Shapiro vows to appeal dismissal of Spanier conviction

A day after a federal judge scrapped former Penn State University President Graham Spanier’s conviction on a child endangerment charge on the eve of his reporting to prison, the state attorney general pledged to appeal the decision.

Mr. Spanier, 70, was convicted of a misdemeanor in March 2017 in relation to his handling of the allegations of child sex abuse against former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

Mr. Spanier was slated to begin a two-month prison sentence Wednesday, but U.S. Magistrate Judge Karoline Mehalchick overturned the conviction on Tuesday. She ruled that Mr. Spanier was charged with the 2007 version of the child endangerment law even though his conduct in question occurred when a different statute was in place six years earlier. That, she wrote, “violates bedrock constitutional principles of due process.”

State Attorney General Josh Shapiro said Wednesday that he intends to appeal the ruling.

“In a last-minute and highly unusual decision … a federal magistrate set Spanier free just before he was finally about to begin serving his deserved sentence,” he said in a news release. “Federal courts have very limited power to act in state criminal proceedings, and this ruling plainly exceeded that power.

“As the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has made crystal clear, Spanier’s conduct was illegal,” his release continued. “The Office of Attorney General will quickly appeal this ruling to hold him accountable for his conduct covering up child sexual abuse. No one is above the law.”

His office has 90 days to retry Mr. Spanier under the 1995 version of the statute, which was in place in 2001. It could also appeal Judge Mehalchick’s ruling in the federal system.

Mr. Spanier’s attorneys, Samuel W. Silver and Bruce P. Merenstein, responded in a statement saying they were “dismayed” that Mr. Shapiro “would blatantly and prejudicially misrepresent facts in a public announcement.”

“Contrary to Attorney General Shapiro’s statement, there is no evidence that Graham Spanier was personally advised that children were being sexually abused,” they wrote.

They pledged to continue to defend Mr. Spanier “against this overzealous and unlawful prosecution,” though not “through hyperbolic statements like that of the Attorney General.”