A judge Wednesday refused to set a trial date for two lawsuits against the Boston Archdiocese, saying relentless publicity in the sex scandal has made it impossible for the church to get fair treatment.
Superior Court Judge Constance Sweeney also warned that she would consider moving the trial out of the county if the publicity continued at a fevered pitch.
"I gave fair warning of this a year ago," she said. "I said I was going to monitor it. ... I was not born yesterday. The remarks are being made for purposes of influencing the outcome."
Sweeney's ruling came in lawsuits filed by two men, Gregory Ford and Paul Busa, who claim they were molested by the Rev. Paul Shanley in the 1980s when they were boys. Ford was looking for a trial date in April; Busa was seeking a June date.
Attorneys for the archdiocese asked to delay the trial until October and to change the location. They cited the heavy news coverage, the release of videotaped depositions and thousand of pages of church personnel files, and comments by attorneys for the alleged victims.
"Our clients cannot receive a fair and just trial by a jury in light of the media attention that has gone on for a year," said Owen Todd, an attorney for Cardinal Bernard Law, who resigned as archbishop of Boston in December because of the scandal.
About 500 alleged victims have filed claims against the archdiocese, accusing dozens of priests of molesting them. But most of those cases are on hold while the two sides try to work out a settlement.
Roderick MacLeish, a lawyer for Ford and Busa, said a delay would traumatize the alleged victims.
Shanley also is awaiting criminal trial on charges alleging he molested four boys from 1979 to 1989, including Ford and Busa.
The judge who has taken a hard line with the church in previous proceedings said she agreed with Todd that a "charged" atmosphere surrounded the case, adding the publicity simply delays proceedings.
"The more a potential jury pool is subjected to extraneous influence, the longer it is going to take the case to get to trial," she said.
The next pretrial conference was set for mid-June.
"I also, at that time, will have the atmospheric temperature, the court's atmospheric temperature," Sweeney said.
MacLeish said after the hearing that he would heed the judge's advice to take a lower public profile. But he said the church should do the same, noting the archdiocese has a full-time spokeswoman, a newspaper and a TV station.