Ugandan Court Bars Photos, Names of Gays in Paper

KAMPALA, Uganda -- Uganda's high court has ordered a controversial newspaper to stop publishing the names and photographs of people it says are gay, ruling that the publication is violating their right to privacy.

A gay rights group, Sexual Minorities Uganda, sought the injunction after the paper on Monday published its second straight edition with names and photos. The first edition, published in early October, sparked attacks against at least four gay Ugandans, Sexual Minorities Uganda said.

Justice Vincent Kibuuka Musoke ordered Rolling Stone on Monday to stop publishing the names and photos of gay Ugandans at least until Nov. 23, when Musoke said a final ruling will be made. Musoke said he ordered the injunction because publishing names and photos "is an infringement of the right to privacy of those whose photos appear in it."

Julian Onziema, the program coordinator for Sexual Minorities Uganda, said the group was happy with the justice's injunction but that other publications are beginning to print the same kinds of stories.

"We filed a suit against the paper for abuse of our fundamental human rights of privacy, association and security," Onziema said. "However my happiness might be short-lived because there are other tabloids in Uganda which are taking over from where Rolling Stone exploded from. They are making people hate us."

Rolling Stone's managing editor, Giles Muhame, says that publishing photos of gay Ugandans can help police find them. Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda and anyone caught in a homosexual act can face up to 14 years in prison.

Gays in Uganda say they have faced a year of attacks and harassment since a lawmaker introduced a bill in October 2009 that would impose the death penalty for some homosexual acts and life in prison for others. The bill has not come up for a vote.

The legislation was drawn up following a visit by leaders of U.S. conservative Christian ministries that promote therapy they say allows gays to become heterosexual.

The bill became political poison after international condemnation, and many Christian leaders have denounced it.

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Iraqi Court Forces Parliament Back to Work

BAGHDAD -- Iraq's highest court on Sunday ordered parliament back to work after a virtual seven-month recess, intensifying pressure to break the political stalemate that has held up formation of a new government.

The 325 lawmakers met only once since they were elected on March 7 for a session that lasted 20 minutes and consisted of a reading from Islam's holy book, the Koran, the playing of the national anthem and swearing in new members.

Under the constitution, parliament was required to meet within 15 days of final court approval of election results, which came on June 1. Lawmakers met on June 14 and should have chosen a parliament speaker during their first session and then the president within 30 days.

But these appointments had to be put off because they are part of the negotiations between major political blocs over the rest of the new leadership -- including a prime minister and top Cabinet officials.

After the June meeting, lawmakers agreed to leave the parliament session open but unattended -- a technicality to allow more time to choose a new leadership and to put off choosing a new speaker or president.

But the Supreme Court deemed that decision "illegal" in its ruling on Sunday.

"The federal Supreme Court decided to cancel this decision, binding the parliament speaker to call on lawmakers to convene parliament and resume work," the ruling said. The delay "violated the constitution," it added.

Parliament's absence has meant inaction on business-friendly reforms, such as streamlining bureaucracy and clarifying rules for foreign investment, among other major decisions.

The absent parliamentarians are earning $22,500 a month in salary and housing allowance -- far more than the average $800 monthly salary of an Iraqi professional. And that doesn't include a $90,000 stipend they were given after they were sworn in to cover expenses for the next four years.

The court's ruling effectively turns up the pressure to break the 7-month-old impasse on forming a government.

"This decision will put pressure on political blocs to speed up their negotiations, and to nominate a prime minister candidate," said Kurdish lawmaker Alaa Talabani, a relative of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

Sunday's court order settles a lawsuit brought by independent watchdog groups against parliament's acting speaker, Fouad Massoum. In a brief interview Sunday, Massoum said he has not yet seen the order but has no choice but to abide by the court's demands.

He told The Associated Press he expects to set a date for a meeting by the end of the week, though it was not clear when the meeting would take place. Lawmakers, however, said they would not be able to accomplish much if they reconvened before political parties agree on a ruling coalition and choose a prime minister.

Under pressure from foreign allies and mounting exasperation from the Iraqi public, leaders since have twice tried -- and failed -- to bring parliament back.

The March elections failed to give any party a ruling majority. Since then, dueling political leaders have resisted returning as they try to corral alliances that will allow them to choose a prime minister and form a coalition government.

Sunni lawmaker Osama Nujaifi predicted parliament would ignore the order and resist convening for at least a week if "the political blocs haven't agreed yet" on a new government.

Kurdish lawmaker Azad Chalak said that convening before deals are made on leadership posts "probably would lead to parliament dismantling" without having anybody in charge. He predicted that could, in turn, trigger courts to order a new election.

With 51 seats, the Kurdish bloc is considered a kingmaker whose support is critical to forming any ruling coalition.

Iraq is still struggling with its political identity after its majority Shiite population was ruled for decades by Saddam Hussein's Sunni-led regime. Since Saddam's fall, Iraq has been governed mostly by Shiites and Kurds, raising fears that Sunnis who feel they have been sidelined will re-ignite sectarian strife across the country.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is battling to keep his job after the Sunni-backed Iraqiya list led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi narrowly won the most seats in the March vote.

The impasse could drag on for months more.

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Retirement Living TV Founder Presses Candidates to Court Seniors

Seniors are more reliable voters than any other age group. Their population is expected to double over the next four decades. And let's face it, they've got some free time. 

So why aren't politicians paying attention to them? 

That's the question puzzling Retirement Living TV founder John Erickson as he launches a new campaign ahead of the midterm election to tackle the Capitol Hill issues that matter to older voters. 

The initiative is as much about grabbing candidates' attention as it is about educating seniors. Politicians, he says, need to start listening to seniors' concerns in a political age when young voters -- a transient voting bloc that more often than not stays home on election day -- are sometimes courted far more aggressively than their grandparents. 

"Seniors are pretty unhappy," Erickson said. "They see there isn't the political will to really deal with the structural issues that are needed to make this country work." 

Yet, he said, the candidates running for office often ignore the senior population, though that bloc is poised to wreak electoral havoc. "You'd think the politicians would pick up on that," Erickson said. 

Erickson's "Prime Votes" series on RLTV is getting into full swing this week. It consists of brief newscasts, anchored by Sam Donaldson and John Palmer, on senior issues; town hall meetings with older voters; and so-called national forums. Those forums, already in rotation on RLTV, will start airing this weekend on C-SPAN. 

The public-interest programming focuses on expected topics -- Social Security and Medicare -- as well as races in senior-heavy states like Nevada and Florida. 

But those discussions are particularly poignant this year. Erickson said the older voting bloc is more anxious than usual about their trademark issues because of the state of the economy. Their interest rates are close to nothing on their savings accounts, they've taken a hit to their 401(k) portfolios and home equity has plummeted. To boot, Social Security recipients aren't getting a cost-of-living increase for the second year in a row, though President Obama and Democrats have proposed a $250 rebate for seniors. 

But the olive branch by Democrats on Social Security might be too little, too late. Obama in particular has spent his recent campaign time reaching out to younger audiences, much like he did during the 2008 campaign. He recently spoke at a youth town hall hosted by MTV, addressed audiences on college campuses and gave a lengthy interview to Rolling Stone. 

Meanwhile, poll numbers show seniors are engaged -- as usual -- and trending Republican. A poll conducted by The Washington Post, Harvard University and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation found that 51 percent of seniors who say they're very interested in the election want Republicans in charge of Congress. Just 40 percent of those want Democrats in the driver's seat. 

A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed just 37 percent of voters 65 and up approve of Obama's performance. Seniors rarely hold back at the polls. In the last election, more than 70 percent of people 65 and older cast a ballot; by comparison, 48.5 percent of people between 18 and 24 did the same. 

Some candidates get this, especially in states where the senior vote is everything. In Florida, gubernatorial candidates Rick Scott and Alex Sink have been engaged in a nasty fight for senior support, with Sink accusing Scott of "ripping off seniors" through his former hospital company which was fined for Medicare fraud. Scott, the Republican, accuses Sink, the Democrat, of mismanaging Florida's pension fund. 

Erickson said Prime Votes is not a partisan program and that the network is trying to bring in candidates from both sides of the aisle to address their audience. 

Though politicians are often loath to step into the Social Security muck for fear of the backlash, he said senior voters are more than willing to sacrifice benefits for the sake of a long-lasting and stable retirement safety net -- one their grandkids can depend on. 

"This group is really, really anxious and concerned and they're looking for the leadership initiative that they don't see," Erickson said. "There's no group of people that has a more sacrificial attitude about what needs to be done than the senior population. ... Will they sacrifice again? Yes." 

But, he said, they want to see a long-term fix and they want to see politicians who care about what they think. 

"They have a sense of appreciation about people who respect their opinions," Erickson said. 

Click here for more Fox News "Days to Decide" coverage. 

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NGOs lobby international court over Gaza probe

THE HAGUE, Netherlands –  Rights groups lobbied the International Criminal Court on Wednesday for and against a Palestinian bid to be recognized as a state by the tribunal.

The court's prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, is mulling whether he can accept a move by the Palestinian Authority to recognize the court's jurisdiction as a first step toward launching an investigation into alleged war crimes during the Gaza conflict that began in December 2008.

At issue is the vexed question of Palestinian statehood as the court can only be recognized by states.

At a round-table meeting with nongovernment groups, four pro-Palestinian and four pro-Israeli groups made brief presentations to Moreno Ocampo.

No date has been set for the court to rule on the Palestinian recognition of its jurisdiction.

The Palestinian application to the Hague court reflects official pessimism over the prospects of peace talks with Israel, which restarted last month after a two-year gap. Palestinians have in effect suspended the talks over a demand that Israel renew a slowdown in settlement construction in the West Bank.

Palestinian officials have been indicating that if the talks fail, they might approach the U.N. Security Council to recognize a Palestinian state in all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. Some see this as a pressure tactic meant to force the Obama administration to press Israel for concessions.

Palestinians have had success at a different Hague-based court in the past. In 2004, the International Court of Justice — the U.N.'s highest judicial organ — ruled that a barrier Israel was building along the West Bank, dipping into Palestinian territory in many places, was illegal and must be torn down.

Israel countered that it was a security measure meant to keep suicide bombers and other attackers out and continued its construction.

Similarly, Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.N., told Moreno Ocampo on Wednesday that the International Criminal Court does not have jurisdiction in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, because it deals only with disputes between states.

In a statement, Gold said the Palestinian move for recognition violates interim peace accords "which state that the sides will not initiate one-sided steps that will change the status quo until the final status agreements."

Palestinian Justice Minister Ali Khashan said last year that Palestinians have been seeking "justice from the international community" since the day Israel was created in 1948.

Israel launched a three-week offensive in December 2008 with the aim of ending years of Hamas rocket fire at southern Israel. The fighting left nearly 1,300 Palestinians dead, more than half of them civilians, according to Gaza officials. Thirteen Israelis were killed, including three civilians.

If the court decides it can investigate crimes in Gaza, Hamas also will likely be targeted by prosecutors for the deadly barrage of rockets it has unleashed on Israel.

____

Associated Press Writer Mark Lavie in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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Greek court rewrites history on 1922 'traitors'

ATHENS, Greece –  Reversing one of the most infamous court decisions in Greek history, the Supreme Court has posthumously acquitted six top politicians and soldiers executed nearly 90 years ago for a crushing military defeat that indelibly marked modern Greece.

The decision made public late Wednesday follows a fight by the grandson of one of the defendants to clear his grandfather's name, in court and in official school textbooks.

The six — who included three ex-prime ministers and a former general-in-chief — were convicted of high treason in 1922, amid a wave of popular discontent after Greece lost the 1919-1922 war against Turkey.

After the rout, still lamented as the Asia Minor catastrophe, tens of thousands of Greeks were forced out of western Turkey and Greece's hopes of regional dominance were shattered.

Supreme Court judges voted 3-2 to accept evidence for the defense that was not available at the 1922 court martial, and reversed the guilty verdict. The decision followed an appeal by former prime minister Petros Protopapadakis' grandson, who was delighted.

"I feel great satisfaction, as an injustice has been reversed," Michalis Protopapadakis told the Associated Press. "I am certain that the souls of these people who have been acquitted will sense it tonight, and are now justified. For they fell victim to no actions of their own, but rather to unpleasant circumstances."

The six men executed by firing squad in 1922 have long been regarded as scapegoats, who had no intention to cause Greece's defeat. Historians believe they were sacrificed to appease a population embittered by the army's heavy losses, the uprooting of communities established for thousands of years in what is modern Turkey, and the collapse of the nationalist dream of a new Greek empire reviving the mediaeval glories of Byzantium.

Military judges were under pressure from a revolutionary committee of officers to issue unanimous convictions, which were duly produced after lengthy pre-dawn deliberations. The six — including a former prime minister incapacitated by typhoid — were shot a few hours later. Another two defendants received life sentences, but were soon freed.

Official history textbooks, however, still label the six as traitors, which Protopapadakis wants to amend.

"I will now try to have the truth written in schoolbooks," he said. "My son came home from school one day and asked me: 'Father, is it true that grandfather was a traitor?' That's what he was taught — and it is indecent for a teacher to insult a boy like that."

He said the pivotal evidence that exonerated his grandfather and the other five executed men came, among others, from a senior military magistrate at the trial who later said he had never believed they were traitors.

"The judges in 1922 did not know that," Protopapadakis said.

The 1919-22 conflict followed on the heels of World War I, whose end found Greece on the winning side — as opposed to its old foe Turkey. Greek armies occupied parts of Turkey's Aegean seaboard with large ethnic Greek populations and later made a push for Ankara, but were eventually driven into the sea, followed by a host of refugees.

Under the subsequent peace deal, 1.1 million Greek civilians left Turkey for Greece, while 380,000 Turks living in Greece were resettled in Turkey.

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Home of Ex-JetBlue Attendant Burglarized During Court Date

Published October 20, 2010

| FoxNews.com

Prosecutors say the home of the former JetBlue flight attendant--who is charged with sliding down an emergency exit chute before a flight--was burglarized while he was pleading guilty in court.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown alleges that Steven Slater's apartment was broken into by his partner's brother.

District Attorney Brown released the following in a statement: "The defendant is accused basically of a crime of opportunity, brazenly breaking into his brother's apartment in broad daylight when he knew that nobody would be home."

The break-in occurred Tuesday while the 38-year-old was pleading guilty to attempted criminal mischief stemming from the Aug. 9 incident at Kennedy International Airport. His partner, Ken Rochelle, was also at court, which is when Jonathan Rochelle allegedly broke in.

Rochelle was awaiting arraignment on burglary and other charges. A laptop, printer and microwave were taken. If convicted, he faces up to fifteen years in prison.

Slater avoided jail under a plea bargain that requires him to undergo counseling and substance-abuse treatment for at least a year. He must also pay $10,000 in restitution to JetBlue.

It wasn't clear if Rochelle had an attorney. There was no answer at the address listed by authorities.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

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Kagan in Part-Time Role as Court Convenes to Tackle Immigration and More

For an institution that stands for the stability of law, the Supreme Court begins its new term Monday with its fourth new justice in five years. 

The high court's session starts with its usual mix of anticipated cases and interest in the performance of its latest addition, in this instance Justice Elena Kagan -- who formally took her seat in a ceremony Friday. Yet anyone looking to quickly divine insight into Kagan's role as a judge will be thwarted by the fact that she will not hear more than half of the cases set for arguments in the court's first three months of business. 

During her summer confirmation, Kagan said she would step aside from cases in which she was "substantially involved" in her previous job as solicitor general. So far, that involvement means she will miss arguments in 21 of the 39 cases set for oral arguments until the end of the year. 

"I wasn't surprised by the number of cases she's now recused in because I had her job before," said Paul Clement, President Bush's solicitor general. "I know how many cases the solicitor general gets involved in either directly or even to consider whether the United States should get involved. And I think it's those latter cases that maybe caused the surprise." 

As her testimony made clear, Kagan's absence from these cases is not unexpected but creates the possibility that the remaining justices will split evenly. 

"When you're arguing to eight I don't think it's any different than arguing to nine," observed Arnold & Porter lawyer Lisa Blatt who has two Kagan-less cases before the high court this term. "I mean you're trying to put your best foot forward and convince them. I think it would be incredibly disheartening to go all the way up to the Supreme Court and not get a decision." 

If a case ends in a 4-4 tie, the decision of the lower court is affirmed but the legal conflict that prompted the justices to review the case remains unsettled, as no precedent is set. In 2007, a case from New York City about special education funding was evenly divided when Justice Anthony Kennedy took himself out of the picture. A year later, a nearly identical case from Oregon with a full nine-member court present produced a decision. 

Some of the cases Kagan will miss include a controversial dispute over an Arizona immigration law cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants and a disagreement over a parent's ability to sue a drug manufacturer whose vaccine supposedly injured children. 

The court reworked its schedule after Kagan was sworn in to office in an apparent effort to make sure that Monday's first case has Kagan's participation. After those arguments, about bankruptcy law, the lawyers for the day's second case will take their spots in front of the justices and Kagan will quietly leave her chair at the end of the high court's bench. 

Clement, now a lawyer at the King & Spalding law firm in Washington, D.C., says the next few months remind him of five years ago when Justice Samuel Alito arrived to the court in the middle of the term and the justices were left to rule on cases that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor heard before her departure.

"My sense was that the court tried a little harder to get a resolution of those cases and not to divide 4-4 even if it meant they decided the case 8-0 on a narrower ground," Clement said. "And I think you could see the same thing this term on some of these recusal cases." 

Any 4-4 decision will clearly show the impact of Kagan's recusals on the final outcome of case, but behind the scenes her absence will also be felt in areas that are less visible. 

"What we won't know and will be much harder to judge is how many cases the court decided not to hear at all because it thought it was important to have all nine justices there to hear it and she disqualified herself," ACLU Legal Director Steven Shapiro said. "And we also won't know what cases litigants chose not to bring to the court because they were worried about the impact of her absence on the ultimate result." 

Without naming specific cases, Shapiro said the potential make-up of the bench does play a role in deciding what cases he will petition to the high court. 

The Term's Big Cases 

The term's first high-profile dispute will come Wednesday, when the justices will hear about the notorious Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan. Its spiritual leader, Fred Phelps, has led congregants and others on a nationwide crusade protesting military funerals, saying they oppose government policies they believe promote or at least tolerate homosexuality. 

In the aftermath of one protest, a jury found that Phelps had caused the intentional infliction of emotional distress on the family of a Marine who was killed in Iraq. An original award of more than $10 million was knocked down to $5 million then the entire verdict and jury award was overturned on appeal when it was determined that the funeral protest was free speech protected by the First Amendment. 

In November, the court will examine a California law attempting to keep violent video games from minors and an Arizona program allowing its citizens to target tax dollars to a scholarship fund for students to attend private schools. 

Opponents to the California statute believe that video games are "a modern form of artistic expression" and that the law, which was has so far been blocked in lower courts, is unconstitutional. 

The Arizona case, which will be argued on Nov. 3, focuses on that state's tax-credit scholarship program. Critics argue that the scheme unfairly favors private religious schools and therefore violates the First Amendment's Establishment Clause prohibiting excessive government support for religious purposes. 

Arizona is also the focus of another case that will be of interest to everyone engaged in the debate over controlling illegal immigration. The state is targeting employers who hire illegal workers. The "Legal Arizona Workers Act" allows the state to fine or even shut down businesses it nabs for knowingly hiring undocumented immigrants. It also mandates that all employers use the federal e-verify system to help with employment verification. 

The justices will be asked to determine if Arizona's law can co-exist with federal laws that normally cover immigration policy. Opponents of the law believe the federal government's immigration authority preempts Arizona's efforts. While the case has many similarities to and may be a preview of the dispute surrounding the controversial SB 1070 law that was largely enjoined by a federal judge this summer, that case is under appeal and has not yet made it the Supreme Court.

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Israeli court rejects Nobel laureate's appeal

Published October 01, 2010

| Associated Press

JERUSALEM –  An Israeli court on Friday rejected an Irish Nobel Peace Prize laureate's appeal against her deportation orders over entering Israel while being banned from the country for trying to reach Gaza on a blockade-busting vessel in June.

Mairead Corrigan Maguire was detained at an airport lockup earlier this week for violating the conditions of her ban imposed in June, when she was aboard a Gaza-bound ship trying to breach the blockade.

At the time, Maguire was told she couldn't return for 10 years except with special approval.

The district court rejected her appeal but gave her 48 hours to allow time for a Supreme Court appeal.

Maguire, 66, is an outspoken champion of Palestinian statehood. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for her work with Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.

Israel has banned other pro-Palestinian activists from entering, including Jewish-American linguist Noam Chomsky in May. The government later said that was a mistake.

In June, Maguire tried to reach Gaza aboard the Rachel Corrie vessel that attempted to break Israel's three-year naval blockade of Gaza. After capturing that ship, Israel detained and deported her and other activists on board.

That ship's takeover followed a deadly Israeli raid in May of another Gaza-bound ship — part of a Turkish flotilla — that sparked international condemnation of Israel after its commandos killed nine Turkish activists, one of them a dual Turkish-American citizen. Both sides claimed self-defense.

Israel has since eased the embargo on the Palestinian coastal strip, run by the militant Hamas, but has kept the naval blockade in place because of concerns that Hamas will smuggle in weapons.

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Court hears appeal in 'West Memphis Three' case

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. –  Justices on the Arkansas Supreme Court sharply questioned the state attorney general's office Thursday, asking what damage could be done if a judge examined evidence that allegedly exonerates an inmate sentenced to death for killing three Cub Scouts in 1993.

"What harm is there in allowing (inmate Damien Echols) to present all evidence?" Special Justice Jeff Priebe asked senior assistant attorney general David Raupp.

Raupp responded: "The harm is to the criminal justice system's interest in finality and the work that gets done in evaluating whether justice can be served."

Echols, 35, has been on Arkansas' death row since he was 20 years old, sentenced to death for the 1993 killings of 8-year-olds Steve Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore. He's maintained his innocence since his arrest and argues that he would be acquitted if retried on the charges.

The state Supreme Court upheld Echols' conviction in 1996, and Echols filed a new appeal after the court granted him permission to test DNA evidence from the crime scene, where the boys were found beaten, nude and hog-tied.

Thursday's oral arguments drew a crowd of more than 150 people who lined up outside the Supreme Court hours before the hearing began. One of the first in line was John Mark Byers, the stepfather of victim Christopher Byers.

He said that since Echols' trial in 1994, he's become "100 percent" convinced that the wrong man is behind bars.

"The evidence points to his innocence," Byers said.

A key part of Echols' appeal is analysis of DNA evidence that wasn't tested at the time of his trial. According to a DNA report filed with his appeal, none of the genetic material tested from the crime scene matched Echols or Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, the two other men convicted of murder in the case who are known as the West Memphis Three.

"I personally don't believe the three could have gone out there and opened a Twinkie and not leave any DNA," Byers said. "The facts don't fit the evidence."

The mother of victim Steve Branch has also said publicly that she thinks Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley are innocent. Michael Moore's parents could not be reached for comment Thursday, but they have repeatedly declined to talk about the case with reporters.

Justices asked several questions during the hourlong oral arguments, focusing primarily on what would happen if they sent the case back to a lower court for another hearing to determine whether Echols deserves a new trial. Such a move is short of the full retrial Echols has requested, but would be a small victory for his defense.

The state argues that Echols is merely trying to re-argue the case that he already lost before a jury.

"You can't bring in evidence that is just further reweighing of evidence," Raupp said.

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel issued a statement after the proceedings, saying his office used "solid precedent" to argue against a new trial for Echols.

"Our justice system affords safeguards to protect the rights of all," McDaniel said. "That includes not only defendants, but also, in this case, the three innocent little boys who were viciously murdered in 1993."

Echols' attorney, Dennis Riordan, argued that it's critical for the Supreme Court to allow Echols to introduce evidence that could exonerate him.

"We believe that there will sometime have to be an order for a new trial," Riordan told the justices.

Echols has lost an appeal before Circuit Court Judge David Burnett, but if the Supreme Court orders another hearing, it will likely be before a new judge. Burnett, who also presided over Echols' murder trial in 1994, is running unopposed for the state Senate in November and cannot serve as both a senator and a judge.

The case has drawn interest far beyond Arkansas. Last month, a rally in Little Rock to support Echols' legal fund featured Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder, actor Johnny Depp and Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines and drew more than 2,000 people.

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Court: Make records public in friars' sex cases

LOS ANGELES –  A California appeals court ruled Thursday that psychiatric and other confidential records of Franciscan friars accused of sex abuse should be made public in a long-awaited decision that could speed the release of similar documents about dozens of other accused priests and religious figures.

Unless the state Supreme Court takes up the case, the ruling from the 2nd District Court of Appeal means thousands of pages of files on six friars accused of sexual abuse will be released in the coming months.

The decision also could influence judges in Los Angeles and San Diego who are deciding how much material to release from the confidential files of Roman Catholic priests and lay people involved in multimillion-dollar settlements in those dioceses.

"All citizens have a compelling interest in knowing if a prominent and powerful institution has cloaked in secrecy decades of sexual abuse revealed in the psychiatric records of counselors who continued to have intimate contact with vulnerable children while receiving treatment for their tendencies toward child molestation," the court wrote in its opinion.

The files are expected to contain records of the friars' sessions with therapists and psychotherapists, disciplinary and personnel files, and defrocking paperwork that could show how much the Franciscans knew about their employees' behavior and when they knew it.

Attorneys for the Franciscans and the individual friars had argued the files were protected from public disclosure by the privacy rights that patients expect when they see a doctor or therapist.

But the court ruled that those rights evaporated when members of the Franciscan hierarchy viewed the records to help make decisions about postings, discipline and other management issues for religious figures who were suspected of abuse, said Tim Hale, a plaintiff attorney in Santa Barbara.

Hale said although the Franciscan leadership knew about abusive behavior from reading the materials, they never notified police or made the knowledge public.

"It's about transparency, and that's the best weapon in the fight against child abuse. It's what this proceeding has been about since day one," he said. "This is as close as we can get to repairing the damage that was done by the Franciscan hierarchy."

Brian Brosnahan, an attorney for the Franciscans, did not immediately return a call or e-mail sent after business hours.

An attorney representing the individual friars, however, said Thursday's ruling robs the church — or any other organization dealing with children — of a way to find out if abuse is taking place without threatening the suspected abuser.

Priests or other employees who are molesting children may now choose not to discuss their crimes with a therapist because those records could be made public, said Robert Howie, who represents the individual friars.

"Discovery of this type of behavior is aided by the use of these confidential inquiries and psychotherapy, and that's been basically gutted by the appellate court here," he said.

"I appreciate the fact that these past victims want their retribution. What I think the court is doing is focusing on that anger and that desire for retribution."

Howie said it was too early to say if the friars would petition to the state's high court.

The case arose from a lawsuit filed by 25 plaintiffs alleging sexual abuse by nine Franciscan friars.

The alleged victims settled the case for $28.4 million in 2006, and the agreement called for the release of confidential files after review by a judge.

Most of the friars who were accused, however, did not sign the settlement agreement.

The trial judge ruled that the files could be released because the public interest outweighed the friars' privacy rights, but six of the friars appealed.

The appeals panel on Thursday upheld the original order.

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