Many people seem to have taken the grand jury report concerning the allegations made against Jerry Sandusky at face value and have concluded that he is guilty as charged. Despite many examples from past cases where grand jury reports have proven to be inaccurate, the public in general still places great faith in their findings. Many people remain naive to the fact that grand jury reports, by their very nature, are extremely one-sided and that they often exaggerate evidence that supports the goal of convicting an individual, while conveniently ignoring evidence which indicates that the accused is innocent. While obviously such cherry-picking of evidence does nothing to help discern the veracity of accusations made against an individual, it is considered to be an acceptable practice in our adversarial legal system. However, what remains inexplicable is the tendency of the public to uncritically accept the one-sided accounts provided by grand jury reports, when it would seem more reasonable to view these reports with a high degree of skepticism. What I will do in this brief essay is outline some reasons why the public should be skeptical of the charges made against Jerry Sandusky. That is not to say that I believe that he is definitely innocent, only that there is a strong possibility that he is innocent and that we should refrain from condemning him as guilty without first carefully considering his side of the story in a fair and unprejudiced manner.

The accusations made against Jerry Sandusky were compiled over a period of approximately two years. During that time the accusations developed and percolated as the result of a process that tends to encourage accusers to exaggerate their claims. Here's how it might work in a hypothetical situation. A mother makes an accusation that a coach has behaved in an inappropriate way with her son. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that she is upset because the coach encouraged her son to shower after a workout and that not only did the coach join the boy in the locker room shower, but he also engaged the boy in horseplay. Clearly this would be inappropriate behavior from the perspective of most people, but it doesn't technically qualify as illegal behavior. However, a detective is likely to see such behavior as indicative of something more serious. That is, the detective has been trained to believe that people who would shower with a boy in such a situation are likely to cross the line and engage in illegal sexual activity with the boy, or that they at least hope to at some time in the future. Thus, the detective concludes that the individual in question is a pedophile who either has already molested a child or eventually will molest a child. These assumptions probably aren't supported by a preponderance of the scientifically validated evidence, but it is certainly the case that a portion of those who would shower with the boy might also go on to molest the boy, just as some people who try marijuana might eventually go on to abuse other recreational drugs.

The horseplay in the shower accusation isn't highly likely to result in any kind of conviction and the detective explains this to the mother and the boy. The detective then, in a very kind and concerned manner, explains that initially children often only disclose some of the abuse perpetrated against them and only become willing to disclose all of the abuse after they are convinced that law enforcement will do something about the person who has only been accused of less severe forms of abuse up to this point. The detective assures the boy and his mother that he will see to it that the accused is dealt with to the full extent of the law, but that the boy will have to trust him and disclose all of the abuse. The detective thus implies that there is more to disclose. The mother picks up on this and encourages the boy to disclose more abuse. The detective further encourages the disclosure of further details by explaining that if they fail to stop the accused now that he might go on to victimize more children. The mother jumps in by saying that she can tell that the child is upset by what has been done to him and that there almost certainly must be more to the story. Some children might insist that there is nothing more to the story, but most children will give into the demands of the adults and fabricate and elaborate in order to satisfy the detective and mother, who will act quite pleased when the child decides to cooperate and do the right thing. In fact, they will even provide leading questions to help with the process of fabricating the additional accusations.

The fabrication of additional accusations may take place in a single interrogation session, but it is more likely that it will take place over several such sessions and that a psychologist will be called in to work with the boy. The detective, the mother, and the psychologist are all convinced that they are simply empowering the boy and are completely unaware of how their leading questions and their social support are influencing the boy to fabricate a story and thus falsely accuse the coach of breaking the law. This grooming process may occur unintentionally, but many detectives and psychologists go through it so many times that they become well-practiced and highly efficient at the various steps along the path to producing a convincing false accusation. It's hard to believe that they remain unaware of what they are doing, but most would insist that the accusations that are produced through this methodology are true, and it is likely that at least some of these coerced accusations are at least partially true. However, even one false accusation produced as a result of these practices is intolerable!

Having one witness to testify against the coach is not likely to reliably result in a conviction, although it is often sufficient. What the detective wants is more accusers and that's the key to building the case against the coach and so the hunt begins. Names are taken and potential victims are interviewed. Some of these potential victims may have also engaged in inappropriate horseplay or other questionable activities with the coach that fall short of actually breaking the law, but through the same grooming process that was applied to the initial accuser many of these boys may also produce false accusations that the coach crossed the line and engaged in illegal sexual activity with them. The stories produced by the various accusers are then presented to the other accusers. They are told what other accusers claim was done to them and then asked if anything of the sort happened to them. Thus accusers are put into what could be characterized as a competition to produce increasingly serious accusations and a bidding war ensues. This process continues on for weeks or months and in the case of the accusations produced against Jerry Sandusky it appears that the process took about two years. To further motivate accusers that it is in everyone's best interest if they fully disclose (or fabricate) all of the abuse perpetrated against them by the coach, not only are they assured that their contributions will help keep other children safe in the future, but there is also financial compensation available for their efforts. They will be able to file lawsuits and receive compensation for all they've allegedly suffered at the hands of the coach and, of course, those who file the most serious accusations will receive the greatest amount of compensation. After all, it's only fair that those who suffered the most, receive the most!

Once all the accusations have been recorded and sorted through by the grand jury and a report produced, there is still more work to be done. Those who would support the accused must be neutralized and others must be discouraged from supporting the accused. In the case involving Jerry Sandusky, two potential supporters were charged with failing to properly report earlier accusations of abuse that were made against him. They most likely concluded, after careful consideration of the information presented to them, that Sandusky was inappropriately engaging in horseplay in the locker room shower with a boy, and decided that this incident did not warrant further action other than banning Sandusky from engaging in such behavior in the future. However, the grand jury twisted this situation around and decided that it provided an opportunity to put possible supporters of Sandusky on the defensive. Not only does this devalue the support of those charged with failing to report earlier alleged crimes, but it also sends a message to other would-be supporters. It tells everyone who believes in the innocence of the accused that they will be risking their own freedom by sticking up for him.

To further mitigate any support the accused might receive, anyone who questions the integrity of the grand jury report or is skeptical of the charges against the accused is marginalized in various ways. For instance, such people might be called names or accused of sympathizing with pedophiles. Alternately, they might be said to be in denial or unwilling to accept that the evidence against the accused is overwhelming. It's even possible for a lawsuit to be filed should someone question the motives of accusers and the veracity of claims made by accusers, as was demonstrated in a case involving claims of sexual abuse made against another coach at another school soon after the Sandusky case became headline news. Of course, anybody who analyzes the evidence in the Sandusky case realizes that it's just a bunch of accusations and that there is actually very little, if any, real evidence to support the accusations, but that's besides the point as far as legal authorities are concerned.

Recently I published a book that deals with some aspects of the dysfunctional way our legal system and the media deal with allegations of sexual abuse. At the bottom of the information page about my novel is a list of books and articles which will shed more light on this problem. If you are interested, please check out my book or the items on this list. Click here to check out Campfire Songs and the list of related books and articles.