legal scandal,” Willet wrote in a dissent describing the background of the case.

…

“Wilson claims it would be unfair to force her back into the very state system that injured her,” states the plurality decision by Judge Andrew Oldham. “But it is also important that civil plaintiffs do not put the cart before the horse. Criminal proceedings and criminal judgments require criminal remedies—not civil ones. If and when Ms. Wilson pushes aside her criminal conviction, then but only then can she come back to civil court and ask for money. Until then, her § 1983 suit must be dismissed.”

Judge Willet disagrees. Strongly.

Willet, on the other hand, led a fiery dissent in which he stated that he would have let Wilson’s lawsuit proceed, noting, “A fair trial in a fair tribunal is a basic requirement of due process.”
“The Constitution’s fair-trial requirement is Con Law 101 — a bedrock due-process guarantee. In fact, the Framers cared so much about the sanctity of the criminal jury trial that our Constitution specifically mentions it twice — not only in the Sixth Amendment, but also in Article III,” he wrote.
“And to underscore they really meant it — that criminal-justice fairness is sacrosanct — the Founding generation doubled down, enshrining a host of procedural non-negotiables in multiple provisions of the Bill of Rights. Indeed, more words are devoted to We the People’s fair-trial right than to any other constitutional guarantee. Safe to say, the Framers were fixated on the adjudication of criminal charges — both the power to bring them and the process for resolving them — and spilled a lot of ink to ensure that the Constitution’s inviolable fair-trial guarantee is no empty promise.”

…

“Unfortunately for our circuit — and unfortunately for Wilson — wisdom remains a no-show. The only hope for wronged noncustodial plaintiffs like Erma Wilson is that the Supreme Court will at last confront the persistent circuit split, seize this occasion to settle the issue, and vindicate a bedrock constitutional guarantee that, sadly, is even more tenuous in today’s plea-bargain age than when the Founding generation first enshrined it.”

Just in case you were wondering, Mr. Petty has been disbarred, and according to “The Texan”, has been ordered not to use his name “in any manner in conjunction with the words ‘Attorney at Law,’ ‘Counselor at Law,’ or ‘Lawyer.'” He was also fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage. No, wait: “He also had to notify any of his clients in writing of his disbarment, give them back their money and documents, and notify all judges with whom he may have business pending.“