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d-usa wrote:But from common sense and an ethical sense, if you are made aware of a crime occurring you report it to the police.

Some of us can't do that, ethically speaking.

Ahtman wrote:It does seem to be getting away from Joe making a mistake and whether or not he deserved to be fired (obliviously there is a case for both sides) and more about anger at a child molester, and how that anger is channeled. Joe and the entire staff should have to face up to what they are responsible for, but they shouldn't be lumped in with the actual criminal in this situation.

I know where you're coming from. But if we learn that Paterno and PSU were in full command of the facts and covered up the 1998 incident in exchange for Sandusky's retirement, that's a lot more than a "mistake" to me.

There's talk that this will come out eventually, and the timeline makes it plausible. Sandusky retired at age 55 in his coaching prime and at the time was thought to be JoePa's eventual successor. Months after that incident, he was out and never coached again.

biccat wrote:

Ahtman wrote:He failed to live up to his position and role of leader when he ignored a sexual predator in their midst to focus on a sports game.

The problem is that he didn't fail to live up to his position. He reported the guy to his superior (athletic director), which is what he was supposed to do. Coach Paterno had no obligation (either ethically or legally) to report the guy to the police.

If there was some evidence that Coach Paterno knew the Athletic Director was covering for this guy, maybe you could make the case that he had an ethical obligation to report to the authorities. But I haven't seen anything that supports that.

so if you knew of boys being raped you wouldn't have an ethical obligation to tell the authorities?


you have terrible ethics then


my ethical obligation would be to tell the boys fathers first, then the cops when he got what was coming to him first

Polonius wrote:

d-usa wrote:MaI don't know if his position had a legal mandate to report, from news reports it would seem so. But from common sense and an ethical sense, if you are made aware of a crime occurring you report it to the police.

Edit: US Department for Health and Human Services has this summary of state laws. PA is covered on page 43. It talks about "including but not limited to: School administrators, teachers, school nurses, social services workers, daycare center workers, or any other child • care or foster care workers". The question of course would be if this covers universities, or just High School and down.

According the article I linked to above, the actual law requires reporting either to the police or to a superior. JoPa certainly did the latter, and arguably the former.

However thats the legal standard. the corporate standard is far higher, else you get whacked, which is what happened and is what is appropriate if you don't act properly.

biccat wrote:

d-usa wrote:But from common sense and an ethical sense, if you are made aware of a crime occurring you report it to the police.

Some of us can't do that, ethically speaking.

Are we speaking about scenarios where there is an implied sense of confidentiality (doctors/clergy/etc)?

If your client is the person committing the crime, then you are actually still required to report in order to protect the victim AFAIK. The knowledge of an acute and real threat outweighs the privilege of confidentiality.

If your client is the one being abused, then stuff does get more cloudy.

Any specific scenario you are considering here?

d-usa wrote:

biccat wrote:

d-usa wrote:But from common sense and an ethical sense, if you are made aware of a crime occurring you report it to the police.

Some of us can't do that, ethically speaking.

Are we speaking about scenarios where there is an implied sense of confidentiality (doctors/clergy/etc)?

If your client is the person committing the crime, then you are actually still required to report in order to protect the victim AFAIK. The knowledge of an acute and real threat outweighs the privilege of confidentiality.

If your client is the one being abused, then stuff does get more cloudy.

Any specific scenario you are considering here?

Lawyers have no duty to inform authorities of any criminal acitivity, past, present, or future involving a confidence.

Ohio, at least, allows for the reporting of active or future crimes revealed in confidence, but not past.

Meaning, if somebody told me, in confidence, that they committed a horrible crime, I not only have no duty to inform, i would lose my license if I did so.

The clergy privilege works the same way legally (meaning no duty to report) as there is a 1st amendment issue as to the practice of religion. A Catholic Priest that breaches the seal of confession, for any reason, can be excommunicated, and even in a best case scenario is never allowed to hear confession again.

Polonius wrote:

d-usa wrote:

biccat wrote:

d-usa wrote:But from common sense and an ethical sense, if you are made aware of a crime occurring you report it to the police.

Some of us can't do that, ethically speaking.

Are we speaking about scenarios where there is an implied sense of confidentiality (doctors/clergy/etc)?

If your client is the person committing the crime, then you are actually still required to report in order to protect the victim AFAIK. The knowledge of an acute and real threat outweighs the privilege of confidentiality.

If your client is the one being abused, then stuff does get more cloudy.

Any specific scenario you are considering here?

Lawyers have no duty to inform authorities of any criminal acitivity, past, present, or future involving a confidence.

Ohio, at least, allows for the reporting of active or future crimes revealed in confidence, but not past.

Meaning, if somebody told me, in confidence, that they committed a horrible crime, I not only have no duty to inform, i would lose my license if I did so.

Interesting scenario that I did not consider. Does this apply to any random person that decides to pour out their heart to you, or do you have to have an attorney/client relationship with that person? If some random person that didn't know you were a lawyer was sitting in the bar next to you, doesn't know who you are or what you do, and in his drunken stupor decided that they killed someone (extreme scenario I know), would that qualify?

DIDM wrote:so if you knew of boys being raped you wouldn't have an ethical obligation to tell the authorities?

Depends on who told me.

I have had people tell me in confidence about crimes that they have committed. If I were to inform the authorities I would be in violation of my ethical duties as a lawyer and would probably be disbarred.

However, if someone were to say that they are going to commit a crime there may be a duty to report (although considering I'm subject to several sets of ethical rules, I could end up in trouble either way).

DIDM wrote:you have terrible ethics then

Says you. The people who determine them have decided that such an ethical rule is important to the sanctity of the legal system.

Polonius wrote:

d-usa wrote:

biccat wrote:

d-usa wrote:But from common sense and an ethical sense, if you are made aware of a crime occurring you report it to the police.

Some of us can't do that, ethically speaking.

Are we speaking about scenarios where there is an implied sense of confidentiality (doctors/clergy/etc)?

If your client is the person committing the crime, then you are actually still required to report in order to protect the victim AFAIK. The knowledge of an acute and real threat outweighs the privilege of confidentiality.

If your client is the one being abused, then stuff does get more cloudy.

Any specific scenario you are considering here?

Lawyers have no duty to inform authorities of any criminal acitivity, past, present, or future involving a confidence.

Ohio, at least, allows for the reporting of active or future crimes revealed in confidence, but not past.

Meaning, if somebody told me, in confidence, that they committed a horrible crime, I not only have no duty to inform, i would lose my license if I did so.

The clergy privilege works the same way legally (meaning no duty to report) as there is a 1st amendment issue as to the practice of religion. A Catholic Priest that breaches the seal of confession, for any reason, can be excommunicated, and even in a best case scenario is never allowed to hear confession again.

personally if I were a priest and told of a man raping boys and was excommunicated or never allowed to hear confession again I wouldn't really care. Being part of a club and having a clear conscious are 2 different things, one is a want, the other is more of a need. I could not sleep at night thinking that someone I knew could be out hurting someone and I could stop it. IMO God would rather you do the right thing and be kicked out of a club than let bad things happen to anybody. By not telling you are letting it continue.

I hope that this taints everyone involved as much as those poor boys are now tainted

d-usa wrote:
Interesting scenario that I did not consider. Does this apply to any random person that decides to pour out their heart to you, or do you have to have an attorney/client relationship with that person? If some random person that didn't know you were a lawyer was sitting in the bar next to you, doesn't know who you are or what you do, and in his drunken stupor decided that they killed someone (extreme scenario I know), would that qualify?

Nope. And it's not that extreme a situation, we spend a semester of law school going over this stuff. The general rule of thumb is that if the person talking to you thought, at the time, that they enjoyed attorney/client privilige, than keep your mouth shut.

I'll say this in general: lawyers tend to keep stuff they don't have a duty to report to themselves, just to protect themselves.

biccat wrote:

DIDM wrote:so if you knew of boys being raped you wouldn't have an ethical obligation to tell the authorities?

Depends on who told me.

I have had people tell me in confidence about crimes that they have committed. If I were to inform the authorities I would be in violation of my ethical duties as a lawyer and would probably be disbarred.

However, if someone were to say that they are going to commit a crime there may be a duty to report (although considering I'm subject to several sets of ethical rules, I could end up in trouble either way).

DIDM wrote:you have terrible ethics then

Says you. The people who determine them have decided that such an ethical rule is important to the sanctity of the legal system.

While biccat is correct on the ethics of the legal system, nothing in the Penn State story involved confidentiality. While it's an interesting tangent, I think that it's a stretch to call a decision to not investigate rape in your progam a sound ethical decision.

Has anyone else noticed the guy who told JoPa still has his job at PSU despite the fact he basically did what JoPa did and tell his boss?

DIDM wrote:personally if I were a priest and told of a man raping boys and was excommunicated or never allowed to hear confession again I wouldn't really care. Being part of a club and having a clear conscious are 2 different things, one is a want, the other is more of a need. I could not sleep at night thinking that someone I knew could be out hurting someone and I could stop it. IMO God would rather you do the right thing and be kicked out of a club than let bad things happen to anybody. By not telling you are letting it continue.

The reason we have privileges isn't to protect perpetrators, it's to encourage communication. Lawyers can't tell on their murder clients because then clients wouldn't tell lawyers everything they need to know to defend them. Doctors can't relate medical information because then people would be discouraged from telling doctors everything about their conditions. Priests protect the confidences of the penitent because it encourages confession.

Without these types of confidential communications society would be worse off.

DIDM wrote:personally if I were a priest and told of a man raping boys and was excommunicated or never allowed to hear confession again I wouldn't really care. Being part of a club and having a clear conscious are 2 different things, one is a want, the other is more of a need. I could not sleep at night thinking that someone I knew could be out hurting someone and I could stop it. IMO God would rather you do the right thing and be kicked out of a club than let bad things happen to anybody. By not telling you are letting it continue.

Well... I can't speak for all professionals, but I'll say that for myself, there is very little I'd consider more valuable than my ability to practice law. You make a choice to follow the ethics of that profession, and if you don't like it, you know the consequences.

Confession, not unlike attorney/client privilege, works for overall betterment of society. If you can't trust you priest or lawyer to keep quiet, you won't tell him things, and then he can't help you.

I hope that this taints everyone involved as much as those poor boys are now tainted

I'm not a big fan of vengence, myself.

Where the hell does a lawyer fit in here?


we/they were not sitting in a law office, and no one was getting paid to represent anyone.

is your lawyer brain always on? does everything that happen appear to go on in a court of law for you?


if you were told randomly that a guy was raping boys, you better damn well have an ethical obligation to tell someone, if not you aren't human, you have been tainted by the chaos.

Polonius wrote:

d-usa wrote:
Interesting scenario that I did not consider. Does this apply to any random person that decides to pour out their heart to you, or do you have to have an attorney/client relationship with that person? If some random person that didn't know you were a lawyer was sitting in the bar next to you, doesn't know who you are or what you do, and in his drunken stupor decided that they killed someone (extreme scenario I know), would that qualify?

Nope. And it's not that extreme a situation, we spend a semester of law school going over this stuff. The general rule of thumb is that if the person talking to you thought, at the time, that they enjoyed attorney/client privilige, than keep your mouth shut.

I'll say this in general: lawyers tend to keep stuff they don't have a duty to report to themselves, just to protect themselves.

(didn't quote the rest of your post to avoid a long post pyramid)

So the closest scenario that we could come up with in this story involving lawyers would be if you guys ran some lawyer summer retreat with interns, and one of your paralegals came to you and told you that he witnessed one of your partners sodomizing an intern in the shower. (really not trying to troll or argue, I hope it doesn't come across that way)

I would think that in that scenario you would report?

Now if the sodomizing lawyer told you first, then we would have the confidentiality thing again, I understand that.

AustonT wrote:Has anyone else noticed the guy who told JoPa still has his job at PSU despite the fact he basically did what JoPa did and tell his boss?

Yeah, this was a tough one. Not only did he not report it to the police, he didn't do anything to stop it when he saw it in person.

I'm going to give more of a pass to that guy, if only because he was a grad assistant who didn't want to get blackballed for ratting out a respected former coach.

I wouldn't want to be in his moral shoes right now, knowing exactly how much further things went due to his inaction, but this is one of those "buck stops here" moments.


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d-usa wrote:
(didn't quote the rest of your post to avoid a long post pyramid)

So the closest scenario that we could come up with in this story involving lawyers would be if you guys ran some lawyer summer retreat with interns, and one of your paralegals came to you and told you that he witnessed one of your partners sodomizing an intern in the shower. (really not trying to troll or argue, I hope it doesn't come across that way)

I would think that in that scenario you would report?

Now if the sodomizing lawyer told you first, then we would have the confidentiality thing again, I understand that.

Well, I don't work in a firm, but I understand the analogy.

This is something I've been wrestling with alot as this story broke. If I were a senior managing partner, and a paralegal reported a rape by retired partner of the firm... I dunno. I'd probably do what JoPa did, to be honest. Report it to my suprerior. I don't know. I know I wouldn't want to get involved.

How is he more sacrosanct than an 80 year old man who told the University head of Campus PD? Did we expect a 70 something JoPa to don his cape and mask and take up the mantle of Batman?

AustonT wrote:How is he more sacrosanct than an 80 year old man who told the University head of Campus PD? Did we expect a 70 something JoPa to don his cape and mask and take up the mantle of Batman?

He's not a popular football coach, obviously.

DIDM wrote:Where the hell does a lawyer fit in here?


we/they were not sitting in a law office, and no one was getting paid to represent anyone.

is your lawyer brain always on? does everything that happen appear to go on in a court of law for you?


if you were told randomly that a guy was raping boys, you better damn well have an ethical obligation to tell someone, if not you aren't human, you have been tainted by the chaos.

Well, there was some cross wires, and people began discussing the nature of duty to report vs. duty of confidentiality.

But, yes. Once you start practicing law, you start thinking differently. It's the nature of the beast.

And dont' confuse an ethical duty with a moral one.

AustonT wrote:How is he more sacrosanct than an 80 year old man who told the University head of Campus PD? Did we expect a 70 something JoPa to don his cape and mask and take up the mantle of Batman?

He's not more sancrosanct, just less culpable.

Most people aren't willing to report a trusted and respected person to the police. It's human nature.

Polonius wrote:This is something I've been wrestling with alot as this story broke. If I were a senior managing partner, and a paralegal reported a rape by retired partner of the firm... I dunno. I'd probably do what JoPa did, to be honest. Report it to my suprerior. I don't know. I know I wouldn't want to get involved.

We've got the advantage of discussing this with the state ethics board.

If I were in this situation, I'd certainly get a second opinion.

biccat wrote:

AustonT wrote:How is he more sacrosanct than an 80 year old man who told the University head of Campus PD? Did we expect a 70 something JoPa to don his cape and mask and take up the mantle of Batman?

He's not a popular football coach, obviously.

I also would not be shocked if JoPa knew of the rumors regarding Sandusky, including the report in the late 90's that the campus police were involved in.

The more authority you have, and the more information you have, the more morally culpable you are for the consequences of your inaction.

JoPa also could have rolled and Sandusky and not endangered his career (quite the opposite, apparently).

The eyewitness could have seriously mess up his career by calling the police. That sounds like a terrible set of priorities, but careers like that are hard to come by.


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biccat wrote:

Polonius wrote:This is something I've been wrestling with alot as this story broke. If I were a senior managing partner, and a paralegal reported a rape by retired partner of the firm... I dunno. I'd probably do what JoPa did, to be honest. Report it to my suprerior. I don't know. I know I wouldn't want to get involved.

We've got the advantage of discussing this with the state ethics board.

If I were in this situation, I'd certainly get a second opinion.

Very true.

I guess... more than anything, I'd want to just not deal with it, if that makes sense. It'd be easier to just report it, and pretend it didn't happen and go back to work.

I could never be a lawyer, it just seems like you would have to wrangle with your own morality at times. Even the ones we would class into "good" lawyers (aka: DA and such) who seem to get pushed into meeting numbers and convictions and may end up throwing innocent people under the bus to get convictions.

Of course defense attorneys are always evil

But honestly, I respect the profession, and I believe that even the biggest scumbag in the world is only accused of being the biggest scumbag in the world and deserves a fair trial. If you don't give the slime of the earth a trial then the system that protects all of us simply isn't working. So thanks for doing a job that I don't think I could ever do.

I am happy that my job is a lot more clear cut with the hole duty to report business and I don't have to worry about having to make decisions like that.

But that is enough derailing the thread from me

Back to your regularly scheduled student riots!

Polonius wrote:

AustonT wrote:Has anyone else noticed the guy who told JoPa still has his job at PSU despite the fact he basically did what JoPa did and tell his boss?

Yeah, this was a tough one. Not only did he not report it to the police, he didn't do anything to stop it when he saw it in person.

I'm going to give more of a pass to that guy, if only because he was a grad assistant who didn't want to get blackballed for ratting out a respected former coach.

I wouldn't want to be in his moral shoes right now, knowing exactly how much further things went due to his inaction, but this is one of those "buck stops here" moments.

There was talk that the Board of Trustees was treading carefully regarding McQueary because he might be protected under PA's whistleblower law. You guys know the law better than me...I'm just passing along what I heard.

I can't give the man any benefit of the doubt given that Sandusky was on campus all the time after he retired, sometimes with kids in tow. In fact, a few years back PSU told Sandusky not to bring any more kids to campus. Which is more or less the same thing as saying "just don't do it here." How can McQueary have lived with himself knowing what he knew and seeing that monster parade around campus with children?

gorgon wrote:There was talk that the Board of Trustees was treading carefully regarding McQueary because he might be protected under PA's whistleblower law. You guys know the law better than me...I'm just passing along what I heard.

That makes sense. There was also apparently some talk that McQueary was promoted partially to help keep him quiet. By all accounts he's done a good job, so that seems less likely, but it still stinks.

As for whistleblower protection, bascially that prevents a company from retaliating when a person reports a wrong doing. Since McQuery did, in fact, report it, any later termination might be seen as retaliation (after all, his report lead to the scandal).

Firing him for not doing more would also set a chilling precedent to junior staffers nationwide. Imagine losing your not because after telling your boss about a problem, you didn't than call the cops! No organization wants to encourage whistleblowing!

I can't give the man any benefit of the doubt given that Sandusky was on campus all the time after he retired, sometimes with kids in tow. In fact, a few years back PSU told Sandusky not to bring any more kids to campus. Which is more or less the same thing as saying "just don't do it here." How can McQueary have lived with himself knowing what you knew and seeing that monster parade around campus with children?

I think he's going to live a sad, regretful life.

biccat wrote:Some guy that worked for Joe Paterno molested some kids. The coach may have known about it (although IIRC he's the one who reported him). The school fired him.

Joe Paterno is the greatest college football coach in the history of college football, and for him to be thrown out on his behind and remembered solely for this scandal is outrageous.

I'm not a fan of Penn State, but he deserved far more than what he got from the Board.

B, i don't think i've agreed with anything you've ever posted on Dakka. today is no different. i'm sure you're going to lose lots of sleep over that.
JoPa's (and frankly your) position on this is indefensible, period.

You hear that a child is being/has been raped, and you:
1) stop it
2) make sure it never happens again.

everything happening to JoPa is self inflicted. and he'll be lucky if his job is all that is taken.

That's the part that bothers me. He told JoPa and then saw Sandusky and these kids for YEARS afterwards and didn't do anything else...sounds a lot like what JoPa did to me, and he was far more personally involved in the situation.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

alarmingrick wrote: everything happening to JoPa is self inflicted. and he'll be lucky if his job is all that is taken.

are you threatening violence against JoPa?

AustonT wrote:That's the part that bothers me. He told JoPa and then saw Sandusky and these kids for YEARS afterwards and didn't do anything else...sounds a lot like what JoPa did to me, and he was far more personally involved in the situation.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

alarmingrick wrote: everything happening to JoPa is self inflicted. and he'll be lucky if his job is all that is taken.

are you threatening violence against JoPa?

How and the hell did you get ME threatening him, out of that?
No, i mean legally speaking. I mean 8 + families(at this point) sueing him in civil court.

Generally, "he'll be lucky if that's all they do" is a treat.
I think you'd have to stretch pretty far to find any kind of civil suit against JoPa relating to these incidents, as the earliest reported awareness he had was after Sandusky was no longer an employee of PSU. That's purely an opinion and not legally grounded.

AustonT wrote:Generally, "he'll be lucky if that's all they do" is a treat.
I think you'd have to stretch pretty far to find any kind of civil suit against JoPa relating to these incidents, as the earliest reported awareness he had was after Sandusky was no longer an employee of PSU. That's purely an opinion and not legally grounded.

So now i speak for a vigilante Penn State group?
I'd say knowing about something that happened 8 YEARS ago, and not telling anyone other than your boss would be pretty damning in itself.

AustonT wrote:Generally, "he'll be lucky if that's all they do" is a treat.
I think you'd have to stretch pretty far to find any kind of civil suit against JoPa relating to these incidents, as the earliest reported awareness he had was after Sandusky was no longer an employee of PSU. That's purely an opinion and not legally grounded.

There was an incident reported in 1998, while Sandusky was employed. Soon after the fact, he was no longer employed. Coincidence? You decide...at least until the investigative reporters dig it all up.