In seeking a new trial, Sandusky's lawyers argued that the deluge of discovery material made it impossible to fully prepare a defense for the former Pennsylvania State University assistant football coach in the seven months between his arrest and his conviction in June on 45 counts of child sex abuse.
Defense lawyers also pointed to other alleged trial missteps, including Judge John M. Cleland's refusal to address with jurors the years it took many victims to report their abuse and purported hearsay evidence that was presented in the case.
Throughout Thursday's 90-minute hearing, Amendola described the harried few weeks before trial as consumed with a futile effort to catalog and study an ever-growing morass of digital files, paperwork, video, and grand jury testimony provided by prosecutors.
In all, he said, the material took up more than 12,000 pages.
At one point in June, Amendola said, he and cocounsel Karl Rominger asked to be removed from the case because they did not feel prepared to provide an adequate defense. That request was denied.
"The root of the right to have counsel is to have counsel that is prepared at trial," defense lawyer Norris Gelman said. "When a vast amount of material comes in a month before, your ability to prepare is compromised."
Cleland did not rule on the defense lawyers' request Thursday. But prosecutors - and occasionally Cleland - interjected to challenge their arguments.
Prosecutor Joseph McGettigan seized upon Amendola's concession that nothing in the material would have changed the defense's approach. Later, Cleland had questions of his own.
"What was the prejudice?" the judge asked. "What was the harm? That's where I'm hung up on this one."
When Gelman questioned whether jurors inappropriately relied upon hearsay evidence to convict Sandusky on charges stemming from a 2000 sex assault witnessed by a Penn State janitor who did not testify at trial, Cleland cut in once again.
He raised the possibility that he might throw out the jury's conviction on those counts without requiring a new trial or changing the 30- to 60-year sentence he imposed in October.
Throughout Thursday's proceedings, Sandusky sat quietly in a red prison jumpsuit, his head sunk in his hands.
He bounded into the courtroom at the start of the hearing, looking significantly thinner than he had three months earlier and flashing a broad grin at a group of family members.
Contact Jeremy Roebuck at 267-564-5218, jroebuck@phillynews.com, or @jeremyrroebuck on Twitter.
