Let’s revisit, once again, the situation unraveling out in State College, Pa. To do so, today, we’d like to turn back the clock about a week and take a closer look at the document that introduced the world to the names Sandusky and Curley and Shultz, and a 28-year-old assistant football coach later revealed to be Mike McQueary.
It’s called the presentment, and it contains the findings of the grand jury, all wrapped up in a tidy little 23-page narrative that contains all the lurid and shocking allegations that we’ve all become so familiar with over the past week-and-a-half.
But some are asking questions about the propriety of these types of documents. We investigate the presentment in this WSJ story on Thursday.
For now, a little background: In the federal system and most states that use the grand-jury system, grand juries typically unveil their criminal allegations against someone in an indictment or a criminal complaint. Such documents are usually tersely worded and can run as few as three or four pages, stating only the most essential factual allegations. They also often use initials or pseudonyms to protect people who aren’t criminally charged.
But Pennsylvania is one of a handful of states in which grand juries occasionally issue a “presentment,” or report, to convey their findings.
A spokesman for Linda Kelly, the prosecutor in the case and Pennsylvania’s attorney general, said presentments are typical in cases brought by the attorney general’s office.
But legal experts say presentments have fallen out of favor in most states and the federal system because they are often viewed as prejudicial and inflammatory both to those charged with crimes, such as Jerry Sandusky, accused of assaulting many boys over a period of years, and those who aren’t, such as Mike McQueary, a Penn State assistant coach who told the grand jury he witnessed an incident in a shower involving Sandusky and a young boy.
“They’re one-sided and unfair, and in some instances can be inquisitorial,” said Bennett Gershman, a law professor at Pace University and a former prosecutor.
But McQueary and others have stepped forward to defend Mr. McQueary’s behavior, according to news outlets including the Morning Call of Allentown, Pa., and NBC News, with Mr. McQueary saying he made sure the alleged assault stopped.
Michael Engle, a criminal-defense lawyer in Philadelphia who isn’t representing anyone in the Penn State case, said McQueary, who was placed on indefinite leave from coaching, has been treated unfairly. “He hasn’t been accused of anything, but now he carries a stigma; he’s been branded as the individual who didn’t do enough to stop the rape of a child. He’s at the center of a storm.”