The McNair vs NCAA case has taken an interesting turn
How's it feel NCAA when the shoe is on the other foot? They fought hard but were just ordered by the court to turn over their internal emails in the Tod McNair case.
Frankly it surprises me that this hasn't happened more often. Why is it that the press has no problem filing a Freedom of Information request from an individual college but I've never heard of any of them doing it against the NCAA? Is it a private institution or are they just afraid of biting the hand that feeds them? My guess is they are a private organization which seems wrong to me since they rely so much on FoI in the press to persecute member organizations.
Speaking of that, I do find it a bit ironic that since USC is a private institution they are exempt from FoI requests and couldn't get the same scrutiny that hit Ohio State. This fact alone saved them from the circus that hit the Buckeyes.
Anyway, here's a C+P from the USC forums that details what is happening in the McNair vs NCAA case (If you've forgotten, McNair was the coach given the Show Cause penalty in the Reggie Bush ruling).
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Post on the USC Rivals Board:
TrojanJustice
So I checked out the public docket to see what's going on in this case and even paid a few bucks to get a key court order where the judge ruled on recent discovery motions. The big news is that McNair's lawyer filed a motion to obtain a commission to take Paul Dee's deposition in Florida. This is standard practice when you need to depose an uncooperative witness in another state. The court granted this commission on April 24, so very likely at some point this month the most corrupt administrator in the history of college football will be profusely sweating as he is grilled under oath about his breathtaking hypocrisy and abuse of power.
This development comes on the heels of the NCAA being ordered on 4/19/12 to produce all their internal emails about the Reggie Bush investigation. The NCAA vigorously opposed the production of the emails but lost. Not only that, after they failed to prevent the discovery of their emails, the NCAA tried to get a second bite at the apple by objecting to the courts' written ruling with an attempt to limit the production to only emails that specifically mention Tod McNair and were only between members of the infraction committee. So in other words, if there was, for instance, an email between a member of the staff -- not the committee -- and Lake asking Lake to doctor evidence, the NCAA would be able to withhold that evidence.
The court, in shooting down the NCAA yet again, seemed surprised by the NCAA's brazen request and stated in its ruling that "Restriction of the e-mails to only members of the Committee on Infractions is too limited as the contact by investigators and staff with the subject of Mr. McNair surely was not limited to the Committee."
Speaking as a lawyer, this is the kind of stunt you often see when the other side knows they are sitting on highly incriminating evidence and is trying to do all they can to prevent its disclosure short of criminal obstruction of justice.
No trial date set yet, probably about 6 months out based upon the state of the proceedings.
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Here's the related court documents:
Request to depose Paul Dee (lead the NCAA investigation)
Order to turn over emails
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