DOM Document assignment crashing

Hi all, Below is a method from a class that I am calling to parse a file and assign a DOM document after it has been parsed. The program has started to crash at the point identified below as "// fails HERE!" I have tried this with both v1.5 and 1.6 XERCES Distributions. Any suggestions are

RE: Single instance of Xerces parser for multiple parse() calls in an application

We are doing exactly this with great success! There are some additional caveats if you are re-using a grammar (passing true for the second parameter to parse()). Though we use schema exclusively. 1. Grammar will be defined by the first parse. 1. Any errors encountered when parsing the origina