Dumb Things Lawyers Say: Jerry Sandusky Defense Edition
“Jerry loves kids so much that he does things most of us wouldn’t think of doing.”
– Joseph Amendola, attorney for Jerry Sandusky, in his opening statement
FILED UNDER: Law and the Courts, Jerry Sandusky
Clarence Darrow he is not.
“Okay, I gotta defend this guy…but I don’t gotta do it good!”
Ouch.
Actually, I think this was so bad it deserves one of these:
http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Implied_5dbc0f_357845.jpg
Amendola seemed to be doing the prosecution’s job – he was asking the questions that were eliciting the most graphic detail from the victims. Unless he has strategy that I am unaware of , I did not understand it at all.
@al-Ameda:
The most foolish thing that Amendola has done this week, I think, is promising to the jury in his opening statement that Sandusky would testify. First of all, it strikes me that letting him on the stand would be idiotic given the extent to which it opens him up to cross-examination. Second, one need only look at the Bob Costas interview/ to see how bad a witness he’s likely to make. Finally, if they end up changing their mind and don’t call Sandusky then the jury is going to think he was playing mind games with them.
Either they’ve got some secret strategy with a smoking gun or this is one of the dumbest defenses in a high profile case that I’ve seen in quite some time
@Doug Mataconis: Just how bad does Amendola have to be before Sandusky could run with an incompetent counsel defense? And how bad does he have to get before the judge starts thinking it’s a deliberate ploy & start sanctioning people?
@Doug Mataconis:
Thanks for your take on this Doug. I appreciate the fact that Amendola has a difficult task, however I’ve has a hard time understanding his management of his client at all.
I thought I saw a headline at one point where Amendola was going to go with some mentally disturbed defense. Am I imagining this?
…
Oops, not exactly. He’s going to claim all the *victims* have mental problems. Nice. All 20 or so of them?