New Jersey Supreme Court to consider whether grand jury can hear clergy abuse allegations

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CNA Staff, Mar 7, 2025 / 15:45 pm (CNA).

A New Jersey diocese this week faced a significant setback in its ongoing court battle related to a clergy abuse investigation as the state Supreme Court announced it would consider whether decades of abuse allegations can be presented to a grand jury.

The high court said it would hear from both the state attorney general and the Diocese of Camden in the years-old controversy. Oral arguments are scheduled for April 28-29. 

After a Pennsylvania grand jury report in 2018 found allegations of decades of clergy sexual abuse in that state, former New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal convened a “Clergy Abuse Task Force” to investigate allegations of abuse. 

Heavily redacted documents released by the state Supreme Court and obtained by CNA show that the government sought to impanel a grand jury to consider the findings of the task force, which was charged with “investigating allegations of sexual abuse by clergy and efforts to conceal such abuse in New Jersey.”

In separate filings, the Diocese of Camden argued that grand juries in New Jersey “cannot convene a grand jury to return a presentment unless it addresses public affairs or conditions, censures public officials, or calls attention to imminent conditions.”

Instances of “clergy sexual abuse that is alleged to have taken place decades ago” do not fall under that purview, the diocese argued. 

A state Superior Court ruled in the diocese’s favor in 2023, with an appeals court upholding that ruling last year. The legal documents from both the state and the Camden Diocese were sealed during those proceedings. 

In its ruling this week, the state Supreme Court said it would consider oral arguments regarding the grand jury question, with the high court also granting New Jersey’s request to unseal redacted versions of the court filings from both the state and Camden in the ongoing disagreement. 

In a statement this week, First Assistant Attorney General Lyndsay Ruotolo said the state for years has “been seeking to convene a grand jury to present evidence collected by prosecutors across the state regarding decades of sexual abuse, the conditions that made that abuse possible, and the systematic failures to prevent it.”

“[W]e are grateful that the New Jersey Supreme Court agreed to hear this case,” Ruotolo said. “Now that this case has been made public for the first time in this yearslong dispute, victims and survivors will have an opportunity to make their voices heard — and to speak to the real harms that we have never lost sight of.”

The Camden Diocese did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday morning regarding the state Supreme Court’s decision.