I can't say I take any pride in it, but I believe I was the first FR member to post the link to the Grand Jury presentment, back on November 4th or 5th.
In my profession, I'm trained to read a document at least twice. The first time I read it to see what's in it; the second time I read it to see what's not in it. Often times the second reading is just as important as the first.
I'm a grown man with no ties to Pennsylvania or Penn State, but JoePa was one of my last heros. As a kid back in Seattle, I put black electrical tape down the middle of my while backyard football helmet so I could 'play' for JoePa and the Nittany Lions.
That second reading - for what wasn't in it - made my stomach drop. In the GJ presentment, they're careful always to specifically say what Party A claims to have told Party B, and to specifically say what Party B claims to have been told by Party A. In one case involving a meeting among McQueary, Curley, and Schultz, the GJ presentment details what each person claims to have said or heard.
Out of all of the conversations detailed in the presentment, the GJ and prosecutor are extremely careful not to tell you exactly what McQueary says he told Joe Paterno. Paterno says he was told it was "fondling" or "something of a sexual nature" - but not anal rape. McQueary told everybody else it was anal rape.
The presentment goes into those details, except when addressing what McQueary told Paterno. Then it just says that McQueary told Paterno what he saw.
Curley and Schultz were charged with perjury for testifying that they weren't told it was anal rape. Paterno - an untouchable figure and an 84-year-old man, wasn't charged, although he testified that he wasn't told it was anal rape. And we're not told what McQueary testified he told Paterno. There's a big hole in the presentment. And the hole reads as if Paterno was shown respect and deference by not printing that information and by not charging Paterno with perjury although he apparently did the same thing as Curley and Schultz.
I have not read the presentment, so your explanation raises a question for me. Was the meeting where McQueary told Curley and Schultz what he saw a meeting at which JoPa was present as well? If so, then I think your suggestion of selective prosecution must be correct.
But if that was not the same meeting, I think there may be another explanation. Or perhaps two. The first is that perhaps because of JoPa's status, age, whatever, McQueary was simply more self-conscious when talking to him, and so didn't go into the same degree of detail he went into with the other two guys. He just sort of hinted at it because he was so uncomfortable with the subject matter, etc.. Or perhaps when he started going down that road, JP simply cut him off and told him to go talk to the higher ups.p> The other explanation is that regardless of what he actually told JoPa, McQueary's memory of/testimony to that exact conversation was not clear. Perhaps he was so shook up that he really couldn't remember it, or he was just protecting JP. So, there was insufficient detail to fill out the presentment on that issue, and insufficient detail to indict JoPa.
Personally, I think one of those two explanations is more likely than either the GC or the prosecutors having a clear case against JP, and just deciding not to prosecute/indict. But certainly, that is possible as well.