PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial
By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net
It’s a real dog of a case but the district attorney seems intent on retrying it.
On June 22, 2012, in the case of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Father James J. Brennan, a jury deadlocked 11-1 on whether to convict Father Brennan of attempted rape.
The same jury convicted Msgr. William J. Lynn on one count of endangering the welfare of a child.
The historic conviction of the monsignor became the show pony for D.A. Seth Williams, as Lynn became the first Catholic administrator in the country to go to jail for the sexual sins of the clergy. Meanwhile, the dog in the D.A.’s dog and pony show — the Father Brennan case — had to disappear for a few years.
Yesterday in Courtroom 1102 of Common Pleas Court, Judge Gwendolyn N. Bright brought back the Father Brennan case by setting a retrial date of Jan. 4, 2016. None of the lawyers involved in the case are talking publicly in the event that the judge may elect to restore an former gag order. But with all the delays and credibility problems with the D.A.’s star witness in the Father Brennan case, you have to wonder whether the retrial will ever really happen.
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