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	Lawyer Claims 'Intimidation' Tactic by Church By Kevin O'Connor Times Argus [Vermont] May 31, 2006 http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article? AID=/20060531/NEWS/60531001/1002/EDUCATION05 The lawyer pressing 19 priest misconduct lawsuits against Vermont's Catholic Church says the statewide Diocese of Burlington is waging a "campaign of intimidation" against judges and potential jurors. The diocese recently filed a motion in Chittenden Superior Court seeking to bar the judge who oversaw a record $965,000 sexual abuse settlement against the church from presiding over similar cases. In response, lawyer Jerome O'Neill, representing the accusers, says the diocese's call for disqualification is not only groundless, but also part of a "power play" that aims "to interfere with judicial independence." The church "hopes to make the presiding judge fearful of public criticism for ruling against the diocese, even if that is the ruling called for by the facts and the law," O'Neill said in court papers released Tuesday. "With nearly 25 percent of Vermont's population as members of the diocese, the diocese undoubtedly hopes that any judge sitting on this case will have one eye on judicial retention in ruling on this case and every other case against it." Church lawyer David Cleary claims Judge Ben Joseph's rulings in the $965,000 civil case of Michael Gay versus the Rev. Edward Paquette have jeopardized the diocese's ability to receive a fair trial. As a result, the church wants Joseph to recuse himself from future cases or be removed by the state's chief administrative judge. O'Neill, in response, considers the diocese's request nothing short of "judge shopping." "No court should permit this blatant attempt by the diocese to find a judge more to its liking, or, perhaps more realistically, one it can intimidate by spurious motions into ruling favorably for it," the lawyer wrote in a 14-page statement to the court. The church, in its call for recusal, questions many of Joseph's rulings and comments, including why the judge wouldn't let religious officials rely on Universal Roman Catholic Church law.But most damaging, the diocese says, was the judge's removal of a gag order after the settlement. That led to a torrent of news reports in which the church admitted it knew Paquette had molested boys in two states when it assigned him to parishes in Rutland in 1972, Montpelier in 1974 and Burlington in 1976. The diocese, facing 14 more lawsuits against Paquette, questions how it will find an impartial jury to hear future cases. "It is ironic," O'Neill wrote in his response, "that defendant diocese complains about Judge Joseph having vacated protective and gag orders, orders that it never requested and which the court, trying to protect the diocese's right to a fair trial, entered without the clear authority to do so." O'Neill noted the Vermont Supreme Court "has time and time again asserted that adverse rulings are not a sufficient basis to establish prejudice for purposes of disqualification." "The party can appeal the rulings," the lawyer continued. "Defendant diocese settled the Gay case rather than avail itself of that option." The diocese gave Gay, a 38-year-old South Burlington man, the promise of a $965,000 settlement just hours before a jury was to hear opening arguments in his case last month. Gay said Paquette "sexually abused and sexually exploited" him from ages 10 to 12 at Burlington's Christ the King Catholic Church. "The diocese settled the Gay case to avoid its odious conduct being exposed for days at a time to a Vermont jury," O'Neill wrote in response. "Such information, delivered on a single day, was far better than the alternative: day after day display of documents and testimony showing the bishops of this diocese had a policy of hiring, retaining, protecting and moving to new parishes pedophile priests from at least 1974 until as late as 2002." The diocese also settled, the lawyer continued, "to avoid exposure to a jury verdict much higher than the $965,000 it paid to settle the Gay case." O'Neill was prepared to ask a jury to award his client up to $5 million in damages. In his response, O'Neill said the church's call for recusal was part of a "hard-nosed public relations strategy." The lawyer pointed to a letter Bishop Salvatore Matano wrote the state's 118,000 Catholics this month that included the sentence, "In such litigious times, it would be a gross act of mismanagement if I did not do everything possible to protect our parishes and the interests of the faithful from unbridled, unjust and terribly unreasonable assault." "This harsh language," O'Neill said, "would seem to be intended to send a message to those who the diocese's priests sexually molested as children that their efforts through the civil justice system were an 'unbridled, unjust and terribly unreasonable assault' on the diocese." O'Neill also believes the bishop's statement "was intended for the court, which should then read this phrase together with the diocese's motion to disqualify Judge Joseph." "The reality is that this is a direct attack on the integrity of the judge," O'Neill said of the church's recusal request. "No Vermont court should bend to the diocese's effort to exercise its raw power." In reply, Matano has said he wasn't speaking about the church's accusers, but "a legal system that sometimes places us in a position where we can't really reach out in justice to all parties." And quietly, the diocese has removed the bishop's "unbridled, unjust and terribly unreasonable assault" sentence from a copy of the letter on its Web site. Contact Kevin O'Connor at kevin.oconnor@rutlandherald.com.
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