AZ appeals court issues ruling on the Bisbee abuse case

[webbles]

In the Bisbee abuse court that has been discussed on the board, the church's lawyers had appealed two rulings by the trial judge.  The trial judge ruled that 1) the disciplinary records of Adams must be made available to the plaintiffs because Adams had forfeited the priest-penitent privilege and also that 2) Brother Fife was not a clergy member when he was involved during the disciplinary council so he could be questioned.

The appeals court has issued their ruling and you can read it at https://www.appeals2.az.gov/Decisions/SA20220047Memo.pdf.  You can also watch the oral proceedings which occurred about a month ago at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4R_X_yv-tg

It was a unanimous decision for both questions.

For the first question, the appeals court ruled that Adams did not forfeit the priest-penitent privilege.  They said that even though Adams talked about the abuse to the public (through the internet) and directly to the police, he did not talk about what he confessed to the bishop.

For the second question, the appears court ruled that there is a lack of evidence that Brother Fife was not a clergy member.

 

An interesting thing with the first question is a recorded phone call between Adams and the second bishop.  He was already arrested at this time and he called the bishop from the prison (that's why it is recorded).  In the recording, Adams appears to want to confess everything.  In the oral arguments, the victim's lawyers argued that this phone call is evidence that Adams waived his priest-penitent privilege.  But the church's lawyers argued that the evidence wasn't used by the trial judge in the original decision.  The appeals court cannot consider new evidence and so had to ignore the phone call.  I have the transcript of the phone call but can't attach it here as it exceeds the attachment size (it is >500kb).

 

Some other details that I've learned about the case:

• Adams never received the Melchizedek priesthood.  So his disciplinary council was just with the bishopric.
• Adams appealed his excommunication to the Stake Presidency and they upheld the excommuncation.
• Both of the bishops don't actually live within the ward boundary.  They are from two different wards in the same stake.  That could explain why they didn't seem to know people in the ward.
• Adams attended a branch while in prison and even requested his membership records to be transferred to the prison branch.  I find that interesting for an inactive, excommunicated member to do.

[rpn]

11 hours ago, webbles said:

  I find that interesting for an inactive, excommunicated member to do.

Having known a number of them, I don't find it unusual.  First, where the Church provides church services in prisons, even the really not believing welcome the respite of attending regular meetings and participating.  (And those still arguing innocence might also use it as a screen.

Second we do believe in repentance and redemption.

Thirdly, his choice to to that might have also given his spouse peace.

It does show that he didn't understand that there are no records to transfer when someone has has been excommunicated.   It is only upon rebaptism that the records get reborn.  (Meaning that they exist, but not in the normal member transfer membership processes.)

In this specific case, it also might be that he wanted to know what would happen IF the records were transferred to the prison and what the records said.

Edited December 16, 2022 by rpn

[Calm]

20 hours ago, webbles said:

An interesting thing with the first question is a recorded phone call between Adams and the second bishop.  He was already arrested at this time and he called the bishop from the prison (that's why it is recorded). 

Where did you get this?  I am not seeing it on Mormonr.

[Calm]

20 hours ago, webbles said:

 

• Both of the bishops don't actually live within the ward boundary.  They are from two different wards in the same stake.  That could explain why they didn't seem to know people in the ward

Currently or they didn’t live in the boundaries while bishops?  Because that would be weird.

[JustAnAustralian]

13 minutes ago, Calm said:

Currently or they didn’t live in the boundaries while bishops?  Because that would be weird.

Two in a row definitely sounds odd. 

[webbles]

13 hours ago, Calm said:

Where did you get this?  I am not seeing it on Mormonr.

I got it from the courts website.  It was one of the pieces of evidence submitted.  It's id is 2081679.

12 hours ago, Calm said:

Currently or they didn’t live in the boundaries while bishops?  Because that would be weird.

They never lived within the boundaries of the ward.  Here's a snippet from a recorded interview with Bishop Mauzy (second bishop):

Quote

19 Q. Okay. All right. Now, the Bisbee Ward was not
20 your ward, normal ward, was it?
21 A. No, sir.
22 Q. Okay. What ward were you in?
23 A. I think I was in 2nd Ward.
24 Q. Okay. Which is located where? Sierra Vista?
25 A. Yes.

1 Q. Okay. And are you -- are you going to church
2 there now?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. And you didn't move to Bisbee, right?
5 A. No, sir.
6 Q. So was there a reason that you know of that they
7 didn't pick somebody from the Bisbee Ward to be the
8 bishop?

9 A. I -- I don't know why they didn't.

Quote

4 Q. Okay. When you were the bishop, did she go to
5 church with you in Bisbee, or did she go at the ward in
6 Sierra Vista?
7 A. She went with me in Bisbee.

So, per Bishop Mauzy, he didn't live in Bisbee and just commuted to the Bisbee ward.  I thought I had read an interview with Bishop Herrod (first bishop) that said the same thing but I'm having difficulty finding it.  I did find the following section in Bishop Mauzy's interview which gives the indication that Bishop Herrod's living situation was similar to Bishop Mauzy.

Quote

15 Q. And had you known Bishop Herrod before?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Okay. How did you know him?
18 A. From 2nd Ward, at church.
19 Q. Okay. Was he your physician?
20 A. Yes, he was.
21 Q. So you knew him as your doctor and through the
22 church?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Okay. And was Bishop Herrod a member of the
25 Sierra Vista Ward before he went to Bisbee?

[Calm]

I could understand if it was a branch, but a ward seems really strange.

So I have read the recording of the phone call from jail.  Do you think Adams was sincere or just saying all the right things in hopes the Bishop would testify for him at the trial, or rather the sentence hearing and likely parole hearings?

It was pretty letter perfect for what he should have said.

[bluebell]

On 12/16/2022 at 6:52 PM, Calm said:

Currently or they didn’t live in the boundaries while bishops?  Because that would be weird.

It is weird, but I know it does happen.  Our last bishop didn't even live in our stake for the final 7 months he served.  It really annoyed my husband as one of his counselors.

[webbles]

16 hours ago, Calm said:

I could understand if it was a branch, but a ward seems really strange.

The Bisbee ward appears to be extremely small.  Less than 100 active members.  It probably is a branch in everything but name.

16 hours ago, Calm said:

So I have read the recording of the phone call from jail.  Do you think Adams was sincere or just saying all the right things in hopes the Bishop would testify for him at the trial, or rather the sentence hearing and likely parole hearings?

It was pretty letter perfect for what he should have said.

I don't know what to make of the call.  The way he talks about his kids doesn't sound like a man who has been abusing them for years.  It feels like he is only superficially acknowledging that he caused them distress.  It seems he is more worried about how his incarceration affects them.

The bishop also kind of bothers me.  That could be because I'm reading the transcript after knowing what Adams did.  I don't know how much the bishop knows at this time as I can't find a date for the transcript.  But the way the bishop talks about the kids feels like he either doesn't care about what Adams did to them or that he doesn't know.  I hope the later.

[Calm]

16 minutes ago, webbles said:

The Bisbee ward appears to be extremely small.  Less than 100 active members.  It probably is a branch in everything but name.

That makes sense then. Perhaps it was formed as a ward during a time of rapid growth that then unexpectedly fizzled out or it was a larger ward that has shrunk. 

[Calm]

1 hour ago, webbles said:

But the way the bishop talks about the kids feels like he either doesn't care about what Adams did to them or that he doesn't know.  I hope the later.

At times I felt the bishop was just humoring him and wasn’t liking having to talk with him given the frequent one word answers; others it seemed to me he was reassuring Adams so Adams wouldn’t try to push his parental rights to get involved in the kids’ lives. But others it felt like he was agreeing with Adams, etc and that would be highly concerning given what Adams did, so it does read as uninformed or callous/clueless. Too bad we can’t hear for tone.  I am with you in hoping he didn’t know at that point, though he may have felt anything that influenced Adams to act decently even if this ignored the seriousness of his past behaviour was better than setting off Adams (the bishop was likely aware of Adam’s’ violent temper), so he just played along, so to speak and supported choices that might lead to actual change  eventually and kept the kids safe right then.

The date was not given as far as I could see in the document, which was really strange. Do you know the date from other sources?  If we had a date, we could at least see what any published articles stated.  We know that the mother was still in denial at times until he killed himself, iirc.  If you easily have them, what are the dates of her meetings with LEOs?  If she wasn’t forthcoming with the bishop just like she wasn’t with Warr (it wasn’t until they were looking for the journals I believe, that she admitted the abuse), and it certainly doesn’t sound like Adams was treating his incarceration and his actions as anything truly serious yet in that call or in the interrogation we have, so unless LEOs shared info, the bishop might not have known early on after the arrest.  It is clear nothing was yet going on with the mother in terms of her being charged as well.

It had to have been at least a few weeks for Adams to act like he was attending church and other things consistently and the kids were getting counseling already, iirc.

Edited December 18, 2022 by Calm

[webbles]

36 minutes ago, Calm said:

That makes sense then. Perhaps it was formed as a ward during a time of rapid growth that then unexpectedly fizzled out or it was a larger ward that has shrunk. 

Per wikipedia, Bisbee used to be twice the size.  It is an old mining town and is near the Gila valley which has a lot of members.  I bet the ward used to be large and has just shrunk as people left the mining town for better things.

27 minutes ago, Calm said:

The date was not given as far as I could see in the document, which was really strange. Do you know the date from other sources?  If we had a date, we could at least see what any published articles stated.  We know that the mother was still in denial at times until he killed himself, iirc.  If you easily have them, what are the dates of her meetings with LEOs?  If she wasn’t forthcoming with the bishop just like she wasn’t with Warr (it wasn’t until they were looking for the journals I believe, that she admitted the abuse), and it certainly doesn’t sound like Adams was treating his incarceration and his actions as anything truly serious yet in that call or in the interrogation we have, so unless LEOs shared info, the bishop might not have known early on after the arrest.  It is clear nothing was yet going on with the mother in terms of her being charged as well.

It had to have been at least a few weeks for Adams to act like he was attending church and other things consistently and the kids were getting counseling already, iirc.

I haven't been able to find a date.  I could see the phone call being less than a week after he was arrested because there are parts where it sounds like Adams is still getting used to incarceration.  But it could also be several weeks.

I don't easily have the dates of the mother's meetings with LEOs.  I'll work on figuring them out.

[Calm]

31 minutes ago, webbles said:

Per wikipedia, Bisbee used to be twice the size.  It is an old mining town and is near the Gila valley which has a lot of members.  I bet the ward used to be large and has just shrunk as people left the mining town for better things.

I haven't been able to find a date.  I could see the phone call being less than a week after he was arrested because there are parts where it sounds like Adams is still getting used to incarceration.  But it could also be several weeks.

I don't easily have the dates of the mother's meetings with LEOs.  I'll work on figuring them out.

I can see too later…

[Calm]

Adams was arrested in Feb 2017 and killed himself in December.  Trying to remember the likely trigger event.

Herrod learned of the ongoing nature and extent of the abuse from news.  I haven’t found anything from. Suzy yet except that he didn’t learn until after the arrest.

In Herrod’s declaration this Feb, he says he talked to Edwards in Jun and before that there had been extensive coverage where he learned details of the abuse.

The free talk with Leizza Adams was in August of 2017.  Prior to that time she said she was unaware of any behaviour.  She claimed she was not aware of any molestations.

https://mormonr.org/files/qKXPTb/scan-0y7RDR-qKXPTb.pdf?

too sleepy…

Edited December 19, 2022 by Calm