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Need Some Media Attention? Issue 400 Subpoenas
The Attorney General of Nebraska, like any other elected official needs to keep his name recognition alive with the voters of Nebraska. One doesn’t become the Governor, or the Senator, from the Great State of Nebraska by remaining anonymous. Carefully selecting your targets is a must, it won’t do to anger a majority of voters.
On February, 26, 2019, Nebraska’s Attorney General served more than 400 subpoenas on Catholic churches, schools, and institutions in the state of Nebraska. The subpoenas requested twenty-two years of records concerning inappropriate conduct with children. Recipients were ordered to deliver the records within three days.
The three dioceses in Nebraska had already provided 14,000 documents that spanned 4 decades involving sexual abuse allegations to AG’s office in September 2018. Generating more ink in the media does require constant effort, like an addict that keeps chasing that first high more attention, must be sought in ever-increasing doses.
The subpoenas were issued without any forewarning, in spite of the fact that the three dioceses had been in full cooperation with the AG’s office. The recipients were not only directed to call the AG’s investigator if they had any questions about the subpoena, they were forbidden to contact anyone else.
The subpoenas contained the following directive from the AG:
You are ordered not to disclose the existence of this subpoena to any person who is not directly involved with the collection and production of the records requested. Any such disclosure could impede an ongoing investigation and thereby interfere with the enforcement of the laws of the State of Nebraska.
The directive would leave one to believe that seeking legal counsel would result in the charge of obstruction of justice. The subpoenas also demanded that the documents requested be produced in three working days. Three working days to produce documents from April 16, 1997, and January 1, 2019.
As far as non-disclosure was concerned apparently it did not apply to the AG’s office.
In spite of this unusual warning in the subpoenas, the AG’s office issued the following press release on the same day the subpoenas were served, thereby notifying the world of the existence of the subpoenas and potentially interfering “with the enforcement of the laws of the State of Nebraska”:
Today, the Nebraska Department of Justice, working alongside various law enforcement agencies, issued subpoenas to over 400 Catholic churches and institutions across Nebraska. The subpoenas request all records or information related to any child sexual assault or abuse that has occurred by those employed or associated with each church or institution, whether previously reported or not. The Nebraska Department of Justice has appreciated the voluntary cooperation demonstrated by the churches. However, the Department believes that subpoenas are necessary in order to ensure all reports of impropriety have been submitted to the appropriate authorities. It is our goal that all reports of abuse are subject to complete law enforcement review and investigation as warranted.
One subpoena was issued during a weekday Mass. The police officer that delivered the subpoena was embarrassed, as were the parishioners attending Mass, as well as the priest.
I appreciate the concern of the AG for Catholic children, but if the AG was concerned about all children in Nebraska subpoenas would have been issued for all religious, and secular institutions that involve children in the State of Nebraska. I can understand why they weren’t. An elected official does want to anger or inconvenience a wide range of voters.
- Why the rush? The AG has had over 14,000 pages of documentation since September 2018. Yet six months later, the AG decides he must have more information within three working days?
- Why the secrecy? Why did the AG try to silence the recipients of the subpoenas?
- Why the contradiction? Why did the AG try to impose secrecy about the existence of the subpoenas while at the same time, in publishing the press release, informing everyone of the existence of the subpoenas?
- Why did the AG try to direct the recipients of the subpoenas to the AG’s investigator instead of mentioning that the recipients had the legal right to contact their attorney?
- Why the surprise? Why didn’t the AG simply continue to cooperate with the dioceses when in the AG’s own press release, he states: “The Nebraska Department of Justice has appreciated the voluntary cooperation demonstrated by the churches.”
- Most importantly, why is the AG only concerned with the safety of Catholic children? The chief law enforcement official should be concerned about all children. Yet, the AG served no subpoenas on other churches, institutions, or organizations who deal with large numbers of children. This is especially confounding when a number of Nebraska’s churches and youth-related institutions have had known incidents of child sexual abuse in the recent past.
“Maybe it is simply blindness? Maybe people have no idea that wherever there are children we will have people who are trying to use those children for their own purposes. Do law enforcement officers fail to put two and two together when they investigate sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Church, the Texas public schools, the Chicago public schools, or youth sports programs? Are reports of abuse which are related to schools, youth groups, youth sports programs, and other youth activities simply written off as aberrations?”
Published in Law
While I agree with the implicit charge that the AG is grandstanding, I don’t see any religious discrimination here. The Catholic church, and in particular its governing hierarchy, has a known track record of concealing and condoning abuse, in a systematic and long continued fashion. The Church as currently embodied has earned its infamy, which in turn is allowing this political exploitation above what’s needed for investigation.
Twenty-two years of records in three days? From over 400 sources?
The AG is clearly a showboat gunning for higher office. Does he really think he and his staff can properly review all documents submitted by the turn of the next century? Yet, he demands everything in three days . . .
I generally agree that the AG has defensible reasons to prioritize an investigation of the Catholic Church. But, yes he is showboating (or grandstanding). And this showboating suggests that those defensible reasons are not his real motivation.
Purpose: Strike fear into the target; reduce the likelihood that the target will seek proper legal counsel. A presumably unintended consequence of surprising a target with which you have been working though is to demonstrate that the AG’s office cannot be trusted, thereby reducing future cooperation.
Presumably the Nebraska AG learned from his Wisconsin colleague (who was pursuing political vendettas) that it’s a good way to separate targets from each other, making each of them easier to intimidate.
When the AG’s primary objective is to get in front of news media, he doesn’t want competing “narratives” from the targets out there interfering with his grandstanding.
If targets start getting proper legal counsel it becomes harder for the AG to bully them, and issues raised by legal counsel could start interfering with the AG’s desired “narrative.”
Again, greater showboating. Hence, serving subpoenas on priests during Mass. “Perp walks” get great publicity. The AG may have tried but failed to find some basis on which to arrest some priests or bishops during Mass for maximum publicity.
Since being State Attorney General is now seen as a useful step to Governor, and State AG’s have in some ways even more control than Governors over the mighty arsenal of state power, State AG’s have become some of the most dangerous people in America.
The public school system has been just as adept at concealing abuse, and protecting abusers.
Additional link
Let’s just say “infamy” in the sexual abuse of children is not a unique feature of Catholicism, or its’ institutions. Neither is the lack of appetite to investigate the abuse.
I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for the Nebraska AG to go after anyone else. I’ll let the soft sounds of crickets chirping lull me to sleep, but if things change send me a personal message.
I would be the last to defend the public school system, which is unaccountable and therefore inherently corrupt.
However, it is not a global hierarchical organization with a proven track record of covering up sexual abuse of children. The AG is a hack, but the Church is reaping what it has sown.
We agree on something because I see an AG who is more concerned with votes, and willing to look the other way to avoid offending those that collect a paycheck from the State of Nebraska. It is not the abuse that motivates him, it’s votes that motivates him.
Grandstanding, showboating – we can split the difference.
It’s been more than forty years since I was a Nebraskan and nearly that long since I was a Catholic, but I take those subpoenas personally and I imagine Nebraska’s 23% Catholic population will too.
It’s gonna take a lot of grandboating to get elected with that many enemies.
Considering the Catholic Churches behavior (or lack there of) it would be best if it shut itself down and disbanded. Maybe something better can come our of this farce. Until it does it can expect the same treatment from about every legal authority that has a way to do so. It has done this to itself.
I think we need to make a distinction here. The Church, is the Body of Christ, composed of sinners. The Church is Holy, because of Christ, her Head. The Church has not sown this mess (despite what Pope Francis said about the Church being surprised in flagrant adultery), she remains the spotless Bride of Christ. It is her sinful members, particularly the bishops who have allowed this to fester who have sown this mess.
The world hates the Church and will continue to go after her. They will fail in their quest to take down the Church, but if they are able to root out some of the filth – good. We all will be judged in the end – may the Nebraska AG – and all other state’s AGs – be aware of this and know that there is no salvation outside the Church.
So if the Church institutions do not comply, what is the state going to do? I suppose they will select the most vulnerable target – a school, hospital, adoption agency, or such rather than a church – and cut off funds and/or impose impossible fines to avoid First Amendment conflicts.
The Prosecutoral system in America needs to be overhauled in every state and at the federal level. AG’s and DAs have too much power.
And arguably too much money.
They should lose budget every time they lose a case.