A California court is to throw out all sexual abuse charges against an Irish priest after the US Supreme Court struck down the statute under which he was charged.
Father Patrick O'Keefe, a priest in San Bernardino diocese who originally came from Co Kilkenny, fled to Ireland last year days before he was to be charged with 15 counts of alleged sexual abuse against Ms Nicki Rister in 1972. Ms Rister was a teenager at the time of the alleged offences.
Father O'Keefe, who was dismissed from his parish in 1994 after the diocese settled a civil action by another female parishioner, will have all charges against him dropped within the next two weeks as a result of the Supreme Court ruling.
Ms Rister, now aged 48, said this week that she was deeply disappointed that the case cannot proceed.
However, even without the Supreme Court ruling, the chances of a case proceeding were very slim, as Father O'Keefe could not be extradited from Ireland because Ms Rister was 17 at the time of the alleged offences - under Irish law, the age of consent is 17, compared with 18 in California.
Ms Rister had publicly called on Father O'Keefe to return to California to answer the charges.
On June 26th last the US Supreme Court, in Stogner v California, struck out the 1994 California Penal Code 803 (G), which allowed criminal charges to be laid against alleged sexual abusers for acts committed against minors decades earlier.
The Supreme Court ruled that the code ignored California's statute of limitations and thereby violated the constitutional right to fair proceedings because it made acts criminal which had not been criminal for many years.
Mr John Kochis, San Bernardino Deputy District Attorney, said that a local court would strike out the charges against Father O'Keefe.
"I filed an application to drop the charges on Monday of last week and this will be accepted by the court," he said.
"We will get notice back from the court that they have approved our request and they will send a fax to the sheriff's department that recalls the arrest warrant."
Mr Kochis said that many other cases would have to be dropped because of the Supreme Court ruling, including those against sports coaches and schoolteachers.
"It only applies to California. Not all states have a statute similar to ours," he explained.
Father O'Keefe (68) was charged with 15 counts of sexual contact with Ms Rister.
Ms Rister has said that she will be taking a civil action against the diocese of San Bernardino because she was not given adequate protection.
Father O'Keefe left his home in California last July to return to Ireland just days before a warrant was due to be issued for his arrest.
A spokesman for the San Bernardino diocese, Father Howard Lincoln, said earlier this year that it would be a far better situation if Father O'Keefe returned to California and allowed the case to come to court.
Asked if Father O'Keefe had used the San Bernardino diocese as a reference in an application for employment in Ireland, he said he believed that was the case.
But he insisted that the diocese would in no way support Father O'Keefe's use of its name on a job application.
Before the Supreme Court ruling, Assistant District Attorney Lara Roblis said that her office had heard through Interpol that the Irish authorities would not extradite Father O'Keefe to California, where he had worked for more than 30 years.