Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, convicted in June 2012 of sexually abusing 10 boys for more than a decade, should not get a new trial, a state appeals court ruled Wednesday.
The unanimous decision by a three-judge Superior Court appeals panel came barely two weeks after they heard oral arguments by Sandusky’s lawyer and a state prosecutor.
Defense lawyer Norris Gelman said he planned to ask the state Supreme Court to review the case.
“We are disappointed in the decision, and we had hopes for something better,” Gelman said.
Sandusky, 69, had argued his trial lawyers did not have sufficient time to prepare, a prosecutor made improper references to him not testifying on his own behalf and the judge mishandled two jury instructions.
The opinion by Judge Jack Panella said that trial judges have discretion about whether to allow pretrial delays and that in Sandusky’s case the judge carefully considered the continuance requests.
“The decision does not reflect a myopic insistence upon expeditiousness in the face of Sandusky’s request; it was not an arbitrary denial,” Panella wrote.
Sandusky had wanted the trial judge, John Cleland, to give jurors an instruction about the amount of time it took for nearly all of the accusers to report their allegations. Panella wrote that Cleland should have evaluated the need for such a jury instruction based on each accuser’s age and maturity but Cleland’s failure to do so did not harm Sandusky.
“The trial court specifically instructed the jury that they were to consider any possible motives of the victims in coming forward,” Panella wrote. “The vigorous cross-examination of the victims and arguments by defense counsel, when combined with the trial court’s instructions on credibility, clearly defined the issues for the jury.”
The issue related to Sandusky not testifying was not properly preserved for appeals court review, Panella wrote.
The appeals court also turned down another jury instruction claim, related to weighing a defendant’s good character against the allegations.
A spokesman for the attorney general’s office said the decision affirmed prosecutors’ position about the strength and weight of the evidence against Sandusky.
Sandusky is serving a 30- to 60-year prison sentence at a state prison in southwestern Pennsylvania. If he does not get the convictions overturned, he is likely to die in prison.
The Penn State scandal stunned the world of major college sports and raised questions about the motivation of people who may have been aware of Sandusky’s behavior and failed to report a top coach in the school’s lucrative football program.
Joe Paterno, the winningest coach in Division I college football history until he was stripped of more than 100 victories because of the scandal, lost his job at Penn State for failing to report Sandusky to authorities.
Paterno died early last year at age 85, about two months after he was fired.
Three former Penn State administrators, including the former president, Graham Spanier, face criminal charges stemming from the scandal, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which regulates college sports, levied heavy sanctions against the school’s football program.
Penn State has settled several civil claims filed by Sandusky’s victims, setting aside some $60 million to do so.
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