Philadelphia Monsignor Seeks High Court's Help before Trial

By Maryclaire Dale
York Daily Record
January 13, 2012

http://www.ydr.com/ci_19738663

PHILADELPHIA—A Roman Catholic monsignor has taken the rare step of asking the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to intervene before he becomes the first church official in the U.S. to stand trial for allegedly transferring predator priests.

Lawyers have filed a King's Bench petition on behalf of Monsignor William Lynn, the longtime secretary of clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Lynn, 61, faces more than a decade in prison if he's convicted of criminal conspiracy and child endangerment. He is set to stand trial in March, along with two priests and a former Catholic school teacher charged with raping two boys.

Lynn's lawyers argue that child endangerment cannot apply to defendants who had no direct responsibility for individual children. Several trial judges in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas have rejected that defense in pretrial motions.

With jury selection set to start next month, defense lawyers Thomas Bergstrom and Jeffrey Lindy filed this week for extraordinary relief to the high court. Prosecutors have two weeks to respond. The state Superior Court will then decide whether to hear arguments on the issue.

"The continued prosecution of Monsignor Lynn's case is a clear error," the lawyers wrote. "Monsignor Lynn is awaiting trial on charges that he simply and unambiguously cannot be legally guilty of."

Lynn served as secretary of clergy from 1992 to 2004, nearly all of it under retired Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.

Lynn's lawyers argue that the child-endangerment statute then in effect applied only to parents and other direct caregivers, not to church or school administrators.

They say the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office itself reached the same conclusion in 2005, when it declined to charge Bevilacqua, Lynn and others with child endangerment—despite a devastating grand jury report that said 63 archdiocesan priests had been credibly accused of assaulting hundreds of children.

Pennsylvania lawmakers amended the child-endangerment statute in 2007 to say the law applies not only to those who supervise a child's welfare, but to "a person that employs or supervises such a person." The two sides now disagree on the interpretation of that language.

But in either case, Lynn's lawyers say it cannot be applied retroactively to his work before 2007.

"The outcome of this trial has the potential to instigate litigation against other high-ranking diocesan officials throughout the Commonwealth and the nation," the defense lawyers wrote. "A broad range of individuals with no direct supervisory duties over children, for example, school superintendents, administrators and janitors, can suddenly and unexpectedly find themselves charged with (child endangerment), even though they are not guilty of any abuse."

A gag order prevents either side from discussing the case.

Lynn was charged last year after Philadelphia prosecutors finished a second grand jury investigation into clergy abuse within the archdiocese. The Rev. Charles Engelhardt, 64, former priest Edward Avery, 69, and former teacher Bernard Shero, 48, were charged with raping the same boy, starting when he was 10. The fifth defendant, the Rev. James Brennan, 48, is not an archdiocesan priest and will be tried separately for raping a 14-year-old boy.

Prosecutors allege that Lynn, in his role as clergy secretary, enabled the criminal behavior of Avery and Engelhardt.

Lynn argues that Bevilacqua alone determined priest assignments. Bevilacqua, now 88, suffers from cancer and dementia. Lynn's lawyers want his recent testimony, taken before trial because of his condition, excluded because of his failing memory.