some of the same documents (including some/all of the Freeh report docs) will be the subject of motions practice before the various courts. In the Paterno and Spanier cases there are defamation claims that depend in part for their success on the Plaintiff showing that the Freeh docs do not support the Freeh Report.
As I said yesterday in the thread on the litigation, to the extent the Freeh docs are not supportive of the narrative, AND to the extent there are other things, not in the Freeh report, which show the narrative to be false, that is good evidence and ought to be admissible at a trial of the defamation claims. Moreover, in defamation cases, one of the most important aspects of the remedy of trial is that the injured Plaintiff gets to put on the evidence which shows the TRUTH of the matter.
Suppose there is an email or other communication from CSS to the DPW/CYS/Raykovitz. Or notes of a conversation, or eye/ear witness to the communication or some other chunk of evidence that definitively shows the premise of the Freeh Report is bunk. Not only is that good evidence at trial, I would argue that it can neither be considered ACP NOR subject to some sort of gag order which keeps it from the public.
Remember, somebody at PSU or in the Freeh Group made a conscious decision to give Freeh's conclusions the widest possible play--big news conference in Philly with mobile news trucks backed up around the block, national TV audience, etc. (Last I checked, PSU is headquartered in State College, not Philly.) If that presser was full of lies and defamatory exaggerations, then the correction has to be just as widely publicized or it does not serve the purpose of mitigating the damage.
A WORD OF CAUTION: many of you have noticed that the press often gets it wrong when writing about legal matters. This is because the reporters are not lawyers, they are trying to simplify the matter to an eighth grade reading level, and they do not care. They also do not have full access to the info, and are usually getting whispers outside of court from interested parties. My analysis suffers from a lack of full access to the court files for sure.
We are poised to get some further truth this year, I believe.
As I said yesterday in the thread on the litigation, to the extent the Freeh docs are not supportive of the narrative, AND to the extent there are other things, not in the Freeh report, which show the narrative to be false, that is good evidence and ought to be admissible at a trial of the defamation claims. Moreover, in defamation cases, one of the most important aspects of the remedy of trial is that the injured Plaintiff gets to put on the evidence which shows the TRUTH of the matter.
Suppose there is an email or other communication from CSS to the DPW/CYS/Raykovitz. Or notes of a conversation, or eye/ear witness to the communication or some other chunk of evidence that definitively shows the premise of the Freeh Report is bunk. Not only is that good evidence at trial, I would argue that it can neither be considered ACP NOR subject to some sort of gag order which keeps it from the public.
Remember, somebody at PSU or in the Freeh Group made a conscious decision to give Freeh's conclusions the widest possible play--big news conference in Philly with mobile news trucks backed up around the block, national TV audience, etc. (Last I checked, PSU is headquartered in State College, not Philly.) If that presser was full of lies and defamatory exaggerations, then the correction has to be just as widely publicized or it does not serve the purpose of mitigating the damage.
A WORD OF CAUTION: many of you have noticed that the press often gets it wrong when writing about legal matters. This is because the reporters are not lawyers, they are trying to simplify the matter to an eighth grade reading level, and they do not care. They also do not have full access to the info, and are usually getting whispers outside of court from interested parties. My analysis suffers from a lack of full access to the court files for sure.
We are poised to get some further truth this year, I believe.
Last edited:
