Real-Life “I Confess” Case

Great Debates
21

manny a non Catholic here - but I think this answers your question about not breaking the seal of confession.

the statement was made, not in the confessional booth, which the Church holds inviolate, but ‘as a friend’, that’s what they mean by ‘breaking the seal of confession’ (ie one done inside the confessional booth or in a formalized ‘forgive me Father for I have sinned’ manner)

The four people this man confessed to, by the way, appear to have been: 2 attorneys (one public defender, one not), this priest and his mom. I don’t think it comes up to the ‘blabbing around’ level, though.

The court also looked at the fact that the evidence against the guy in prison was pretty slim, one person, and that he’d had several eye witnesses to say he was elsewhere.
Re: the supplemental Hitchockian theme - At least for lawyers and therapists, my understanding is that they have an obligation to their client re: information about past activities, however, if they have information about future crimes, they have a ‘duty to warn’ in some sense.

not to transport this into another debate, but for me the scarier issue would have been ‘what if the kid had been sentenced to die’. And I don’t know what the Church’s position on that would be (since I’m neither Catholic nor do I play one on TV).

22

pldennison

I would imagine that the rationale for having clergy confidentiality is not connected to societal concern about anyone’s soul. Rather, to the fact that having such rules will allow people to obtain guidance from (and, in the case of Catholics, confession to) religious guides without worry that these confidences will be relayed to others. In other words it is to allow people leeway to practice religion - not to conform to religious practice. As such it is remarkably similar to the rationale used for doctors and lawyers, and if you consider freedom to get religious counseling to be on par with freedom to get medical and legal counseling, then one follows from the other. Therefore, these issues are not unrelated, and can be equated.

Despite all this, I shall not call you crazy. :wink:

I don’t think your example of child abuse is comparable. The rationale for having people report child abuse is likely to prevent further abuse more than to punish past crimes.

23

I’m not sure, but I don’t think the privilege automatically extends to the teller’s doctor. The obligations are different for someone providing general health care and someone providing mental/emotional counseling. (Medical records can certainly be subpoenaed.)

I don’t even think that a psychiatrist/counselor has a legal obligation to maintain secrecy when someone has committed a violent crime. In fact, he has a duty to contact the authorities if the teller indicates that he might harm someone.

We had a lecture on this topic a few months ago, and it only served to confuse us even more.

Dr. J

24

Right. Having now read the article (Manhattan’s quite right, the NY Times site is spam-free - so much so that I’d forgotten I’d signed up for it), it looks as though the issue is not all that clear-cut. Fornes went to Towles and confessed, Towles persuaded Fornes to go to the authorities (as I’d expect), and Fornes did, only to clam up later on legal advice. Justice then, as so often seems to happen, got lost in the resulting shuffle.

pldennison, whether it’s a stolen Snickers bar or a double murder, a priest is almost certainly going to urge a penitent to make temporal restitution - to own up and take whatever secular punishment is coming to them. And if the sacrament of the confessional has any meaning for the penitent, then s/he’s going to listen to the priest. (Which seems to be what’s happened in the case at issue.)

(I say “almost” certainly, because there are bound to be some priests who feel that they and their flock are “above Man’s law”, or some such. I think such people are comparatively few in number, though.)

Eve, this seems to me to be the flaw in your “Hitchcock” scenario. If Ray Milland’s conscience is troubled enough for him to be seeking absolution in the first place, then Father Jimmy Stewart is free to work on him until he does the right thing of his own accord. Unless, of course, Ray Milland is truly evil, and is only turning up at the confessional to taunt Father Jimmy… in which case tevalla’s information suggests that Ray Milland is not truly making a confession, and therefore Father Jimmy is free to spill his guts. (And should, and will).

Finally, what would be accomplished by charging a priest in such a situation with obstruction of justice? If I were a priest, and faced with a choice of going to jail or violating a sacrament, I think the right choice - from the priest’s point of view - is pretty much obvious. So, if you take away the privilege of confidentiality of the confessional (OK, it’s an obligation in religious terms, but a privilege in secular terms), you won’t get more information revealed to the courts; all you’ll get is priests in prison. And I don’t think anyone’s suggesting that’s a good thing in itself.

25

We really need a Catholic priest to start posting on these boards; this doesn’t seem correct to me.
To take the same situation - you go to priest and confesses to murder. Priest says that, as part of your act of contrition, you must confess to the police. You refuse.
Under your interpretation, as provided you by the your priest, the man has not fulfilled his requirements of the sacrament of Confession, and the priest is able to turn the guy in, regardless of whether the guy says he is going to kill again. That is a massive loophole, and one I don’t see the RCC allowing.
Few other points: Eve, obstruction of justice is utterly irrelevant to this case. No one has a legal obligation to come forward with evidence - obstruction only occurs when a person refuses to provide evidence when demanded by the police/grand jury/etc. (not precisely sure which). If a friend confessed to you, Eve, you may be in a horrible ethical situation, but unless the police ask you, you are not obstructing justice by remaining silent.

pldennison, the Fifth Amendment is not involved with privilege, even attorney/client privilege - it derives from a separate, common-law tradition. BTW, for many, the penitent/confessor relationship bears marked similarities with the patient/psychologist relationship - not for nothing are psychologists/psychiatrists often referred to as “secular priests”.

DoctorJ - psychiatrist/counselor privilege is pretty new in the common-law, and it varies from state to state. One point, though - all privileges fall in the face of future crimes. Even attorneys are obligated to turn their client in, or at least take steps to prevent the future crime.

Of course, in the case at hand, I think the priest was more than a bit, shall we say, misguided. He acknowledged that the confessional bond did not apply, so he had nothing preventing him from coming forward earlier. There is no crime here, but I don’t think highly of his ethical situation.

Sua

26

Question one: What about from an evidentiary standpoint? At the original sentencing, the judge apparently ruled that witnesses to his confession could not testify because it would constitute hearsay evidence. Presumably this would also apply to the priest, though it appears from the story that he did not try to testify at that time.

Once the confessor is dead and therefore unable to testify for himself, is the balance of hearsay/probative changed?

27

Question one: What about from an evidentiary standpoint? At the original sentencing, the judge apparently ruled that witnesses to his confession could not testify because it would constitute hearsay evidence. Presumably this would also apply to the priest, though it appears from the story that he did not try to testify at that time.

Once the confessor is dead and therefore unable to testify for himself, is the balance of hearsay/probative changed?
[/QUOTE]

Good question. I’m doing this from memory, so I’m sure someone will be along to correct me.
I don’t know all the details, but apparently Fornes told several people, but took the Fifth when asked to testify. On that information, the trial judge should not have ruled the testimony of the witnesses as hearsay, as the confession was a “statement against penal interest.” My guess is that the trial judge thought that it wasn’t, as there had already been convictions for the murder, thus no penal interest to be harmed. If so, that’s bloody stupid - if the wrong guys were in jail, they could be released and Fornes charged.

After his death, nothing changed. There is an additional hearsay exception, the “dying declaration”, but that doesn’t seem to apply. Concerning the priest, the appellate judge seemed to create a new hearsay exception, that statements made to a priest in a pseudo-confessional situation are more likely to be true. But I’ll have to read the case itself to figure it all out.

Sua

28

There was an earlier story (before the prisoner’s release) in the NYT that detailed the priest’s coming forward. Here is (per what I recall of that article) the difference between a sacramental confession (and its confidentiality) and what happened in this case:

  • in a formal, sacramental confession, the priest is acting as an intermediary between the penitent man and God. Thus, it’s a huge sin for the priest to reveal what is, essentially, a private conversation between a man and God. That’s pretty heavy.

  • in this case, the killer came to the priest not asking for absolution, but rather seeking advice as from a friend. Plus, he wanted to admit to the crime in court, but then his lawyer stopped him. So the priest in this case was not violating any strictures of sacred confidentiality by coming forward.

How he lived with himself for all those intervening years, though, I don’t know. Seems to me that he should have kept after the killer to confess. Should he have gone to the police/courts/whatever himself–despite the killer’s wishes–on the behalf of the two innocents? Maybe.

I’m sure he’s going to have a long talk with the man upstairs one day.

29

From what I’ve been told (though this was by a priest in 2nd grade, still, it wouldn’t surprise me), back in the day, many priests went to their deaths rather than reveal confessions. I wouldn’t be surprised-not so much here, but in some of your stricter countries, under dictators, it doesn’t seem that farfetched. I’ll look into it.

30

Just an update about confidentiality rules for lawyers. Apparently some thought is being given to loosening these rules.

link (for those who are registered with the NYT.)

31

here’s a link to an ABC news report about the same thing.

32

Regardless of weather or not the priest did something against the law, I think he did something against his religion. I am not Catholic, but I found this site regarding one of the Ten Commandments:

http://maxpages.com/jesusisalive/Bear_False_Witness

To bear false witness is to lie…right?
To lie, according to Marriem Webster Dictionary, is to “create a false or misleading impression”.
By not telling the authorities about the confession the priest most definitely created a misleading impression that the murder was committed by someone he knew did not commit the murder.
Why should the priests promise of confidentiality out weigh his commitment to the 10 commandments?

33

Actually, no. That Commandment has been, er, “expanded” to include lying, but the actual meaning is to testify falsely.

Only if he was asked. I personally belive the priest had an ethical obligation to come forward, but I don’t think he lied, per se - he was never asked.
To put it in a less-charged situation - you’re a kid, and your little sister accidently breaks a lamp. Your parents come home and assume the dog did it, without asking you about it. Are you lying if you don’t point the finger at lil’ sis?

Sua

34

But think about this: we are told often that the confession booth serves the purpose of letting people go on with their lives after sin, rather than being crippled by guilt. That is one rationale for the confidentiality of religious confession. If Fornes had not had the option of confessing freely and safely, maybe that same burden of guilt that the confession booth expiates would have caused him to confess to someone that mattered, like a cop.
Suppose there were no tradition of priestly confession, and someone said- “hey- let’s set up this thing, where there’s one group of people that we can tell about anything we do, and they can’t tell anybody else anything about it- that’ll make us feel better”- would you support the creation of such a group? JDM

35

Sua- I would say that by the definition I found you would be lying because, by not saying anything, you would be “creating a false or misleading impression” that the dog broke the lamp.
I am not religious, so I don’t really know what the answer to my question is, but to me it seems that the priest did something very wrong.
What if the innocent men had been sentenced to death? Does the priest still hold the obligation not to speak of the confession? If he does not speak up he becomes a murderer. I think the priest would speak up in this case, which means that there are certain circumstances when the priest is allowed to speak of a confession. If there are certain circumstances when a priest can discuss a confession I think he should have told authorities about this one.

36

But you didn’t “create” anything. Your parents did.

As for the rest of your post - in this case, the Sacrament of Confession was not involved, and thus there was no confessional seal. I agree that the priest is in a horrible ethical position, but it really is a different issue than whether a priest should keep things told him in confession confidential.

Sua

37

And now, AA confessions are confidential

38

I guess what bugs me about this is that his keeping the confession confidential caused a miscarriage of justice. It’s one thing to let a crime that was already committed go unpunished because you don’t come forward with knowledge. That’s not a good thing, but I think I can go with the special confidentiality gig on that.

It’s another thing, in my mind, to let an innocent person be punished for the crime without coming forward with the knowledge. It’s like the serial killer example: your silence allowed yet another misdeed to happen.

Perhaps this is an unrational distinction, but it’s what bothers me.

39

Cranky, it’s not an unrational concern at all, but we often adhere to principles that have real human cost. For example, we let murderers go free very often because we can’t prove their guilt “beyond reasonable doubt”. These people may very well kill again, and we all know it, but we adhere to the principle that “it’s of more importance to community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished.” John Adams.

Sua