I almost hate to do this to you, but here is the ENTIRE Gary Lieberstein press conference from Napa this afternoon. Yeah, it’s hefty, but there are some highly interesting nuggets in here regarding the Hanson vs. Cable case.

Also attending:
Assistant DA Lee Phillipson
Senior Deputy DA Paul Jarreau (sp?)

Gary Lieberstein:
“It is the decision of our office that we will not be filing criminal charges against Oakland Raiders coach Tom Cable, in regards to the incident that occurred at the training center at the Napa Marriott in a hotel room back on August 5 of this year. Our decision is based on a full review of the evidence. We had an outstanding and very complete investigation done by the Napa Police Department, which quite frankly wasn’t finished until yesterday afternoon when the victim in this case, the alleged victim, Randy Hanson, was asked back to give a follow-up interview to explain many inconsistencies that had occurred during a number of statements he had given over the course of this investigation. It’s import for you to understand what our process is involved, and that our timetable is whatever time we need to make a fair and just decision after we’ve been able to review all the facts and all the evidence in this case.

“I could tell you that this is just like any other case – and I don’t walk out of my office every day like this, but I will tell you our analysis is the same. We’re dealing with real people, real lives and real consequences. And who this affects and who’s interested in it is no different than any other case that we handle in our office. What I want you to understand is that we reviewed many extensive investigative reports involving several individuals that were inside the hotel room where this occurred. That included three assistant coaches of the Oakland Raiders, Randy Hanson the alleged victim, and of course coach Tom Cable. We did not have anything to review from Mr. Cable, that’s his right not to say anything, and he chose to exercise that right. So our job is to review what’s in front of us, and it’s important when you look at the background of this case, to understand how this came about, and also to understand a little bit about how it is that we do our job.

“Our job is to do the right thing for the right reasons, it’s to seek justice, and it’s to ultimately determine whether or not we believe that based on all the facts and circumstances of this case or any other case, whether we believe we can prove charges beyond a reasonable doubt in front of a jury. And we also have an addtional duty to the citizens of our community and to the job that we have strived to, to make sure we are doing everything we can to achieve justice.

“The way this evolved, as many of you may be aware, we started out in this case back on August 5. There was an incident at the Raiders’ training camp – I’m not gonna go over all the details, because I know you have this in your press statement. But suffice to say there was a meeting of sorts in a hotel room during training camp. During the course of that meeting, Mr. Cable was apparently expressing some concerns he had in regards to something in terms of, something that had happened prior to that point in Mr. Hanson’s job. During the course of that incident – and the other coaches – there were some words spoken, Mr. Hanson was disappointed in something he was being told, Coach Cable apparently did get angry and moved toward Mr. Hanson, a couple of the other coaches stepped in between, there was no direct contact that we’ve been able to establish between coach Cable and assistant coach Hanson; there was possibly a situation where Mr Hanson had his feet up on the table – it looks like that’s what occurred – and he was even bumped into or lost his balance, and he did fall over backwards. It’s very important for you to understand, despite what may have been going on in different rumors and reports in the media, there’s no evidence whatsoever that would support that Tom Cable ever physically struck or physically pushed or assaulted in that manner Mr. Hanson. There is also no credible evidence that we can establish in this case that there were in fact verbal threats made toward Mr. Hanson. And this is based on the full review of the three independent witnesses that were in the room. We have determined that there was some type of physical contact that did happen between Mr. Cable and Mr. Hanson when Mr. Hanson went down. And one could say in a textbook manner that a battery had occurred. What I would just submit to you is it would probably be more akin to one of you jostling for position, bumping into each other and asking us to prosecute.

“There are many factors that we look into. But the bottom line is when we review the many different statements that were made, and not made – because again, to go over the sequence, the night of Aug. 5, Randy Hanson went to the hospital. And this is previous. When this incident happened, the police were not called, the matter was not reported. Mr. Hanson went to the hospital to report an injury. As a result of our laws, the police were called. The police responded, Mr. Hanson refused to say who did this, refused to press charges, did not want anything further to happen, and indicated at that time that someone had tried to punch him or hit him. Subsequently, we understood that other statements were made over the course of time. But over the next many wks – five, six weeks – Mr. Hanson made no statements. Law enforcement tried to reach him several times when they reopened the case because of the rumor that there was a fracture, and there was indeed a fracture that did occur in this case. But it is our conclusion based on all the statements that that was not the result of any intended act by Mr. Cable, that under the law we have to prove that act is willful, and we do not believe that we would be able to sustain that standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt in front of a jury. And our job is not to just throw things up in front of a jury and see what happens. We have an ethical duty not to file charges that we do not believe can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. And that, again, is what occurred in this case.

“It was only many, many weeks later, after several requests for interviews, that Mr. Hanson agreed to come to interview, and he did so only in the presence of his lawyer. And it was very important for us in analyzing this case to understand the long delay. And the best answer we could get initially was it was on the best advice of his attorney. We never really got a satisfactory answer to that. The bottom line here is whatever happened was of a nature that we believe is not appropriate for the criminal justice system. We don’t believe, because of the various inconsistent statements made over the course of this case, that this is a case that I’m going to, as the district attorney of the county, ask citizens of my community to give up their time away from their families and their lives to come in and sit on jury service based on what happened in this case. So once again, we have unanimously concluded in our office that charges will not be filed in this case. I’ll be happy to take questions.”

Did your office interview Tom Cable directly?
“We did not interview him. He is represented by his own lawyer. He has an absolute right not to say anything, and he chose to avail himself of that right. So we can’t either use that against him or for him. So that’s not a consideration in our decision.”

Will Hanson be charged with obstruction?
“I don’t anticipated any further charges in this case. I would not characterize Mr. Hanson’s acts as obstruction.”
What if he goes on the record saying he was punched?
“I would just tell you, I would obviously need to see what came forward. I would sincerely doubt that that would occur. I believe that… What you need to understand is this is something that happened very, very quickly. I mean, this happened probably in a matter of, at most, in a minute or two, if not in seconds. And people had different recollections of how it happened. But I believe this matter will be closed after today.”

Will you be running for office next year?
“I have been a member of this office for going on 25 years, I’m in my third elected term, and if the good citizens of Napa County are kind enough to give me the privilege of returning, yes I will.”

Were you cognizant when questioning witnesses that there could be repercussions from their employer?
“No, that’s not part of our decision. There are other forums for that to be held. Whether I agree or disagree with someone’s management style, that’s not my jurisdiction. My jurisdiction is, did a crime occur? And if it did occur, can it be proven beyond a reasonable doubt in front of a jury? Period.”

But could the employer-employee relationship have influenced the testimony?
“I don’t believe I could speculate on that. I don’t think that would be appropriate.”

Did Hanson change his mind about going forward?
“I would accept Mr. Hanson at face value, that he had his reasons for not wanting to go forward, and it had to do with wanting to have this handled inside and not have to have this handled out in the public forum. He may have been getting advice of counsel that probably didn’t help him in pursuing this case. We did mention in our press release, and it’s worth mentioning, we believe it was only after Mr. Hanson was not able to resolve this matter internally and it became more public that he changed his mind about cooperating. And in fact we did indicate that, as recently as last week, he did come into the Napa Police Department and made a comment to the extent that since he was not getting what he wanted from the organization that he was on board with prosecution. And that does not factor into our decision in terms of whether or not we allow the criminal justice process to be used in this manner.”

Any pressure from the community or from the Raiders not to jeopardize the team holding training camp here?
“That has absolutely nothing to do with my decision. And the reason, I’ll tell you this. First of all, if you look at the door, my title is District Attorney of Napa County. I’m not president of the chamber of commerce of Napa. And whether the Raiders choose to have their camp here or somewhere else has nothing to do with my obligations as district attorney. So people can speculate all they want, that has nothing to do with our decision or our process.”

Were the assistant coaches interviewed independently of one another?
“Yes, they were.”

To be clear, Hanson had a broken jaw?
“The medical records did indicate a displacement or fracture of I believe it was on the left side, yes.”

Any conversations between your office and the NFL commissioner’s office?
“The only conversations, just as we’ve done with all of you, we’ve just given status updates in terms of our process, and they’ve been very respective of our process and just asked to be notified when we reach our decision, and I’m confident that at least one of you will notify them if they don’t know already.”

How many times did you attempt to speak with Cable?
“Once again, we didn’t attempt to talk to him at all. He’s represented by an attorney. We certainly made it known to his attorney we would very much like to consider his side of things, but that was his choice. And once we’re told he makes the choice not to talk, it would be unethical and improper for us to have further contact. And again, that’s only through his lawyer. We would be forbidden from direct contact.”

Isn’t it assault even if you don’t touch the other guy?
“Yeah, if this is a law-school exam question, you know, did a harmful or offensive touching happen? I wouldn’t disagree with you on that. I would say in terms of all the activity we saw in this case, that we don’t believe there’s any evidence to suggest that had Mr. Cable reached Mr. Hanson, that he was going to physically assault him or throttle him or something like that. And in fact when he had the opportunity – and again, I think we’ve described this – the actual contact he had when Mr. Hanson was down, he basically, as best we can tell from the witnesses, had hold of his collar and was essentially continuing to lecture him about his concerns about the organization and how he was handling himself. So the question is, would we file every type of misdemeanor battery that ever happened. You have to look at all the circumstances. Quite clearly in our mind, there’s absolutely no credible evidence that we would put in front of a jury to prove a felony occurred here. So our analysis comes down to, did a misdemeanor battery technically occur? And again, in a law-school exam question, yes. But when you take all the witnesses together and you take all the inconsistent stories that were told, and then you look at from an interest-of-justice standpoint, which one of my colleagues so aptly said, that ‘I can’t really define what interest of justice is, but I know it when I see it.’ And the answer is, do we feel that we should bring the criminal justice system down for a misdemeanor battery in a case where we feel the jury, any jury, would not return a verdict of guilty, we don’t believe that’s our responsibility to the public to do that. There are certainly other avenues of remedy open to Mr. Hanson. He has his own counsel, obviously. But I’m not going to speculate what he does from here. I’m saying we do not believe this case is one we’re going to bring the criminal justice system upon Mr. Cable or anybody else that this happened to them.”

Do you have an idea how he did break his jaw?
“We have no idea. All we can say is he went in that room without a fractured jaw, and something happened when he fell off the chair. Did he lose his balance accidentally? We can’t totally rule that either. But something happened, and I don’t think even he knows how it happened. And something apparently developed over several days.”

You don’t think he knows how it happened?
“Again, this happened so quickly that our best estimate is I don’t think he even has a good idea.”

Even a consideration to plea bargain?
“Well, first of all, contrary to public perception, we don’t file charges just to get plea bargains. I mean, it is a necessity of the system that most cases resolve in one form or another. But we don’t file a case unless we believe it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury. And if we’re going to file at all, even if it can result in a plea bargain, we have to be ready to stand in front of a jury. And the thing you have to understand is the easiest thing in this case, the easiest decision, would have been to file this case. First of all, if we file as a misdemeanor and say let’s just throw it up to the jury and let them decide, I don’t even talk to all you guys. OK? I come out and make a very brief statement that says we filed charges and now we have a pending case and we’re not gonna talk about it. And of top of the fact that we can leave it on a jury and say, fine, the jury had all the facts and they didn’t convict. It’s obviously a much more difficult decision to stand in front of you and say even though we don’t necessarily condone what happened in that room, we don’t believe it rises to the standard of filing criminal charges. And no, we would not file charges just to coerce a plea bargain.”

There were reports that Cable was actually threatening Hanson.
“Yeah, again. The only person in that room who has related that there were threats was Mr. Hanson. There were three other people – well, there were four other people, obviously we don’t have Mr. Cable’s view, for reasons I stated. There were three other witnesses in that room. And what I can tell you is, you can certainly say, OK, they all work for the Raiders, they’re on the payroll and they’re gonna tout the party line. And I will tell you that each one of them, when they spoke of what happened, we felt were very candid, were very credible, and in front of a jury would be extremely credible. And if for any reason they weren’t telling us the whole of what happened, there’s no way you would ever establish that, and a jury would see that it’s totally credible. So what we’re saying is the only person that said that happened was Mr. Hanson. Three other people in the room never heard any threats made whatsoever. The conversations were more on the line of a manager talking to his employee. And again, it’s not my management style, but you all in the football world are in a different world than we live in day to day. So what I’m saying is, there were heated words, and certainly Mr. Cable was not happy with what was going on. Straight candid, he was angry. But we have no evidence that physical threats were made. If they were, that would have been something we factored into whether we filed charges. And let me just say: If it was the way you were reading in the press, that he had been punched, physically hit, slammed against the wall and threatened to kill him, we would be having a very different conversation here. We don’t believe the evidence supports that, and we’re not gonna bring a case in front of a jury that we can’t prove.”

Did you speak to the other witnesses more than once?
“Well, when you say did I talk to… They were interviewed by law enforcement, by Napa Police Department. The interviews were on videotape, so I had the opportunity to review those tapes, as did Mr. Phillips and Mr. Jarreau (sp?). We didn’t have any reason to re-interview them because their statements were pretty straightforward. It was only when Mr. Hanson was making numerous statements to the media that in some ways were much more extensive than the statements he gave to law enforcement that we believed we needed to interview him to clear up the inconsistencies.”

Again, can you believe witnesses who are under Cable’s command and beholden to the Raiders?
“Absolutely. Anytime you’re looking at determining credibility, and this is the same as the instructions a jury gets, you have to look at, you know, what motive somebody may have to gain by not being truthful. You have to look at a lot of things in terms of their demeanor, both what they say and their body language. And certainly you take that into consideration, the same way as we take into consideration what motives, good or bad, Mr. Hanson might have, or any other witness. And what I’m telling you is, that’s why I personally also reviewed the tapes. And Mr. Phillipson’s been a prosecutor and an attorney for over 32 years as my No. 2, and he did the same thing. And Mr. Jarreau (sp?) is one of our best go-to guys in the courtroom, and he did the same thing. And we believe they were very credible. And had they appeared in front of a jury, we believe the jury would have found the same thing. And what that means is reasonable doubt.”

Which coach came between Cable and Hanson?
“I believe that was coach Washington, Lionel Washington.”

Did Napa PD make any recommendations as to whether charges should be filed?
“Well, the Napa Police Department forwarded the case to us for charging. What you need to understand is, the standard for charging by law enforcement is considerably lower than our charging in the DA’s office. Law enforcement has a standard of probable cause, or reasonable belief to believe a crime was committed, and that the person they named committed it. That’s the filing standard. Our filing standard is very different. I will tell you this: We had a meeting with the Napa Police Department, including their investigation staff and their management staff, and we are all in agreement in this decision.”
Not to file?
“Not to file. And notwithstanding the fact that had they felt differently, our decision wouldn’t have been different. But we did brief them, and my understanding, belief from that meeting is that they were of the same mind.”

“Anybody else have any other questions? Otherwise, you can imagine we do have a few other things to take care of in our office, may have a few other cases to deal with.”

How similar were the three other accounts you heard?
“They were extremely consistent with one another.”

“I’ll take one more question. And I think we’ve given you everything, and I do want to make it clear that I’m not gonna be having any further comments on this, I’m not going on talk shows. This is part of the job, and it’s a job I signed up for, but we’re gonna be moving on from here.”

Did Hanson compromise the investigation by speaking to the media?
“That’s certainly, any statement that a potential witness makes in a case, and when they make multiple statements, it’s something you need to look at. And when there’s inconsistencies, it certainly doesn’t make our job any easier as we search for the truth.”

Did he embellish his case as he went along?
“I’m just gonna leave it what we previously said. There were many inconsistencies, and that certainly contributed to our case. I thank everybody. I appreciate you coming down here, and you all have a good day.”