BELLEFONTE, CENTRE COUNTY - Former Penn State Assistant Football Coach Jerry Sandusky is back in Centre County Thursday for the beginning of what looks to be a long appeal process.
Sandusky's former Defense Attorney Joe Amendola took the stand Thursday morning to testify, saying his team didn't have enough time to prepare a fair defense for their client.
Convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky was all smiles as he arrived at the Centre County Courthouse Thursday morning, hoping his lawyers can convince Judge John Cleland that he deserves a new trial.
"I thought it went as well as it could go," Sandusky's Attorney Norris Gelman said. "We have a couple of things which are stronger than other things and uh, one or two are particularly strong in my mind, but I think we made the arguments, and now we just have to wait and see."
The former Penn State football coach was convicted last June on 45 of 48 counts of child sex abuse for molesting ten young boys over a period of 15 years. Thursday, his defense lawyers say they weren't given enough time to form a proper defense for Sandusky, telling Judge Cleland they were given more than 12,000 pages of documents in the months leading up to the trial, and even after the trial started.
"You can't take 6500 pages and give them to a lawyer and say okay, now start the trial and we'll see," Gelman said. "You have to give them time to work with it and time to digest it and you can't force a lawyer to trial when he's flying blind."
Prosecutors disagree, and Thursday, they say Joe Amendola defeated his argument by admitting the files would have had no impact on his defense strategy in the first place.
"It's not the law, I mean the law is not what someone's opinion is of whether or not they've looked at every document, thoroughly," Deputy Attorney General Frank Fina said. "The law is whether or not they can point to what they failed to do in the actual trial that affected the adversarial process. As Mr. Amdendola said, there was nothing."
But looking ahead, Sandusky's new attorney Norris Gelman is confident his client's case will move on to the Superior Court.
"I'm going to use a basketball analogy," he said. "Back in college, this would be a long three point shot for me. I'm not throwing the ball across the court, I'm not throwing it from half court, it's a long three pointer. Some of those go in."
Sandusky's former Defense Attorney Joe Amendola took the stand Thursday morning to testify, saying his team didn't have enough time to prepare a fair defense for their client.
Convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky was all smiles as he arrived at the Centre County Courthouse Thursday morning, hoping his lawyers can convince Judge John Cleland that he deserves a new trial.
"I thought it went as well as it could go," Sandusky's Attorney Norris Gelman said. "We have a couple of things which are stronger than other things and uh, one or two are particularly strong in my mind, but I think we made the arguments, and now we just have to wait and see."
The former Penn State football coach was convicted last June on 45 of 48 counts of child sex abuse for molesting ten young boys over a period of 15 years. Thursday, his defense lawyers say they weren't given enough time to form a proper defense for Sandusky, telling Judge Cleland they were given more than 12,000 pages of documents in the months leading up to the trial, and even after the trial started.
"You can't take 6500 pages and give them to a lawyer and say okay, now start the trial and we'll see," Gelman said. "You have to give them time to work with it and time to digest it and you can't force a lawyer to trial when he's flying blind."
Prosecutors disagree, and Thursday, they say Joe Amendola defeated his argument by admitting the files would have had no impact on his defense strategy in the first place.
"It's not the law, I mean the law is not what someone's opinion is of whether or not they've looked at every document, thoroughly," Deputy Attorney General Frank Fina said. "The law is whether or not they can point to what they failed to do in the actual trial that affected the adversarial process. As Mr. Amdendola said, there was nothing."
But looking ahead, Sandusky's new attorney Norris Gelman is confident his client's case will move on to the Superior Court.
"I'm going to use a basketball analogy," he said. "Back in college, this would be a long three point shot for me. I'm not throwing the ball across the court, I'm not throwing it from half court, it's a long three pointer. Some of those go in."
