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.
You'd just keep doing that until the defendant had no one but drooling idiots to defend him.
What you can't have is a lawyer electing to serve as both a witness and counsel.
The judge is in over her head and wants out of this one ~ she just stepped in it.
All that happens is the trials (of the 37) get delayed and if they're old enough some of them will die, etc.
There are worse places than wiki. There are places that have been giving “answers” for close to 2000 years and yet, not a single “answer” is truth. But that doesn’t stop over one billion searchers from proclaiming the site as gospel.
Not at all. We can all read how you tag every criticism of anything Roman Catholic with the caveat that everyone else is doing it, too.
Are you implying the Roaming Calvin survived on a Diet of Worms?
NOW NOW. Perhaps we should be more respectful [/sar]
Whining is an RC religious duty of obligation . . . or some such.
At least a few Stations of
The Stations of the White Hanky:
3. THE ICON OF THE IVORY HANDLED DAGGER—HONORING THE DOCTRINE OF—WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS—KILL THE MESSENGER.
10. ICON OF THE 6.66” IVORY NOSE STUCK HIGH IN THE AIR—IN HONOR OF THE DOCTRINE OF HUBRIS TO THE SUPREME DEGREE
17. ICON of the gilded ivory nose with olive branch surround in honor of the doctrine of THE UNDIVINE RIGHT OF TERMINAL SNOOTINESS TO THE MAX.
20. ICON OF THE GOLDEN THUMB SUCK IN HONOR OF RC’S RELIGIOUS DUTY TO BE TERMINALLY OFFENDED 24/7/365.
22. ICON of the golden sharp stick—in honor of the Religious Duty Of Obligation to poke a sharp stick into the nearest Proddy’s eyes or gut and then to run wailing and whining at top frequency and top volume to the nearest authority when the Proddy dares to have a response.
24. ICON of the tiny gold Rube Goldberg Perpetual Motion Machine model in honor of The Vatican RELIGIOUS OBLIGATION of being Perpetually Offended.
27. ICON of the tiny golden whining siren in behalf of the sacred call to whine 24/7/365 or whenever within 200 feet of a Proddy.
Don’t give up your day job - please.
If you can substantiate the lies in 552, using respectable sources, let me know.
Yes, I've been looking over your flawed Pew study. I would like to offer City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center 2001 Survey
The following 35 Christian denominations and their membership statistics were taken from the 2001 "American Religious Identification Survey" conducted by The Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
In the 2001 survey, 50,281 American residential households were asked "What is your religion, if any?" without a suggested list of potential answers or prompts. People who identified themselves as "Christian" or "Protestant" in response to the question were then asked to further specify their particular denomination though some chose not to do so. This list of 35 denominations is a reflection of the range of those responses.
Catholic 38.80%
Baptist 25.80%
Lutheran 7.31%
Presbyterian 4.27%
Protestant 3.54%
Pentecostal/Charismatic 3.36%
Episcopalian/Anglican 2.63%
Mormon / Latter-Day Saints 2.13%
Churches of Christ 1.91%
Nondenominational 1.90%
Congregational/United Church of Christ 1.05%
Jehovah's Witness 1.02%
Assemblies of God 0.84%
Evangelical 0.79%
Church of God 0.72%
Seventh-Day Adventist 0.55%
Orthodox (Eastern) 0.49%
Holiness/Holy 0.43%
Church of the Nazarene 0.41%
Disciples of Christ 0.38%
Church of the Brethren 0.27%
Mennonite 0.26%
Reformed/Dutch Reform 0
.22% Apostolic/New Apostolic 0.19%
Quaker 0.17%
Christian Science 0.15%
Full Gospel 0.13%
Christian Reform 0.06%
Independent Christian Church 0.05%
Foursquare Gospel 0.05%
Fundamentalist 0.05%
Born Again 0.04%
Salvation Army 0.02%
Just as a reminder to the cynical, this survey was done blind by the CUNY; it asked the respondants to self-identify their religious affiliation - which removes any of the objections to organizations keeping non members on rolls - and this is what the numbers stack up to. The CUNY does not have the political bias that Pew does; I believe these numbers are far more accurate than anything that the antiCatholic chorus is warbling about.
Read 'em and whine while you're considering the accuracy of these numbers and the objective fact collecting and methodology of this study versus the flawed Pew study.
AMEN!
Did you ever think you'd have to make such simple corrections regarding Christianity?
Praying to angels. Praying to human beings. Praying to dead people who may or may not be in heaven.
One of my favorites is the idiotic advice of Francis of Assisi -- "Pray without words."
Kind of like "believe without thought."
“What you can’t have is a lawyer electing to serve as both a witness and counsel.”
I think I’ve said that about ten times now but thanks for reminding me!
The judge has a spine and maybe that is the problem?
BBZZZZZZZZZZZTTTTTTTT
WRONG AGAIN.
Show me where Dr E declared that
evangelical or protestant were denominations!
Sometimes I think that FR RC’s collect together in smoke filled rooms with lots of Scotch
and see who can come up with the most outlandish falsehoods about Proddys.
Oh come, now.
Bookmarking this. I've had past misgivings about Pew polling data.
Plus, there's an ethical standard that says calling an opposing lawyer as a witness solely to hobble the defense is unethical.
What I said!
I hope you weren't under the impression that a lawyer, or his buddies, has to drop a client simply because some other lawyer named one of them as a witness.
Besides, the lawyer who is named as a witness can continue to work on case development and investigation.
The judge is trying to get out of handling this one.
What they can’t manage
in TRUTH TELLING
because so much of their house is built on phoney cards . . . and tooth pick splinters . . . of strange Scripture manglings . . .
they make up for
in masses of RC FREEPERS parking their anatomies on their abuse bottons wailing about how horrible Proddy truth telling is to their sensibilities, thin skins and their !!!!DEMANDS!!!! that FR become a directly managed arm of the Vatican.
Same reason that people are fascinated by fast-approaching train wrecks. A simple pleasure in anticipating the impending destruction. We compare the theology of the OPC to Christianity in the same way that we might compare the perceptions of Charlie Sheen to reality.
Naw.
Most proddys are allergic to whining.
We leave that to RC’s—particularly given that it seems to be a passionately cherished RELIGIOUS duty of obligation.
I am telling you that the prosecution can't just name him as a witness and force him out of the case ~ particularly if there's reason to believe the prosecution is using that as a TACTIC.
Double for the judge.
I think the evidence is there that the Prosecutor and the Judge are trying to get this guy out of the case entirely.
Also, when you name an opposing counsel as a witness it had darned well be about something that's going to be MEANINGFUL. If they don't have photos no one is going to be interested in a letter.
Truly there are many paths to satori and even the RCs can be right.
Offhand, I can't think of many, and certainly not many of the antiCatholics on FR. Imagine preaching that the Gospel of Jesus is only for the Jews and that it is Paul who holds the salvation of all, not Jesus. Paulianity and Gnosticism and Nestorianism and Modalism are Christian heresies. It imperils one's soul to wallow delightedly in them the way that many do here.
Who
NEEDS
to “defame”
the emporer walking down the street naked?
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