PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
February 19, 2012|By John P. Martin, Inquirer Staff Writer
Around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina took the bench in her fifth-floor courtroom in Philadelphia’s Criminal Justice Center.
A week had passed since defense lawyers in the child sex-abuse and endangerment case of three priests had launched their latest legal broadside, saying an offhand comment from the judge had showed bias against the Catholic Church. They wanted her to withdraw from the case.
It was Sarmina’s turn to respond. In her hands was a tautly written, six-page ruling, which she read aloud.
The attorneys, she said, had distorted her comment that anyone who didn’t agree child-sex abuse had been “widespread” in the church was “living on another planet.”
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