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Lawyer for Lynn Attacks Child Endangerment Conviction

By Max Mitchell
Legal Intelligencer
November 18, 2014

http://www.thelegalintelligencer.com/latest-news/id=1202676741576/Lawyer-for-Lynn-Attacks-Child-Endangerment-Conviction?mcode=1395262324557&curindex=0&slreturn=20141018132415

The attorney representing the first Catholic Church administrative official convicted of endangering the welfare of children abused by other priests argued today before the state Supreme Court that the conviction should not stand because the official did not have any supervisory interactions with the children.

Thomas A. Bergstrom of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney argued before the six justices in Harrisburg that the reason the court should uphold the Superior Court’s decision tossing out the conviction of Monsignor William J. Lynn is that Lynn did not knowingly endanger the child who had been abused by a priest Lynn oversaw.

“He didn’t know this child. He never met this child. He didn’t know this child existed,” Bergstrom said.

Lynn had been convicted under an earlier version of Pennsylvania’s law criminalizing endangerment of the welfare of children, which did not specifically indicate that the law extended to someone who employs or supervises parents, guardians, or supervisors. However, in December 2013, a unanimous three-judge Superior Court panel in Commonwealth v. Lynn reversed the conviction and discharged Lynn, holding that because Lynn was not a direct supervisor of any of the alleged victims, the pre-amended statute did not apply in the case.

 

 

 

 

 




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