January 15, 2010
By John R. Ellement and Jonathan Saltzman, Globe staff
Defrocked Roman Catholic priest Paul Shanley today lost his appeal before the state’s high court, ensuring that a key figure in the priest abuse scandal that rocked the Boston Archdiocese will remain behind bars.
(Yoon S. Byun/Globe Staff/file)
The Supreme Judicial Court upheld Shanley’s convictions for two counts of rape and two counts of indecent assault and battery obtained by Middlesex prosecutors in 2005. The victim first made his accusations against Shanley in 2002, some 20 years after the abuse took place at St. Jean’s Church in Newton when the boy was between the ages of 6 and 11.
The SJC rejected defense attorney Robert F. Shaw Jr.’s contention that Shanley’s trial was flawed because the "junk science” of "repressed memory" was used by prosecutors to explain that long gap.
"Overwhelming evidence proves that the theory of ‘repressed memory’ is not generally accepted by the relevant scientific community on multiple grounds and that the commonwealth’s experts provided misleading junk science testimony that should not have been admitted in a judicial proceeding,” Shaw wrote in the brief filed last year with the SJC.
Prosecutors had argued that the victim should be believed because the emotional trauma he suffered created a "disassociative amnesia,” which is recognized by the mental health profession as a legitimate psychiatric disorder.
Shanley was known in the 1960s and 1970s as a "street priest" who reached out to troubled youth, roamed Boston’s streets in blue jeans, and was an outspoken backer of gay rights. He was sentenced to 12 to 15 years in prison.
According to the state Department of Correction website, Shanley today is being held at the Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater, a medium security prison.
Writing for the unanimous court, Justice Robert J. Cordy concluded prosecutors had amassed strong backing for the concept of "disassociative amnesia” from mental health experts and that Superior Court Judge Stephen Neel made the right decision when he let the jury learn about it.
"In sum, the judge’s finding that the lack of scientific testing did not make unreliable the theory that an individual may experience disassociative amnesia was supported in the record, not only by expert testimony but by a wide collection of clinical observations and a survey of academic literature,” Cordy wrote.
The SJC also rejected Shanley’s claim that his trial lawyer, Frank Mondano, was ineffective and Shanley should now get a new trial to overcome his flaws.
"Essentially, the defendant alleges that had counsel done better work…the outcome would have been different,” Cordy wrote. "In support of his motion for a new trial, the defendant submitted three affidavits from experts, and more than fifty scholarly articles, surveys, and studies, some of which were peer reviewed, questioning the existence of repressed memory.
But the court concluded that Mondano "pursued a dynamic, multi-faceted trial strategy that did not rely solely on challenging the admission of the expert testimony, but also on exploring the factual deficiencies in the victim’s version of events and by impeaching his credibility and his motivations.”
An Advent Reflection on Child Abuse.
December 15th, 2009
By Kelly Clark
I just returned from a trip to Australia, where I traveled to take a class as part of my studies for a Master’s Degree in Theology—a course I am taking as I consider my own vocational direction, and not because of the child abuse cases I regularly file against churches. I was glad to get away “down under,” to jump into academia, to wander about in Melbourne in the warm sunshine and friendliness of the Aussies, glad, especially, to get away from child abuse for a few days. Or so I hoped.
My first day there—the first Sunday of Advent, as it happened–I found myself unexpectedly in a beautiful Catholic chapel at Newman College on the campus of the University of Melbourne, listening to a stunning Advent choral concert. I pondered the ironies: me, a lawyer who has sued the Catholic Church for nearly twenty years, but also a Christian man hungry for spiritual truth and beauty, sitting among these devout Catholic people, enjoying their hospitality. Twice in my life I have almost joined the Catholic Church, once only about 8 years ago, well after I had begun to do this kind of work, and once as a young law student; neither time have I been able to make the leap from Canterbury to Rome—from Anglicanism to Catholicism—the last time because I simply could not get around what I have learned in the child abuse cases. But as I sat at Newman College in Melbourne, listening to Palestrina, to Thomas Talis, to Bach and Handel, I was for a few precious moments free from the agonies of the child abuse cases, free from worry about my clients– about their addictions, their depressions, their suicides– free to bask in the beauty of the Christian celebration of Advent in a Catholic chapel.
But as I walked out and headed over to the chapel at Trinity College—the Anglican college at University of Melbourne—for another service, this one a celebration of the Eucharist for the First Sunday of Advent, I thought about the day in a few weeks when I would take the deposition of the Archbishop of Portland, asking him about the actions of Father H, one of his priests who has abused children. I thought about the questions I would need to ask him, about the way the Archdiocese of Portland has treated child abuse survivors, both historically and in litigation over the last two and a half years since the Archdiocese emerged from bankruptcy. Any of you who have followed these blogs will recall my frustration at the broken promises—promises to treat abuse victims with understanding and Christian compassion, to expedite the legal process to find resolution and healing— promises all broken in a return to scorched earth tactics in litigation. I wondered how the same great faith that produced the beauty that I had just witnessed at Newman College Chapel could also produce a church that would repeatedly violate the Spirit of its Lord in allowing children to be abused, and then in abusing them again when they seek justice. I considered the words of Jesus in Matthew 25—“whatever you have done to the least of these my brothers and sisters, so you have done to me”—and in a rush of anger I found myself wanting to shout those words at the legal teams for the Catholic Church and demand that they also consider them. I quieted, then, and prayed for guidance, for humility, lest I become too self-righteous or judgmental—I who have also failed to live up to my calling so many times, hurting so many people along the way.
I found myself wishing I could ask the Archbishop of Portland to come sit with me at Newman Chapel, and then again at Trinity Chapel, to take in the choral anthems and to break the holy bread together, and then to talk about these things, not as trial lawyer and deponent, but as two Christian men trying to solve a problem. I found myself thinking we could probably settle this case—probably all of the cases– in twenty minutes, focusing more on the healing of my client and the treatment for this sick priest than on anything monetary, which is not what my 17 year-old client cares about anyway. I wondered if it might not be just that easy.
But then I reminded myself what my friends so often tell me—that I am often highly naïve and too trusting, and that I should just stop hoping for things that can never happen. Probably they are right, I thought. But still, as I turned up the sidewalk towards the doors of Trinity College Chapel, I felt immensely sad. Sad for abuse survivors, most of all, but also sad for a broken church, for broken promises and for broken people. And so I sang the opening hymn at the Advent Eucharist—“O come, O come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel”—with all the air in my lungs, with a broken voice, and with tears in my eyes.
News Coverage of Cardinal Edward M. Egan’s cover up of clergy sexual abuse in the 1990s while he was the bishop of Bridgeport would be shocking if it weren’t so familiar. The list of high ranking Catholic Church officials who failed to report credible allegations of child sexual abuse by priests to law enforcement includes the most prominent prelates of this generation: Cardinal Joseph Bernadin in Chicago, Cardinal Bernard Law in Boston, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua in Philadelphia, and Cardinal Roger Mahony in Los Angeles.
The Egan case does, however, highlight one feature of this ongoing scandal that is frequently overlooked: the role that civil lawsuits have played in uncovering most of what we know about clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and in motivating Church officials to address the problem.
To begin with, plaintiffs’ have lawyers compelled Church officials to produce secret files concerning abuse allegations and to provide sworn testimony about their own failures to adequately address the problem. Media reports about Cardinal Egan’s failures in Bridgeport are based on more than 12,000 pages of memos, church records, and testimony from 23 lawsuits against the diocese. Indeed, most media coverage of the scandal–dating back to the early 1980s–has been based on these types of litigation documents.
Civil lawsuits have also shaped our understanding of the clergy sexual abuse scandal as an institutional failure on the part of Church leaders. Throughout the scandal, some within the Church have attempted to focus attention exclusively on the perpetrators, suggesting that clergy sexual abuse is merely a matter of "a few bad apples." Others have argued that the whole matter has been blown out of proportion by plaintiffs’ lawyers and their clients seeking to make money off of the scandal by filing lawsuits. One also frequently hears suggestions that news coverage of the scandal is motivated by anti-Catholic media bias. Indeed, Cardinal Egan’s successor, Archbishop Timothy Dolan leveled this very accusation against the New York Times this fall.
By contrast, civil lawsuits have focused attention on the failures of Church officials. Plaintiffs’ lawyers sue large institutional defendants because they are better able to pay large settlements and judgments, and so clergy sexual abuse lawsuits have emphasized the failure of diocesan officials–especially bishops–to protect children from known abusers.
Media coverage of the scandal has been heavily influenced by this framing of clergy sexual abuse as an institutional failure on the part of Church officials. Litigation and trials have traditionally provided the type of drama that makes them attractive to journalists seeking to draw in readers. In addition, documents filed in court and sworn testimony provide the kind of credible sources of information that journalists like to rely upon.
By framing clergy sexual abuse as a problem of institutional failure on the part of Church officials, civil lawsuits have also motivated dioceses around the country to institute new programs to prevent sexual abuse before it occurs and to report credible allegations of sexual abuse when it does happen. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops reports that over 90 percent of dioceses have instituted such programs and have trained over 7 million people in preventing, investigating, and reporting child sexual abuse.
It is inconceivable that so many U.S. bishops would have instituted such ambitious efforts to address clergy sexual abuse in the absence of the intense media coverage and public attention generated by civil lawsuits–not to mention the liability exposure.
It has been 25 years since the first civil lawsuits were filed against Catholic Church officials for clergy sexual abuse, and much progress has been made as a result of them. That leading prelates such as Cardinal Egan are still fighting so hard to hide the record of their misdeeds indicates that there is more work to be done and that civil lawsuits against Church officials may still have a role in uncovering the truth, highlighting the misdeeds of officials, and providing much needed pressure for reform.
The head of the Catholic Church in Ireland has told UTV he was ashamed and shocked by the revelations of a report into 30 years of child abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese.
"I’m deeply ashamed and shocked at the abuse revealed in today’s report and I want to apologise to those who suffered abuse and to their families", the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, said.
"I also want to apologise to the people of this country that the abuse was covered up and that the reputation of the church was sometimes placed above the safety and well-being of the children."
On Thursday night, the head of the Dublin Archdiocese, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, branded the revelations revolting, adding no words of apology would ever be sufficient for the horrifying abuse.
Archbishop Martin said he was offering his shame and sorrow to survivors and claimed the Archdiocese had failed to recognise the theft of childhood.
The senior cleric said the paedophile priests were devious in their attempts to excuse and deny sickening attacks.
"I would appeal to each of those people who are named in the commission as having acted in a way which put children in peril to assess their behaviour in past and behaviour today," he said.
Archbishop Martin said the numbers of victims were likely to be much higher than known.
He handed over more than 5,000 secret Church documents to the Commission in January last year, sparking a legal battle involving Cardinal Desmond Connell.
The Cardinal tried to block the publication claiming they were legally privileged or confidential.
The Archbishop declined to be drawn on whether Cardinal Connell should step aside.
"I’m pleased to see that over the last few days the judgment of Cardinal Connell is not as black and white, or almost in the black that it was over a period of time," he said.
"He’s a man who struggled with his own personal make-up and his own conscience and came out earlier than most bishops on the right side.
"Give people credit for the good things they do."
On Thursday night, Cardinal Connell asked for forgiveness from the abuse victims who suffered at the hands of paedophile priests under his control.
The senior cleric said he was distressed and bewildered that those in such a sacred position could be responsible for the heinous crimes.
The frail 83-year-old, who was among four Archbishops criticised for not handing over information to authorities on abusers, said the abuse of children was an unspeakable crime.
"Although I am all too aware that such apologies and expressions of regret can never be adequate as a response to so much hurt and violation, and, in any case, lose value through repetition, I apologise again now from my heart," he said in a statement.
"The abuse of children is an unspeakable crime," he continued.
Although critical of the Cardinal, the report gave him credit for instigating two secret canon law trials, despite strong opposition from one of the most powerful canonists in the Archdiocese, Monsignor Sheehy.
They led to two priests being defrocked.
In 1995 he also handed over files on 17 suspect priests to gardai, although it was later revealed he was aware of at least 28 at the time.
Survivors have demanded the Cardinal and other senior figures face a criminal investigation.
Three former Sunnyvale residents announced today they have sued the Mormon church, the Boy Scouts of America and their stepfather in San Francisco Superior Court for alleged childhood sexual abuse.
The three men, who are brothers now aged 39, 41 and 43, claim that William E. Knox, 65, a Mormon church and Boy Scouts leader, molested them repeatedly in Sunnyvale between 1977 and 1987.
A brother identified as John Doe 2, who now lives in Georgia, said, "I’m a victim and a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. It was devastating to me. I’ve been abused hundreds of times over several years."
The brother alleged, "During the abuse, I told the church leadership responsible to protect me and they did nothing to protect me."
Knox married the brothers’ mother in 1979 and remains married to her, but the brothers are now estranged from Knox and their mother, according to Kelly Clark, a lawyer for the men.
The lawsuit alleges that before the marriage, Knox used his position as a church elder and youth leader to begin abusing them when they were members of a church-chartered Boy Scouts troop for which he was assistant leader. The molestation began during individual sleepovers at Knox’s Sunnyvale apartment, according to the lawsuit.
After the marriage, the sexual assaults allegedly continued at the family’s Sunnyvale home, in Knox’s car on trips to church and Boy Scouts activities, and during Scouts camping trips, according to the lawsuit.
The alleged abuse included fondling, child masturbation and oral copulation, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit was filed about two weeks ago, but under state law the identity of the defendants could not be revealed publicly until a Superior Court judge ruled last week that the plaintiffs had provided enough corroborating evidence to allow disclosure of the defendants.
Two of the brothers now live in Georgia and the third in Colorado. They announced the lawsuit at a news conference at the Civic Center Plaza near the Superior Court courthouse.
They said they filed their lawsuit now because they became aware of the psychological effects of the abuse after they learned last December that Knox and their mother had moved to the same Georgia town where two of them live.
They said that caused them to begin for the first time to connect the psychological and emotional problems they suffered as adults to the alleged childhood abuse.
John Doe 1 said, "When I saw him in a car as he drove by, I literally began shaking."
Allen Ruby, a San Jose lawyer representing the church, said, "Any allegation of childhood abuse is a serious matter," but said, "The church will defend itself."
Ruby said, "The law does not make a church responsible for the conduct of a stepfather toward his children."
Deron Smith, a spokesman for Boy Scouts of America, said, "We’ve not seen the lawsuit and there is not a whole lot we can say at this point."
The lawsuit contends that the Mormon church and the Boy Scouts are liable because Knox was acting as an agent of both. It says the boys told local church officials and the Boy Scouts of the alleged abuse in 1984 and informed a church counselor in 1985 but alleges that the molestation was never reported to law enforcement authorities.
The suit also alleges the church and Boy Scouts were aware that Knox had shown a propensity to abuse boys when he lived in San Diego before moving to Sunnyvale in the early 1970s.
The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount of financial compensation. Clark said the men filed a civil lawsuit because the statute of limitations for a criminal prosecution has passed.
The brothers said they are seeking to hold the institutions accountable and to prevent molestation of other children.
John Doe 2 said, "I stand here today for children who will lay their head on their pillows tonight, shedding tears, knowing they will wake up to face their abusers again and again. If I can save just one child from childhood sexual abuse, I will have succeeded."
The lawsuit alleges that John Doe 1 was sexually abused from 1977 to 1982, John Doe 2 from 1977 to 1986 and John Doe 3 from 1977 to 1987.
It says that a high school friend who was a fellow Mormon and Scout member told John Doe 2 in 1983 that he had allegedly been abused by Knox.
The brothers said that Knox and their mother operated a now-defunct day care center at their home in Sunnyvale, known as Little Angel Day Care and Creative Play, for about 15 years, including during years when brothers were allegedly abused.
Clark said the lawsuit was filed in San Francisco because state law allows lawsuits to be filed in any county in which the defendants due business.
A man who claims he was molested by a Boy Scouts’ camp ranger in the 1970s is suing the organization for $5.15 million.
The man, who is now in his late 40s, says he was in his early teens when the ranger of the former Camp Mallard in Oregon sexually abused him during visits on weekends and in the summer. The suit claims that Edward Elston sometimes gave his victim — identified only by the initials S.M. — money to keep quiet or threatened to hurt him if he told.
Elston was not charged with a crime. The plaintiff’s attorney, Kelly Clark, said he believes Elston is dead.
The suit was filed Friday in Multnomah County Circuit Court. It is one of 11 filed in Oregon against the Boy Scouts of America by Clark in the last few years, on behalf of clients who say they were molested as children. All the suits are still pending.
S.M.’s suit claims that the Boy Scouts organization knew at least by the 1960s that pedophiles were using their scouting positions to victimize children and that the problem was institution-wide. "Despite this knowledge, these defendants did not implement adequate child sex abuse policies" by the time S.M. joined the Scouts.
The man didn’t realize how deeply the abuse had affected him psychologically until 2008, after extensive therapy sessions, Clark said.
The Cascade Pacific Council, which is also named as a defendant in the suit, couldn’t be reached for immediate comment.
Over the past half-dozen years or so, a few parents of Boy Scouts in Burnsville learned things that bothered them about Peter Stibal II, the scoutmaster now jailed on charges that he molested three scouts.
They learned that he had been alone with individual scouts — at the movies, in his truck for private "driving lessons," at his cabin and in his home — all violations of scouting’s "two-deep" policy, which requires two adults to be present during scout activities.
John Nelson of Burnsville and other parents complained to local Troop 650 volunteer leaders. Nelson said those leaders admonished Stibal to stop violating the policy. But Kent York, an official for scouting’s regional umbrella organization, said the violations weren’t reported higher up the organizational chain, as they should have been.
"If any concerns had been shared with Northern Star Council, we have very specific procedures in place that we follow," York said. "No, none of the concerns had been shared with us."
So I was in the middle of a mediation in Portland yesterday on a case of abuse of a boy by a MethodistChurch minister, when I received a call from a Minneapolis reporter.It seems that a local Scoutmaster was arrested on charges of abusing several of his Scouts. See story at http://www.startribune.com/local/south/65205132.html?elr=KArksUUUoDEy3LGDiO7aiU.
The thing I don’t understand,” she said, “is why these kids don’t say anything to anyone?What sort of power do these pedophiles have that causes otherwise intelligent children to keep silent about what is happening?”
It is one of the regular questions I get asked:Why don’t they tell?
What I told her was along these lines.I have had clients tell me that the abuser threatened them: one young man told about how his physician, who was regularly abusing him during medical checkups, took a scapel and laid it alongside the 12 year-old boy’s scrotum and said: “if you ever tell anyone what isgoing on in this room, I will slice you open just like this– do you understand me?”Often it is like this, a direct threat. Sometimes it is indirect: Bad things will happen to me if you tell; or bad things will happen to you.Something will happen to your family.
Many times, abusers play on the spiritual or religious beliefs of the child: this is between you, me and God. What you have told me, and what we have done, is all covered by the seal of the confessional, and if you ever tell anyone, you will commit a mortal sin.
Sometimes it is relatively subtle:this is our little secret.What we share is special, and so do not ruin it by telling anyone.
The most baffling of all was this:a man in his 40’s told me why he, as a 16 and 17 yearold boy never told anyone about the fact that his priest, a highly popular figure in and around Portland, was regularly sodomizing him.“You need to understand that Fr P was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I was nothing, then he came along and made me special.I was his favorite, he paraded me around to other priests, to bishops, to business leaders, as such ‘a fine young Catholic boy’—I couldn’t imagine losing all that. In fact—and this is the most shameful thing of all—I gloried in it.”Gently I told him, “You are not the first person, or the first child, ever to trade sex for love and attention. You are not the first and you won’t be the last. Don’t blame yourself.” And that’s what I say now when anyone asks me why these kids don’t tell.It is what I say to defense lawyers, judges and juries who want to know why they don’t tell. I explain it to newspaper reporters who have that question.Some kids are threatened, directly or indirectly. And the most heinous threat of all, in my view, and the most effective, is that if you don’t do what I want you to do, then I will withdraw my love.
Back to Minnesota,I have a sick feeling in my stomach that between the Scouts, the church, the bus route, you’re going to end up with dozens of victims, maybe more.
I never get used to stories like this and it is never anything but devastating to me. Child abusers have social intelligence regarding kids that is off the charts. They know how and when to threaten, to charm, to bribe, to trick kids into believing that what we are doing is okay, that you shouldn’t tell anyone. The Scouts know this, because they have more experience with child abuse than anyone in the country, and have for about 50 years. But if– and I don’t know this yet– but if they didn’t share that knowledge with the parents and the kids, if they didn’t train the kids, train the parents, on the way these perps operate, then they have failed the kids and the parents. If a child molester sees even a slit of light, he will extort it in a minute. The Scouts know this, so there is really no excuse for a failure to train– if that is in fact what happened.
I have a sick feeling in my stomach that between the Scouts, the church activities, and the bus route that this man held, you’re going to end up with dozens of victims, maybe more.
French ‘Minister of Culture’ Frederic Mitterrand Finds Childhood Sexual Abuse Still Not Acceptable—Even to ‘Sophisticated’ European Morals.
By Kelly Clark, Child Sexual Abuse Attorney
Portland, Ore.
American political junkies often use a phrase to describe a politician’s secure standing with the electorate: “He’s a shoe-in—that is, unless he gets caught sleeping with a dead woman or a live boy.” In other words, Senator Bulbousnose will surely win, unless, that is, he steps across the unspoken final lines of decency we all know about—necrophilia and pedophilia being two of them.
So, there are two things that amaze me about the unfolding scandal in France: first, that the Minister of Culture, Frederic Mitterrand, would think that his lurid book accounts of “paying for boys” in Thailand could fly under the radar and not matter to his public career; and, second, that it almost did.
In case you haven’t read about this unbelievable story, here is a quote from the Times Online, dateline October 8:
“President Sarkozy’s new Culture Minister, Frédéric Mitterrand, was struggling to save his name and possibly his job last night amid a storm over his past accounts of paying “boys” for sex. The nephew of the late President Mitterrand, who is openly gay, was thrown on the defensive after opposition politicians homed in on a memoir in which he described his delight in visiting brothels in Bangkok.
“I got into the habit of paying for boys … The profusion of young, very attractive and immediately available boys put me in a state of desire that I no longer needed to restrain or hide,” he wrote. The autobiography, La mauvaise vie (The Bad Life), was a critically acclaimed bestseller in 2005 and Mr Mitterrand, 62, a popular television presenter, was praised for his honesty. It rebounded on him this week after he leapt to the defence of Roman Polanski, the filmmaker, who was arrested in Switzerland for extradition to face a Los Angeles court for having sex with a girl aged 13.”
Now, let’s ignore the obvious about-face he has done in the last day or so, trying to play down what he has written. After all denying the obvious is what politicians do– although trying to say that admitting that he paid for sex with boys doesn’t mean that he paid for sex with boys may set a new standard.
No, I want to ponder the two aspects of all this that I mentioned above. First, how did someone who wrote this—in 2005—get appointed to a high post in a European government? Surely he did not think no one would notice: he is, after all, the highly visible nephew of former President Francios Mitterrand and a TV personality in his own right. No, it seems he was doing what a lot of celebrities do, which is to write a lurid autobiography “revealing all” to boost sales through shock value. Surely he intended the world to know that he was tantalized and hooked by the Asian sex trade. He wanted people to know…
No, what is amazing to me is that he thought that this admission would shock people in no different way than, say, talking about drunken nights on the town or lurid sexual escapades of the kind we have grown used to with celebrities. But that he thought he could just cruise on in as Minster for Culture—that’s so rich in irony I can’t even know where to start— after admitting to deep-seated pedophilic behaviour is just stupefying. I don’t know whether this says more about the man’s flawed political judgment, or about how far Western standards for decency have fallen. After all, let’s not forget, that this book was published 4 years ago and up til now there had been no blow up. He actually thought he could get away with it.
This brings me to the second source of amazement—he almost did. In fact, had it not been for the controversy over Switzerland’s arrest and the US’s extradition demands of filmmaker Roman Polanski for sexually abusing a 13 year old girl, we old-fashioned types in the US might not ever have heard about Mitterrand’s pedophilia. But the fact that Europe heard about it and there was no uproar for nearly five years surely says something fundamental about the way those ‘sophisticated’ societies think (the condemnation by the avant garde of the US in fashionable circles for Polanski’s arrest is no less indicative). Is it really okay for a major public personality now become public minister to have engaged in pedophilia? Note that there is no indication that he has acknowledged in sorrow the wrongness of his behavior, sought help, amended his way of life. This is not a story about a guy who couldn’t find forgiveness when he asked for it. This is about a guy who didn’t—apparently didn’t—even realize that what he had done was fundamentally wrong… even by the standards of Senator Bulbousnose… even by standards of European ‘sophistication.’
Boy—no pun intended—did Mitterand get the surprise of his life. There are still some things that politicians, even in Europe, can’t do. Thank God.
The Supreme Court has refused to block the release of documents generated by lawsuits against priests in Connecticut for alleged sexual abuse.
The justices on Monday turned down a request by the Roman Catholic diocese in Bridgeport, Conn.
Several newspapers are seeking the release of more than 12,000 pages from 23 lawsuits against six priests.
The records have been under seal since the diocese settled the cases in 2001. Courts in Connecticut have ruled that the papers should be made public.
The high court also refused to make a decision Monday on whether to hear arguments from a group of Chinese men who have been imprisoned at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for more than seven years.
The justices reviewed the case last week, but made no announcement about how they will move on the petition from the Uighurs — whose relocation has been part of a larger headache for the Obama administration, which is trying to meet its self-imposed pledge to close Gitmo by January. The Uighurs were picked up in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks, but have steadfastly maintained they had no role in supporting the Taliban or Al Qaeda. The Pacific island of Palau has agreed to take 12 of the remaining 13 Uighurs on a temporary basis. Last year, a federal judge in Washington concluded the men had been detained long enough and ordered that they be released into the United States. On emergency appeal, another court blocked that decision and eventually overturned the ruling.
FOX News’ Lee Ross and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - A 19-year-old woman has filed a $5.25 million lawsuit against the Oregon Department of Human Services claiming she was sexually abused as a child after the agency placed her with her foster grandfather.
Portland attorney Kelly Clark, who filed the complaint for the woman, said the foster grandfather had been twice convicted and sent to prison on child rape charges.
Clark alleges the state agency was negligent for placing the victim with the grandfather without adequately investigating. The lawsuit filed Wednesday in Multnomah County Circuit Court claims the abuse occurred repeatedly between the ages of 5 and 9.
The complaint names the Department of Human Services and two unidentified caseworkers as defendants.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Assemblywoman Margaret M. Markey was rushed to an Albany hospital on June 23, the last day of the Assembly’s session, and was held overnight for observation with symptoms later diagnosed as dangerously high blood pressure.
The episode, aides said, whatever its cause, capped an intensely difficult period for Ms. Markey, 62, a Queens Democrat who had been cajoling and vote-herding for months in a frantic effort to shore up support for her Child Victims Act, a bill that would loosen restrictions on lawsuits involving the sexual abuse of children.
This was the year the perennial legislation appeared to have a chance. It had already passed in the Assembly by wide margins in 2006, 2007 and 2008. And though the State Senate had blocked the bill in the past, a new Democratic majority there appeared likely to make New York one of three states with a law allowing people to sue their alleged molesters — during a specific grace period — no matter how long ago the abuse took place.
But on that day, as the clock ran out on the 2009 session, Ms. Markey had come up short: Assembly leaders were unconvinced that she had the votes to win, and had yanked her bill from the calendar — ending its prospects in the near term and raising questions about its future viability.
Opponents have declared the bill dead. Ms. Markey has assured supporters it will pass in the fall, if the governor calls a special session of the State Legislature.
In any event, the bill’s collapse was a victory for the Roman Catholic Church, which led a shrewd and relentless campaign against the measure, and a blow to abuse victims and their lawyers, who have been pressing for Ms. Markey’s bill, and others like it around the country, since the revelations in 2002 about the molestation of children by priests in Boston.
And Ms. Markey’s brief medical emergency — she returned to work the following day — only seemed to underline the intensity of the struggles already fought and still ahead for a bill that plumbs two of the most profoundly complicated issues in human experience: sexual abuse and money.
The fight has been grueling on both sides. Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio of the Diocese of Brooklyn, the outspoken prelate who marshaled the church’s campaign against the legislation — calling it anti-Catholic, and warning lawmakers he would be forced to close churches and schools in their districts — was himself ordered by doctors to undergo hastily scheduled heart bypass surgery on June 16.
He and other Catholic bishops in New York said the Markey bill would impoverish the church, pointing to a 2002 law in California that prompted hundreds of lawsuits, forced the state’s dioceses to pay more than $1 billion in restitution and led the Diocese of San Diego to file for bankruptcy protection.
“Nothing I’ve been involved in during my years in politics has ever been as excruciatingly painful as the fight over this bill,” said Assemblyman Charles D. Lavine, a Long Island Democrat who is among two dozen lawmakers who supported the Markey bill in past years, but hesitated this year.
Mr. Lavine changed his mind after priests and residents in his predominantly Italian-American and Hispanic district, especially older voters, started swamping his office with phone calls last winter, expressing their opposition. The pressure, which went on for months, led him to consider — for the first time, he said — the “humongous financial burden and, frankly, the ridicule” that the Child Victims Act and resulting lawsuits would inflict on the church.
His yes votes in past sessions, he said, were made partly with the knowledge that the Republican majority leader in the Senate, Joseph L. Bruno, a staunch opponent, would never let the bill see daylight in that chamber. Mr. Bruno stepped down in 2008.
“When it was never going to fly anyway, there was a tendency for many of us who are concerned about victims’ rights to symbolically support legislation like this,” Mr. Lavine said.
In the same way, the Catholic hierarchy in New York never felt it had to mount a serious campaign against the bill as long as Mr. Bruno held the line, according to lobbyists and legislative aides. Their effort this year forced longtime backers of the bill, like Mr. Lavine, to weigh the potential consequences of that support against their empathy for abuse victims.
With 76 votes needed for a majority in the 150-member Assembly, Ms. Markey’s bill passed with close to 100 votes in past years. This year, the bill’s solid support ranged, depending on the day, between 70 and 80, Ms. Markey’s aides said.
Lobbyists and advocates on both sides say other factors contributed to the change in climate.
When the Democratic Party leadership in the Senate was toppled on June 8 by the defection of two members to the Republican ranks, wavering supporters lost an incentive to risk the church’s ire in the crucial final weeks of the Assembly session.
“If it’s going to be a one-house bill anyway, why make people take the heat?” said Assemblyman Peter J. Abbate Jr., a Brooklyn Democrat who was once a co-sponsor of Ms. Markey’s bill, but this year withdrew his support.
As originally proposed, Ms. Markey’s legislation had two main parts, one permanent and one temporary: It permanently extended the statute of limitations for filing civil suits over alleged child sexual abuse to 10 years — from the current 5 years — after a victim turns 18.
The temporary and more contentious proposal was to suspend the statute of limitations altogether for a year. Starting the day the law took effect, anyone claiming past abuse would have one year to file suit, regardless of how long ago the incident occurred. After a year, the statute of limitations would resume.
In trying to bolster her support, Ms. Markey added amendments. One gave the same rights to abuse victims who attended public schools as those from private or parochial schools, overriding the special protections public entities have under state law. One set an age limit of 53 on those who could file suits during the one-year window.
By most accounts, the amendments produced no new votes and fractured her support. Thomas K. Duane, the Senate sponsor of her bill, washed his hands of it, objecting to the age-limitation amendment. The amendment to include public schools drew fire from school and municipal officials.
Ms. Markey’s spokesman, Mike Armstrong, said advocates are paying visits this summer to the offices of the two dozen lawmakers considered wobbly in their support, but still persuadable. “The leadership has told us they will put it on the agenda if she holds her votes with comfortable margins,” he said.
Bishop DiMarzio, whose diocese includes Queens, where Ms. Markey lives, has often mentioned her bill in sermons and his column in the diocesan newspaper.
“Retribution never brings about justice, nor will the crippling of the church’s ability to carry out its mission serve any purpose,” he wrote in his last column before entering the hospital in June. He has not addressed the issue since then. A diocesan spokesman said his quadruple bypass surgery was a success.
As it happened, the bishop was released from the hospital on June 23 — the day Ms. Markey’s bill was withdrawn.
After clearing the House, House Bill 2827 will go to Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski to be signed into law.
(SALEM, Ore.) - A bill that would raise the age of sex abuse victims in Oregon from 24 to 40 will likely become law. The future of House Bill 2827 appeared bleak when we wrote about it May 28th 2009. (see: Will Oregon Stand for Sex Abuse Victims? - Tim King Salem-News.com
Many of the cases originate from churches in Oregon and experts like Portland Attorney Kelly Clark, say it often takes several decades for a person to comprehend the magnitude of their experience and come forward.
Bill Crane from the group SNAP, (Survivors Network of people Abused by Priests) says it is a good day in Oregon and while cautious, he agrees that it is good news on a day that could use it.
Molly Woon with the Oregon State Legislature says H.B. 2827 passed through the Senate Floor today, after moving through the Oregon House unanimously.
Woon says there was an amendment and the bill has to now go back to the House for concurrence. The change, "removed definition of causable connections between injury and child abuse," according to Woon.
She says it amounts to a technical fix.
After clearing the House, House Bill 2827 will go to Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski to be signed into law.
by Paul Mones, guest opinion
Tuesday June 02, 2009, 8:30 AM
Our state legislators are in the midst of dealing with one of the worst fiscal crises in recent memory. No doubt they will have to make many tough, unpopular decisions this year. However there is one legislative decision they need not fret over because it is a no-brainer. House Bill 2827 is a simple piece of legislation that gives an extra measure of justice to victims of child abuse.
In the words of one of the bill’s co-sponsors Chris Garrett (D-Lake Oswego ) - the other sponsor is Rep. Andy Olson (R-Albany) - this bill "will ensure an effective civil remedy for victims of child abuse."
The bill extends the present statute of limitations by giving victims until the age of 40 to file an action against their abuser, requiring that claims be initiated by the time the victim turns 40 years old or within five years of when the injury or the connection between the abuse and the injury is discovered. The bill has unanimously passed the house but curiously has not received the same overwhelmingly positive reception in the Senate.
The extension of the statute of limitations makes common sense because it recognizes that most child victims of sexual abuse cannot confront their debilitating problems until they are mature adults. Moreover, most victims can’t even make the connection between the abuse and their psychological problems until they have some real distance from the time period of their abuse.
Child abuse is the perfect crime because its victims are too powerless, too confused to help themselves when they are actually being abused. These children travel quietly through their days interacting with teachers and passing police officers, friends and neighbors, never revealing the anguish of their existences. And if by chance someone asks them how they are being treated at home their responses will be uniformly the same: OK.
As adults we expect all human beings to escape or at least want to escape when someone injures them, but for victims of abuse, the reverse occurs. And that is in fact perhaps one of the most insidious aspects of child abuse: It binds the child closer to the abuser. The abuser’s threats and intimidation engender in the child not only fear but self-blame and embarrassment - all of which turns a child’s survival mechanisms topsy-turvy. Emotional attachment and sexual violence become so inextricably confused that even when the abuse is reported, the child will often kick and scream as they are being removed from their draconian environment by a social worker.
The other aspect that makes child abuse a perfect crime is that most adults continue to believe that child-rearing is a private matter. They don’t want a relative, friend or neighbor telling them how to raise their child so they won’t intervene in someone else’s family. While we all cherish our right to privacy, our devotion to this cornerstone of democracy is strangling the lives of thousands of children every year. Abusive parents and caretakers thrive on isolation and that is exactly what their relatives, friends and neighbors give them.
Daily, people turn a blind eye to the screams, bruises and frightened eyes of battered and molested children. Their reaction actively reinforces the offender’s omnipotence and tells the child you’re on your own, no one is going to help you. By powerful social training we are more likely to intervene on behalf of a dog being kicked by its owner than a child being mistreated by a parent. As Americans we routinely gawk at the suffering of car accident victims but we avert our eyes and ears when we see a child being backhanded in a supermarket.
It is often only when a child becomes a mature adult that he or she has the strength and emotional resources to confront the scourge of their past.
We have done much in Oregon over the past few years to protect victims of abuse, the most recent example being the passage of HB 2062, which will prevent schools from silently moving sexually abusive teachers one district to another. If the Senate saw fit just several weeks ago to join the House in ending the scandalous practice of allowing sexually abusive teachers from negotiating sweetheart deals with their school districts, then it surely should see the wisdom in HB 2062.
Paul Mones is an attorney and a children’s rights advocate.
While church and state are separate in the United States, Oregon’s government may be more interested in the welfare of churches than victims.
By Tim King
Salem-News.com
May 28, 2009
(SALEM, Ore.) - Oregon sex abuse survivors joined Portland Attorney Kelly Clark at the capitol in Salem today, to attend a hearing for a bill that would extend the window of time sex abuse survivors have to take action against the person or people who abused them.
Clark is known for taking sex abuse suspects to task and rallying endlessly for victims.
At this time, the cut off age for sex abuse victims to come forward, is 24.
Many of the cases originate from churches in Oregon and experts say it often takes several decades for a person to comprehend the magnitude of their experience and come forward.
The Portland Archdiocese of the Catholic Church in Oregon, much like in other locations including Boston, have worked hard to avoid responsibility and liability for pedophiles who currently or formerly exist as elevated members of the various churches.
Victims and their advocates, including the group SNAP, (Survivors Network of people Abused by Priests) along with Private Investigator Dawn Krantz-Watts of All Things Legal Investigations in Portland, say they are unhappy with the way the bill is progressing and they believe it may fail due to the relationships that exist between the Oregon Senate and various church groups.
In denying, delaying or killing this legislation, Oregon becomes extremely hypocritical as a government that strongly condemns the sexual abuse and exploitation of children, while struggling with basic common sense answers for the people lucky enough to survive the abuse in the first place.
I interviewed Clark and Krantz-Watts and three people who are survivors today after the first round of hearings at the capitol.
CHILD SEX ABUSE VICTIMS GROUP SPEAKS OUT FOR STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS BILL
For Immediate Release
May 27, 2009
For More Information
Matt Nees: (503) 780 - 1965
mattn@wintreswishes.org
Beaverton, Ore—Wintre’s Wishes Foundation, an Oregon non-profit dedicated to support of child abuse survivors, today announced its support for House Bill 2827, a measure which would extend the civil statute of limitations for child abuse survivors to sue their abusers.
The bill passed the House of Representatives 60-0 in April, but has bogged down in the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Senator Floyd Prozanski (D – Eugene).
The bill is set for a public hearing and vote on Thursday, May 28th at 8:00am in Senate Hearing Room 343.
Said Matthew Nees, the father of a seven-year-old sexual abuse victim, and the founder of Wintre’s Wishes Foundation, “We believe this is a common sense bill that will both help survivors of child abuse and will help prevent future child abuse. We thank Representative Andy Olson for his sponsorship of this bill, and we call on members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Senator Prozanski, to pass this bill.”
Under current Oregon law, victims of child abuse have until age 24 to file a civil law suit, or, until three years from the date they understand that their abuse has caused them injury. House Bill 2827 extends those periods of time to age 40 with a five year discovery window after that. “We know that most child abuse survivors never mention their abuse until much later in life, well into their 30’s, 40’s, or 50’s,” said Nees, “and this bill merely recognizes that reality.”
The measure has reportedly bogged down in the Senate because of political pressure from religious groups, including the Catholic Church and Mormon Church, on Senate President Peter Courtney or Chairman Prozanski. “We call on all senators, especially Senators Courtney and Prozanski, to side with children who have been sexually abused, and not with powerful institutions that would cover up abuse,” said Nees.
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Contact these Legislators and ask them to support passing this bill:
Additional Sex Abuse Documents on Catholic Priests Made Available on Abuse Website
For More Information: Kelly Clark, Esq. 503-306-0224 kellyc@oandc.com
Portland, Ore—Fr William McLeod, one of the most prolific abusers of children in the history of the Archdiocese of Portland, is the subject today of the latest post on the public service website www.archpdxpriestfiles.com, a site maintained by lawyers representing abuse victims.
The documents from the Archdiocese of Portland files, plus additional material gathered in litigation, were posted today, according to Kelly Clark, one of the lawyers responsible for the site. "Though he received far less attention than some of the other priests such as Fr Thomas Laughlin, Fr Maurice Grammond or Fr Aldo Orso Manzonetta, Fr William McLeod had nearly a dozen victims just that we know about, and he was responsible for incalculable damage to Catholic children," said Clark.
The website was initiated after the Archdiocese of Portland was ordered by an arbitrator, US District Judge Michael Hogan, to release files on abusive priests as part of the conclusion of the Archdiocese of Portland bankruptcy. The website so far has posted documents on three priests, namely Fr Rocco Perone, Fr Aldo Orso Manzonetta and Fr William McLeod.
More files on these and other priests will be posted in the future, according to Clark
(Yoon S. Byun/Globe Staff/file) 
