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<p>National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma serves as a pretty strong counterexample. [NCAA</a> v. Board of Regents - 468 U.S. 85 (1984) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center](<a href=“NCAA v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma :: 468 U.S. 85 (1984) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center”>NCAA v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma :: 468 U.S. 85 (1984) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center)</p>
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I don’t find either of them innocent - I just also do not find either of them guilty. In both cases, I think that there has not been sufficient information released to make a solid determination. </p>
<p>In the case of Spanier I hope that he is indicted and goes to trial so that everything can be revealed and so that he can be tried in front of a jury - I do not think anything other than that will decide things one way or the other. He certainly looks guilty from what is shown in the emails, but everything is so vague and the sampling so limited that it is difficult to be certain. Also, as I noted before, he maintains a security clearance that multiple lawyers and investigators would have had to approve, and which for something of this nature they would almost certainly have rejected - so what do they know that we do not?</p>
<p>As for Paterno, my mind changes almost daily - he is so removed from the record that it is hard to be sure what he knew and when, and who he influenced and how. Was he completely innocent? No. Did he overstep the reasonable bounds of his position? Repeatedly. Did he actually cover everything up? Hard to say.</p>
<p>Everyone is in a race to throw everyone ELSE under the bus. That makes it hard to say what is really true.</p>
<p>There is a difference between beleiving Spanier, Paterno, or anyone else innocent and not seeing a lot of evidence. I don’t recall much actual evidence in the Freeh report (one email is not all that strong). And as Hunt has pointed out it can be argued that he did not have a duty to report. </p>
<p>Legal guilt is not the same, of course, as moral obligation.</p>
<p>Overall I think the NCAA penalties are fair. Harsh, but fair, focused on establishing football as a part of Penn State, but not the main focus.</p>
<p>cosmic–are you suggesting that Spanier’s security clearance post dated the Freeh report?</p>
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No, but Spanier claims that it was reviewed and his role in the wake of the allegations against him and his firing, and that would be consistent with the way that such clearances are handled. So while he already had the clearance, in the past few months a number of special investigators with much more leeway and a mandate to be conservative would have okayed his clearance, and I would be stunned if they lacked access to the same material as the Freeh report - indeed, they probably saw it before anyone else, as they have many of the investigative powers and authority that Freeh’s group lacked.</p>
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Therein lies the problem, as among other things the purpose of criminal law is to differentiate between typical (if undesirable and unwanted) human behavior and that which is egregiously harmful and uncommon. There is no doubt that everyone involved saw at least something that should have concerned them, but it is unclear how much any of them saw, and whether or not that level of knowledge rose to the level where reporting a coworker/employee/acquintance for a career-ending charge was the “ordinary” thing to do. Even with the higher standards expected of such people, the information is just so thin.</p>
<p>So they all failed… but how much is very much up in the air to me.</p>
<p>I would not be surprised if they didn’t see those emails. Frankly if the Federal Government okayed his clearance after seeing his part in this it would be horrifying. At minimum he demonstrated terrible judgment, an acknowledgment that while they “should” report, they’ll just skip that, etc. Please tell me it ain’t so.</p>
<p>excuse me cosmic? the information is so thin??
McQueary reported seeing Sandusky assault a child in the Penn State showers. is that what you consider “thin”?</p>
<p>The evidence some need to see is the years and years and years of spanner seeing saundsky with little boys and continuing support him. The evidence is that Sandusky was sexually assaulting children for over a decade and these men knew. Period</p>
<p>To think or hope paterno didn’t know or didn’t coverup for all that time seems bizarre.</p>
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Yes, there are exceptions. If the NCAA wanted to actually execute someone they would have a hard time pulling it off legally, my point was that they ignore their own rules quite regularly. The case you cited was where they also chose to ignore the actual law - an indication of how far the NCAA is actually willing to go to get what it wants.</p>
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<p>Oh please, the Paterno family is riding in the sunset in a gilded bus, if there was ever one. The last negotiations led by Joe Paterno sought to insulate them from the problems he knew he no longer could bury and insure lavish benefits that survive his reign as Emperor of PSU. </p>
<p>The contractual agreements cannot be undone, and even if they did, the school would not seek to further sully the name of Paterno. Not because it is the right thinhg to do, but because that appears right in the eyes of the people who still prefer to be blind.</p>
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<p>Was it not reported that the sanctions were proposed by PSU as a stratagem to avoid the penalty that should have been imposed, namely the death penalty? The acceptance by PSU seems a continuance of the entire hypocrisy that has permeated this case since it burst onto the scene. </p>
<p>Why would they fight a decision that they can live with? They should not have had this option as the only penalties that made senses should have been so drastic that they could NOT live with, or at least not live for a very long time. </p>
<p>They got away with it, after almost getting away with the entire sordid affair. Their only regret is that they did not succeed in burying it forever.</p>
<p>Any university can withdraw from the NCAA, it is a “club”. If I belong to any “club” and I do not like the way they do things,I can quit, right or wrong, it is the owners of the club who decide end of story.</p>
<p>Not sure what to make of Emmert’s position (also made by several on this thread) that the death penalty was inapproporiate because it would punish innocent students, local businesses, etc… I suppose that Emmert is suggesting that the death penalty has, in fact, died. It would seem that the death penalty would always impact persons who have little or nothing to do with rules infractions (unless one is to conjure a scenario whereby 51,000 students and untold local businesses conspired with the administartion to violate NCAA rules). Furthermore, other (less draconian) sanctions also affect the innocent, current players and coaches did not cheat, yet are punished by the NCAA through less funding, less talented teammates, etc.</p>
<p>An organization, having selected leaders, and acting through those leaders, must be bound by their acts. By way of example, when a corporation fails to pay their taxes, or otherwise acts unethically, the government imposes sanctions on the corporation, regardless of whether the officers and directors have been removed; as it must. The absense of entity level enforcement creates a lack of entity level deterence. Without entity level penalties, corporate, or institutional, malfeasance would be out of control (insert Enron joke here).</p>
<p>So if you accept that the NCAA must enforce sanctions against the entity (and you certainly may disagree) then it seems to me that there were only two logical alternatives. </p>
<p>First, the NCAA could have foregone enforcement action, relying on the fact that there was no apparent specific major infraction. A reasonable and defensible position.</p>
<p>Second, the NCAA could have issued the death penalty. Penn State turned the keys to the university over to an administration that willingly bartered the rape of children for the glorification of athletics. Having determined that sanctioning action was appropriate, anything less than maximum sentencing is absurd. Would fifty abuse victims justify the death penalty? Fifty university leaders participating in the enablement and coverup?</p>
<p>The NCAA, predicatbly, sought middle ground. And a split baby is an ugly mess</p>
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You do realize that the charges related to McQueary’s testimony were the only charges of which Sandusky was acquitted, right? McQueary is a self-serving <<insert insult=“” here=“”>> and has been his whole life, and the only people who can be clearly shown to have known fully what was happening are the two people who have been indicted.</insert></p>
<p>What do you think of the NCAA sanctions: fair? went too far? not far enough?</p>
<p>How do you think they will affect football at Penn State in the near future?</p>
<p>Just curious what your opinions are since most of you seem very well informed on this whole mess…</p>
<p>To all those yammering about “due process”: the university commissioned the Freeh investigation as its own internal investigation of the matter, which it outsourced to a highly qualified professional. If then the university accepted the findings and conclusions of the Freeh report, and presented those findings to the NCAA as the university’s official statement as to what, to the best of its knowledge, happened, and the NCAA then said, “OK, we’ll take your word for it and assume for purposes of these proceedings that your version of events (i.e., the Freeh report) is a true and accurate account,” and no facts are disputed between the principals (i.e., between the NCAA and the university), then there’s absolutely no need for the NCAA to do its own investigation or to hold a hearing in which the university might dispute the facts. They stipulated to an agreed set of facts, and based on those agreed facts, the NCAA levied penalties. That’s due process. That doesn’t mean other parties might not want a forum in which to dispute the facts, but the NCAA is under no obligation to give them one. This was a matter between the NCAA and the university, and the NCAA simply accepted the university’s account of events and punished them on that basis, and the university took its medicine.</p>
<p>As NCAA President Emmert said, the university-sponsored Freeh investigation was far more thorough and comprehensive than any investigation ever conducted by the NCAA itself. An additional cursory NCAA investigation would have only been dilatory, and there was no need for it because there was plenty in the university’s own official account of what happened to allow the NCAA to impose stiff penalties.</p>
<p>I do commend the trustees for giving Freeh a free hand (no pun intended) to pursue his investigation without interference. He seems to have done a pretty thorough job, and he didn’t spare the Trustees criticism for their complete and utter failure of oversight. That doesn’t mean he got all the facts right, but if the university accepts his report as its official account of what happened, and presents that to the NCAA, and the NCAA accepts it at face value --well, that’s it, game over. It’s like a murderer walking into the police station and, after being informed of his rights, confessing, then signing a written confession, then pleading guilty in an open courtroom; the judge can then convict him and impose a sentence. We don’t need a big elaborate trial to prove that every element in his confession is true; we just take his word for it. Nobody yells that the confessed murderer didn’t get due process, because he did get due process. He had an opportunity to dispute the facts, but he waived that opportunity when he pled guilty. That’s due process.</p>
<p>If you don’t like the fact that the university pled guilty, then your beef is with the university, not with the NCAA.</p>
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To whom are these questions addressed? There are many posters here and many different opinions as to which of us are well-informed.</p>
<p>Penn State President Erickson on NCAA sanctions: ‘We had our backs to the wall on this’</p>
<p>Read more here: [Penn</a> State President Erickson on NCAA sanctions: ‘We had our backs to the wall on this’ | Jerry Sandusky Scandal | CentreDaily.com](<a href=“http://www.centredaily.com/2012/07/23/3270275/penn-state-president-erickson.html#storylink=cpy#storylink=cpy]Penn”>http://www.centredaily.com/2012/07/23/3270275/penn-state-president-erickson.html#storylink=cpy#storylink=cpy)</p>
<p>YEAH bclintonk!!! Well Said!!</p>
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And yet much less thorough than will be the investigations undertaken by and on behalf of the courts in this matter. Such investigations will also be reviewed by those accused, who will have the opportunity to challenge the findings, something that has not been seriously done here.</p>
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And yet doesn’t call for their removal, despite the fact that they abdicated all responsibility for the oversight of the university. He gave them a slap on the wrist, and they are lauding the report because so many of us want their heads.</p>
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No, it’s more like a gang is brought in with the knowledge that one or more of them killed a guy, but one of the gang members hires a PI who comes back and says “it was those guys over there, not the guy who hired me” and the judge decides to convict based solely on this.</p>
<p>It astonishes me that in a country that accepts 5-4 split US Supreme Court decisions as a matter of course that a single opinion is taken as the only possible conclusion.</p>
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<p>And the firing squad was happy to load rubber bullets!</p>