PENNSYLVANIA
Big Trial
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2015
By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net
The State Correctional Institute at Waymart has a new librarian.
Six days a week, Msgr. William J. Lynn, the former secretary for clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, checks books in and out of the prison library for fellow inmates; he also keeps track of periodicals.
“It keeps him busy,” said Lynn’s lawyer, Thomas A. Bergstrom. “They have a huge library and it’s really up to date.”
As he works his job for 19 cents an hour, the monsignor can’t help but watch the calendar and wonder whether he’ll be getting out of jail again soon. Lynn has an appeal for a new trial pending with the state Superior Court. It’s before a sympathetic panel of judges that has already overturned Lynn’s prior conviction once before.
The reason why the wait time on the current appeal is so short is that one of the three Superior Court judges that heard Lynn’s appeal, Christine L. Donohue, was elected last November to the state Supreme Court. So the panel of judges has only two weeks left to issue its decision on the Lynn case before Judge Donohue leaves the Superior Court to become Supreme Court Justice Donohue.
“I saw him on Monday, and he’s doing well,” Bergstrom said about his client currently housed at the state prison some 140 miles north of Philadelphia.. When he’s not working at the library, the monsignor is working out and trying to lose weight.
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