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JoePa lawyers up. He’d better.

A legal analysis of the trouble Joe Paterno and Penn State are in from the Atlantic. Excerpt: Whether it is in a criminal case or a civil one, we all know where the defense will begin — by blaming Sandusky. But that argument will go only so far in a civil case. Will the Penn […]

A legal analysis of the trouble Joe Paterno and Penn State are in from the Atlantic. Excerpt:

Whether it is in a criminal case or a civil one, we all know where the defense will begin — by blaming Sandusky. But that argument will go only so far in a civil case. Will the Penn State officials implicated here accept their own measure of responsibility or will they start pointing fingers at one another? What if McQueary now testifies that he told Paterno in graphic detail about the anal rape that he, McQueary, allegedly saw? That would help transfer McQueary’s burden to Paterno, wouldn’t it? You think things look bad now? Wait until then. And, not for nothing, what in the world is Penn State doing allow McQueary to go anywhere near the field Saturday for the game against Nebraska? I can hear a plaintiff’s lawyer now, in court, saying to a jury: “And still Penn State didn’t get it …”

Can the University buy its way out of a mind-bending public trial? Or will the plaintiffs, if they sue, seek some sort of public accounting? And how will jurors react to Paterno’s likely defense — that he followed the letter of the law by reporting the incident to his superiors and that he owed no further duty. Pennsylvanians have built Paterno into a living god over the generations; now they will asked to believe that Paterno was right to act like a file clerk. Straight out of mythology, which is so much a part of this story, the great man’s own reputation may ultimately prove to be his undoing.

Penn State now says McQueary won’t coach on Saturday because of unspecified threats. That’s plausible. But I bet the real threat came from the school’s lawyers.

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