Grand jury rights
Release the report on dioceses according to process
The state Supreme Court is at risk of dismantling the grand jury system in Pennsylvania — and of doing it at the behest of people who may be complicit in the sexual abuse of children. This would be a new low even for an often controversial and politically motivated court.
The court has delayed releasing the findings of a two-year grand jury investigation into misconduct by priests in the Pittsburgh, Greensburg, Allentown, Erie, Harrisburg and Scranton dioceses. It stepped in after more than two dozen people criticized in the report demanded the right to address the grand jury or a judge so they could present their own evidence and shape the narrative to their satisfaction.
These unidentified individuals, at least the majority of whom are current or former clergy, claim the report contains inaccuracies that will unfairly sully their reputations. They claim their due process rights have been violated, and the court is sitting on the report while it weighs their concerns.
But this isn’t how the grand jury process works. A grand jury calls witnesses, sorts through evidence and makes findings, without booking appointments with those who want to pop in and have a word. It may charge people or criticize them. It is supervised by a judge who may publicly release a report only if the findings reflect the evidence the grand jury received. Those who are criticized but not indicted are showed the portions pertaining to them in advance and given the opportunity to file written responses.
In this case, the 40th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury was supervised by Cambria County President Judge Norman A. Krumenacker III, who has been on the bench since 1991 and was a public defender before that. He knows what he’s doing. The Supreme Court knows this or it wouldn’t have entrusted this important, time-consuming assignment to him in the first place.
Judge Krumenacker approved the grand jury’s report for public release, meaning he believes it reflects the evidence the panel received. He rejected the unidentified individuals’ previous demands to address the panel or a judge, correctly ruling that the law did not provide for it. That’s when they went to the Supreme Court to see what they might be able to get away with.
Do any of those who petitioned the court have political connections? Their names are shrouded in secrecy, so we don’t know.
As Judge Krumenacker noted in his June 5 order denying the anonymous petitioners’ demands, even the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized the fairness of the grand jury process. In a a 1960 case, it wrote, “Nor has it ever been considered essential that a person being investigated by a grand jury be permitted to come before that body and cross-examine witnesses who have accused him of wrongdoing.” Partly, that is “because the grand jury merely investigates and reports. It does not try.”
The state Supreme Court last year convened a task force to study grand juries. But if it had concerns about the constitutionality of the grand jury system, it could have addressed them long ago. Now, it’s threatening to undermine a highly important case and upend the grand jury system here forever more.
If it alters the grand jury report or sits on it permanently to protect a couple of dozen petitioners, a cloud of suspicion will hang over the six dioceses and the court itself. If it gives new rights to people investigated by grand juries, it may burden and alter the process to the point of uselessness, compromising an important law enforcement tool.
Several news organizations, including the Post-Gazette, have gone to the state Supreme Court to demand the report’s release. The court should comply immediately.