Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Catholic Kingsport, Sullivan County, Tennessee, USA · 1980

United States: priest convicted of raping his altar boy decades earlier, sentence affirmed on appeal

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

Catholic priest, head pastor of St. Dominic's Catholic School and Church

Organization

St. Dominic's Catholic School and Church, Kingsport, Tennessee, Diocese of Knoxville

Spiritual nexus

Casey was head pastor of the victim's parish school and church; the victim testified he did not disclose for decades in part because Casey was 'very well-liked, very regarded' with a large congregation, while he felt he would not be believed. The abuse occurred within the altar-server and school relationship Casey supervised as priest.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority
  • Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2011-11-23 · trial

    Criminal Court for Sullivan County, Tennessee. Jury convicted William Casey, a priest, of one count of first degree criminal sexual conduct and two counts of aggravated rape of a boy who was his altar server and student, beginning when the victim was about ten and a half years old. Sentenced to an effective 35 years.

  2. 2014-01-28 · appellate

    Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee at Knoxville. Convictions and sentence affirmed. The court rejected Casey's claim that the 32-year delay between the offenses and prosecution violated due process, along with his evidentiary and jury-instruction claims.

Appellate history

  1. 2014-01-28

    Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and rejected the pre-accusatorial-delay and jury-instruction claims.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • clerical authority as head pastor over a congregant altar boy
  • the priest's high standing in the congregation deterred the victim's disclosure

Primary record

Sources

court opinion appellate opinion State v. Casey, No. E2012-01451-CCA-R3-CD (Tenn. Crim. App. Jan. 28, 2014).

Full appellate opinion: jury convicted Casey, a priest and head pastor at St. Dominic's, of first degree criminal sexual conduct and two counts of aggravated rape of his altar boy; sentenced to an effective 35 years; conviction and sentence affirmed on appeal.

Related record

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