Church Wants Confession Tape Erased Suspect’s Jailhouse Meeting Protected, Appellate Court Told

The Roman Catholic Church asked a federal appellate court Thursday to destroy a tape recording of a jailhouse meeting between triple-murder suspect Conan Wayne Hale and a priest in Eugene.

Lawyers for the church also asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rule the tape was made illegally last April at the Lane County jail in Eugene, and that tapes of jailhouse confessionals will be banned.

But attorneys for the Oregon Department of Justice told a three-judge panel meeting in Seattle that the conversation did not amount to a constitutionally protected religious confession and Hale knew he was being recorded.

Hale, 20, and co-defendant Jonathan Wayne Susbauer, are charged with aggravated murder in the shooting deaths of three Springfield teenagers last December.

U.S. District Judge Owen Panner on Aug. 12 rejected a request by the Archdiocese of Portland to destroy the tape, ruling the constitutional right to a fair trial for Hale and Susbauer outweighed the church’s rights to freedom of religion and freedom from search and seizure.

But Panner called Lane County District Attorney Doug Harcleroad’s decision to tape Hale’s jailhouse conversation with the Rev. Timothy Mockaitis “unfortunate.”

Panner also said the state judge handling the case must decide whether the tape is used at trial, but he noted the church may ask the state judge to order the tape destroyed.

The Rev. Michael Maslowsky, a spokesman for the Portland archdiocese who attended the Thursday hearing in Seattle, said the three judges repeatedly questioned lawyers for the state about constitutional protection for religious confessions.