As a law student, I have a couple of questions for David Stern. First, if he was a northern judge during slavery, would he have enforced fugitive slave laws (which made it mandatory to return slaves which escaped)? Second, in the landmark case of Lawrence v. Texas, which made laws against homosexual sex illegal, would David Stern have upheld these discriminatory laws simply because they were upheld in the past? Obviously these situations have a larger ethical dimension than the current Sun v. Spurs controversy, but the point of course is that a rigid application of the law is not necessarily desirable.
The absurd suspensions stemming from game 4 should not be a surprise to anyone. Stern went to a top American law school, and a central principle of law in the US is the notion of stare decisis; this is the idea of extreme deference to past decisions. Whether stare decisis is good or bad, it is a part of the judicial decision making tradition Stern grew up in. Having said this, American law also allows for various interpretative tools that create flexibility in this rigid system. The landscape of law is littered with examples of judges not directly overruling a decision but reinterpreting the facts and the rules in ways that leave previous decisions in tact while allowing for the present situation to be answered in a more just manner. Stern’s flaw was his refusal to implement these techniques.
Several arguments could have been made to keep the rule while at the same time allowing for a just outcome. First, as Woody Page said on Around the Horn, neither Stoudemire nor Diaw went further than the coach’s line on the floor (the area denoting how far the coach can go without receiving a technical). There is no reason, other than an adherence to an outdated interpretation of what is considered leaving the bench, that Stern could not have said that when a fight breaks out above the coaches line, and a player does not cross the coaches line, they are not too far away from the bench. Furthermore, the rules only apply when an altercation has occurred; why not require two or more people to be thrown out of the game for fighting in order to have an altercation? It takes two to tango, and only Big Shot Bob was ejected; it is not much of an altercation when only one person is kicked out of the game. There are more arguments to be made, but what should be obvious is that Stern might have to adhere to the rule, but he does not have to adhere to his past personal interpretations of the rule.
David Stern could make several counter arguments to support his actions. His best argument might be that if you really want to kill a rule, enforce it strictly with ludicrous outcomes, and force the owners to change it; interpreting a rule with flexibility would solve the current situation, but it would also give the owners a false sense of security that the law is adequate. The result would be that the door is left open for more difficult situations down the road. Although there is strong support for David Stern’s actions, the end product will probably be the spurs versus jazz in a series that should be less exciting than last years world series (if that is possible). There is a silver lining here for you hockey fans; I for one would rather watch woman’s hockey than the Jazz/Spurs, so maybe this series will be unappealing enough that the cup finals will get a boost in the state side television ratings.
(note-- it is entirely possilbe that none of this matters. The NBA is obviously fixed and therefore if NBA wants the Suns to win, they will win anyway)
