From the Blawgernacle – September 15, 2009
Jeff Breinholt continues his series of legal posts on Mormon Matters with a discussion of Mormon criminal defendants. His survey of cases reveals an increasing number of cases that identify the religious denomination of a criminal defendant, and that the increase is more dramatic among Mormon defendants than other denominations. Judging from his data, this seems be due both to the increase in the number of Mormons in the U.S. as well as a strategic trend among attorneys to invoke the religiosity of their clients.
Mormon Heretic has a post about the trial of Joseph Smith’s assassins. It was largely inspired by former judge and current Apostle Dallin H. Oaks’ book Carthage Conspiracy. The post has some good excerpts from the book that talk about the grand jury proceedings of members of the mob, and the two nine individuals that were actually indicted.
As interesting as his criminal defendant post was, I thought Jeff Breinholt’s most recent post was even better. Jeff did a survey of employment discrimination cases involving Mormons, and what he found was somewhat surprising: more than any of the other denominations he surveyed, Mormons are more likely to be on the receiving end of an employment discrimination lawsuit. As Jeff puts it, Mormons “have become … The Man.” He references Corp. of the Presiding Bishop v. Amos, a case I have written about before, and discusses some possible reasons for the asymmetry. Chief among them is the fact that portions of the Western United States have large pluralities or majorities of Mormons, but Jeff indicates, the cases come from all over. This one is definitely worth a read.
Updated 9.16.09 to correct number of indictments in the Joseph Smith murder trial.
Thanks for the link. I just want to make a point of clarification. There were 9 people who were indicted by the grand jury for the murder of Joseph and Hyrum. Four fled, and never stood trial, the other 5 stood trial, but the prosecuting attorney inexplicably decided to drop charges against 3 of them during his closing arguments. Oaks makes it very clear that he doesn’t understand why the prosecuting attorney (Lamborn) dropped charges against one of the men in particular, because Oaks felt there was ample evidence for a conviction.
Interesting. Thanks for the clarification; I updated the post accordingly.