KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter
Sep. 05, 2012
By Joshua J. McElwee
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The first Catholic bishop criminally charged in the decades-long clergy sex abuse crisis will not go before a jury, instead facing judgment from a local judge Thursday, according to court documents filed Wednesday.
The change indicates that Bishop Robert Finn, his Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., diocese, and county prosecutors have negotiated a set of “stipulated facts” they will present to the judge, who could rule the same day, said Mike Mansur, a spokesperson for the Jackson County, Mo., prosecutor’s office, where the bishop and diocese are charged.
Finn and the diocese had been set to go to trial by jury Sept. 24 on misdemeanor charges of failing to report suspicions of child abuse for their handling of Fr. Shawn Ratigan, a Kansas City priest who pleaded guilty earlier this month to federal charges of producing and attempting to produce sexually graphic material of minor girls.
“The parties in the case have been negotiating stipulated facts and testimony that will be presented tomorrow to the judge,” Mansur said. Following that presentation, he said, “we would expect then that the judge might rule in the case.”
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