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HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (AP) – A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced the death sentence of former Penn State President Graham Spanier to less than a day before he was sentenced to prison.
Judge Karoline Mehalchick's decision in Scranton, Pennsylvania, gave prosecutors three months to retry Spanier under the Children's Endangerment Act, 1995, which was introduced in 2001.
Joe Grace, a spokesman for the Attorney General's office, said the decision was being revised. Spanier's defense lawyer, Sam Silver, declined to comment.
Mehalchick agreed with Spanier that he had been charged under a 2007 law for actions that took place in 2001, while he was responding to a complaint about the former trainer. Soccer assistant Jerry Sandusky showering with a boy on campus.
"Spanier argues that this retroactive claim is unreasonable and much broader than anyone in 2001 could have reasonably anticipated," wrote Mehalchick. "The court is in agreement."
Spanier was scheduled to go to jail early Wednesday to serve a minimum sentence of two months, followed by two months under house arrest.
Spanier, 70, was forced to leave his post as president of the state of Penn soon after Sandusky's arrest in 2011 on charges of pedophilia. A year later, Spanier was charged with criminal concealment, although many of these charges were dismissed by a court of appeal. The jury acquitted him of what remained to him at the time of his trial, with the exception of the only head of endangering children.
Lisa Powers, a spokeswoman for the university, said Tuesday that Spanier remained a permanent faculty member on paid administrative leave.
Spanier's lawyers argued that the application of the law to acts prior to the enactment of the measure violated the prohibition of criminal law imposed by federal and state constitutions. The 2007 Children's Endangerment Reviews applied the law to persons "employing or supervising" persons responsible for the welfare of a minor child.
But the judge did not accept their argument that the limitation period had been misapplied.
Prosecutors had argued that the 1995 and 2007 versions of the law encompassed and criminalized the same conduct.
Spanier was convicted of the manner in which he and two of his key associates decided to respond to Assistant Coach Mike McQueary's report that he allegedly saw Sandusky abusing the boy late Friday night under a shower. team.
Spanier said that the boy's abuse, which has never been conclusively identified, has been labeled him in flagrante delicto.
Spanier and two of his senior lieutenants, former sports director Tim Curley and former vice president Gary Schultz, have agreed to warn The Second Mile, the youth charity. at risk, where Sandusky met many of his victims, without calling the police.
Spanier gave his approval to his deputies in an e-mail, warning that "the only disadvantage for us is that if the message is not" heard "and taken into account, we then become vulnerable to not letting it happen. have reported. "
Curley and Schultz were also indicted for their actions regarding Sandusky, but on the eve of the trial, they both pleaded guilty to a child's mischief and testified on behalf of the prosecutor. Both have since served similar sentences of imprisonment.
Spanier did not testify at his trial and told the judge, when sentencing, that he regretted not to intervene with more force.
Sandusky is serving a 30 to 60 year sentence in a state prison and has recently won a new sentence order.
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