Indicted We Stand: Penance, Penn State, and Catholic Culture
. . . It should have been a solemn and somber affair. That cheer seemed more a response to a contest in the Roman Coliseum than the exercise of justice in an American court of law. Are there really winners and losers in this story? Like many prisoners, I followed the Jerry Sandusky trial carefully, and I believe justice was indeed accomplished inside that courtroom. But not outside. The cheers and jeers of that crowd had no place in the administration of American justice. I was glad to hear one newscaster say he was embarrassed for his own peers who stood there to focus on the cheers. . . .
Thy Brother's Keeper: Why Wrongful Convictions Should Matter to You
. . . I was sitting in a county jail awaiting sentencing to prison. I was cut off from everyone. My Diocese would not even accept my collect calls. My own lawyers told me I had no choice. What meager assets I had were exhausted on the first trial. So, post-trial, I entered into what I called - then and now - "a negotiated lie." It was a lie that was extorted from me, but the lie was not mine alone. If you've read my post, "The High Cost of Innocence," you know that even then the pressure never ended. Prison itself has any number of sanctions to further punish those who do not admit guilt. I spent five years confined to a cell housing seven other prisoners because I would not admit guilt. The notion that men in prison always claim to be innocent is a myth. There are dire consequences for such a claim. . . .