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| Well, we made it until the end of October. |
News surfaced today that Syracuse starting kicker Ryan Norton is suspended for the Wake Forest game this Saturday due to an arrest last weekend. Norton had been the starter since Ross Krautman was lost for the season due to injury/surgery.
Norton's arrest stems from allegations of underage possession of alcohol and resisting arrest. Evidently, Norton was outside of Acropolis on Marshall Street last Friday night (strike 1), possessing a 24-ounce can of Bud Light (strike 2). When approached by police, he initially complied but then tried to run away, and struggled when they apprehended him (strike 3).
Now, in my experience as a defense attorney, police do have a tendency to over-exaggerate allegations of resisting arrest. But my guess is Norton acted stupid enough to warrant these charges. I say stupid because if he's cooperative with police about the underage drinking, maybe he just walks away from this. Maybe they cops just say "Throw away the beer and go home." Or, at worst, he gets cited for underage drinking -- a simple violation -- which would send him to Syracuse Community Court, he'd have the option to perform community service, and have the charge be dismissed. Instead, he complicated things by resisting.
Complicated, because resisting arrest is a misdemeanor. A crime. If he's found guilty of resisting arrest, he gets a criminal record. It becomes more difficult to dispose of the case.
While a conviction of resisting arrest carries a maximum of one year in jail or three years probation, I certainly don't see either of those things happening here. In fact, I don't see him being convicted of resisting arrest. Assuming he has no criminal history, I think at worst he pleads down to disorderly conduct & pays a fine, or at best performs community service and gets everything dismissed.
We'll let the court process play itself out. In the meantime, Head Coach Scott Shafer has already decided that this is a violation of team rules, that Norton will be suspended for one game (Wake Forest this Saturday), and will rejoin the team for the game at Maryland next week.
So to recap, a few things from this: football players need to not be idiots when they're not playing football; and to his detriment he made his own situation worse by resisting. Not smart. None of this was smart. Especially the "hanging out in front of Acropolis on a Friday night" part.
Labels: Breaking The Law, Football, Orange44 Lawdogs
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