BishopAccountability.org
	18 Priest Trials to Be Heard at Once By Kevin O’Ñonnor Rutland Herald February 2, 2010 http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20100202/NEWS/100209982 A judge seeking to resolve 25 priest misconduct lawsuits against the state’s largest religious denomination has decided to hear 18 of them in one trial. Chittenden Superior Court Judge Helen Toor, facing a five-year-old stack of child-sex-abuse claims against Vermont’s Catholic Church, has called for one trial to resolve all remaining civil cases tied to the former Rev. Edward Paquette, who worked in Rutland in 1972, Montpelier in 1974 and Burlington in 1976. Three separate juries have ruled the statewide Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington was negligent in hiring and supervising the now-retired pedophile priest. One issued a record $8.7 million verdict in May 2008, a second issued a nearly $3.6 million verdict in December 2008 and a third issued a $2.2 million verdict last October. “Unless this court devoted all of its time to these cases to the exclusion of the many other cases pending on its docket – an option neither practical nor fair to the many other litigants waiting their turn – separate trials in all 25 cases will not be concluded for years,” Toor wrote in a court order. As a result, the judge wants one Paquette trial, another combined trial for three cases involving the former Rev. Alfred Willis (a priest in Burlington, Montpelier and Milton in the 1970s) and four final trials on non-related misconduct lawsuits. Toor has yet to decide the specifics of her plan. But she’s urging lawyers to try to settle all the remaining cases through mediation before she holds a hearing on her order in April. Toor, at the same time, denied a church request to reject last October’s $2.2 million verdict because two jurors encountered the plaintiff, former altar boy and current Burlington painting contractor Michael Keppler, during a smoking break. After investigation, the judge wrote: “The juror in question did not recall exactly what he had said. The other juror reported that she merely observed him ‘making small talk’ and recalled something about the comfort of the chairs in the courtroom. She was not sure the juror even realized he was talking to the plaintiff. She nudged him and said ‘we aren’t supposed to be talking to him’ and the other juror said ‘oh, whoops!’” Toor went on to rule: “There was no evidence that either juror had been prejudiced in any way by the conversation, which appeared to be merely the result of poor judgment by a juror who was smoking a cigarette near where plaintiff was standing.” The diocese also had pointed to a post-verdict letter sent to the judge by another juror. “After sitting through the last 2? days of deliberations, I was concerned with the potentially biased motives of 2 jurors,” the unnamed panelist wrote. “One juror stated that he ‘hates the catholic church’ and another stated her concern that the catholic school here (sic) niece or nephew attends may be effected (sic).” But the judge said the letter alone wasn’t enough to overturn the verdict. “The only time a court may allow testimony about deliberations is when there are allegations of jury tampering or ‘extraneous prejudicial information’ coming to the jury from outside sources,” Toor wrote. “This rule limiting inquiry into jury deliberations … is designed to avoid constant challenges to jury verdicts after the trial is over.” Contact: kevin.oconnor@rutlandherald.com
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