Shawn Eckardt, charged conspirator in the assault on figure skater Nancy Kerrigan, unburdened himself to “a spiritual confidant,” his lawyer says. But Eckardt’s counselor, Rev. Eugene Saunders, proved neither spiritual nor confidential: He took Eckardt’s heartpouring straight to a private investigator.
Imagine if Saunders had been a psychiatrist, a spouse or an attorney. Laws constrain those groups from feeding their clients and intimates to prosecutors. An even more venerable legal tradition dating from medieval times has governed clergy.
In one two-year-old case headed for the New Jersey Supreme Court, a defendant found himself prison-bound when the jailhouse minister he had “fellowshipped” with 19 times sang to authorities.
Law-and-order pundits say society is accepting this trend as a welcome efficiency in busting crime. But at what price? Civilized people recognize that some things, like compassion to enemy wounded, are gestures of humanity that transcend even the claims of justice.
It’s a curiously warped community where the price of public order is praying that your confessor isn’t tipping off the cops.
