Domestic violence charges against 49ers linebacker Reuben Foster were dismissed Wednesday afternoon by a Santa Clara County judge. You can read more specifics about the announcement here.
Sacramento Bee 49ers beat writer Matt Barrows was in the courtroom for the announcement and joined Tolbert & Lund to discuss it Wednesday.
“I was there, just a few blocks from where I live, for all the hearings, including today’s,” Barrows said. “And yeah, the judge laid it out very, very plainly and carefully, and it was clear that she was paying close attention during the preliminary hearing last week. And the bottom line is she felt that despite the very low threshold for moving this to a trial, that this case didn’t meet that, at least in the first two most serious counts relating to domestic violence.”
Tolbert asked Barrows whether he thought the judge was dissatisfied with the performance of the Santa Clara County district attorney. Barrows had this to say:
“Yeah. Not in so many words, but just the mere fact that she (the judge) didn’t move ahead with that, with the case, that’s not all that common,” Barrows said. “Usually, you know, after the preliminary hearing, the judge makes a quick determination whether to move forward with trial or not. She didn’t. She said, OK, we’re gonna wait six days on this, and a lot people read into that that she wanted the DA and the defense attorney to get together on this and come to some sort of resolution. But it was clear that she was skeptical at that point, and she voiced that skepticism today in court.”
Barrows added that despite the domestic violence charges against Foster being dropped, he will still have to contend with the marijuana and weapons charges also levied against him, which could very well lead to a suspension from the NFL.
“Well, you’ve got two more charges facing him,” Barrows said. “One relating to this one, which is the gun–the assault weapon portion of the charge, which was reduced to a misdemeanor and a court date for next month was set for that. And then you’ve got the case in Alabama regarding misdemeanor pot possession. So that’s also happening next month. So he’s not out of the woods altogether, although the most serious charges have been dismissed. So, you know, he’s got things against moving forward, he’s probably still looking at a suspension of some length this year. Remember Ezekiel Elliott last year, his case was also dismissed and he was still suspended for six games by the league. So I don’t think that that will happen in this case. I couldn’t make any guesses because the league’s been all over the map on this. But combining the league’s policy against substance abuse and the personal conduct policy, you come to the conclusion that there’s going to be some sort of suspension for Reuben Foster in 2018.”
Listen to the interview below. To hear Barrows on Foster, start from the beginning.