In a Sept. 17 Reuters article appearing in the Chicago Tribune, Associate Dean Dan Filler commented on the upcoming Oct. 9 sentencing hearing of convicted child molester and former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky. 

According to the article, Sandusky faces up to 373 years in prison for sexually abusing 10 boys over a period of 15 years. Filler, who has previously commented extensively on the Sandusky and other high-profile criminal cases, said that the sentencing judge, Judge John Cleland, could have the sentences run consecutively or impose the minimum guidelines.  "In the end, however, judges are very politically sensitive in cases like this. Whatever the guidelines call for, I believe the judge will impose a sentence that is functionally life without hope of parole," Filler added. 

Filler studies the effects of social anxiety on the development of criminal law. He clerked for Judge J. Dickson Phillips Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit before becoming assistant public defender for the Defender Association of Philadelphia and then staff attorney for the Bronx Defenders.