In Rice appeal, former federal judge returns to spotlight

A New York attorney used a baseball umpiring analogy to sum up why former federal judge Barbara S. Jones has the stuff to make the right call as the arbitrator who will rule on Ray Rice's appeal of an indefinite suspension by the National Football League.

No matter how hot the media spotlight in a domestic case that has spawned an ongoing investigation of whether the league and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell handled it properly,"this is not somebody who is looking to become the story," said Jeffrey Lichtman, who practices criminal law in New York, where Jones was a federal judge for 17 years before going into private legal practice in 2013.

"It's like they say about an umpire," Lichtman said. "It's best when no one knows what the umpire's name is in a baseball game. And that's the way she is as a judge. She is not somebody who is going to turn this into the Barbara Jones Show."

Jones led the first day of closed-door appeal hearing Wednesday in New York as the NFL Players Association presented a case that the NFL subjected Rice to double jeopardy and violated his right to due process under the collective bargaining agreement. Goodell initially suspended Rice for two games in a domestic violence case, then increased it to an indefinite ban following the release of a video showing Rice knocking out his then fiancée/now wife with a punch in an elevator at an Atlantic City, N.J., casino.

The league has said the video was new evidence. The hearing will wrap up Thursday.

With the agreement of the NFL and the union, Jones was named as the outside arbitrator.

The case is high profile. But Jones is no stranger to that from her years as judge in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York, a position to which she was appointed by former President Bill Clinton after serving as a federal prosecutor with emphasis on organized crime.

In 2005, Jones sentenced Bernard J. Ebbers, former chairman of WorldCom, to 25 years in prison in an $11 billion corporate fraud case that drew worldwide attention. In 1997, she presided over the trial of Autumn Jackson, convicted of trying to extort $40 million from entertainer Bill Cosby. She ran trials involving sex trafficking and international terrorism.

At the start of the Ebbers trial, the New York Times noted in an article that Jones was known for her catered Christmas parties in the federal courthouse in Manhattan, complete with a disc jockey. "But true to her image as a bridge builder, she makes sure that the courthouse staff member, including cleaners and security guards, are invited."

In the court room, she earned a reputation as fair but also tough on both sides if they were ill-prepared or out of bounds.

"What it always felt like with her was that there was never any bias on one side or another," Lichtman said. " … She treated everybody the same, no matter how heinous the charges were, no matter how explosive they were.

"So when I saw she was chosen to handle the investigation of the Ray Rice situation, I mean you're getting somebody who is not going to go in with any kind of preconceived notion. … Whatever the right disposition is, I feel Barbara Jones will get to it."

Jones (full name Barbara Sue Jones), a native of Inglewood, Calif., graduated from St. Mary's College in Los Angeles in 1968 and got her law degree from Temple University in 1973. Before becoming a federal judge, she was a prosecutor.

As an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, she tried organized crime cases. She handled a prosecution of the Bonanno crime family that was among the first cases involving RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. She later came chief of the Organized Crime Strike Force in Manhattan.

"Oftentimes you'll have judges that are former prosecutors, and you can't help but feel as a defense lawyer that you're getting another sort of super prosecutor up on the bench. Not just a judge," Lichtman said. " … She was just dead bang fair.''

Another New York criminal attorney, Charles Ross, agreed.

"I always found her to be incredibly even keeled and even tempered. She was very fair to both sides even though she has a serious prosecutorial background," Ross said. "She'd listen, she'd let you work. She definitely was no pushover. … She's not somebody who suffers fools gladly. But by the token she's not nasty. She's not unreasonably critical or anything like that. But if you're not prepared then she'll pick up on that immediately.''

Ross said she was one of the better judges he's encountered in New York. He, too, noted she's had high profile cases before.

"I mean she tried Bernie Ebbers," Ross said. " … So she doesn't let the cameras get in the way of anything. She's not star struck. She's used to it. She's the consummate professional when it comes to dealing with the tensions of a high profile case.''

In the Rice case, one of the issues Jones will have to sort out is when the NFL first had access to the elevator video. Goodell has said the league did not have the video until after its release by TMZ.com. The league had seen an earlier video showing Rice dragging his unconscious fiancée from the elevator.

As a defense lawyer, Lichtman expects Smith to get to the bottom of that.

"He gets suspended and then all of a sudden they claim later that new stuff came out and that's why they changed the suspension… and then you hear from the other side that no in fact they did have that tape already," Lichtman said.

"I think this is pretty straight forward. I think the question that needs to be answered is was Ray Rice suspended indefinitely because of the explosiveness of the tape as opposed to fairness, if NFL was more concerned about making itself look good than giving the guy due process."

Lichtman has questions about the significance of the second tape.

"At very best, the NFL is claiming that they saw the initial tape, which is Ray Rice dragging his unconscious fiancée out of the elevator. I mean the question that begs to be answered is, 'Well, how did they think she got that way? Did it make a difference that he gave her a left cross as opposed to a right uppercut?' He didn't blow pixie dust on her to make her unconscious. He obviously did something inside the elevator to make her unconscious."

Jones will make the final determination.