Fitzgerald's convictions [about the problems] appear to significantly contradict the claims of contemporary bishops that the hierarchy was unaware until recent years of the danger in shuffling priests from one parish to another and in concealing the priests' problems from those they served.

years of legal maneuvers by the [Los Angeles] archdiocese to keep documents sealed and by a small but determined segment of the plaintiff’s bar dedicated to seeing the full story told, particularly through disclosure of thousands of diocesan documents still under wraps. In several days of interviews here with plaintiffs’ lawyers and others who have been close to the scandal for years, it became clear that despite the massive settlements and an archdiocesan system now in place to protect against a recurrence of abuse, a deep frustration still exists among many who believe the whole story hasn’t begun to be told.

In 2000, Mordue ruled the school had the right to censor the poster because of "church and state" concerns. In 2001, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision 3-0 and sent the case back to trial court. In 2004, Mordue again ruled in favor of the school district, but that decision was again reversed 3-0 in 2005, when the appeals court ruled that public schools may not censor a student's viewpoint on a permissible subject matter when it is responsive to a school assignment or program.

In February 2000, he [Mordue] granted summary judgment to the defendants on all of the claims brought on Antonio's behalf by his mother Jo Anne Peck. They alleged violations of the boy's First Amendment right to freedom of speech and religion and of the equal protection and establishment clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

Following remand for discovery by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Mordue again dismissed the action in its entirety in August 2004.

The 2nd Circuit then remanded the case a second time to the judge.

A circuit panel agreed with the judge's finding that the actions of school officials did not represent state inhibition of religion and violate the establishment clause.

But the appeals court held there were disputed factual questions surrounding the plaintiff's First Amendment claim, namely whether the school would have censored Antonio's poster had he used a nonreligious image and if the actions by the school officials and Baldwinsville Central School District amounted to viewpoint discrimination.

Following the framework outlined by the U.S. Supreme Court in Hazelwood School District v. Kulhmeier, 484 U.S. 260 (1984), Mordue last week again dismissed the claim of a free speech violation in his third review of the case.    

When a federal trial judge tossed out the ethics conviction of former Senator Ted Stevens last week, his lawyers promulgated the story of an innocent man victimized by unscrupulous prosecutors.

But the five-week trial of Mr. Stevens offered a different version of him, and only a discrete part of that was directly affected by the discovery of repeated instances of prosecutorial misconduct.

The disclosures that prosecutors had withheld information from the defense did little to erase much of the evidence that Mr. Stevens, who had been a powerful and admired political figure in Alaska, regularly and willingly accepted valuable gifts from friends and favor-seekers that he did not report.