When the Law Fails: Joseph Smith and the Persecution of the Mormons

Dr. Richard Bushman, Professor of History Emeritus at Columbia University and award winning author, discusses how weak minorities best respond when the law abandons them by taking the example of the Mormon’s own history.

LDS scholar Joseph Bently examines the many legal trials that Joseph Smith had in his lifetime. There are many common misconceptions about these trials that are spread by anti-Mormons.

Joseph Bentley clears these up and presents the facts of these trials. Some condemn Joseph Smith for being involved with any legal trial, but it must be remembered that Jesus Christ Himself, a perfect being, was also falsely accused.

This presentation was made at the FAIR Mormon conference in 2008:

Joseph was involved in 175 trials.   50 cases he had to defend, as a result of criminal charges.

Joseph’s first trial at age 20 was for a misdemeanor in 1826.  This was a year before Moroni’s visit.  The trial took place in Harmony, PA.   In court records, Joseph was referred to as a “glass looker” (not the formal charge, but part of the description).  The charge was a form of disorderly conduct.  “For falsely pretending to recover lost goods.”

Image result for josiah stowell

Josiah Stowell home in Afton, NY.

He was arrested.  Posted bail.  Jumped bail.  Rearrested.  Was allowed to escape.  All this related to being hired by Josiah Stowell to find buried treasure.  Eventually, Joseph encouraged Stowell to give up this pursuit.

Josiah’s nephew brought the charges, thinking Joseph had not lived up to his obligations.  Stowell vindicated Joseph.  This might have been the closest that Joseph came to a conviction.

Photo

Joseph, however, found Emma at this time, as he was staying at the Hales’ home.  After rumors of Joseph’s legal trouble, Emma’s parents disowned her.  She never saw them again.

Only a few suits were brought against Joseph in NY.   66 were brought in Ohio during the seven years the Saints lived there.  More than anywhere else.

Image result for kirtland safety society

The biggest legal challenge and business failure of Joseph’s life was the Kirtland Safety Society.  The banking license was denied at the last minute.  The suit came, as a result of operating a bank without a license.  Eventually (25 years later), the RLDS Church gained possession of the Kirtland Temple.

Image result for edward partridge tarred and feathered

In Missouri, ironically, very few suits were brought.  The reason is simple:  the enemies of the Church simply took action on their own through vigilante justice.

A three-month span in late 1838 led to the worst parts of Missouri history.  This culminatined in the Boggs-issued Extermination Order.  Following this, Joseph and the entire First Presidency was jailed.  First in Richmond.  Then in Liberty.  Brigham led the mass evacuation east to Quincy.

1840: possibly the best year of Joseph’s life.  No lawsuit all year.  They received the Nauvoo Charter.  They never used the Nauvoo Legion, but had it ready.  They had the right of habeas corpus: the right to bring the accused for a second examination.  A little city state was created in Nauvoo.

 

Missourian Efforts to Extradite Joseph Smith and the Ethics of Governor Thomas Reynolds of Missouri

Image result for Joseph SMith Missouri

Above:  Liberty Jail in 1888.

Joseph and the Latter-day Saints suffered much in Missouri.  I grew up there, and take a great interest in what occurred in the Show-Me State in the 1830s and 1840s.

Here is a link to FAIR Mormon about the broader topic of Joseph Smith’s legal history:  Legal Trials of the Prophet.

Abstract of this podcast specifically about Joseph’s dealings with Missouri’s efforts to extradite:

This is the second of two articles discussing Missouri’s requisitions to extradite Joseph Smith to face criminal charges and the Prophet’s recourse to English habeas corpus practice to defend himself. In the first article, the author discussed the English nature of pre-Civil War habeas corpus practice in America and the anachronistic modern idea that the Nauvoo Municipal Court did not have jurisdiction to consider interstate habeas corpus matters. In this article, he analyzes the conduct of Governor Thomas Reynolds in the matter of Missouri’s requisitions for the extradition of Joseph Smith in light of 1840s legal ethics in America. That analysis follows the discovery that Governor Reynolds had dismissed the underlying 1838 charges against Joseph Smith when he was a Missouri Supreme Court judge. It also responds to the revelation that Missouri reissued indictments based on the same underlying facts in June 1843 despite the existence of a double-jeopardy provision in the Missouri Constitution of 1820.

Conclusion:

In my earlier article, I explained that Joseph Smith’s use of habeas corpus practice was legally and morally unobjectionable, despite the contrary claims of his detractors. In this article, I have shown that Governor Reynolds of Missouri knew that all the Mormon War charges against Joseph Smith had been dismissed, yet he not only allowed his State’s unfounded 1840 requisition for Joseph Smith’s extradition to remain in place, but he issued a new requisition for Joseph Smith’s extradition on the strength of contrived new indictments. That is abuse of process which amounts to official state persecution of an innocent man who had been released because the prosecutor had abandoned a case he could not prove.

Governor Reynolds’ involvement in the requisition for Joseph Smith’s arrest on suspicion of complicity in the murder of former Governor Boggs is less objectionable on legal and ethical grounds, as there is no suggestion from available records that Governor Reynolds knew those allegations were contrived. But as a former chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, [Page 324]it is likely he recognized how thin the underlying case was. In the context of Missouri’s obsession with the persecution of Joseph Smith and his followers, he should have paused before adding his personal imprimatur to the interstate pursuit of Joseph Smith on those charges.

While legal ethics on the frontier were still developing, Governor Thomas Reynolds’ involvement in requisitions for the arrest and extradition of Joseph Smith to face contrived charges was dishonorable from start to finish.

 

From Wikipedia:  Assassination Attempt of Lilburn Boggs (image above).