Crime and Punishment: How Mark Emmert destroyed Penn State Football without a Scintilla of Evidence

by Thomas Greene - a member of the Freehdom Fighters Group researching the Sandusky Scandal from every angle of which the SMSS website is a member. 

Editor's note: Crime and Punishment is a very well written and thoughtful destruction of the "reasoning" given by the NCAA through Mark Emmert for the Draconian punishment levied on Penn State University for unproved crimes of dubious origin based on the Freeh Fiction. BRB

Our Punishment is THIS BIG

Because we Can 

Mark Emmert as President of the NCAA acted as judge, jury, and executioner in hitting Penn State with the most significant financial and collateral damage sanctions in the history of sports.

The full economic impact of Emmert’s actions will play out over years and will likely be hundreds of millions of dollars of lost economic activity. The long-term non-financial impacts cannot be measured but will grow with time.

Emmert blamed the culture of football and thus made sure his punishment would affect tens of thousands who he judged guilty of creating the culture. He decimated competition intentionally as part of his sentence, an action that is usually viewed as violation of anti trust laws when the economic impacts are substantial to a wide swath of public.

Emmert’s action, outside very narrow quarters, was applauded across the globe. Criticisms were primarily centered on should have been more.

So what was the crime, who committed it, what was the motive, and what is the proof of guilt that resulted in the unprecedented penalties.

According to Mr. Emmert:

What was the crime ?

Failure by Penn Sate “to make the right choice at the right time” regarding a single incident in 1998 and a second in 2001 involving Jerry Sandusky and a child.

What Emmert doesn’t do is define the crime. To do so would have been simple.

1.Tell us what information Messrs. Spanier, Schultz, Curley and Paterno had regarding the two incidents.

2. Given that information tell us what each of the four individuals right choices should have been. Obviously, all four have different authority, access to information, and differing choices of options, so please answer the question for each individually, not collectively.

What was the motivation for the crimes…

of not making the right choice at the right time?

This time, Mr. Emmert has clearly provided what he believes to be the motive behind the alleged crime. In his own words (emphasis added):

"What we're trying to do with these sanctions isn't just penalize and punish the school, but help them reshape that culture so that they never say the culture of hero worship or the culture of sport is ever going to overwhelm our values again so that we don't make the right choice at the right time," Emmert told Ley.

"One of the grave dangers stemming from our love of sports is that the sports themselves can become too big to fail, indeed, too big to even challenge," Emmert said. "The result can be an erosion of academic values that are replaced by the value of hero worship and winning at all costs. All involved in intercollegiate athletics must be watchful that programs and individuals do not overwhelm the values of higher education."

Proof of Guilt:

Mr. Emmert, while not articulating what the PSU leaders knew individually or collectively, and not defining what the right choices would have been, simply declares guilt has already been determined.

Emmert cites the Freeh report as evidence of the crime and guilt.

But the Freeh report was not commissioned nor tasked with gathering evidence to determine if the NCAA had jurisdiction nor provide the NCAA with evidence in regard to its charter.

Emmert declares guilt without any due process and jumps into the matter at the penalty phase.

In regard to Paterno, for example, Mr Emmert should say…In 1998 Mr. Paterno was aware of the following facts about Jerry Sandusky…list the facts. Given those facts, Mr. Paterno should have done the following..list what he should have done. Instead Mr. Paterno did the following….list what he actually did or didn’t do. Thus my conclusion that Mr. Paterno failed to make the right choice in 1998. the year I base lined in my punishment phase.

He should have made same case against the others.

And most importantly, he should have heard from the parties that he found guilty before reaching that conclusion.

The Punishment:

If this were a legal matter, the crime would be primary and motivation secondary in meting out punishment. But in this case, the judge (Emmert) doesn’t have jurisdiction based on the crime itself, but solely on the premise that this was a scandal about protecting football and Paterno.

What evidence exists in the Freeh report to support Emmert’s notion of crime (right choice not made, criminals (who didn’t make the choices) and why such choices were not made, and his penalties?

Answer: there is a lot of information in Freeh’s report and the preponderance of evidence either refutes or doesn’t support Emmert’s findings. Note – the Freeh report in this context excludes the opinionated executive summary section. I am referring to hard documents in the report.

This post is continued HERE   
along with this excellent letter from Reed Meyer Phd PSU 93 to the Board of Trustees that fits in nicely with Thomas Greene's fine work

NCAA sanctions: The third option

Sent: Monday, August 13, 2012 7:18 AM
Subject: NCAA sanctions: The third option

Dear members of the Board of Trustees, 

Regarding the present debate over the quality of the Freeh report and whether to formally accept the NCAA sanctions, I have a question.  Why does the Board appear to see the NCAA issue as a choice between only two options: Either to accept the sanctions as they currently stand, or to take a so-called "death penalty"? Is there surely not a third option on the table?  Why is the Board apparently not considering the third option of fighting the NCAA in federal court?  Would Penn State not stand a very good chance of winning such a lawsuit?  One would think that a federal court would be sympathetic to Penn State for several reasons.
Continued HERE