MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
[Read the Creditors Committee emergency motion here]
[Read Judge Randa’s Order: Randa_Order_7-29-13]
By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel
Just days after U.S. District Judge Rudolph T. Randa issued a key ruling in favor of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee in its bankruptcy, the church’s creditors are seeking an emergency order to determine whether Randa has a conflict of interest that should have been disclosed.
Randa ruled last week that forcing the archdiocese to tap the $50 million-plus it holds in a trust for the perpetual care of cemeteries would substantially burden its free expression of religion under the First Amendment and a 1993 federal law aimed at protecting religious liberty.
In a highly unusual move late Friday, lawyers representing the archdiocese’s creditors — primarily sex abuse victims — filed a motion asking U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley to compel the release of any records showing whether Randa and his wife Melinda have purchased any plots or crypts in one of the archdiocese’s cemeteries, or whether they have any interest as heirs or beneficiaries of several relatives known to be buried in them.
Depending on what they find, the motion says, the lawyers say they may seek to vacate Randa’s order and ask him to recuse himself from the case.
“Judge Randa’s decision was so indefensible in so many ways that we suspected there was reason to investigate any involvement he might have with the cemeteries,” said Marci Hamilton, a First Amendment scholar who is representing the creditors committee on the issue.
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