ESPN v. Ohio State Update: Ohio State Submits Documents to the Court

Ohio elects its SC. There will be two Associate Justices up for re-election in the fall.

Edit: of 2012. Even years for that office.

Some of the FOIA requests are vague.  They ask for things like "anything related to an NCAA investigation . . ."  OSU could spend hundreds of man hours conducting a search that broad.

ESPN has an interesting counterargument though.  Under the Ohio Open Records Act (basically, Ohio's FOIA law), OSU is supposed to work with ESPN to make the request more manageable.  Specifically, OSU is supposed to tell ESPN how it organizes its records so that ESPN can make its request more focused.  ESPN claims that OSU never provided that clarification about how it organizes its records, and therefore OSU is ignoring its responsibilities under the law.

What else is there to do in Ohio? Cedar Point, the only thing Ohio is good for, is closing soon. 

If Wikipedia is correct, it looks like three: Brown, Cupp, O'Donnel.

As for the second part, that's a good part of my degree and I definitely agree with what you say. On top of what you said, the money from pro-OSU sources is going to be a lot less than any other PAC's that they're likely to come across. With the amount of money that a group like the NRA or AARP is going to spend, even someone like Wexner probably won't put enough money on the line to top those donations. The added part is that nobody (or very few people) is/are going to let the OSU decision affect their predetermined political allegiances. Think about it, if Obama or Boehner were the worlds biggest OSU fans, would they vote for a Republican or Democrat for a position of that importance based on their favorite football team?

In camera review seems likely to me if the court doesn't rule directly for ESPN--just from what's been reported, er, relayed, here, there seem to be ample grounds to demand that the court at least have an opportunity to review the documents and force the university to justify its calls.  Every document sent to Sarniak (or received from him) sets off red flags for me.

I'm wondering if the university is putting far too much weight on FERPA.  Their arguments consistently strike me as over-reaching, especially given the genuine public interest in the information.  And not just popcorn-loving Michigan fan interest; any taxpayer in that state (hi Mom and Dad, tell me again why you moved there?) should care about the fact that the university would more efficiently use its funds by setting fire to them instead of paying its compliance staff. Or its AD.  Or its president, come to think of it.

There will absolutely be in camera review.  For non-lawyers, that means that Ohio State will give the court all of the documents it refused to give to ESPN.  The court will then look at the documents (mainly emails I think) to see if they should be turned over.

In fact, OSU has already given those documents to the court under seal (ESPN and the public can't see them).  It happened yesterday.

It makes it harder for OSU to BS about things when the court has the documents.

Caveat: this assumes that OSU gave all the documents ESPN wants to the court.  OSU presumably took the narrowest interpretation of ESPN's records requests, and then gathered a small number of documents.  From those documents, they held some back (which are now with the court).  If ESPN wins, it gets the small number of documents with the court.  ESPN might later argue that OSU should have been more expansive in their interpretation of the records requests, which means OSU should have searched for more stuff, which means OSU would have found more stuff, which means OSU would have submitted even more documents to the court.

Good question.  That's basically ESPN's argument (as well as the argument that FERPA is not an exception to Ohio's FOIA law).  I will do something a bit later and more involved as the two sides file their legal briefs.

I also forgot about January 1.

Which is only one reason why this case is so dangerous for OSU.

If a player is having to defend himself relating to participation in football, the university can pick up the bill, apparently. I would imagine this is typical. One nice way of looking at this is that the attorney ethically must protect the interests of the client and not the person paying her. For that reason, Ohio could end up paying an attorney for arguing that it was the school, and not the student, who acted inappropriately. In other words, Gee may say they were off the reservation, but he's paying attorneys to perhaps prove him wrong.

The op mentions 10 to 15 threads for that many emails.  You need to have the email forwarded to get a thread, right?  I don't know if hiring Lombardi from the great beyond could save Smith or Gee right now.

All we can divine at this point is that there are approximately 50 emails to or from certain individuals (I think it was Gee, Smith, Tressel or something like that) containing the word "Sarniak" during a certain time period.  If Tressel received 3 or 4 and responded with 3 or 4, that makes 6-8 emails of the 51. 

Don't give the dirty bastards any ideas!

Interns baby, interns.