MAINE
Bangor Daily News
By Judy Harrison, BDN Staff
Posted June 10, 2013
BANGOR, Maine — Justices with the state’s highest court will consider whether a Portland man convicted of manslaughter was tricked into waiving his Miranda rights and whether a Kennebec County man’s lawsuit against the Catholic Church over alleged clergy abuse may go forward.
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court will hear appeals in those cases and 10 others Tuesday and Wednesday when it convenes at the Penobscot Judicial Center in Bangor. …
On Tuesday, justices will consider for a second time an Augusta man’s lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland.
William Picher, 39, claims that the Rev. Raymond Melville, who left the ministry in 1997, sexually assaulted him between 1986 and 1988 when Picher was a student St. Mary Catholic School in Augusta. Picher (pronounced pee-SHAY) also alleges that Melville’s supervisors at the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland knew the priest had sexually abused children previously but hid allegations from parishioners.
The state’s high court four years ago affirmed 5-2 that under Maine law charitable groups such as churches, museums and sports organizations are immune from claims for negligent actions, but it said they are not immune from intentional ones.
Picher’s Augusta attorneys Sumner Lipman and Benjamin Tucker claim the diocese knew Melville had a history of sexually abusing minors when in 1985 he was assigned to St. Mary’s Church and School in Augusta. The diocese has denied the claim, arguing that it did not receive its first complaint about Melville until 1990.
In the latest appeal, Picher’s attorneys argued that Superior Court Justice Donald Marden erred in granting summary judgment to the diocese and abused his discretion by refusing to permit Picher and his lawyers access to Diocese records containing the names of clergy accused of sexual misconduct and the names of their accusers.
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