THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

This contradicts what McQueary testified to on Friday. He testified that he told Paterno explicitly what he saw.

From what I remember, McQueary said he was NOT graphic “out of respect” for Paterno.

I don’t see any contradiction.

I wonder if McQueary contradicted his grand jury testimony. In that testimony he said he saw Sandusky anally raping the child. In his testimony the other day he said he did not actually see rape, but something of a sexual nature.

He said he did not actually see penetration.  That’s not the same thing.

Tango 2:

From what I remember, McQueary said he was NOT graphic “out of respect” for Paterno.

I don’t see any contradiction.

You’re probably right. A lot depends on how “of a sexual nature” is interpreted, although I haven’t seen anywhere that McQueary said “fondling”. That may have been Paterno’s interpretation.

I really blame McQueary more than Paterno. Rather than respecting Paterno’s sensibilities, out of respect for the victim he should have told Paterno what he saw in graphic detail (or gone to the police himself).

He said he spoke with the guy in charge of the campus police, so from his perspective he DID talk to the police.

Campus police, as I understand it, is a huge police force, not some little thing.

You guys are really stretching here.

Paterno also said he was obviously very upset, and this was one day later.  So, the guy was still in quite in shock.  Obviously, Paterno is not going to interpret that as anything other as something hugely serious.

What I really cannot understand is how the authorities think that they can charge (convict really) Curley and Schultz.

The gist of the perjury charge is that Curley and Schultz told the grand jury that McQueary told them that he saw “horsing around” and nothing of a sexual nature.  On the other hand, McQueary told the GJ that he told them he saw something of a sexual nature.

So, McQueary says he said X and the other guys said that he said Y.  No one else was at the meeting.  Everyone has an incentive to lie. McQueary because he doesn’t want it to seem like he took the incident lightly and the other guys because they don’t want to be accused of sweeping the incident under the rug.

This happened 9 or 10 years ago, and all parties are trying to remember what they said.  It is likely that none of them is going to get it even close to right (try recalling exactly what someone else said 10 years ago, even if it was important or traumatic).  Even if McQueary says that he is sure about what he said, one, he could easily be lying, and two, what he is absolutely sure that he said 10 years ago is not very likely to be what he actually said.

So unless someone recorded the conversation, I see a 0% chance that they can convict these guys (unless a jury wrongly convicts them) and I think it is a travesty that they were charged.

Anyone disagree?  Why?

MGL, isn’t it possible that a zealous DA thinks (in this and many other cases): “I really believe that Curley and Schultz acted very poorly, and probably/possibly illegally. They should be punished in some way. So I’m gonna charge them, even though it’s marginal. Even if they end up getting off, there will still have been a price to pay in terms of their reputations and the hassles of having to deal with the charges.”

Or, is a DA’s conviction rate so important to his career that he would not want to put on a case with a lower conviction probability just to extract some punishment?

Yes his conviction rate is important. More importantly though you are going to look like a fool in court trying to prove a case like that. And it is borderline unethical to charge a case where you think the conviction rate is low. Enormous waste of taxpayer money. And that is also borderline harassment.