I feel like we all should agree on this one regardless of where we are with the truth claims of the Church

[FearlessFixxer]

2 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

In 2014 they claimed immunity from lawsuits because they are a government agency.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8532505579250107342&q="2014+Utah+27"&hl=en&as_sdt=6,45

Nice find.  I will read in a bit

[rpn]

It doesn't boggle my mind at all that they tried this gambit: it makes some sense not to cede positions rather than let them be taken.  

But I'd be surprised if when they did so, they had any hope at all that it was actually going to work (though I did note that the Trib didn't file in Utah County).   I certainly wouldn't have expected to win in this case if I were representing BYU.

[smac97]

The Trib is reporting that BYU is appealing the court's ruling.  See here:

Quote

Brigham Young University will appeal a judge’s ruling that its police department is a governmental entity that should have to comply with Utah’s open-records laws.

Officials with the private university confirmed on Tuesday that it will appeal 3rd District Judge Laura Scott’s ruling in a 2016 lawsuit filed by The Salt Lake Tribune. Their decision comes after the judge on Tuesday filed a lengthier, 33-page analysis supporting her ruling, which was issued last week.

“We intend to appeal,” BYU spokesman Todd Hollingshead wrote in a statement, “and as the Court wrote in today’s ruling: ‘BYU has strong arguments worthy of appellate consideration.’ ”

...

The case stems from a public records request submitted by then-Tribune reporter Matthew Piper in 2016 amid allegations that BYU had disciplined students who reported sex crimes if they were violating the school’s Honor Code at the time of the assault. That code bans alcohol, tobacco, coffee and premarital sex, and it regulates students’ appearance and interactions with the opposite sex.

BYU police provided some records but refused to release communication between the department and the Mormon school’s Honor Code and Title IX offices.

The university police have said they do not conduct investigations for the Honor Code Office. However, The Tribune has obtained internal BYU documents that show a BYU police lieutenant used his access to Provo police records, via a countywide law enforcement database, for an Honor Code investigation into the conduct of a student who had reported a sexual assault to Provo police.

Hmm.  I am presently leaning toward the Trib's argument.  I'll need to read the judges more detailed ruling, and the appellate briefs, before making up my mind definitively.

Thanks,

-Smac

[tulip]

The church doesn't follow laws.  They are the law.

[Storm Rider]

I thought I read that Notre Dame's police force won a lawsuit with the same claim, but I cannot remember which thread it was on. Does anyone else remember or know?

[jkwilliams]

6 minutes ago, Storm Rider said:

I thought I read that Notre Dame's police force won a lawsuit with the same claim, but I cannot remember which thread it was on. Does anyone else remember or know?

BYU won their previous case in which they argued that they were immune from lawsuits because they were in a master/servant relationship with the Provo Police, whereas they appear to be arguing the exact opposite now. Whatever you think of McKenna Denson, BYU is on pretty shaky legal grounds, as FF noted. 

[mfbukowski]

15 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

BYU won their previous case in which they argued that they were immune from lawsuits because they were in a master/servant relationship with the Provo Police, whereas they appear to be arguing the exact opposite now. Whatever you think of McKenna Denson, BYU is on pretty shaky legal grounds, as FF noted. 

Everybody knows BYU is a theocracy.

It's our own little Vatican.  The Provo Vatican. Has a nice ring to it.

We just have to get them some of those nice Swiss guard outfits.

Edited July 18, 2018 by mfbukowski

[USU78]

B ... Who?

[Stargazer]

7 hours ago, tulip said:

The church doesn't follow laws.  They are the law.

Of course the church follows laws, and has done so since the beginning.  When the church was organized in 1830, it organized itself pursuant to the laws of New York state.

But in any case, the BYU police department is not the church, it is a legally certificated law enforcement agency with powers to enforce the applicable laws under which it is chartered.  It darned well better follow the law, too.

[jkwilliams]

13 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Everybody knows BYU is a theocracy.

It's our own little Vatican.  The Provo Vatican. Has a nice ring to it.

I have nothing but good memories of my 7 years at BYU. I received an excellent education (though some might disagree), and it was a bargain compared to other schools. The BYU Police had a mixed reputation. A lot of people I knew called them "the Mini-KGB." 

And the bookstore fudge is excellent, as is their creamery ice cream, which is higher in butterfat than its inferior Aggie competition.

Edited July 18, 2018 by jkwilliams

[Anijen]

The bottom line they [BYU police] are an agent of the state. If they have policing powers authorized from the State (can they arrest?), then they are an agent of the state.

 

 

[jkwilliams]

3 minutes ago, Anijen said:

The bottom line they [BYU police] are an agent of the state. If they have policing powers authorized from the State (can they arrest?), then they are an agent of the state.

Yup. They argued exactly that in 2014. 

[Stargazer]

13 hours ago, jkwilliams said:

In 2014 they claimed immunity from lawsuits because they are a government agency.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8532505579250107342&q="2014+Utah+27"&hl=en&as_sdt=6,45

The case you quote doesn't seem to support that claim.  Of course, IANAL.

I am aware that some government agencies may not be sued in their own name, because they don't have lawful standing to be sued. Instead, one sues either that agency's parent entity or the chief executive over the agency.

[jkwilliams]

2 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

The case you quote doesn't seem to support that claim.  Of course, IANAL.

I am aware that some government agencies may not be sued in their own name, because they don't have lawful standing to be sued. Instead, one sues either that agency's parent entity or the chief executive over the agency.

They argued that they were immune from lawsuit because they had a "servant" relationship to the Provo Police and therefore were acting as "employees" of the city and therefore were in effect agents of the state. 

Quote

31 We hold that the court of appeals' construction of the Act's statutory definition of Employee was in error. Additionally, we hold that the BYU Defendants were servants of Provo City and therefore statutory Employees under the Act. Consequently, Mr. Mallory's failure to file a timely notice of claim divested the district court of subject matter jurisdiction over his lawsuit. We therefore reverse the court of appeals' decision vacating the trial court's order of dismissal.

 

[mfbukowski]

44 minutes ago, USU78 said:

B ... Who?

It's up to U !

 

[jkwilliams]

46 minutes ago, USU78 said:

B ... Who?

It's interesting living in Davis County. When we lived in Provo, you saw BYU bumper stickers, decals, shirts, hats, etc., everywhere you went, but here it's all University of Utah paraphernalia (with Weber State being a distant second). I see very few visible signs of support for BYU, and even less for Utah State. I would have thought USU had a larger presence here. 

[Exiled]

This is about delay, delay, delay. The police reports must be pretty interesting or maybe the church is sending a message that it won't lay down in situations like this or maybe a little of both. The church seems to never just cave when in a legal fight. It has too many lawyers and too much of a history of fighting hard to simply lay down now. Even so, there are probably some juicy items in the records sought.

[USU78]

27 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

It's interesting living in Davis County. When we lived in Provo, you saw BYU bumper stickers, decals, shirts, hats, etc., everywhere you went, but here it's all University of Utah paraphernalia (with Weber State being a distant second). I see very few visible signs of support for BYU, and even less for Utah State. I would have thought USU had a larger presence here. 

Davis HS is USU's largest feeder school.

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, USU78 said:

Davis HS is USU's largest feeder school.

Maybe they just aren’t proud of attending USU. 😂

[smac97]

8 hours ago, tulip said:

The church doesn't follow laws.  They are the law.

Sigh.  It's rhetoric like this that makes people like me naturally resistant against and defensive towards people like you.

I happen to agree with the general sentiment in the OP (regarding the BYU PD being subject to GRAMA requests).  But then you come along and turn this issue into a means of attacking the LDS Church.  Guess what that does to people like me, who love the LDS Church?  

Even Mr. McKnight can't resist almost weaponizing this issue ("I feel like we all should agree on this one regardless of where we are with the truth claims of the Church").

The merits of the legal arguments presented about BYU PD being subject to GRAMA has precisely nothing to do with "the truth claims of the [LDS] Church."  And yet here you and Mr. McKnight are, to varying degrees, tying the two together.

-Smac

Edited July 18, 2018 by smac97

[DBMormon]

Think this through. How much influence does the LDS Church have in utah with Legislators? Is that influence unique to Utah in terms of a religious institution being able to influence about half or more of its politicians to side with it out of loyalty?

This same religious institution owns Police Departments in the state and can through that police department access records it has no business accessing. That same Police Force can then redact documents when those redactions will hide that Religious Institutions unethical use of the Police Force to access records unethically.

This same Religious Institution can then also wants to claim its private police Force be exempt from GRAMA Laws that would expose all of its unethical activity. 

This same Religious Institution can also influence legislators and Political leaders to not release and publish studies done to see how Police Records were accessed and utilized by This same Private police Force in order to help the Religious institution to resolve worthiness issues within its university.

This is messed up. In no other state would this dynamic play out. And it speaks loudly to how dysfunctional Utah is in having this large influence by Church upon State, in ways that deeply run counter to the Separation of Such and the very why of said Separation.

Please for those who are loyal to the Church, can you make an argument for why a Church owned Police department should be able to avoid the checks and balances that dissuade or prevent corruption?

[jkwilliams]

Just now, smac97 said:

Sigh.  It's rhetoric like this that makes people like me naturally resistant against and defensive towards people like you.

I happen to agree with the general sentiment in the OP (regarding the BYU PD being subject to GRAMA requests).  But then you come along and turn this into a means of attacking the LDS Church.

Even Mr. McKnight can't resist almost weaponizing this issue ("I feel like we all should agree on this one regardless of where we are with the truth claims of the Church").

The merits of the legal arguments presented about BYU PD being subject to GRAMA has precisely nothing to do with "the truth claims of the [LDS] Church."  And yet here you and Mr. McKnight are, to varying degrees, tying the two together.

-Smac

I don't see how he's "weaponizing" the issue. It's a safe bet that people here divide into "teams" based on their opinions about the truth claims of the church. Saying that he thinks all sides should agree about BYU's legal position is simply an acknowledgement of that division. 

Seriously, I remember what it's like to live in a state of perpetual outrage, and it's exhausting. Not everything is an affront to your beliefs or mine.

[jkwilliams]

3 minutes ago, DBMormon said:

Think this through. How much influence does the LDS Church have in utah with Legislators? Is that influence unique to Utah in terms of a religious institution being able to influence about half or more of its politicians to side with it out of loyalty?

This same religious institution owns Police Departments in the state and can through that police department access records it has no business accessing. That same Police Force can then redact documents when those redactions will hide that Religious Institutions unethical use of the Police Force to access records unethically.

This same Religious Institution can then also wants to claim its private police Force be exempt from GRAMA Laws that would expose all of its unethical activity. 

This same Religious Institution can also influence legislators and Political leaders to not release and publish studies done to see how Police Records were accessed and utilized by This same Private police Force in order to help the Religious institution to resolve worthiness issues within its university.

This is messed up. In no other state would this dynamic play out. And it speaks loudly to how dysfunctional Utah is in having this large influence by Church upon State, in ways that deeply run counter to the Separation of Such and the very why of said Separation.

Please for those who are loyal to the Church, can you make an argument for why a Church owned Police department should be able to avoid the checks and balances that dissuade or prevent corruption?

I don't know that anyone's alleging "unethical" use of police records in the McKenna Denson case. There was a case of a Utah County deputy who shared a police report with BYU's honor code office in order to retaliate against a BYU student who reported she had been raped by a friend of the deputy. I seem to recall there have been accusations that the BYU PD have accessed records from other police departments in an excessive way.

[bluebell]

52 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

It's interesting living in Davis County. When we lived in Provo, you saw BYU bumper stickers, decals, shirts, hats, etc., everywhere you went, but here it's all University of Utah paraphernalia (with Weber State being a distant second). I see very few visible signs of support for BYU, and even less for Utah State. I would have thought USU had a larger presence here. 

I live in Davis county and Utah state is a huge thing here.  Most of the kids in our ward's youth program are planning on going to Utah State.  We do have some ardent U of U fans and a couple of BYU (U of U definitely outnumber BYU) but Logan is were it's at.

Our high school isn't Davis though, so maybe that's why.  

[jkwilliams]

3 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I live in Davis county and Utah state is a huge thing here.  Most of the kids in our ward's youth program are planning on going to Utah State.  We do have some ardent U of U fans and a couple of BYU (U of U definitely outnumber BYU) but Logan is were it's at.

Our high school isn't Davis though, so maybe that's why.  

Maybe I'm just conditioned not to see USU paraphernalia.

My daughter attended USU after graduating from Snow College, and she enjoyed her time up there. She's back in Virginia now finishing up her Bachelor's degree, as she had to quit USU because she had a bad case of mononucleosis and strep and had to move in with us back there. It all works out, because she never would have met her fiance if she had stayed at USU. She'll graduate next month and then is getting married in October.