Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State University assistant football coach convicted of child molestation in 2012, was denied a new trial by Pennsylvania Superior Court appeals panel, which instead remanded Sandusky's case to the lower court for re-sentencing.
In a 119-page ruling, the superior court panel determined that the court misapplied mandatory minimum sentencing standards to Sandusky, who was sent to prison for between 30 and 60 years. Sandusky, who was 68 at the time of the original sentencing, originally faced a maximum of 442 years in prison after a Centre County Jury convicted him on 45 counts of sexual molestation. According to Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports, Judge John Cleland, who oversaw the original trial, opted for a sentence far lower than the maximum, perhaps to avoid appeal on delivering too harsh of a penalty.
Sandusky was unlikely to survive the 30 years needed to ask for parole and was unlikely to receive it, due to the severity of the case, his notoriety and the number of victims (10 in the criminal trial, nearly three dozen more in civil settlements by Penn State).
The re-sentencing order does not mean that Sandusky will face less time in prison. It just sends the issue back to the court to be restructured without the mandatory minimums.
