AJ Johnson/Michael Williams Case (merged)

#751
#751
Volmorning said:
So, unless the female has video proof, she's lying? Give me a freakin' break.

Edited for typo.
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I wouldnt expect video proof. Usually when a girl gets raped it isn't consensual which leads to a lot of problems down under..tearing, bruising, etc. If there is no sign of forced penetration I would tend to hesitant to believe the story but hey thats just me.
 
#753
#753
LA Vol said:
Here's a solution: people who don't want to discuss this topic don't click on a thread about it.
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Or here is another solution...move it to the politics forum where it belongs. It is more about sexual assault then football. In fact, neither of the accused are on the team anymore, and won't be.:hi:
 
#755
#755
overseasorange2 said:
Or here is another solution...move it to the politics forum where it belongs. It is more about sexual assault then football. In fact, neither of the accused are on the team anymore, and won't be.:hi:
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OK, fair enough. Following that logic, where should all these "Please pray for..." threads go? Because they're more about religion than football.
 
#756
#756
LA Vol said:
OK, fair enough. Following that logic, where should all these "Please pray for..." threads go? Because they're more about religion than football.
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Depends on the thread. If its about a UT football player going through something like Eric Berry is going through, it really has more to do with football, since we are talking about a football player who you know from watching football (and essentially, it's just a place for people to leave well wishes for the athlete).

If it's about your next door neighbor or another poster or something, it probably should go in another subforum.
 
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#757
#757
oregonvol said:
Depends on the thread. If its about a UT football player going through something like Eric Berry is going through, it really has more to do with football, since we are talking about a football player who you know from watching football (and essentially, it's just a place for people to leave well wishes for the athlete).

If it's about your next door neighbor or another poster or something, it probably should go in another subforum.
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I didn't mean Eric Berry or any other player thread; I was referring to the "Please pray for my parent/sibling/neighbor/cat" or "Here's my new baby" threads-- somewhat facetiously, but to raise the point that all kinds of things are discussed on here, many of which are only tenuously linked to football. And anyone who isn't interested in those topics generally bypasses the thread, while others who are interested welcome the opportunity to contribute. To each his own.
 
#758
#758
jortfreeTN said:
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. attorneys prosecuted 162,000 federal cases in 2010, the most recent year for which we have data. Grand juries declined to return an indictment in 11 of them.
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Interesting conversation about the quote:

Sol Wachtler: The judge who coined "indict a ham sandwich" was himself indicted

Beyond that, how does one prove a metaphor when it is used as a way to visualize an issue, and not an example of an issue? Further, it is not evidence contrary to this point to suggest that the NFL waited until there was an indictment before withdrawing the combine invite. Why? Before the indictment, AJ wasn't a defendant in any case. The NFL has a great reason to think that a defendant in a rape case is a liability, especially given the NFL's current public relations troubles with similar issues.

Not long ago I read a piece from Radley Balko, author of "Rise of the Warrior Cop: Militarization of America's Police Forces." If I recall correctly, there was an interesting discussion of the very real bias that people exhibit in favor of the government being a fair arbiter of justice. To illustrate this almost default position, he polled reaction to police shootings of unarmed suspects, and then polled reaction to police shooting of dogs. The irony is that the majority of people tended to default to both "well if the cop shot a suspect, he had good reason" and "cops are out of control, if they are shooting chained up dogs in people's back yards". In other words there are people who believe that a cop is faultless if he shoots a person but rogue if he shoots a dog. It's an interesting duplicity about the way that some view the government.
 
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#759
#759
ChattVOLS said:
I would have to know circumstances before i would donate anything. I wouldn't wanna make it easier for him to beat it, our justice system is already a joke.
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Just wait. If he's found innocent, donate then.
System may be a joke, but I believe he will have adequate representation. When all is said and done I like ours better than any other system out there.
 
#760
#760
fade route said:
How about a fund for the victim to help pay for her expenses? Seems more appropriate imo.
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"Victim" has not yet been determined. Also the prosecution is funded by the government, so the accuser has no legal expenses. I'm not saying AJ is innocent, but I'm not saying he's guilty either. That is for the court to determine.

Either way, everyone involved loses, no matter what the outcome is.
 
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#761
#761
fade route said:
How about a fund for the victim to help pay for her expenses? Seems more appropriate imo.
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We should all stay out of this. Donate to AJ and he's innocent, you feel good about yourself, and if he's guilty you've done wrong. Donate to the alleged victim (remember, nobody is guilty or innocent now) and if she was telling the truth, the same scenarios hold true. This donation fund was a bad idea.
 
#762
#762
smokey0625 said:
You don't understand law. Neither side is right or wrong at this point. Let them fund however. Legal defense is his best solution to his problem.
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If you are innocent, going down the legal defense path provided by the state is a good way to end up in prison. The prosecution has unlimited resources. If A.J. Johnson is to have a fair trial, he will need talented, experienced legal representation. And that is going to cost probably far more than he can afford.
 
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#764
#764
Vol 67 said:
If you are innocent, going down the legal defense path provided by the state is a good way to end up in prison. The prosecution has unlimited resources. If A.J. Johnson is to have a fair trial, he will need talented, experienced legal representation. And that is going to cost probably far more than he can afford.
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You are exactly correct. The legal system relies on plea bargains because the people charged have no money to pay for a good defense.

I learned this the hard way when one of my kids was caught up with the wrong person at the wrong time. Several thousands of my hard earned dollars were spent defending an innocent child before the prosecution dropped the charges. They want easy wins. It is not a fair system.
 
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#765
#765
jortfreeTN said:
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. attorneys prosecuted 162,000 federal cases in 2010, the most recent year for which we have data. Grand juries declined to return an indictment in 11 of them.
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I can see this, so much work goes into a case before it gets to a federal grand jury that there is overwhelming evidence to to establish the burden of proof required to indict. In my experience, most defense attorney's review the case material after discovery and soon thereafter advise clients to take a plea rather than going to trial. I have been involved in hundreds of indictments in my federal career, and only person ever went to trial.

I would love to see the conviction rate of those federal cases that were indicted in 2010. I'm guessing it's at least 95 percent. But, that's just a guess. Thanks for posting that stat.
 
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#766
#766
I had totally forgotten about AJ also being arrested earlier last year for resisting arrest. Does anyone remember what the disposition of that case ended up being? (thanks I'm not able to nose around and find it myself at the moment).
 
#768
#768
volgrad500 said:
I had totally forgotten about AJ also being arrested earlier last year for resisting arrest. Does anyone remember what the disposition of that case ended up being? (thanks I'm not able to nose around and find it myself at the moment).
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I think that he agreed to turn himself in the next time he was arrested, instead of resisting.
 
#769
#769
daj2576 said:
Thank you for your well wishes.

There is no need to be offended. My comments regarding the ease of which a grand jury indicts has nothing to do with the investigatory process of law enforcement. If you separate the two from each other, it is perfectly reasonable to say that grand juries are rubber stamps that would indict a ham sandwich without compromising any work that the law enforcement officer has done to get the evidence. Getting good evidence, then, doesn't change the fact that GJ proceedings could indict a ham sandwich.

If you view the intent of the GJ proceeding as being one of several procedural safe guards to protect the citizens from government overreach, as I do, you might see that it is laughably ineffectual. How can a safeguard be effective when the standard to pass through is so low that it can be stepped over by a toddler, or when the very entity that the GJ system is designed to act as a limit upon (the government), is the only entity that gets a say in what gets presented and how it gets presented?

In other words, if the GJ is supposedly a limit on government dishonesty or malicious prosecution, there is no mechanism to actually cull the good cases from the bad. It is a rubber stamp, a box check, with very few exceptions.

If you are a good cop in TN and you have the best evidence in the world, it would be almost indistinguishable to a grand jury from a bad cop who violated the rights of the defendant and who planted evidence. I'm not suggesting that the majority of cops are bad, I don't think our forefathers would have thought that either. But I, like they, know how dangerous a tiny minority who go rogue can be to the vast majority when the government is given almost limitless power and resources. That is why the GJ was a brilliant idea but is now almost reduced to a colon that passes everything through one end and out the other without even slowing it down much.

Finally it should be noted that there are differences between grand juries in each state and between the federal government and the states. Trying to compare one to the others beyond broad generalities can be misleading to the casual observer.
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Have you every testified or been involved in a federal grand jury in any way? If so, I would be interested in hearing about your experience.
 
#770
#770
daj2576 said:
Thank you for your well wishes.

There is no need to be offended. My comments regarding the ease of which a grand jury indicts has nothing to do with the investigatory process of law enforcement. If you separate the two from each other, it is perfectly reasonable to say that grand juries are rubber stamps that would indict a ham sandwich without compromising any work that the law enforcement officer has done to get the evidence. Getting good evidence, then, doesn't change the fact that GJ proceedings could indict a ham sandwich.

If you view the intent of the GJ proceeding as being one of several procedural safe guards to protect the citizens from government overreach, as I do, you might see that it is laughably ineffectual. How can a safeguard be effective when the standard to pass through is so low that it can be stepped over by a toddler, or when the very entity that the GJ system is designed to act as a limit upon (the government), is the only entity that gets a say in what gets presented and how it gets presented?

In other words, if the GJ is supposedly a limit on government dishonesty or malicious prosecution, there is no mechanism to actually cull the good cases from the bad. It is a rubber stamp, a box check, with very few exceptions.

If you are a good cop in TN and you have the best evidence in the world, it would be almost indistinguishable to a grand jury from a bad cop who violated the rights of the defendant and who planted evidence. I'm not suggesting that the majority of cops are bad, I don't think our forefathers would have thought that either. But I, like they, know how dangerous a tiny minority who go rogue can be to the vast majority when the government is given almost limitless power and resources. That is why the GJ was a brilliant idea but is now almost reduced to a colon that passes everything through one end and out the other without even slowing it down much.

Finally it should be noted that there are differences between grand juries in each state and between the federal government and the states. Trying to compare one to the others beyond broad generalities can be misleading to the casual observer.
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The more I've learned about the TN grand jury system the more I like it and feel TN got it right. It really protects from prosecutorial over reach and makes them present some evidence.
 
#771
#771
volgrad500 said:
I had totally forgotten about AJ also being arrested earlier last year for resisting arrest. Does anyone remember what the disposition of that case ended up being? (thanks I'm not able to nose around and find it myself at the moment).
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KNOXVILLE - Tennessee linebacker A.J. Johnson will have all charges stemming from a Feb. 9 party dropped in 90 days if he fulfills terms of an agreement reached Friday.

Johnson's charge of resisting arrest was dismissed Friday. Johnson must perform 24 hours of community service, pay court costs and have good conduct to have a charge of purchasing alcohol for a person underage dropped in 90 days.
 
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#773
#773
gunner said:
I can see this, so much work goes into a case before it gets to a federal grand jury that there is overwhelming evidence to to establish the burden of proof required to indict. In my experience, most defense attorney's review the case material after discovery and soon thereafter advise clients to take a plea rather than going to trial. I have been involved in hundreds of indictments in my federal career, and only person ever went to trial.

I would love to see the conviction rate of those federal cases that were indicted in 2010. I'm guessing it's at least 95 percent. But, that's just a guess. Thanks for posting that stat.
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I think I read around 92% of all criminal cases ended in a conviction. I would assume many of those are plead down from the original charges and not sure what that would be in a case like this.
 
#774
#774
Volmorning said:
SMDH, over half of Vol nation condones rape by blaming the girl. Is this the 1950's?

I think I hate you all.
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Who's blaming the girl? I've not seen that yet. What I have seen is posters saying we have no idea who's speaking the truth. If the young woman was raped, she has my deepest sympathies, and I hope her assailants pay dearly for their actions. Unfortunately we live in a world where false accusations are not uncommon. We have no idea what the truth in all of this is. So if you want to shake your damn head at someone, find a mirror. You're assuming a man is guilty before he's been tried for the alleged crime.
 
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#775
#775
It is an unfortunate situation for all involved. The girl will have scars that may never heal, AJ's NFL career is questionable at best, if he is found guilty, then it is over, Michael Williams's life is most likely changed forever, especially if he is found guilty. This was just an unfortunate situation for everyone.
 
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