Amicus brief - any SignGate experts want to fact-check and suggest citations?
Who wants to give me a hand with the background section of the amicus brief? Here is an early draft of part of the section on which you can comment, fact-check, and suggest citations. Note that I’ll be closing this draft in a few hours, at which time the link will no longer work.
The amicus brief has over 1500 alumni co-signers. Thank you all for spreading the word. For anyone who wants to add their name in the next few hours, the link to the form is http://bit.ly/harbaughbrief
November 14th, 2023 at 9:09 AM ^
This was exactly my consideration (also an engineer, but have had some formal legal training along the way).
The grey area in the "in-person scouting" rule regarding "third-parties" hasn't even been addressed by the ncaa... Stallions might have actually been right when he thought he found a loophole, despite the mass outrage by media and cfb personages (who almost certainly use similar advanced scouting of their own opponents).
It may end up being legal by the letter-of-the-law per the ncaa, yet the Big Ten could still contend it is against the "spirit" of the rules and thus be "unsportsmanlike"... which would be something if they take similar action against the other teams proven to have obtained opponents signs/signals by other, similar means (ncaa legal yet against the "spirit").
November 14th, 2023 at 9:16 AM ^
I’m a little concerned with this sitting out here not password protected - shouldn’t it be locked to signatories of the brief, at least to avoid trolls?
November 14th, 2023 at 11:18 AM ^
It happened...
November 14th, 2023 at 11:41 AM ^
This is a tiny portion of the brief, not the brief itself.
November 14th, 2023 at 11:56 AM ^
Understood, but insofar as it has any value, being publicly accessible compromises it, and many of the accounts offering comments to it have real names or at least real email addresses
November 14th, 2023 at 9:21 AM ^
An amazing site: we got a quick review of urinary stones earlier in the month and now legal matters, and it all relates to UM sports.
November 14th, 2023 at 9:47 AM ^
... and also dog anal glands and BBQ recipes.
November 14th, 2023 at 9:39 AM ^
Forgive my naivety in legal matters, but will the hearing expose the names of the PI Firm(s) behind the complaint or better yet, the individuals who are the source?
November 14th, 2023 at 11:42 AM ^
No, I don’t see why it would. The hearing will discuss arguments made by the parties in their competing briefs.
November 14th, 2023 at 10:06 AM ^
Not a lawyer - but there is the whole thing about what constitutes in-person scouting vs 3rd party scouting and 3rd party videoing.
Also the bit about that risk to opposing players is essentially the same no matter how the signs were obtained. e.g., the risk to Michigan players vs Purdue, Rutgers or Ohio State was the same as the risk to Michigan opponent players.
Also, it seems very dangerous to set a precedent where a team or friends of that team can hire an investigative firm to illicitly obtain information on another team within the conference, turn that in to the NCAA, and then drive a sensationalized PR / smear campaign of mixed facts and innuendos through the press to bring sanctions on that other team before all facts and rule violations are determined.
November 14th, 2023 at 10:09 AM ^
While I applaud this, you are a brave man inviting all these edits LOL. It's hard enough reconciling when working with two or three others and a client.
Best of luck!
November 14th, 2023 at 10:42 AM ^
Rym: Some troll with username "medusa little" has just trashed your google doc
November 14th, 2023 at 11:02 AM ^
I just saw that when I went in. Ass—— troll.
November 14th, 2023 at 10:48 AM ^
I don't know if this has been mentioned in the comments already but there's an apparent Sparty in the doc attempting to sabotage it. It appears to be ongoing.
November 14th, 2023 at 10:53 AM ^
I assume Sparty because the troll is barely literate. I realize that could also mean Nebraska. I'll give them props; they're idiotic but damn thorough.
November 14th, 2023 at 11:01 AM ^
I think it should be pointed out that a thorough reading of the ncaa rules appears to show that what Connor did is not illegal. Our own Erik in Dayton made one analysis. A very similar analysis appeared on bucknuts which is what I use to show people this fact since it’s written from the perspective of someone biased in the opposite direction from M Further any sign sharing between teams is by definition in person advance scouting
November 14th, 2023 at 11:05 AM ^
Only a little bit tangential to this particular topic, but now there are Xitter accounts claiming that the NCAA "has offered immunity" to U-M players to encourage testifying against Harbaugh and/or the program.
November 14th, 2023 at 11:09 AM ^
(For those of you who are wondering, the "X" in "Xitter" is pronounced with a soft "sh" sound, as in "shoe")
November 14th, 2023 at 11:06 AM ^
Has this thing been hacked? When I try to pull up the doc now I get a document with just about everything crossed out. The first sentence is:
The Big Ten has a mountain of evidence on their own and from the NCAA and used that to suspended Jim Boogereatercaved to rival schools’ demands for immediate punishment of Michigan before an ongoing NCAA investigation was complete.
Which I sincerely doubt was in your draft.
November 14th, 2023 at 12:11 PM ^
Of course — it appears a troll found it. Not a problem, I reversed all that and I have everyone's comments and suggestions from before in my local copy.
November 14th, 2023 at 11:18 AM ^
The brief has been hit by a saboteur!
November 14th, 2023 at 11:59 AM ^
Locked, we’re good now — thank you for your help! Many great comments and suggestions. I’ve saved them in a local copy and will review them all as I revise. We will post the full brief once it’s filed.
To avoid some confusion I see in a few posts above, what was posted was a draft of a tiny portion of the brief, not the brief itself.
The brief is about to pass 1,700 alumni signatures submitted through the web form, which I'm closing soon so we can finalize the list.
November 14th, 2023 at 12:33 PM ^
Thanks, RYM, for your work on this.
November 14th, 2023 at 12:09 PM ^
This is great work, but I think it's probably going to go badly for Michigan on Friday.
Once I saw the part of the conference bylaws that basically says the commissioner can use whatever as evidence and decide on punishment as he / this four-member panel see fit, that rang the alarm bells for me.
A judge could simply say that the conference is following the by-laws that Michigan agreed to upon joining.
Or maybe I'm missing something.....how is Michigan planning to get around this?
November 14th, 2023 at 12:51 PM ^
By making it obvious that that is not the intent of the bylaws and is completely different from how they’ve historically been interpreted.
The Sportsmanship Policy is meant to cover actions not already covered by other NCAA rules and enforcement mechanisms.
November 14th, 2023 at 2:12 PM ^
my guess is that they try to get around it with an argument which will assert that the Sportsmanship Policy is being misapplied here; that conference rules don't allow the SP to supersede the rule dictating that the conference must allow the NCAA to be first to walk through any door the NCAA opens.
November 14th, 2023 at 12:18 PM ^
Chick-fil-Harbaugh was a classmate of mine. Glad she signed. She was so low-maintenance.
November 14th, 2023 at 12:33 PM ^
The RCMB sleuths have everything figured out now! We are so screwed! LOL!!
November 14th, 2023 at 3:56 PM ^
If everyone took the time to screenshot every idiotic thing typed on RCMB and run over here to share it, this site would just be RCMB. Leave their shit posts over at their shitty site.