Preliminary observations on the Cardinal Law deposition:

First, I commend the attorneys involved in the deposition - and there was a country ton of them - for their civility. The objections were kept to a minimum. I didn't see any egregious coaching of the witness, even when he started to ramble off topic. If this deposition is typical of New England litigation, it is light years ahead of certain heavily urbanized portions of the Golden State in terms of civility.

On the other hand, things might have gotten far more intense by the second day. Particularly, after defense counsel found out about the leak of the transcript.

Second, Cardinal Law did not strike me as a very impressive witness. Of course, I am limited to the transcript, which always reads very cold, but it seemed he had a problem which is all too typical of highly succesful businessmen. They don't listen worth a damn. A number of times questions were put to Cardinal Law that could have been answered simply and directly, and he went off on some tangent. It just didn't seem that the Cardinal was woodshedded very effectively.

Third, I repeat, it didn't seem that the Cardinal was woodshedded very effectively. Let's face it, all depositions involve polishing up the witness so that he is comfortable with the themes of the case and knows the basic facts of the litigation. Witnesses are always taken to the woodshed where after you get their attention, you can address their attitude. However, woodshedding can run into the sow's ear problem; you can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. Witnesses are who they are, and 10 to 20 hours of deposition preparation won't change a lifetime of habits. This is particularly true when you have a succesful person who is used to being treated deferentially.

Cardinal Law' seems to have learned at least one them from his deposition preparation. That theme appears to be something like "I relied on my underlings and psychiatrists to advise me." He retreated to his theme at least a dozen times in his deposition.

The problem is that it really doesn't sound very strong. He can't take the position that he didn't know that Geoghan was a pedophile; he sent the man to counselling. He can't take the position that he didn't think Geoghan's pedophilia was a serious problem; again, he sent Geoghan to counselling. So, he's left with the argument that he did everything he could, and everything he did was reasonable and prudent.

The key deposition passage goes as follows:
Q. In 1984, you knew, did you not, that it would
16 have been wrong for a priest to have sexually
17 molested boys; is that correct?
18 A. Oh, absolutely.
19 Q. Okay. And that is something you would have tried
20 to stop from happening again?
21 A. That's correct.
22 Q. Okay. What was the practice that you had in
23 place in 1984 when you were Archbishop to deal
24 with this kind of allegation when it comes in?
1 A. I viewed this as a pathology, as a psychological
2 pathology, as an illness. Obviously I viewed it
3 as something that had a moral component. It was,
4 objectively speaking, a gravely sinful act. And
5 that's something that one deals with in one's
6 life, in one's relationship to God. But I also
7 viewed this as a pathology, as an illness, and so
8 consequently, I, not being an expert in this
9 pathology, not being a psychiatrist, not being a
10 psychologist, my, my modus operandi was to rely
11 upon those whom I considered and would have
12 reason to consider to have an expertise that I
13 lacked in assessing this pathology, in assessing
14 what it is that this person could safely do or
15 not do.
16 Q. So in -- you would have relied on some sort of
17 medical or psychiatric expertise in dealing with
18 this issue --
19 A. That's correct.

The problem is that the Cardinal's remedy - sending Geoghan off to a short counselling session - doesn't seem consistent with the "gravely sinful act" that he committed. Also, the lack of follow up supervision, and the acknowledged failure to warn Geoghan's subsequent supervisors, doesn't seem consistent with a person who viewed Geoghan's actions as involving a "gravely sinful act."

Further, Cardinal Law seemed weak on the soundness of his approach. A substantial portion of the deposition was taken up with the question of whether a letter from a psychiatrist attesting to Geoghan's harmlessness was or was not produced to Plaintiff's counsel. Whether it was produced or not, if I was the Cardinal's counsel, and the letter existed, I would have had the Cardinal prepared to reach for the letter and start talking about how much he relied on the psychiatrist, and how he trusted the psychiatrist. In other words, I would have had the Cardinal shift the blame to where it "belonged" - to the psychiatric professional. I would have had Law testify: "He told me Geoghan was safe. I believed him. I was so shocked to find Geoghan going back to his old habits."

I would also have Law prepared to testify about Geoghan's good character. How Geoghan wanted to change. How he was remorseful. If I had a garrulous elderly man, I would have told him to start volunteering that information where appropriate, as opposed to volunteering bits about his work history, which made the Cardinal seem not entirely sympathetic.

I didn't see any of that in the deposition. This lacunae may be because defense counsel are saving it for trial, or because it doesn't exist.

On a different point, if I were the Plaintiff's counsel, I think I would have beat the Cardinal up with the Catechism or other authoritative Catholic teaching on sexuality. There might be some First Amendment objections, but since it goes to the Cardinal's state of mind - surely he thought it was a very, very serious matter - it would be relevant to impeaching the Cardinal's claim that he thought that he had resolved the problem simply through psychiatric intervention. The examination would start with establishing the Cardinal's acknowledgement that sexual misconduct of the kind Geoghan was charged with is very serious in the Cardinal's [Catholic] view, that sexual orientation of that kind is inherent [the Church is of the view that homosexuality is an inherited condition] and, therefore, the Cardinal did not really believe that a counselling session solved Geoghan's problems.

Anyhow, these are general thoughts. I don't intend to be too critical of the people in the trenches. As Kipling says, there are a thousand ways of making a fire lay, and every one is right.