[UPDATE: Yeah, not so much. Sandusky waived his preliminary hearing once everybody got to the courthouse this morning. Please continue to use the comment thread for Having A Real Good Time.]
The prosecution of Jerry Sandusky enters its opening phase today with an 8:30 a.m. preliminary hearing at the Centre County Courthouse in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. Among those expected to testify are most, if not all, of 10 alleged victims. Former Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueary may take the stand as well.
An explanation of the preliminary hearing process here, courtesy of ESPN's Lester Munson. The Honorable Robert E. Scott from Westmoreland County has assigned to this case by the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts upon the request of the Centre County Court of Common Pleas. Originally, reporters were barred from sending updates from within the courtroom. However, yesterday, Centre County Senior Judge John Cleland issued a revised order yesterday allowing reporters to tweet and text during the proceedings.
We're using Cover It Live for the proceedings, with Twitter feeds from some of the reporters on the scene. We've only included a few, in an attempt to avoid a thousand tweets on the same bits of testimony. If you see anyone out there who is doing especially good work, let us know in the comments and we'll consider adding them to the liveblog.
This hearing is almost certain to get pretty graphic and emotional. It's going to be a fascinatingly dark day and week around here, as the hearing will be subject to a renewed thermonuclear onslaught by every major news organization in the country.
Try to use the comments sparingly. As you know from the game threads during football season, these things reach a critical point around the 800-ish comment mark and the whole thread begins to slow down. For example, you don't need to repeat bits of testimony, because they'll be in the Cover It Live window.
Basically, this is going to get crazy. Let's all do our best to keep things under control in the comments from an emotional standpoint, please.
(Please.)
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