The Shadow
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – A judge will allow a man who claims to have been sexually abused by a priest during his childhood to testify about memories that he repressed for decades in what might be a precedent-setting case for Indiana.
Marion Superior Court Judge David Dreyer, after hearing arguments in the case in August, ordered this week that the case can go forward against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis. He said expert testimony on repressed memory was reliable enough to let a jury decide how much credibility to give it.
The case involves a man identified in court papers as John Doe RG. Now a 44-year-old business executive, he contends that, as a boy, he was repeatedly molested by former priest Harry Monroe at St. Andrew Catholic Church in Indianapolis
Attorney Pat Noaker, who represents the plaintiff and 12 others who are suing the archdiocese, argued for the repressed-memory testimony. He said Dreyer’s decision conformed with similar cases across the country.
“The judge’s decision may be the first of its kind in Indiana,” Noaker told The Indianapolis Star for a story Friday. “However, it is consistent with what the majority of states have allowed. And that is to let repressed memory go to a jury.”
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court earlier this month agreed with a lower court judge that repressed memory theory, or “dissociative amnesia,” was supported by “a wide collection of clinical observations and a survey of academic literature.” The high court in that ruling refused to grant a new trial to Paul Shanley, a key figure in the Boston clergy sex-abuse scandal.
Attorney Jay Mercer, who represents the Indianapolis archdiocese, said he hasn’t decided whether to appeal Dreyer’s ruling.
“I still think there is an issue at trial as to whether (repression experts) will be allowed to testify or as to the reliability of their theories,” Mercer said.
Dreyer’s decision could break new legal ground in Indiana. Henry Karlson, an Indiana University law scholar, said he was unaware of any case in Indiana in which a jury was allowed to hear evidence about repressed memories.
The plaintiff sued the archdiocese in 2005. Twelve other accusers have filed their own lawsuits, each arguing that the church hid Monroe’s history of abuse as it transferred him to a series of parishes across the southern half of Indiana.
Dreyer ruled Wednesday that the repressed-memory case could go forward along with a case involving a former altar boy at the now closed St. Catherine Parish in Indianapolis. Another judge ruled in 2007 that a third case among the 13 also should go forward. The trials should begin later this year.
Monroe has acknowledged in pretrial testimony that he abused at least five of the men who brought the lawsuits. He said he couldn’t remember whether he had abused the others. He worked as a priest for 10 years beginning in 1974 at parishes in Indianapolis, Terre Haute and Perry County, along the Ohio River.
Monroe was removed from the priesthood in 1984. He was never prosecuted.
