Court says grand jury judge did not comply with order

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The supervising judge of the grand jury investigating sexual abuse by Catholic clergy erred when he “declined to comply” with an order of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to review documents to make sure they didn’tviolate secrecy provisions, thetop court ruled Thursday.

Theorder, and its criticisms of Cambria County Judge Norman A. Krumenacker III, shed light on why the court last week appointed a special master, Senior Judge John M. Cleland of McKean County, to supervise future redactions in public documents filed in an ongoing battle overthe sealed grand jury report.

The three-page ruling said the judge “was in error.”

At issue are challenges by about two dozen current and former clergy who say the roughly 900-page report violates their constitutional right to their good reputations by naming them critically in a report on decades of sexual abuse and cover-up in six Catholic dioceses.

The court has authorized release of a partial version of the report, with references to the challengers redacted pending further hearings.

But it had earlier ordered both sides of the dispute to file legal briefs in the matter, assigning Judge Krumenacker to oversee disputes in the redactions to the public versions of the briefs.

When the clergy petitioners last month challenged the stillunsealed brief of the attorney general’s office as being insufficiently redacted, Judge Krumenacker rejected their claims because he had already himself authorized the release of the