Rusty Hardin Alludes Towards Going to Trial

Adrian Peterson’s hired big gun attorney Rusty Hardin said today on an interview with KFAN that Adrian is completely innocent. Shocking from a defense attorney, I know. Over the course of the interview Hardin defended Adrian’s character saying he acted no different than he always does, disputed the TMZ story about Adrian being rude customer who was “wasted”, mentioned that no witnesses will believe the police officers side of the story and that Adrian is so upset about this he could fight the charges all the way to a trial. About the only thing Hardin admitted was that Adrian had consumed alcohol that evening, but that’s true of most people who are at a club at 2 AM. Moving along…

Whether or not you believe that Adrian is perfect citizen destined for sainthood or a drunken contrived jerk doesn’t matter. There are various sides to this and common sense states that the truth is somewhere in-between. What does matter though is its Rusty Hardin’s job to make this case go away without Adrian facing a conviction as well as keeping the athlete’s name clean. Hardin’s already started that process by doing multiple interviews and may do a couple more before going to Adrian’s court appearance on Friday.

From someone that’s somewhat familiar with the legal process, this case is highly unlikely to go to trial. The veracity is that the Houston’s district attorney office has repeat criminals to prosecute in incidents that are far more severe than a bar fight. For the record only Adrian required medical attention to his shoulders and his father stated he suffered a black eye, both of which also would work against the prosecution. Adrian doesn’t have any previous criminal record sans a couple of speeding tickets and could very well receive a deferred prosecution agreement where he would agree to pay a small fine, do a small amount of community service and in exchange has the case dismissed provided this case is not dropped from the very beginning. Adrian could then work with an attorney on getting this case expunged where the arrest would be made unavailable through the state and Federal repositories treating the event as if it never occurred if Adrian were to unfortunately find himself in court again.

However this plays out, expect it to be over soon and we can start talking about training camp. Then again, we need stories to write about until then. Let’s just hope Adrian stays away from clubs during the AM hours.

Jon Merckle may be followed on Twitter @thevikingpig