Tuesday, the principal parties involved including presiding Judge John Cleland and Jerry Sandusky meet behind closed doors for two and half hours. Did they discuss a plea bargain? You'd think in that amount of time, it at least got mentioned. But we don't know due to the ongoing gag order in the case.

We got a little information on what was discussed in the closed door session from what was said in court and in rulings issued Wednesday. The day begins with a lot of speculation about a plea bargain being finalized. But the Centre County probation office, who is in charge of supervising Sandusky's in-home detention confirmed even after Tuesday's meeting there were no plans to bring Sandusky to the courthouse.  That means any more talk of a plea deal on Wednesday was likely off the table.

Judge Cleland remains adamant if the case is going to trial it’s going to start with jury selection next week. That’s the essential message in his ruling Wednesday denying yet another request from the Sandusky defense team to delay the trial start.  Sandusky's attorney, Joe Amendola, responded by saying he may appeal the judge's decision on the trial schedule to a higher court. Judge Cleland made it clear he's not endorsing an appeal, but he can't stop Amendola from at least attempting it.  But will a higher court hear it?  It’s similar to a death row inmate making a last minute appeal for a stay of execution. The higher court could quickly issue a decision not to get involved with the case. But if they do decide to consider it and issue a stay in the case that would push back the start of the trial indefinitely. 

Another emerging issue is the degree of background checks the Attorney General’s office is doing in reviewing the personal histories of the prospective jurors. 600 jury summonses were sent out. Amendola claims he received a citizens' letter questioning the background process and filed a new motion Wednesday asking the judge to order to share their jury pool information. A key allegation is that the AG's office is using a data base system to obtain personal information about potential jurors that’s not widely available. We’re talking political, criminal, marriage, family and host of other personal history information issues. There's' apparently no legal restrictions on how detailed a check can be done on those volunteering for jury duty, but if it true it’s another sign of the great lengths the AG's office is going to make sure they win this case.  Amendola claims to the history checks performed by the AG’s office cost at least one hundred dollars per person.  Multiply that by 600 potential jurors and that is a lot of taxpayer money being spent on jury selection alone.  Then again, Amendola has  also spent a fair chunk of cash on checking the backgrounds of Sandusky's accusers. But judging by the reaction of one of the prosecutors running around the courthouse Wednesday trying to keep the juror background check issue a sealed document they don't sound too happy about it being made public. Moments after it was filed one of the members of the darn media got their hands on it and now it’s a public issue, yet another for the judge to rule on.