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	Supreme Court Justice Denies Bridgeport Diocese's Request By Dave Altimari Hartford Courant August 25, 2009 http://www.courant.com/news/breaking/hc-diocese-lawsuit-0826aug26,0,7279376.story U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has denied a request by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport to keep court files on clergy sex abuse cases sealed until the high court decides whether to take up their case in the fall. Ginsberg verbally notified attorneys in the case of her decision late Tuesday. The diocese's attorney, Ralph W. Johnson III, said church officials will now decide whether to ask the full nine-member court to keep the stay in place. The diocese is trying to keep sealed more than 12,600 pages of depositions, exhibits and legal arguments involving 23 lawsuits against seven priests from the Bridgeport diocese. Most of the lawsuits were filed in the mid-1990s. The lawsuits were settled in 2001 by the church for undisclosed amounts with the agreement that the settlements and the documents would remain sealed forever. Four newspapers, including The Courant, filed a lawsuit to have the documents unsealed in 2002 when it was discovered they had not been destroyed by the judicial department. Among the court documents are three depositions by then-Bishop Edward Egan, who was in charge of the Bridgeport Diocese when most of the lawsuits against priests under his control were filed and adjudicated. Egan recently retired as the archbishop of New York. Stories detailing how Egan and other officials in Bridgeport ignored accusations or protected abusive priests were published in The Courant in 2002. The stories were based on some of the secret court documents that the paper obtained on its own. The state Supreme Court has twice ruled that the documents should be unsealed. A possible appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is the church's last legal step to keep the documents secret. The diocese is expected to file its petition with the high court by the end of this month. The high court usually doesn't decide which cases it will hear until the fall. The court decides to hear only a handful of the petitions it receives. In its motion asking the high court to keep the stay in place, the diocese says there is a good chance the high court will take up the diocese's case because of two issues: the state Supreme Court's definition of what constitutes a legal document; and the church's contention that its First Amendment rights would be violated by the unsealing of documents that church officials produced with the understanding that they would be sealed forever.
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