BishopAccountability.org
	Jury Selection under Way in Priest's Trial By Conor Berry Berkshire Eagle January 31, 2011 http://www.berkshireeagle.com/ci_17250980 Jury selection began this morning in the trial of a New York priest accused of raping two boys in the Berkshires in the 1980s. The alleged victims, both from New York and now in their 30s, were allegedly assaulted by the Rev. Gary Mercure in separate incidents in 1986 and 1989. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany permanently removed Mercure from ministry in August 2008, two months before a Berkshire grand jury indicted him on three counts of forcible child rape and one count of indecent assault and battery on a child younger than 14. Mercure denied all charges at his Berkshire Superior Court arraignment in November 2008. That paved the way for his criminal trial, which got under way this morning in Superior Court and is expected to run through next week. Impaneling a jury can take hours or days, however, and that process was expected to continue Tuesday. Significant media exposure about the Mercure case and widespread publicity surrounding the U.S. clergy sex abuse scandal, particularly in Massachusetts, were expected to slow down the jury selection process. Case in point: When Berkshire Superior Court Judge John A. Agostini asked prospective panelists if they had read or heard about the Mercure matter, roughly half the potential jury pool raised its hand. The goal is to select a dispassionate jury with no bias or prior knowledge of a case. Agostini made it clear that the charges against Mercure emanated from "two distinct allegations by two men," both of whom were minors at the time of the alleged crimes in Berkshire County. Prosecutors said one incident occurred in 1986 in a parking lot lying within the borders of both Great Barrington and Monterey, which is why both municipalities were named in the indictment, while the other occurred in 1989 in New Ashford. Agostini said Mercure was a parish priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany and his alleged victims were both altar boys and members of that parish. That remark by the judge was the first time the alleged victims were publicly identified as altar boys, who, among other things, assist priests with the Catholic Mass. Berkshire First Assistant District Attorney Paul J. Caccaviello is prosecuting the case with help from Assistant District Attorney Marianne Shelvey. Caccaviello said he hoped testimony in the trial would begin by Thursday. But Michael O. Jennings, Mercure's Springfield-based attorney, asked Agostini for a continuance until a key defense witness, whose testimony "goes to the heart of our defense," is available to testify. That individual is presently unavailable, according to Jennings. Agostini denied Jennings' request and said he, too, expected opening arguments to commence Thursday. Wednesday's weather forecast, which calls for heavy snow and ice, is expected to postpone the trial for a day, with testimony anticipated to last well into next week. "We could possibly use the entire week," Agostini said. Among those expected to testify in Mercure's trial are various law enforcement officials and Warren County (N.Y.) District Attorney Kathleen B. "Kate" Hogan, who helped Massachusetts authorities after receiving information from New York men regarding alleged sexual abuse by Mercure in the Berkshires. Hogan could not immediately be reached for comment today. Meanwhile, Jennings has said his client submitted to DNA testing and passed a polygraph. So-called lie-detector tests are inadmissible in Massachusetts' courts. To reach Conor Berry: cberry@berkshireeagle.com (413) 496-6249.
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