gree0232 said:
If USADA has developed a solid body of evidence than they have filled their jurisdictional role quite well. You cannot be prosecuted and judge however. That is, if anything, a bigger potential conflict of interest than the UCI - which at least wants to dupe people into thinking the peloton is clean right?
I don’t know where you get the notion that USADA is both prosecutor and judge. Again, it gets to pick one arb, the athlete picks a second, those two arbs agree on a third. That does not make USADA the judge.
In jury trials, the prosecution and defense cooperate in selecting the jury members. Does that make the prosecution the judge?
And the bottom line, as always, is that the athlete originally agreed to this system. Whether it is as “fair” as the criminal justice system is irrelevant. The athlete chose to submit to these procedures. Again, LA at one time said he welcomed a USADA investigation. Someone who thought the system was profoundly unfair would never welcome an investigation through it. It only became unfair when it came up with a conclusion he didn’t like.
If USADA wants to fill the role of prosecutor, good. The UCI however, is not the cyclists union and not really capable of offering defense. Nevertheless, it's being backed into that role. If the UCI is the defense, so be it. Good.
The UCI is not being “backed into” the role of defense. That role is up to LA, or any other athlete charged by an ADA. The fact is, LA has considerably more resources at his disposal than the UCI has, he is perfectly capable of defending himself without UCI help. UCI took upon itself to challenge USADA, something it hasn’t done in the past, and an action that to many of us reeks of suspicion, suggests it has something to hide.
Well, whether you like or hate LA, the fact remains, if we presume innocence, I would have done the same thing LA did. We all, using what I would assume is a little objectivity, know the outcome of that hearing even though it will not happen. Again, a prosecutor cannot be judge. Issue your verdict, I will see you at CAS. I will invest time and expense in a venue that actually matters, issue your verdict please.
Why do you think the outcome of the hearing is certain? The only reason I would have for believing that is because the testimony against LA is irrefutable. Because USADA, like most prosecutors, would not go to the trouble of laying out the charges unless it believed it had a case it was quite sure it could win. This is standard throughout the criminal justice system. Many criminals get off simply because the prosecution doesn’t believe it has enough evidence to make its case. If it does believe it does, it usually does win its case, so yes, the outcome is very likely.
This doesn’t make the system unfair. It’s simply a signal that the evidence against LA is overwhelming. I have already pointed out that USADA is not the judge in this case. If the evidence is so poor, why does LA not trust the arbiters to come to a just decision?
And after saying “see you at CAS”, “a venue that actually matters”, you later (see below) describe CAS as a kangaroo court. IOW, whatever the venue, it is not fair. Every time someone suggests another venue, you argue it is not fair. If the Supreme Court ruled that LA engaged in criminal activity related to doping, I have little doubt you would complain that the S.C. is not fair, and that our entire judicial system needs to be overhauled.
The part that bothers me on a personal level is the reasoning to hide witnesses. As serious as this is, it's not like we are in Columbian jungles fighting FARC. there actions that help, and actions that inflame. And the claims of witness intimidation, though I have no doubt that omertà is a serious problem in AD efforts, put a circus feeling on the process.
I really don’t understand all the hullabaloo over not naming the witnesses. We all know who they are, I could name most of them right off the bat. Suppose USADA officially announced today who they were. What difference would that make? Would LA say, oh, in that case, I will go to arbitration, now that I know who my accusers are? Of course not. He would immediately begin a smear campaign, at the very least, aimed at all of them, but it would have no affect on his decision to enter the arbitration process.
He doesn’t need the names of the witnesses to prepare a case in his defense, because he already knows who they are. The only thing accomplished by officially naming the witnesses would be to put them in the public eye, where a smear campaign against them would be more effective.
Ok, let's put ourselves in the role of objective overseer of this process. A prosecutor, USADA, says ******bag is guilty and I a have overwhelming evidence to prove it. The defense offers a shoulder shrug. All parties agree that 30 days later the evidence will be shared and the process begun. 30 days go by and the prosecutor says he need more time with no explanation ... Bearing in mind his first statement. If you were a judge over seeing that, would, "the defense is corrupt!" Really do it for you?
This is a false analogy. The USADA was not given a set amount of time by some judge, within which it was ordered to produce something (unlike LA, who was able to get an extension at one point only because USADA granted him one). There is no rule that says USADA has to produce these files by a certain date. They simply said they would produce them by a certain date, then determined later that they needed more time. The extension involved is far less time than was involved in the numerous postponements of Contador’s CAS trial, e.g. In that case, we know much of the delay was because of the need to deal with new evidence and arguments, and the delays went on for months.
Sure, a lot of us have speculated why USADA needs all this extra time. I will even agree with you that it doesn’t look very good. But UCI will get the files eventually, and no one is expecting them to support USADA until they do.
He has not seen the evidence, and has no desire to go before what he believes is a kangaroo court.
WTF? Before you said that it should all be resolved at CAS. You said UCI and USADA should take it there. You described CAS as a venue that matters. I point out that USADA is willing to do this, LA is the obstacle. Now you are saying CAS is a kangaroo court? You have lost all credibility. Apparently you believe there is no court, no venue, on earth that can provide LA with a fair trial.
That is not what they said. USADA said witnesses. The riders a likely Floyd and Tyler. Beyond that, it open. Are they the Andreau's? Greg Lemond? Ballaster?
Again, I hope there is more, but much of what I have read to this point is Tyler feeding Floyd and Floyd feeding Tyler. I personally think that Tyler is a credible witness, but Floyd brings more baggage to the issue than a dump truck. I certainly hope that there are other riders who corroborate. If not? It's Tyler vs Armstrong.
Again, almost all the witnesses are well known. We are not talking about just Tyler and Floyd, and you know it. There is TD, Levi, vande, George, JV, yes, the Andreus, and several others I could speculate on. If LA really thought it was all about Floyd and Tyler, why wouldn’t he like his chances and go to arbitration? Do you seriously believe that a guy who has again and again gone after people accusing him of doping would pass on arbitration if it were only those two? Walsh possibly had more evidence, and was more credible, than either of those two, and LA went after him. Mike Anderson is not some lying doper, and LA went after him. So now LA is now scared of Floyd and Tyler?
That is speculation, not evidence.
It is not speculation, it is cold hard logic. He either knew his teammates were doping, or did not. Either situation raises very troubling questions.
It’s ironic that you try to label a point I make as speculation, when your entire argument is rife with speculation, and not even speculation based on rational arguments. The USADA arbitration process is unfair. Pure speculation, and very poor speculation at that. CAS is unfair. Same. USADA is not releasing the witness names for sinister reasons. Extraordinarily weak speculation. USADA is delaying releasing the files to UCI because it’s hiding something. Speculation.
Do you know Lances state of mind?
People advertise their state of mind by their actions. I know that he is someone who has always fought his accusers in the past, who did not simply defend himself against doping charges, but aggressively went after people who made them. Why is he not defending himself now?
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