Jerry Sandusky Hearing: Waiving Preliminary Hearing Is Smart Move for Sandusky

Today was supposed to be the day when Jerry Sandusky sat in a courtroom with the 10 men who accused him of sexual molestation. It was supposed to be the day when we learned whether or not this case would go to trial. The latter part turned out to be true, but the way we got there was a surprise. 

Sandusky waived his preliminary hearing, which means that he will go to trial. His arraignment is set for January 11. 

The move was a surprise because Sandusky's lawyer, Joe Amendola, said that his client had no plans of entering into a plea deal, and was "looking forward to the opportunity to face his accusers," according to the Associated Press.

There were reasons for Sandusky to do this. The first, and most obvious, being that the media firestorm that surrounds him right now would have increased exponentially with the testimony of his accusers; he would have been buried even deeper in this whole mess than already is. 

It also saves the accusers from having to take the stand and tell their stories again. This time they would have had to do it in public, with their names and face being all over news shows, media reports, etc. 

Sandusky has made a lot of puzzling decisions over the last month – like appearing on NBC News with Bob Costas – but this is actually the first time that he has done something smart to try and protect himself. 

Whether you think Sandusky deserves to be protected or not is irrelevant. With so much bad publicity and all the mistakes that he has made over the last five weeks, he had to take a step back and figure out a way to avoid more negative publicity. 

This was the best possible move that Sandusky could have made. One question that I had, though, is if his defense was so confident coming into this whole thing, what changed their minds over the last 24 hours?

There are a lot of questions that need to be answered, and we are going to have to wait a little bit longer before we start getting them. 

Follow @adamwells1985