some of his accused priests, bumping a few into retirement and placing others on leaves of absence. Not wanting to be left behind, the district attorneys of San Mateo and Marin counties fell in step with San Francisco, pursuing church documents related to clerics in their jurisdictions.



And some of what they found enabled Marin prosecutors to pursue Ingels, a high official within the local clerical establishment.

Now that Stogner has mooted criminal action on most of the alleged wrongdoing described in the documents turned over to Bay Area prosecutors, there would seem to be little law enforcement reason for district attorneys to keep many of the records secret. But head prosecutors in San Francisco and San Mateo counties have refused public records requests seeking the documents.



In Marin County, meanwhile,the position of the District Attorney's Office on release of the records is muddled at best, with the office first agreeing to release the records, and then, apparently, undermining its own position by failing to file court documents that set out a legal rationale for the release.



San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris has assumed a pro-secrecy posture, rejecting the public records request that her Marin counterpart initially chose to honor. (Harris' press spokeswoman, Debbie Mesloh, said that the DA would comment on the matter but that she was unable to do so until after the deadline for this article.) Linda Klee, Harris' chief of administration and spokeswoman on the issue, says that making the church documents public would have a "chilling effect" on potential witnesses in future prosecutions.



Pressed