MISSOURI
The Wall Street Journal
By BEN KESLING and MARK PETERS
Missouri’s Supreme Court let stand a lower-court ruling that a support group for alleged victims of the Roman Catholic Church sexual-abuse scandal must open its records in a case raising questions about the privacy rights of crime victims.
The high court on Tuesday denied a petition filed by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, forcing the group to comply with a subpoena to turn over more than two decades of records sought by lawyers for the Rev. Michael Tierney. The Kansas City-area priest has been accused in civil court of sexually abusing a minor in the early 1970s. He denies the accusations.
The group, known as SNAP, has been fighting the subpoena since last year, saying it is an invasion of the privacy of victims and jeopardizes the group’s work. “We’ll continue to do everything possible to protect the privacy and safety of victims,” said Barbara Dorris of SNAP. “We’re in uncharted waters for us, and we’re taking it a step at a time,” she said.
Nearly two dozen groups, including the National Organization for Women Foundation and National Center for Victims of Crime, jointly said in an amicus brief that the subpoena “has the capacity to set the survivor community back a minimum of 10, if not 20, years.”
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