ARTICLES
September 2003 ARTICLES
Contents © 2003
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
A Terrible Disappointment
The Supreme Court Gives Mahony an Out -- But Was It Just?
By Maria Kennedy
On June 26, in Stogner v. California, the United States Supreme Court struck down a 1993 California law that allowed criminal charges to be filed against people accused of child molestation, even though the statute of limitations on the cases had expired. Although not specifically concerned with the Catholic Church, the ruling has allowed numerous priests to be released from jail. District attorneys throughout the state reviewing cases in which priests have been accused of molestation have, in many instances, had to drop charges.
Within days after the Supreme Court decision, Los Angeles County district attorney Steve Cooley petitioned the courts to drop molestation charges against priests facing abuse charges in cases where the statute of limitations had expired. The first case that Cooley asked the court to drop was against former priest, John Anthony Salazar, who had been charged with two counts of oral copulation with a minor. One of Salazar's charges stemmed from an alleged incident with a male student at St. Bernard High School in Los Angeles and the other with an altar boy at St. Theresita church in Los Angeles. Last May, Salazar resigned as a priest in the diocese of Amarillo, Texas. He had been arrested in November of 2002.
On July 3, Cooley's office filed a motion to drop molestation charges against former priest Matthew Michael Sprouffske, 76, who had been accused of four counts of sexually molesting a minor girl at Mt. Carmel High School in Los Angeles during the 1950s. The statute of limitations had expired in 1962, according to the motion. Molestation charges were also dropped in the case of former priest, George Neville Rucker, 82. Rucker was charged with 29 felony counts of sexually molesting 12 girls as far back as 1947. Rucker's alleged victims were at various parishes, including St. Alphonsus' in East Los Angeles, St. Anthony's in El Segundo, and St. Agatha's in Los Angeles. Cooley's office is reviewing several hundred cases in light of the Supreme Court's decision.
Bill Hodge, a senior prosecutor in the Los Angeles County district attorney's office, who filed the majority of charges, said that he had been preparing to charge "at least 20 more cases this summer" and has dropped them because of the court's decision. "We have been impacted mightily," he said. As for the victims, Hodge noted, "individually they have been devastated. The tragedy is that they were abused once by an institution that they had faith in, and now they have been abused again." When asked if there were calls in Sacramento to introduce legislation that would rectify some of the troublesome issues with the original legislation that had removed the statute of limitations, Hodge replied, "there are proposals in Sacramento. The ruling did not eliminate penal code section 803(g) which allows for the filing of a criminal complaint within a year of the date of a report of sexual molestation to law enforcement] ... it dramatically limited it."
Donald Steier, a criminal defense attorney who represented many priests in the Los Angeles archdiocese, said that the court's decision had nothing to do with victims' rights but addressed a constitutional issue. "It was a well written decision, it was clearly correct on the law," he said in a July 22 telephone interview. "It has very little to do with victims' rights; all the decision says is that the government cannot change its own rules and apply them backwards. We said from the very beginning that these prosecutions were unconstitutional.
"The way these cases were presented was very emotional," Steier continued. Steier said that it is possible if a priest molests a minor "right now, they can prosecute him fifty years from now. But what the court did not address is [the issue of] dead witnesses, faded memories, and destroyed evidence. In the future they can change the law if they want to. The court said that anything after January 1, 1988 can be prosecuted." Some legal scholars agree with Steier. Catholic University of America's Columbus School of Law dean Douglas Kmeic said that they court ruling "was on a technical area of the law."
Benjamin Field with the Santa Clara County district attorney's office said that the Stogner decision did not affect the case of Jesuit Father Edward Burke, who was sentenced to state prison for sexually assaulting a severely mentally challenged man. Since the Stogner decision only affects assaults that predate 1998, and Burke assaulted his victim between January 1998 and April 2000, Burke's conviction was not overturned.
East Los Angeles attorney Alex Jacinto, who has been watching the Los Angeles archdiocese, said that the ruling was frustrating with regards to the cardinal's role in the pedophile priest scandal. " I am very disappointed with the whole charade of having the cardinal in such a powerful position," said Jacinto. "I don't know which is the greater crime, to be a pedophile or to occult the crime."
Abuse victims are disappointed by the high court's ruling. Terri Light of San Francisco, who is on the Survivor's Network of Those Abused by Priests' board, issued a statement right after the court's decision was released. In the statement, Light noted it was a great day for child molesters. "This decision is a victory for child molesters and those who shelter them. The message to abusers is clear: 'If you successfully conceal your crimes and run out the time clock, you're home free forever.' The message to victims is chilling: 'No matter how severely you suffer, you have no chance to expose your molester and protect others.' The message to parents is frightening: 'Be even more careful with your children, because law enforcement can go after few molesters.'"