• Seriously (or Humorously), Who Am I?

Shiny and Spanglered

~ Maybe a laugh can illuminate life.

Shiny and Spanglered

Tag Archives: Jerry Sandusky

Off With Their Heads! … or Ours!?

02 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by Shiny and Spanglered in American Life, Humor, Justice and Injustice, Political commentary, Satire, Social Commentary

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

basketball, Bernard Fine, child molestation, Division I sports, fair trial, football, guilt, innocence, Jerry Sandusky, Mob Rule, Penn State, public lynching, Syracuse University

Unknown-5Are we deranged?  Is lynching back in fashion?  Have we gone through Alice’s sentence first, verdict afterwards looking glass?  I’m referring to the current American pastime of drawing and quartering alleged child molesters, along with those caught downwind of the manure fan.

I don’t know whether former Penn State football assistant Jerry Sandusky or recently-fired Syracuse University assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine are guilty.  Perhaps they are, but in a country supposedly based on law, people are presumed innocent until proven otherwise through a procedure called a trial.  It’s true that trials make mistakes (I, for one, have always felt that the 12 Angry Men got it wrong, and the kid did kill his father), but they are better than the systematic dismantling of the rule of law by infuriated mobs, the media, and an outraged public.

In the Sandusky case, reasonable people may contend that the prominence of Penn State football, the despicable nature of the alleged acts, and the mere volume of accusations make widespread, and highly publicized, assumptions of guilt inevitable.  They may point out that Sandusky at least did not lose his job since he had already left his coaching position (hardly solace to him if he should prove to be innocent).

In Mr. Fine’s case, it may be that no one has an absolute right to a particular job and that, regardless of guilt or innocence, circumstances may make it imperative to terminate a person’s employment.  But that would be tough to sustain if it was false accusations that made Fine’s position untenable.

And, in the Penn State case, what about a university president, an athletic director, and a football coach, fired for alleged acts of omission?   Procedural errors would still be errors even if Sandusky were found innocent.  But, dismissed so swiftly, could these officials have received the due process necessary to determine their guilt or innocence?  If not, should those who did the firing have their heads put on the chopping block?

Is it possible that the ferocity of the publicity, the apparent assumption of guilt, and the sudden spike in the Pennsylvania and New York unemployment rates, may be directly related to the image-boosting and bank account-filling that football provides to Penn State, and basketball to Syracuse?  Maybe, though it’s hard to believe that university decision-makers would ever sacrifice individuals on the altar of Division I sports and TV revenues …..

In these kinds of situations, it may be helpful to remember the 2006 accusation of rape leveled against members of the Duke University lacrosse team that led some of us to assume their guilt, wrongly it turns out.  Or to recall the more recent rape accusation against then-IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn that sounded very persuasive, but that images-7turned out to be, if not demonstrably false, too weak to warrant prosecution.

Premature head-removal is indiscriminate, messy, and almost always irreversible.  Best to let justice take its course and then, if it turns out that the crowd was right all along, we can justifiably demand, Off With Their Heads!

Archives

  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • November 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011

Blogroll

  • The Itty Bitty Bloghorn

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy