So you are calling for the prosecution of ESPN management who had direct evidence? Funny, have you called for the firing of Boeheim or anyone at Syracuse?
By the way, what Joe "knew" he took to authorities. You have no idea what those folks did with what Joe heard from his asst. about a former coach. If Joe hadn't reported what he'd heard, he'd still have a job, like Boeheim does. The supposed "cover-up" including reporting hearsay. Craziest cover I've ever heard of.
No, it didn't. I assume you're not an attorney (and for that I commend you). "Hearsay" is a legal term that applies to evidence presented in court. Nothing said to Paterno was evidence presented in court.
Hearsay is a statement made out of court that is offered in court as evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted. Because the information from McQueary was not being offered as evidence in court, it wasn't hearsay.
There are so many exceptions to the hearsay rule that your evidence professor will joke that excluding evidence as hearsay is an exception to the hearsay exceptions. In this case, what Paterno heard was not hearsay because it wasn't offered as evidence in court, consisting of a statement by McQueary made out of court as proof that what McQueary said was true. Even in court, it could be offered for other purposes (although a judge may find that what McQueary said was so highly prejudicial to Sandusky that he or she would exclude it on that basis).
Incidentally, Pennsylvania is one of only a handful of states in which Paterno, as a faculty member of a university, wasn't required by law to report a reasonable allegation of suspected child abuse. Pennsylvania's a little backwards in that respect. Apparently the Nittany Valley is even a little backwards for what Pennsylvanians who aren't fervent Penn State supporters think.
We've already been through this with Paterno apologists. If it was 'hearsay' when Paterno heard it, it was 'hearsay' when Curley and Schultz heard it. And 23 Pa. Cons. Stat. Section 2311 technically doesn't make Curley or Schultz responsible for reporting; the statute makes Spanier responsible. Curley and Schultz are only responsible because they didn't report up the ladder and failed to report it to the proper authorities.