Thursday, July 25

Supreme Court Denies Sandusky Appeal

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied Sandusky's appeal and the case will likely move to the Federal court

By 
Ray Blehar
July 25, 2019, 8:45 AM EDT

In a one sentence ruling (below), the PA Supreme Court did as most expected and denied Jerry Sandusky's request for review of the lower court's decision.




Sandusky's legal team will likely take the matter to the Federal court where it may argue that the Commonwealth violated the Constitutional right (to a fair trial) of the former founder and face of The Second Mile. 



The Constitutional argument is two-fold because the trial was held within approximately six months of a media firestorm caused the November 2011 grand jury presentment. The court should have allowed for a cooling off period before proceeding with the trial.    In addition, the media firestorm was largely attributed to a false statement composed by prosecutors that Mike McQueary had observed Sandusky engaged in anal intercourse with a 10 year-old boy. 

Sandusky was acquitted of that specific rape allegation at his June 2012 trial and the unknown victim's age has never been determined.

Regardless, trial prosecutors were successful in maintaining the false narrative that Sandusky was notorious for anally raping prepubescent boys in the Penn State University showers despite a complete lack of supporting evidence.

In the event a new trial is granted, prosecutors may choose not to use the PSU angle given that former Governor Tom Corbett is no longer a key political figure and former PSU officials Graham Spanier, Timothy Curley, and Gary Schultz have already had their day in court.

In addition, prosecutors could call a different collection of witnesses in a new trial that to show Sandusky's predation of boys was wider ranging than the State College community and included the Reading, Pennsylvania area.   Reading (Berks County) was the other location of The Second Mile's Summer Challenge camp.

4 comments:

  1. You may be right that the Attorney General may want a different collection of witnesses in a second trial. Most of the key prosecution witnesses, including Mike McQueary and the victims who testified at the Sandusky trial, are now millionaires, courtesy of Penn State. They may not want to come back and testify, and will seem less sympathetic now that they cashed in.

    They also have all their precious contradictory testimony that a decent defense attorney could use to impeach them.

    However, isn't the Attorney General barred from filing additional charges against Sandusky? Prosecutors made a deal with Sandusky that no more charges would be filed if he waived his 2011 preliminary hearing.

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    1. Tim,
      Thanks for reading and your comments and question.

      If a re-trial were to take place, the AG would most definitely NOT call McQueary as a witness because Sandusky was acquitted for the most serious charge in that instance. Sandusky cannot be tried again for the alleged rape for which he was acquitted under the 5th amendment's double jeopardy clause. Similarly, it is unlikely that Victims 5 and 6 would testify again because there were acquittals in both instances.

      Though I am not a lawyer or legal expert by any means, I believe that the request for a re-trial means exactly that and that the deals made in the first trial are off the table. In Sandusky's case, his attorney Al Lindsay included the wavier of preliminary hearing deal as part of his case that Amendola was incompetent.

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    2. Ray - I'm not a lawyer either but it seems like a retrial should involve only charges that produced a guilty verdict in the first trial. Otherwise, it is not a retrial but an entirely different trial.

      How many credible Sandusky victims were not included in the Sandusky trial and are still within the statute of limitations?

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  2. Ray, is there a confidential way I can contact you regarding some information - I can’t share publicly, I will explain why.

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