This article is from the source 'washpo' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/prosecutor-says-australian-cardinals-convictions-must-stand/2020/03/11/062bd126-63f5-11ea-8a8e-5c5336b32760_story.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=wp_world

The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 1 Version 2
Prosecutor says Australian cardinal’s convictions must stand Australian highest court to rule on Cardinal’s appeal later
(about 8 hours later)
CANBERRA, Australia — A prosecutor argued in Australia’s highest court Thursday that Cardinal George Pell’s convictions for child sex abuse should stand and what may be his final appeal should be rejected. CANBERRA, Australia — Australia’s highest court on Thursday said it will deliver a verdict at a later date on whether to overturn the convictions of the most senior Catholic to be found guilty of child sex abuse.
Pope Francis’ former finance minister and the most senior Catholic ever convicted of child sex abuse, Pell is serving six years in prison for molesting two 13-year-old choirboys in Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral while he was the city’s archbishop in the late 1990s. Cardinal George Pell’s lawyer, Bret Walker, told the High Court that if it found a lower court had made a mistake in upholding Pell’s convictions, he should be acquitted.
Australia’s High Court on Wednesday heard Pell’s lawyers argue that an apparently truthful victim was not enough to dispel reasonable doubt about guilt and the verdicts could not be supported by the whole of the evidence. Prosecutor Kerri Judd told the seven judges that if there were a mistake, they should send the case back to the Victoria state Court of Appeal to hear it again.
Prosecutor Kerri Judd on Thursday opened her arguments on why the 78-year-old cleric’s appeal should be dismissed. Otherwise, the High Court should hear more evidence and decide itself whether the convictions against Pope Francis’ former finance minister should stand, Judd said.
Pell was convicted by a unanimous verdict in December 2018 and a Victoria state appeals court rejected his appeal in a 2-1 decision last August. Prosecutors have told the High Court the appeals court’s rejection was correct. Pell is one year into a six-year sentence after being convicted of molesting two 13-year-old choirboys in Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral while he was the city’s archbishop in the late 1990s.
The prosecution case relied on the evidence of a former choirboy, now aged in his 30s with a young family. The 78-year-old cleric’s two-day hearing that ended on Thursday could be his last chance of clearing his name.
The state appeals court had found that his evidence was not a “catalogue of impossibilities,” as Pell’s lawyers had argued, but a catalogue of uncertainties and possibilities. Pell was largely convicted on the testimony of one of the choirboys, now in his 30s with a young family.
The hearing is expected to end late on Thursday. The seven judges will effectively hear Pell’s appeal in its entirety before they technically decide whether they will even hear his appeal. He first went to police in 2015 after the second victim died of a heroin overdose at the age of 31. Neither can be identified under state law.
They could decide he does not have permission to appeal, they could deny or uphold his appeal, or they could send the case to be reheard at the Victoria Court of Appeals. Judd told the court on Thursday that the surviving victim’s detailed knowledge of the layout of the priests’ sacristy supported his accusation that the boys were molested there.
It is not known when the judges will deliver their rulings. “Something has happened there in that room and it’s indelibly marked him,” Judd said. “Something significant happened in that room.”
Pell is serving his sentence at the maximum-security Barwon Prison near Geelong, southwest of Melbourne. He hasn’t traveled to Canberra for his appeal hearing. Much of the two-day hearing focused on whether the jury should have had a reasonable doubt about Pell’s guilt and whether he could have time to molest the boys in five or six minutes immediately after a Mass.
The appeals court found in a 2-1 majority in August that Pell had had enough time to abuse the boys and that the unanimous guilty verdicts were sound.
Judd said the “two big points” raised against the prosecution case were evidence that Pell had been chatting with members of the congregation on the steps of the cathedral after the Masses when the abuses could have occurred and that he only had windows of five or six minutes to commit the abuses undetected.
Other evidence included that Pell was almost always attended by another cleric while dressed in his archbishop’s robes.
Walker said all that the prosecution had to do at his trial and appeals court hearing was to prove that Pell being left alone while robed or not talking with congregants after Mass was “possible” to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
“That ... is a grotesque version of the reversal of onus of proof, if all the Crown has to do is to prove the possibility of something,” Walker said.
Judd argued that the charges were proved beyond reasonable doubt.
Melbourne Law School Prof. Jeremy Gans, who attended the High Court hearing, said later, “It’s been a very good day for Pell.”
“What stood out is that the questions seemed to be mostly directed at arguments that support Pell’s argument for acquittal and were not particularly sympathetic to the prosecution, with the caveat that it’s always difficult to know why they ask these questions,” he said.
Pell is in a maximum-security Melbourne prison and was not allowed to travel to Canberra for the court hearing.
Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.