Alabama football players Cam Robinson and Hootie Jones found themselves on the receiving end of good news Monday, when it was announced that neither player would face charges stemming from their May arrests. This decision makes sense because it wasn't a serious crime or anything ... Oh wait, Robinson and Jones were found in a car near a park, police discovered marijuana in that car and Robinson was looking at a felony count of possession of a stolen firearm.
Yes, a Louisiana district attorney decided that there wasn't sufficient evidence to try the duo, despite the fact that Robinson was driving around with a stolen handgun under his seat. There was also a second gun in the possession of Jones (don't worry, this one wasn't stolen), but he was facing an additional charge for possessing a firearm in the presence of narcotics.
I don't understand the legal process as much as I'm sure the DA does, so maybe there was some procedural error in the discovery of the drugs and the guns. Or maybe they belonged to the other two people in the car, who apparently exist according to Robinson and Jones' lawyer. I'm not willing to say that both or either players were guilty, but that's not the point. The point is one that I've tried to make time and time again: Being a good person and just avoiding committing crimes is more important than anything that can be done on a football field, a basketball court, a baseball diamond or any other venue where sports are played.
This isn't a column I feel that I should have to write. When players and coaches are punished for their actions, I feel that the world of sports is progressing (as I wrote last month when Baylor fired Art Briles). However, the statement released by the aforementioned Louisiana DA proves to me that plenty of people, including a lawyer whose job it is to prosecute people who break the law, still believe that sports is more important than doing the right thing.
"I want to emphasize once again that the main reason I'm doing this is that I refuse to ruin the lives of two young men who have spent their adolescence and their teenage years, working and sweating, while we were all home in the air conditioning," DA Jerry Jones said, proving that he may be just as crazy as the more well-known Jerry Jones.
To summarize, Jones the DA is choosing not to prosecute Robinson and Jones the football player for multiple charges, including a felony because they worked really hard to get so good at football. Of course, because those two things are related. I'm sure those two young men were heading to the Alabama weight room after midnight with their weed and guns to begin a new unorthodox training program.
And if their talent matters, I'm sure Robinson's talent really matters, considering the fact that he's considered to be a potential top-5 pick in the 2017 NFL Draft. Hootie Jones was a backup defensive back on last year's national championship team, which might have made him expendable, but Robinson was facing more serious charges, so it was in the best interest of the football program (err, I mean the carrying out of justice) to drop the charges against both.
At the time of the arrest, it appeared pretty clear that Cam Robinson had committed a felony. There was a stolen handgun under his seat, not to mention the drugs in the car. However, the 325-pound offensive tackle will face no legal punishment at all for his actions, and come April, he will most likely be moving on completely from this mistake after being selected in the first few minutes of the draft.
Situations such as this one make for a dangerous system. The more frequently athletes get off scot-free from apparent clear-cut felonies, the more likely it is that a top-level athlete will commit a crime, feeling that he or she is above the law.
Sure, no one was hurt by Robinson and Jones' actions, but no one who wasn't in that car knows what two young adults were planning to do in the wee hours of the morning with two handguns and some weed. This was still a serious crime, and the fact that the DA claims that his primary reasoning for dropping charges is the work these men have put in on the football field should be a crime itself.
When it comes to legal punishment, all people should be viewed equally. I don't care how good Cam Robinson is at football; if he committed a felony, which it appears that he did, his actions should come with consequences.