A hearing has been set to argue whether Jerry Sandusky’s effort for a new trial will move forward.
McKean County Judge John Cleland, who has been specially-presiding in the case since Sandusky’s trial in 2012, signed an order on Monday giving Sandusky 30 days to amend his witness list and scheduling an argument for May 2 on his request for an evidentiary hearing.
Sandusky’s attorneys Al Lindsay and Andrew Salemme have filed two amended petitions for post-conviction relief. To proceed, Sandusky would have to prove at an evidentiary hearing that the facts entitle him to a new trial.
Under the Post Conviction Relief Act, however, the request for an evidentiary hearing must include ‘a signed certification as to each intended witness…. and the substance of the witness’s testimony.’ Cleland wrote that Sandusky’s amended petitions list 21 witnesses and the topics on which they would be expected to testify, they do not say what the substance of the witnesses’ testimony would be.
‘Without a certification of what a witness will testify, it is impossible to determine whether a hearing should be held on any given issue or even to assess whether, if a hearing were held, the defendant would be able to present evidence that would entitle him to relief,’ Cleland wrote.
Sandusky, a former Penn State football assistant coach and founder of the Second Mile charity for at-risk children, was convicted in June 2012 on 45 of 48 counts related to child sexual abuse. He was sentenced to 30-60 years in prison.
In the petitions for a new trial, Sandusky’s attorneys present hundreds of pages of documents, allegations and arguments for him to be granted relief. Sandusky has maintained his innocence. His second amended petition calls the case ‘a story of how the media, overzealous law enforcement, a biased grand jury, and abused grand jury process, prosecutorial malfeasance, a discredited and pseudoscientific type of therapy, greed, and serial instances of ineffective counsel resulted in transforming an innocent man into one of this country’s most infamous ‘child predators.”
