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Jury Selection Completed in Sandusky Case
A jury is in place for the child sex abuse trial of Jerry Sandusky, with the case set to begin next week. It took a little less than two days to pick a panel to hear the charges against the former Penn State assistant football coach.
The panel of 12 jurors and 4 alternates was picked from a group of about 80 questioned by the attorneys and Judge John Cleland. The main jury consists of 7 women and 5 men. Many of the jurors have ties to Penn State University.
Opening statements by prosecutors and Sandusky’s defense lawyers are scheduled to begin on Monday morning. The judge turned down another request for a continuance during jury selection.
Governor Corbett: No Democrats at the Table Because Democrats Want to Spend
Governor Tom Corbett met with top Republican leaders of the House and Senate earlier this week and says the lawmakers came in asking for all of the $27.7 billion in their spending proposal. That’s more than the $27.1 billion the governor proposed last February and he says his fellow Republicans didn’t understand that their number should be the ceiling in the starting point of negotiations.
Corbett says talks are now occurring daily as he and legislative leaders try to settle on a number somewhere in between. However, during his appearance on Radio PA’s Ask the Governor program on Thursday, the governor confirmed that no democrats have a seat at the table. Governor Corbett says that’s because Democrats want to “continue to spend” while he says Republicans have shown they are trying to “save money in some areas.”
For those hoping to see some restoration of the proposed cuts in the governor’s budget, Corbett says he is indeed looking for areas to inject additional funding following a few months of better-than-expected revenue collections from February through April. The May numbers dipped back below estimates, however.
Governor Corbett says he remains committed to meeting the June 30th deadline for a new General Fund budget.
Dick Winters Statue Dedicated at Normandy
Today marks the 68th anniversary of the D-Day invasion and the likeness of one heroic Pennsylvanian is helping to pay tribute to many who sacrificed and risked everything that fateful day in 1944.
Hershey, Pennsylvania native Dick Winters was a member of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne when he parachuted into the town of Saint Mere Eglise. That event and the exploits that followed would eventually be chronicled by historian Stephen Ambrose in the book Band of Brothersand the HBO mini-series of
- Pennsylvania native Dick Winters will stand watch over Normandy as a tribute to all junior U.S. military officers who stormed the beaches or jumped into France in 1944
the same name. Winters died last year, but he has become so respected his likeness is featured in a new monument that was dedicated at Normandy today. The statue honors the leadership of all junior U.S. military officers who stormed the beaches or jumped into France in 1944.
Planning for the monument took more than two years, but many agree that Winters is a fitting representative of the brave men who landed and jumped on D-Day. Major General James McConville is the commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division. He says Dick Winters personifies what a leader is all about.
Several family members of Easy Company veterans were on hand for the statue dedication.
*WITF radio’s Tim Lambert provided content and photos for this story
Top Republicans to Meet with Governor Tom Corbett
As the 2012 budget season prepares to enter the final stretch run, top Republican leaders from the state House and Senate were planning to meet with Governor Tom Corbett on Tuesday to present their negotiated budget package.
The state Senate passed a general fund budget last month that spends about a half-billion dollars more than the governor’s original proposal, which was unveiled in February. Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi says the two chambers have ironed out “about 90%” of their differences in preparation for talks with the administration. Indications are that lawmakers are hoping to restore some of the governor’s proposed cuts to higher education if the universities promise to rein in any tuition increases for the coming year. Cuts to basic ed and county services could also be partially restored after the Commonwealth saw increased revenue collections in recent months.
The governor proposed a $27.1 billion general fund budget in February. He is scheduled to visit PAMatters.com for his monthly Ask the Governor program on Thursday.
Rulings Issued Ahead of Sandusky Trial
The judge has issued several rulings ahead of the start of jury selection June 5th in the Jerry Sandusky trial.
The media will not be allowed to tweet, blog or communicate electronically from the courtroom during the child sexual abuse trial of the former Penn State assistance football coach. Judge John Cleland reversed part of an earlier Decorum Order that would have allowed reporters to tweet during the trial.
The judge has also denied requests from alleged victims 3,4,5 and 7 to keep their identities concealed during the trial. In his ruling, the judge said that there is no support in Pennsylvania law for offering anonymity to an adult witness because the witness is one of a class of victims of a particular crime.
Judge Cleland is denying a request by Sandusky’s lawyer to order prosecutors to turn over information they collected about potential jurors.
Later in the day, the state Supreme Court denied a request to delay the trial. Sandusky’s attorneys had turned to the state’s highest court after the judge and a state Superior Court panel also rejected the motion to delay.
State Revenues Come in Below Estimates in May
Overall General Fund revenue collections in Pennsylvania were lower than anticipated in May according to the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue. The state collected 1-point-9 billion dollars in General Fund revenue last month, 2-point-3 percent less than expected.
It follows two months of stronger than expected revenues in March and April. The state Senate’s proposed budget restores some funding cuts Governor Corbett had proposed in February, based in part on the better collections those months.
Sales tax receipts, personal income and corporate tax revenues were all down for the month of May. However, other General Fund tax revenue collections, including cigarette, malt beverage, liquor and table game taxes, were 7-point-9 million above projections at 131-point-5 million for the month.
So far with one month left in this fiscal year, collections total 24-point-9 billion, 1-point-3 percent or 332.9 million dollars below estimate.
Back in February, the governor’s office projected the state would end the fiscal year $719-million dollars below estimate.
Radio PA Roundtable 06.01.12
Radio PA Roundtable is a 30-minute program featuring in-depth reporting on the top news stories of the week. Professionally produced and delivered every Friday, Roundtable includes commercial breaks for local sale and quarterly reports for affiliate files.
Click the audio player below to hear the full broadcast:
[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/witfaudio/radiopa/Roundtable06-01-12.mp3]Training Tool Does More than Meet Federal Mandate
A federal mandate requires specialized training for lawyers representing abused and neglected children, if the state is to continue to receive $950,000 dollars a year for related services. The state Supreme Court’s Office of Children and Families in the Courts responded with a first-of-its-kind training DVD.
“Even though it started out to particularly meet a federal mandate, it really turned into a lot more,” says Butler County Judge Kelley Streib, who co-chaired the panel that helped create the new training tool for guardians ad litem.
The video includes all of the relevant laws and procedures, but we asked Judge Streib to explain what really stands out in her mind:JudgeStreib
“No longer is it acceptable to have children languishing for years in the dependency system,” Streib explains. That’s been a major focus of both the state courts and Department of Public Welfare in recent years. Since 2006, the number of dependent children in temporary foster care has been reduced by 33%.