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Originally Posted by Schneed10
PSU, great post man. It's nice to get the solid legal perspective. There's only so much Law & Order reruns can teach you!!
In your professional opinion, if Taylor pleads guilty to aggravated assault, how much time do you think he'll actually serve? I was wondering if he'd do less time if he just pled guilty than he would if he tried to fight it and lost.
On football matters, I'm on your side now man. If it's at all feasible to our salary cap, I say get rid of him through trade or release, either way, just get rid of him. I wonder if we'll have a claim to get back any signing bonus money.
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Thanks Schneed.
As far as plea bargaining, if he were to plead guilty to aggravated assault, and there was a mandatory minimum in place for that offense, he would most likely be stuck with that mandatory minimum (I say most likely because a judge is always free to disregard any arrangements worked out between the parties and give more or less as long as it's within the sentencing guidelines......even if the prosecutor recommends the minimum, the judge could go higher). As for how long that is? That I don't know because I'm not intimately familiar with Florida law. I believe I saw in a prior post by RF that it starts at 5 years (gun charges are typically really tough).
Now, as a practical matter, ST probably wouldn't plead guilty to aggravated assault. Most likely his attorney would work out something with the prosecutor to get the charge dropped down to simple assault and then plead guilty to that (which is a misdemeanor). Then, it's up to the judge. If the judge is a prick, he could jail him for up to one year. More likely scenario (and here is where a clean record can help you): the judge will cut him some slack, give him a year probation, some community service, anger management courses, fines, etc., but no serious time. Whether the prosecution takes the deal to drop the charges down in exchange for a plea will, of course, depend on how strong the case is. If the alleged victims stole the ATVs, then expect a plea bargain because the victims would make poor witnesses (the type any lawyer would just love to cross examine on the stand). If they didn't steal the ATVs, then the prosecution has a strong case and may want to go forward with trial. So to answer your question, he can't get below whatever the mandatory minimum is for whatever crime he pleads guilty to. If that's aggravated assault, he'd be screwed. Of course, there is always getting out early for good behavior, and I'm not sure how Florida law works in that regard, but I'd imagine he'd be looking at at least a couple years before parole would be an option.
As for the contract and whether we could get any $ back? Same situation as Winslow right now. If there is a clause in there related to committing felonies or missing games/team events because of crimes, then certainly the Skins could sue for breach of contract and get some money back. I don't know if there are clauses in there like that or not though. Also don't know what, if any, effect that has on salary cap.
I'm willing to wait a little while to see if it's looking really bad for him before casting him off, but I agree, if he did this, or even if it just becomes painfully evident that he did something seriously wrong here, I'd rather not have him on my team than have him. I just can't cheer for guys that do things like this if even some of the allegations are true.