Markey's Attorneys Fighting Extradition for Sex Abuse Charges in Ireland.
By Jeff Parrott
South Bend Tribune
February 21, 2010
http://www.southbendtribune.com/article/20100221/News01/2210301/1130
SOUTH BEND (IN) -- An 82-year-old South Bend priest was back behind bars after a judge ruled he must return to his native Ireland to face child sex abuse charges there.
Father Francis Markey was being held without bond Saturday in the St. Joseph County Jail. It was unclear, however, when Irish police will be allowed to pick him up.
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A few hours after he turned himself in to U.S. Marshals Friday, his attorneys filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus with the U.S. District Court in South Bend. The filing argues that Markey's incarceration without bond is unconstitutional because, among other things, U.S. Magistrate Judge Christopher Nuechterlein has failed to give him a full and fair "probable cause" extradition hearing.
The U.S. Justice Department, acting locally through the U.S. attorney for the northern district of Indiana, has sought Markey's extradition at the request of Ireland, under a treaty between the two countries. In April 2008 Irish prosecutors charged Markey with twice raping a then-15-year-old boy in Ireland in 1968.
The now-57-year-old man recalled the alleged abuse to a therapist while undergoing alcoholism counseling, Markey's attorneys told Nuechterlein at a Feb. 12 hearing in South Bend. Markey's attorneys tried to argue that authorities lack probable cause to extradite him.
Markey's attorneys — Robert Truitt, of South Bend, and Mahmoud Bassiouni, a DePaul University law professor — acknowledged they know little about the alleged victim. But they wanted to present testimony from an expert witness, a Valparaiso psychologist, who would question the credibility of memories that surface in counseling as a way to connect substance abuse or mental illness to past traumatic events.
His attorneys argued that the psychologist's testimony would amount to "explanatory" evidence, allowable under case and statutory law, to question probable cause in extradition hearings.
But the government countered that the psychologist would be "impeaching" Ireland's extradition request, something not permitted under the law. Nuechterlein agreed and refused to hear the psychologist's testimony.
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