Why no talk of death penalty for Penn State? | Page 14 | The Boneyard

Why no talk of death penalty for Penn State?

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mattp said:
do those of you that think PSU should get the death penalty, or have it's athletic dept shut down also think the Catholic Church should be closed down? maybe they could be prohibited from operating in the US, or have their tax exemption taken away. if you agree with PSU getting the d-p, but not the catholic church, what's your reasoning?
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Who is the governing body that can impose such penalties on a religious organization?
 
mattp said:
do those of you that think PSU should get the death penalty, or have it's athletic dept shut down also think the Catholic Church should be closed down? maybe they could be prohibited from operating in the US, or have their tax exemption taken away. if you agree with PSU getting the d-p, but not the catholic church, what's your reasoning?
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I think the Catholic Church - specifically the Vatican - should have been punished much harder than they were/are. The problem, as there appears to be right now, with PSU, unless the NCAA, Big 10, and whatever other external influences possibly can.......but the problem is that there are few (or in the case of the Vatican) No sources where punishment can come from other htan paying exhorbitant amounts of money.

If the catholic church I attend were found to have priests sexually abusing young boys, NO, I would not be opposed to the church closing for a period of time. I would go elsewhere for mass anyway for a while, until I was convinced that the place was clean, if they every opened the same building up again anyway.

The church isn't the building anyway.
 
upstater said:
I disagree with you. What more needs to be said? Frankly, I've stated my position on this thread and stuck to it.

You, meanwhile, are all over the place. From death penalty, to 1 year off. I can't figure out what you even stand for anymore.

Suffice it to say we disagree on death penalty and also the nature of the cover-up. I agree with the Freeh report, and have been stating so for quite awhile now.

I don't even know what else is in dispute.

Let me make this clear once and for all:

1. I agree punishment is warranted
2. Don't agree on death penalty
3. Agree on cover-up
4. Don't agree on motives, but I'm open to it and think it's arguable/up in the air.

Otherwise, I really have absolutely no idea what you're going on about.
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Without going through all of your posts......I've never seen you state what you think is an appropriate penalty for PSU here? Curious.
 
Why are you guys even sports fans? You honestly believe football isn't a fiefdom at D1 schools? Man, are you guys naive.
 
Jimmy Serrano said:
Without going through all of your posts......I've never seen you state what you think is an appropriate penalty for PSU here? Curious.
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Stated it repeatedly in this thread. Stated it at the start, stated it a few weeks ago with the emails, stated it again and again.

I don't think any of it is appropriate or logical because what happened so outweighs concerns with extracurricular sports. But that being said, I think shutting down football for one year can be done out of moral opprobrium. As for propriety, that's a different story. Like I said, I don't really care. I tend to think this is a problem of PSU's administrative culture. The top guys like Spanier and Schultz were in CYA mode because of concern with potential liabilities. Whereas Paterno was more concerned with Sandusky's well-being. How do you ameliorate that except by firing all concerned, cleaning house, then re-writing rules? (To make sure it never happens again? No, that's not possible. But to try harder at making it not happen again). What to do with the football program is so secondary and frankly not important.
 
brasssbonanzaa said:
I haven't read the report and certainly not the pages of hodge podge in here, but did the report reveal that PSU broke any specific NCAA rules?
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Fair question. I believe that there are NCAA individual and institution integrity requirements that have been linked in the past. I also believe the NCAA has said that this might be an institutional control issue. Maintaining the (false) reputation of moral superiority of the PSU football program was more important that the welfare of innocents. A football coach, apparently overuled his nominal 'superiors' as to how to deal with the issue. That makes it an issue of institutional control.
 
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CL82 said:
Fair question. I believe that there are NCAA individual and institution integrity requirements that have been linked in the past. I also believe the NCAA has said that this might be an institutional control issue. Maintaining the (false) reputation of moral superiority of the PSU football program was more important that the welfare of innocents. A football coach, apparently overuled his nominal 'superiors' as to how to deal with the issue. That makes it an issue of institutional control.
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He overruled his superiors? Where did you get that? What I read, and what Freeh concluded, is that they were all in cahoots.
 
upstater said:
He overruled his superiors? Where did you get that? What I read, and what Freeh concluded, is that they were all in cahoots.
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I hope this is an act upstater. The exact information, you ask for here, I posted, and I made a comment, that I anticipated you might tell me that the AD told Paterno not to report Sandusky to authorities, adn not the other way around, an you called me deranged for posting it.

Post #329 in case your wondering. In correspondence discovered in March of this year. A plan had been formulated by the AD, Pres, to report Sandusky. After the AD met with Paterno, the plan was changed, and Sandusky was NOT reported.


Go read it, and I posted the entire document. I suggest you read it too upstater. I don't believe that you've had the courage to read through it yet. The same kind of honest evaluation that Freeh called for in the paragraph I quoted to start this mess today.
 
upstater said:
He overruled his superiors? Where did you get that? What I read, and what Freeh concluded, is that they were all in cahoots.
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"After talking it over with Joe, I'm uncomfortable about our plan."
 
upstater said:
Stated it repeatedly in this thread. Stated it at the start, stated it a few weeks ago with the emails, stated it again and again.

I don't think any of it is appropriate or logical because what happened so outweighs concerns with extracurricular sports. But that being said, I think shutting down football for one year can be done out of moral opprobrium. As for propriety, that's a different story. Like I said, I don't really care. I tend to think this is a problem of PSU's administrative culture. The top guys like Spanier and Schultz were in CYA mode because of concern with potential liabilities. Whereas Paterno was more concerned with Sandusky's well-being. How do you ameliorate that except by firing all concerned, cleaning house, then re-writing rules? (To make sure it never happens again? No, that's not possible. But to try harder at making it not happen again). What to do with the football program is so secondary and frankly not important.
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As I've noted elsewhere in this thread, you do it by making the cost of not correcting it devastating. The only way to change the cost benefit analysis is to sanction the university severly. The death penalty should be a part of that equation.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
You are right. Penn State has been punished enough already.
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I agree. No punishment could ever be as bad as they way they feel today. They feel really, really bad. They send their thoughts and prayers to all that were molested.
 
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If the NCAA and Penn State do nothing, then they will both effectively be saying that it's ok to cover up virtually anything in order to protect your precious football program.
 
upstater said:
Uh-huh. And?
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...and then they did exactly what Joe Pa wanted - they did not report a sexual assault by the former PSU coach to the authorities but instead just told the pedophile that the assault had been witnessed putting the victim in further jeopardy, as noted in the Freeh report.
 
upstater said:
Uh-huh. And?
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I will continue for a moment, b/c I find it shocking that a professed higher education professional can be reacting this way....but Jimmy was referring to an exact quote by the AD, regarding the plan to report Sandusky to proper authorities, subject material that I posted, for the second time today, in #402 above.
 
CL82 said:
As I've noted elsewhere in this thread, you do it by making the cost of not correcting it devastating. The only way to change the cost benefit analysis is to sanction the university severly. The death penalty should be a part of that equation.
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It won't make any difference.

The university is not athletics, first of all. Secondly, even the proper procedures in place for the future (s they've now been implemented at PSU and also other schools) won't prevent it simply because there's always a balance with worker's rights. Cost benefit? Universities are routinely sued by employees. No matter the costs of paying the victims, it's hard to believe they will impact future administrators.

The one thing we know, there is no gray area when it comes to child abuse. Rules have been changed now and everyone must report to campus police. Now, that's doesn't mean people are criminally liable because one must be a mandatory reporter. But it does mean people can be sanctioned in the workplace. I suppose for universities, it's a good thing that there are relatively few minors around campus other than in daycare, because if that new rule were applied, say, to the student body, you can bet that the school would lose more money in civil suits by applying the rule than by keeping current regulations. This is precisely why schools have changed the rules to only treat allegations of child abuse.

As a teacher, I think it's a shame that the money to pay the victims ISN'T going to come out of the athletics department.

It should. But instead, it's going to come out of the pockets of students through tuition. It can't come out of the endowment for legal reasons, nor out of the research budget. It has to come out of tuition. But if there were somehow a way to take it out of football, I would be for it.

Someone would have to explain how such a plan would work. Maybe cap coaches pay for a long time (decade or more)? Maybe cut recruiting? You'd have to look at the budget.
 
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Uh huh and..... Let's intimidate the janitors and anyone else who saw anything.
 
CL82 said:
...and then they did exactly what Joe Pa wanted - they did not report a sexual assault by the former PSU coach to the authorities but instead just told the pedophile that the assault had been witnessed putting the victim in further jeopardy, as noted in the Freeh report.
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Yes, they went along with it. I just didn't see the overlord weigh in.
 
CL82 said:
...and then they did exactly what Joe Pa wanted - they did not report a sexual assault by the former PSU coach to the authorities but instead just told the pedophile that the assault had been witnessed putting the victim in further jeopardy, as noted in the Freeh report.
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For this, I anticipate that those two individuals who are still living, of the three involved that were discussing the pedophile, will be spending significant time behind bars.

That still, will not be enough to change the culture of Penn State though.
 
Jimmy Serrano said:
10 minutes. The over is in the money.
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It was 6 minutes actually, you were right on. 9:22 to 9:28. We'd need a better time stamp to get more specific for the half minute. I had the under though
 
Carl Spackler said:
I will continue for a moment, b/c I find it shocking that a professed higher education professional can be reacting this way....but Jimmy was referring to an exact quote by the AD, regarding the plan to report Sandusky to proper authorities, subject material that I posted, for the second time today, in #402 above.
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This quote has been mentioned in this thread for weeks now. It's not a revelation. In fact, there was no new information today regarding Paterno covering up for Sandusky along with the others. It was the exact same information. Why would you say, "the second time today?" This has been out there for weeks.

What I find shocking is that you don't see this.
 
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The old defensive coordinator raped kids, and the head coach swept it under the carpet. But, it's not about football. Nope.
 
Jimmy Serrano said:
I think you're a bright guy and you've kept a level head throughout this whole ordeal.....but I am baffled by your position here.
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I think they were all in on it, all equally culpable. Curley because really was Paterno's minion, that needs to be said. But the President and Schultz should have gone against the advice. They were their own people, and not only that, Spanier in particular made football program decisions in the past over Paterno's objections. You can't tell me that in the Spanier response to that email that he was at all against the idea. In fact, he remarked that it was quite reasonable and even added that he wanted to be "humane" toward Sandusky. How this can be interpreted as anything other than an agreed cover-up is hard to fathom.
 
Carl Spackler said:
Are you denying that Paterno changed the plan, and made the call NOT to report Sandusky?
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Yes. I stated my position above. They all made the call together. That much is obvious. In fact, from what we know of the emails (and we don't even know if there were face-to-face discussions), Joe didn't even talk to Spanier and Schultz about going direct to Sandusky and not authorities. They agreed with Curley after Curley talked to Paterno. They all made that same decision together.
 
ZooCougar said:
If the NCAA and Penn State do nothing, then they will both effectively be saying that it's ok to cover up virtually anything in order to protect your precious football program.
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I don't think they'll do nothing. I think first, they're going to let the legal system run its course with the administrators, assessing a penalty before the trials of those people are done would be incorrect. In the meantime, I think they're going to investigate this into the ground to find every little possible detail they can find that could potentially be a violation, since they'll be under harsh public pressure to do something. The main things I think they'll look for is whether players/recruits knew, if there was money paid to them (or anyone) to keep quiet, whether this leaked into the academic side of things, if professors knew, etc. I would say if there is a financial element that is uncovered here, yes, a death penalty is quite likely. If there is not, I think they'll enforce some kind of punishment, probably on a loose interpretation of the lack of institutional control rule, but I don't know that it will involve the death penalty, since the precedent for using that is really tied to improper use of money, though that could be changed. That said, make no mistake, Penn State will be indirectly punished extraordinarily hard by this whole scandal through recruiting, scheduling, and TV. Do you think ESPN and the like are chomping at the bit to televise Penn State games? Do you think schools are lining up to schedule series' with PSU? Do you think big time recruits want to be anywhere near this program right now?
 
Oh come on upstater...there are really really damning things in that report. It is pretty clear that nobody was willing to stand up to Joe when he didn't want the autorities contacted. Just like when he didn't want the football program to be bothered with a little thing like a mandated program on how to identify sexual abuse (and this i believe was AFTER Sanduky's initial investigation for the 1998 incident) or lots of other things. This was a case of a legendary coach over-ruling his "superiors" and those superiors lacking the guts to stand up to him and do the right thing. You're right in a sense that the entire leadership was a mess. But the president, the Ad and The VP all took their marchin gorders form Joe Paterno on this.
 
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