The Sports & Entertainment Law Playbook

Nancy Grace should stick to dancing, because even though she looks like a clydesdale in high heels, she's a better dancer than attorney/legal analyst: Dr. Conrad Murray is a certifiable quack, but that doesn't mean he's guilty of manslaughter.

As everybody probably knows by now, the trial of the physician accused of causing Michael Jackson's death in June 2009 began Wednesday, and after only hearing the first few witnesses for the prosecution we have evidence that Dr. Murray didn't even know how CPR. Add that to the fact that the doctor didn't call 9-1-1 after finding Jackson unconscious, and that when he left the hospital after Jackson was pronounced dead, he made a strange request to Jackson's assistant to go back to the house to retrieve "some cream" from Jackson's bedroom. That evidence alone is probably sufficient to warrant taking away the doctor's medical license, but it doesn't make him guilty of involuntary manslaughter, which is defined in § 192 of the California Penal Code as:

Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice. It is of three kinds:

(a) Voluntary — upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion.

(b) Involuntary — in the commission of an unlawful act, not amounting to felony; or in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death, in an unlawful manner, or without due caution and circumspection. This subdivision shall not apply to acts committed in the driving of a vehicle....

To put it in more certain terms, to prove that Dr. Murray is guilty of manslaughter, the prosecution must prove that the doctor caused the unlawful death of Michael Jackson. So far, the evidence has not shown causation, and based on the prosecution's opening statement—which is when they lay out their entire case for the jury, including what they believe the evidence will prove—there isn't any evidence that Conrad Murray caused Michael Jackson's death.

There shouldn't be any question that Conrad Murray was negligent, and that the care he rendered to Michael Jackson fell far below reasonable standards, but that is not causation. You can argue that if Dr. Murray hadn't supplied the propofol that ultimately stopped Michael Jackson from breathing, then Jackson would still be alive, and while this is possible, it doesn't mean that Dr. Murray caused the singer's death from a legal perspective (i.e. that he is criminally responsible for the death).

Please don't think I'm defending Conrad Murray. I am personally repulsed by his conduct, greed, and lack of integrity, but I am also annoyed that the taxpayers of the state of California are financing a costly trial so that an overzealous district attorney can have his fifteen minutes to try to become the next Marcia Clark. It's quite possible that the jury could convict Conrad Murray, and it wouldn't make me feel bad for him, but I would feel that our justice system failed us all.

Photo credit: Oceania Rock

This past weekend Syracuse University and the University of Pittsburgh announced that they had applied to join the ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference), leaving the Big East behind. Within a day, the ACC announced that its member institutions unamimously approved the addition of the two universities. Both schools are apparently ready to part with the $5M exit fee that they each must pay to the Big East.

The ACC currently has a dozen schools, and with this transaction will have fourteen. Although technically the Big East currently has 16 (14 without Pitt & Syracuse), that number is deceiving because it includes Notre Dame, whose football team isn't part of the Big East, as well as DePaul, Marquette, Providence, St. John's, Seton Hall, Georgetown, and Villanova—none of which even have football programs. That leaves just 6 football teams in the Big East (and they call it the Big Least now?). Six teams do not a conference make. And for the record, TCU's expected addition to the Big East next year doesn't change this conversation. Rumors are now circling that Rutgers will leave for the ACC next, or alternatively, that they'll join the Big Ten (which is actually 12).

Regardless of what Rutgers, or any of the other Big East programs do, however, the conference's instability leaves a whole lot of student–athletes in vulnerable (if not untenable) positions because of the Big East's transfer rule:

Student–athletes in the sports of men’s basketball, women’s basketball[,] and football, are not permitted to transfer (directly or indirectly) from one BIG EAST institution to another BIG EAST institution and participate in any capacity...There are no exceptions or waivers to this rule.

Although most conferences have their own rules or conditions for intra-conference transfers, this one is without doubt the most Draconian of them all. You actually don't have to be an attorney to understand it either, because there are no exceptions or waivers. (For those who aren't attorneys, we didn't go to law school to learn the law, we went to learn the exceptions.)

So while Pitt, Syracuse, and the rest of the Big East are quibbling over how long those schools should be required to serve out their membership in the conference—which is purportedly 27 months—television networks and advertisers and sponsors will likely be shifting their focus to other conferences. It's even possible that the BCS could revoke the Big East's automatic bid, after all, fans and analysts have been calling for the Big East's ouster since around the time Virginia Tech and Miami left the conference. Even the NCAA's very definition of Football Bowl Subdivision Conference says that it must have at least 8 members.

All of this punishes those student–athletes far more than it punishes the member institutions. The schools will make up the lost revenue through boosters and other benefactors, but the student–athletes have no such luxury. Furthermore, if TV networks decide not to broadcast Big East games, because of a perceived lack of competitiveness, or any other reason, the student–athletes are going to lose exposure, which could cost some of them when their time comes to enter the NFL draft.

Admittedly, these scenarios are somewhat speculative, but in a world where the sanctity of amateur sports is supposed to reign supreme, it hardly seems like the people who make the rules care at all about the student–athletes.