Who cares about wrongly accused?

In this #Metoo era, reputations have been devalued to the point that even if you have one to protect, the avenging angels of society (prosecutors, investigative journalists, tweeting A-List actresses) will run roughshod over it.

Now that we’ve decided that pretty much every accusation ever made against a film producer, a CEO of a Fortune 500 company or a Catholic priest must be true, our collective concern for avoiding slanderous accusations against someone who cannot defend themselves has pretty much evaporated.

Raymond J. Donovan, Secretary of Labor under President Reagan once famously said, after he was acquitted of corruption charges, “Which office do I go to, to get my reputation back?” It was a rhetorical question that was once considered legitimate, but that today is mocked.

Who cares about the reputation of the wrongly accused if we can advance a political agenda that comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable, right? Who cares if that film producer never laid a hand on that starlet, enough of them did so let’s not worry about the details of a particular case.

Why worry about that Fortune 500 CEO since his accuser makes about a tenth in her entire lifetime what he makes in a month? And that Catholic priest?

We know he did something, and if he didn’t, so many of them did that it’s a literal sin to obsess over Father Expendable.

I’ve heard a lot about coverups these past few weeks, as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court blocked the release of one in a continuing series of grand jury reports that detail alleged abuse in several Catholic dioceses across the Commonwealth.

The high court refused to release the report immediately because of a concern that the interests of many people mentioned in that report could not be adequately protected.

The interest, obviously, is what Shakespeare called “the eternal part of myself,” a person’s reputation.

A number of plaintiffs, whose identities have not been revealed, went to court to prevent the release of the report, at least until such time as the interests of those who care about their reputations could be satisfactorily addressed.

That seems fair to me, since the incidents alleged in the report are beyond the reach of the criminal courts.

Lately, we’ve seen a lot of people brought down by innuendo. State Rep. Nick Miccarelli has been the target of some media malpractice in the way that journalists have handled the case of two women who accused him of sexual harassment.

Those women got to hide behind the veil of what I call Immaculate Anonymity draped around victims of abuse, while his name was splayed across the pages of this paper and others. That one of his accusers willingly chose to out herself doesn’t change the fact that his name gets dirtied, and the accusers get the grace of silence.

State Sen. Daylin Leach was subjected to the same treatment, as was Al Franken, as were many of the men caught up in the #Metoo maelstrom. Their reputations, if not completely destroyed, have been compromised.

In the case of this grand jury report, it’s tempting for people to assume the worst. Catholic priests are fair game, and have been since the first hint of scandal emerged about 20 years ago. Defending the due process and right to reputation of any person accused of a crime is unpopular these days, but infinitely more difficult when you are dealing with a class of men – Catholic priests – who have been branded, by default, as rapists.

A grand jury proceeding is not a trial. It does not afford the people mentioned in the courtroom ironclad legal protections, and as was once famously noted, even ham sandwiches of good and decent reputation can end up on the wrong side of a prosecutor.

Both the state Legislature and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court have realized that investigating grand juries are powerful things, and can have a devastating impact on those who are subject to their reach.

Last year, the high court formed a task force to review the operations of those grand juries and to recommend updates to the process and state Sen. Stewart Greenleaf drafted Senate Bill 1133 to address deficiencies.

Perhaps that’s why the court itself agreed to seal the report until such time as it could be convinced that the plaintiffs who sued to bar its release were adequately protected under the Constitution.

Because our justice system isn’t based on empathy.

It’s based on the law.