Courts, Ecclesiastical, Nineteenth-Century

From The Encyclopedia of Mormonism

See this page in the original 1992 publication.

Author: Backman, James H.

In the nineteenth century, the LDS court system functioned in adjudicating virtually all kinds of legal disputes among Church members. Since the late 1800s, however, the Church courts, now entitled disciplinary councils, have not been used for the arbitration of private disputes.

The scriptural basis for Church courts originated in the early 1830s. At first, elders conducted trials for determining membership status. In 1831, a bishop, designated as a "judge in Israel" (D&C 58:17), and his counselors were authorized to function as a bishop's court. In 1834, Doctrine and Covenants 102 established the high council court and its procedures for hearing original cases and appeals from bishop's courts. The high council court consists of a stake president, his two counselors, and the Twelve members of the stake high council. The First Presidency court is the highest available for considering appeals from high council courts (D&C 102:27).

The roles of these courts have varied. In the 1830s, years marked by rapid expansion in Church membership and extensive migration to escape persecution in Ohio and Missouri, Church courts usually provided members an easy, appropriate, and friendly forum for settling non-Church related disputes. Then for several years prior to the Nauvoo charter, and again in the westward migration until 1850, Church courts pronounced, enforced, and adjudicated a full range of civil and criminal ordinances. Thereafter, until the passage of the Poland Act (1874), Church courts continued to handle civil disputes even though alternative courts were available through the federal territorial government (judges appointed by the president of the United States) and through the county probate judges (appointed by the territorial legislature). Probate judges were almost always Mormon priesthood leaders, including local stake presidents and bishops, and the probate courts had broad powers over all criminal and civil court matters in addition to normal probate functions. During this period, however, Church courts handled most disputes between members of the Church. Latter-day Saints turned to the county probate courts mostly in criminal actions, in actions against non-Mormons, and when it was important to obtain a formal court decree.

With passage in 1874 of the Poland Act and with the Supreme Court decision in Reynolds V. United States (1879), the federal assault on Mormon polygamy intensified, and the Church courts provided the only forum to assist wives and children in settling disputes with their polygamous husbands and fathers. Government courts could offer little assistance because polygamous marriages were outside the law.

In the nineteenth century members used Church courts in private disputes largely because of the principle of exclusive jurisdiction widely enforced by the Church. Applying this principle, leaders used sermons and scripture to encourage members to avoid the civil courts; they also imposed disfellowshipment or excommunication on members who sued another member in the civil courts. Thus non-Mormons initiated most of the cases in the civil courts of the Utah Territory even though the population was overwhelmingly Mormon.

After Utah acquired statehood in 1896, a regular state court system was instituted. Thereafter the Church court system ceased to consider temporal disputes.

Historically, at all times, many Church court cases have involved sexual offenses. In the early Utah decades land disputes were adjudicated by Church courts because the bishops had allocated land holdings to members according to their needs and abilities to put the land into productive use. In deciding contract matters, the main objective was reconciliation of brothers and sisters in the gospel. In such cases, Church courts gave weight to the likely outcome of a similar dispute in civil court. However, they never felt strictly bound by common law precedents; they used inspiration, custom, scripture, and ecclesiastical instructions to reach equitable solutions with reconciliation and benefit to the entire community as the guiding objectives.

[edit] Bibliography

Firmage, Edwin B., and Richard C. Mangrum. Zion in the Courts: A Legal History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900. Chicago, 1988.

Leone, Mark P. "Ecclesiastical Courts: Inventing Labels and Enforcing Definitions." Roots of Modern Mormonism. Cambridge, Mass., 1979.

Swenson, Raymond T. "Resolution of Civil Disputes by Mormon Ecclesiastical Courts." Utah Law Review (1978):573-95.

JAMES H. BACKMAN

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