WISCONSIN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel
July 19, 2012
An Outagamie County judge has dismissed a $700,000 judgment against the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay and ordered a new trial, citing juror bias in a landmark trial involving clergy sex abuse.
Outagamie Judge Nancy Krueger said a juror failed to divulge before or during the trial that she suspected the accused priest of inappropriate contact with her own brother and that she had a close friendship with a member of the plaintiffs’ extended family.
“The overriding emphasis of this Court must be on the integrity of the justice and jury system – and the right of all parties to a fair and impartial trial,” Krueger said in the ruling filed late Wednesday. “If even one juror harbors a material prejudice, the right to an impartial jury has been impaired,” she said.
The jury in May found that the diocese had defrauded brothers Todd and Troy Merryfield by placing now-defrocked Father John Patrick Feeney into their parish in the 1970s without telling members about his sexual history involving children. But concerns about the juror’s impartiality were raised by two fellow jurors who’d had conversations with her outside the courthouse after the verdict.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.