Former football standout Dorial Green-Beckham and my wife, Carol, share the distinction of being cheated by the same crooked courts in the Missouri Ozarks

Dorial Green-Beckham

I never dreamed my wife, Carol, would have something in common with a former player in the National Football League. In a roundabout way, Carol now even has a connection to Coach Nick Saban's recruiting operation with the Alabama Crimson Tide. No kidding.

How did this happen? Well, it centers around Dorial Green-Beckham ("DGB"), who might be the finest athlete Missouri ever has produced. Like Carol, Green-Beckham has been exposed to the hideously crooked and incompetent "justice system" in Missouri. In fact, they both have been on the receiving end of dubious rulings from Greene County Circuit Judge Jerry Harmison, an appointee of scandal-plagued and departed GOP governor Eric Greitens.

Harmison cheated Carol last spring, finding her guilty of misdemeanor "assault on a law enforcement officer," even though the "victim" (deputy Jeremy Lynn) admitted in a written report and in sworn testimony that he initiated contact with Carol -- meaning, as a matter of law, Carol could not have committed the offense. (Motions re: perjury and multiple court errors in the Carol Shuler case are embedded at the end of this post.)

Green-Beckham appeared before Harmison last week on a prosecution motion to revoke his probation in a DUI case, following his recent arrest on a marijuana possession charge. That might seem like a fairly straightforward court matter. But officers from the Springfield Police Department turned it into a scene from a Three Stooges movie. Harmison, as he showed in Carol's case, apparently believes prosecutors and law-enforcement officers can do no wrong, so he ruled against Green-Beckham -- sentencing him to 90 days in jail -- even though overwhelming doubt surrounds the drug charge that led to the probation revocation.

We will have more details about the DGB court fiasco in a moment, but first, we have established he and Carol share the "distinction" of being cheated by the same crooked judge in Missouri and by the same inept law-enforcement community. So, how does all of this connect to Nick Saban and Bama's recruiting machine?  Well, I will admit it's a stretch, but hang in there with me on this.

Dorial Green-Beckham, while playing at Hillcrest High School in Springfield, set a national high-school record for receiving yardage. At 6-6, 225 pounds, with world-class speed, Green-Beckham was ranked the No. 1 college-football recruit in the nation for 2012. DGB was such a scintillating prospect that Nick Saban his own self recruited him -- and as we know from watching Bama rack up national championships like many folks get parking tickets, Nick doesn't recruit just anyone, only the best.

Green-Beckham wound up spurning Saban -- along with Auburn, Arkansas, Texas, Ohio State, and just about every powerhouse in college football -- to sign with his home-state Missouri Tigers. Green-Beckham had two fairly productive season at Mizzou before being dismissed from the program after a couple of brushes with the law. He transferred to the University of Oklahoma but never played for the Sooners before entering the 2015 NFL draft.

The Tennessee Titans drafted Green-Beckham in the second round, and on June 1, 2015, the Titans signed him to a 4-year, $5.6-million contract with $3.0 million guaranteed and a $2.3-million signing bonus. As a rookie with Tennessee, Green-Beckham played 16 games with 549 receiving yards and four touchdowns. After one season, the Titans traded DGB to the Philadelphia Eagles, for whom he appeared in 15 games, with 392 receiving yards and two touchdowns in 2016. The Eagles waived him in summer 2017, and Green-Beckham, despite possessing all of the attributes that should make him a star, has struggled to get a foothold in the NFL. He has not played the last two seasons.

Judge Jerry Harmison and Green-Beckham attorney
Tyson Martin

DGB's sports legacy, however, does not end with football. I've never seen him play basketball, but I know a few folks who have, and they say he might be a better basketball player than a football player. He received numerous scholarship offers from high-major college basketball programs, and probably would have received even more if it had not been widely assumed he would choose the football route.

Before his most recent legal troubles, Green-Beckham reportedly had attracted attention from teams in the Canadian Football League. I would like to see him get his life straightened out and hook up with a college basketball program, where I suspect he quickly would become a star. He might even develop into an NBA prospect, although 6-6 is considered an "in between" height for pro hoops -- sort of a forward and sort of a guard.

Any hoop dreams DGB might hold will be difficult to achieve while he's in jail. What kind of process led to his current incarceration? Calling it a joke would be kind.


(To be continued)