The question now is, how soon will Ray Rice be back on a football field?

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell thought taking a second bite at the disciplinary apple could get him off the hook for bungling his original disciplining of wide receiver Ray Rice. A U.S. District Court Judge Barbara S. Jones has now said it doesn't work that way.

by Ken

"Ray Rice wins appeal of his suspension, is eligible to play for any NFL team," reads the headline on Marissa Payne and Cindy Boren's washingtonpost.com "Early Lead" report,

If you look at U. S. District Court Judge Barbara S. Jones's ruling, it makes sense. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had already punished Baltimore Ravens' wide receiver Ray Rice, sort of, in the matter of his embarrassingly public battery, in a casino elevator, of then-girlfriend, now-wife Janay. So when the commissioner. So when he imposed a second, far more stringent punishment for the same set of facts, "The imposition of a second suspension based on the same incident and the same known facts about the incident, was arbitrary. The Commissioner needed to be fair and consistent in his imposition of discipline."

Still, I'm not sure that Ray did himself any favor by opening his yap. In the statement of his released by the NFL Players' Association, he does say, "I made an inexcusable mistake and accept full responsibility for my actions." But he doesn't actually accept full responsiblity. It was his actual rsponsibility that was belatedly addressed by Commissioner Gooddell' second attempt at adjuticating the issue, the one that actually dealt with Ray's "inexcusable mistake." Instead, he says, "I am thankful that there was a proper appeals process in place to address this issue. I will continue working hard to improve myself and be the best husband, father and friend, while giving back to my community and helping others to learn from my mistakes."

The case came to Judge Jones because of the contractual agreement between the NFL and the NFL Players' Association on arbitration, which puts such an appeal in outside hands. In the process Ray got lucky, because the commissioner had, in his wrist-slap first bite at the disciplinary apple, wussed out. It wasn't until the ensuing firestorm of criticism that our Roger apparently began to suspect that maybe NFL players beating up women is a more serious matter than he had reckoned.

The NFL tried to fudge the two punishments by arguing that the second time around, the commissioner had new information that Ray or somebody had intentionally withheld. The judge wasn't buying it.

In this arbitration, the NFL argues that Commissioner Goodell was misled when he disciplined Rice the first time. Because, after careful consideration of all of the evidence, I am not persuaded that Rice lied to, or misled, the NFL at his June interview, I find that the indefinite suspension was an abuse of discretion and must be vacated.

Of course, the biggest embarrassment for the commissioner was the video released by TMZ after his first ruling in which we all got to see Ray knock Janay out. Public response to his original punishment, a two-game suspension, boiled over. And in the course of that uproar it became all but certain that not only had the embarrassing video been seen at the time of the original punishment, but it almost certainly was known to the commissioner. It just wasn't public.

Naturally, the NFLPA also skirted the issue of a punishment that fits the transgression.

This decision is a victory for a disciplinary process that is fair and transparent. This union will always stand up and fight for the due process rights of our players. While we take no pleasure in seeing a decision that confirms what we have been saying about the Commissioner’s office acting arbitrarily, we hope that this will bring the NFL owners to the collective bargaining table to fix a broken process. It is clear that this decision should force the NFL to embrace neutral arbitration as part of a necessary due process in all cases. The players thank Judge Barbara Jones for her time and thoroughness in this matter.

This is mostly bullshit. Ray in the end was the beneficiary of the commissioner's procedural bungle, and as a result, the result is shockingly wrong. But "neutral arbitration" didn't help the NFL dispose of the case correctly; it just undid the commissioner's procedural bungle. Judge Jones has no authority to say, and made no attempt to say, what the appropriate punishment was. What she said was that, legally speaking, the NFL gets only one whack at it.

It would be something else of the Players' Association was saying that "neutral arbitration" should extend to having an independent authority make disciplinary decisions instead of the commissioner. I wonder how eager they would have been to have, say, Judge Jones, pass judgment on that.

With Ray now immediately eligible to play, it remains to be seen whether anyone will want to take him on for the remainder of this season. As Marissa Payne and Cindy Boren conclude their report:

Uncertainty still surrounds Rice, though. Will a team sign him with the season about to enter the last month? Can Rice restore his image — both personally and professionally? And will he be compensated for the salary he lost while on indefinite suspension?

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