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	California Supreme Court Denies Franciscans' Petition The Safenet January 20, 2011 http://www.mysafenet.org//?q=node/71 The Franciscans petition to the California Supreme Court for review of the appellate court's ruling on the release of personnel files, and their request for depublication of that ruling, has been denied. To read the Associated Press story, click here, or see item "6" below under "What You Will Find Here. Court rulings can often be painful to read. When we feel we have prepared ourselves for the worst, we sometimes discover that we haven't. When we believe we have recovered from our injuries, we often find our deepest wounds have been reopened. It is natural to feel this way. It is also good when we can accept that these feelings are present in all of us. As we expect our own feelings to be acknowledged and respected, we strive to afford the same consideration to others who have been hurt by the same crisis. Healing is personal and begins with compassion for oneself. SafeNet believes we are all accountable. We believe restorative justice must partner with understanding and sensitivity. We urge the greatest care when speaking of the pain and horror that so many have experienced. We post this information as a service to the public in the spirit of disclosure and transparency. And we encourage all of us to read and educate ourselves with the right intentions. We are confident that we will all find the courage and wisdom to make our own determinations and distinctions based on all the available information. We are hopeful that all parties will continue to communicate in good faith. And we are certain that the work we do will focus not on the blame, but on the healing. What You Will Find Here: 1. The AP News Article on the Court Ruling of April 2, 2009 2. The Court Ruling of April 2, 2009 in two parts (PDF Files) 3. The Tentative Court Ruling of April 20, 2010 Superior Court of California, Anacapa Div., Santa Barbara, CA Case No.1337577 : Ernesto C vs Does 1 thru 100 4. The Metropolitan News-Enterprise Article re Court Ruling of Sept. 30, 2010: Court of Appeal Upholds Order Releasing Priests' Records 5. The Appellate Court Ruling of Sept. 30, 2010: Regarding the appeal of the public release of confidential files on Franciscan friars accused of sexual abuse. The Clergy Cases I, B215775 6. The Associated Press article on the California Supreme Court Ruling of Jan.19, 2011 regarding the denial of the Franciscans' petition of the Appellate Court Ruling of Sept. 30, 2010. NOTE: The Franciscans' official appeal to the Calif. Supreme Court will be posted here as it becomes available. If the ruling by the Calif. Supreme Court is published, it too will be posted here. Case S187999, Supreme Court of California 1. From The Associated Press / April 2, 2009 LOS ANGELES JUDGE ORDERS FRANCISCANS TO OPEN CLERGY FILES LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge on Thursday ordered the Franciscans, a Roman Catholic religious order, to release hundreds of pages of private personnel files and other documents as part of a clergy abuse settlement. The order by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Peter D. Lichtman comes nearly three years after the Franciscans reached a $28 million settlement with 25 victims of sexual abuse.Lichtman ruled that the documents must be released within 21 days, but if the order and the individual brothers named in the records appeal, the ruling could be put on hold. An attorney for the plaintiffs said the previously undisclosed documents could reveal how long the Franciscans knew about alleged abusers and how they dealt with them. The documents also could contain the medical histories and treatment records of the accused, said Tim Hale, who represents 14 of the alleged victims. "We're going to see things that have never been seen and there's going to be pretty damaging and dramatic information in there," Hale predicted. Brian Brosnahan, an attorney for the Franciscan Friars of California Inc., said in a statement that Lichtman's decision to open the medical records to the public was counter-productive. "The psychotherapist-patient privilege exists so that the patient will make full disclosure to the therapist without fear that the communications will become public information," the statement said. "This would make it much less likely that the patient will be open and truthful with the therapist, which would make it much harder to effectively supervise and treat alleged offenders." Brosnahan said the Franciscans were considering whether to appeal the ruling. An attorney for the individual brothers was on vacation and didn't immediately return a call Thursday. The May 2006 settlement laid the groundwork for the Franciscans to release documents sought by the plaintiffs, including medical records, letters and personnel files. Lichtman was eventually assigned to review the contents of each document where objections were raised and decide if it could be made public. Some of the accused brothers fought back in court, arguing that releasing their files would violate their rights to privacy, attorney-client privilege and freedom of religion. In his order, Lichtman overruled many of those objections.He did, however, bar the release of documents generated after the 2006 settlement. He ruled in the Franciscans' favor on several objections over doctor-patient privilege, attorney-client privilege and attorney work product. He also agreed to redact the names of Franciscan superiors in some of the documents. Similar legal fights are going on over priest personnel files in settlements with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Diocese of San Diego. The Los Angeles archdiocese settled more than 500 clergy abuse cases for a record $660 million in July 2007 and the Diocese of San Diego reached a $198 million settlement with 144 alleged victims several months later. 2. The Court Ruling of April 2, 2009 Superior Court of Los Angeles Regarding Release of Confidential and Personnel Files / Franciscan Friars of the Province of St. Barbara / Ruling in two parts. Click Here to Read the Court Ruling: Part 1 Click Here to Read the Court Ruling: Part 2 3. The Tentative Court Ruling of April 20, 2010 Superior Court of California, Anacapa Div., Santa Barbara, CA Case No.1337577 : Ernesto C vs Does 1 thru 100 Regarding Demurrer to First Ammended Complaint / Motion to Strike re First Ammended Complaint. Click Here to Read the Tentative Court Ruling 4. From The Metropolitan News-Enterprise/ October 1, 2010 COURT OF APPEAL UPHOLDS ORDER RELEASING PRIESTS' RECORDS Metropolitan News-Enterprise By a MetNews Staff Writer Psychiatric and other confidential records of priests whose molestation of children resulted in lawsuits against their order may be released in the public interest, the Court of Appeal for this district ruled yesterday. "We hold that compelling social interests in protecting children from molestation outweigh the Individual Friars' privacy rights, and the trial court correctly ordered the public release of psychiatric and other confidential records in the possession of the [Franciscan Friars of California, Inc.]," Justice Elizabeth Grimes wrote for the court. The Franciscans were sued in 25 separate cases by plaintiffs who accused individual members of the order of molesting them as children. During discovery, the order produced some files relating to the individual priests, and the case was settled in 2006. A consolidated settlement agreement required the Franciscans and the Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles to pay $28.45 million. It also established a procedure by which a judge would decide what records of individual priests would be made public, with or without redactions, after notice to those individuals. The Franciscans agreed that they would not assert third party privacy rights with respect to documents involving "affect "public safety issues relating to childhood sexual abuse" or that reflect "the knowledge of the defendants as to the suspected sexual abuse of a child" or the "cover up" thereof. The agreement recognized, however, that individual priests could assert any legally valid objection to the release of any document. Yesterday's ruling concerns objections by six Santa Barbara-based friars— Samuel Charles Cabot, Mario Cimmarusti, David Johnson, Gus Krumm, Gary Pacheco, and Robert Van Handel—to release of documents alleged to be protected from disclosure by the constitutional right of privacy, and the psychotherapist-patient and physician-patient privileges. The priests also alleged that the settlement provision governing possible release of their records was invalid and could not be enforced against them because they were nonparties. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Peter Lichtman, assigned to hear the objections as provided in the settlement agreement, found that the challenged settlement provision was valid, that the notice-and-hearing procedure satisfied due process, and that the friars waived the therapist-patient privilege by participating in therapy knowing that information they disclosed was subject to disclosure to other members of the order. The judge went on to rule that 154 pages of documents, mostly consisting of psychological records, should be released under the balancing test used to decide constitutional privacy issues. Grimes, in her opinion for the Court of Appeal, said Lichtman did not abuse his discretion in finding that the public interest in disclosure outweighed the privacy interests asserted by the priests. The evidence, the justice explained, showed that 54 children were abused by 41 Santa Barbara-area priests, including 24 Franciscans—nine of them identified in the settled lawsuits—over a 50-year period. The six priests whose records were ordered released, she added, were shown by their own admissions or by records to have molested or to have a propensity to molest children, and one of them, Van Handel, had been convicted of a crime and ordered to register as a sex offender. "Surely, all members of the Santa Barbara Franciscan province, as well as members of the Catholic Church throughout California, have a compelling interest in knowing what treatment the Individual Friars received, if any, for their predatory proclivities, and whether it was adequate to protect young parishioners whom they may have encountered in their ministries," Grimes wrote. "Plaintiffs, former members of the Santa Barbara Franciscan province who have suffered the lifelong effects of childhood abuse, have the same interests as other members of the province and society in having the documents of their abusers released. Indeed, all citizens have a compelling interest in knowing if a prominent and powerful institution has cloaked in secrecy decades of sexual abuse revealed in the psychiatric records of counselors who continued to have intimate contact with vulnerable children while receiving treatment for their tendencies toward child molestation." The case is in The Clergy Cases I, B215775. 5. The Appellate Court Ruling of Sept. 30, 2010: Regarding the appeal of the public release of confidential files on Franciscan friars accused of sexual abuse. The Clergy Cases I, B215775 Click Here to Read the Appellate Court Ruling 6. From the Associated Press / January 19, 2011 Calif. High Court Declines to Hear Franciscans' Case, Paves Way for Release of Church Files by Gillian Flaccus, Associated Press LOS ANGELES — The California Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to review an appeals court decision to unseal the files of nine Franciscan friars accused of child molestation, meaning thousands of pages of potentially incriminating documents will be made public within weeks. The order covers four categories of files kept by the religious order on the California friars, including psychological records, confidential papers and documents related to the defrocking of some of the men over sex abuse allegations, said Tim Hale, an attorney for plaintiffs whose lawsuits prompted the ruling. The files are expected to contain records of the friars' sessions with therapists and psychotherapists, disciplinary files and defrocking paperwork — all things that could show how much the Franciscans knew about their employees' behavior and when they knew it. In some cases, files related to the defrocking of priests and other clerics include correspondence between local religious leaders and the Vatican. The Franciscans are disappointed with the ruling but are preparing for the papers to be released within three weeks as directed by the court's order, said Brian Brosnahan, an attorney for the Franciscans. When the files become public, it will have a chilling effect on the willingness of future priests and others to be honest with therapists and psychologists about any incidents of molestation, said Robert Howie, an attorney representing six of the individual friars. "They would be reluctant to reveal it to a person that their employer sent them to because it would be public if the employer was allowed to touch it," he said. Twenty-five plaintiffs settled lawsuits for $28.4 million in 2006, and the agreement called for the release of confidential files. Most of the accused friars, however, did not sign the settlement agreement. A trial judge ruled that the public interest outweighed the friars' privacy rights, but six of the friars appealed. The 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled last September that the papers could be made public. "All citizens have a compelling interest in knowing if a prominent and powerful institution has cloaked in secrecy decades of sexual abuse," the court wrote in its opinion. Six of the friars are still living and three are dead, Hale said.
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