PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
BEN FINLEY, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
LAST UPDATED: Sunday, December 29, 2013
PHILADELPHIA Prosecuting Msgr. William J. Lynn was never going to be an open-and-shut case.
As far back as 2005, after scores of alleged victims told a grand jury about being abused by Philadelphia-area priests, prosecutors were divided over whether criminal charges would stick against the archdiocese’s former secretary for clergy.
“Every prosecutor who looked at it could say, factually, these guys were endangering children,” said Will Spade, an assistant district attorney at the time. “But some people thought the [state’s child-endangerment] statute didn’t apply, and others thought it did.”
The debate resurfaced last week when Superior Court reversed Lynn’s 2012 conviction on endangerment charges.
In a 43-page opinion released Thursday, the panel found that the Philadelphia prosecutors who ultimately charged Lynn two years ago and the trial judge who presided over his case had misapplied the law, which did not cover supervisors like Lynn until 2007.
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