Jerry Sandusky Back in Court, Wants Conviction Overturned

17 Sep, 2013

Jerry Sandusky’s lawyer and members of the state attorney general’s office will be inside a northeastern Pennsylvania courtroom as the former Penn State assistant football coach seeks to have his child molestation conviction overturned.

The state Superior Court proceeding on Tuesday is being held in Wilkes-Barre as part of the court’s effort to give more people a chance to see how it operates.

In court filings, the former defensive coordinator has argued his lawyers did not have enough time to prepare and that a prosecutor made an improper reference during the trial to the fact that Sandusky didn’t testify on his own behalf.

Sandusky also believes the judge should have issued an instruction to jurors that addressed the length of time it took his victims to report their abuse, which for four of them was more than 11 years.

Prosecutors have said jurors were aware that the defense argued the abuse never occurred, and a key component of the defense was an argument that the victims were inventing stories. They said Sandusky’s legal team had plenty of time to prepare, and that the prosecutor referred to a TV interview but not to Sandusky’s failure to take the stand.

Sandusky, 69, is serving a 30- to 60-year state prison sentence after being convicted last year of 45 counts of child sexual abuse. He is not expected to attend the oral argument session.

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