Many readers (mostly lawyers) are echoing this reader:
In your post “McQueary’s Story Changes” you state, “Good grief. If I cannot make a judgment based on the exhaustive findings of a Grand Jury investigation, then I can make a judgment on nothing.”
Certainly you cannot be serious. In the U.S. judicial system a grand jury investigation is how we get to indictments. Said another way, a grand jury report very often precedes a not guilty verdict. One of the most entertaining quotes is judicial history is judge Sol Wachtler’s comment that prosecutors have so much control over Grand Juries that they could persuade them to “indict a ham sandwich.” A Grand Jury investigation is not a balanced view of events—its very nature is biased toward bringing charges. Every hear of the Duke LaCrosse Case?
Yes, but I conceded that the same day:
I may well have been wrong to trust the Grand Jury report summary. Its details may help. But we won't get the full story till the trials.
But the point at issue was whether McQueary told the cops or physically stopped the rape. It may be that the summary elided some details, which is why I was wrong to read it definitively. But the cops maintain still that McQueary didn't contact them, and McQueary admits he didn't physically stop the rape. A reader who has served on a Grand Jury relays his experiences:
If you've never served on a grand jury it would be easy to make this mistake.
When you are on a Grand Jury you hear a LOT of cases over a number of days/weeks. The last time I served an a GJ we heard, on average 4-5 cases per day for 2 weeks straight. Only once out of all of those cases did the GJ NOT recommend trial – the process is skewed for that to be the case. As a GJ member your job is not to weigh guilt or innocence or debate and analyze a lot of facts. You are given limited evidence from the prosecutor/witnesses and what amounts to rebuttal from the defense. The GJ simply decides, based on these presentations, if there is enough evidence to take the case to trial.
Another reader:
Surely you know that a 23 page report in no way encompasses all of the evidence or even a sufficient summary of the evidence presented to the Grand Jury. I know you are not a lawyer, but the Grand Jury Presentment is a summary of the strongest pieces of evidence justifying criminal charges. Without reading the full grand jury testimony of McQueary, we don’t know what he testified to in those proceedings. Likewise, we don’t know anything about Paterno’s testimony. Of course we can make inferences from the information in the Presentment, but moving from inference to condemnation based on a double spaced 23 page document is a bridge too far.
I already conceded that. Yet another:
We have NOT read Mr. McQueary’s testimony itself. Moreover, in a Grand Jury a witness is asked questions by the Prosecutor and is not free to ramble on and tell his story. There is no re-direct from or by another attorney to get at the second side of the story. Thus the Grand Jury findings do NOT purport to be a detailed timeline of what occurred in the specific instance. The only fact relevant to the grand jury investigation of Mr. Sandusky is that Mr. McQueary saw Mr. Sandusky having sex with a child. The details of Mr. McQueary’s response would not be relevant once the basic fact of rape was established and there would be no need for the prosecutor to question Mr. McQueary at length about what happened afterward.
Given the incomplete nature of the Grand Jury Report, I do think a little bit of circumspection regarding what Mr. McQueary did or did not do is called for, particularly by somebody like you who has a platform.
Another:
It must be remembered that this is a grand jury presentment. This isn't the jury that decides guilt or innocence. This is the jury that provides two things, and two things only: 1) has there been a crime committed and 2) is there reasonable suspicion to believe that the defendant (Sandusky) committed that crime. That's all. As much as the gruesome details appear to be more than enough information to determine Sandusky's guilt, the presentation is only scratching the surface. It's entirely possible that detailed information of what McQueary did and didn't do was not included because the grand jury believed it unnecessary for the limited purpose of the indictment. It's also possible that the prosecutor decided not to have that information included in the indictment so that they wouldn't tip off Sandusky and his lawyer to what McQueary said. If McQueary did more than what was inferred in the presentment, then the prosecutors have done McQueary a great disservice and that information should be made public.
A final reader:
There is no judge present, there is no attorney for the accused, all you have is the prosecutor putting forth their evidence to try and convince 16-23 people that there is probable cause and that they should indict. There is no defense and the proceedings are secret. I despise this man, I've made my own judgments, but I also think that it's important that he get his day in court. I would not want to live in a country where my criminality is judged solely on the findings of a grand jury investigation. So you can make a judgment, sure, but be more measured in the weight you give to this report.
The Dish 