MINNESOTA
Star Tribune
Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: May 8, 2014
Hearing begins in lawsuit over whether names of accused priests should be revealed.
A priest’s right to privacy vs. the public’s right to know about sexual misconduct claims was the subject of a court hearing Thursday pitting the Twin Cities archdiocese against attorneys for an alleged abuse victim.
Creating a “good cause standard” for releasing the names of priests accused of abuse was the first order of business before Special Master Judge Robert Schumacher, recently appointed to handle disputes over the release of documents and depositions in a lawsuit that has rocked the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
The archdiocese argued that priests’ names should be made public only when there is a “preponderance of evidence” that the priest violated sexual misconduct laws, or that the accusation “was not false.”
“What we’re trying to do is balance the risk of harm to victims against the allegations of misconduct that have no foundation or are false,” said archdiocese attorney Tom Weiser.
But Jeff Anderson, the plaintiff’s attorney, argued that the names of all priests accused of criminal sexual misconduct, or suspected of criminal misconduct, should be public — unless the allegation is clearly false or fabricated.
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