Professionals with Mandatory Reporting Reqs Barred from DC

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_Water Dog
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Professionals with Mandatory Reporting Reqs Barred from DC

Post by _Water Dog »

Last edited by Guest on Mon Dec 18, 2017 1:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
_Kishkumen
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Re: Professionals with Mandatory Reporting Reqs Barred from

Post by _Kishkumen »

Yikes!
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_Fence Sitter
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Re: Professionals with Mandatory Reporting Reqs Barred from

Post by _Fence Sitter »

So disciplinary courts are not covered under clergy–penitent privilege?

If not, would this extend to those who are officers of the court, like attorneys?
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_Res Ipsa
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Re: Professionals with Mandatory Reporting Reqs Barred from

Post by _Res Ipsa »

Fence Sitter wrote:So disciplinary courts are not covered under clergy–penitent privilege?

If not, would this extend to those who are officers of the court, like attorneys?


If I'm recalling correctly, the only mandatory reporters under Utah law are doctors and nurses. I believe a Utah court would hold that a confession in a disciplinary council would be covered under the privilege. There was a Utah Supreme Court decision that gave the privilege constitutional implications. It also construed the privilege broadly, extending it beyond the classic confessional context.

But information other than that gained from the confessing party is not protected. So, if a doctor sits on a disciplinary court, information from the victim or witnesses would be subject to the mandatory reporter statute. I think what the handbook is trying to avoid is having the court trigger the mandatory reporting statute simply because a member of the counsel happens to be a mandatory reporter.

I looked at what some other churches do. One flavor of Methodists treats their clergy as mandatory reporters regardless of what state law says. The only exception is in the context of a traditional confession.

I don't believe attorneys in Utah are mandatory reporters. If a client told an attorney that he had sexually molested a child, the attorney has a duty to keep that information confidential unless the client gives her permission to disclose.

ETA: I remembered wrong. All persons who become aware of abuse are mandatory reporters in Utah. https://attorneygeneral.utah.gov/duty-t ... or-neglect I don't believe that overrides the attorney-client privilege, but information gained from other sources could trigger a duty to report.

Given that all persons on a DC in Utah are mandatory reporters, I'm not sure what good the handbook provision does there. It may have some effect in states with less comprehensive reporter requirements.
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_lemuel
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Re: Professionals with Mandatory Reporting Reqs Barred from

Post by _lemuel »

Is reporting mandatory for college professors under Title IX?
_moinmoin
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Re: Professionals with Mandatory Reporting Reqs Barred from

Post by _moinmoin »

Fence Sitter wrote:So disciplinary courts are not covered under clergy–penitent privilege?


When I called the hotline several months ago about an issue I had asked about here in vague terms, one of the things that came out in that lengthy conversation was that there isn't an expectation of privacy in a disciplinary council (legally speaking. There is still an expectation of confidentiality, church-wise, but it isn't legally-privileged because non-confessors hear it, too). The stake president, and the bishop if he's present (my stake asks us to attend DCs for our members, if possible) are both clergy who hear confessions, but the counselors, high councilors, and clerk are not --- and they are present. Thus, no expectation of privacy. By its very nature, confidential information is going to be disclosed to persons other than protected confessors.

One of my concerns in calling was to ask what the impact could potentially be if my stake president and I acted. The perpetrator is not in our stake, but some of the victims are. We both were wanting to a) annotate his record, b) hold a DC, or see that a DC was being held, and c) see that criminal legal consequences take place. While there are multiple confessions, including recorded and texted, to others, the police and county attorney's office see prosecution as a long shot. We were concerned that the Church might be subject to libel or slander suits if discipline ensued without a conviction. The upshot is that ecclesiastical councils have their own standards of evidence and are completely decoupled from the legal system, so there are no concerns on that score. I was heartened that his record was immediately annotated upon my call.
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Re: Professionals with Mandatory Reporting Reqs Barred from

Post by _Res Ipsa »

lemuel wrote:Is reporting mandatory for college professors under Title IX?

I think it depends on whether the school designated them as “responsible employees.” The regulation itself is pretty unclear.
​“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”

― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
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