Macnow: Ignorance Is Not A Valid Defense

By Glen Macnow

BELLEFONTE -- Jerry Sandusky's lawyer needed less than four minutes Tuesday to back out of a day in court that he had insisted for weeks was going to be his chance to show off the former Penn State defensive coach's innocence.

Then, after insisting that he had nothing to argue in the courtroom, Joseph Amendola spent the better part of three hours arguing his case on the front steps of the stately courthouse here in Bellefonte.

Once again, Amendola – the extremely quirky Center County lawyer – repeated the dubious tactic he has employed regularly since being hired to represent Sandusky on the dozens of charges he faces for allegedly fondling and raping at least 10 underage boys over two decades. Amendola searched out the microphones and cameras and propped both himself and Sandusky up before them.

"This is a fight to the death," Amendola told a crowd of about 200 media members, after saying nothing in court. "This is the fight of Jerry Sandusky's life. This goes beyond the Penn State-Miami game in 1986."

You could hear the groans in the crowd. We've learned in recent years that comparing sports to war can be inappropriate because, tragically, too many Americans have died in real wars. Can we please put the same rules on criminal cases? By comparing Sandusky's eventual showdown with the young men who've accused him of raping them, Amendola is – inadvertently or deliberately – comparing those young men to Jerome Brown, Michael Irvin and Vinny Testaverde.

Moments earlier, Sandusky made his own ridiculous football analogy as he got in his car to drive from the courthouse. "I am going to stay the course and fight for four quarters," he said. On the other hand, at least this time he wasn't wearing a Penn State windbreaker when he appeared publicly.

I've never met Jerry Sandusky, so I don't know much more about him then I've seen in recent weeks. But I think my basic reaction to him – which is to say revulsion – is shared by the general public. Through his appearance on NBC and his interview with The New York Times, he seems either too callous to care about the charges against him or too dumb to understand them. In perhaps a revealing moment Tuesday, Amendola related a story about Sandusky being too thick-headed to understand a joke the attorney had told him. Maybe that's the defense – mental incompetence.

Actually, I think Amendola showed the world Tuesday the hand he intends to play when this case goes to trial, likely next spring. For one, he is aiming to cast Sandusky's myriad accusers as opportunists looking for a payday.  He spoke of looking into the possibility that these young men have exchanged phone calls and text messages, all to cook up a conspiracy to file civil suits aimed at Sandusky's presumed riches.

Ignore for a moment the logistics of the 10 alleged victims (whom Amendola insists not be called "victims") conceiving and carrying out a plan to strip Sandusky of whatever wealth he has amassed. Instead, consider what they all will have to go through in the coming months.
Already presumably harmed and humiliated in the past, they will have to go in open court and relay their stories and pain in gruesome detail. Then they'll be subject to cross-examination on those stories, Yeah, sure sounds like an easy way to grab a few bucks.

Amendola's job, of course, is to defend his client as best he can and not give a damn about public perception. But I can only wonder where he's going to find a jury to buy into this tactic.

His second strategy, laid out in detail on the courtroom steps Tuesday, is to make the trial less about Sandusky than about Mike McQueary, former PSU grad assistant and assistant coach. McQueary is the witness who told a grand jury that he witnessed Sandusky having sex with a 10-year-old boy in a Penn State locker room. Since the grand jury report was released last month, McQueary's testimony has appeared increasingly shaky, because of conflicting statements made by both McQueary and a family friend.

McQueary is "the centerpiece of the prosecution's case," Amendola said Tuesday, implying that if McQueary's testimony falls apart, the entire case against Sandusky collapses. This, of course, ignore that the grand jury report covers seven other victims, not to mention two more victims for which charges were filed last week.

On a side note, McQueary's faltering testimony could have a much larger impact on the case of two former PSU officials – Tim Curley and Gary Schultz – who lost their jobs and face perjury charges for allegedly ignoring McQueary's warnings on Sandusky. If McQueary's words are found unreliable, those men may wind up exonerated. And if that happens, there will be some who question whether head football coach Joe Paterno's firing was unjustified.

To me, regardless of how that case goes, the PSU officials – as well as Paterno – don't have much of an argument for reinstatement. It was under their watch that terrible events occurred. If they knew and ignored it, shame on them. But if they didn't know, the certainly should have. Ignorance is not a valid defense in this case.