The defense of being “a good man” cannot overcome acts of wrongdoing.Â
This just in. According to the Los Angeles Times:
After more than 20 hours of deliberation, the jury of seven women and five men returned the verdict Friday night. Sandusky was convicted of 45 of 48 counts charging him with abusing 10 boys over 15 years. Jury deliberations began Thursday.
When sentenced, Sandusky could face spending the rest of his life in prison. He was taken into custody in handcuffs after the verdict was read and his bail was revoked.
What’s interesting was the strategy the defense used. Again, according to the LA Times, “the defense describes a good man.”
Sandusky’s attorneys presented his case in about three days, calling friends, neighbors and former sports colleagues to the stand. Led by Sandusky’s 69-year-old wife, Dottie, the character witnesses all insisted that they never saw Sandusky engage in any improper action with a young boy and that he was a good man.
Can you, however, prove goodness? Can a lifetime of good actions eradicate the bad ones? Legally, of course, no. And even Sandusky’s lawyer apparently did not see the “good man” defense as viable. Fox News is quoted as saying “Jerry Sandusky’s lawyer said Friday that he would be shocked and “die of a heart attack” if the ex-Penn State assistant football coach were acquitted on all counts.
It’s why a conversation around goodness is so important — long before the trial, long before such actions occur. How to think about goodness, and how to act when seeing others take actions that are so horrific they become almost unthinkable.
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photo: Nabil K. Mark / Associated Press / June 22, 2012
I keep wondering at the questions around goodness and men – and even women for that matter. Goodness just does not exist in some people – they lack it – they lack the capacity for it – they just see it as a way to con others. Because it is presumed that everyone has innate goodness there is far too much benefit of the doubt. Lucifer has a beautiful face, but is also the devil. Judge by actions and not by appearance. Sandusky is a predatory paedophile – that is a pattern that becomes fixed in late teens – so… Read more »
The problem seems to be that the things he did which are called “good,” such as founding a program for young boys, were really a way of gaining access to victims. Therefore none of them were good at all; they were the opposite. Offering to help an old lady across the street so you can get close enough to snatch her purse doesn’t count as being nice to the elderly, either.
We’ll never get conned or screwed-over by someone we don’t trust. Setting-up the Second Mile did more than create an inventory for sandusky.
Allie, we do not know that Sandusky created the Second Mile just to find victims. However, we do know that hundreds of other people involved in the program helped thousands of kids, and it is likely that Sandusky did genuinely help some children. In our zeal for justice for one group of kids we should not undermine those other kids’ experiences.
Yes Jacobtk!! To set up a Second Mile for what the program-builders call “Children At Risk,” it took many people in positions of wealth, community power and political power. Sandusky pitched — the well-intending power-people too action with him. The resulting program was fantastic at-face, inside and in results. All that was required to keep the interest of the Kings was that he could devour the occasional soul and future of an “expendable, matter-not, poor boy.” The moment I heard of the socio-economic dynamic in play in this case, it all became too familiar. Its the Eloi and the Morlock… Read more »
One cannot possibly be both “good” and “evil.” Certainly not all within the same body…not during the same period of time. What we see and hear in commentary of this conviction, is people whom are just not willing to accept that they were so badly duped, that they were SO so wrong, and/or that they were blind with adoration of a false god. When I look at the footage of the Penn State rioters (aka “students”) however, I see worse than blind worship. I see a tribe mentality that can turn deadly. And don’t you think for ONE MINUTE that… Read more »
I suppose this means that we have to teach our kids to look for “the bad” in people…if our kids naively assume that people around them are inherently “good”, then they could be walking right into a dangerous trap….
I am dismayed at his family members and supporters who shake their heads at his guilt verdict and still seem to only see what they want to see…