Last week the Jerry Sandusky trial was graphic and disturbing, as young men took the stand as prosecution witnesses to detail the horrific sexual abuse they accuse Sandusky of perpetrating against them as boys.
This week, the trial is bound to get weird. The last prosecution witness has taken the stand and now it's the turn of the Sandusky defense team, led by Joe Amendola, to present its case. Amendola suggested in his opening statement that Jerry Sandusky himself will take the stand, a suggestion that he reinforced last Thursday.
"Did I make an opening statement?" the 63-year-old Amendola quipped to reporters when asked abot Sandusky testifying. "I'm Catholic. I don't lie."
Apparently, Amendola lacks the sense of irony that would have kept him from invoking his Catholicism in a sexual abuse case.
The defense called its first witnesses today, two former coaching colleagues of Sandusky's who spoke of Sandusky's sterling reputation as a man and a coach, and said they never saw any innapropriate activity between Sandusky and children. One of them, Richard Anderson, testified about how common it is for men to shower with boys.
Is Prosecution Case Strong Enough To Convict?
The defense has repeatedly asked judge John Cleland to drop charges against Sandusky, arguing that the charges are too vague, and that since none of the charges have specific dates attached to them, Sandusky cannot provide alibis that prove his innocence. Cleland has denied the defense's requests, but admitted that he had doubts early in the trial about the strength of the prosecutions case, but now believes there is enough to let the case go to jury.
"I've been concerned about this since the beginning," Cleland said. "There were very broad representations made by the Commonwealth on the bill of particulars. Since then, the Commonwealth has submitted an amended bill of particulars, and amended their information, which I believe now meets the standards of due process. Although early on I certainly was not persuaded that that was the case."
Defense Strategies
Conviction is no sure thing, however.
During cross-examination of prosecution witnesses, Amendola attempted to paint Sandusky's accusers as co-conspirators who have financial incentive to lie, and who have been prodded by investigators to intensify their accusations. The defense is expected to receive testimony from Dottie Sandusky, Jerry's wife, who says she never had any reason to believe her husband was up to anything innapropriate with children. Another expected witness, a family friend of key prosection witness Mike McQuery, is expected to testify that when McQuery had told him he physically saw nothing take place between Sandusky and a boy in the Penn State football showers, and that he had only heard "sex sounds."
Last week, we learned that the Sandusky defense team will present a very strange defense -- bringing in an expert witness to say that Sandusky suffers from histrionic personality disorder, which is essentially presenting the argument that though Sandusky is a certifiable weirdo, he's no pederast.
Pennsylvania Law Is In Sandusky's Favor
But perhaps the biggest thing working against a Jerry Sandusky conviction is that the state of Pennsylvania has the most arcane laws in the country when it comes to trying these types of cases. Pennsylvania does not permit expert testimony in sex abuse cases -- expert testimony that could inform the jury, for example, that it is not uncommon for victims of sexual abuse to maintain relationships with abuser, or to delay in reporting the abuse, as was the case for many of Sandusky's abusers. Federal courts, military courts, and all other 49 states allow such testimony.
Furthermore, Pennsylvania law requires the judge in sexual assault cases to instruct the jury to factor in how long it took accusers to come forward. Here's the mind-numbingly idiotic language of the state's jury instructions:
"(Delay to report abuse) does not necessarily make [his] [her] testimony unreliable, but may remove from it the assurance of reliability accompanying the prompt complaint or outcry that the victim of a crime such as this would ordinarily be expected to make.'"
The key initiative of the defense's wider strategy, from the beginning of the trial, has been to chip away at the credibility of Sandusky's accusers. Without expert testimony, jurors will be left on their own to decide what to make of it that Victim 9, who presented the most graphic testimony against Sandusky, admitted to Amendola on the stand that he took football tickets from Sandusky as recently as last fall.
The worst of the trial is behind us -- or, at least, the worst of the disturbing testimony. Let's hope that the end of the trial doesn't bring the worst part of all.
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