Christine Flowers: The over-zealous prosecution of Monsignor William Lynn

By Christine Flowers
Daily Times
January 02, 2016

http://www.delcotimes.com/article/DC/20160102/NEWS/160109951

Tenacity is a good thing. If you believe in something strongly enough, it’s a sign of character to keep fighting for your version of justice.

Maureen Faulkner is an example of admirable tenacity, investing decades of her life, all of her youth and much of her middle age to making her husband’s murderer accountable for his death. Mumia Abu-Jamal is still alive, and has brainwashed some addled activists into believing that he’s a victim of a racist system. But the fact that he is still behind bars and reviled as subhuman by most of those who have a soul is in large part attributable to that small and mighty woman’s crusade.

But there are those crusades that pass for a form of justice and are, instead, vindictive witch hunts carried out for a variety of reasons. There is the desire for revenge. There is the desire for publicity. There is the desire for something to tamp down the guilty nausea that roils in the gut of those who did nothing to prevent a crime, and who therefore grasp at any opportunity to say, “here, I’m making amends! Please forgive me!”

The prosecution of Monsignor William Lynn is a fascinating, and tragic, combination of all those things. It is an attempt to get that pound of flesh from a Catholic church that is hated and vilified by ex-Catholics, non-Catholics and troubled Catholics. It is a way of strutting one’s professional cred in front of an admiring audience, one that will cheer any attempt to slay the evil abusers (even imaginary ones, like the owners of the McMartin Pre-School.) It is an effective method for those who looked the other way while abuse was occurring on their watch to pay a penance beyond five Hail Marys and a command to “go and sin no more.”

Perhaps the only thing the prosecution of William Lynn is not, is a legitimate use of prosecutorial discretion.

Seth Williams is a tenacious man. He is a smart man. He is, above all things, an ambitious man. Sometimes, his ambition is for his office, which he hopes to perfect and turn into one of the finest municipal institutions in the city, and the nation. In some respects, he has been extremely successful, particularly in his courage in defying a pathetic and whining attorney general named Kathleen Kane, exposing her for the mediocre lawyer and politician that she is.

He also has represented the interests of the Pennsylvania electorate by challenging the constitutionality of Gov. Tom Wolf’s moratorium on the death penalty, a move that speaks truth to PC Power. Unless the Legislature invalidates the death penalty or the judiciary rules it unconstitutional, an executive cannot enforce a unilateral bar on one particular form of punishment without consideration for the specific details of each case brought before him.

So Seth has his glory moments. But the single-minded pursuit of Monsignor Lynn casts a sad, blood-colored shadow over his otherwise admirable accomplishments.

There’s no need to recount in any great detail the chronology of Lynn’s Calvary. Suffice it to say that in 2012, he was indicted under a law that was inapplicable to him, and convicted by a judge who had absolutely no understanding of the words “prejudicial evidence.” At the trial held that year, the “Honorable” Teresa Sarmina exhibited such bias against the defendant and his attorneys that, three years later, a three-judge panel of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania found that the conviction for child endangerment was fatally flawed.

You would think that even a tenacious prosecutor would see the writing on the wall, writing set in capital letters and which essentially screamed, “end this now!” and move on to other noble crusades (like making sure the people responsible for the beating death of a homeless white man will spend many decades in jail for committing a hate crime.)

But Seth Williams and his crew, including a former prosecutor named Patrick Blessington who likes his pornographic, sexist and racist emails, aren’t ready to cough up this bone. They have their prosecutorial teeth sunk deeply into this case, and they are out for blood.

To them, there was no prejudice in exposing jurors to evidence of abuse and abusers with which Monsignor Lynn had no contact and over which he had no control.

To them, it was perfectly acceptable that a sitting judge would describe the defendant’s (and my own) church as an institution universally infected by pedophilia.

To them, it made no difference that the law under which they charged the defendant was never intended to cover an administrator like him. It was amended in 2007, they said, so it doesn’t matter that the old version didn’t make him a criminal.

The ends justify the means, especially when the ends are to feed a sick hunger on the part of those who have an innate hatred of religious institutions, one in particular.

It’s interesting that advocates of this prosecution were, until recently, focused only on one church. They had very little interest in the type of sexual abuse that occurs in public schools, for instance. They argued for statutes of limitations to be eliminated only in cases involving the Catholic church, and barely considered similar treatment for secular institutions. Due process, they seemed to be saying, doesn’t apply to those wearing a Roman collar.

They were shamed into changing their tune, especially after Jerry Sandusky proved that you were more likely to find coaches abusing young boys in locker rooms than priests destroying their innocence in vestibules.

But still we have Seth Williams leading the charge against William Lynn, and promising that he will file an appeal with the Superior Court for an en banc hearing before all of the judges.

He’ll get it. And the sad show trial will continue, when it should have ended years ago.

The only saving grace at this point is that Monsignor Lynn has a very good chance of being granted bail, so that he can wait for the resolution of his case from beyond the limits of prison walls.

It’s not much comfort, for a man who has seen his reputation shredded by vengeful men and women and has waited years for vindication.

But, as I said, those who pursue justice are a tenacious bunch.

Even those who know what it really is.