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A press conference which turned out to be a disaster for the Baltimore Ravens and running back Ray Rice on Friday may be just the beginning of the problems to come from Rice's February arrest for assaulting now-wife Janay Rice at a casino.
Per Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, Rice's lawyer Michael Diamondstein spoke with Matt Hammond of 97.3 The Fan in New Jersey, using "hypothetical" language that intimates that a video of the assault may exist:
This is just a complete hypothetical. Let’s assume for the sake of argument, rather than enter into the pretrial diversionary program that [Rice] entered into, we hypothetically move forward on the case. And hypothetically we litigate 100 motions and the video comes out and the video shows — hypothetically speaking now, hypothetically speaking — shows that Ray wasn’t the first person that hit and Ray was getting repeatedly hit but just Ray hit harder, fired one back and hit harder. Hypothetically speaking, and he gets found not guilty. Is that result somehow better? Is it better for the public? Is it better for the Ravens? Is it better for Ray? Is it better for Janay?
As is the case with many lawyers, Diamondstein used hypothetical language in order to safely convey what could be part of the complete truth of the incident between Ray and Janay Rice. If the video Diamondstein (hypothetically) spoke of comes to light, it could show Janay Rice throwing the first punch (or punches), leading to Rice firing back.
As Florio points out, "Diamondstein seems to think that this hypothetical would be enough to secure an acquittal. It’s hard to imagine any jury finding that Rice acted reasonably to defend himself against Janay’s punches by knocking her out."
Rice most likely opted to enter the diversionary process in order to prevent said video from being leaked for both his sake, and what he perceives to be the sake of Janay's reputation.
Either way, the NFL will most likely demand to see any possible video evidence when deciding on Rice's punishment prior to the 2014 NFL season.
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