How can Sandusky be found not guilty? What are his possible defenses? Could/will he assert that they’re all lying? Misremembering? Can any sort of insanity/mental illness defense be raised?
Is there any chance that Sandusky takes the stand? To do so would be legal suicide IMO. I can’t imagine what he could say after repeatedly being told to not shower with young boys.
I’m still presuming that he’s innocent but I think it very unlikely that the jury finds him so.
There is always a chance but the defense seems remarkably incapable of raising a shadow of doubt as to Mr. Sandusky’s guilt. It is possible that if he is found guilty, the verdict will be appealed. The appeal may be allowed if the first defense is shown to be incompetent, but I am not a lawyer nor do I play one of the Internet.
I believe the man is guilty and should be imprisoned for the rest of his natural days.
Yes; it’s a very high standard. If it were any lower, a defense counsel could build an “ineffective assistance of counsel” defense into his defense with some intentional mistake, and that temptation should not be there.
Whew. Good thing I make my money doing something else than writing substandard legal advice on a semi-anonymous message board!
I was in a car almost all day and listened to NPR.
According to what I understood, the prosecution is almost through and the defense expects to be finished by Wednesday (or so) of next week (20 June 2012). If so, then the jury will get the case on Thursday 21 June and the whole thing should be over fairly quickly. If we get a verdict back by Friday then I predict it to be a guilty one.
Judging from the opening statement, I believe this is it. They are saying that McQueary misunderstood what he saw, and after all of the media exposure now all of these victims are coming forward to get a payday from Penn State.
It won’t work, but since I’m sure that there are no deals on the table, what better strategy would they have? Sandusky almost has to take the stand.
Considering the way he’s responded in interviews, he’ll only dig himself in deeper. God, he couldn’t even bring himself to say “no” when they asked him if he liked little boys. (“Yes, I like boys. I love all children.” Or something like that.)
The defense has said it will argue McQueary misunderstood what he saw in the locker room, but they didn’t seem to do much to establish that when he was on the stand Tuesday. They’ve implied the accusers just want money because some of them have hired lawyers of their own and may sue. There are also indications they will try to argue that the defendant has a mental illness called histrionic personality disorder. I guess it’s supposed to explain why he was overly affectionate with these kids and why he would give them gifts (I almost said “shower them with gifts”) at times and then threaten them at other times. In any event, no, I think it’s very unlikely anybody is going to buy this.
Some of the witnesses so far have been remarkably good for the prosecution. Not much the defense could do with a few of them… but even given that the defense didn’t do a very good job in cross. Add in the “contracts” the “love letters” and things really don’t look good.
But for me the final nail in the was the janitor’s testimony. Here is testimony that stems from prior to other accusations and the witness really stands nothing to gain. I think jtgain got the basic defense right. All the accusers are looking to make a buck, and McQueary was just mistaken about what he saw. The problem is the janitor’s testimony really adds weight to McQueary’s testimony. Getting that little piece of hearsay allowed was a real coup for the prosecution.
In-joke and reference to Starving Artist’s creative attempts at defending Sanduski in the Pit, back when the story broke out.
And by creative I of course mean insane.
ETA: Here’s the first mention of the Cardboard Tube Defence, since it was a huge thread.
Slight hijack: I recently read Vincent Bugliosi’s book Helter Skelter, on the Manson murders. According to him, there are generally so many exceptions to the hearsay rule, that it might as well be said that “hearsay is admitted EXCEPT when blah blah blah”. Ibn Warraq, the scary part is that that’s not even the worst part of his um, “agument”.