Spanier Avoids Jailtime?
- Thread starter didier
- Start date
The NY Times still thinks McQueary reported abuse to Spanier
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/30/sports/penn-state-spanier-sandusky.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/30/sports/penn-state-spanier-sandusky.html
Can the title of this thread be edited from “Spanier avoids jail time”, to “BS charges against Spanier finally thrown out”?
Expecting the media to get the facts right after only seven years? Next you’ll be asking them to declare Donald Trump the winner of the 2016 election!
I wish that he hadn't apologized at his sentencing. It lends credibility to the entire charade, when he did nothing wrong. In fact most judges in PA shouldn't be addressed as "Your Honor". There isn't an honorable bone in their bodies.
Plus they have to retry him based on the statute that was on the books in 2001 not the 2007 version. That was the main reason the conviction was tossed. The prosecutors have a much more difficult case with the older law.
If the state opts not to retry him I believe that his suit against Freeh can be reinstated.
I guess the sphincter-stretching scare is now abated. Good news. For GS and for us. Since the issue was decided on a constitutional issue having to with the statute itself, seems kind of doubtful the government would retry since this is a misdemeanor. GS has suffered enough.
Great news for Graham and well deserved.
A rare occasion to hate us less.
A rare occasion to hate us less.
http://www.espn.com/college-footbal...x-psu-president-spanier-conviction-overturned
HARRISBURG, Pa. -- A federal judge threw out former Penn State president Graham Spanier's misdemeanor child-endangerment conviction on Tuesday, less than a day before he was due to turn himself in to begin serving a jail sentence.
The decision by U.S. Magistrate Judge Karoline Mehalchick in Scranton, Pennsylvania, gave state prosecutors three months to retry Spanier under the state's 1995 child endangerment law, the version in place in 2001.
Joe Grace, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, said the decision was under review. Spanier's defense lawyer, Sam Silver, declined to comment.
Mehalchick agreed with Spanier that he was improperly charged under a 2007 law for actions that occurred in 2001, when he was responding to a complaint about former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky showering with a boy on campus.
"Spanier submits that this retroactive application is unreasonable and far more extensive than anyone in 2001 would have been able to reasonably foresee,'' Mehalchick wrote. "The court agrees.''
Spanier had been due to report to jail early Wednesday to begin serving a minimum sentence of two months, followed by two months of house arrest.
Spanier, 70, was forced out as Penn State president shortly after Sandusky was arrested in 2011 on child molestation charges. A year later, Spanier was accused of a criminal cover-up, although many of those charges were dismissed by an appeals court. The jury acquitted him of what remained by the time of his trial, except for the single count of child endangerment.
Lisa Powers, a university spokeswoman, said Tuesday that Spanier remains a tenured faculty member on paid administrative leave.
Spanier's lawyers argued that the application of the law to acts that occurred years before the measure was passed violated the state and federal constitutions' ban on retroactive application of criminal laws. The child endangerment revisions in 2007 applied the law to those "employing or supervising'' people who were responsible for the welfare of a minor child.
But the judge did not agree with their argument that the statute of limitations had been improperly applied.
Prosecutors had argued the 1995 and 2007 versions of the law encompassed and criminalized the same conduct.
Spanier was convicted for how he and two of his top aides decided to respond to a report from graduate assistant coach Mike McQueary that he had seen Sandusky abusing the boy late on a Friday night in a team shower.
Spanier has said the abuse of the boy, who has never been conclusively identified, was characterized to him as horseplay.
Spanier and two of his top lieutenants, former athletic director Tim Curley and former vice president Gary Schultz, agreed to notify The Second Mile, the charity for at-risk youth where Sandusky met many of his victims, but not to call police.
Spanier gave his approval to his deputies in an email, warning that "the only downside for us is if the message isn't 'heard' and acted upon, and we then become vulnerable for not having reported it.''
Curley and Schultz were also charged criminally for their actions regarding Sandusky, but on the eve of trial they both pleaded guilty to misdemeanor child endangerment and testified for the prosecution. Both have since served similar jail sentences.
Spanier did not testify at his trial and told the judge at sentencing that he regretted not intervening more forcefully.
Sandusky is doing 30 to 60 years in state prison and recently won an order for a new sentence.
For starters, she admitted to MM that there were things that may not be true in the GJP, but he should not say anything.
This should be (is) the key to the case. Nobody wants to hear it, every judge ignored it. I bought beers saying nobody goes to prison, proven wrong, as always. Boy was I wrong. But this was a learning experience. Truly, nobody in PA goes to state prison unless they are multiple felons or murderers. This was a show. A power play, whatever you want to call it. Some creep off the street doesn't do state time for first time misdemeanors. This was a show, regarding C,S&S.
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Well, that, and Jesus was really a Palestinian. Consider the source.
She is a 2 bit political whore, who doesn't give a damn about the truth.
Which actually does mean she would be a perfect Pennsylvania judge.
Much to my dismay I just learned she's also a Penn State alumna. On the bright side, so is the federal magistrate judge who threw out Spanier's conviction.
If there is a retrial, they better damn well call NCIS Special Agent John Snedden to testify and ask him about the federal investigation that he did that resulted in Spanier’s Top Secret/SCI clearances being renewed.
So Curley and Schultz pled guilty to a law that didn't even apply. Wonder what this means for them now
I was just thinking the same thing, I feel pretty bad for them today. Had they just fought the BS charges they’d be exactly where Spanier is today. I’m no expert, but I’d imagine there’s very little they can do at this point. I’d love to see them take some sort of action against the Commonwealth.
Amazing how that Spanier email continues to be twisted in every media report. I guess that's all they go to perpetuate their BS cover up narrative.
If I recall prior posts correctly, you argued that Spanier was deservedly and righfully convicted.
Pretty f*cking wrong, don't you think? That's up there with VA Bball being overrated
He's one of those who cry.....Spanier got off on a technicality! The "technicality" being the supreme law of the land (everywhere but Pa.).
It means both had even worse representation than Spanier. They essentially waived their constitutional rights to plead guilty.
What are the chances this turns into a campaign issue which her opponents can use to show her lack of ethics? Silly question. Ethics aren't required in the PA legal system.
Its a good point...but this is hardly unprecedented. It was a compromise so the prosecution could have settled on any number of low end, loosely defined crimes, like Obstruction. My point is if it wasn't this, it would have been something else.
C&S were pushed to their limit, and took what they thought was going to be a favorable plea deal. They got screwed when the judge decided to grandstand and change the deal.
I also would love to see them take some action, or get some compensation, vs. PA. Unlikely.
I don't think they will speak out, even post-probation. Their distrust of the system will stop them.... I would guess they are concerned that the judge would find a way to take action if they speak out. Hope I am wrong.
Also (in reply to a different post), C&S, and Spanier, were sentenced to county jail, not state prison. Thank goodness. Still a bad place to be, some potentially dangerous people in there, but county vs. state, plus work-release, helped to keep them relatively safe. As far as I know, they suffered no physical harm.
An aside... Interesting that PSU is using their innocence in their argument vs. the insurance carriers who don't want to reimburse PSU. The OGBOT, and even Dunham (Dumdum?) knows they got a horrible deal, and will happily use that for their own advantage in order to recoup money from the insurance co.
Check out who this woman is and who nominated her along with the date she was nominated:
https://www.ova.pa.gov/AboutOVA/MeetOVA/Pages/default.aspx
Hmmmm.
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