The church admits it destroyed documents so now the case against the church gets thrown out because there are no documents. -- American justice in action:
Judge dismisses abuse case against Diocese of San Diego
By Mark SauerUNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
January 24, 2007
One of five clergy-abuse cases set for trial against the Diocese of San Diego has been dismissed by a judge who ruled there was no evidence that church officials were aware the accused priest may have been a pedophile.
Michael Shoemaker, who now lives in Kansas, filed suit in August 2002 alleging that the late Rev. John Daly molested him at St. Joseph Church in Holtville in 1977.
Shoemaker, then 16, said he and an 18-year-old friend were hitchhiking in the rain in El Centro when Daly picked them up and said they could spend the night at the church.
After awaking to find Daly orally copulating him, Shoemaker said, he and his friend fled the church. They reported the incident to Holtville police.
Daly was arrested but never charged, according to Walter Dutton, the former officer who made the arrest. Dutton has testified that he remembered seeing police paperwork citing two prior arrests of Daly on sex-abuse charges. But in dismissing Shoemaker's lawsuit, Superior Court Judge Haley Fromholz of Los Angeles noted that the plaintiff's attorneys failed to produce any documents from police files, or Daly's personnel file, corroborating previous arrests.
“Even if there were admissible evidence supporting the existence of these prior arrests, there is no evidence that (diocese officials) knew or had any reason to know of their occurrence,” wrote Fromholz in a ruling issued Monday. . . .
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There's more but why bother. We cannot get justice in the courts.
The sheer volume of cases in L.A. makes it easier for the church to obfuscate. Right now the campaign by Mahony is confuse the issue. Is it the parish or the archdiocese's fault? They have the money. No they have the money.
How can it be okay to dismiss a case now when there's still so much more discovery to do and the discovery on cases coming up in the next weeks would affect this one?
I'm reminded of The Verdict and that woman who was hired to pretend to love Paul Newman but really to get information out of him. People in the so-called survivor support community apparently can't even trust our own advocates. Or is paranoia just another one of my many neuroses?
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2 comments:
The trial court's sole function on motion for summary judgment is issue finding, not issue determination. Walsh v. Walsh, 18 Cal. 2d 439, 441, 116 P.2d 62 (1941). Summary judgment should be used with caution and any doubt as to the propriety of granting it should be resolved in favor of the party opposing it. Mann v. Cracchiolo, 38 Cal. 3d 18, 35-36, 210 Cal. Rptr. 762, 694 P.2d 1134 (1985). The moving party's papers are to be strictly construed, while those of the opposing party are to be liberally construed. Slobojan v. Western Travelers Life Ins. Co., 70 Cal. 2d 432, 437, 74 Cal. Rptr. 895, 450 P.2d 271 (1969).
Translation from Wikipedia:
In order to defeat a motion for summary judgment, the non-moving party only has to show substantial evidence that a dispute of material facts exists, regardless of the strength of that evidence. For example, if one side on a summary judgment motion can produce the evidence of "a dozen bishops", and the other side only has the testimony of a known liar, then summary judgment is not appropriate. Deciding on the relative credibility of witnesses is a question for trial.
My case had the testimony of the arresting officer, among other evidence, buthe judge still threw out the case.
We will appeal.
However, I have to say that I am not extremely optomistic. i have been studying the RCC a bit, and it is discouraging. They have more power than I imagined and in my opinion little has changed in the RCC hierarchy since the days of the inquisition.
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