More redacted names in AG’s church child sex abuse report can be publicized, judge orders

By Greg Ng

Click here for updates on this story

    BALTIMORE (WBAL) — A Baltimore court ruled last week that more redacted names can be revealed from the attorney general’s report into child sexual abuse at the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

The Circuit Court for Baltimore City on Tuesday released its opinion that grants in part and denies in part a motion by the attorney general to disclose grand jury information.

The attorney general’s office released a statement later Tuesday morning, saying the names of 10 alleged abusers and five ranking archdiocese officials were redacted. As a result of the court’s order, all but three of those individuals will now have their names revealed in the report, Baltimore City Circuit Court Associate Judge Robert Taylor Jr. wrote.

“The court’s order enables my office to continue to lift the veil of secrecy over decades of horrifying abuse suffered by the survivors,” Attorney General Anthony Brown said in a statement.

The pleadings and orders in this case that were previously under seal will remain under seal, and the memorandum opinion was released to the public Tuesday morning.

The court wrote in its opinion and cited earlier court orders in saying, “There is a particularized need to publish a report that is as transparent and open as possible.”

To that end, the court disagreed with an argument that the reputation and livelihood will be damaged for some individuals who will be named who “played fairly inconsequential roles in the handling of a single abuser.”

“To the extent that a given individual’s actions were proper and/or insignificant, the potential harm to that person’s reputation and livelihood is greatly diminished,” the court wrote.

The order indicates the attorney general can release the unredacted report no sooner than Sept. 26.

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office spent years on an investigation before it released a report in April that paints a damning picture of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, which is the oldest Catholic diocese in the country and spans much of Maryland.

The investigation included interviews with witnesses, victims and alleged abusers, as well as the review of court records in prior civil and criminal proceedings.

The investigation also included documents obtained via grand jury subpoena from the archdiocese. Because some of the report was derived from records obtained by grand jury subpoenas, the attorney general sought the court’s permission to life the secrecy that applies generically to all grand jury proceedings. A new state law gives authority to the attorney general’s office to issue subpoenas in criminal cases.

The report found more than 150 Catholic priests and other Maryland clergy sexually abused more than 600 children and perpetually escaped accountability.

The court rejected the claims of some individuals that the attorney general lacked authority to issue the report, explaining that “inherent in the authority to investigate is the authority to record and report the results of that investigation.”

The report is not a criminal charging document or a finding of guilt. The fact that a person is named in the report, or that a person’s name was redacted, does not necessarily mean that they are accused of a crime.

Survivors of clergy abuse have called on Baltimore Archbishop William Lori to step down and asked the archdiocese to release the names of abusers who are redacted in the attorney general’s report.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.