A Five Part Editorial Originally Published in the Tribune-Democrat
January 15, 2020 through January 21, 2020
Read the first part of this series: Rev. Joseph Stains: Reconsidering Jerry Sandusky Part 1: Early Influences As Argument Against Culpability
Read the second part: Rev. Joseph Stains: Reconsidering Sandusky Part 2: Call Sparks Investigation Leading to a Case
Read the third part: Rev. Joseph Stains: Reconsidering Sandusky Part 3: The Nightmare in the Shower
Read the fourth part: Reconsidering Sandusky Part 4: A Roster of Victims but Little Evidence
Fifth of five parts.
By Rev. Joseph R. Stains
As science writer Mark Pendergrast notes, Jerry Sandusky naively thought the case built against him was trivial, and expected full exoneration right up to the moment the verdicts were read.
He hired for his defense a local lawyer with no experience in child abuse cases, who essentially swooned in the face of the numerous, impassioned claims against his client, and the accompanying worldwide publicity.
Joe Amendola (l) smiling for the cameras as he plans to court his client to devastation
The lawyer accepted a jury member who said on the stand that he did not know how he would face his wife if he found Sandusky innocent.
His cross-examination of witnesses given numerous conflicts of substance seemed remarkably rare and passive to observers. He abruptly yielded to pressure late in the trial to remove Sandusky from the schedule of defense witnesses. His opening and closing statements to the jury seemed at times to be taken from the prosecutors’ outline.
Pendergrast provides a review of the Sandusky case in his 2017 work “The Most Hated Man in America,” which provides the bulk of information in this five-day column series.
Pendergrast shows that – in contrasts to the defense – the prosecution team’s approach was excessively aggressive, and at times seemed to cross ethical lines to create a public impression of guilt.
The team chose to actively pursue the Victim 8 accusations, despite having no victim or eyewitness testimony, and despite knowing about the police interview in which the eyewitness clearly said the molester was someone else.
The team did not make the exonerating tape easy for the defense to find; and the defense team seemed unaware of it throughout the trial.
Someone doctored shower witness Mike McQueary’s grand jury testimony to claim anal rape, and illegally leaked it to the press before the indictment. The team simultaneously indicted administrators who might have had testimony useful to the defense, thereby disqualifying them as witnesses.
On the day of the verdict, Attorney General Linda Kelly triumphantly declared the case a referendum on the court’s willingness to believe children, knowing full well that every witness called, except Aaron Fisher, was an adult with no claim against Sandusky until solicited in 2011.
Prosecutor Joseph McGettigan asserted in a post-trial YouTube interview that Sandusky’s home and computer were searched for pornography, and “We found images!” – knowing full well that no pornographic images had ever been found in Sandusky’s possession.
The prosecutors, Frank Fina [l] and Joe McGettigan, knew a witch when they saw one.
Pendergrast and others make a strong argument that this is a case completely devoid of physical evidence, dependent entirely on often-contradictory testimony. Maybe Sandusky truly is guilty of some of the accusations against him. But he appears incapable of responsibility for many, and could be innocent of all.
Reasonable doubt pervades the case as a whole.
Any new trial must happen in a broader circle than our home state. Every major institution in Pennsylvania, from Paterno defenders to the Penn State trustees to the machineries of our justice system and news media, are heavily invested in the narrative of his guilt.
And perceived guilt is very difficult for the mind to reverse, as the Wall Street Journal recently asserted – especially when the crimes alleged are so heinous, and the players so regionally intimate.
Knowing what we now know, a thorough review and pursuit of a new trial are owed to Sandusky and to the general public.
The future integrity of all the institutions invested here, and the constituencies that want so much to trust them, will be enhanced when we practice getting our principles right, with prudence, fair play and justice for all.
If we truly believe in the principle of innocent until proven guilty, and that punishing the innocent is as grave a wrong as releasing the guilty, this endeavor is crucial to our system’s credibility in the pivotal times to come.
