Jerry Sandusky Trial: Sue Paterno's Involvement and More Notes as Trial Begins

After over seven months of legal maneuvering and pre-trial negotiating, the trial of Jerry Sandusky on 52 counts of underage sexual assault charges is about to begin.

Jury selection for the trial began on Tuesday morning, and the process of weeding the 220 potential jurors down to the jury of 12 (and four alternates) is expected to take long enough that, according to The Patriot-News, Judge John Cleland told potential jurors the actual trial itself won't begin until Monday. The jurors that are ultimately selected will not be sequestered, per Cleland. 

One potential source of controversy lies in the defense's list of potential witnesses (via The Patriot-News), which includes son Jay Paterno and Sue Paterno, the late Joe Paterno's wife. Presumably, Joe Paterno would have been on this list too if he hadn't passed away. After all, he had testified to the grand jury during the investigation leading to Sandusky's arrest. 

The defense is not required to call anybody on its list, and it's certainly possible that neither Jay nor Sue are called. But it's just as possible that they are.

Per CBSNews.com, the judge denied requests from several alleged victims to have their names withheld and just use aliases instead. That's going to be a controversial decision, but Cleland wasn't convinced that the potential harm faced outweighed the need for openness in his court.

Cleland's decision is available here.

It's worth noting that regardless of whether the alleged victims' real names are used, there are going to be some ugly moments in this trial. In particular, Joe Amendola is probably going to ask some questions that cross boundaries of common decency and taste, and there will probably be depictions that will resonate in our minds for quite sometime.  

That's not because Amendola is necessarily a bad guy, either. It's because he's a defense lawyer in an underage sexual assault case, and if he didn't ask uncomfortable questions in search of answers that would help his client (and thus harm the credibility of the prosecution), he wouldn't be doing his job.

Similarly, there are going to be some things that the prosecution brings out against Sandusky that might be downright vomit-inducing. Again: this is the nature of the case, and it is absolutely unavoidable.

So, buckle up. Things are about to get rough. Sensibilities will need to be checked at the door. Unfortunately, that's just the way it is with the judicial process in cases like these.

UPDATE: Nine of 12 jurors have been selected, according to the Patriot-News. The trial will start Monday regardless of when juror selection is finished.

Be sure to stay tuned to Bleacher Report and the Big Ten Blog for more Jerry Sandusky trial updates.