At this point I would agree that it seems that Paterno was not criminally liable for any charge. But note this interesting "chainlink" of this article:
Paterno shouldn't be held accountable job-wise because he passed on the 2002 info to his superiors. And one of the superiors Paterno passed it onto in '02 was VP Gary Schultz, whose attorney now claims that "...the men did what they were supposed to do by informing their superiors of the accusations against Sandusky."
If that was true, then the buck was passed again to whom? Perhaps the PSU president (Spanier)???
But if the PSU president was informed by the VP and AD, we'll probably eventually hear from him that he did what he was supposed to do by informing the Penn State trustees of the accusations against Sandusky.
And if that is eventually announced, who will the trustees say they informed?
Oh, and don't forget that this whole "chain" was started when graduate assistant Michael McQueary elected to not inform authorities of the crime he saw -- and told his superior, Joe Paterno.
I guess my question would be then, after all the buck-stops-here chain ends...who gave McQueary, Paterno, Curley, Schultz, Spanier, and perhaps even the Board of Trustees the authority to investigate criminal charges themselves to render a conclusion?
Last I knew that belonged to the local police department's jurisdiction.
And each time the buck was passed, did not ANY of these men EVER follow up to find out why Sandusky was...
(a) not arrested?
and (b) "Gee, I wonder if we have any moral culpability or job accountability for not hinting to the police -- or otherwise commenting upon Sandusky -- all as he runs amok throughout the state running these sports camps with his 'personal attention' theme?"
Guess not.
They've all "flunked out" of Basic Humanitarian Ethics 101.
It still doesn't excuse not going with the graduate to the police when administrators didn't do anything about it. We all have times in our lives when we are challenged by situations that are disturbing and upsetting. That is when our true nature comes out. Not too impressed by Paterno.
... the athletics director and the senior vice president, who have been charged with failing to tell police about him.
Nope. That is not even remotely what they have been charged with.
Under PA Law, the failure to report this crime is a misdemeanor. It is pretty clear under the statute that the only people who can really be charged with failing to comply are McQueary and President Spanier. McQueary, because he had a responsibility to report the crime directly to Spanier or to the police, and Spanier, because under the statute he was the authority of last resort and was obligated to report to the police. The trustees are not in any way involved.
Now: Schultz and Curley are guilty of felony perjury, because in covering up the crime of not reporting the original event, they lied to a Grand Jury.
I want to ask you to seriously examine your own motives and ask why you think Paterno might have a problem here if you will: Paterno's testimony is that McQueary DID NOT inform him of a homosexual rape. Evidently, the Grand Jury found that testimony credible, because unlike the AD and VP, he was not charged with making any false statements. Given that, someone comes to you with an accusation of improper sexual contact of some kind with a minor, and this is second hand. You tell him to report it, and he does.
If you're going to post things about this, how about actually reading the public presentment of the indictment at the PA Attorney General's web site? It's only twenty three pages long, and like most legal documents is double spaced. It takes about twenty minutes.
You can also take a look at the timeline given at the FoxSports web site. They actually have the whole thing laid out quite well, unlike the SI and ESPN websites which are full of nonsense, opinion, false statements, chronological inaccuracies and rumors.
The real problem here is not PSU, it's The Second Mile. They were told about this on several occasions, and not just by PSU, and they continued to promote these events in which Sandusky was put in contact with kids.