Prosecutors challenge medical report finding McCarrick not competent to stand trial

Thursday, March 2nd, 2023

Prosecutors are challenging the medical report claiming Mr Theodore McCarrick is not competent to stand trial on charges he sexually abused a teen in the 1970s.

McCarrick is a laicised former cardinal,

McCarrick’s legal team filed the report on 27 February in Massachusetts’ Dedham District Court based on a medical evaluation that found McCarrick, 92, is suffering from impaired cognition.

The court has now impounded that report.

Assistant Norfolk District Attorney Lisa Beatty said the state will now bring in its own expert to evaluate McCarrick to determine if he can go to trial.

The state’s evaluation date has yet to be set, but both sides will be back in court in April for a status conference.

As a result, any eventual ruling on McCarrick’s motion to be declared incompetent is not likely for months.

McCarrick has been accused of sexually abusing both adult and child victims over decades, a scandal that burst into the public in 2018.

After the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (now a dicastery) found McCarrick guilty of abuse in 2019, he was laicised by Pope Francis.

The three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over age 14 in Massachusetts are the only criminal counts he currently faces.

McCarrick amassed power and favours

Raising the question of competency years after the fact is a standard legal strategy employed by priests accused of sexual abuse, according to Mitchell Garabedian.

Garabedian is the attorney representing McCarrick’s Massachusetts victim in civil lawsuits filed in New York and New Jersey.

“My client is determined and strong and not deterred by McCarrick’s antics,” Garabedian said.

Robert Hoatson, president of Road to Recovery, which helps victims of priest sex abuse, said McCarrick amassed power and favours for years on his way to becoming a cardinal. That created a form of protection that McCarrick enjoyed and kept him from facing the consequences, Hoatson said.

“One of the reasons why this has been held up so long, he literally charmed the entire world,” Hoatson said.

“He was beloved, he could charm anybody.”

If McCarrick is ultimately deemed incompetent to stand trial, the charges do not automatically go away.

Instead, the court must first determine if McCarrick can be brought back to competency through medical treatment.

Given his age and reported condition, that scenario is unlikely, raising the possibility McCarrick may never face justice in the criminal courts.