ST. LOUIS (MO)
Post-Dispatch
By Robert Patrick
The lawyer for a Catholic priest charged with sodomizing a teenage boy in the late 1970s argued to a St. Louis judge Thursday that the case should be dismissed under the logic of a Missouri Supreme Court decision involving a former priest.
Rev. Thomas Graham's legal situation is like that of James Beine, a former priest who won release from prison in a high court decision in April, according to a dismissal motion a judge will decide later.
In the Beine case, a court majority held that the wording of the statute under which he was convicted - essentially indecent exposure - was unconstitutional because it was broad enough to cover even innocent conduct in a public restroom.
Christian Goeke, the lawyer for Graham, argued that similarly, the old sodomy law under which his client was charged is unconstitutional because it is broad enough to cover even sex acts between consenting adults.
The fight over nuances of the law is one reason the Graham prosecution is widely seen as a test case of whether Missouri prosecutors can pursue decades-old sex crimes, including those that came to light after the clergy sex abuse scandal.