It will be easier to win the Champions league than the league. And depending on who progresses, and where the tie is played, possibly the FA cup.
We could end up with a league cup/CL double and no EPL or any combination of trophies that is not the EPL. If we only win one trophy I'd actually take the CL. Will I be upset if the one trophy is the league? Absolutely not, but I have the most doubts about it. In a one off where the stakes are high we do well, hence the special CL nights and our perfect record in it. However, cold winter nights in the West Midlands against a weak side? The players just want to do the bare minimum and get on the coach as soon as possible. And have to repeat that several times each weekend for the next 3 months or so.
I think fellow lawyers are getting too carried away with standards of criminal and civil trials here! We are talking about fast track disciplinary proceedings following sports games, where competitions are largely free to create their own structures and tribunals. The EPL already has this kind of thing - see the way they review reffing decisions and sometimes overturn them - on what basis exactly? No sign of water tight proof! For instance, in Australia's NRL, they long had a citing system where players would be charged immediately after games and go to 'trial' within days. Sometimes represented by lawyers. In this situation, the accused player is clearly guilty of using some kind of slur - apparently he admits to one. We have direct and immediate witness testimony of Vini's complaint to the ref, including on video. We have the player covering his mouth to say something. Sure only Vini heard it perhaps, but any quasi judicial body is entitled to hear witnesses and prefer one to another. If nothing happens here it will be laughable.
Child molestation, sexual assault, armed robbery, etc., those cases go to trial all the time with only a single witness, often without any independent corroborating evidence. Some criminal statutes will require some sort of corroborating evidence (statutory rape in some jurisdictions, for instance) but most do not. And these are just transcripts I've seen, ie., cases that actually make it to the appellate process. Think of all the similar ones that do not.
I agree that eye-witness testimony in "stranger" situations is often not reliable---lots of current science backing that up. But what's your solution? Like treason, every criminal prosecution has to have at least two witnesses?
I disagree that I was doing so. My point in referring to the standard of proof in a criminal trial was to agree with your overall point. IOW, if one witness only doesn't bar something so serious as taking someone's liberty away, then only one witness shouldn't be a bar to a disciplinary procedure for rooting out racist bullshit amongst millionaires. Agreed.
this is one of those discussions that is probably best not reduced to posts. I don’t think it’s a narrow issue.
If you put me on a jury and the only evidence in a case is one person's sworn eyewitness testimony, I'm never voting "guilty." I very strongly believe in the idea that it's better to let 100 guilty men go free than to convict 1 innocent man. So I just need more, but this hypothetical is too vague to really list out what that means. To circle back to the Vinicius incident, that means that even though I have next to zero doubt that Prestianni racially abused him, I'm not willing to punish a player, either in-game or after, based on Vinicius's word alone. Actionable ways to address that going forward would be to implement year-long bans for proven incidents of racist (or homophobic) abuse, which would cut down on them happening just from a deterrence perspective, and adding player mics so on-field conversations can be heard by a review panel, both live and after the fact.
So is it good or bad that folks like you and me rarely make it past the first few questions during voir dire. (or at least I never have---maybe I shouldn't speak for you). Yeah, I disagree that it should take that much in this instance, especially when we're not dealing with our "solo eyewitness" hypothetical.
Too easy to exploit otherwise. I'm also uncomfortable with taking a person's livelihood away without a pretty high standard of evidence.
I find this discussion of the merits of witness testimony simultaneously fascinating, exhausting, and relieved that my legal career primarily revolves around paper.
I'll misquote Winston Churchill: "It's the worst system of jurisprudence....except for all the rest."
Does he get paid during a suspension? Especially if it's a year-long one like we're all in agreement should be the type of punishment for this.
We did a mock trial for a big case last fall (ended up winning on SJ so no trial) and watching the panels deliberate absolutely shattered some of the illusions I had.
Lots of problems with such an idea, especially in criminal cases, where the Sixth Amendment requires that juries have to be from the district where the crime was committed. Idea might be workable, if expensive, in Chicago but it absolutely wouldn't work in places where there's only a few thousand people who live in a given district.
Oh, there are an infinite number of problems with it. Doesn't make our current jury system any less bananas.
My take is that juries are basically fine for simple fact finding such as "do you believe Mr. X or Ms. Y?" Where the system is bananas is when juries have to figure out stuff that's complicated.