JoePa - Moral Obligations in Child Sexual Assault Cases

Remove all ads!

Let me be clear about something, though dmc covered most everything perfectly.

Just because I see guilt in the actions of all involved does not mean I think the wrongdoings of all involved were comparable. Sandusky is the clear and away villain, here. Paterno, McQueary and the rest are all guilty parties, but certainly not AS guilty. In no way did I equate the crime of child rape with the crime of neglecting to report child rape. But make no mistake, they are both crimes - both morally and legally. Do I think Paterno belongs in a cell next to Sandusky? Of course not. But he does need to be held to legal account for his lack of action. McQueary is a far more guilty party. He is a clear accessory by not going to the police. Paterno less so, because he knew only what he was told by McQueary. But he still knew something and did nothing.

That is unforgivable.

And for the record, I too think it is shameful that McQueary is still employed by Penn State.

 

Sorry if I read too much into your prior comment DR. When you said they all needed "to be thrown in jail", I thought you meant that they were all equally culpable.

I think they both are going to be able to get out of any legal action. Like I said a few posts up, they talked to the VP, Gary Schultz, who also happened to be the head of the campus police department at the time. One could argue that by telling him, they were reporting it both to their superiors and the police. And I don't think that's a stretch by any means. They didn't tell just any police officer, they told the head of the whole police department.

Of course, that takes us in a whole other direction. There's a clear conflict of interest here, because when Schultz didn't further the investigation, it was because it would lead back to him. It was a case where he was wearing two hats, having some level of authority over the football program as the VP, and having some level of authority over the campus police force, as the head of security. Which means he pretty much doubly screwed himself with that. He was derelict in his duties both as VP and head of police.

We can debate what all should have done from a moral perspective - and make no mistake, their moral actions were definitely lacking - but from a strictly legal perspective, it looks like they covered themselves pretty well.

 

Wait, how does that work? I'm not too familiar with police jurisdictions in the US, but I expected the "regular" police would have jurisdiction anywhere in the state. Campus police is, as far as I know, a volunteer force that acts more like a security service, but has neither the training nor the authority to act fully like, well, cops.

And by the way, why is there a legal obligation to inform your superior in the hierarchy and not the police, anyway?

 

The campus police force at Penn State is not like the campus police at most universities. This is simply because of the size of the school. There's something like 80,000 students at Penn State - it is larger than a lot of cities in Pennsylvania that have their own police force. In fact, it just so happens that the campus police - who are made up of actual police academy graduates (i.e., not volunteers) - have a larger jurisdiction and a larger population to police than the police department of State College (the city Penn State is located in). The campus police has more officers too.

It would help their cause if they referred to themselves as the Campus Police Department, or Campus Police Force, or whatever, to give the correct impression that they are real police officers, and not what immediately springs to mind when you think campus police, which as you correctly point out usually consists of a lot of volunteers and fellow students.

 

Most large university departments nowadays are indeed full-fledged police departments, so they act like any other department as far as jurisdiction goes. There are probably distinctions made between state and private universities, but I would assume that the city department in which the university is located would also have jurisdiction. Likewise the state police and county sheriff's departments (what you are probably thinking of when you say "regular police"), though they tend to have delineations defined for where and how they operate (state highways, areas without local police departments, airports, etc.), absent requests for intervention.

I'm not sure, but I think that's just a Penn State policy. There is no law anywhere that I'm aware of saying you can't go to the police for criminal concerns ... although, I don't know, maybe you'd be violating the terms of an employment contract or something by doing so in Penn State's case. That'd be pretty shady sounding if it was so.

 

This isn't particularly surprising. I think most people would have suspected this by now anyway, but now an e-mail chain has come out suggesting that at the very least, the VP, AD, and Paterno were all involved in a concerted effort to cover up the crime. Here and here.

This, for me, makes it so much worse. This is worse than doing nothing. This is taking an active hand in trying to prevent the truth from coming out, and prevent Sandusky from being brought to justice. One of the e-mail stated that it would be "more humane" if they did not take the evidence they had on Sandusky to authorities.

It was bad before, but it's really bad now. I have no respect for any of them. Take the statue down.

 

Take the statue down? Before any evidence is released condemning Paterno? Schulz's staement of "after talking with Joe" doesn't show one ounce or one iota of fact about what Paterno thought, said or was asked about, in either link. Neither has anything I have read on the topic this morning on various media sites. I notice you didn't link the PaternoFamilyResponse, demanding the release of all info.

 

If you recall, I was among the original defenders of JoePa - saying that he met all of his legal responsibilities by informing the AD and the VP. They had originally decided that they should take the case to authorities, but then later, Curley, the AD wrote: "After giving it more thought and talking it over with Joe yesterday, I am uncomfortable with what we agreed were the next steps."

So unless you think "Joe" refers to someone other than Joe Paterno, how can that statement be interpreted as anything other than Joe knew they were going to try to cover it up, and went along with it?

As I've said before, other than Sandusky, the people most worthy of our contempt are the AD and VP - the buck ultimately stopped with them. That much is still true. But to find out that Joe knew they were going to cover it up, and agreed to go along with it, that to me further tarnishes his legacy.

EDIT: They sometimes say that the coverup is worse than the crime. That's not true in this instance, as the crime was raping a child. But it is true that the only guy who would have had their reputation called into question if they had gone to authorities was Sandusky. No one would have lost thier jobs, or get charged with purgery, or have their legacies altered. Sure, it wouldn't have looked good for Penn State, but they could say as soon as we found out about this sicko, we got rid of him - as opposed to let him continue to hang around the campus - four of the victims were after the 2001 date when the AD, VP, JoePa, et al., found out about Sandusky.

I'm not saying that this incredibly poor decision completely washes away all the good JoePa did for Penn State, but it must tarnish his legacy. Because for all the hard work he did for half a century at Penn State, this was a comparitively easy task. All he need to do in this instance was the right thing.

 

How do you connect Paterno to a cover up? The AD references "a talk with Joe", that's it. It does not elaborate on what the conversation was about. Are you trying to tell me you know exactly what he meant? What was said? Could the AD possibly of talked with Joe again to get the account of what McQueary said to him to help make up his mind on what to do going forward? You have no idea what the conversation was about. How do you condemn off of that? That is why the family wants the rest of the e-mails out in the open, to clarify the meaning of the e-mail.

If it comes out that there was knowledge and a cover up linking Paterno as a co-conspirator, I am completely with you. But IMO, what was leaked in no way makes that connection. It does put the chance of it being there in the back of the mind, but that is not a solid enough basis in my book to point the finger. If our courts did so, there would be a lot of innocent people behind bars.

 

Of course I don't know exactly what Paterno said. Hell, given that Paterno is dead and that the conversation happened about 11 years ago, even Curley probably cannot recall the exact conversation. So no one knoe=ws exactly what was said. But I think I'm making a reasonable assumption. They decided to tell authorities, then Curley talks to Paterno, and after that they decide not to go to authorities. It seems reasonable to assume that there was something that was discussed that made Curley change his mind.

And saying thing like there would be a lot of innocent people behind bars if the courts did that, misses the point completely. Paterno was not going to be charged with anything, and he clearly cannot be charged with anything now. Curley is being charged with purgery, and you can bet that e-mail chian will be submitted as evidence. Besides - this isn't a court of law - I'm talking about public opinion, and IMO, Paterno looks complicit.

 

Aldeth, I believe you're the one who is missing "my" point, not "the" point. Condemning him on a public site has meaning and possible influence in other arenas. Word gets around, snowballs, escalates and becomes accepted in popular opinion about a topic where the facts are not fully known. Themedia does it constantly and it does full public opinion. It ends up condemning someone in teh public eye who could be fully innocent of the orignal allegation. But as for the full release of the e-mail, I believe you are correct, it certainly will be put into evidence, but which side submits it is the key and I think will be the telling factor of prior knowledge by Paterno.

But from a few e-amil excerpts you are concluding that "They decided to tell authorities, then Curley talks to Paterno, and after that they decide not to go to authorities. It seems reasonable to assume that there was something that was discussed that made Curley change his mind." But the full timeline and e-mail trail is not shown of what was said. Why not? Any media fool can twist that into a story, which the hounds obviously did this week. *Hell, we do it ourselves daily on this site when starting new threads....

*(not saying that you did.... and I understand it's your opinion, I just don't see how you came to that conclussion, but to each his own my friend.)

 

Well, do we know all the facts now? Check out the report from the internal investigation posted on ESPN, SI, MSNBC, CNN, take your pick. A conspiracy dating back to 1998 when everyone knew, to actively conceal the truth about Sandusky from coming out. A decision was made to go to authorities and Paterno talked them out of it, showing more concern for Sandusky than the victims. Through a combination of action and inaction, more boys got raped, including the now infamous incident of what McQuery witnessed in the shower.

Paterno said he "wished he had done more". I'd say it's more like you did way too much Joe. Your reputation is in tatters, and your name is mud. For all the good you did in your years at Penn State, it will ALL be overshadowed by this colossal failure, that was systematic, that it now looks like you not only were involved in, but actually were the source of it.

I know Blades will probably disagree with me on this point too, but even the staunchest defenders of Paterno cannot possibly defend this. Can we take the damn statue down now?

 

After reading through the entire timeline listed, where the hell does it say that Paterno talked Spanier out of contacting the Board and startinghte process of getting rid of that monster? That decison was Spaniers, Schultz and Curleys, not Paterno's. I also don't see anyone knocking down the Second Mile here, which was informed of allocations against Sandusky by Spanier. And they still let the guy work with kids? They called it a "non-incident". WTF?? What were they thinking...

As for a descision not to do anything, after the converstaion that Curley had with Paterno, Curley said" If he(sandusky) is cooperative, we will work with him in informing the Second Mile. If he is not, we don't have a choice and will immediately inform Second Mile and DWP". They didn't. But "they" does not include Paterno. "They" is Spanier, Curley and Schultz, whose job it was to put forth such action, not the fricking football coach. It was a LEGAL matter by now. But what I don't like (and I think all, including Paterno, were wrong in this) is that they were only going to tell Second Mile if Sandusky cooperated??? I wish that report eleaborated a little more here. Why not just bury the monster they knew they had in house and sperate themselves as far as possible.

After reading the entire PDF this morning, several individuals are obviously in the wrong, including Paterno. But there are shades of grey there when spewing out who is to blame. Paterno's name is being put out there the most by the media, as he is the only "known" person, the only iconic name for a story, so they jump all over him. But that report OBVIOUSLY shows that Spanier, Schultz and Curley were definitely the drivers of any action. Paterno is consulted when the allocations first come out because there is impact to their football program which is a money winner for the university. What university wouldn't? they have to talk aobut it and prepare for the worst. Especially when the cops cleared Sandusky originally. But the ultimate decsions, as Paterno stated to the reporter before his death, were to be made by men with the authority and positions to do so. SPANIER, SCHULTZ and CURLEY. They failed. Miserably and to the detrement of more children, which is tragic. So did Paterno, though in a smaller way. So did McQueary in a smaller way. So did the outside counsel. So did the cops who investigated the accusations originally. So did the Second mile program. The list can go on and on....

Take down the statue? Really dude? Why don't you go take a drive up to State College and boldly yell that question outside of the Hetzel Union building on Campus. Hopefully we'll still be able to have an open casket funeral for mother's sake.

 

I was basing it off of statements made directly by Freeh during this morning's press conference. He wrote the report, and his comments were damning.

How was it not Paterno? Look at the video. Yes, he points fingers at everyone involved, calling it a "coordinated, systemic organizational failure" but there is no saving grace for Paterno. He goes so far as to implicate Paterno as the person who recommended that course of action.

Just because I think such an action would be completely justified, I don't have a death wish, nor do I have the means to hire personal security to escort me around.

I would be satisfied with a small plaque below the statue stating that for 12 years he aided (at the very least through inaction) the continued defilement of children at the hands of a child molester...

EDIT: Here's some legal analysis stating that if he were not dead, Paterno likely would have to stand trial over this. Markedly:

Which would put Paterno and a host of others in trouble as well.

I don't know what else to tell you Blades. At the point the only people I hear still defending Paterno are Penn State alumni, fans of Penn State football, and oftentimes, both. Hell, even some of them are turning away at this point. And please remember that I was not among those who damned Paterno initially. I actually defended him earlier in this thread. But the more I hear, the worse it looks for him.

 

Sorry Aldeth, I was a little testy there, my bad. Right before I posted, teh conversation around me at work had some knucklehead manager I work with comp)are PSU to the Thrid Reich. Paterno = Hitler was his message. I should punch him just on principle alone, but hat is wishful thinking.Some people are just Idiots... And yes, you did defend him originally.

I watched the Press confernece(I am getting nothing done at work today...) and it wasnt good. Thoguh I think that report doesn't fully justify his words either. It is what happens in court when they go after the others that will truly reveal it all. Hopefully at least. One fo the comments that I found odd was in the Corrective actions talked about in the report, stating PSU has a athletic-driven culture. It is defintely not more than any other major university, defintely less than others(can you say USC, Miami, etc.....) and they are a huge academic hub. Ican without a doubt say that many on campus are there for academics, not sports. There are only some many spots on sports teams and there are over 36,000 students on that campus. Nobody gives a **** about their Basketball, Baseball, Hockey, Swimming and other sports teams. Only football is noticed outside of those who participate in any major way. Being a former student, there are many statements made int hat report about the culture that are dead wrong. But hey, if that is what they goota do to make sure this stuff doesn't happen again, than so be it. It is a lesser evil than another Sandusky-type arising somewhere else. Sandusky, the real bad guy in this debacle...

 

I agree with that. In fact, there have been many times in the past that Penn State has being praised for fielding a highly competitive team, while at the same time maintaining high academic standards. I think some of it is perception. I mean they draw over 100,000 fans every home game, the vast majority of whom are students and alumni. I can certainly see how that can be the perception of Penn State, and obviously, when dealing with people heavily involved in the athletic program, of course it's an athletic-driven culture.

I'd go as far as to say most, not just many. I know many people who attended Penn State. While a few of them got a partial ride from academic scholarships, none of them were getting a ride on an atheltic scholarship.

Well, yeah - I don't think anyone is denying that. No matter how badly any of the others are implicated, none of them ever should be compared to being as bad as Sandusky (nevermind Hitler).

 

The Penn State fans that I know are also taking exception to "the culture". In actuality, it was just the culture of the athletic department and pssibly only the football program. I think the brush strokes are being spread too far by people who are calling it an indictment of the University.

I also was a JoPa supporter, but it doesn't look good. It is a shame that all of the good he did over his lifetime is essentially destroyed by this issue, but I think it may end up being justified.

 

This is not a gray issue imo. If Paterno was the least bit involved in covering this up, he is a scumbag, period. He's either a coward for being afraid to do something about it, or he's a slimey f*ck for choosing not to, for whatever other reason. See DR's post about it somewhere up the thread: there should be no half-measures when it comes to matters of child sexual abuse. University might be damged? Don't care. Someone might get in trouble? Don't care. Might not be "humane?" Don't care.

Major university football coaches are basically all-powerful (the U of M football coach is, for example, second in power and influence only to the university president, and Penn State is if anything more prominent than U of M), so if Paterno wanted something done, it would be done. The killer thing about that though is that you don't have to be the football coach to do something about it. Just report the damn incident(s) to the police. If the university cops don't do anything, take it to the state police. If they don't do anything, take it to the state AG. If he doesn't do anything, take it to the news media.

There is no point at which you shrug your shoulders and say "oh well" when it comes to this kind of filth, and you don't wait until Monday or handle it delicately or give the guy free unsupervised access to the campus showers after the fact.

The Hitler comment is also BS, but so is the need for a comparison. Killing millions of people is bad, but so is raping a few children. The fact that raping a few children doesn't affect millions of people directly in a life-and-death way makes the act no less abhorrent. There is no particular purpose in comparing two different crimes unless you're trying to equivocate on the one you want to be 'not so bad.'

 

I haven't been following this at all, and being completely uninterested in football, I had no idea who Joe Palermo was until reading this. I had heard about the Sandusky trial, though, so at least around here, Sandusky is getting more media than Palermo. Oh, and I suppose I should mention that I'm definitely an "Innocent until Proven Guilty" person, so I'm generally biased on the side of people accused of things. Keep that in mind.

Here are some thoughts on abuse and neglect, mandated reporters, etc. though:

1. When you have a suspicion of abuse or neglect, whether child or adult, you don't contact the local police. There is a specific abuse/neglect hotline that you call. So talking to the VP did NOT mean that Palermo made the report. That doesn't mean he didn't fulfill his duty, though: see later points. The point here is that no, Joe Palermo, did not make an actual report to the abuse/neglect authorities.

2. Certain individuals are mandated reporters. I don't remember if I was a mandated reporter or not when I was a Teaching Assistant at a college, but I was when I worked at a center for developmentally disabled adults, and I am now at a k-12 school as a teacher. A mandated reporter MUST report any suspicion of neglect or abuse.

3. At the developmental center, we were supposed to make our own reports. We knew the hotline and were supposed to call it if we suspected anything. Making a report is based on suspicion. We don't need to have proof. Any suspicion counts. If a kid jokes about abuse from her father, even if it seems like a joke, we are required to report it. The investigators, if they actually investigate (*see below), are the ones concerned with proof. When I was student teaching, I was required to call the hotline. My current school's policy, though, is that we contact the Headmistress and she makes the report. This is to protect us from parents, so that if they demand "Did you report us?" we can say "no" honestly and refer them back to the Headmistress. I have no doubt that she'd make a report if I reported to her, but after hearing all of this, I think I'd like to be present when she does so, so that I can be sure it was officially reported. That wouldn't have occurred to me before reading this, though. So, thanks!

4. The people at the hotline unfortunately do not investigate all cases. My headmistress told me that she makes a report on the same family at least once a year, and that the people at the hotline have heard from her at least 5 times for the same family, but they haven't even investigated. Those kids are still being abused by their own family. This makes me livid. You'd think that child rape would get their attention, but maybe not. Or maybe even the investigators are afraid of stirring up Penn State for some reason. This is crucial: sometimes she makes a report, and nothing happens. It's as if the report didn't happen.

In other words, IF Penn State uses the supervisor method, and IF Joe Paterno followed correct procedures, the people receiving the report (i.e. the abuse/neglect authorities) might not have done anything, and there would be no way for Paterno to know whether it was actually reported by his supervisor (with non-action by the investigators) or whether the supervisor simply did not report it. There is no one else to call. If the abuse/neglect people don't do anything, it means that they have decided it isn't important. I don't know why McQueary didn't act or call the police during the actual incident. It isn't something you just pretend didn't happen. But Paterno was acting on hearsay, so he couldn't call the police -- the offense was no longer in progress. Since it was a suspicion, he was required to contact the abuse/neglect people or have his supervisor do so. And if nothing happened after that, what would he think? It all depends on whether he trusted his supervisor or not. If he did, there would be no reason for him to think that his supervisor did NOT report it (since the authorities sometimes do nothing), and thus, he would feel secure in having performed his duty. He would naturally assume that this was one of the cases that the authorities decided not to investigate. Just as I would have if I hadn't read all of this.

5. Hearsay. I agree that we can't make any assumptions based on "talked to Joe" in an e-mail. Maybe it was hearing Joe's anger about it that made him reconsider and not want to be so angry himself. I don't know. Maybe it really was a different Joe. Maybe he didn't like Joe and knew all of this would eventually come out, and wanted to make it look like Joe was more complicit than he was (yes, most people are not this calculating, but some are). Maybe he felt guilty/not confident about his own decision not to do more and thought that having Joe's name in there would make it look more legitimate (i.e. yes, he talked to Joe, but Joe didn't actually make any recommendations, but he thought that if he put Joe's name in the others would take him more seriously). Just having that one piece out of context is not surety. Yes, the most *likely* scenario is that Joe talked him out of following the original plan, but there are too many other possible scenarios to know for sure.

Personally, I think the abuse/neglect people should investigate every case that is reported. It amazes me that they don't. What's worse is that if they do investigate a family (not a coach), they often don't remove the child from the situation. In fact, they try their hardest to keep the child with their family. So, once they're done investigating, guess what? The abusers take it out on the child. Sometimes, reporting makes things worse for the child. Not in a coaching situation, I don't think, but in family situations. It makes my heart break.

 

One point to contest here - there is nothing preventing any citizen of a free country from reporting crimes to the police. So contracts or internal reporting routines notwithstanding, you can go directly to any police agency at any time and report what you know if you believe a crime has been or is being committed. Whether or not they do anything about it is a different matter, and as you say, reporting hearsay won't likely get you very far, but as far as I can tell Paterno knew this was happening and had direct evidence of same - certainly enough for the cops to investigate. Not to mention the fact that he was Joe Paterno, so if he had anything to say, ears everywhere would have perked up instantly. (And in countries with unrestricted news media, they serve as watchdogs and are always your last resort if all else fails.) So yeah, assuming for a moment that he wasn't the all-powerful Joe Paterno, his normal course would likely be to report through channels as you describe above, but that does not mean it's the last of it if nothing is done.

On top of that, the initial investigating body for crimes committed on university grounds would be the university police, to whom Paterno no doubt had a direct line. Essentially, if he wanted it done, he could have made it happen within seconds. The university police chief would not defy someone of Paterno's stature, particularly on something like that, even if the VP and AD had said to poo-poo it all. And if he/she had any integrity, the would pursue it regardless of any who's who considerations. All cops - even university police - are law enforcement officers first and football boosters second, so unlike intra-corporate shenanigans, they have a duty to carry out their duty outside of political considerations. And if they somehow did defy Paterno, he'd need only take it to the next level - state police, state attorney general. He probably had direct lines to them too.

Anyway, my point is that if I breathlessly run to the cops and report that I think aliens are poisoning my dog, I might not get assigned a case number right away. But if Joe Paterno goes to them and says there is child sexual abuse going on in his organization, you can bet there would be investigators on the case within minutes.

Well-written post btw. It's always good to hear new voices chime in.