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Jerry Sandusky Will Not Testify

As the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse trial wore on this week and Sandusky’s defense team presented its case, speculation centered largely around one question: would Sandusky himself testify? Sandusky, of course, has done interviews trying to defend himself in the past, and those didn’t go so well, to say the least, so putting him on the stand was seen as a gamble.

And today, we learned it’s a gamble that Joe Amendola & Co. didn’t take – the defense rested its case without calling Sandusky to the stand. (Sandusky’s wife testified, however.) The lack of any Sandusky testimony will undoubtedly be seen by many as a sign that he has something to hide, whereas Amendola would probably say, as he has in the past, that Sandusky is absent-minded and simply doesn’t express himself well verbally. (Why Amendola had Sandusky do a televised interview if this were the case is another matter.)

For now, all it means is that the trial will proceed with closing arguments starting tomorrow, and the jurors will have to make up their minds without the aid of the accused. Our gut reaction is that, based on the previous times Sandusky’s opened his mouth (and owing partly to some comments that didn’t initially make it on the air), this is probably a rare good decision from Amendola and his team:

Sandusky hasn’t helped himself by talking previously, and he wasn’t likely to start now.

Ultimately, though, whether or not Sandusky testified was probably never going to matter that much. Given the gravity and number of the charges against Sandusky, the defense team in this case faced a seriously uphill battle either way even before factoring in Amendola’s frequent bouts of idiocy, and the graphic, disturbing testimony made by some of Sandusky’s accusers made it even more so. Sandusky’s innocent until proven guilty like everyone else, and a verdict hasn’t been handed down, but we’d be absolutely stunned if Sandusky walked – regardless of whether he spoke up in his own defense or not.

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