CBS: NCAA overstepped in USC case

The NCAA's chief adjudicative body overstepped its boundaries and was improperly influenced by prejudicial statements in finding USC guilty of major violations, plaintiffs for a former Trojans assistant coach say in documents unsealed Tuesday and obtained by CBSSports.com.
The NCAA had aggressively sought to seal the documents in which lawyers for Todd McNair, who worked on the Trojans staff from 2004-09, say at least three persons improperly tried to influence the powerful NCAA Committee on Infractions. The nearly 500 pages of documents were unsealed amid continuance in McNair's defamation suit against the NCAA filed in 2011.
McNair's lawyers cited numerous examples of what they said was bias in revealing emails between NCAA staffers. Specifically, the documents show:
•Two non-voting members of the infractions committee made disparaging statements about McNair -- his lawyers contend -- against proper NCAA procedure. One of those non-voting members, Roscoe Howard, a former U.S. attorney, said, "I don't think this committee should be chained to a (enforcement) staff that has seemed to have fallen short with this investigation or an Institution that has no intention of having us find out what actually happened here. I was insulted by arguments made by (the) institution and embarrassed by the reaction of the staff."
The plaintiffs' brief quotes committee liaison Shep Cooper telling the committee that McNair was "a lying morally bankrupt criminal, in my view, and a hypocrite of the highest order."
•In correspondence to the infractions committee, Rodney Uphoff, the NCAA coordinator of appeals, calls into question USC's hiring of Lane Kiffin. Uphoff had no voting rights with the infraction committee.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootbal ... em-to-show
The NCAA had aggressively sought to seal the documents in which lawyers for Todd McNair, who worked on the Trojans staff from 2004-09, say at least three persons improperly tried to influence the powerful NCAA Committee on Infractions. The nearly 500 pages of documents were unsealed amid continuance in McNair's defamation suit against the NCAA filed in 2011.
McNair's lawyers cited numerous examples of what they said was bias in revealing emails between NCAA staffers. Specifically, the documents show:
•Two non-voting members of the infractions committee made disparaging statements about McNair -- his lawyers contend -- against proper NCAA procedure. One of those non-voting members, Roscoe Howard, a former U.S. attorney, said, "I don't think this committee should be chained to a (enforcement) staff that has seemed to have fallen short with this investigation or an Institution that has no intention of having us find out what actually happened here. I was insulted by arguments made by (the) institution and embarrassed by the reaction of the staff."
The plaintiffs' brief quotes committee liaison Shep Cooper telling the committee that McNair was "a lying morally bankrupt criminal, in my view, and a hypocrite of the highest order."
•In correspondence to the infractions committee, Rodney Uphoff, the NCAA coordinator of appeals, calls into question USC's hiring of Lane Kiffin. Uphoff had no voting rights with the infraction committee.
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootbal ... em-to-show