Judge rejects attempt to postpone a Pennsylvania grand jury report on child sex abuse by priests

June 06--Citing the need to protect children, a judge has rejected an attempt to postpone a grand jury report that is expected to detail sex abuse by Catholic priests and cover-ups by religious leaders and public officials across Pennsylvania.

Judge Norman A. Krumenacker III, who is presiding over the 40th statewide investigating grand jury in Pittsburgh, published his order on Tuesday.

Krumenacker's 11-page written order dealt with a legal fight previously waged in secret grand jury proceedings by defense lawyers for unnamed individuals and institutions. The lawyers sought to stop the state attorney general's office from publishing the findings of a grand jury probe of child sex abuse in six of the state's eight Catholic dioceses.

The attorney general's duty to protect children, Krumenacker wrote, outweighs the defense's legal claims.

"Here the report is the culmination of two years of investigation into the dioceses related to allegations of child sex abuse, failure to make a mandatory report, acts endangering the welfare of children, and obstruction of justice by individuals associated with the Roman Catholic Church, local public officials and community leaders," Krumenacker wrote. "The commonwealth's interest in protecting children from sexual predators and persons or institutions that enable them to continue their abuse is of the highest order."

Attorney General Josh Shapiro has said he will make the report public in late June. Last month, he shared the 800 or so pages with the six dioceses, which are reviewing them.

Defense lawyers had argued the state constitution's protections on "reputation" and "due process" outweigh publication.

They asked Krumenacker to hold more hearings so they could cross-examine prosecutors' witnesses and provide their own evidence to clear their clients' names if the report accuses them of ethical or moral shortcomings in how they handled abuse claims against priests. The lawyers argued the extra hearings "are required by due process as the reputation interest of the nonindicted persons will be harmed by the release of the report." Lawyers also asked Krumenacker to use his judgment to redact the report.

Krumenacker rejected all requests.

He said six bishops of the Allentown, Scranton, Harrisburg, Erie, Greensburg and Pittsburgh dioceses were given the opportunity to take the witness stand. But only Erie Bishop Lawrence Persico chose to do so, while all others provided written statements to grand jurors.

In addition, he said, the state's grand jury law does not allow defense lawyers to cross-examine witnesses. The law, he added, allows anyone mentioned in a grand jury report to file a rebuttal. The law also does not permit him to change written reports approved by the grand jury.

"This degree of due process is met by providing named persons notice of the report and an opportunity to respond to their inclusion in the report," Krumenacker said.

Shapiro inherited the probe of the six dioceses when he took office in 2017. His predecessor, Kathleen Kane, started it as a follow-up to a March 2016 grand jury report that detailed allegations of abuse by about 50 priests and other religious leaders in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese and an alleged cover-up by church officials.

Five years before that, the second of two grand juries investigating the Philadelphia Archdiocese concluded, uncovering unreported sexual abuse allegations against about 100 priests.

Krumenacker published decision came about three weeks after Harrisburg and Greensburg diocese publicly stated they would no longer seek to block publication. Bishops in the other four dioceses previously said they would not block publication.

"The judge's order and opinion speak for themselves," said Shapiro's spokesman Joe Grace. "We look forward to speaking in more detail about the grand jury's report at the end of June."

Defense lawyers can appeal Krumenacker's decision to the state Supreme Court.

steve.esack@mcall.com

717-783-7309

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