BishopAccountability.org

Christine Flowers: Unjustly convicted, priest has a new shot at justice

By Christine Flowers
Daily Times
December 26, 2015

http://www.delcotimes.com/article/DC/20151226/NEWS/151229772

Msgr. William Lynn walks from the criminal justice center in Philadelphia in January 2014.

If “A” hurts me, I am his victim and have the right to sue him in a court of law for damages. If what “A” did also amounts to a criminal act, he can be prosecuted and, if found guilty, sentenced to a long prison term.

But this only works if there is a legitimate nexus between what “A” did and the harm I presumably suffered. Even if “A” violated some other legal obligation for which he could be held responsible, I can’t attempt to make him pay for a crime he didn’t commit, the one that caused me pain. That’s the case even if my injuries are real and easily proven. Because the American criminal justice system doesn’t believe in making one person pay for the crimes of another, no matter how satisfying that would be for the people who were unjustly wronged. We don’t “prosecute by proxy.”

Well, we usually don’t. But when it comes to the Catholic Church, the rules are completely suspended. In the wake of the verifiably horrific allegations of sexual abuse by priests and the equally horrific cover ups by the hierarchy, prosecutors have decided that the public is willing to overlook legal niceties like due process and transparency and want anyone even tangentially connected to the abuse to be punished.

Legal scholars who have pushed for an end to statutes of limitations have joined the chorus of those prosecutors, completely undermining the centuries old concepts of fairness on which this country was established.

People who normally advocate for the protection of criminal defendants and who rail against the “cruel and unusual” nature of the death penalty seem to have no problem whatsoever collecting clerical scalps to pacify those who think the church is nothing but, as one commentator has called it, “a den of pedophiles.”

Nowhere has that been more evident than here in our fair part of the country, with the outrageous and hysterically punitive prosecution of Msgr. William J. Lynn. The saga of Msgr. Lynn has gone on for years now, several of which this good man of God has been forced to spend behind bars. This is not the first time I’ve talked about the case. In fact, I’ve been following this sad trial (in the purest sense of that word,) since Lynn was convicted in a sham of a trial by Teresa Sarmina, a judge who made Judge Judy look like Oliver Wendell Holmes.

After allowing the prosecution to enter prejudicial and irrelevant evidence concerning incidences of abuse with which the defendant had no connection, and in making prejudicial the widespread incidence (in her opinion) of abuse in the Catholic Church, Lynn was convicted of a crime he did not commit, under a law which was not applicable to him. And then, to add insult to injury, he was denied bail during the pendency of his appeal. Here is what I wrote back in 2012, after the initial conviction:

“Let’s just look at what you’re supposed to look at when deciding to grant bail: Whether or not the defendant is a flight risk. And if you answer that question with some honesty, you realize that keeping an elderly clergyman locked up when drug dealers routinely get (and make) bail is preposterous.”

So Msgr. Lynn went to jail, and waited while his brave attorneys filed an appeal to the Superior Court in order to obtain justice for their client. I call them “brave,” because anyone who defends a priest these days is generally considered lower than the type of attorney who makes a living out of defending Guantanamo detainees or accused terrorists. In fact, while documentaries are made about those valiant lawyers who run to defend the civil liberties of accused jihadists, the type of man or woman who asks us to give due process and the benefit of the doubt to a Catholic priest (even one who never laid a hand on a child) is vilified.

Amazingly, though, those lawyers were able to convince the appellate judges that the lower court had erred and that the prosecution was flawed because the law underpinning the prosecution was never intended to be applied retroactively to a supervisor in Lynn’s position.

And the monsignor was set free. When that happened, exactly two years ago this month, I wrote the following in this paper:

“I am not insensitive to the anger of Catholics and non-Catholics alike when it comes to the painful reality of sexual abuse in the church. It is evil, it is criminal, it must be avenged and its victims must be made whole. But we do not seek a remedy by wadding the Constitution into a ball and using it to stanch the blood flow of the victims. We do it methodically, conscientiously, and with due respect for the laws which are meant to apply to all of us equally.”

The story, of course, did not end there. Why would it? The conviction of this man who had never touched a child but who was able to be held liable as proxy for a vilified hierarchy was an important notch on the prosecutor’s belt, and it was greeted nationwide with joy by the victim-abuse groups. And so, the case was appealed to the state Supreme Court, which reinstated the conviction on technical grounds.

And back went the monsignor, to his prison cell.

Fortunately, he has dedicated counsel. They filed yet another appeal, on the grounds that Sarmina had impermissibly allowed evidence of almost two dozen other examples of the Philadelphia archdiocese’s failure to deal effectively with priests accused of abuse, even though Lynn was only charged in connection with his supervision of two priests. The Superior Court, my former employer, agreed in a decision by Judge Emeritus John T. Bender, who wrote that inclusion of those other cases was “unfairly prejudicial” to the defendant. Judge Sarmina should have known that. A first-year law student would have known that.

And so, the next move is up to the prosecutor, Seth Williams. It will be interesting to see what Seth does with this case, now that the initial prosecutor in the matter – Patrick Blessington – is no longer handling major trials. He is one of the men who has been caught up in the porngate scandal, and he won’t be getting another shot at his favorite whipping boy.

It’s likely that there will be another trial, though. This is one of those cases where the publicity value of convicting a priest – even one who by all accounts is a good and decent man and never deliberately placed a child in harm’s way – is too great to pass up.

There are the victims groups still clamoring for heads (although they call it justice, which it is in some cases, but not in others). There are the legal scholars like Marci Hamilton who write books about the den of horrors in my church and the importance of gutting due process protections for its clergy. There are prosecutors who want to benefit from that great publicity, and ex-Catholics who want to use anything to damn the church they’ve abandoned, and current Catholics who in good faith (but in a very poor understanding of the law) want Lynn to pay for the suffering of their friends and family members.

But for now, Msgr. Lynn has been given another chance at real justice.

Let us hope that finally, in 2016, he will be able to grasp it in his arms, and finally go home.

Christine Flowers is an attorney and Delaware County resident. Her column appears every Sunday.

Contact: cflowers1961@gmail.com




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