Student Athlete Injustice

If anyone has been following the proceedings surrounding Syracuse University Basketball player Eric Devendorf and his recent legal troubles then you may have developed your own opinion on this matter. Fortunately for you I am here to set you straight. Being before a court of law is a serious matter, but being before some council made up primarily of students that very well could decide your fate as it applies to the remainder of your career is well outside the boundaries set forth by the United States Constitution and should be analyzed with much more scrutiny.

Whatever the findings of an actual legal tribunal, student councils and university justice is a fickle thing. The fate of an individual is put before a group on naive youngsters with no legal training and who may share the view that only guilty people have run-ins with the police, not to mention jealousy and ignorance as factors in their decision-making processes. How a court can exhonerate you but a student council can take away the remainder of your collegiate sports career and possibly your pofessional asperations is perplexing.

Lawyers with dreams of making a name for themselves are able to break with protocol at the expense of young athletes who fail to understand their need for proper legal council. They are able to posture and impugn with little recourse, at the expense of these young kids, for the benefit of their unscrupulous selves seeking the limelight. The lure of the ESPN cameras is too much to withstand so they make their case to a national audience while failing to recognize the defendant's right to due process. Then you have these student councils that completely dismiss the testimony of multiple witnesses because of the biases they unknowingly hold such as the belief that fellow teammates would lie under oath, against the instructions of their coaches and council, to protect "one of their own." The legal system does not work ths way but a system placed in the hands of children certainly does. This young student is watching his future flow down the drain because some lousy driver caused an accident, copped an attitude about it, and then realized they could possibly get paid because their own negligence brought them face to face with someone who is quasi-famous and therefore provides the stage needed to make an issue out of a common occurence.

What we are left with is a young person who finds himself in a disturbing situation, who's only crime is failing to walk away from confrontation with someone who created such a situation, who then is refused the benefit of witness testimony and punished based not on fact but on hearsay and speculation. This is not right and has no basis as proper proceedings in our free and just society. A court system established outside of the framework of common law should not be recognized when it is comprised of individuals without the necessary training and expertise to make decisions that are so permanent and devastating to the accused.