Judge Sarmina To Decide Whether Msgr. Lynn Gets Out Of Jail

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

The state Superior Court has reversed the conviction of Msgr. William J. Lynn, saying he never should have been charged in the first place with the crime of endangering the welfare of a child.

But whether Lynn gets out of jail is up to Judge M. Teresa Sarmina, the trial court judge who put Lynn away, and whose prior rulings in the case have been described by a panel of three Superior Court judges as "fundamentally flawed."

At 10 a.m. Monday, Judge Sarmina will convene a bail hearing to determine whether Msgr. Lynn gets out of jail. The hearing will be held in Courtroom 507 of the Criminal Justice Center. Several members of District Attorney Seth Williams' office are expected to attend, and argue that the monsignor deserves to stay in jail for months or years while the D.A. appeals the Superior Court opinion.

For Msgr. Lynn's lawyer, Thomas A. Bergstrom, this doesn't make much sense.

"The Superior Court has said he [Lynn] should be discharged forthwith, so I don’t think that requires any interpretation," Bergstrom said. "Seems to me she [Judge Sarmina] has to do exactly what they’ve ordered," Bergstrom said, referring to the panel of three Superior Court judges that reversed Lynn's conviction.

In the past, however, Judge Sarmina, has not exactly been impartial, or merciful, when it comes to Msgr. Lynn.

Sarmina is the trial court judge who allowed 21 supplemental cases of sex abuse to be admitted as evidence against Lynn, to show a pattern of conduct in the archdiocese of Philadelphia. The cases dated back to 1948, three years before the 62-year-old monsignor was born.

Think that could prejudice a jury? Lynn's defense lawyers did, and so they argued the issue on appeal, but it was never addressed by the Superior Court.

Sarmina presided over a ridiculously slanted show trial of Lynn. She made so many rulings in favor of the district attorney that I wrote that she was "often mistaken for a member of the prosecution team."

Judge Sarmina allowed the lead prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington, a fire and brimstone specialist, to have free reign. Blessington called Lynn a liar 14 times in one hour; he also attacked Lynn's lawyers as liars and freely insulted them, seemingly to pick a street fight. None of that conduct, however, ever seemed to upset Judge Sarmina, who was too busy slapping down defense lawyers.

When Lynn was convicted, and his supporters and family members were crying in the courtroom, it was Judge Sarmina who ordered Lynn to be immediately taken into custody. The judge decided that Lynn was too much of a flight risk to be granted bail pending appeal, because, she said, he might try to flee to the Vatican.

That prompted Lynn to say, The Vatican? The archdiocese won't even return my phone calls.

Judge Sarmina gave Lynn a sentence of three to six years in jail, which was actually a bit of a break since he was facing a prison term of 3 1/2 to 7 years. But she blasted Lynn at sentencing, saying he had turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to the suffering of victims of sex abuse.

"You knew full well what was right, Msgr. Lynn, but you chose wrong," she told Lynn. As secretary for clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1992 to 2004, Sarmina said, Lynn had displayed insensitivity to victims. He was either promising to do something, and doing nothing, the judge said, or he was doing his best to "callously shield the priests."

As a consequence, the judge said, Lynn allowed "monsters in clerical garb" to "destroy the souls of children" in "the most terrible way."

After she put him away, Judge Sarmina held up Lynn's appeal by taking nearly eight months to file a document known as an opinion in support of order, or a 1925 (a) opinion that required the judge to respond to appeal issues raised by Lynn's defense lawyers. 

Judge Sarmina was supposed to file her opinion within 60 days. The Superior Court eventually ordered Sarmina to file the document forthwith; they also allowed Lynn's defense team to proceed with an appeal in the absence of Judge Sarmina's opinion.

So you can't blame Lynn's defense lawyers for being cautious Monday when they return to Judge Sarmina's kangaroo court.

In a bail motion filed Dec. 26th, the same day the Superior Court reversed Lynn's conviction, defense lawyers Bergstrom and Allison Khaskelis argued that "as of Dec. 26, 2013, Msgr. Lynn has been incarcerated at SCI Waymart for more than 18 months."

"On Dec. 26, 2013, in a unanimous opinion authored by President Judge John T. Bender, the Superior Court reversed [Lynn's] conviction on the merits and ordered him discharged absolutely and forthwith," the defense lawyers wrote. "Pursuant to the opinion of the Superior Court, Msgr. Lynn now seeks an order from the trial court vacating his judgement of sentence and his immediate release on bail."

"In light of the unequivocal language of the Superior Court opinion, as well as the amount of time Msgr. Lynn has already served at SCI Waymart, justice required that this Court take immediate action in this case," the defense lawyers wrote Judge Sarmina.

Despite their victory in the appeal court, Lynn's defense lawyers will face a battle in Courtroom 507.

A spokeswoman for Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams told Allison Steele of The Philadelphia Inquirer that prosecutors will appeal the Superior Court's ruling and ask that Lynn remain in prison while the appeal is being considered.

"Since we are seeking further review, the appeal is not over and probably won't be over for many months or years," said spokesperson Tasha Jamerson. "The decades-long inaction of Lynn put countless children in harm's way and he is where he belongs -- behind bars," Jamerson told the Inquirer. "We will be fighting bail of any kind for this defendant."

So now we know where the local district attorney stands on the rule of law.

We have what the Superior Court described as the "plain language" of the state's original child endangerment law that says under that law, Lynn should never have been charged.

We have a 2005 grand jury report under Seth Williams' predecessor, District Attorney Lynne Abraham, that says that the state's original child endangerment law didn't apply to Msgr. Lynn, and he couldn't be charged.

We have a  unanimous panel of Superior Court judges that reversed Lynn's conviction, saying the child endangerment law didn't apply to Lynn, and that in essence, he never should have been charged.

As Lynn's lawyers have said, their client's been sitting in jail for more than 18 months. serving time for a crime that under the law, he couldn't possibly have committed.

Msgr. Lynn continues to serve as a scapegoat for the collective sins of the Catholic Church in Philadelphia.

Two dead archbishops who gave the orders and orchestrated the cover-up were never charged with any crime, and are dead.

Two bishops who presided over the shredding of a list of 35 predator priests drawn up by Msgr. Lynn have never even been questioned.

Most of the 60 "monsters in clerical garb" are either free or dead.

Lynn remains in jail.

Standing in the way of letting him out we have a biased judge who already screwed up the case. And a unscrupulous district attorney determined to continue the rule of mob law.

Justice in Philadelphia; what a disgrace.