NFL News:

• Frank Gore wants to play a 16th season.  
  • He is currently a free agent, and likely wouldn’t be signed until closer to the regular season, to serve as a complimentary back rather than a primary rusher.
    • Honestly, he’d be great shoring up the fragile starters in the Seahawks backfield.
  • Gore sits at third all-time in NFL rushing yards with 15,347, passing Barry Sanders during the 2019 season.
    • Sweetness is second with 16,726 yards, and Emmitt is atop the pyramid with 18,355.

• In the run-up to free agency, an actual trade!
  • Some team from the LA suburbs named the “Chargers” are sending OT Russell Okung to the Panthers in exchange for guard Trai Turner.
  • The trade makes sense for both sides, from a cap standpoint:
    • The Panthers dump a future expensive second contract, and get a player in return they can use to bridge to next year’s draft.
    • The “Chargers” get a foundation piece for the offensive line, to protect whomever they sign as QB.
      • At present, Tyrod Taylor.

• A new detail in the proposed CBA is that all suspensions for violating the substances abuse policy via positive test will be replaced with fines.
  • According to Florio, there are now only two stages.
    • Players in stage one of the program who test positive face no penalty at all, other than being advanced to stage two.
    • In stage two, positive tests result only in fines.
      • For the first violation, the player loses one half of a game check. For the second violation, he loses a week’s pay. For the third violation, it’s two weeks’ salary.
      • For the fourth and all subsequent violations, it’s a three-game fine.
    • Stage three has been removed from the CBA.
    • Suspensions under the new CBA arise only from a failure to cooperate with testing or clinical care while in stage two.
      • And only happens after a fourth violation resulting from that failure to cooperate, resulting in a three-game suspension.
      • To get to the one-year ban, you have to get to seven violations.

Stealing from Crimebeat!

It’s the rare circumstance where I devote a whole section to something like this, especially outside my general fields of expertise. But I do teach Law 12, have written the LSATs, and have access to a number of lawyers if I get stuck. But since it doesn’t involve an NFL player (yet!) I figured I’d set it aside in its own separate column.

So, in what might be the first of its kind, the defense of “automatism” was successfully used to get a kid high on mushrooms out of trouble for assault. Matthew Brown, a “former Calgary (Mount Royal) University student who broke into a professor’s home while naked and high on magic mushrooms, beating her badly with a broom handle”, was acquitted by a judge because he was so intoxicated that he had lost voluntary control over his own actions.

Prior to the assault, he had been drinking and, encouraged by friends, consumed up to 2.5 grams of “magic mushrooms”. He later ran naked out of his apartment & broke into the home of his victim, a prof at the same university he was attending, beating her with a broom handle until she was able to escape & lock herself in a bathroom. Despite having broken hands from trying to defend herself, she was able to then get away to a neighbour’s & have them call police.

When police arrived, they found Brown had broken into a second home and arrested him there.

At the November trial, both Crown and defence accepted the results of a forensic toxicologist who claimed that the combination of drugs and alcohol had induced a state of delirium in Brown. The Crown, however, was pushing for a guilty verdict because they did not want to establish a precedent for the automatism defence. However, the judge sided with the defence assertion that Brown had lost all control of his voluntary reactions and was acting so out of character that the intoxication & hallucinations had taken control of his motor functions. So, not guilty by reason of “extreme intoxication akin to non-insane automatism”.

There’s been no word on any civil litigation. Crown prosecutor Matt Block said an appeal will be considered, especially on the pretrial decision. The professor has been able to return to work, although she has “a permanent disability in her right hand with stiffness, reduced movement and reduced strength.” I simply present this to you as a point of discussion away from politics & sports, and a reminder to litre_cola that this guy might show up in your bar, so be careful.

Tonight’s sports:

• NHL:
  • Hurricanes at Flyers – 7:00PM | NBCSN
  • Bruins at Panthers – 7:00PM | Sportsnet
• NBA:
  • Clippers at Rockets – 8:00PM | TNT / TSN4
  • Raptors at Warriors – 10:30PM | TNT / TSN
    • Watch to see if Raptors GM Masai Ujiri is arrested for last year’s shove.
• NCAA:
  • Nebraska at Michigan – 6:30PM | FS1
  • Illinois at Ohio State – 7:00PM | ESPN
  • Wichita State at Memphis – 9:00PM | ESPN
  • Washington at Arizona State – 9:00PM | ESPN2
  • Washington State at Arizona – 10:30PM | FS1

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees were named today. They are Depeche Mode, The Doobie Brothers, Whitney Houston, Nine Inch Nails, The Notorious B.I.G. and T-Rex. Please feel free to argue their merits in the comments, but if you can’t agree that this is a good song,

then you should head back to the rotting carcass of Deadspin.