By Max Mitchell, From The Legal Intelligencer

The first Catholic Church administrative official convicted of endangering the welfare of children abused by other priests has been sent back to prison.

Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina revoked the bail of Monsignor William J. Lynn, and remanded the former secretary of clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia back to prison.

The bail hearing came a few days after the state Supreme Court overruled a portion of a state Superior Court decision that had tossed Lynn’s conviction. The Superior Court had found that Lynn could not have been convicted of endangering the welfare of children he never supervised. The Supreme Court’s ruling held the conviction did not require actual supervision of the children to stand.

Lynn was previously sentenced to three to six years of incarceration. He spent 18 months in jail. Following the Superior Court’s ruling, he had been released from the state prison at Waymart, and put on house arrest.

Following the bail hearing Thursday, Lynn’s attorney, Thomas Bergstrom of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, said he expected Lynn will be returned to the state prison at Waymart. But Bergstrom said, in the meantime, he plans to appeal Sarmina’s ruling to the Superior Court.

“She has no authority to revoke his bail,” Bergstrom said about Sarmina. “There’s no support legally or factually for what she did. She’s wrong and I’m going to prove it.”

Bergstrom had argued before Sarmina that, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling Monday, the Superior Court’s reversal of Lynn’s conviction still stands.

According to Bergstrom, the Supreme Court’s ruling only addressed the narrow issue of supervision, and did not overturn the Superior Court’s reversal. No court has affirmed Lynn’s conviction based on whether he knowingly and unlawfully endangered the welfare of a child, Bergstrom argued.

“He’s an unsentenced prisoner,” Bergstrom said during the bail hearing.

Sarmina replied that she disagreed.

“He’s a sentenced prisoner,” Sarmina said. “The Supreme Court only ruled on the supervision issue. He is a sentenced prisoner with an appeal pending before the Superior Court.”

Sarmina said she had released Lynn on bail following the Superior Court’s order “for the sole reason [that] I could have gotten it wrong” since the issue of a supervisor’s liability was novel.

“And now the Supreme Court has said maybe I didn’t get it wrong,” Sarmina said. “It means there is no ruling from the Superior Court.”

Patrick Blessington of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office said the Supreme Court order clearly reversed the vacation of the conviction, and lit into Bergstrom’s argument.

“He just stood up, misstated facts, misstated law and made up law,” Blessington said. “He makes it up and expects you to buy it.”

Lynn had been convicted under an earlier version of Pennsylvania’s law criminalizing endangerment of the welfare of children, which did not specifically indicate that the law extended to someone who employs or supervises parents, guardians or supervisors.

The jury in Lynn’s 2012 trial was charged with considering whether Lynn violated the EWOC statute as a principal, or as the abusive priest’s accomplice, according to the opinion. He was found guilty on both. On appeal, Lynn argued the evidence was not sufficient to show he violated the statute because he had no supervisory role over the victim in question at trial.

Lynn said the EWOC statute was amended in 2007 to include those who supervise individuals who supervise children, meaning the law in place during the time period at issue in Lynn’s case did not intend to include people such as Lynn. He had argued its retroactive application was unconstitutional. The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office argued the 2007 amendment was merely a clarification of what had always been the law’s intent.

The Superior Court concluded the law could not be meant to cover Lynn as a principal given he didn’t supervise the children. The court found the evidence didn’t support his conviction as an accomplice to the abusive priest because there was no evidence Lynn knew of the victim.

The Superior Court’s decision, which came down in December 2013, ordered that Lynn be “discharged forthwith.”

Justice Max Baer, who wrote the Supreme Court’s majority opinion, said the court didn’t have to determine whether Lynn had a duty of care to the victims, but only whether he could be considered to be a supervisor under the statute.

“The statute is plain and unambiguous that it is not the child that [Lynn] must have been supervising, but the child’s welfare,” Baer said.

Baer said supervision is routinely done through subordinates and is no less supervisory if it doesn’t involve direct contact with the children. Baer said that, depending on the facts, criminal liability could attach to the decision to knowingly place sexually abusive employees in proximity to children.

Having found the evidence supported a conviction as a principal actor, the Supreme Court did not address the accomplice issue.

For more on this story go to: http://www.thelegalintelligencer.com/id=1202725053239/Lynns-Bail-Revoked-in-Clergy-SexAbuse-Case#ixzz3Ytmk4r3p