If they had probable cause to believe that his negligence was a cause of their victimization, they could certainly name him personally in the lawsuit. That’s not to say the sexual assault victims couldn’t name Paterno. That said, I find it unlikely any lawyer for the victims would name him or his estate. ![]() Anyone intending on suing Paterno personally will now just name his estate instead. Thus, the criminal cases are roughly the same, as are the civil cases. It wasn’t my intent to sound callous, but, in the legal world, death typically doesn’t break a case except where either a criminal defendant dies (and there’s no point in going forward) or the sole complaining witness against a criminal defendant dies (“no witness, no case” is the disturbing motto sometimes tied to witness intimidation or witness murder prosecutions, like Paul Bergrin’s). Here, Paterno wasn’t a defendant and, as far as anyone has said publicly, he didn’t witness any of the sexual assaults nor did Jerry Sandusky make any incriminating remarks to Paterno. “Death doesn’t change your status as a party,” Kennerly said. If any were considering suing Paterno, they could just name his estate. Max Kennerly, a Philadelphia trial lawyer who has followed the case, said Paterno’s death was unlikely to alter any civil litigation being contemplated by Sandusky’s accusers. “No defense attorneys were present at the grand jury proceedings to do such a cross-examination.” “The Confrontation Clause (of the constitution) guarantees that criminal defendants will have the right to confront and cross-examine the witnesses against them at the time of trial,” Callan said. I was quoted in a Reuters article that addressed those issues:īecause Paterno was not believed to have witnessed any purported abuse, his testimony would not have been crucial to Sandusky trial, said Paul Callan, a former prosecutor and criminal defense attorney.īut his death could set back the criminal case against Curley and Schultz. In those same three months the legal issues surrounding the Sandusky indictment have already advanced considerably, and now there’s a new question: what effect will Joe Paterno’s death have on the ensuing criminal and civil litigation? Paterno died, however, amidst a national scandal, two criminal prosecutions, and likely more than a dozen civil lawsuits to be filed. I did not attend Penn State, so I’ll leave the remembrances to others. ![]() He passed away over the weekend at the age of 85. In less than three months, Joe Paterno went from one of the most revered figures in sports and a Pennsylvania institution to being implicated in a scandal, terminated from the job he had held for generations, and excoriated by the media to a historical figure who is no longer with us. Read more about our law firm’s Pennsylvania sexual abuse lawyers.
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