Posted on 03/26/2011 12:59:03 PM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg
At an intensely combative and vitriolic hearing Friday afternoon in a sex-abuse case that has shaken the Philadelphia Archdiocese to its core, a state court judge shocked one priest's defense attorney by disclosing that the government thinks he might be a witness as a former seminarian and could be disqualified from the case. The lawyer, who represents one of three current and former Roman Catholic priests charged with raping boys in their parish, fired back that prosecutors were being "anti-Catholic" and had uttered an "abomination."
Judge Renee Cardwell Hughes told defense attorney Richard DeSipio that she's received information that "might make you, in fact, a witness because of events that occurred while you were a seminarian."
The information "stems from the fact that you attended the seminary with a student who asserts he was abused," Hughes said, adding that DeSipio "may possess factual knowledge about abuse that occurred with that student."
She added that the substance of the claim that DiSipio witnessed something is still unclear. "I just don't know if it's true," Hughes said. "I really don't know if it's true."
Yelling and visibly upset, DeSipio demanded that the government, then and there, identify the source of the allegation. "Let them spill it out right now!" DeSipio demanded.
"How dare they send you a letter about that," DeSipio said, referring to the district attorney's office. "That's an abomination."
Prosecutors said only that part of DeSipio's seminary training overlapped with the tenure of a senior clergyman accused of endangering children by failing to protect them from priests with a known history of abuse.
Monsignor William Lynn, now pastor of St. Joseph Church in Downingtown, Pa., is reportedly the highest-ranking member of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States ever to be charged with child endangerment. Between 1984 and 1992, he served as dean of men at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, Pa., according to his biography on St. Joseph's website. As the secretary for clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1992 to 2004, Lynn acted as personnel director for priests. He is accused of ignoring reports of abuse, covering up for them and putting children in danger.
"They are anti-Catholic. I'll say it," DiSipio fumed. "[The district attorney is] attacking me as a Catholic!"
The judge rejected DiSipio's claim. "Attack you? You attacked me! You don't even know me!" Hughes said, referring to a prior argument over the necessity of a preliminary hearing, another hotly contested issue Friday afternoon.
"Mr. DeSipio, I suggest you shut up," Hughes said. "People are coming from out of the woodwork [to provide information to the commonwealth.]"
If the government can prove the allegation is credible in 30 days, DeSipio will be disqualified as the archdiocese's attorney.
"You can change lawyers now, you can change lawyers in 30," the judge warned DeSipio's client, the Rev. James Brennan. "[But] there are some conflicts that are not waivable."
DeSipio argued that the 30-day investigation was "really unfair to Father Brennan," given his mounting legal costs.
Judge Hughes was livid that DeSipio spoke up again. "If you open your mouth one more time I am going to have the sheriff take you out of here," she told DeSipio.
As DeSipio continued to argue, Hughes said she might have him "locked up and held in contempt." Instead she issued a gag order, responding to what she observed as attorneys having "gone to the airways to advocate."
"No more interviews with anyone," the judge ruled.
"Does that include the DA going on Chris Matthews' 'Hardball' and going to the New York Times," defense attorney Michael McGovern asked.
The judge responded affirmatively: "I don't want tweets. I don't want Facebook. I don't want IMs [instant messages]."
Hughes said the court will revisit the gag order on April 15, when defendants are to be arraigned. That date also marks the deadline for the DA to provide the defense with the first batch of discovery, she said.
All but one of the defense attorneys challenged the government's amendment to its case, which added a conspiracy charge that had not explicitly been requested of the grand jury.
"The issue here is that if the DA seeks to amend, it has to be subject to some sort of prima facie determination," the defense argued.
The judge found otherwise, ruling that the commonwealth established "good cause" in its pleadings and that "there is no constitutional right - federal or state - for a preliminary hearing."
It was "a technical error on the commonwealth not to charge conspiracy" originally, Hughes said. "Conspiracy is made," and the defendants will not be afforded a preliminary hearing, she ruled.
Hughes said there was abundant evidence to support the amendment.
"I'm the only person, besides the prosecutors, who has seen every stitch of evidence," she said.
Defense attorney McGovern argued that her admission was precisely the problem.
"Your Honor, this is patently unfair!" McGovern said. "You know the evidence. They know the evidence. I don't know what the evidence is! I haven't seen any!"
The attorney said proceeding to trial without a preliminary hearing was like saying, "Let's have a dart game in a dark room."
"What kind of country is this where we have this?" he shouted.
The judge yelled back, baring her teeth: "You sit down! Sit, sit, sit!"
DeSipio agreed with McGovern that their clients deserve a preliminary hearing, which could allow them to confront their accusers.
"There's no witness. I know that they [the prosecutors] don't like that he's in jail," DeSipio said. "This accuser says there was an erect penis in his buttocks."
"Was it in your buttocks, or was it in your anus," he asked rhetorically. "If that question wasn't asked [of the grand jury], and he didn't specify anus or butt cheeks, I have a right to ask that."
"What you can't do, and what I submit they're trying to do, is say just because we have a grand jury, we have good cause [to by-pass a preliminary hearing]," DeSipio said.
The judge also addressed a potential conflict of interest concerning Monsignor Lynn, who unlike the three current and former priests, faces child endangerment charges - not rape or sexual assault. Plans for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to pay Lynn's legal costs present "a whole array of conflicts that I can't even imagine at this point in time," Hughes said.
"It's real simple," the judge said to Lynn, who was donning his clerical collar, "your master is the person that's putting bread on the table."
"It may be in your best interest to put forth a defense that attacks other people [or the church]," Hughes said.
She told Lynn he was putting himself in the position of receiving "advice from people who are being paid by people whose interests don't necessarily align with yours."
The stakes of this gamble could amount to "14 years of incarceration versus probation," she said.
Lynn, in a calm voice, declined. "Well, I trust these two men." he said, adding that the church hadn't placed any conditions on the payment of his legal costs.
Hughes was incredulous. "You are making a knowing, voluntary and intelligent decision to place yourself in conflict with your attorneys?" she asked.
"I am," Lynn responded, waiving his right to any future appeal based on the argument that his attorneys had a conflict of interest.
"Then we're moving forward," the judge said.
After arraignments and release of the first batch of discovery, which will include grand jury notes and testimony, on April 15, the government will begin putting together a second batch. The government said that batch would take longer to produce, as it will include roughly 10,000 pages of documentation, much of which will need to be redacted.
Hughes said the government must give the defense a specific timeline for the production of the second batch. "There has to be some finality," she said.
In January, a grand jury returned an indictment for rape and sexual assault against one current priest, one defrocked priest and one man who taught at a Catholic school. Monsignor Lynn, the third cleric who worked for the archdiocese as secretary of clergy, is accused of giving known abusers easy access to minors.
Where is your quotation marks in that statement?
These two surveys came to similar conclusions where they overlapped on this figure:
That about 25% of the U.S population over 18 yrs. old identified themselves as Catholic and about 50%+ as Protestant of the 76% identified as Christian.
See:
religions.pewforum.org/
and
www.gc.cuny.edu/faculty/research_briefs/.../key_findings.htm
There is more of course for anyone interested.
Perhaps, but far too many took it off topic. I’m guilty myself by replying to them in their off topic post to me.
The second link was incorrect. It was supposed to be this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2695139/posts?page=650#650
I’ll post a corrected version of 1119.
I am sort of tired of this constant attacks by the left, by the homosexuals and others against the Catholic Church. Of course we had abusers of children, but over all the odds of your kid getting raped by a schoold teacher are way higher than getting raped by a priest. I love the Catholic Church and admire it greatly. It has had a long history from the past, a notable role in modern history, and will have a notable and ongoing role in the future to come. I predict that in the end, it will not be the homosexual lobby that will win over society, and I believe the Catholic Church will be around as a world power (and yes, I mean power, not just player) long after I am dead.
“The is your mistake - not metmom’s.”
No, it’s metmom’s.
“Being careless can’t be someone else’s fault.”
Metmom’s carelessness was her fault, if it actually was carelessness.
“Here’s how you posted it...
And that last one is the kicker — Mediatrix? Really? Where in scripture did God say this? So..... “
NO where is there any indication it was someone else’s words.”
You dishonestly quote me out of context and then claim that there was no indication that it was someone else’s words when I did use quotation marks to indicate they were someone else’s words. At any rate, if there was any confusion, metmom could have easily referred back to the previous post where she would again have seen that those were Hoss’s words. At any rate, I have asked metmom three times already to apologize for her mistake, and now it will be the fourth. Metmom, I will accept an apology if you admit your mistake, apologize, and ping all the others who you pinged to your false statement to your apology.
“You owe metmom an apology for taunting her for your own mistake or sloppiness in posting.”
You owe me an apology for saying this is my mistake, for saying that I was the one being careless, for dishonestly quoting me out of context, and for claiming that there was no indication that it was someone else’s words.
Here is the link to 944, where metmom made the false statement that she has not yet retracted, despite given multiple opportunities:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2695139/posts?page=944#944
And here is the post metmom falsely used as evidence:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2695139/posts?page=650#650
It’s extremely foolish to think you can get away with dishonestly quoting me out of context and lying about my post when I have the links right here and everyone can see them.
Once it reaches this point, I don’t think it’s salvageable.
Which was the sole point of my post upon returning... so now I’m leaving again.
May God bless us all.
You did it again - these are my words to you....
NO where is there any indication it was someone else’s words.”
and you posted it and there is no quote marks in the front of the statement - that’s the same thing you did with the other one you are complaining about. That’s carelessness.
lol. Exactly. You don’t find Protestants pleading for the threads to be pulled or sent to the gulag.
As the RM noted, that’s often a debate tactic, and a very poor one.
After all this time it’s clear that when posters stoop to calling people names and diverting the topic of the thread they are obviously hoping to create such a fuss that the thread disappears.
Truth is often inconvenient.
In 650, they were in a few places. You should have see them. If you were having trouble, you could have referred back to post 614. The relevant quotation marks are before the word "as" and after the periods after the word "so."
It may have been a little confusing, but if there was any confusion, post 614 could have easily been referred back to. In 1106, you said this, and it is blatantly false:
NO where is there any indication it was someone else's words.
If you admit to being wrong and apologize, not to mention possibly being dishonest, I'll accept your apology.
That is not true and has been disproved dozens of times on these threads.
37 priests in one city in one diocese.
That's the real problem in the RCC. And it has nothing to do with the homosexual lobby or Protestants or liberals or the MSM.
The problem of pederast priests rests solely on the RCC hierarchy which encourages, protects and promotes criminals to the ranks of "another Christ."
It doesn't take a PhD in theology to realize nothing good will come from a person who believes himself to be "another Christ."
Evil begets evil.
Thank you. And yet somehow we’ll still hear those numbers are wrong. The same numbers found in every survey of Christian denominations.
“NO where is there any indication it was someone else’s words.” is contained in the quotation marks before the word “Here’s” and after the word “words.”
If that was too hard for you to comprehend, you could have referred back to the previous post.
One has to go back and forth to see if you posted correctly? Trying being more careful in posting. If you don’t want to spend the time placing quotation marks in the FRONT and back but everyone else should spend time going back and forth.
I went to one of your post and I saw NO quotation mark in the front - why would anyone think you made a mistake and left it out or deliberately left it out. It totally looks like your words. We are not to mind read here.
This reminds me of the your photobucket incident.
“This reminds me of the your photobucket incident.”
Why, because both never happened?
My posting technique was perfectly normal and I’ll just let the lurkers see who is right.
Like I said, I never had a photobucket incident.
It was Quix and Titanites, not me.
Courtesy pings.
No, it doesn't take long at all.
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