The Glade 4.0

How so? Breach of contract is civil, not criminal, and I don't know of any fraud statute that could plausibly be interpreted this way. Breach of contract is not criminal fraud. It could happen in conjunction with criminal fraud, but I am not buying that simply reporting it makes him criminally liable.

I also question the legal enforceability of any contract with Penn State that would require him to not report a crime.



In which case the contract is legally unenforceable

It's a no win situation for Paterno.[/quote]

On the contrary, he will almost certainly eventually win in court. Penn State is in a legally indefensible position; if these conflicts ont he law are examined seriously by the court, the best the college can hope for is that the law will simply be thrown out. You cannot create a contract requiring someone to engage in illegal behavior.

Void contracts

An agreement to report child molestation in a manner other than that prescribed by law is an illegal consideration and voids the contract.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Actually, those that have addressed his role in this thread have all held him responsible for not directly intervening at the time and place that blame squarely on his shoulders. I would also attribute the same degree of moral failing for the time post that event that I do Paterno.

And you're whining and ***** that you're not getting slavish agreement. You are not an attorney, and are ignoring problems with your assertions of how Title IX works.



The contract is unenforceable by virtue of demanding illegal consideration by Paterno. Doubtless, this situation was not envisioned when the contract was written, but there it is.
Title IX protects the victim, not Paterno.

[quote[And it's been held up in court that this conflict of contract and statute is both legal and valid (at least 3 university presidents were dismissed last year in this kind of legal quagmire).[/quote]

In what cases was this held up?

I doubt very much the issue is as simple as you are trying to make it seem. I am of no doubt that Paterno was in a difficult situation, but the fact is that contracts cannot demand illegal consideration. If this was upheld, it would not survive challenge in a higher court.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Exactly this.

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

To echo DE:

Any provision of a contract that a court determines to be contrary to public policy is unenforceable, and I 100%, without a smidgen of a doubt, **** that a contract provision limiting a person's ability to report an accusation of child rape to the cops would be held unenforceable. In short, it doesn't matter what Paterno's contract said. If he had knowledge of an even marginally credible allegation of child rape and chose to report that to the cops, no frackin' way any court would uphold a contractual penalty against him.

He did report it to the police. What part of this are you guys **** missing? The University Police at Pennsylvania State University are agents of the Pennsylvania State Police.His can dictate which law enforcement agency and authorities he can report such things to.

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What happened to "he reported it to his boss?"



Why is this important? Any police agency should treat child molestation the same as any other, so why they'd bother with such a term in the contract is a mystery. If they did, so what?

First you were claiming he had to report it to his boss, now it's he had to report it to certain agencies, and he did report it to the campus police. Are they the agency in question?

I think you need to clarify your position because it sounds like it just underwent a major shift.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Technically, he reported the incident to the VP that administratively is in charge of the University police department and to his AD, which has no direct relationship to the police.

You could argue, and I would accept, that from Paterno's standpoint, he did report the incident to the police, as the VP oversees that department.

Where that argument would fail under closer examination is that the VP and AD were both charged by the Grand Jury for failure to uphold their obligations to the First Reporter statue. So the Grand Jury didn't accept that the VP was actually part of the police department, or qualified as the "police".

And while Paterno's contract "might" dictate such a thing (its about as likely as me winning the lottery), it is still unenforceable.

I don't believe it can. The "public policy" of any state (and of the Federal government) will almost certainly be held to encourage full, open and transparent reporting of criminal activity, particularly in situations where the victims are children. Limiting the agencies to whom such reporting can be made would be contrary to that public policy. There could be cases where a conflicting public policy takes precedence - say, with respect to national security issues related to a crime committed by someone at the CIA - but there's nothing even close to that here.

None of that is to say Paterno was necessarily legally required to report the crime (or to report it to someone other than campus police); just that if he chose to report it to the state cops, the local sheriff, the FBI, or whatever law enforcement agency he thought best, he would probably win a lawsuit against the university if it tried to penalize him for that under the particular contractual provision in question.

It did not undergo a major shift at all. He reported it to the Athletic Director and the VP of Finance and Administration, who is the director of University Police. He also reported it to University Police directly according to some reports. This hasn't changed at all. The consequences of complying with his contract and Federal law concurrently are the problem here, not what Paterno did or did not do. And none of you are willing to consider this.

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Paterno did not directly witness the crime. That's another thing you guys seems to be completely missing. Paterno was not a material witness to any incident; he did, however, relay all allegations presented to him to the appropriate authorities (at least that's what current reports indicate).

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We're considering it just fine. The problem is that your assertions are in direct conflict with a basic premise of contract law - requiring an illegal consideration makes it unenforceable. If he was required to report it to certain agencies, I'm uncertain what agency you think Penn State would specify if not their own campus police -if, indeed, there is any such thing in his contract at all; I frankly find it pretty doubtful.

As for reporting it to the VP and the Athletic Director, while there's an argument to be made there that Paterno did legitimately think this fulfilled First Reporter requirements, the fact is that neither qualifies as "the police" regardless of oversight duties. As for whether he reported it to any actual campus police officer, I have not seen any report that indicates he did so.

Assuming Paterno lives long enough for it to play out, he is going to absolutely crush Penn State in court if their stated reason for firing him is breaching contract by reporting child molestation. It is patently illegal to make a contract requiring someone not to, and I would argue that even a clause requiring it be reported to certain agencies is unenforceable; this could be construed as an attempt to confine allegations to agencies like the campus police where administration has control over the disposition of the case and thus creates a conflict of interest.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It's not an illegal consideration, Diamondeye. Joe Paterno reported the incident to his Athletic Director and the VP in charge of Finance and Administration. He also (according to some sources) informed Campus Police directly. But all Paterno has to report are ALLEGATIONS removed more than 24 hours and by external consultation from the event itself. Had Paterno been witnessed the events himself, we wouldn't be having this discussion.Except it's there. We're not talking about reporting a crime to which Paterno was a witness; we're talking about report allegations of which Paterno was apprised. These are not synonymous actions, no matter much the three of you want them to be.

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There is blood in the water, for sure.

So is he subject to first reporter requirements, or isn't he? Do you not have to report allegations more than 24 hours old to law enforcement?

If he actually had reported it directly to Campus Police, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation either. The fact is that we know only that he reported it to the VP and the athletic director. Neither of them qualifies as the police, something blindingly obvious to the casual observer, so the only real argument to be made is that PAterno thought that reporting it to these gentlemen and assuming that, one of them having supervision over the campus police, that the information would make its way there is about the only real possibility



It has nothing to do whatsoever with what the three of us "want". You have not actually cited Paterno's contract or anything else to indicate that it actually is there; this is all just bare assertion on your part. You have not cited anything from First Reporter requirements to explain how the situation changes depending on allegations vs actual witnessing and based on how long ago the alledged conduct occured.

I can certainly accept that actually seeing the conduct is different from hearing about it second-hand, but I am not buying that this difference is great enough that it permits universities avenues to sweep allegations under the carpet by allowing people to "report" it to supervisors indirectly connected to the campus police.

More importantly, this is all a sidetrack from the issue of the GA, which is how we got onto this in the first place. The fact is that the GA actually did witness this and did nothing. Xeq said he'd do the same out of fear for future employment, and cited your assertions regarding Title IX as a reason. You then jumped back in and started talking about Paterno. Even if your assertions are 100% correct regarding Paterno, the bottom line is that Xeq has misapplied them to the grad student and come up with this "I might get blackballed for calling the cops if I actually saw a kid getting **** in the shower!"

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Khross, to clarify - are you arguing that Paterno was not legally required to report the allegations to outside law enforcement or that he would have been subject to contractual penalties if he had chosen to do so? My only beef (since I'm not sufficiently familiar with the statutory reporting obligations) is with the latter claim, because I don't believe any such contractual provision would be enforceable.

From a purely academic examination of how the system overall failed, you might be able to take that position. However, to state that it is in any way the problem we are discussing is a direct mischaracterization of my position. Whats more, I have several times directly addressed the potential legal conflict that Paterno might have found himself in at the time of the incident. Again, you are characterizing positions, and now posts.

That you have decided the primary issue is that potential legal conflict when the rest of the conversation has been in regard to the event from 1998 to present does not mean it is in fact the only issue. You don't get to dictate the discussion like that.


Another complete fabrication on your part. At no point has anyone here suggested Paterno was a material witness to actual event, nor did we dispute that he reported what he was told, in the company of the actual witness to the school administration. We aren't missing anything. You however seem to be.

Probably not as JoePa would be dead long before it cleared even the first round of Federal appeals (the man is 84 already).

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Well yes, aside from that little detail.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

There aren't any fabrications in my post; I've read this thread.

We have Rynar openly accusing Paterno of aiding Sandusky in "raping children."

We have you and Diamondeye defending Rynar's posts.

Guess what?

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"Defending Rynar's posts" does not mean agreeing with Rynar about Paterno aiding Sandusky in raping children.

Guess what?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Really? Cause you guys sure seem hellbent on thinking Paterno bears some culpability for this. I can start quoting your posts ...

By the by, I have to ask ...

Do you report sexual harassment to the police or your HR department first?

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Sexual harassment is not a criminal charge.

As for thinking Paterno bears some culpability, he does. The fact is that you haven't shown a good reason yet to think that Paterno is in nearly as much of a legal bind as you claim. There's certainly room to think his situation was complex and difficult, but this idea that he'd be criminally liable for reporting the rape to police is hilarious.

You can start selectively quoting us if you want, but the fact is that the three of us, between us, have brought up a lot of good reasons why it is not believable that Paterno would legitimately be in breach of contract for calling the police. I have not yet seen his contract, or the laws you think support your position, and those are things you're going to have to provide since I'm not inclined to try to Google up his contract and I'm not sure which laws and court decisions you seem to think support your positions.

I see a lot of assertions and not a lot of facts.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Apples and oranges. Better question is: do you report rape to the police or your HR department first.

Depends on where you are.

And you guys have yet to demonstrate this ...

Why is he culpable?

What actions did Paterno take to assume responsibility, in any manner, for the actions of Sandusky?
He's responsible for any damages Penn State accrues because of this incident; and that's exactly why he went through the chain of report dictated by Penn State.
You guys don't have any good reason. You have ...

Sandusky buggered some guy.

Paterno reported as instructed by his employment contract and most likely the university legal team.

And then Paterno got fired.

And your posts are all a lot of posturing and assertion based on deliberately misrepresenting what I've said because Rynar is certain Paterno "aided" Sandusky in buggering little boys.

Paterno doesn't bear any culpability in Sandusky's actions; Paterno got fired for breach of contract.

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