Posted on 11/10/2011 6:41:05 PM PST by QT3.14
I don’t accept Black Elk’s account as fair. I see whitewash in it. It’s biased. The ‘distinguished 84 year old Italian’ description is something I’d expect to hear his attorney say about him. We could hear the same crap about Sandusky “Heir apparent to the revered Paterno, set up an organization to help disadvantaged kids...” Hey we could even call Sandusky ‘distinguished’ as it is subjective and pointless in this discussion. There are people described as ‘distinguished’ who commit heinous crimes - have you seen congress lately? Our political class? Hey, Ted Kennedy was described as a distinguished gentlemen....even AFTER he let a woman drown to protect his career.
“He has always been a big boy and he is not complaining about his fate.” Wow - Black Elk likes him more than I do.Paterno’s fate is, at present, still in progress and he’s not talking much to the press so I doubt anyone but insiders know whether he’s complaining or not. Is Black Elk an insider - because it does read like a character defense.
Black Elk says he doesn’t know him - but speaks favorably of his actions and character. I have a hard time imagining any human being could do what Sandusky said so I read lines defending Paterno like this one “He probably is not perfect” and see a PR attempt to massage public opinion. PROBABLY? Hey that’s mighty fair of you - obviously he’s not perfect nor is anyone. We aren’t asking for perfection when we expect humans to protect children. But I am supposed to play along with the PR: Yeah, he’s not perfect, I’m not perfect so I should not judge him too harshly? Eh? Maybe I should just not judge his failure to act at all,eh? Cause I’m not perfect either?
“Paterno is probably a quite decent fellow. I don’t know him personally and few, if any, here do. What is the likelihood that a now 84-year-old distinguished Italian gentleman who has been a revered role model for 61 years of coaching overall at Penn State and 46 years as head coach is actually a man who sympathizes with the anal rape of young boys by a major underling??? Call me biased but I don’t think so.”
You are biased.
Ok what is the likelihood that ANYONE would rape a 10 year old boy? I still can’t get the shock off my face after reading the grand jury document - what’s the likelyhood of someone in the public eye like Sandusky doing something like that??? I haven’t heard anyone say that Paterno ‘sympathizes’ with anal rape of children but then as I said, i really can’t imagine a human being treating kids like that so this seems like just another PR ploy - use my capacity to cringe in horror and ask me to imagine someone sympathizing with it - not easy to do. Now tag it to Paterno. Voila - defense. Responsibility should not depend on whether I can imagine it or not. We’re really gonna have a hard time accepting anyone ever did this.
Besides,I don’t think Paterno has to like or sympathize with the rape of children to be responsible. This isn’t about his capacity for sympathy - it’s about his responsibility.
“However, he (Sandunsky) was still given the run of the facilities for years afterwards. This was totally unconscionable on the part of the university and its officials.”
Oh but not Paterno because he’s not the kind of guy who I can imagine being sympathetic to anal rape? Or not Paterno because he’s a distinguished Italian American? Is it because he’s 84?
There sure are alot of attempts to blur what Paterno knew - let’s take it one step farther. When he heard either an accurate account from the grad student (which I believe) or a vague ‘fondling boys’ account that his defenders push - WHY didn’t he decide that ever afterwards he need never inquire, monitor, investigate? I am sure Paterno knew Sandusky had access to the gym/showers etc - did he never see him around for 9 years? Both men going to the gym at times or other coach type places and Paterno never, in 9 years, saw him there or wondered after the rape or fondling incident what kind of access he had? Paterno supposedly hears ‘fondling little boys’ (or raping them) in the shower and reports it upward - never to follow up on the subject again? Never to find out things like were the police called, does he still have access to the campus? Access to kids in the 2nd Mile program? Because we know raping/fondling little boys in a shower is a one time thing????
“Instead, Sandusky was officially or unofficially fired some time after the 1998 incident.” And Paterno had no knowledge of the firing of his heir apparent. None - hey that happens alot to him. Things most people would ask about or know from being around the place are just off limits to Paterno.
I have a hard time imagining Paterno can have such strategic lapses of knowledge or awareness or curiosity or follow up or just...ya know...asking questions. Not buying it.
“Penn State likely covered up for Sandusky because of his homosexuality.”
Perhaps, but I think it was more about protecting the $50 million / year in profits generated by the football program. That’s a sh!tload of cash. The high standards, lofty ideals and integrity that major universities promote are secondary to the cash their athletic programs generate.
(PSU’s new motto: “Money talks and bullsh!t walks.”)
Hmmm, interesting and valid points.
Appears to me that the PSU trustees are nothing more than a “gay” or “pedophile” mafia. Perhaps, the DA needs to investigate the whole rotten bunch, and then prosecute them with extreme prejudice. (Maybe Sandusky was passing around his boys to a few of trustees.)
JMO.
Ernie
The total homosexual depravity at this school can be traced back to when they hired Spanier. He was the one who approved and endorsed the annual Penn State lesbian “C@ntFest”. Do a google search on this festival. You will astounded that this is allowed to gone on at a major university. I had heard rumors about Sandusky 10 years ago. There are other pedophile events that have taken place at this hell hole. For example, when basketball star John Ameche bragged about breaking in a 16 yeard male homo while playing at Penn State. Also, back in 1999 Alamo bowl when senior QB Kevin Thompson was not allowed to play his last game. The official reason is that he hurt his shoulder in practice, the real reason is that he was caught having homo sex with another kid in the dorm. Even Daryl Clark, the 2009 QB has skeletons in his gay closet.
I could go on and on. Penn State is THE number one most debauched, hedonistic school in all recorded history. It should be burned to the ground.
No, I’ll check it out now.
I’ve always thought that Clark was a good leader for the football team.
But now, with rumors of him being gay and this scandal coming out, I do not want him as a graduate assistant on this team.
Graham Spanier is still a tenured prof at PSU and according to Rodney Erickson, Spanier could teach at PSU.
Whether or not you accept my account which was headed up "Just to speculate," and whether or not you can or cannot imagine Paterno responsible, and, granted that I invited the world to call me biased, I think courtesy dictates that when your disagreement with my opinions is as extensive as it is and posted here and referencing me by name, you really ought to ping me lest you appear to be badmouthing me behind my back. You can do that but it does not strengthen your case or suggest that you are prepared to defend your opinion.
That having been said, I was, in fact, a criminal defense attorney for several decades before retiring and, among other clients, had the privilege of defending 1100 people charged with crimes (mostly felonies) for preventing the grisly business of abortion at various mills. Due to their own militancy, 1070 of them were acquitted or had their charges dismissed altogether and few of the rest saw post-conviction jail time (maximum of 10 days or so and a matter of pride to them). I also represented clients referred to me by the National Rifle Association and a variety of other clients. Now, I got to skim a lot of the cream, as you can see, as a criminal defense attorney. However, it is the nature of our system and of our constitution that each and every person, no matter how reprehensible he/she may seem, is entitled to due process of law in any matter in which life, liberty or property are in jeopardy. I also represented people who were not very nice folks and who were credibly charged with behavior of which I certainly would not approve. I am not going to apologize for reacting as any attorney (even those of us who are recovering attorneys) should against the collective "rush to judgment" going on here and in many quarters throughout the land.
If I were the finder of fact, I would listen to ALL the evidence, weigh it according to the normal standards of judgment by which I would make other decisions in life and say "not guilty" UNLESS and UNTIL the government has proven its case "beyond a reasonable doubt." This dictates a circumstance under which some objectively guilty people walk free after being found (not innocent but) not guilty "in the contemplation of our law." Those who don't accept that standard should consider moving to some nation more in line with their desire to rush to judgment when their emotions have been stoked: Saudi Arabia; Iran, Russia, Red China, Cuba or wherever. Show trials ought not be part of the American system of justice. Nor should such travesties occur as the lodging of minor misdemeanor charges against Ted the Swimmer (in what certainly seemed to be drunk driving and homicide of Mary Jo) by a DA who was then elevated (rewarded) to a Congressional seat in short order by the Kennedy organization.
If I were charged with imposing sentence (after convictions produced by due process, a fair trial, etc.), you would be delighted at just how maximum (under the law) the sentences would be for Sandusky, in particular, for McQueary, for Spanier, for the Athletic Director, for the other university official already indicted and for anyone else including Coach Paterno or any of the trustees who had been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt or for members of Congress so convicted of heinous or any other crimes, for that matter.
On the civil side of the justice system, again after due process and proof by preponderance of the evidence (a much easier standard) judgments and a verdict of liability damages would be of Biblical proportions if I were imposing them, including on Coach Paterno.
As to Paterno accepting his fate, he may have any number of fates in his future but the fate I referenced was his firing. He told those protesting students who came to his house to sympathize not to do damage to persons or property in defending him but to go to Saturday's game and root for a Penn State victory over Nebraska. That is what I meant by "accepting his fate." He also has yet to make any public complaint against his firing or to engage labor legal counsel or to encourage even peaceful protests in any way.
Insider? I am no more of an insider than my neighbors in extremely rural NW Illinois who have no connection whatsoever to college football at all much less to the Penn State program. I have little interest in college football other than rooting, as an actual Catholic, for Notre Shame to lose every game imaginable after inviting Obozo to campus in May, 2009, and honoring him right down to any Notre Shame tiddlywinks team. I may have in my many decades of life seen a Penn State bowl game or two and not in the last twenty years at least and I don't even remember which games or their outcomes. I would have watched only because I would have been bored because it was not baseball season and maybe I did not have handy a good book. I have been to Center County PA (where Penn State is located) only once to visit the farm of a couple of friends whom I had met when they were Yale undergraduates. Neither the husband nor the wife is a football fan. I drove past the Penn State football stadium (but did not stop) on the way to the visit. I also pay occasional attention to the NFL (particularly Giants, Bears, Packers). I watch one or two games a year.
Another legal point: If, as I understand it, young McQueary, actually walked into the shower room and caught Sandusky in flagrante with his reproductive equipment jammed up a ten-year-old boy's eliminatory orifice in what was obviously a statutory rape and apparently a forcible rape as well, what did the law require of McQueary? (Not that McQueary's failures exonerate anyone else) Apparently, McQuaery was required to promptly report this to the police for obvious reasons. If young Mr. McQueary had additionally taken a fire hose or a baseball bat to Mr. Sandusky's offending organ, as a fact finder I would not likely find him guilty of anything having to do with the application of the fire hose or the baseball bat to Sandusky and his offending organ so long as he took care that the child not be harmed. I might have recommended him to the local Chamber of Commerce for a Citizen of the Year award.
However, young McQueary did nothing of the sort. If the story is as credibly (IMNSHO) stated, McQueary left the ten-year-old victim to the further anal rape perpetrated by Sandusky (this and any other allegation against anyone here still requires due process and proof beyond a reasonable doubt). And, in spite of it all, no one has fired young McQueary. AND you don't seem to object to that.
Young Mr. McQueary then told, not Coach Paterno, as I understand it, and certainly not the campus police department, the Center County Sheriff's Department, the Bellefont Police Department or the Pennsylvania State Police Department or, for that matter, the Center County Prosecuting Attorney's Office. No, anxious lest he spoil his chances to be retained as a minor football poobah at Penn State, he did not (as I understand it) tell even Coach Paterno. Instead, young McQueary told his dad (hereinafter the elder Mr. McQueary) and he did not tell his dad until the next day (by which time some irreplaceable evidence like the use of a rape kit would be compromised or outright prevented)> Nor did young McQueary think to find out who the kid was (by asking him as young McQueary was eyeball witnessing the rape, for instance) and inform his parent(s) in which case the fate of Sandusky might have been resolved by the kid's family in short order by whatever means came to their minds. No, young Mr. McQueary simply and belatedly informed dear old dad.
The Elder McQueary then, apparently after some delay, told Paterno whatever he told him which was probably less lurid than what Sonny boy had actually eyeball witnessed but lurid enough. Paterno then had a decision to make. He decided to tell the university official (I understand that he is not a sworn officer) in charge of the university police (coverup artists) department. He also may well have decided not to follow up. In retrospect, the first of these decisions was not very wise. Penn State would have had real problems if it fired or disciplined in any way Coach Paterno if he had gone to report his receipt of third hand hearsay to the Pennsylvania State Police, gotten a copy of the report and taken an active interest in its results.
Paterno should also have taken whatever steps necessary to keep Sandusky off the Penn State Athletic Department premises permanently (much less with prepubescent boys) regardless of what the police would conclude unless and until Sandusky was formally exonerated. Even if exonerated, Sandusky had not "right" to access to the facilities and, if he had a contract allowing him access, the university and Paterno could have banned him anyhow as unwelcome. University lawyers could have accomplished this for them.
It has also been suggested that the police were made aware of the 1998 incident but did not act to effect the arrest of Sandusky or to procure his conviction.
I don't think you want to call Sandusky distinguished and neither do I nor, I would assume, would anyone else here. If you don't think that Coach Paterno is an entirely different matter in deserving respect for his career, then so be it in your opinion with which I need not and do not agree.
Next, Paterno's state of mind when he heard the report of the Elder McQueary is likely to be quite relevant here. What may be expected of you if someone normally sober-minded and well-acquainted with you calls you to say that your spouse has been badly injured when T-boned at an intersection OTOH or when your nutcase neighbor tells you that your child has been gobbled by a three-headed T-Rex are probably different level of response.
Laws demanding that citizens dutifully report immediately whatever they may hear as to certain crimes to the police authorities have been passed in most jurisdictions. There are even common law crimes such as misprision of a felony (knowing and not reporting) that are seldom used or enforced. Many Americans (and not just the ACLU but conservatives as well) are quite wary of such laws because they are reluctant to be required by government to cooperate. The rape of young children or other sexual abuse of them may be the exceptional legitimate cause for such statutes because the victims are generally intimidated by the perps, too young to fight back and afraid that they will not be believed and will be punished for complaining. But what if one subjectively but reasonably does not find what one hears to be credible? Can the person reporting be sued by the object of the report if the report turns out to be false? Does the law immunize the person reporting (the sensible solution)?
More sheer speculation: Supposedly, by 1998, Sandusky had expected to succeed Paterno (who was then 71). Sandusky might have obtained from police on campus or in the community a pass on the 1998 crime on the condition that he resign. Barney Fife may not have thought to add that he could not be near kids or on the campus. Do not doubt the possibility. Sandusky tells Paterno that he has decided to go in a different direction careerwise (he was offered the head coaching job in 2002 at University of Virginia according to published reports and understands Paterno wanting to stay on. Paterno tells him that it had been nice working with him and he would have access to the facilities as long as Joe was around. Just speculation but no matter how much your dander is up this is the sort of theorizing of which criminal defenses are made and not at all irrational like the 3-headed contemporary T-Rex. This is a function of cross-examination and prosecutors may respond with evidence to rehabilitate their witnesses.
If I am biased, it is that I have a certain fondness for Paterno as a fellow Jesuit prep school alumnus so very long ago that the Jebbies were still God's Marines and fully Catholic and for Italian Americans of his generation and otherwise because I have known so many very fine folks of that ancestry.
My boyhood hero, Mickey Mantle, was a drunk and a womanizer but he was one hell of a baseball player. I didn't admire his alcoholism or his womanizing (though a far more understandable shortcoming than Sandusky's) but I am capable of distinguishing between his virtues and vices.
You may feel free to judge Paterno harshly but only after the investigation is complete, after he has had any trial he chooses to have rather than pleading out and after due process of law has been satisfied and after he has been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. AFTER conviction, throw the book at him. However, the trial(s), criminal or civil or both, come first.
The people on the Board of Trustees at Penn State have admitted through their spokesman that their investigation is not complete. No one has arrested Joe Paterno which suggests that either the criminal investigation (if any) of Paterno is complete and he has been deemed not guilty or that it is not complete. The trustees have the ability and the responsibility to decide personnel matters. I want to know that government authorities will investigate whether trustees or boosters or contributors were provided by Sandusky with prepubescent boys for abuse. Let ALL the chips fall where they may.
You apparently have read the Grand Jury report as I have not. The Grand Jury report is not Gospel but merely a charging document (and not charging Paterno?). It is axiomatic that a prosecutor can use a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich since the prosecutor has complete control of the process and what the Grand Jury hears and defense lawyers are generally not allowed to be present.
Given that you have read the Grand Jury report and I have not, I would expect to give a respectable hearing to whatever factual disagreements it and you may have to what I am gathering from third hand impressions from the newspaper and media accounts (which are also not Gospel). I will take the trouble to read the report if the disagreements merit it.
AND do not forget the little matter of the Center County prosecutor who is reported to have been investigating this Sandusky (and others?) mess in 2005. He worked late, took his laptop with him, one day and was never seen again. His laptop was found in a river but the hard disc was so destroyed that no data could be recovered by experts (in an investigation of his probable murder). He was finally declared dead this week since he has been missing for six years. I am not a big fan of prosecutors but the system quite reasonably takes an exceedingly dim view of the murder of prosecutors for doing their job, if that turns out to be the case. It also suggests that someone a lot more sophisticated than Sandusky or Paterno or anyone else named so far perpetrated the murder if there was one. Just imagine how hard the prosecutor's disappearance has been investigated. Rushes to judgment can leave some very important loose ends like what happened to the prosecutor and why.
If a relative or loved one of yours were charged with a heinous crime or even with complicity, wouldn't you want a genuine deliberative and due process to be applied and no punishment until legal remedies at least at trial have been satisfied? Many here talk loosely of loving the constitution but they often have reservations about it when it protects those whom they (rightly or wrongly) despise. You are probably as aware as I am of the conviction of people who were truly innocent. Resisting shortcuts to justice is a vital part of our system. It is the fate of attorneys to remind society of such truths at inconvenient times and in outrageous circumstances.
Feel free to counterattack but have the grace and courage to ping me as to your response.
Penn State students plan on holding a vigil tonight, starting at 9:30 in the lawn at Old Main, for ex-football coach Jerry Sandusky's alleged sexual-assault victims. Sandusky was charged with 40 counts in the sexual abuse of eight boys, some on campus. In the aftermath of the charges, Penn State football coach Joe Paterno and president Graham Spanier lost their jobs.
A group of alumni has put together Proud to be a Penn Stater to raise money for RAINN, an organization that fights sexual abuse. Tens of thousands of dollars have been collected, with a goal of $500,000. We are tweeting tonight from Paternoville, the campsite outside Beaver Stadium, and the vigil:
Excuse me, sounds like party time.
BlackElk
Leaving your name out of my reply was a clerical omission. I sincerely apologize for posting without checking to see that all whom should be pinged were included in the To: field. I offer my apology only because it is due you, not to ‘strengthen my case’.
Well I am surprised that, having said you sound like a defense attorney, you actually are a defense attorney. It is no doubt the rhetorical style of a defense attorney that caught my eye and provokes the degree of response in me that it continues to provoke. I have no objection to defense attorneys but I object to the torturing of rhetoric to make a sows ear look like a silk purse.
You said: “I am not going to apologize for reacting as any attorney (even those of us who are recovering attorneys) should against the collective “rush to judgment” going on here and in many quarters throughout the land. “
No apology is expected. I am surprised that you are inveighing against a ‘rush to judgment’ since we are not in court. There’s no need to school individuals as to their opinions here as there is a need to advise jurors in a court of law.
You said: “As to Paterno accepting his fate, he may have any number of fates in his future but the fate I referenced was his firing.”
Thank you for clarifying. There is so much ‘nothing to see here move along’ going on among his defenders, it sounded like ‘fate’ encompassed all that follows from his role in this matter, not strictly a job loss. I do not agree that he is handling his fate well if we are discussing his job loss. He announced that he would retire at the end of the season in order to avoid being fired, IMHO, and that was not graceful. He did that right at the time when the public was recoiling in shock from the happenings and a leader in his position should have resigned.
The entire paragraph starting “If I were the finder of fact, I would listen to ALL the evidence, weigh it according to the normal standards of judgment by which I would make other decisions in life...” is, in my opinion, rhetoric designed to dazzle and align our opinion but does neither. No one has suggested, for example, that due legal process should not take place. No one has decried, on this thread, the US legal system in comparison to “Saudi Arabia; Iran, Russia, Red China, Cuba” and I see no one advocating show trials although you ‘nobly’ defend against all these abuses of the law - no one has advocated for these abuses.
You said “Insider? I am no more of an insider than my neighbors in extremely rural NW Illinois who have no connection whatsoever to college football at all much less to the Penn State program.”
You must expect that if you speak so warmly about the character of the man in question, people may conclude you actually know him. You also said he was handling it well and not complaining, he’s a big boy, always has been etc. and these again can give the impression that you know him. I suppose that is the personal touch a defense attorney gives to his client to represent to the jury that assertions about the defendant’s innocence are personally guaranteed and based on the attorney’s personal knowledge of his client.
You said: “Another legal point: If, as I understand it, young McQueary, actually walked into the shower room ...” and follow with many statements analyzing the conduct of others. My comments which you have responded to pertain to your assertion about Paterno so I will not address them here. This is, I believe, a defense attorney approach that implies “My client is less responsible because the pool of responsibility is finite and I will now go on to describe how others failed their responsibilities and, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, drain the pool that way.”
You Said:”Paterno should also have taken whatever steps necessary to keep Sandusky off the Penn State Athletic Department premises permanently (much less with prepubescent boys) regardless of what the police would conclude unless and until Sandusky was formally exonerated.”
Ok this is new compared with your prior post - in the prior post you were saying Paterno probably didn’t even know about it and attributing the failure of access oversight to ‘officials’ and that is what I objected to. I feel the heart of the matter is Paterno should know or find out, based on the information he had. He doesn’t get to say he didn’t know because no one showed him photographs or drew diagrams (yeah that’s excessive but I am trying to make the point that his passivity is not an excuse).
You said: “And, in spite of it all, no one has fired young McQueary. AND you don’t seem to object to that. “
Uh, wrong. I do object to it but I was responding to your defense of Paterno and I knew to keep my eye on the ball and not let the flack storm of other people’s responsibilities or treatment distract me when evaluating Paterno’s failures.
You said re: Paterno’s state of mind: “What may be expected of you if someone normally sober-minded and well-acquainted with you calls you to say that your spouse has been badly injured when T-boned at an intersection OTOH or when your nutcase neighbor tells you that your child has been gobbled by a three-headed T-Rex are probably different level of response. “
What, are you desperate? I am not following hyperbole all the way out of the ballpark.
You said: “But what if one subjectively but reasonably does not find what one hears to be credible? Can the person reporting be sued by the object of the report if the report turns out to be false? Does the law immunize the person reporting (the sensible solution)?”
Then - you find out. For example, if you think you know that a kid is being raped in the showers at the university you work for, in the facilities in your own program - you find out. Don’t worry about Paterno being sued because he did nothing to find out. I think public has a societal version of the ‘good Samaritan law’ in mind when they learn that ‘distinguished gentlemen’ hears of a kid being raped or molested on his watch (oh yeah - I believe it’s his watch as long as he is the coach and leader his fans say he is); see, for the coach to keep his job he’d need to show appropriate wisdom, judgment, decency. The court of public opinion frowns on the idea that Paterno had to cover himself legally should investigating child rape in the showers embroil him in some way. Doesn’t everyone investigating child rape face that consideration? Should everyone let child rape continue for fear of legal entanglement should they try to stop it?
You said: “If I am biased, it is that I have a certain fondness for Paterno as a fellow Jesuit prep school alumnus so very long ago that the Jebbies were still God’s Marines and fully Catholic and for Italian Americans of his generation and otherwise because I have known so many very fine folks of that ancestry.”
His prep school or ethnicity cannot be used to weigh his responsibility in this matter so mentioning it is an attempt to color him innocent with a rhetorical brush - he must be innocent because people of his education and ethnicity are admirable.
You said:”My boyhood hero, Mickey Mantle, was a drunk and a womanizer but he was one hell of a baseball player. I didn’t admire his alcoholism or his womanizing (though a far more understandable shortcoming than Sandusky’s) but I am capable of distinguishing between his virtues and vices.”
Hmmmm....yes. I am not sure why you mention this. I am also capable of distinguishing vices from virtues. You can’t be excusing Paterno’s failure to act because he’s done other good things in life so I’ll just assume it was a related thought you had inadvertently included.
You said: “Given that you have read the Grand Jury report and I have not..”
OK I am stunned. I would have assumed that attorneys read such things before weighing in with their own legal opinion.
You said: “If a relative or loved one of yours were charged with a heinous crime or even with complicity, wouldn’t you want a genuine deliberative and due process to be applied and no punishment until legal remedies at least at trial have been satisfied?”
No one is saying that he should be deprived of due process. Outside court, organizations have to take actions to restore the public trust and Paterno passed on his opportunity to resign (which I think he knew was expected)so he was fired. We’d like ALL public opinion and ALL organizational decision making to wait years for court cases to conclude so we have the final decision, except for all the appeals, but that just doesn’t happen because it’s not feasible.
You said: “Feel free to counterattack but have the grace and courage to ping me as to your response.”
Pinging you requires neither grace nor courage but instead, I need to check to the ‘to’ line to make sure you’re there first. And I have done that.
At the start of your response to me you said:
“You can do that but it does not strengthen your case or suggest that you are prepared to defend your opinion. “
My ‘case’ needs no strengthening and I did not require preparation to respond to you - but it certainly took a lonnnnng time to wade through your voluminous text and type my own.
Placemark. I think I’ll ping this thread out tomorrow.
Google Graham Spanier “gay friendly” and I think you will find it. You will find that he also had angered Senator J. J. Exon of Nebraska by his “gay friendly” and anti-religious behavior at the University of Nebraska. His public high school in Illinois has taken down a plaque that had been erected in his honor.
I have now read (once so far) the Grand Jury report (and need to take a long shower). Significantly and contrary to apparently erroneous reports I have heard, the incident was, according to the Grand Jury, reported directly by the Younger McQueary to Paterno on the Saturday after the Friday night shower room rape. It would appear that the report was an accurate rendition. Paterno reported the matter the next day to his superiors and to one Schultz who was responsible for supervising the university police though he was not a sworn officer (I witnessed this sort of abuse regularly regarding Yale students, Yale Police and Yale Administrators with agendas and university police departments are just a very bad idea unless the independence of the judgment of the officers is jealously safeguarded) and has now been indicted for perjury.
Rush to judgment can also include arriving at a conclusion as to the character of another without allowing for the other's side of the story. The Jesuits of Paterno's era and of mine taught that the repeating of such matter can be the sin of detraction even when the matter is true when there is no objectively valid reason for the disclosure. We are all free legally to disregard that insight and I am sure that I disregard it as well from time to time. I would nonetheless suggest that urging folks here to decide here and now that Paterno is a guilty party (as to his reputation) somehow responsible for the truly evil behavior alleged against Sandusky would fall into that category. The Grand Jury report seems to indicate that the 1998 incident was investigated by a detective named Shaller (?) of the UNIVERSITY's police department and that he was ordered by some university official named Harmon to stop investigating, that, by 1999, Sandusky had negotiated the terms of his retirement not with Paterno but with higher ups at the university and that that retirement agreement included an office in the athletic building and full access to the premises and facilities. Do you suppose that this agreement a year AFTER the initial investigation was quashed by university authorities (Harmon) was a tad questionable? Other than the quashed 1998 incident, I believe the report only indicates the anal rape witnessed by the younger McQueary as having been on campus AND reported to any higher authority (to Paterno and through him to his superiors including the indicted university VP who was in charge of campus police). Several incidents that occurred at the athletic facilities are believed by the Grand Jury to have taken place when there were absolutely no witnesses (which is not uncommon since rapists or sexual abusers are even less likely than most criminals to crave an audience). Most incidents were when taking the victims to out of town sporting events or at Sandusky's own house and there is no suggestion that those incidents ever came to Paterno's attention. The Grand Jury is not Paterno's lawyer nor am I but they are apparently without credible evidence which they deemed sufficient to indict Paterno. I suspect that the prosecution has not pressed any case against Paterno because they have none.
There is some indication that this was not some local (subject to improper influence) grand jury but a statewide grand jury and, I speculate, likely convened at the request of the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office. That is not conclusive but it does lend greater stature and credibility to what appears to be a quite balanced report.
There may well be plenty to see here and we ought not move along. If Paterno is, in fact, found guilty, hang him high (to the fullest extent allowed by law) along with anyone else who is guilty. However, there is no great hurry especially where the state seems quite disinclined to charge him with anything.
Also, I believe that the report indicates that failure to report amounts to merely a third degree misdemeanor. I would wager that we will soon see the statutes amended to provide felony status as soon as the Pennsylvania legislature can ram through a revision.
Those who argue for the prosecution are also known to use emotional flourishes and personal opinions which they recommend to jurors or to an attentive public. Everyone just knew that OJ was guilty of PERSONALLY murdering his wife by nearly decapitating her. The prosecution could not bring itself to charge OJ also with conspiracy in her murder (which may well have been the objective truth) because they wanted the big scalp hanging from their totem pole. For a variety of reasons, I don't think he was the actual murderer but I can believe that he directed someone else to murder her and was present at the murder of her and young Mr. Goldman. OJ was arthritic and aging and Goldman in particular was a very well-conditioned body builder. One on one Goldman probably would have taken any knife from OJ and put where the sun shineth not. There is an obvious candidate who was bigger and stronger than Goldman and no fan of Nicole. Once OJ was acquitted, constitutional provisions against double jeopardy kicked in and he can never be convicted of that crime or of a conspiracy to commit it. It took the jury a verrrry short time to acquit OJ. Prosecutorial choices also have consequences.
Lawyers on all sides use hyperbola as a standard form of argument. It is in our DNA once we graduate law school.
Please read the article linked by QT3.14 @ #5.
Agreed.
Our household kitties are hiding their heads in shame over the behavior of the Nittany Lions.
If he winds up in prison, he will be able to teach by internet only if PSU dares to allow it.
Good post. Thanks. Everyone should read the linked article and the comments of the readers.
So wierd PS is playing Omaha today after the Franklin coverup.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.