Unique issues tangle release of report on Erie diocese, others

By Ed Palattella
GoErie.com
June 23, 2018

http://www.goerie.com/news/20180623/unique-issues-tangle-release-of-report-on-erie-diocese-others#

Unsettled questions of law appear to be behind state Supreme Court order to hold off on making findings public.

The statewide grand jury report on child sexual abuse in six Roman Catholic dioceses, including the Catholic Diocese of Erie, is unprecedented due to its scope and the legal issues surrounding its release.

The extraordinary nature of the legal issues appears to have influenced the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision to delay releasing the report until the court rules on requests from several individuals who are named in the 884-page document, which remains under seal.

Grand juries operate in secret, and the Supreme Court’s six-line order, issued Wednesday, provides no details for why the justices agreed to hear requests to stay the release of the report, which Attorney General Josh Shapiro in late May said he would make public by the end of June.

But two state lawmakers who have been closely following the investigation said they believe the Supreme Court’s order is based on the need to resolve several unusual legal issues and is not an ironclad indication that the court intends to block the release of the report.

One of those lawmakers is state Rep. Mark Rozzi, a Democrat from Berks County and a prominent voice in Harrisburg for protecting the rights of child sexual-abuse victims and extending the statute of limitations in criminal and civil cases related to child sexual abuse. Though Rozzi said the Supreme Court’s order upset him, he said he has a “gut feeling” that the court will approve the release of the report in the end.

“I think the Supreme Court has a social responsibility to the people of this commonwealth to release the report in its entirety — no redactions,” Rozzi said.

Rozzi, who said he testified before the grand jury that a Catholic priest raped him in Reading in the mid-1980s, when Rozzi was 13, said he has put on hold his push to extend the statutes of limitations until after the release of the grand jury report. He said he believes the report’s contents will spur action on his proposals, which passed the GOP-controlled House but died in the GOP-controlled Senate.

“My heart goes out to all the victims and their families,” Rozzi said. “I know they are suffering and hanging by a thread. All they are is looking for justice, access to the courts.”

Rozzi’s friend, state Rep. Pat Harkins, of Erie, D-1st, stood with Rozzi at the Capitol on June 12 at a rally for Rozzi’s proposals. Harkins said he believes, like Rozzi, that the grand jury report eventually will get released, and that the state Supreme Court needs time to deal with the unique legal issues.

“That is the assumption, but we don’t know how it is going to fall,” Harkins said. “The uncertainty has everyone on pins and needles.”

Harkins also noted that the six dioceses under investigation have been reviewing the sealed report since May 25 to prepare written responses. Harkins said he doubted the Supreme Court would block the public release of the report already in possession of the six dioceses: those for Erie, Allentown, Harrisburg, Greensburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton. The two other Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania — those for Altoona-Johnstown and Philadelphia — were the subject of previous and highly critical grand jury reports.

In the current case, the attorney general’s office conducted the two-year grand jury investigation. It created an investigative report, which may include recommended policy changes, rather than a presentment or an indictment, which lead to criminal charges.

The unique legal issues in the current case involve how much due process the law gives those named but not indicted in a grand jury report, according to a rare public opinion the grand jury’s supervising judge issued on June 5. The judge denied requests from an unspecified number of unnamed individuals to block the release of the report until those people have a chance to rebut the report’s findings with hearings before the grand jury, which ended its term on April 30.

As the supervising judge, Norman A Krumenacker III, of Cambria County, made clear, state law provides that those named but not indicted in a grand jury report get notified of their inclusion; be allowed “to review that portion of the report critical to them”; and file a written response to the report that would be part of the public release.

The unspecified individuals who petitioned Krumenacker argued, according to his opinion, that the state constitution allows them to protect their reputations with even more due process rights, including what they said is the right to make their case directly to a grand jury, which hears evidence only from the prosecution. In rejecting the requests, Krumenacker said in his ruling that state and federal law does not allow for such hearings.

“Never in the history of grand juries have persons under investigation been permitted to cross-examine witnesses or present evidence to an investigative grand jury,” Krumenacker wrote. He also wrote that nothing in state or federal law authorizes a judge to “redact or rewrite a grand jury report once it has been submitted by the grand jury.”

And Krumenacker wrote that his ruling was the first of its kind in Pennsylvania, which led him to make the ruling open to a direct appeal to the state Supreme Court. That appeal happened, based on the Supreme Court’s order on Wednesday.

Whoever filed the appeals, they are not officials in charge of the six dioceses. The bishops in each of the dioceses said they are not opposed to the release of the grand jury report, and the attorney general’s office has confirmed those statements.

Erie Catholic Bishop Lawrence Persico, who has led the 12-county Erie diocese since October 2012, was the first of the six bishops to state his unequivocal support for the report’s public release. On Wednesday, in response to the Supreme Court order, Persico reiterated that stance in a statement.

“We anxiously await the Supreme Court’s decision on this matter, and support the release of the report which will give victims a voice,” Persico said. “Until the report is released, we will continue our efforts to identify abusers and provide counseling and assistance to victims.”