Regarding the injunction request refiled today:

Armstrong’s attorneys refiled a 25-page suit arguing that USADA violates athletes’ constitutional rights, that the agency doesn’t have the jurisdiction to bring the charges and that it may have violated federal law in its investigation.

Armstrong wants the court to rule by Saturday, his deadline to either accept USADA’s charges and sanctions or send his case to arbitration.

Let's back up to yesterday. The shorter version: Lance Armstrong's Washington, D.C. lawyers got a message from federal judge Sam Sparks in Austin: Don't mess with Texas.

Just hours after filing an 112 page complaint, a 14 page motion for temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction with a 57 page brief and a 12 page affidavit with 30 exhibits, Judge Sparks dismissed his complaint and request for temporary injunction, in a 3 page order excoriating the lawyers for what, in his opinion, was a blatant violation of the federal rules of civil procedure which require pleadings to be concise and clear.

Judge Sparks told Armstrong's lawyers (from the Washington law firms of Patton Boggs and Williams and Connelly, and a local counsel):

Contrary to Armstrong's apparent belief, pleadings filed in the United States District Courts are not press releases, internet blogs, or pieces of investigative journalism. All parties, and their lawyers, are expected to comply with the rules of this Court, and face potential sanctions if they do not.

.... This Court is not inclined to indulge Armstrong's desire for publicity, self aggrandizement or vilification of Defendants, by sifting through eighty mostly unnecessary pages in search of the few kernels of factual material relevant to his claims.

The judge gave Armstrong's lawyers 20 days to refile their pleadings. He said his order was not a ruling on whether Armstrong has a a valid claim:

The Court expresses no opinion whether Armstrong actually has a legally cognizable claim against Defendants; it concludes only that his current pleadings are insufficient under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

So today, Armstrong's legal team regrouped and reduced its Complaint and Motion for Temporary Restraining Order and Injunctive Relief to a mere 25 pages, leaving out the glorified details of Armstrong's accomplishments and the bashing of the other side.

I think his allegations are worthy of consideration. From today's revised pleading (available on PACER:)

First: the basics:

On June 12, 2012 Mr. Armstrong received notice of a request sent by Defendants to the USADA Anti-Doping Review Board to authorize formal action against Mr. Armstrong and five other individuals for alleged anti-doping violations over a 14-year period from 1998 through the present, as well as allegations about events prior to 1996, more than sixteen years ago. Defendants’ allegations lacked specificity of precise dates or years. Defendants claim that violations occurred over the course of an extraordinarily broad, sixteen-year period that stretches from the present to before 1996. Alleged violations involve four different teams...

On his claim for a Declaratory Judgment:

16. Throughout his twenty-plus year professional career, Mr. Armstrong has been subjected to 500 to 600 drug tests without a single positive test. Mr. Armstrong’s drug testing has included urine testing and blood testing. These tests have been conducted by a variety of anti-doping agencies, including USADA. These agencies have tested for substances professional athletes are banned from using, including erythropoetin (“EPO”), anabolic steroids, and testosterone.

17. Defendants now seek to ban Mr. Armstrong from competitive sports for the rest of his life and to strip him of his seven Tour de France titles based, not on positive drug tests, but instead on what is referred to as a “non-analytical positive” —i.e. allegations not supported by a positive drug test.

18. USADA’s Review Board issued a conclusory approval of the charges on June 27, 2012, and Defendants’ charging letter was issued on June 28, 2012.

19. Defendants’ charging letter of June 28, 2012 advised Mr. Armstrong that he must elect either to accept Defendants’ sanctions, or be forced to agree to proceed to arbitration with USADA. Those sanctions include a lifetime ban on his participation in elite international and domestic competitive sports and the stripping of his cycling achievements, as well as all awards and prizes associated therewith. If Mr. Armstrong does not agree to arbitration, then Defendants will automatically and unilaterally impose
these sanctions.

20. Defendants sent a copy of the June 12, 2012 notice of charges to the WTC, and, as they intended, Mr. Armstrong was suspended from competing in WTC events, including a June 24, 2012 triathlon in France for which Mr. Armstrong was training. Also, as Defendants were aware and intended, Mr. Armstrong will be banned from further WTC competitions if USADA’s sanctions are imposed.

On no jurisdiction:

23. Defendants purport to charge, and exercise jurisdiction over, Mr. Armstrong pursuant to the UCI Anti-Doping Rules (“UCI ADR”) in effect during the period between 1999 and 2012.

24. Under the UCI ADR, however, Defendants have no jurisdiction to assert the charges brought against Mr. Armstrong, and Defendants have no agreement to arbitrate these disciplinary proceedings with Mr. Armstrong.

On the Statute of Limitations:

[T]he charges contravene USADA’s statute of limitations. Because the charges were issued on June 28, 2012, the eight-year limitations period extends to June 28, 2004. Yet, Defendants charge conduct allegedly occurring long before the limitations period. It complains of doping “from before 1998” or “through 1996,” and a cover up “[b]eginning in 1999.”

On Improper Inducements:

In addition, on information and belief, Defendants have provided improper inducements to witnesses, in violation of the governing rules. The WADA Code requires that any reduction of an athlete’s period of ineligibility must take place only after charges have been brought and the period of ineligibility has been determined, and after affording UCI its notice and appeal rights.

On the State Action claim:

35. Defendants’ charges against Mr. Armstrong were brought based on the work of a joint investigation of alleged doping in cycling by USADA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), the DOJ’s Office of Criminal Investigation, the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”), and the United States Postal Service Office of Inspector General. All five agencies worked hand-in-hand during the investigation.

...38. In February 2012, DOJ announced that it had ended its investigation of Mr. Armstrong and would not bring criminal charges.

39. Four months later, Defendants announced its current charges against Mr. Armstrong. Upon information and belief, Defendants are using the evidence they gathered along with the FBI, FDA, DOJ and their investigators and prosecutors in the course of a grand jury investigation against Mr. Armstrong.

On Due Process:

40. Defendants’ arbitration process, which was designed primarily for handling cases involving positive test results, does not afford requisite due process for a situation like this one, in which there is no positive test result, and where Defendants have worked in concert with the United States government to investigate the athlete.

41. In this unique case, Defendants seek to leverage the government’s unparalleled financial and investigative resources to charge Mr. Armstrong and potentially strip him of his livelihood and the considerable awards he has earned. It would deprive Mr. Armstrong of these vital liberty and property rights without the basic procedural protections to which any defendant is entitled in a court proceeding—or even in a traditional arbitration conducted according to the rules of the American Arbitration Association.

On the Hobson's Choice he faces:

51. Defendants’ June 28 charge now seeks to require Mr. Armstrong to make a Hobson’s Choice: agree (even though there exists no agreement between Armstrong and USADA) to participate in an arbitration hearing concerning charges spanning at least 16 years over which USADA has no jurisdiction, and in a forum lacking critical due process guarantees that is certain to result in an adverse decision, and thereby forfeit his claim that the tribunal has no jurisdiction, and allow the result to be appealed to another infirm forum over which USADA will argue United States courts lack jurisdiction, or forgo any type of hearing at all and accept severe sanctions.

Either choice is certain to result in Mr. Armstrong incurring a lifetime suspension from international and elite domestic competition, the stripping of his seven Tour de France titles, and irreparable reputational damage.

Bottom line: Lance Armstrong may go down, but he's not going without a fight and he's determined to get his version out there. Since I think he makes some good arguments, I'm happy to oblige.