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Court wants church abuse papers released

May 23, 2009

Daniel Tepfer, Connecticut Post

Judges dismiss Bridgeport Diocese appeal

HARTFORD -- The state's highest court Friday cleared the way for public review of hundreds of secret church documents regarding the abuse of children by priests in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport.

By a 4-1 vote, the state Supreme Court dismissed the latest attempt by diocesan lawyers to keep hundreds of pages of depositions, internal church memos and other documents that detail how top church officials, including then-Bishop Edward Egan, protected abusive priests.

Egan went on to become the cardinal of the New York Archdiocese, but Bridgeport diocese fought fiercely to keep the documents -- which may implicate Egan in a coverup of abuse by priests -- from being made public. Egan, 77, retired as cardinal earlier this year.

In its latest attempt to keep the information sealed, lawyers for the Bridgeport diocese claimed that a judge who earlier ordered the documents unsealed, state Superior Court Judge Jon Alander in Waterbury, had a conflict of interest because he has supported openness in the state courts.

"We are deeply disappointed that the Connecticut Supreme Court has failed to uphold the diocese's right to a fair adjudication of its claim by an impartial judge, Judge Jon Alander -- a right that is fundamental to any legal proceeding," said diocese spokesman Joseph McAleer said. Diocesan officials are reviewing their options, he said.

Cindi Robinson of the Bridgeport law firm Tremont and Sheldon has represented more than two dozen people who claimed they were abused as children by priests in the Bridgeport diocese.

The lawsuits resulted in more than $30 million in payments by the diocese and its insurers to settle the claims.

Robinson said Friday her firm has consistently supported opening the files to the public.

"It makes perfect sense that the public should have access to documents filed in a public court, especially when it involves the sexual molestation of children," she said.

In December 1994, Superior Court Judge Bruce Levin in Bridgeport granted a diocesan motion to keep secret all documents related to the cases.

The documents include a transcript of an interview with Egan, then bishop of the Bridgeport diocese, who had been accused of hiding the abuse.

Similar documents made public in the Archdiocese of Hartford are credited with forcing the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law.

The New York Archdiocese issued a statement Friday saying the documents involved five priests accused of sexual misconduct prior to Egan's appointment as Bridgeport bishop. One of the priests died before Egan's appointment and the other four were sent to a top psychiatric institution for treatment and expert evaluation, according to the statement.

"They were returned to ministry only upon the written recommendation of the aforementioned institution along with the advice of experienced members of both clergy and laity," the statement said. "At the time, this was the recognized professional manner of handling cases of sexual misconduct with minors."

When new information was received about misconduct, two had their authorization to exercise ministry removed indefinitely; one, who had suffered a brain injury, was retired from ministry; and one was permitted to continue in a restricted ministry as an assistant chaplain in a home for the aged, residing in a convent of religious women, according to the statement.

The Bridgeport Diocese has two weeks to decide whether to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. If it decides not to further appeal the case, court officials said a judge in Waterbury Superior Court, where the hundreds of documents are currently kept, will decide how to make them public.

The documents were sealed as part of a mass lawsuit filed against the diocese in state Superior Court in Bridgeport by two dozen people who claimed they were abused by priests in the 1970s and early 1980s. In March 2001, the Bridgeport diocese agreed to pay $15 million to settle the lawsuit, but the documents remained under seal. Subsequent lawsuits and claims later brought the total the diocese would pay out in excess of $30 million.

State Superior Court Judge Robert McWeeny in Waterbury first granted four newspapers -- The Hartford Courant, Boston Globe, New York Times and Washington Post -- the right to intervene in the closed cases and seek the documents. At the time, the Connecticut Post did not oppose the documents being sealed.

The Diocese of Bridgeport appealed that decision, but lost as the court remanded the case to the Waterbury court, where Judge Alander ruled in 2006 ruled that the files should be public record.

"The public's right of access to those documents is particularly strong in these cases due to the extraordinary public interest in knowing whether minors in Connecticut were sexually abused by priests employed by the diocese and whether the diocese was responsible for perpetuating that abuse," Alander wrote.

The diocese appealed Alander's ruling, sending the case back to the state Supreme Court for the second time.

This time the diocese claimed Alander had a conflict of interest because he had been appointed to a judicial panel reviewing public access to court records. The diocese also claimed the conflict was compounded by the fact that a Hartford Courant reporter was also on that panel.

"In light of all of the considerations that the task force was charged with taking into account, we conclude that no reasonable observer would have inferred that Judge Alander could not be impartial," the Supreme Court ruled.

In a dissenting opinion, Supreme Court Justice William Sullivan stated: "A person of ordinary intelligence and experience would have reason to question Judge Alander's impartiality in the present case."

Also lost in the Friday decision is the fact that, during the litigation claims of the 1990s, the victims and their lawyers had access to the records in question under seal. In 2001, the claims were settled, and the court records, including documents under seal, were set to follow the standard procedure for all claims settled before trial and be destroyed."

State Sen. Andrew McDonald, D-Stamford, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said he read the decision, written by Associate Justice Joette Katz of Fairfield, shortly after it was posted on the court's web page Friday morning.

"It was very important that the Supreme Court back up in its decisions what the Judicial Branch has said publicly and that is that judicial records are going to be open and accessible for the public to review," McDonald said in an interview at the Capitol.

Without the diocese's filing a motion for reconsideration, the records may be open in about 10 days.

"It was a pretty-compelling decision, written by Justice Katz, that documents filed in association with the litigation are presumed to be public documents," McDonald said. "And that is a lot of what we've been talking about in the Legislature and the public access commission that the court needs to be more open and transparent.

The lone dissent came from Senior Justice William Sullivan, who cited a controversial case on access to court documents that led to his suspension following a 2006 incident in which he delayed release of a decision in attempt to help another justice succeed him as chief justice.

-- Staff Writer Ken Dixon contributed to this story. Associated Press reports were included in this story.

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