Supreme Court says grand jury judge refused to comply with order

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

August 2, 2018

By Peter Smith

The supervising judge of the grand jury investigating sexual abuse by Catholic clergy erred when he “declined to comply” with an order of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to review documents to make sure they didn’t violate secrecy provisions, the top court ruled Thursday.

The order, and its criticisms of Judge Norman A. Krumenacker III, shed light on why the court last week appointed a special master, Senior Judge John M. Cleland, to supervise future redactions in public documents filed in an ongoing battle over the sealed grand jury report

The three-page ruling said the judge “was in error.”

At issue are challenges by about two dozen current and former clergy who say the roughly 900-page report violates their constitutional right to their good reputations by naming them critically in a report on decades of sexual abuse and cover-up in six Catholic dioceses.

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