PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial
By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net
The judge in the Msgr. William J. Lynn sex abuse case today announced that she had found evidence of prosecutorial misconduct serious enough to warrant a new trial for the defendant.
But, Judge Gwendolyn N. Bright said, since Lynn has already been granted a new trial by the state Superior Court, which overturned Lynn’s conviction last year, the misconduct did not rise to the level where the only solution was to dismiss a retrial of the monsignor, scheduled for May. So the judge denied a defense motion to dismiss the case.
The judge did say that the matters testified to by retired Detective Joseph Walsh “should have been provided to the defense,” and amounted to violations of Brady v. Maryland. That landmark 1963 U.S. Supreme Court case established that the prosecution must turn over all evidence that might exonerate a defendant.
Detective Walsh was the man who led the district attorney’s investigation into the allegations of Danny Gallagher AKA “Billy Doe,” the former altar boy who improbably claimed he was raped by two priests and a Catholic schoolteacher.
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