Ray Rice's Lawyer Speaks Publicly

While it has been just one day since Ray Rice spoke publicly for the first time since the domestic assault charges, the press conference has already generated plenty of negative attention from the national media.

Rice has received criticism for how the press conference was handled, especially for having his wife apologize to the media for her role in the altercation.

His lawyer, Michael Diamondstein, did not permit Rice to answer questions from the media after issuing his statement yesterday. In his radio interview on Saturday, Diamondstein offered some remarks regarding how Rice's legal team could handle the situation moving forward.

"This is just a complete hypothetical," Diamondstein told Matt Hammond of 97.3 FM in New Jersey.  "Let’s assume for the sake of argument, rather than enter into the pretrial diversionary program that  [Rice] entered into, we hypothetically move forward on the case.  And hypothetically we litigate 100 motions and the video comes out and the video shows — hypothetically speaking now, hypothetically speaking — shows that Ray wasn’t the first person that hit and Ray was getting repeatedly hit but just Ray hit harder, fired one back and hit harder.  Hypothetically speaking, and he gets found not guilty.  Is that result somehow better?  Is it better for the public?  Is it better for the Ravens?  Is it better for Ray?  Is it better for Janay?"

As Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk suggests, Diamondstein wasn't speaking in hypotheticals. It was an attempt by Diamondstein to speak about what happened on that night and avoid any potential legal trouble.

It’s obvious that Diamondstein wasn’t speaking in hypotheticals.  He was sending a message while repeatedly using the word that allows lawyers and others to cover their butts.  It allowed Diamondstein to say what happened without actually saying anything, technically.

What he said — "hypothetically" — is that Janay Rice threw the first punch.  That she threw multiple punches.  That she threw punches until Ray decided he was going to throw one back.  And all it took was one.

Florio insists that Rice decided to enter the diversionary program in order to avoid having more footage of the incident with Janay released to the public. Diamondstein, on the other hand, claims to have different intentions.

"I don’t think the fact that he entered into a pre-trial diversionary person should be something that anybody looks negatively at," Diamondstein said.

Ultimately, Rice's legal team made it clear that they want the maturation process to begin immediately. The first step was for Rice to speak publicly, acknowledging the mistakes he made and how he wants to progress moving forward. But Roger Goodell will likely want to review all of the available evidence, including the videos that have not been released, before taking disciplinary action on Rice.

That means Rice could continue to face an uphill battle to restore his image as a person both on and off the field.

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