If you want to view the preliminary hearing for Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State assistant coach facing child sexual abuse charges, you’ve got 24 hours to get your lottery ticket.
The Centre County Court of Common Pleas announced Monday that applications for seating at the December 13 preliminary hearing would be accepted on the county's website on Wednesday. There is no mention as to whether only Pennsylvania residents can apply, and the website did not have the applications available as of 6 a.m. Tuesday. Its server will probably crash because of interest from throughout the United States—and the world.
There is no fee for applying for one of the seats in the courtroom, though Centre County might make a small fortune if it were legal to charge for the lottery tickets. At $1 a chance, this would be an opportunity to pay a few of the county’s bills.
Maybe this could be a way for struggling municipalities or businesses to discover newfound income—or at least keep residents or customers happy.
The city of St. Louis could sell lottery tickets for a “Mayor for a Day” sweepstakes. I doubt the city would be any worse off after those 24 hours. If anything goes wrong, the winner can blame it on someone else; if it's a good day, the winner could take all the credit.
St. Louis County could hold a “Save the Elk” lottery. If all of the folks that are up in arms over county executive Charlie Dooley’s proposal to shut down several county parks—including Lone Elk Park—would buy a lottery ticket, the county’s financial strife would be eased. The winner of the contest could be county executive for a day and see to it that friends and former campaign supporters are awarded high-paying jobs for the day, too.
Since Congressman Russ Carnahan’s seat won’t exist much longer, he should have a lottery for a day in D.C., complete with all the trappings. If you gave me 24 hours in Congress, I’m sure that I could legally end up with a new house and college educations for both my daughters—and that would be in the first hour of the day.
The St. Louis Rams will probably fire coach Steve Spagnuolo once this season is over. The team could let him go before the final home game against San Francisco on January 1 and sell lottery tickets for a chance to be "Coach of the Day.” No football coaching experience would be needed to buy a ticket. What’s the worst the winner could do? Get shut out and fail to reach the opponent's 36-yard line? The current coach's team did that on Sunday—and he makes more than $1 million a year.
Getting back to Sandusky, his trial (if he does not plead guilty) would be one of the all-time legal circuses in the history of America.
Just imagine the price of a ticket on the day that former coach Joe Paterno is called to the stand.
Commentary by Alvin Reid
