NEW YORK — If the surreal saga known as "Deflategate" has proven anything, it is that National Football League fans take their sport, and Tom Brady, very seriously.
Look no further than the people – including a lawyer, a chemist and a schoolteacher – who wrote approximately 20 letters to U.S. District Judge Richard Berman last month while he considered whether to uphold the New England Patriots quarterback's four-game suspension for an alleged scheme to deflate footballs used in a January playoff game.
Massachusetts attorney Steven Kramer challenged Brady's suspension on grounds including "double jeopardy, issue preclusion and collateral estoppel," a legal doctrine that protects defendants from being tried more than once in a criminal trial for the same issue.