Port of Sport III: Jerry Sandusky Edition

Editor's Note: For anyone who may read this, I urge you to read the two previous posts for context; none of this will make sense without the first two installments.

                Jerry Sandusky was born on January 26^th, 1944 in Washington, Pennsylvania. Jerry’s father Arthur Sandusky served as a youth program director at Brownson House in Washington, Pennsylvania for over 30 years. Arthur Sandusky was inducted into the Pennsylvania sports Hall of Fame in 1989.[1] Sandusky grew up and attended Washington High School where he was a standout athlete excelling in baseball, basketball, and football. He graduated from Washington in 1961 and went to Penn State where he started at defensive end from 1963-1965.[2] Sandusky became a graduate assistant for Joe Paterno in 1966; then bounced around to a few different schools with Juanita College in 1967 as a basketball coach and track coach; then Sandusky went to Boston University in 1968 as the Offensive Line Coach.

            Jerry Sandusky rejoined Joe Paterno in 1969 as the Defensive Line coach and would stay there until his retirement in 1999.[3] In 1977 Jerry Sandusky was promoted to Defensive Coordinator and would hold that same position until his retirement in 1999. It was also in 1977 that Sandusky founded his “charity” called The Second Mile which was supposedly designed to help under-privileged children. Specifically children (mostly boys) who came from broken homes, most often boys without father figures; Sandusky was widely praised in the media for his supposed helping children, including a special recognition from President George H.W. Bush as a “shining example” of charitable work in 1990.

Behind the scenes it was much less cheery than the unquestioning media would lead one to believe. It has now been widely acknowledged that the leadership of Penn State University including head coach Joe Paterno were aware of the investigation into Sandusky’s escapades in 1998. This led Penn State to essentially force Sandusky into retirement but was still awarded with “"both an unusual compensation package and a special designation of 'emeritus' rank that carried special privileges, including access to the university’s recreational facilities."[4] Sandusky had an office on campus, his face on a mural, his autobiography “Touched: The Jerry Sandusky Story” in the schools book store, and keys to access the same locker rooms and showers where he was eventually convicted of raping children until the whole story blew wide open in 2011.

The question that must be asked is obvious and unfortunately to this day remains shrouded in layers of an immense cover-up. The question is how did Jerry Sandusky get away with these crimes for such a prolonged period of time? Well, Joe Paterno’s dead; Graham Spanier who was the President of Penn State was not indicted and actually landed a comfy job as an advisor for a top-secret project for the U.S. Government relating to national security; according to his lawyer.[5] So really any conclusion we might be able to come up with would be speculation. However, what is not speculation is pointing out connections between Sandusky and some very powerful people.

In 1988, Jerry Sandusky gave a nominating speech for George H. W. Bush at the Republican National Convention. At that same Convention there was a man named Lawrence E. King who sang the National Anthem. Lawrence King in a few short months would find himself as the key figure in a Congressional Investigation led by Senator John DeCamp concerning King’s laundering of money as the General Manager of a Credit Union in Omaha, Nebraska.[6] DeCamp quickly found that the money was just the tip of the iceberg concerning King’s escapades; when DeCamp dug into it he found King was connected to a town called Boy’s Town and all of the sudden had multiple children coming to him saying they had been taken by King to Washington D.C. multiple times and had taken midnight “tours” of the White House and were involved in depraved sex parties among other horrific things.[7] It just so happens the Washington Times reported on the front page of their June 29^th, 1989 newspaper that there was evidence of a homosexual prostitution ring which was being given late night access to the White House.[8]  

The next year Lawrence King was sent to prison, for money laundering; and President George H. W. Bush was publicly praising The Second Mile as a “shining example of charitable work.” In 2001, after Sandusky’s retirement he wrote his autobiography; in the book he specifically addressed the recognition from George H. W. Bush by saying “It’s about time George! This is long overdue.” [9] After Sandusky had finally been brought to justice in 2011, his Second Mile Foundation transferred all of their $2.6 million in assets to an organization called the Arrow Child & Family Ministries in Spring, Texas. At the time of this assets transfer; two of the directors for the Arrow Child & Family Ministries were Maria Bush the daughter-in-law of George H. W. Bush, and Susie Peake who had worked for George H. W. Bush in various capacities for over 10 years.[10]

Another very strange thing to point out is that the District Attorney in Centre County, Pennsylvania (which oversees the Happy Valley area) who would have been the person in charge of bringing Jerry Sandusky to justice, Ray Gicar, just happened to go missing without a trace on April 15^th, 2005. Months later on August 2^nd, 2005 Gicar’s county issued laptop was found by fishermen in the Susquehanna River; the laptop was conspicuously missing its hard drive.[11] Gicar was pronounced legally dead July 25^th, 2011 just a few months before the Sandusky story was finally disclosed to the public after literally decades of cover-up and lies. Undoubtedly, there is much more to know about the whole situation that was blamed on Sandusky and made to look like one rotten apple instead of exposing the whole rotten bunch.

Bibliography

Arrow Child and Family Ministries. (2014). Guidestar Premium Report. Houston: Guidestar. Retrieved November 20, 2014, from http://www.guidestar.org/ViewPdf.aspx?PdfSource=0&ein=74-2622426

Begos, K. (2011, November 12). Penn State Scandal: Sandusky Had Access To Vulnerable Kids Via Charity. Retrieved November 20, 2014, from Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/12/penn-state-scandal-sandusky_n_1090203.html

Belson, K. (2012, July 12). Abuse Scandal Inquiry Damns Paterno and Penn State. Retrieved November 20, 2014, from New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/sports/ncaafootball/13pennstate.html?_r=3&hp&

DeCamp, J. (2011). The Franklin Cover-Up. Chicago, Illinois, United States of America: Adventure Works Press. Retrieved November 20, 2014, from http://educate-yourself.org/cn/franklincoverupexcerpt.shtml

Ganm, S. (2011, March 31). Jerry Sandusky, former Penn State football staffer, subject of grand jury investigation. Retrieved November 20, 2014, from The Patriot-News: http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/03/jerry_sandusky_former_penn_sta.html

Heil, E. (2012, July 27). Graham Spanier’s gig as a federal worker is a mystery. Retrieved November 20, 2014, from Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the-loop/post/graham-spaniers-gig-as-a-federal-worker-is-a-mystery/2012/07/26/gJQAbAx5BX_blog.html

Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame. (2009). ARTHUR SANDUSKY. Retrieved November 20, 2014, from Waskington-Greene Chapter: http://www.webcitation.org/63Oz1EtFK

Rodriguez, P., & Archibald, G. (1989, June 29). Homosexual Prostitution Inquiry Ensnares VIPS with Reagan, Bush. Retrieved November 20, 2014, from New York Times: http://educate-yourself.org/tg/franklincoverupexcerptwashtimesphoto.shtml

Veira, M. (2011, November 7). A Reputation Lies in Tatters. Retrieved November 20, 2014, from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/sports/ncaafootball/jerry-sandusky-was-long-admired-at-penn-state.html#

Ward, P. (2005, August 2). Missing DA's Laptop Found. Retrieved November 20, 2014, from Pittsburgh Post Gazette: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=iZYNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=8XADAAAAIBAJ&pg=5334,210533&dq=ray+gricar+laptop&hl=en

Yorkshire Television. (1990). Conspiracy Of Silence. Retrieved November 20, 2014, from The Franklin Scandal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtstlx96s8M

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[1] Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame, 2009

[2] Veira, 2011

[3] Ganm, 2011

[4] Belson, 2012

[5] Heil, 2012

[6] Yorkshire Television, 1990

[7] DeCamp, 2011

[8] Rodriguez & Archibald, 1989

[9] Begos, 2011

[10] Arrow Child and Family Ministries, 2014

[11] Ward, 2005

Scalia's Symphony

            Antonin Scalia rose to the position of Supreme Court Justice in 1986. In twenty-seven years as a member of the only American court to have both original and appellate jurisdiction, Justice Scalia has consistently argued for his method of determination he calls “textualism”. Scalia’s major essay and responses were published in his 1998 book A Matter of Interpretation[1], this book also features objections from Gordon S. Wood (Professor, Brown), Laurence H. Tribe (Professor, Harvard) Mary Ann Glendon (Professor, Harvard) and Ronald Dworkin; who passed away on Valentine’s Day 2013, after a long battle with Leukemia at the age of 81. Textualism can be defined as a process of defining language and deducing the meaning based on “text and tradition” not “intellectual, moral, and personal perceptions”, which according to Justice Scalia would constitute a government of laws not men.

          Scalia opens his essay commenting on how when one begins to study general law it initiates a mental shift manifest in the methodology of analysis of information, and gives full sense to the cliché of “thinking like a lawyer”. Scalia marvels at some of the interesting ways common law can be contorted and combined with other statutes till the desired outcome is achieved. However, Justice Scalia’s job on the Supreme Court is not to judge common law but provide statutory interpretation.

            This is the first key distinction Scalia makes at the beginning of the essay; and it is the difference between common law, used more in smaller courts and most criminal trials; and statutory/regulatory interpretation which Scalia states is the primary job of the Supreme Court. This distinction plays a key role because textualism attempts to objectify, as much as possible, the text within the context to draw a conclusion that is logically consistent, even if circumstantially difficult. Justice Scalia provides the example of the case of Maryland vs. Craig[2]. The case had reached the Supreme Court level because of the appeal to the Sixth Amendment; the case was against an alleged child sex offender and the child was said to be so traumatized that they could not face the accused in court and thus set up a one-way television set for the testimony. That special accommodation directly conflicts with the clear language of the Sixth Amendment “...to be confronted with witnesses against him...”

           Scalia dissented in this case because it seemed so clear that text of the Sixth Amendment had been contradicted. The inherent nature of this case namely, child abuse, exponentially magnifies the emotional public response; however the prosecution did not want to put the child on trial, thus could not sufficiently satisfy the Sixth Amendment rights of the accused. Implied within his dissent is a harsh truth of constitutional and statutory interpretation, that Justices should not allow personal feeling of a case factor in the decision, to the point where the defendant is assumed guilty.

Supreme Court Justices are not moral arbiters but interpreters of legal language, same as a musician in a symphony interprets prewritten musical language. Within this analogy the Legislator and Constitution (Supreme Law) would be composers of the music being played by the symphony. It is true that the piece of music may have a solo; implying an individual’s interpretation, but a good musician will solo in key with the song so that the two remain fundamentally connected. Likewise judges read legal language and Justice Scalia believes they should stick to the script as much as possible; without the metaphorical solos. The intrinsic purpose of the Supreme Court however, is to be the highest court of the Republic. So it comes as no surprise that the cases they generally receive are not cut and dry decision, and even if we agree with the accommodation that was made in this case it is beyond any doubt a violation of the Sixth Amendment.        

            Justice Scalia goes on to warn about cases of this nature because they can seem innocent and even morally exemplary; but any case has the potential to grow insidiously and be spread into common law and throughout the legal system, to the point where false victims can make allegations without ever facing the accused. The preservation of liberty requires diligence and to contradict the language is in effect creating new statutes, this decision expands the influence of unelected judge’s decisions into a legislative role. Scalia fiercely rejects any type of legislative judiciary view and believes that his job is to officiate and know the rule book, not continually change the game as it goes. Without the core essence of textual intent the document is rendered completely useless, we might as well draft a new constitution every generation if we believe the application of the text to be dynamic.   

            Critics of textualism often say that strict interpretation of the Constitution slows down societal progress, instead of leading for social justice and other democratic ideals. This of course is hardly a coherent objection if one understands the purpose of the language in the Constitution to form a Republic, with certain individual rights guarded from popular legislation; acting as a stabilizing mechanism and underpinning the core values of the Republic.  Innovation of technology through creativity leads the trajectory of a society; the court’s job is to interpret the Constitution along the same lines as was textual and contextually implied. For example, the First Amendment has no mention of the internet or telephones among many others; yet when Congress attempted to pass the SOPA bill[3] the people killed the bill before it could even get to the Supreme Court. Again, Scalia seems to be pointing out the very nature of the role as Supreme Court Justice because if the people believe a bill violates their rights it generally will not make it the whole way to the Supreme Court. That is why the cases they do receive concerning Constitutional or statutory law must stay in tune with the Constitutional language and precedent.

            Throughout the essay Scalia makes the point that because the Supreme Court has such an odd relationship in respect to the notion of democracy, the Supreme Court has the potential to grow further away from the Judicial Review paradigm (which was not bestowed upon the Supreme Court at the conception of the constitution, and many framers were against the court having the power of Judicial Review). Reliance on Legislative History or Legislative Intent in Justice Scalia’s view is insufficient means to take a stance on a vote, and will inevitably lead to an even messier maze of cognitive dissonance and moral ambiguity.

            Justice Antonin Scalia has a very polarizing effect, recently I watched Rachel Maddow go on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and accuse Scalia of “trolling” and just saying outrageous things for the publicity or shock value. One thing that must be acknowledged is his consistency in his methodology of a decision; which is the greatest quality one can look for in a person whose job it is to make interpretive decision, such as a referee. All that can be truly asked for is that a foul in the first quarter is called the same in the second quarter; likewise for judges a violation of a statute is a violation of a statute regardless of circumstance.

                            

Bibliography

"Maryland v. Craig." Supreme Court Ruling, Washington D.C., 1990. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/89-478.ZD.html

House of Representatives. "Stop Online Piracy Act." House Resolution 3261, Washington D.C., 2011.

                http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr3261

Scalia, Antonin. A Matter of Interpretation. New York: Princeton University Press, 1998.

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[1] A Matter of Interpretation. Written by Antonin Scalia. 1998. New York City, NY. Princeton University Press

[2] Maryland v. Craig, 497 U.S. 836 (1990).

[3] Stop Online Privacy Act. H.R. 3261. Introduced October 26^th, 2011 in the House.