MECHANICSVILLE (PA)
PennLive
July 13, 2018
By Charles Thompson
Lawyers for at least 12 persons named in a forthcoming grand jury report on historic patterns of sexual abuse in six of Pennsylvania’s Roman Catholic dioceses have asked the state Supreme Court to give them an unprecedented chance to edit the report before its release.
In a common brief for all petitioners released in redacted form Friday afternoon, the attorneys said there are demonstrable errors of fact and interpretation in the report that, if left uncorrected, will deprive their clients of a state constitutional right to defend their reputation.
The lawyers are asking the court to send the report back to the grand jury’s supervising judge for, at minimum, a series of evidentiary hearings where the unnamed petitioners can present their cases.
That would be followed, where necessary, by redactions or corrections before the full report is released to the public.
Ordinarily, persons referred to critically in grand jury reports in Pennsylvania are given a chance to review those portions of the report that deal directly with them, and file a written response.
Those responses are released as an addendum to the report.
The petitioners in this case, however, have argued that the subject of matter of child sexual abuse is so horrific, that getting the opportunity to vent after the fact is meaningless.
Especially, they assert, when there are clear errors in the portions of the report that they have seen that can be relatively easily fixed.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.