Fascinating about NC law, and thanks for the info googoodan!
The NFL has totally sidestepped the legal process and the evidence and Roger Goodell has slapped Hardy with a 10-game suspension.
There is a one-sided feminist propaganda piece at ESPN-W, written by a woman who presents the gender feminist party line and ignores many, if not most, of the facts. See:
http://espn.go.com/espnw/news-commentar ... suspension
There are a lot of great comments below the article, along with a few comments by clueless p-whipped white knights, who I'm sure mean well, but are just clueless fools who repeat unproven propaganda as if it were fact. All these articles ever do is rehash unproven allegations of a gold-digging, serial celebrity-stalking psychobitch, and state them as if they were "proven" fact. They're not.
The article comments further hammer home that the "bench trial" basically amounts to a prosecutor accusing, a he-said, she-said, with minimal opportunity for defense, including apparently, little or no cross-examination of witnesses, and then the judge decides who she believes more. So apparently there was very little actual "evidence" presented at this trial, aside from Ms. Holder's allegations.
I went back to attribute this comment excerpt, but it appears to have been removed from the site now:
... (Article author) repeatedly mention(s) that Hardy paid off Holden, and that is both why she refused to cooperate, but also why the prosecution failed to continue on with the case. Both are baseless, there is no evidence of why the alleged victim stopped cooperating, and the prosecution halted the case because it was wrought with inconsistencies and they chose to drop it EVEN THOUGH IT IS COMMON PRACTICE FOR PROSECUTORS TO TAKE CASES TO COURT REGARDLESS OF THE PRESENCE OF THE ORIGINAL ACCUSER... Also, (article author) refuses to use "alleged", even though all charges were dropped. (Article author) failed to mention that the bench trial features almost no defense whatsoever in NC, as it is simply the prosecution presenting a case to the judge and the judge makes a ruling. If it is guilty, the defendant may then continue with a jury trial where they have full defense capability.
The article comments also repeatedly make googoodan's point, that it is NOT NECESSARY for the *alleged victim* to be present or even participate in the case; the case could proceed just fine without her, if there were enough evidence, e.g., physical evidence, photographs, etc. So the prosecutor saying Ms. Holder refused to cooperate is really just a PR tactic, to deflect public attention away from the lack of evidence. The real problem was *lack of evidence*.
Commenter Sylvester Newton said, "...my children's mother is from North Carolina & we both have family there so I'm in North Carolina constantly..WE KNOW HOW THAT COURT SYSTEM WORKS DOWN HERE!! A bench trial is pretty much a formality before you get a true chance to defend yourself..it's the states way of generating extra costs..your almost always,going to get a guilty verdict s(o) it can get pushed to the expected appeal date."
Later, he says...
...This garbage writer also tries to discredit Hardys 911 call even though the police log clearly shows that Hardy called 911 1st & the 2nd woman who called 911 actually contradicted herself in her call..
Hardy called 911 & described a belligerent screaming drugged/drunken woman who kept hitting him & refused to leave his home which by all accounts from other people is her M.O."
The NFL is an entertainment product league that increasingly markets to women. So it makes PR sense Goodell would come out with a harsh punishment like this, to give the appearance of "cracking down on domestic violence against women". Hardy is appealing, of course.
Excerpts from commenter Brett Hutchison on that site hit the points nicely...
"Lets get real here. The NFL and most fans could(n't) care less about these issues. The only reason he got a large suspension was to send a message to the MEDIA, and to the "activist" community that the NFL has changed and people can stop dogging on their sponsors and let them make money. He would not have received 10 games if not for the fact that three woman made the recommendations to the commish and he is on notice to clean up his act on any conduct relating to a social issues or violence against woman, or anything that social media can attack them on"
For whatever reason, there were three DV activist women "advising" the commish on this one during internal discussions... apparently advising on PR implications of different courses of action, from the Gender Feminist point of view.
[tweet]https://twitter.com/janesports/status/591008920505868288[/tweet]
Personally, I would like to see the photos and 911 calls publicly released. I doubt that will happen, because they would probably reveal huge holes in the DV case, and probably show that this woman is a psychobitch who was coked up and drunk at the time, and tend to support Hardy's account. So, hopefully somebody will release or leak these.
Be careful out there, guys. No actual, credible evidence is required for "the system", as dictated to by the gender feminist mafia, to chew you up and spit you out. It doesn't matter if the allegations are true or not, it doesn't matter if you're dealing with a mentally ill, coked-up false accuser who spews a bunch of random made-up stuff. The gender feminist mafia now dictates policy to the NFL.
My prediction (Scientific Wild-Ass Guess) is that...
1) I don't really know how stacked the NFL appeal process is against players. If it's a somewhat "fair" process, I would predict..
2) Hardy's suspension will be reduced from 10 games to around 4, or maybe 2 or even none.
3) any reduction will only happen once there are a lot of other football things going on in football-related news, and it will be slipped in.
4) The NFL will publicly say they don't like it, and wanted harsher punishment, but their hands are tied.
5) The news about reduction/elimination of Hardy's suspension will be reported for a day or two and then largely dropped.
6) Most people will remember the biased coverage against Hardy, and the dude will still be pretty well screwed in the public perception. Hardy's accuser's questionable, unproven statements will continue to be repeated as "fact".
Like I said earlier, congratulations Greg Hardy, you don't get to play football, you ARE the (political) football. And, they're not done kicking you around yet.
