Fight Over Priests’ Files Headed for High Court
Lawyers for Cardinal Roger M. Mahony say they will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a court order forcing the archdiocese to disclose the confidential personnel files of two former priests accused of child molestation.
The state Supreme Court let stand without comment an appellate court order that the archbishop must give the documents to a grand jury.
The church argued that disclosure would represent government infringement on religious freedom, but the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles ruled in July that the file release “will not result in excessive [government] entanglement.”
In a letter dated Thursday, attorney Jeffrey S. Koenig asked the appellate court to delay its final order while the church appeals to the highest court.
“If the privileged documents are turned over to the grand jury, our efforts to obtain further appellate review will be rendered moot,” he wrote in a two-page letter to Presiding Justice Joan Dempsey Klein.
Criminal prosecutors and lawyers suing the church in civil court for allegedly failing to protect more than 560 children from predator priests said the rulings could set the stage for widespread disclosures of internal church documents.
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