By Kay Ebeling
Examiner
March 8, 2009
http://www.examiner.com/x-1960-LA-City-Buzz-Examiner~y2009m3d8-Attorney-representing-pedophile-priests-makes-jaws-drop-in-Superior-Court-last-week
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| LA Cardinal Roger Mahony, whose archdiocese pays Steier's fees, never goes out in public without being surrounded by thugs who guard him |
Pt. 2: When Donald Steier speaks in Court the rest of the attorneys squirm, the judge scowls, people observing begin to fidget. I know from the document diving I’ve done that Steier is repeating himself and repeating himself, as well as putting forth ludicrous arguments. Steier is the attorney who represents priests accused of sex crimes all over the state of California and probably other countries.
““It says parties have to do it, not the lawyers,” Steier knit picked to our astonishment. “It doesn't say anywhere in the law that lawyers can file for the plaintiffs for continued jurisdiction,” said in a hearing Thursday. So since attorneys filed and not the plaintiffs themselves, they “didn't file the request for continued jurisdiction (or release of files to a referee judge for review) the way it’s written in the law.”
The mouth of everyone in Court dropped as he spoke, but the judge reminds us to hush, he has the right to speak, (I believe, in order to file for an appeal later.) So we all had to sit and listen.
In court Thursday, Steier went on: “Now from Mr. DeMarco’s secret archives he’s given you a copy of whatever he’s got that's from the parties."
Ludicrous arguments plus a slap in the face. If I were Tony DeMarco, I would file sanctions against Steier, although I've seen Steier do this before, and he gets slapped with sanctions and SO WHAT. His legal bills are paid by the L.A. Archdiocese, he can file false motions and make scurrilous claims in court, get sanctioned, and pay out thousands of dollars as a result, and not even feel it.
The Catholic L.A. Archdiocese pays his legal bills.
He can be sanctioned endlessly, he does not feel it.
Still, attorneys in civil court are supposed to be, well, civil. Accusing DeMarco of having secret files is as bad as the metaphor Steier put our earlier in that hearing, (written about in previous post here) where Steier said giving the public access to files the archdiocese has on pedophile priests is the same as releasing personnel files of any employee of the County, including the court clerk sitting in front of him, who I think would have gotten up and busted Steier in the chops if he wasn’t also trained in the civility of civil court. These files the plaintiffs asked to have released and the archdiocese agreed to release as part of the July 2007 settlement will likely reveal more criminal activity in the archdiocese, as happened when Boston finally released personnel files in 2002. The public has a right to know, as does law enforcement from the national US Attorney’s offices down.
Let’s pick up where we left off last post:
STEIER: I could finish or go on-
JUDGE EMILIE ELIAS: Just finish-
STEIER: Okay well there’s this issue of the indispensable party. The archdiocese is simply the custodian. No way my clients’ rights won’t be impaired by a decision.
DEMARCO: We’ll give them the same rights as they're entitled to in discovery.
STEIER: The problem is discovery terminates when case dismissed (back to that again) blah-blah-blah blah-blah-blah blah-blah-blah this isn’t really discovery blah-blah-blah blah-blah-blah blah-blah-blah It’s a remedy trying to be obtained.
ME: There he goes again repeating ludicrous arguments, that the plaintiffs’ cases were dismissed so there is no extended jurisdiction even though extended jurisdiction papers were lodged with the court and signed by all parties at the time of the settlement, it doesn't matter because the jurisdiction just is not extended because I say so. That's basically his argument, because I say so. He should make a movie with Diane Keaton. It would be about as entertaining. )
Back to the hearing:
(I look at the clock. Steier has been talking now a good ten minutes.)
STEIER: That's Number one. Number two, as I understand what's being put forward by Mr. DeMarco, the reason my clients’ files can be released to the pubic as opposed to your clients’ files is Mine are accused as perpetrators, molesters, a category of terrible people. That's a foundation they need to prove to set my clients apart from everybody else."
My clients are accused as perpetrators, molesters, a category of terrible people. They need to prove to set my clients apart from everybody else
Then the tone of the courtroom started to change:
STEIER: The Only way to prove what plaintiffs are claiming about my clients is to call witnesses
(In the audience pews, we begin to buzz among ourselves:
Are we going to have a trial, or hearings, with the priests coming in to testify to their innocence?)
JUDGE: That's why the documents are turned over to a referee. We put the same order as in Clergy Two (San Diego cases). Your clients have a right to come in and make those arguments in court.
JUDGE: Your clients (the accused priests) have a right to come in and make those arguments in court
JUDGE: We're not opening any files to the public before a referee can look at them in respect to privacy rights. The test then will be the privacy rights versus balance in all privacy rights. I'm not going to address that, now. We are now turning it over to referee.
STEIER: Your honor, your footnote Six
JUDGE: (AUDIBLE SIGH)
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Having written about Catholic Church legal tactics for years, I'm understandably paranoid now of every institution or organization, and even plaintiff attorneys who represent the crime victims. Once you see the Catholic Church act like criminals, you lose all faith in organizations.
So then Tony DeMarco, Liaison Attorney for the 510 plaintiffs in the L.A. Clergy Cases got up in Court Thursday and said, “I lodged a copy of the fully executed settlement agreement with the court today, because Mr. Steier counsel for the accused wanted proof it had been executed and I prefer the Court look at it in camera and issue an order that the settlement was fully executed.”
I immediately became paranoid. I think I even wrote about it here.
I was thinking, oh no, this is collusion between the plaintiff attorneys and the church, there was something wrong with the settlement. Now the docs can't be released.
I ran a whole scenario in my head, in part from reading Donald Steier’s briefs in the weeks before the hearing March 5. I had the Archdiocese issuing the $660 million dollars to the plaintiffs and, at the same time, the court, plaintiff attorneys and their clients all in such a state of disarray that no one noticed that there had been no settlement agreement signed.
Now DeMarco wants to lodge the settlement agreement “in camera” so no one but the judge can see it? What kind of collusion is going on here, have all the attorneys from all sides all been plotting against us from the beginning?
So in a short conference after the hearing, I blurted out to DeMarco, “So tell me, Tony, why did the copy of the settlement agreement have to be lodged in camera?
"What's the secret?”
He looked at me through his goggle lenses, always serene at a layer inside him just above where he is steaming, (Everyone who deals with the church legally becomes internally angry.)
“Because, Kay," DeMarco seethted to me, "the settlement agreement has the signature of every plaintiff, with their full names and signatures.”
Oh now I get it. I became three feet tall. Embarrassed. My PTSD induced paranoia always embarrasses me when it wears off....
To be continued soon in Part 3
Where the Judge says:
"Counsel, counsel, let him finish." then. "I'll take it under submission until Monday when I get the third document."
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