Guest View
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.
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.
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.
Please leave a comment: Your opinion is important to us!
While the ‘King of Pedophiles’ should be dead for almost fourty years, it seems that the revelations about his crimes, his accomplices, his enablers, his victims and his clients is set to go on for quite some time.
If anyone really wants to know why Sandusky is innocent you need to spend days looking at John Ziegler’s investigation. There are enormous amounts of complexity to this case.
Truth: G-d condemns homosexuality and rape.
Sandusky will received even greater punishment in the Hereafter.
He should appreciate the time G-d grants him on this Earth.
Not if he’s innocent, as recent research shows. On the other hand, those guilty of slandering him, especially those who made money doing so, have reason to fear the hereafter unless they repent.
Why would victim 8 take money from PSU?
p[enn State covered the grave.
Brenda Condon, a 28-year-old woman from Centre County, went missing from her place of employment near Bellefonte on February 27, 1991. Her disappearance remains a cold case that has stumped investigators for over 30 years12345.
Victim 8 was never identified. No money was awarded.
All things considered–accusers, attorney general, prosecutors, attorneys, judge, Penn State–Jerry’s trial was nothing but a travesty of justice from a real kangaroo court. Judge Cleland should forever be ashamed!
Band on the run comes to mind
wokeness
Thank you Frank for publishing. The truth is gaining traction. We know because we have people trolling and making rude comments. They are beginning to run scared, always having to look over their shoulder.
Keep up the good work. Justice for Jerry!
Nothing new here.
Move along.
Pray all you want Reverend, but your boy Jerry is never getting out alive.
Your God will judge his eternal soul.
The prosecution’s handling of Victim 8 evidence, and Sandusky’s lifelong medical condition, are only 2 of many relevant facts uncovered since 2012. “Nothing new” betrays a sloppy assessment of reality, all too common in useless, crass comments like this one.
Hi Frank.
Did you address the insane censorship going on here lately?
My sort-of overview is, it was hugely influential that the jury didn’t see the evolution over time of the story that JS if he was tickling a kid, would often lift the shirt and make a noise on the stomach — the same story for most of the 600 or so second mile kids, but for AF, over two years, morphing into the word ‘oral s*x’. Words which his mom Dawn and his lawyer Slade would *not* use, nor even AF until Gillum started shamelessly using that label.
All that his local lawyer Joe Amendola would have needed to do is directly ask AF, when you use the word ‘oral s*x’, what exactly do you mean? Physically, in the sense of lego blocks, do you actually mean that tab A inserts in juncture B. But it was the correct Forensic policy NOT to do that. Same with not using anatomical dolls. Likewise with McQueary: what did you actually SEE, and please describe this in words a 3 year old would understand, or a physicist or something. Not if it made you feel icky, *what actually happened*.
A reason for not asking this is, if the witness never suggested a particular act, and the prosecution or defense does, then we really don’t know if it ever happened. So, no one suggested any acts, and no one testified to any acts.
There was (with maybe one or two very late exceptions like Victim 4 after the actual tape recorded interview where cops Leiter and Rossman lied and told him of things that supposedly happened to other kids, inducing him to change his story right on tape) absolutely no literal and physical description of any sex act.
So this is where the jury ought to have said, well, no one described any actual act, only that people felt icky or something seemd wrong or something seemed ‘over the line’ (McQueary’s words) or notions of well, we know where this was going to lead.
I am becoming quite sure it is the same in the Lucy Letby case, that a jury starts to get a feeling that something is creepy or icky and it means they do not need even one piece of forensic evidence, or, even one direct literal accusation of any particular sex act actually occurring.
What shoud happen in a trial is, defense and prosecution should agree on the facts of the case first, and the jury should be there as a lay jury to rubber stamp that decision.
When as in the Letby case there is a complete divergence between two possible ways the facts could have occured, or, in the Sandusky case when there weren’t even any facts (!!!!) a jury shouldn’t be left just to decide based on their intuition of who is creepy or who looks like a serial killer or not.
If Sandusky would just hire legal genius Richard Luthmann he’d be out in no time!
The Reverend Joe Stains did a great job when he first wrote these articles and thanks to the Frank Report for publishing them again here. We are still hopeful to get justice for Jerry.
Hope is not a strategy.
Neither is Frank making a documentary, which in any case no one is willing to greenlight.
“I stand for every journalist, every citizen, and every institution that believes in the rule of law. And I’m not going anywhere.”
Sandusky regularly attended St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in State College before the news broke of the allegations. He also has a sticker that reads, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10) attached to his garage door. The pastor of St. Paul’s, the Rev. Edwin Zeiders, declined to speak with CP regarding Sandusky’s faith, but his church participated in Tuesday night’s prayer event.
Sparks Fire Investigation
Fire destroys church; cause unknown | Archived News | Daily …Nov 16, 1987 · A five-alarm fire gutted the sanctuary of Saint Paul’s United Methodist Church, 250 E.College Ave.
St. Paul’s United Methodist Church
Jerry Sandusky was a member of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in State College2345.
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