What is the point of you rehashing the Joe stuff on this message board today? Serious question.
Official Graham Spanier trial thread.
- Thread starter BobPSU92
- Start date
Wonder what this really means...they want to explain themselves? And...early for them to be asking this...yes? They must have come to a decision already...?
Because Tim talked about Paterno knowing and being updated on 98 (which was new info) and then testified in contrast to Joe wrt what Joe told him in 2001. I'm not accusing Joe of anything, I'm just bringing up questions and thoughts for those who are interested in finding the truth. Not that we will ever know what that is.
Whatever it is, I'm sure it's not because of any particular agendas or anything...
I'm guessing it will be a hung jury as the pain with all this never does seem to subside..........
They want to know if they can get strombolis instead of Pizza.
All of this has been explained to you, why don't you listen?
Now that we know the truth... you claim that we will never know the truth, since you don't like it. Convenient.
They want to know whether to wipe from front to back or back to front.
Look. If you don't start putting some effort into being disingenuous, this little game is going to lose any remaining novelty.
They want to know if O'Brien said "fighters" or "f@#$ers"
Cipriano recap:
By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net
At 9:35 this morning, Samuel W. Silver, the lawyer for former Penn State President Graham Spanier, stood up in court and without calling a witness, told the judge that the defense was resting its case.
Five minutes later, Silver began his closing argument to the jury by declaring, "There was no evidence of a crime by Graham Spanier."
"This case involves judgment calls," Silver told the jury. "They made judgment calls," Silver said about Spanier and his two alleged co-conspirators -- Tim Curley and Gary Schultz -- before they pleaded guilty and became government witnesses.
"They made judgment calls," Silver repeated about Spanier, Curley and Schultz. "They did not engage in crimes; they did not engage in a conspiracy."
"They took the matter seriously," Silver said about the Jerry Sandusky sex scandal. "They did not stand by and do nothing."
Silver's announcement to the judge was somewhat of a surprise. The day before, when the government rested its case, there was talk that the defense was planning to call up to four witnesses. The defense case was supposedly built around expected testimony from an FBI agent who had done a background check of Spanier for a top-security clearance, and had found no evidence of wrongdoing by Spanier at Penn State.
But Silver obviously decided that the prosecution didn't prove its case. So he went right to his closing argument.
The defense lawyer began by going through the law regarding the crimes that Spanier is charged with: two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, and one count of conspiring to endanger the welfare of a child.
To find Spanier guilty of endangering the welfare of a child, Silver said, the jury would have to find that Spanier interfered or prevented someone from making a report of suspected sex abuse involving a child.
The problem with that, Silver said, was that the government did not present any evidence that Spanier was ever told that Jerry Sandusky "was engaging in sexual crimes with minors."
"Nobody told Graham Spanier," Silver said. The defense lawyer went through every one of the fifteen witnesses called by the government, who were the only witnesses in the case.
"Her witnesses," Silver said, referring to his courtroom rival, Deputy Attorney General Laura Ditka. "Her witnesses made the defense case."
Silver returned to the language of the child endangerment statute. To find Spanier guilty, Silver said, the jury would have to conclude that the government had presented evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Spanier had "knowingly violated" his duty of care to the welfare of children that he was supposedly supervising.
"Graham was not aware that children's welfare would be endangered," Silver said. To find Spanier guilty, the jury would have to conclude that Spanier was supervising the welfare of Second Mile victims abused by Sandusky, many of whom were visitors to the Penn State campus.
The jury would also have to find that Spanier had acted "knowingly, intentionally and recklessly" when he allegedly interfered or prevented anyone from reporting a suspected crime of child sex abuse.
Another element to the crime of child endangerment, Silver said, was that the jury would have to find that in the course of performing his official duties, that Spanier "came into contact with that child" he had allegedly endangered, namely the boy in the showers. Because the child endangerment statute required that Spanier would have had to knowingly endangered the welfare of a child he was supervising.
To find Spanier guilty of conspiracy, Silver said, the jury would have to believe that Spanier "agreed to enter into a conspiracy to commit endangering the welfare of a child." And that Spanier and his co-conspirators had "agreed to put children in danger, and took actions toward that goal."
To anybody who sat through the two days of fact-free testimony that constituted the government's case, any of those findings would be a stretch. But this is sex abuse we're talking about, Penn State style, starring naked good old boy Jerry Sandusky bumping and grinding in the shower with little boys. It's like dousing a straw house with a couple cans of gasoline and waiting for a spark to fly.
Silver talked about the government's cooperating witnesses, former Penn State Athletic Director Curley, and former Penn State Vice-President of Business and Finance Gary Schultz.
"These were the stars of their show," Silver said about the government's case. But going by their testimony, Silver said, neither Curley nor Schultz ever told Spanier that what Mike McQueary witnessed in the showers was sex abuse.
Silver repeated what Schultz told the jury: "Jerry was always horsing around," Silver quoted Schultz as saying. "Schultz told Spanier it was horseplay."
Of all the government's fifteen witnesses, Silver said, only two, Curley and Schultz, testified that they spoke directly to Spanier about what McQueary told them, and what McQueary told Joe Paterno.
McQueary, Silver reminded the jury, never spoke directly to Spanier about what he witnessed in the shower.
There was no conspiracy at Penn State, Silver said, summing up. Nobody told McQueary, or anybody else, to "keep things quiet, to keep their mouths shut."
"There is no evidence that Graham Spanier knowingly endangered the welfare of children," Silver said, before he asked the jury to find his client not guilty.
When Deputy Attorney General Laura Ditka stood up to give her closing, she wanted to clear up one thing right away.
"Gary Schultz and Tim Curley are not our star witnesses," she said, "They're criminals." And you can't count on criminals to tell you that they knowingly committed crimes.
With a paucity of facts to draw on, Ditka, Iron Mike's niece, turned to fireworks. Spanier, Curley and Schultz, she said, were all guilty of turning their backs on the welfare of children, in favor of protecting themselves and Penn State from scandal.
"Jerry Sandusky was left to run wild," she said.'
She talked about the plan that Spanier, Curley and Schultz had agreed on. To confront Jerry Sandusky with the incident that McQueary had witnessed in the shower. And to tell Sandusky that he was no longer allowed to bring children onto Penn State property.
The PSU officials were hoping that Sandusky would admit to a problem and agree to seek help. If not, the officials planned to report the shower incident to the child psychiatrist who led the Second Mile charity that employed Sandusky as a counselor. And to also report the incident to the Department of Public Welfare, so they could investigate whether Sandusky's conduct amounted to sex abuse.
But the "downside" of that approach, as Ditka reminded the jury as she quoted from an email sent by Spanier, was that "if the message wasn't heard" by Sandusky, then Spanier, Curley and Schultz "become vulnerable for not having reported it," Spanier had written.
"All they cared about was their own self interest," Ditka said. "Instead of putting him [Sandusky] on a leash," she said, "they let him run wild."
She told the jury about the first incident Sandusky was ever accused of. Back in 1998, a mother went to the cops because Sandusky had given her 11-year-old son a naked bear hug in the shower.
The boy, a member of the Second Mile charity, had been lured into the showers by the promise of a pair of "Joe Paterno sox," Ditka reminded the jury. "The lure of Penn State football is strong."
Ditka spoke about what she described as the cover-up mode employed by those at the "top of the totem pole" at Penn State, namely Spanier, Curley and Schultz. And then she contrasted it with the whistle blowing of Mike McQueary, whom she described as "the low man on the totem pole."
Ditka went into all the salacious details of the McQueary shower story -- Sandusky's naked "body moving slowly," slapping sounds, and "skin against skin."
"If he's says that's sexual or not," she said about McQueary, "What do you think?" she asked the jury. "That's horseplay?"
If it's horseplay, she said, why was the Penn State president and two of his top officials meeting about it on the weekend" Why are Schultz and Curley sitting around Joe Paterno's kitchen table on a Sunday morning if it's just horseplay they're talking about, Ditka argued.
"Skin to skin, hips moving against a boy is not horsing around," she said. This is Penn State, she said, where they have ten thousand kids.
"Every time a towel is snapped," Ditka asked, do university officials gather at Graham Spanier's house?
They knew what they were doing, Ditka said about Spanier, Curley and Schultz. "They come up with a plan," she said. "You have to keep it a secret."
That's why they waited ten days to interview eyewitness McQueary, Ditka said, because they didn't want to know the truth. They just wanted to keep it under wraps.
"They had a problem and they didn't want to deal with it," Ditka said. "They own it."
"They prevented a report of sex abuse," she said. "They knew what they were dealing with."
Iinstead of tackling the problem head on, Ditka said, by dragging McQueary in and finding out exactly what happened, they tried "to soft-shoe it."
And when the time dragged by, Spanier told Gary Schultz, "It's taken care of."
Here, Ditka was taking some liberty with trial testimony. When asked on the witness stand who had told him that the shower incident had been instigated and "taken care of," Schultz had said, "I can't say for sure that it was Graham Spanier."
It was a quote read to the jury by Silver, who had warned that if Ditka relied on that quote to prove Spanier was guilty, it fell far short of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
It was like that famous scene in Animal House when Bluto was giving a speech to his frat brothers, and he got all worked up about when the Germans bombed Pearl Habor. Otter wondered whether to correct Bulto, but Boon said, "Forget it, he's rolling."
"Graham Spanier told him [Schultz] 'Its taken care of," Ditka yelled. Before she was done, she would accuse Spanier of "lying to Schultz."
Ditka reminded the jury that when the Penn State sex abuse scandal exploded, Spanier insisted on running on the university's website two letters of support for Curley and Schultz.
"I support Gary and Tim," she recounted the statements as saying. "Not a thought about the kids . . . They didn't care about kids."
The most entertaining part of Ditka's closing argument was when she trashed both of her alleged star witnesses.
"Tim Curley," she said was "untruthful 90 percent of the time."
"Gary Schultz, I would suggest to you was more truthful," Ditka told the jury. That's because he cried on the witness stand.
"He was crying for a whole lot of reasons," Ditka said, such as having to appear in court and testify against his old friend, Graham Spanier. But Ditka brought up the tears of Victim No. 5, another government witness who had testified about being abused by Jerry Sandusky in the same showers where McQueary had previously seen something amiss.
Victim No. 5, Ditka said, wakes up crying on "a lot of mornings."
Ditka's weakest moment came when she left the emotional arguments behind to delve briefly into the law in the case, which was probably best left undisturbed.
"There's more than enough proof," she concluded. "They knew the animal they were letting loose on the world," she said, before asking the jury to "find him guilty."
By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net
At 9:35 this morning, Samuel W. Silver, the lawyer for former Penn State President Graham Spanier, stood up in court and without calling a witness, told the judge that the defense was resting its case.
Five minutes later, Silver began his closing argument to the jury by declaring, "There was no evidence of a crime by Graham Spanier."
"This case involves judgment calls," Silver told the jury. "They made judgment calls," Silver said about Spanier and his two alleged co-conspirators -- Tim Curley and Gary Schultz -- before they pleaded guilty and became government witnesses.
"They made judgment calls," Silver repeated about Spanier, Curley and Schultz. "They did not engage in crimes; they did not engage in a conspiracy."
"They took the matter seriously," Silver said about the Jerry Sandusky sex scandal. "They did not stand by and do nothing."
Silver's announcement to the judge was somewhat of a surprise. The day before, when the government rested its case, there was talk that the defense was planning to call up to four witnesses. The defense case was supposedly built around expected testimony from an FBI agent who had done a background check of Spanier for a top-security clearance, and had found no evidence of wrongdoing by Spanier at Penn State.
But Silver obviously decided that the prosecution didn't prove its case. So he went right to his closing argument.
The defense lawyer began by going through the law regarding the crimes that Spanier is charged with: two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, and one count of conspiring to endanger the welfare of a child.
To find Spanier guilty of endangering the welfare of a child, Silver said, the jury would have to find that Spanier interfered or prevented someone from making a report of suspected sex abuse involving a child.
The problem with that, Silver said, was that the government did not present any evidence that Spanier was ever told that Jerry Sandusky "was engaging in sexual crimes with minors."
"Nobody told Graham Spanier," Silver said. The defense lawyer went through every one of the fifteen witnesses called by the government, who were the only witnesses in the case.
"Her witnesses," Silver said, referring to his courtroom rival, Deputy Attorney General Laura Ditka. "Her witnesses made the defense case."
Silver returned to the language of the child endangerment statute. To find Spanier guilty, Silver said, the jury would have to conclude that the government had presented evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that Spanier had "knowingly violated" his duty of care to the welfare of children that he was supposedly supervising.
"Graham was not aware that children's welfare would be endangered," Silver said. To find Spanier guilty, the jury would have to conclude that Spanier was supervising the welfare of Second Mile victims abused by Sandusky, many of whom were visitors to the Penn State campus.
The jury would also have to find that Spanier had acted "knowingly, intentionally and recklessly" when he allegedly interfered or prevented anyone from reporting a suspected crime of child sex abuse.
Another element to the crime of child endangerment, Silver said, was that the jury would have to find that in the course of performing his official duties, that Spanier "came into contact with that child" he had allegedly endangered, namely the boy in the showers. Because the child endangerment statute required that Spanier would have had to knowingly endangered the welfare of a child he was supervising.
To find Spanier guilty of conspiracy, Silver said, the jury would have to believe that Spanier "agreed to enter into a conspiracy to commit endangering the welfare of a child." And that Spanier and his co-conspirators had "agreed to put children in danger, and took actions toward that goal."
To anybody who sat through the two days of fact-free testimony that constituted the government's case, any of those findings would be a stretch. But this is sex abuse we're talking about, Penn State style, starring naked good old boy Jerry Sandusky bumping and grinding in the shower with little boys. It's like dousing a straw house with a couple cans of gasoline and waiting for a spark to fly.
Silver talked about the government's cooperating witnesses, former Penn State Athletic Director Curley, and former Penn State Vice-President of Business and Finance Gary Schultz.
"These were the stars of their show," Silver said about the government's case. But going by their testimony, Silver said, neither Curley nor Schultz ever told Spanier that what Mike McQueary witnessed in the showers was sex abuse.
Silver repeated what Schultz told the jury: "Jerry was always horsing around," Silver quoted Schultz as saying. "Schultz told Spanier it was horseplay."
Of all the government's fifteen witnesses, Silver said, only two, Curley and Schultz, testified that they spoke directly to Spanier about what McQueary told them, and what McQueary told Joe Paterno.
McQueary, Silver reminded the jury, never spoke directly to Spanier about what he witnessed in the shower.
There was no conspiracy at Penn State, Silver said, summing up. Nobody told McQueary, or anybody else, to "keep things quiet, to keep their mouths shut."
"There is no evidence that Graham Spanier knowingly endangered the welfare of children," Silver said, before he asked the jury to find his client not guilty.
When Deputy Attorney General Laura Ditka stood up to give her closing, she wanted to clear up one thing right away.
"Gary Schultz and Tim Curley are not our star witnesses," she said, "They're criminals." And you can't count on criminals to tell you that they knowingly committed crimes.
With a paucity of facts to draw on, Ditka, Iron Mike's niece, turned to fireworks. Spanier, Curley and Schultz, she said, were all guilty of turning their backs on the welfare of children, in favor of protecting themselves and Penn State from scandal.
"Jerry Sandusky was left to run wild," she said.'
She talked about the plan that Spanier, Curley and Schultz had agreed on. To confront Jerry Sandusky with the incident that McQueary had witnessed in the shower. And to tell Sandusky that he was no longer allowed to bring children onto Penn State property.
The PSU officials were hoping that Sandusky would admit to a problem and agree to seek help. If not, the officials planned to report the shower incident to the child psychiatrist who led the Second Mile charity that employed Sandusky as a counselor. And to also report the incident to the Department of Public Welfare, so they could investigate whether Sandusky's conduct amounted to sex abuse.
But the "downside" of that approach, as Ditka reminded the jury as she quoted from an email sent by Spanier, was that "if the message wasn't heard" by Sandusky, then Spanier, Curley and Schultz "become vulnerable for not having reported it," Spanier had written.
"All they cared about was their own self interest," Ditka said. "Instead of putting him [Sandusky] on a leash," she said, "they let him run wild."
She told the jury about the first incident Sandusky was ever accused of. Back in 1998, a mother went to the cops because Sandusky had given her 11-year-old son a naked bear hug in the shower.
The boy, a member of the Second Mile charity, had been lured into the showers by the promise of a pair of "Joe Paterno sox," Ditka reminded the jury. "The lure of Penn State football is strong."
Ditka spoke about what she described as the cover-up mode employed by those at the "top of the totem pole" at Penn State, namely Spanier, Curley and Schultz. And then she contrasted it with the whistle blowing of Mike McQueary, whom she described as "the low man on the totem pole."
Ditka went into all the salacious details of the McQueary shower story -- Sandusky's naked "body moving slowly," slapping sounds, and "skin against skin."
"If he's says that's sexual or not," she said about McQueary, "What do you think?" she asked the jury. "That's horseplay?"
If it's horseplay, she said, why was the Penn State president and two of his top officials meeting about it on the weekend" Why are Schultz and Curley sitting around Joe Paterno's kitchen table on a Sunday morning if it's just horseplay they're talking about, Ditka argued.
"Skin to skin, hips moving against a boy is not horsing around," she said. This is Penn State, she said, where they have ten thousand kids.
"Every time a towel is snapped," Ditka asked, do university officials gather at Graham Spanier's house?
They knew what they were doing, Ditka said about Spanier, Curley and Schultz. "They come up with a plan," she said. "You have to keep it a secret."
That's why they waited ten days to interview eyewitness McQueary, Ditka said, because they didn't want to know the truth. They just wanted to keep it under wraps.
"They had a problem and they didn't want to deal with it," Ditka said. "They own it."
"They prevented a report of sex abuse," she said. "They knew what they were dealing with."
Iinstead of tackling the problem head on, Ditka said, by dragging McQueary in and finding out exactly what happened, they tried "to soft-shoe it."
And when the time dragged by, Spanier told Gary Schultz, "It's taken care of."
Here, Ditka was taking some liberty with trial testimony. When asked on the witness stand who had told him that the shower incident had been instigated and "taken care of," Schultz had said, "I can't say for sure that it was Graham Spanier."
It was a quote read to the jury by Silver, who had warned that if Ditka relied on that quote to prove Spanier was guilty, it fell far short of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
It was like that famous scene in Animal House when Bluto was giving a speech to his frat brothers, and he got all worked up about when the Germans bombed Pearl Habor. Otter wondered whether to correct Bulto, but Boon said, "Forget it, he's rolling."
"Graham Spanier told him [Schultz] 'Its taken care of," Ditka yelled. Before she was done, she would accuse Spanier of "lying to Schultz."
Ditka reminded the jury that when the Penn State sex abuse scandal exploded, Spanier insisted on running on the university's website two letters of support for Curley and Schultz.
"I support Gary and Tim," she recounted the statements as saying. "Not a thought about the kids . . . They didn't care about kids."
The most entertaining part of Ditka's closing argument was when she trashed both of her alleged star witnesses.
"Tim Curley," she said was "untruthful 90 percent of the time."
"Gary Schultz, I would suggest to you was more truthful," Ditka told the jury. That's because he cried on the witness stand.
"He was crying for a whole lot of reasons," Ditka said, such as having to appear in court and testify against his old friend, Graham Spanier. But Ditka brought up the tears of Victim No. 5, another government witness who had testified about being abused by Jerry Sandusky in the same showers where McQueary had previously seen something amiss.
Victim No. 5, Ditka said, wakes up crying on "a lot of mornings."
Ditka's weakest moment came when she left the emotional arguments behind to delve briefly into the law in the case, which was probably best left undisturbed.
"There's more than enough proof," she concluded. "They knew the animal they were letting loose on the world," she said, before asking the jury to "find him guilty."
No reason to cross examine that guy
Though, in all seriousness, I would place just about every other Prosecution Witness higher on the list of who should have actually been cross examined by defense counsel (AKA The League of Shadows)
Amazing that she seemed to testify FOR HER witnesses. I guess they can't speak for themselves. Unreal. If Spanier gets convicted, its a blight on the entire system (which I don't have much respect for anyway).
By definition no conspiracy at all because you need evidence that is was a deliberate act. Reckless is wide open to interpretation
She must hate kids... to put all this focus on C/S/S and not the government agencies that actually failed those kids.
hmmmm what other "Toxine" personality do we know who does the same thing??
agree..someone else just made a good point...the length of deliberation can imply they are logically walking through the elements, as opposed to emotionally. No way to tell, really, if it is good or bad for anyone.
If ever properly cross-examined, V5 would probably say the magic JoePa socks were black or navy blue.
Her witnesses," Silver said, referring to his courtroom rival, Deputy Attorney General Laura Ditka. "Her witnesses made the defense case.
I would guess the "reckless" definition may relate to the Judge's instruction on whether he "knowingly violated" a duty of care to the welfare of children. If the prosecution failed to show that Spanier had the criminal intent to satisfy the standard of "knowingly violated", the Judge may have instructed that this could also be satisfied by showing his actions were so reckless that it amounts to "knowingly violated".
Not what I read TC brought JP up to speed on 2001 which he should not have.
So I guess that means they are gonna finish tonight?
I can't imagine what poor Graham is going through, not knowing if he's going to walk out of there free or be convicted of crimes he didn't commit.
How could he knowingly violate a duty of care to children when children are not the day to day individuals on the campus? Should Spanier be responsible if a grad student was smacking around their kid in campus housing?? Sheesh!
I hope so. Hung jury means it will hang over Spanier's head for how long? I can't see prosecution trying this again.
Well - - at least we get more info during private jury deliberations, than we do during "Public" meetings of the Penn State BOT
"There's more than enough proof," she concluded. "They knew the animal they were letting loose on the world," she said, before asking the jury to "find him guilty.
They didn't prove anything. What a F&^%ing disgrace.
They didn't prove anything. What a F&^%ing disgrace.
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