A Texas judge on Wednesday set a tentative Dec. 1 trial date for Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, who said through his lawyer that he wants his child abuse case resolved so he can get back to work on the field.
Peterson sat in the audience with his wife during the brief court hearing in Conroe, Texas, north of Houston. He wasn't asked to enter a plea and did not speak during the proceedings, during which lawyers for both sides huddled in front of Montgomery County Judge Kelly Case.
Afterward, Rusty Hardin, Peterson's attorney, told reporters that his client is "champing at the bit" to respond to the allegations. He called Peterson a "good man," adding, "this is a case about a parenting decision."
Asked how he was feeling, Peterson, swarmed by camera crews and reporters as he entered a Mercedes SUV, responded, "I'm good."
Peterson has been absent from the football field since his indictment on a felony charge of reckless or negligent injury of a child for whipping his 4-year-old son with a switch in May. The child was visiting him in Texas at the time and Peterson has said he disciplined the boy for fighting with another child over a video game. In a statement last month, he said he was raised with similar physical punishment and didn't believe the whipping was criminal.
The crush of media inside and outside the courthouse reflected the seemingly insatiable interest in the story.
At the hearing, Peterson, wearing a suit and tie, sat quietly in the front row. Across the aisle from him, other defendants wore scruffy, ill-fitting, black-and-gray striped outfits issued at the jail. The women were in pink and white. The inmates' shackles jangled at times during the live camera feed from the hearing.
Hardin told Case his client wants a speedy trial because he can't get back to work until it is resolved. "The problem we have is he's getting killed publicly by different allegations, many of them unfounded," the attorney said.