Should the Joe Paterno Statue Come Down in Happy Valley?

[vinscully]

A good, or even decent, lawyer could and would certainly play that up in a criminal court case, where guilt must be established "beyond a reasonable doubt," but it's not likely it would hold up in a civil proceeding, where the burden of proof is less and relationships between Event A, Event B and Event C can be established even without clearly spelled-out hard evidence, if there is enough circumstantial evidence that points to that relationship.

In a civil case -- and us on this forum debating back and forth is far more similar to that than to a criminal case -- it would almost certainly be inferred that the change in plan about going to authorities "after ... talking it over with Joe" was directly because of what Joe Paterno wanted.

Even OJ got nailed in a civil case, despite the glove not fitting.

OK, this is where i'm confused. I'm basing the premise of my argument on the fact the investigation uncovered a trail of e-mails that eventually led to someone saying (or words to the effect of) "having spoken to Joe we won't go ahead and report Sandusky."

To me there is nothing ambiguous about that. Three people were willing to report the crime and were dissuaded by Joe Paterno. Assuming that to be the case, why would it be difficult to prove Paterno's guilt? if the other three were called as prosecution witnesses to say they were willing to report it and were then talked out of it by Paterno he would be found guilty right? Surely the proof would be in A) The emails themselves and B) The word of the other three.

If i'm reading this wrong please tell me because I draw the same conclusion from the e-mails as Freeh.

 

[YourAllAmerican]

OK, this is where i'm confused. I'm basing the premise of my argument on the fact the investigation uncovered a trail of e-mails that eventually led to someone saying (or words to the effect of) "having spoken to Joe we won't go ahead and report Sandusky."

To me there is nothing ambiguous about that. Three people were willing to report the crime and were dissuaded by Joe Paterno. Assuming that to be the case, why would it be difficult to prove Paterno's guilt? if the other three were called as prosecution witnesses to say they were willing to report it and were then talked out of it by Paterno he would be found guilty right? Surely the proof would be in A) The emails themselves and B) The word of the other three.

If i'm reading this wrong please tell me because I draw the same conclusion from the e-mails as Freeh.

That section of the e-mail froom Curley to Schultz and Spanier is phrased: "After giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe yesterday-- I am uncomfortable with what we agreed were the next steps."

Freeh's conclusions are 100 percent reasonable, but a criminal defense lawyer would immediately begin picking at hearsay, the lack of specificity ("Joe? Joe who? This e-mail doesn't say."), and would also try and claim that is was only Curley's idea not to go to authorities and that idea just so happened to come after talking with "Joe" but had no connection to that conversation.

 

[smokeabowl]

Let's forget proof for a second Fuegs. What do you think the actual chances are (using logic from everything you have read about the case) that Joe Pa did/didn't cover anything up?

 

[Enfuego]

Let's forget proof for a second Fuegs. What do you think the actual chances are (using logic from everything you have read about the case) that Joe Pa did/didn't cover anything up?

That's a good point (burden of proof vs what you think actually happened).

In my opinion, coach did what he thought was correct by reporting it to his boss and then went about his business as the football coach at PSU. I have no clue why he didn't ask later what the situation was or try to ascertain the status of the situation. For the life of me I don't know. I don't know how you can see Sandusky in the building after McQueary's report and not confront him and tell him to get lost. Seems logical right?

What I do think though is let's say an investigator or campus police comes to Paterno in 2005 or 2006 or something like that and wants to ask him questions about Sandusky. I think he'd cooperate completely. I don't think he ever told anyone not to report the incident or hide facts about the case at all.

I think he figured he reported it to his boss and that was good enough for him and the situation was handled. Of course he was greatly mistaken.

I think he was negligent and irresponsible but not involved in covering anything up.

 

[Enfuego]

That section of the e-mail froom Curley to Schultz and Spanier is phrased: "After giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe yesterday-- I am uncomfortable with what we agreed were the next steps."

Freeh's conclusions are 100 percent reasonable, but a criminal defense lawyer would immediately begin picking at hearsay, the lack of specificity ("Joe? Joe who? This e-mail doesn't say."), and would also try and claim that is was only Curley's idea not to go to authorities and that idea just so happened to come after talking with "Joe" but had no connection to that conversation.

This is my point completely. I think victims would win a civil lawsuit but not succeed criminally. Those emails are not specific at all and hearsay isn't going to go very far in the courtroom.

Freeh based his findings on hearsay and conjecture without 100% proof. He was unable to interview Schultz, Spanier or Curley so the findings are skewed just a bit. Not to mention, the PSU trustees paid his group $6 million to conduct this report.

Freeh had to come to a conclusion and it's very clear he guessed or surmised that Paterno must have covered something up. A good defense attorney will tear this one up.

The defense would start with...

A) Joe who? Joe Paterno or Joe the Plumber.
B) If you mean Joe Paterno...what were Joe's words? What if Joe said to report it then Curley felt uncomfortable with that and wanted to go in a different direction?
C) What if Curley didn't want PSU to receive bad publicity so he was uncomfortable reporting it?

I mean, we can "what if" to death.

 

[YourAllAmerican]

A good defense attorney will tear this one up.

A good prosecuting attorney would also get Curley to roll on Paterno. And Joe would have a huge threat of perjury hanging over his head, because he certainly lied to a grand jury about knowing nothing of allegations against Sandusky prior to 2001.

Things going forward are going to be more leaning toward civil prosecution, both lawsuits and NCAA investigations. Nitpicky points that criminal defense lawyers focus on -- "How do you know what 'Joe' he was talking about?" -- won't carry a whole lot of weight.

There's really very little doubt remaining that Paterno and the other three PSU brass quashed a plan to bring in authorities after Sandusky was caught raping a kid in 2001. There's zero doubt they already knew about him being investigated for the same thing in 1998. It's indisputable that they allowed him to keep bring kids around even after 2001. Criminally, that's child endangerment. Civilly, Penn State could get sued back to junior college status. With all that, there's going to be a huge outcry to remove the statue of a man who put such a low priority on stopping children from being raped. There already is such an outcry starting. A plane flew over Beaver Stadium either today or yesterday trailing a banner reading "Take the statue down or we will".

http://twitpic.com/a8ok6p

Forget about whether they SHOULD or SHOULD NOT remove the statue (my own short answer is they should; Paterno proved to be a POS), with so many people around the country appalled that it still stands and with the NCAA already intimating that the death penalty is not off the table ("I've never seen anything as egregious as this in terms of just overall conduct and behavior inside a university and hope never to see it again," NCAA President Mark Emmert said in an artcle today), I don't see any reasonable way for Penn State to keep the statue without inviting the shit to keep raining on them. They may try and spin it like they're simply relocating it ("We feel the statue would be a better fit inside the player's locker room"), but they're going to have to get rid of it.

 

[GoSooners]

I don't think the jury is going to buy the "it was Joe Blow not Joe Pa" argument.

 

[Enfuego]

I don't think the jury is going to buy the "it was Joe Blow not Joe Pa" argument.

Oh, I agree but it would be brought up for sure.

 

[Enfuego]

A good prosecuting attorney would also get Curley to roll on Paterno. And Joe would have a huge threat of perjury hanging over his head, because he certainly lied to a grand jury about knowing nothing of allegations against Sandusky prior to 2001.

Things going forward are going to be more leaning toward civil prosecution, both lawsuits and NCAA investigations. Nitpicky points that criminal defense lawyers focus on -- "How do you know what 'Joe' he was talking about?" -- won't carry a whole lot of weight.

There's really very little doubt remaining that Paterno and the other three PSU brass quashed a plan to bring in authorities after Sandusky was caught raping a kid in 2001. There's zero doubt they already knew about him being investigated for the same thing in 1998. It's indisputable that they allowed him to keep bring kids around even after 2001. Criminally, that's child endangerment. Civilly, Penn State could get sued back to junior college status. With all that, there's going to be a huge outcry to remove the statue of a man who put such a low priority on stopping children from being raped. There already is such an outcry starting. A plane flew over Beaver Stadium either today or yesterday trailing a banner reading "Take the statue down or we will".

http://twitpic.com/a8ok6p

Forget about whether they SHOULD or SHOULD NOT remove the statue (my own short answer is they should; Paterno proved to be a POS), with so many people around the country appalled that it still stands and with the NCAA already intimating that the death penalty is not off the table ("I've never seen anything as egregious as this in terms of just overall conduct and behavior inside a university and hope never to see it again," NCAA President Mark Emmert said in an artcle today), I don't see any reasonable way for Penn State to keep the statue without inviting the shit to keep raining on them. They may try and spin it like they're simply relocating it ("We feel the statue would be a better fit inside the player's locker room"), but they're going to have to get rid of it.

1) This is where we really disagree. There is doubt from me who was involved in making a decision not to contact authorities. We simply don't know how and why the decision was made and who made the decision. We don't know who had what conversations and what was decided unless you have access to something I don't have.

2) There's zero doubt about 1998 because the authorities investigated and the D.A. decided not to bring charges.

I get the impression people on this board think the 1998 incident was the same as the 2001 incident. The way those incidents were reported couldn't be more different. The 1998 incident was reported to authorities and he was not charged. At that point, the 1998 event is over. All involved may have thought the report to authorities were baseless since he was not charged with a crime. I have an acquaintance that was investigated for sexual harassment and the charges were dropped. I talk to him all the time and have to assume those charges were baseless unless he gives me a reason not to think so.

Think about it for a second, from 1998-2001 if I were on staff, why would I think Sandusky is guilty of anything since the 1998 charges were found to be baseless? A little creepy yes but he was not guilty. Now, once McQueary reported what he saw in 2001, I'd tend to say "wait just a minute, Sandusky really is a scumbag pedophile."

 

[YourAllAmerican]

I don't think the jury is going to buy the "it was Joe Blow not Joe Pa" argument.

It'd be interesting to see what Curley, Shulz and Spanier would do if they face criminal trials. With Paterno being dead, they may well try and pin all the blame on him in hopes of avoiding prison time.

None of this is funny, but I couldn't help but laugh yesterday when I saw that the Paterno family plans on having their own investigation done. I'll go ahead and write that report for them. I can have it ready by this afternoon, in fact, if they can get the money into my PayPal account quick enough.

"It is the conclusion of this investigation that Joe Paterno never even knew Jerry Sandusky. The two men never met. Coach Paterno's greatest regret on his deathbed was his failure to know that Sandusky was somehow sneaking into Penn State football facilities unbeknownst to Coach Paterno for 40 years. It is the conclusion of this investigation that Sandusky likely took advantage of the many times Paterno was focused on personally tutoring student-athletes, raising money for the starving pygmies in Africa and hosting countless 24-hour telethons for the Don't Rape Kids Foundation of America."

 

[Enfuego]

It'd be interesting to see what Curley, Shulz and Spanier would do if they face criminal trials. With Paterno being dead, they may well try and pin all the blame on him in hopes of avoiding prison time.

None of this is funny, but I couldn't help but laugh yesterday when I saw that the Paterno family plans on having their own investigation done. I'll go ahead and write that report for them. I can have it ready by this afternoon, in fact, if they can get the money into my PayPal account quick enough.

"It is the conclusion of this investigation that Joe Paterno never even knew Jerry Sandusky. The two men never met. Coach Paterno's greatest regret on his deathbed was his failure to know that Sandusky was somehow sneaking into Penn State football facilities unbeknownst to Coach Paterno for 40 years. It is the conclusion of this investigation that Sandusky likely took advantage of the many times Paterno was focused on personally tutoring student-athletes, raising money for the starving pygmies in Africa and hosting countless 24-hour telethons for the Don't Rape Kids Foundation of America."

It's going to be hard to get anyone to believe the results of their report. I don't know how they're going to do this one.

 

[GoSooners]

It'd be interesting to see what Curley, Shulz and Spanier would do if they face criminal trials. With Paterno being dead, they may well try and pin all the blame on him in hopes of avoiding prison time.

None of this is funny, but I couldn't help but laugh yesterday when I saw that the Paterno family plans on having their own investigation done. I'll go ahead and write that report for them. I can have it ready by this afternoon, in fact, if they can get the money into my PayPal account quick enough.

"It is the conclusion of this investigation that Joe Paterno never even knew Jerry Sandusky. The two men never met. Coach Paterno's greatest regret on his deathbed was his failure to know that Sandusky was somehow sneaking into Penn State football facilities unbeknownst to Coach Paterno for 40 years. It is the conclusion of this investigation that Sandusky likely took advantage of the many times Paterno was focused on personally tutoring student-athletes, raising money for the starving pygmies in Africa and hosting countless 24-hour telethons for the Don't Rape Kids Foundation of America."

OJ did his own invenstigation. But he never did find the killer.

 

[VIEJODINOSAUR]

Too many innocent people going to get thrown under the bus if the death penalty is enforced....

 

[GoSooners]

Too many innocent people going to get thrown under the bus if the death penalty is enforced....

I'm betting the Death Penalty won't be enforced. Not that I don't believe this was a much worse incident than the one at SMU. But the NCAA's own guidelines and bylaws don't create jurisdiction for the Death Penalty for what happened in this case. The NCAA mandates things like recruitment and eligibilty. Nothing that happened here is related to those two things unless you can somehow prove that PSU's recruiting from the period of '98 to the present would have been worse if they had come forward with the Sandusky incident back then. I don't see how that part of it can be proved with absolution since we can't redo the past. I know that people love to bring up SMU and the Death Penalty, and try to justify that PSU should get the same treatment because it's far worse. But I'm old enough to know how devastating that NCAA decision was in more ways than one. It turned out to be a massive overeaction and over punishment. And the shockwave from SMU getting the Death Penalty ended up affecting other universities. That's what they'll have to think about with PSU as well. The way I look at it, everybody of significance in this case is in jail, getting ready to go to jail, or lucky for Joe Pa, dead. Their penalty will be the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of lawsuits that will come out of this and cripple the university. And their accreditation will probably get reviewed, along with their federal and state funding to the school. This will all eventually trickle down to their football program. Plus unless they voluntarily close down, what are they going to use as their recruiting slogan "come to PSU, home of the child molester and the cover-up."

 

[Enfuego]

Too many innocent people going to get thrown under the bus if the death penalty is enforced....

Skip Bayless made a great point the other day. If you institute the death penalty, you kill the local business of all people in Happy Valley for years. Those people, current football players, students, fans and current administration had zero to do with this and shouldn't be punished as such.

 

[CHOPTALK]

I dont agree with DP
But PSU has not cleaned out house enough considering what has happened.
That says a lot about them.

 

[Enfuego]

I dont agree with DP
But PSU has not cleaned out house enough considering what has happened.
That says a lot about them.

I think some of the trustees should go and maybe some members of Second Mile. I'm sure there's more to come though.

 

[YourAllAmerican]

Skip Bayless made a great point the other day. If you institute the death penalty, you kill the local business of all people in Happy Valley for years. Those people, current football players, students, fans and current administration had zero to do with this and shouldn't be punished as such.

But by that reasoning punishments should never be handed down. Local businesses around USC were hurt when the Trojans were placed on bowl probation, players were hurt by not getting to take part in the post-season, high school players who had nothing to do with Reggie Bush were hurt by not getting a scholarship to their dream school because of the reduction in amount available.

The current Penn State players would the one least hurt by the death penalty, though, as they'd all be able to transfer elsewhere without having to sit out a year. When SMU had its program killed it looked like a job fair on the SMU campus, with all the recruiters legally visiting from other schools.

This is by far the most egregious case of lack of institutional control in college football history, SMU included. If the death penalty isn't given -- and I don't expect it will -- then I don't believe it'll ever be given again. The University is going to be under a lot of pressure to voluntarily shut it down for a year or two, though, to reset priorities. And I'd give that a very small but real chance of happening.

Skip Bayless was once a first-rate writer -- I read him all the time growing up, and his reporting during the SMU scandal was top-notch -- but he stopped making good points years ago and switched to just being a professional arguer. Better money and easier work.

 

[JohnnyMac]

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A plane flying over the Penn State University campus in State College, Pa., pulls a banner reading 'Take the statue down or we will'. The towing company is from Wood County, Ohio. CENTRE DAILY TIMES/NABIL K. MARK Enlarge
Published: 7/18/2012



Genoa ad firm flies controversial banner

Banner criticizes statue of late coach

BY MEL FLANAGAN
BLADE STAFF WRITER

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A northwest Ohio aerial advertising company that flew a banner Tuesday advocating the removal of a statue of Joe Paterno from Penn State University's campus has a history of controversial banners.
Air America Aerial Ads of Genoa in Ottawa County towed a banner that read, "Take the statue down or we will," over the Happy Valley campus in Pennsylvania.
Jim Miller, owner of Air America, confirmed the company was hired to fly over the university but declined to identify its customer.
"I've had positive responses and I've had negative responses," Mr. Miller said regarding the banner about Mr. Paterno. "It's not for me, it's for my clients."
In April, 2010, the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily grounded Air America after it flew banners during the Masters golf tournament that taunted Tiger Woods about his sex life.
Because banners had never been towed over the tournament before, the plane was ordered checked for improper flight conduct. Inspectors found minor mechanical issues, and the pilot was required to repair the problems before flying resumed over the Augusta National course.
This is the statue of former Penn State University head football coach Joe Paterno that stands outside Beaver Stadium in State College, Pa. ASSOCIATED PRESS Enlarge
In a 2010 interview with The Blade, Kathleen Bergen, communications manager of the FAA's regional office in Atlanta, said the FAA cannot control messages displayed by banner-towing planes.
"We have no jurisdiction over that," Ms. Bergen said. "That is a free-speech issue, not air safety."
Mr. Miller said the Air America plane flew over Penn State's campus in State College, Pa., for about three hours, attracting a wealth of media attention to the company.
"I believe in freedom of speech," he said. "I'm an advertising agency. This is what I do for a living, whether it concurs or disagrees with my personal views."
Air America Aerial Ads Inc. was formed in 1996 after Drake Aerial Enterprises, a company founded by Mr. Miller's father in 1987, closed. The firm's Web site advertises "dynamic and eye-catching" banners that the company will fly anywhere in the country. It charges between $300 and $1,200 an hour for banners up to 40 feet by 110 feet.
"Our role is to responsibly deliver attention-getting, aerial messages directly to your target -- when you want them there," the company's Web site says. "To accomplish this, we employ our own pilots, own and operate a fleet of our own fully insured planes, and deploy our proprietary systems and tools that enable us to tow some of the largest banners in the business."
The company has towed banners for a wide range of clients, including NBC, the Disney Channel, Harley-Davidson, and Hooters, according to the Web site.
In July, 2006, a Bowling Green State University graduate was killed when the Piper aircraft he was piloting for Air America Aerial Ads flew into power lines and crashed on a U.S. 22 ramp in Steubenville, Ohio. It was believed that pilot Scott Holland, 22, planned to tow banner ads over the Major League All-Star Game in Pittsburgh.
Four years later, in September, 2010, Adam Danhauer, 24, of Whitehouse, died when the Air America Cessna 150 plane he was flying for the company crashed in a central Iowa cornfield.

 

[Tacopants]

Looks like it is coming down ASAP. Wonder if those students camping near the statue for the last couple of days are going to put up a fight?

Construction vehicles and police arrived shortly after dawn Sunday, barricading the street and sidewalks near the statue, erecting a chain-link fence then concealing the statue with a blue tarp.

Penn State president Rodney Erickson issued a lengthy statement Sunday morning shortly after 7 a.m. ET.

"Coach Paterno's statue has become a source of division and an obstacle to healing in our university and beyond," Erickson said in the statement. "For that reason, I have decided that it is in the best interest of our university and public safety to remove the statue and store it in a secure location. I believe that, were it to remain, the statue will be a recurring wound to the multitude of individuals across the nation and beyond who have been the victims of child abuse."