Jerry Sandusky

The Pennsylvania Superior Court has vacated the sentence of convicted serial child molester Jerry Sandusky and ordered a new hearing for the former Penn State assistant football coach under new U.S. Supreme Court standards for mandatory minimum sentencing schemes.

A three-judge Superior Court panel unanimously vacated his sentence Tuesday, finding it went against Supreme Court precedent. Sandusky, who was convicted in 2012 on 45 of 48 counts for sexually abusing numerous children, was sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison.

“We agree with the parties that pursuant to the holdings in Alleyne and Wolf, the imposition of mandatory minimum sentences was illegal,” Judge Carolyn Nichols said in the court's 119-page opinion. The panel denied a new trial but said, “We vacate the judgment of sentence in its entirety and remand for resentencing without imposition of mandatory minimum terms.”

Sandusky raised 22 challenges in the latest appeal, which was taken under the Post-Conviction Relief Act, but the intermediate court rejected everything except the challenge to the sentence.

Sandusky's attorney Alexander Lindsay said he plants to seek a new trial order from the Supreme Court.

“The court has an opportunity to correct one of the most profound injustices in the history of American Jurisprudence,” he said in a statement.

Joe Grace, spokesman for the Pennsylvania attorney general's Office, said in an emailed statement that Sandusky's claims have been “thoroughly explored” through multiple briefs and hearings, and prosecutors are pleased the conviction remains intact.

“Our office looks forward to appearing for the new sentencing proceeding and submitting argument to the court as to why this convicted sex offender should remain behind bars for a long time,” Grace said.

Sandusky's appeal argued that court decisions showed his prior attorneys, Karl R. Rominger and Joseph L. Amendola, provided ineffective assistance. Sandusky said, among other things, that he should have been advised against going on national television to talk with Bob Costas and should have been advised to testify at trial.

But on those ineffective-assistance issues and several more, the Superior Court panel agreed with the lower court's findings that the challenges did not merit a new trial.

“Although attorney Amendola testified that he would have made a different decision 'as a Monday morning quarterback,' we do not employ hindsight analysis in evaluating the reasonableness of counsel's trial strategies,” Nichols said, regarding Sandusky's challenge to Amendola's decision to call a certain witness. “Therefore, we agree with the PCRA court's conclusion that attorney Amendola pursued a reasonable strategy, and could not be found constitutionally ineffective.”