Church Documents Referee Agrees to Make Rulings Public

In an unexpected about-face, a retired judge acting as referee has decided that the public has a right to see his rulings on whether the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles can withhold documents from a grand jury probe of priests accused of child molestation.

A state appeals court in December ordered retired Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Thomas F. Nuss to reexamine his earlier decision to block public access to his own rulings on the archdiocese’s motion to quash grand jury subpoenas.

The appellate court held that judges could disclose portions of litigation that did not compromise secret grand jury matters.

Nuss decided this week that he would prepare his much-anticipated opinion “in a way that will permit it to be publicly released.” He said he may also release documents and transcripts from the prolonged legal fight over church documents.

An earlier decision to close the court file prompted an appeal by the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Daily Journal, a legal newspaper. They were backed by Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, whose office also argued in favor of public access to the judge’s findings.

The ruling comes at the same time the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rejected the Catholic Church’s argument that its priest personnel files are protected from disclosure by the 1st Amendment’s right to religious freedom.

“I think it was exactly what we were looking for,” said Los Angeles attorney Susan E. Seager, who represented The Times. Nuss’ “legal rulings are not infringing on grand jury secrecy.”

In making his ruling, Nuss acknowledged “the reality” that much information surrounding the secret grand jury proceedings had been made public in an earlier appellate opinion. He said in the court papers, dated Tuesday and made public Friday, that his decision on the church’s privilege issues should be final within a few weeks.

The Los Angeles County grand jury in 2002 subpoenaed nearly 2,000 pages of church documents, including the confidential personnel files of accused priests, as part of a criminal investigation into the clergy sex-abuse scandal.

Archdiocese officials turned over the documents and then promptly asserted a number of privileges, such as one covering communication between a penitent and a confessor, that so far have kept the information out of the hands of prosecutors.

For more than a year, Nuss has been paid $350 an hour by the archdiocese to resolve disputes arising from its legal arguments and determine whether or not prosecutors have a right to review the secret church files.