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| Judge Ceisler Sent Two Innocent Men To Jail |
for BigTrial.net
Tomorrow, at a 9 a.m. hearing in Courtroom 453 in City Hall, the Honorable Judge Ellen Ceisler has a chance to right a wrong.
Four years ago, Judge Ceisler presided over a trial that was a travesty of justice. It ended with the judge sending two innocent men off to jail -- the Rev. Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero.
Ceisler can't make amends to Father Engelhardt; he died in prison in 2014. In his last moments, the 67-year-old priest made a dying declaration to a fellow prisoner, "I am an innocent man, who was wrongly convicted." It turned out to be true.
She can't do anything for Father Engelhardt, but Ceisler can do something for Bernard Shero.
He's the former Catholic schoolteacher doing 8 to 16 years at the State Correctional Institution in Houtzdale, PA, for supposedly raping Daniel Gallagher, the lying altar boy known as Billy Doe. What the judge can do is grant Shero a new trial, and get him out of jail, after Shero served four years for an imaginary rape.
The 2013 trial of Bernard Shero and Father Engelhardt was a disaster right from the start.
The defendants stood up in court; the clerk was supposed to read the charges against them. And then the clerk read an extra charge, conspiracy, against each defendant that neither defendant was charged with.
Oops. The judge's reaction, however, was hey, no big deal. We'll get it right eventually.
But they got it all wrong. The entire travesty is recounted here.
When the verdict came in, every reporter in the courtroom was stunned. So was the judge.
The reporters agreed that whether or not you believed Billy Doe's crazy stories, there was so much reasonable doubt in the case that the judge would have been justified in setting those guilty verdicts aside.
But Judge Ceisler was no profile in courage on the day Engelhardt and Shero were convicted. Instead, she went along with a verdict that made no sense. It was based on the fantastic fables of abuse told by the star prosecution witness, Billy Doe/Danny Gallagher, who turned out to be a fraud.
In case you missed it, Joe Walsh, the retired detective who was the District Attorney's lead investigator on the case, has come forward to say that Danny Gallagher was a liar who admitted that he just "made up stuff." In a 12-page affidavit, Walsh wrote that he caught Gallagher telling so many lies that the detective repeatedly told the prosecutor in the case, former Assistant District Attorney Mariana Sorensen, that her star witness wasn't credible, and that the evidence he had found contradicted Gallagher's crazy stories.
Sorensen's response, according to Walsh: "You're killing my case."
At sentencing, Judge Ceisler the gullible PC warrior hammered Shero with 8 to 16 years in jail, and Engelhardt with 6 to 12 years -- for couple of alleged rapes that never happened.
What happened next in Judge Ceisler's courtroom was something I will never forget.
After the judge imposed those long jail sentences on two innocent men, and they were led away in handcuffs, many of the defendants' relatives started crying.
That's when Judge Ceisler's clerk -- the same bonehead who read an extra charge against each defendant that they weren't charged with -- went through every row in the courtroom and ordered every sobbing relative to leave.
"We're not allowed to cry?" Tracey Boyle, Father Engelhardt's niece, asked.
Nope, not in Judge Ceisler's court, after she sends innocent men to jail.
At Thursday's hearing, George Bochetto will represent Bernie Shero.
"We're just very hopeful and very optimistic that we get Shero out of jail," Bochetto said.
When asked if he's defending an innocent man, Bochetto said, "It certainly looks that way, doesn't it?'
Neither Judge Ceisler, who just got elected to the Commonwealth Court, nor her staff could be reached for comment on this situation despite weeks of trying.
Bonnie Shero, Bernard's mother, will be there tomorrow in Judge Ceisler's courtroom to see if her son finally catches a break.
"My goodness, it's been like a nightmare that never ends," Bonnie Shero said about the tragedy that never ends for her family. "It tears our hearts out whenever we think about the false accusations," she said. "Hopefully, it will turn out for the best and we can bring him home."
"I did not assault Daniel Gallagher and I have been wrongfully convicted and imprisoned," Bernard Shero wrote in a certification attached to his lawyers' amended petition for post-conviction collateral relief filed last month.
In their petition, Shero's lawyers, Bochetto and Jeffrey W. Orgen, outline two possible legal reasons for granting Shero a new trial.
The easiest one involves a recent finding by Judge Gwendolyn Bright, who was presiding over the retrial of Msgr. William J. Lynn. He's the former secretary for clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia who became the first Catholic administrator in the country to go to jail for failing to control abuser priests that he supervised.
Lynn's conviction in 2012 on one count of endangering the welfare of a child was overturned in 2015 by the state Superior Court. The star witness in the Msgr. Lynn case is the same star witness in the Engelhardt-Shero case -- Danny Gallagher.
In the Lynn case, retired Detective Walsh came to court to testify at a hearing about the lies he caught Danny Gallagher telling, and the prosecutor's failure to heed Walsh's warnings that Gallagher wasn't a credible witness.
Judge Bright found that the information testified to by Walsh should have been turned over to the defense, but wasn't. As far as Judge Bright was concerned, the District Attorney's office was guilty of prosecutorial misconduct serious enough to warrant a new trial for Msgr. Lynn. If the appeals court had not already granted him a new trial.
"The identical evidence that was improperly withheld from Lynn's defense team by the Commonwealth in violation of Sixth Amendment and Brady v. Maryland, is the same evidence withheld from [Shero's] defense team," Bochetto and Ogren wrote. "Accordingly, based on Judge Bright's ruling, [Shero] should be granted a new trial as the remedy for the Sixth Amendment and Brady violations."
The other reason for granting Shero a new trial involves Judge Ceisler finding that Shero's trial attorney, Burt Rose, was an ineffective counsel.
In their petition, Bochetto and Ogren rip Rose for agreeing to a joint trial with Father Engelhardt. That's because at the joint trial, the prosecution was allowed to drag former priest Edward V. Avery into court as a witness against Engelhardt.
Rose's position pre-trial was that Danny Gallagher's stories about being passed around like a piñata among three alleged rapists was so ridiculous, and so filled with factual contradictions, that the jury [and maybe even the judge] would see right through a third-rate conman.
But the jury bought Gallagher's lame act, and so did the judge.
Avery had pleaded guilty to charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with Gallagher, and conspiracy. Avery was facing 13 1/2 to 27 years in jail if he was convicted; instead he took a sweetheart deal and got 2 1/2 to 5 years.
Avery was the abusive priest that Lynn allegedly allowed to go back into ministry, which brought about the child endangerment charge filed against Lynn. But when Father Engelhardt went on trial, he was charged with conspiring with Avery to pass around Danny Gallagher as a rape victim.
"Indeed, the mere presence of Defendant Avery at the trial of both men was devastating because it improperly bolstered [Danny Gallagher's] story," Shero's appeals lawyers wrote. Rose's defense that Gallagher's story "was unbelievable was dashed months before the trial when defendant Avery pled guilty and Defendant and Engelhardt and [Shero] proceeded to trial together."
"Mr. Rose's failure to property object to his evidence further compounded the profound mistake of failing to sever [Shero] from Defendant Engelhardt," Bochetto and Ogren wrote.
Meanwhile, Judge Ceisler won election to the Commonwealth Court. Her successful campaign slogan:
"The Commonwealth Court profoundly impacts all citizens -- each of our family members, friends and neighbors alike," Ceisler wrote. "If elected, I'll never stop fighting to ensure that all Pennsylvanians receive fair and just treatment in Commonwealth Court."
Yo Judge Ceisler. In your final days on the bench in Common Pleas Court, why don't you give Bernard Shero the "fair and just treatment" he and his co-defendant didn't get the first time around.
By granting him a new trial.
In their petition, Shero's lawyers, Bochetto and Jeffrey W. Orgen, outline two possible legal reasons for granting Shero a new trial.
The easiest one involves a recent finding by Judge Gwendolyn Bright, who was presiding over the retrial of Msgr. William J. Lynn. He's the former secretary for clergy for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia who became the first Catholic administrator in the country to go to jail for failing to control abuser priests that he supervised.
Lynn's conviction in 2012 on one count of endangering the welfare of a child was overturned in 2015 by the state Superior Court. The star witness in the Msgr. Lynn case is the same star witness in the Engelhardt-Shero case -- Danny Gallagher.
In the Lynn case, retired Detective Walsh came to court to testify at a hearing about the lies he caught Danny Gallagher telling, and the prosecutor's failure to heed Walsh's warnings that Gallagher wasn't a credible witness.
Judge Bright found that the information testified to by Walsh should have been turned over to the defense, but wasn't. As far as Judge Bright was concerned, the District Attorney's office was guilty of prosecutorial misconduct serious enough to warrant a new trial for Msgr. Lynn. If the appeals court had not already granted him a new trial.
"The identical evidence that was improperly withheld from Lynn's defense team by the Commonwealth in violation of Sixth Amendment and Brady v. Maryland, is the same evidence withheld from [Shero's] defense team," Bochetto and Ogren wrote. "Accordingly, based on Judge Bright's ruling, [Shero] should be granted a new trial as the remedy for the Sixth Amendment and Brady violations."
The other reason for granting Shero a new trial involves Judge Ceisler finding that Shero's trial attorney, Burt Rose, was an ineffective counsel.
In their petition, Bochetto and Ogren rip Rose for agreeing to a joint trial with Father Engelhardt. That's because at the joint trial, the prosecution was allowed to drag former priest Edward V. Avery into court as a witness against Engelhardt.
Rose's position pre-trial was that Danny Gallagher's stories about being passed around like a piñata among three alleged rapists was so ridiculous, and so filled with factual contradictions, that the jury [and maybe even the judge] would see right through a third-rate conman.
But the jury bought Gallagher's lame act, and so did the judge.
Avery had pleaded guilty to charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with Gallagher, and conspiracy. Avery was facing 13 1/2 to 27 years in jail if he was convicted; instead he took a sweetheart deal and got 2 1/2 to 5 years.
Avery was the abusive priest that Lynn allegedly allowed to go back into ministry, which brought about the child endangerment charge filed against Lynn. But when Father Engelhardt went on trial, he was charged with conspiring with Avery to pass around Danny Gallagher as a rape victim.
"Indeed, the mere presence of Defendant Avery at the trial of both men was devastating because it improperly bolstered [Danny Gallagher's] story," Shero's appeals lawyers wrote. Rose's defense that Gallagher's story "was unbelievable was dashed months before the trial when defendant Avery pled guilty and Defendant and Engelhardt and [Shero] proceeded to trial together."
"Mr. Rose's failure to property object to his evidence further compounded the profound mistake of failing to sever [Shero] from Defendant Engelhardt," Bochetto and Ogren wrote.
Meanwhile, Judge Ceisler won election to the Commonwealth Court. Her successful campaign slogan:
"The Commonwealth Court profoundly impacts all citizens -- each of our family members, friends and neighbors alike," Ceisler wrote. "If elected, I'll never stop fighting to ensure that all Pennsylvanians receive fair and just treatment in Commonwealth Court."
Yo Judge Ceisler. In your final days on the bench in Common Pleas Court, why don't you give Bernard Shero the "fair and just treatment" he and his co-defendant didn't get the first time around.
By granting him a new trial.