TRENTON (NJ)
The Record [Woodland Park NJ]
June 16, 2025
By Deena Yellin
[See also the text of the Supreme Court decision.]
Key Points
- New Jersey can go forward with a special grand jury investigation of alleged sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and any potential cover-up.
- The unanimous decision rejected a challenge originally brought by the Diocese of Camden and capped a years-long legal fight.
New Jersey can proceed with a special grand jury investigating alleged sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and whether the state’s dioceses took any steps to cover it up, the state Supreme Court announced Monday.
The court’s unanimous June 16 decision marks the end of a years-long court battle between the Catholic Diocese of Camden and the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office, which first proposed the statewide probe seven years ago.
In his ruling, Supreme Court Chief Justice Stuart Rabner said a lower court that sided with the diocese should have followed protocols and allowed the grand jury to proceed, at least until it had submitted a report, known in legal circles as a “presentment,” on its findings.
“No grand jury has completed an investigation, and no presentment exists,” Rabner wrote. “Courts cannot presume the outcome of an investigation in advance or the contents of a presentment that has not yet been written. It was therefore premature for the trial court to conclude that any potential presentment in this matter had to be suppressed.
“The State has the right to proceed with its investigation and present evidence before a special grand jury,” he continued.
Earlier rulings by the lower court sided with the Camden Diocese, which asserted that the state could not investigate the church because it is a private entity. The diocese also maintained that a grand jury investigation would be unfair to countless clergy members, some alive but many deceased, who would lack the ability to challenge the grand jury’s findings.
Clergy abuse survivors and their advocates praised the Supreme Court decision.
“No individual or any institution, not even the Catholic Church, should be above the law when it comes to having to answer for their crimes, said Greg Gianforcaro, a Phillipsburg-based attorney who represents clergy abuse victims around the country. “Today’s decision is a huge victory for survivors. It is because of their courage and tenacity that the Catholic Church is forced to address their crimes.”
New Jersey announced its investigation in 2018, shortly after the release of a Pennsylvania grand jury report that made headlines around the nation. That review found that hundreds of Catholic priests had sexually abused at least 1,000 children across decades while church officials moved accused clergy from one parish to another. New Jersey’s then-attorney general, Gurbir Grewal, said he wanted to get to the bottom of similar tales in the Garden State.
Why clergy abuse probe stalled
But abuse victims were quickly frustrated by what seemed like a stalled inquiry. The reason was not clear until this February, when The Record and NorthJersey.com reported that Camden had won a ruling to block the special grand jury — and persuaded the trial judge to keep the decision sealed.
The state’s other four Catholic dioceses — Paterson, Trenton and Metuchen and the Archdiocese of Newark — did not challenge the investigation, but the legal wrangling froze the investigation into their actions as well.
Lyndsay Ruotolo, New Jersey’s first assistant attorney general, welcomed the ruling.
“We are grateful for the New Jersey Supreme Court’s decision this morning confirming what we have maintained throughout this lengthy court battle: that there was no basis to stop the state from pursuing a grand jury presentment on statewide sexual abuse by clergy and the conditions that allowed it to go unchecked for so long,” she said in a statement.
“We remain as committed today as throughout these past seven years to doing all we can to support survivors and advance the healing they deserve, ” Ruoloto said.
In early May, Bishop Joseph A. Williams, who took over leadership of the Camden Diocese in March, announced that he had met with the diocese’s trustees and unanimously agreed to end their battle to block the grand jury effort. Dropping the legal fight should demonstrate to abuse survivors that the church wants to “win their trust, restore their faith,” he said.
By that time, however, the case had already been argued before the state Supreme Court, and the justices went ahead with deciding the legal question.
Next steps in investigation
In a statement Monday, the Camden Diocese said it “remains steadfast in our commitment to transparency, justice, and healing for survivors of clergy abuse. In May 2025, we formally withdrew our objection to a state grand jury presentment and publicly affirmed our willingness to cooperate fully with the New Jersey Attorney General’s investigation. Today’s ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court does not alter that position.”
With the legal issue settled, the next step will be for Camden to turn over more records pertaining to clergy abuse accusations, a step the diocese had fought, said Gianforcaro. It’s difficult to gauge how long the investigation could take from here because it is unclear how much information the state already has, he said.
“This entire process has been conducted in confidentiality,” Gianforcaro added.
Many of the documents pertaining to the Camden case, as well as those the state received from other five dioceses, remain under seal. It is not clear when they will be unsealed, if at all. The state said in a 2023 filing in the case that it had already gathered “hundreds of thousands of pages” of documents.
Shortly after that, state Superior Court Judge Peter Warshaw of Mercer County ruled in Camden’s favor, determining that the AG’s Office could not create the grand jury to lead the investigation because the probe was focused on “private conduct,” rather than the behavior of a government official or agency. An appeals court affirmed that judgment last year and the Attorney General’s Office took the case to the Supreme Court.
Oral arguments were heard on April 28. Camden’s lawyer argued that the church had already made many needed reforms to prevent abuse. Members of the high court questioned whether the legal challenge was premature before a grand jury had been submitted its findings. But the diocese argued the state’s ultimate goal was clear: to condemn the Catholic Church and its clergy.
Rabner said that should be a question decided by the judge overseeing the grand jury.
“If the grand jury issues a presentment, the assignment judge should review the report and publish it if it complies with the legal standards outlined in the Court’s opinion,” he wrote in his ruling. “The Court cannot and does not decide the ultimate question in advance [sic: original article ends this way]