If you’ve been hiding under a rock, you might have missed the news that Jerry Sandusky’s adopted son came forward with accusations that he, too, was molested by the Penn State coach. This is the son who had been sitting with the family during the early part of the trial.
I haven’t been following the trial closely, so do any of you know why Sandusky didn’t take a deal? From the bits and pieces I’ve heard of the trial coverage, it sounds like the prosecution has been hammering nails into this guy’s coffin from the start. Is Sandusky so deluded that he thinks there’s some justification for his actions, or that people will believe him instead of the 10 victims the prosecution had lined up?
rikyrah
I really could not listen to the reports of this. this has been so gruesome and even when this guy is burning in hell, it will be too good for him
Josh G.
He didn’t take a deal because he had nothing to lose. Given the magnitude of the crimes he committed, any deal would entail him going to prison for the rest of his life. If he goes to trial, then the worst that can happen to him is… he goes to prison for life. So he went for the Hail Mary pass; even though he had little chance of being acquitted, he and his attorney had no reason not to try.
arthur
I’m sure it’s the prosecutor who won’t make a deal that gets Sandusky out of jail at any time in his likely lifespan. Sandusky has nothing to lose by going through the trial.
Svensker
Sociopaths don’t think they’ve done wrong.
That’s my explanation for Sandusky. Why his attorney didn’t insist on a deal I don’t know, unless he’s pretending to defend him by sandbagging him. Like Obama’s doing with the 2nd amendment, you know?
Pope Bandar bin Turtle
With no apologies to Heathers:
Jerry Sandusky: Will someone tell me why I didn’t take a deal?
Veronica: Because you’re an idiot.
Jerry Sandusky: Oh yeah, that’s it.
Jade Jordan
His attorney is a pedofile too. He impregnated an underage girls (14 or 15) and married her. How could he become more famous without the trial?
The pedophile narcissist attorney representing the narcisist pedophile client. Too bad both can’t be convicted.
kc
Maybe the prosecutor wouldn’t deal.
GregB
How come he never gets referred to as conservative Republican Jerry Sandusky?
Ronnie P
The two posters above are correct. There’s no room for a deal. No one’s going to offer him a deal where he walks during his life time.
Maude
The prosecutor has to offer a plea bargain to the defense lawyer.
I don’t know if one was offered.
If the evidence was strong and beyond a reasonable doubt, a trial would be far better. That way, the evidence is out there in public.
I haven’t read about it because it is so horrible.
Clean Willie
We all make mistakes. Sandusky might have done a bad thing, but he’s not, you know, a bad person like Glenn Greenwald or Roberto Unger.
Villago Delenda Est
I’m glad this is not a capital case.
Killing Sandusky would frankly be a humane gesture he does not deserve.
mistermix
@Maude: I can only see the prosecutor not offering a deal if the victims wanted to testify. Maybe they did.
redshirt
He’s a monster. Monsters think differently than most folks.
japa21
@Svensker: You are probably pretty close to the truth. Several years ago, when I was a MH case manager for an insurance company, I was assigned the case of a professor from a well-know university, who was in treatment for sexually abusing young males. He really could not see anything wrong with what he did. He had been abused (although he never saw it as abuse) when he young. He was merely introducing young males to his experiences, which he saw as a positive in his life.
brettvk
I think it’s interesting that the prosecution didn’t take up Matt Sandusky’s offer to testify — it seems to me that it would have negated the wife’s testimony. Either the prosecution is really confident or possibly they dropped the ball.
Rafer Janders
@Svensker:
Why his attorney didn’t insist on a deal I don’t know, unless he’s pretending to defend him by sandbagging him.
What possible deal could he have gotten? Jerry Sandusky is 68 years old — any reasonable jail sentence for him is equivalent to life in prison. No prosecutor would have offered less than 20 years as a deal.
Linda Featheringill
I’m not sure about the dsm-iv definition of narcissism but using the layman’s definition I’ve often thought that pedophiles were narcissistic. It’s all Me-Me-Me. They might not even be able to see how the other person feels.
In Sandusky’s Me-centered universe, the possibility of guilt and prison might not exist.
MattF
Sandusky’s behavior is typical for serial sexual molesters. He’ll never admit it.
Punchy
Penn state coach with a Penn State jury. Defense probably thought tribal loyalty would win out. It may.
Rosalita
@Svensker:
This. I try to avoid the coverage but I’ve seen enough to agree with this.
Fucking sicko.
SteveM
One network “legal expert” actually had a plausible theory: that he’s just counting on getting one holdout juror.
And my guess is that he’ll succeed. Look at the Philadelphia priest abuse case — the jurors are still deadlocked.
This is America. There are too many idiots here — too many people who never, ever question authority. I’m sure there’s at least one juror saying, “But he was so good to those boys! And, you know, they stand to make a lot of money from this!”
Schlemizel
At his age what does he have to lose? A deal would have put him away for the rest of his miserable life, so will a conviction. If there is a lion or two in the jury there is a chance he could get a hung jury or an outright acquittal. All upside, no downside for him. He is a bastard trapped and just wants to play it out.
Saw a nice thing in the local paper yesterday. A guy refused a plea deal for raping an 8 year old girl. He plat out pled guilty and said he saw no reason to put the girl though the process of testifying against him. Hard to see a rapist as having any decency but I have to admit there might be some hope for this guy. I hope he can get real help while he spends the next 20-30 years in jail.
BC
Wonder what all those character witnesses for Sandusky will feel when the bastard is convicted. I think they should have to wear “Character Witness for Sandusky” around their necks every time they appear in public.
Clean Willie
@BC: Every higher up in the Penn State athletic program for the past 30 years should have to wear one, too.
evap
As others have said, there doesn’t seem to be any reason for the prosecutors to offer a deal as long as the victims are willing to testify and are credible.
And wouldn’t a guilty verdict make it easier for the victims to file civil suits and get some compensation?
I haven’t been following very closely, but I hope they go after the wife for perjury. The thought of her ignoring what she had to know was going on all those years just makes me sick to my stomach. I also think there’s a special place in hell reserved for McQueary and wish he could be prosecuted for something.
Mino
HELLO, Penn should have poisoned him or hit him with a truck, while they had the chance. Their hierarchy looks worse than Sandusky, if that is possible.
greenergood
@Clean Willie: You are SO right, Clean W.
smintheus
@brettvk: The prosecutors may have feared that Matt Sandusky would sangbag them in court. Also, he was not on their list of witnesses who’d testify in trial so it would have been tricky shoe-horning him in.
And then there’s the fact that his testimony would contradict his earlier denials, thus muddying the waters further. And he supposedly witnessed at least one molestation and did nothing about it, which introduces doubt about his motives in offering to testify.
The case against Sandusky sounds overwhelming, so there was no advantage to taking a risk on the son’s testimony.
curiousleo
@brettvk: According to Wetzl at Yahoo! sports, if the prosecution called the son as a witness, the defense could call for a (potentially long) continuance since this was a new witness for them and defense could argue they didn’t have time for proper discovery.
If Sandusky had taken the stand (which it seemed he was going to do–talk about your wtf are you thinking actions–did the lawyer not see the Costas interview) then it might have been possible to ask Sandusky something about his son and then call the son as a rebuttal witness.
Steve
The prosecution almost has to try for a deal, considering they really didn’t want to put all those victims through the trauma of testifying. Obviously any deal can only be so much of a bargain, given the nature of the charges and Sandusky’s age, but I think the failure to reach a plea bargain is pretty clearly on the defense.
jon
The only reason the prosecutor would want to offer a deal would be to spare the witnesses the trauma of testifying. It happens a lot with sex abuse crimes featuring survivors of all ages. That as many came forward in this case is remarkable, and those witnesses deserve our thanks for admitting on the record that a man forced them to do humiliating things. For all the shying away that is being done, there needs to be more attention paid to the fact that our instincts to blame victims need to be changed.
The problem is rapists. It’s not hemlines, boys needing father-figures, porn, birth control, alcohol, or any magical thinking. Rapists cause rape.
Some despicable people in the world think the boys would have liked it if they were gay. Really. So Sandusky’s real crime was poor vetting, apparently. I’m surprised the Vatican didn’t provide any expert witnesses on Sandusky’s behalf.
curiousleo
@evap:
Given his reported close friendship w/ Sandusky’s son (that now remembers abuse he says he blocked out), I wonder what Sandusky Sr. did to him–not an unlikely/impossible scenario.
Also, w/o McQueary talking to the DA/grand jury, we’d never know how much cover up was really going on since he’s the one that said “yes, I told Paterno” and so, you know, there’s that. Not that I’m excusing him from not calling the police. But there’s more going on than meets the immediate eye here (imo).
JPL
Speculation is Matt saw the first two days of testimony and decided to come forward. If Sandusky testified, he was waiting in the wings to rebuttal his testimony. Matt’s ex-wife told the press that after phone conversations with his dad, Matt would get physically ill.
If there is an acquittal, it appears they can charge him again.
All it takes is for one to holdout either because they refuse to believe a man could take advantage of the down trodden or because he/she is an idiot.
ABC Good Morning did additional speculation, that the judge blocked Matt’s testimony because of the lateness of it and the explosiveness of the testimony unless Sandusky himself testified.
JPL
whoops ..deleting double post
ZaftigAmazon
@japa21: This is why sexual abuse of young boys is passed down through the generations, despite its label as the most henious crime that an adult can commit. It’s extremely likely that Jerry Sandusky was molested as a child. I believe that Jerry Sandusky should spend the rest of his life in prison. But refusing to discuss the problem because it is such a horrible crime, while scapegoating perpetrators when these cases come to our attention guarantees that this problem is never properly addressed.
Culture of Truth
Any deal would have involved so much prison time he’s better off rolling the dice.
People do plead, of course, but that’s one reason why murder cases often go to trial.
ruemara
When I read about the wife’s testimony, I thought I would be sick. Winking at him, denying that she had ever seen or heard anything in all their years together, defending him. I have to second the hope that she gets a perjury charge. This has been disgusting, seeing these bastards try to claim that this is about money.
Argive
@Punchy:
I think it’s more likely that PSU alumni hate Sandusky. Because of him, the school’s reputation suffered a blow that will take generations to go away. What’s more, Paterno got fired unceremoniously and then died shortly thereafter. Paterno’s legacy will forever have a stigma attached to it because of this scandal. To be sure, Paterno should have done more. That his legacy is tainted is his own fault. But it’s pretty easy to make Sandusky the scapegoat.
Argive
@curiousleo:
The Costas interview, as I understand it, was Amendola’s idea, and he did not vet any of the questions before the interview started. Talk about ineffective assistance of counsel.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Josh G.: This is pretty much the long and short of it. No downside to a trial – his reputation would be shredded with a plea just as much as with a guilty verdict. And in addition, any sentence is tantamount to life at his age, and probation was never an option even with a plea.
Sophist(from droid)
This the guy who, when asked by an interviewer if he was attracted to young boys, had to think about it for ten seconds before answering. He is not right in the head.
bemused
I’ve had a bad feeling about Sandusky’s family since the scandal broke. Six adopted kids, are they all boys, and foster kids. What could possible go wrong with a pedophile for a father?
jon
@ZaftigAmazon: It’s possible, definitely likely to some degree, but not extremely likely. Sandusky could have decided to do that stuff on his own, starting in his youth or adulthood. Not all abusers were abused when young. And of course not all abusers or victims speak freely, so there’s really no way of knowing for certain whether it’s more likely, less likely, about the same, or it just happens a lot more often when people are willing to look the other way. What’s certain is that it’s a factor among those convicted of sex crimes and interviewed about it. Whether they want to blame others for their own crimes is obviously a factor as well, and it’s not exactly unheard of for sociopaths to tell people what they want to hear. Whether Sandusky was a victim or not in his own childhood is irrelevant. What matters is if he abused children as an adult.
If figuring out what makes someone do horrible things was as simple as looking at their past, then the obvious thing to do to stop child sex abuse is to kill all the victims. Somehow, I have more faith in therapy and people’s ability to cope with horrible things than to advocate that.
cathyx
I think the wife/mother who looks the other way has as more guilt than the perpetrator. To know such evil is happening and to not step in to stop it is heinous.
elisabeth
Even if Sandusky somehow gets off apparently prosecutors have more victims with which to try Sandusky. Not sure if that would play well given a prior aquittal but it is an option.
Read yesterday that Sandusky’s attorney was trying to shift the blame to PSU’s administration to get jury unfocused.
geg6
@Argive:
THIS.
There is no more hated man by Penn Staters than Jerry Sandusky. None of his “character” witnesses were current employees or students. You can take my word for it that there is not a person on all 24 campuses wants this guy put away forever.
curiousleo
@Argive: I didn’t realize the lawyer didn’t vet the questions. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since the guy was ready to have Sandusky testify on his own behalf. Ineffective counsel indeed!
Cluttered Mind
@geg6: This doesn’t surprise me at all. It may be that the upper management of Penn State would prefer to circle the wagons around Sandusky, but in my experience when a beloved institution has its good name dragged through the mud by one of its prominent representatives, quite a lot of people who love the institution are going to be furious with the one who tarnished its reputation, and be perfectly willing to throw him to the wolves if it means that they can put the whole thing behind them.
Njorl
Sandusky was going to prison for the rest of his life, deal or no. He might have been able to make a deal for how he serves his time. The seriousness of his crimes, and the danger he will be in once encarcerated leave very few options. He was probably destined for some sort of isolation in a maximum security prison no matter what.
Gravie
Esquire ran a really good article about the scandal in a recent issue, and one of the things that became completely apparent to me while reading it is that Sandusky is dumber than a box of rocks. So maybe that factored into the defense decision.
Kathy
@SteveM: This.
If Lynn and Sandusky walk on a technicality, Pennsylvania will have effectively decriminalized child rape. What DA will be willing to bring a case if that happens?
ZaftigAmazon
@jon: I am not trying to trying to generate sympathy for Jerry Sandusky. But this unwillingness to confront the problem proactively creates a veil of secrecy which prevents victims from coming forward. I used to volunteer at a non-profit dealing with domestic violence and sexual abuse. The biggest obstacle we faced was the unwillingness of people to acknowledge that this was happening in their community. The community wanted both the perpetratorsand the victims to disappear quickly, so the community wouldn’t squirm in uncomfortable reflection.
Mnemosyne
@curiousleo:
I would not be at all surprised if that turned out to be the case. McQueary’s reported reaction to what he saw was odd enough that it could have been partially due to a flashback/PTSD or something along those lines.
Roy G.
It’s a very Conservative disease that Sandusky suffers from, causing him to inflict horrors on powerless dependents to feed his own private desires, whilst telling himself, the victims and the world that he was actually helping them.
salsify
The word is, and this is from a Judge presiding in another PA county, that the AG’s office, i.e. the prosecution, did not offer a deal, feeling that the evidence was too persuasive and horrific to give him any break. He had been begging for a deal.
The Moar You Know
He’s taking one for the team. With the inevitable verdict, all this will go away and the real crime – that Joe Paterno and his handpicked squad of goons ran half of Pennsylvania for decades, dispensing gifts and punishment at their whim while telling local law enforcement how to enforce the law and who to leave alone – will be quietly swept under the table.
David in NY
I speak from personal experience:
Prosecutors in sex crime cases don’t offer deals without some fears about prevailing in the case. They are, all in all, a pretty punitive bunch anyway, so it would go against the grain to offer a sentence in a case like this that would be likely to be acceptable to Sandusky.
In any event, Sandusky pretty clearly doesn’t think he’s done anything wrong. He’d have to admit guilt, and probably even express remorse, for the plea to work, and that’s not happening.
Finally, I do worry about the kind of vociferous revulsion at his crimes that is so evident everywhere. I worry about it for two reasons. First, I think that it adversely affects a lot of victims, who, no matter how they feel about the crime, become afraid of reporting it because they fear the stigma of being a victim of such a crime or feel that they are complicit in it. Many of Sandusky’s victims did not report his advances. Second, I think that popular revulsion against the crimes often causes victims more suffering than they would otherwise feel, if people’s reactions were not so extreme.
ETA: I see that someone above with some actual facts agrees with the first part of my explanation, though not the second (I’m surprised that Sandusky was willing to plead given his public statements).
Steve
@The Moar You Know: This is a pretty demented comment.
fraught
@cathyx: There’s always a wife who doesn’t see anything wrong. She’s the one who’s being replaced by a twelve y.o. boy and is blinded by the betrayal. These women hate the boys their husbands are fucking even as they deny their husbands are fucking them.
Rob
I realize I’m absolutely talking out of my nether region here but…how much you wanna bet Sandusky has always been a conservative, Republican voting, apple pie, family values kinda guy? Just sayin’.
Mnemosyne
@David in NY:
It’s tricky, though, because what Sandusky did was revolting. Not necessarily the sex itself (though sex always sounds ridiculous when it’s described in court) but the fact that he took advantage of the access he had to these vulnerable kids to satisfy his own desires. He made sure that he was a trusted figure in their lives so that, when he made his move, the kids would be reluctant to turn him in because, after all, hadn’t Sandusky done so much to help them? Weren’t they grateful for the opportunities he gave them? If they didn’t want to play football or have the tutoring help his organization offered, there were plenty of other kids who would be happy to have them. Etc.
It’s the fact that Sandusky used his position of power and trust to make these kids “pay up” for opportunities they had thought were freely offered that I find revolting. I think I agree with you that we should focus less on the actual sex acts and focus more on the fact that Sandusky abused his power over these kids and manipulated them for his own purposes.
KayK
@brettvk: Matt only admitted his abuse after the prosecution had rested. He could have been called as a rebuttal witness, but only if the defense put on a witness with testimony he could rebut. My understanding is, the reason court started so late on the last day was because there was wrangling in judge’s chambers about whether there had been such testimony. Supposedly Sandusky had to be convinced not to testify so that Matt couldn’t testify in rebuttal.
Linda
Over at the GOS, a couple of diarists sat in the courtroom and recorded the testimony. Roxine and SwedishJewfish, both survivors of child sexual abuse, spent every day posting diaries. You can read them all under the group Tree Climbers.
Very powerful.
Here’s the most recent one: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/06/20/1101694/-Tree-Climbers-Bearing-Witness-The-Trial-of-Jerry-Sandusky-Day-7
Karl
I heard on This American Life a factoid a while back. They said (and I’m not sure if its even remotely true) that abusers of children will never admit, even sitting on the electric chair, that they did anything wrong. Like they actually believe that they didn’t do it. So maybe he’s just committed to the idea that he didn’t.
Rob
@The Moar You Know:
I think the comments by the Moar You know are not demented. I think they speak to a larger issue of abuse of power and the insidious nature of false appearances in our society.
Robin G.
@Mnemosyne: I’ve been thinking that from the beginning. Not intervening always looked to me like a Blue Screen of Death moment, especially given his reportedly very shaken reaction that night.
The longer this goes on, the more likely I think the jury will hang. An acquittal just doesn’t seem possible. I still think, though, that he might get off (no pun intended) on the counts with unidentified victims. I believe they happened, but removed from the whole, there’s a decent argument to be made for insufficient evidence to overcome reasonable doubt.
On the plus side, there’s whispers of another grand jury going on with a whole ‘nother batch of victims, and the feds still have their eye on him for crossing state lines. There will be more than one bite at this rotten apple.
Paul in NC
@brettvk: Judge wouldn’t let Matt Sandusky testify. Prosecutors tried. He came in too late, and his allegations weren’t part of the indictment. Sandusky didn’t testify, so there is no testimony to rebut.
Robin G.
Oh, legal question: If the jury can’t agree on some counts, but convicts on others, is the entire proceeding declared a mistrial, or do the convicted counts stick?
David in NY
@Mnemosyne: Oh, of course. I didn’t mean to leave the abuse of power out.
David in NY
@Robin G.: Court can accept a partial verdict and usually does.
Recent weird Supreme Court case on this. Jury came back and said they’d acquitted on some counts, including capital murder, and couldn’t reach a decision on the others. Court declared a mistrial. The prosecution sought to try the defendant on the capital charge that the jury said it had acquitted him of, and he appealed on double jeopardy grounds. (If dj means anything, it means you can’t be tried again once you’ve been acquitted.) Supremes held that no formal verdict of acquittal had been entered, so the defendant could be tried again. (6-3, Breyer defecting to the dark side).
Robin G.
@David in NY: Everything I know about the law comes from reading Vince Bugliosi, but that doesn’t seem fair.
Narcissus
Wasn’t there a BJ troll who maintained that the sex might have been consensual? Or am I thinking of another blog?
Amir Khalid
@Narcissus:
You are thinking of Clime Acts, who was going by Kola Noscopy when he posted that comment.
Stentor
Well, he didn’t get off in any way, guilty on forty-five out of forty-eight counts. I still can’t believe they called everyone back at ten o’clock on a Friday night to read the verdicts. I’d be willing to be that Jerry’s having a really terrible weekend right now.