Joseph Smith/Legal issues

FAIR Answers—back to home page

Joseph Smith: Legal issues

Answer

Concluded one author at a FAIR conference:

Joseph Smith was persecuted in courts of law as much as anyone I know. But he was never found guilty of any crime, and his name cannot be tarnished in that way.^[1]

To see citations to the critical sources for these claims, click here

Joseph I. Bentley, "Legal Trials of the Prophet: Joseph Smith's Life in Court"

Joseph I. Bentley,  Proceedings of the 2006 FAIR Conference, (August 2006)

From my years of research and work on the Joseph Smith Papers Project, I have gained a deeper appreciation of Joseph’s achievements, despite intense and unrelenting adversity. Among his other tribulations was the fact that his ministry was shadowed by many persistent legal prosecutions. Anyone who has been through even one lawsuit knows how all-consuming it can be. It can demand your time, assets, body and mind.

So far we’ve found over two hundred total suits involving Joseph Smith–whether as a defendant, plaintiff, witness or judge. (Yes, as Mayor of Nauvoo, he was also a Justice of the Peace and Chief Magistrate of the Nauvoo Municipal Court.) That makes an average of about fourteen cases per year. As best we can tell, he endured an average of one lawsuit per month during most of his ministry!

Brigham Young said that he had to defend himself in forty-eight criminal cases, including many personally involving Brigham–but that Joseph was never convicted in any of them. We believe that this count of criminal cases against him is quite accurate. We’ll focus mainly on some criminal charges that took his liberty, his assets and ultimately his life. Knowing that not once was he found legally guilty of any charges against him has strengthened my own faith and regard for Joseph Smith–the man and the Prophet. This is a unique way to tell the history of the Church through lawsuits and court records.

From the time of his First Vision, Joseph said he got used to “swimming in deep water.” This was also true of his experience with the law. The Lord told him at the start of his ministry: “Be patient in thine afflictions for thou shalt have many. But endure them, for lo I am with thee, even unto the end of thy days.”1 Also: “Be firm in keeping the commandments … and if you do this, behold I grant unto you eternal life, even if you should be slain.“2 Finally: “And even if they do unto you as they have done unto me, blessed are ye, for ye shall dwell with me in glory.”3 These verses connected him to the Lord himself. But how is that for a mission call?

The legal charges and trials of Joseph began almost before his ministry began, and they continued for many years after it ended.

Click here to view the complete article

Topics

D&C 98 teaches Saints to disobey secular law?

Summary: According to historian D. Michael Quinn, Joseph received a revelation which "established the primacy of religious law over secular law...and not only authorized but commanded Mormons to disobey secular law and civil leaders not conforming to the commandments of God." This interpretation, however, is Quinn's own. The revelation is not telling the Saints to "disobey secular law and civil leaders"—it is telling them to "befriend" the law of the land, and seek to support "honest men and wise men" as leaders.

Joseph Smith and legal trials

• • 1826 trial for "glasslooking"—
    Brief Summary: Joseph Smith was brought to trial in 1826 for "glasslooking." Didn't Hugh Nibley claim that if this trial record existed that it would be "the most damning evidence in existence against Joseph Smith?" (Click here for full article)
    ∗       ∗       ∗
    • Was Joseph found guilty of being a "con man"?—
      Brief Summary: Critics claim that Joseph was a "con man," and that he was found guilty of being such in a court of law. This refers to the 1826 trial. (Click here for full article)
      ∗       ∗       ∗

Kirtland Safety Society

Summary: Critics attack Joseph Smith over the Kirtland Safety Society (KSS) on multiple grounds: 1) they claim the KSS was a "wildcat bank," 2) they claim that the bank was illegal, and that the Church broke the law by founding it, 3) they claim it was a money-making scheme for Joseph, and 4) they claim its failure proves Joseph was not a prophet

• • False charges against Warren Parrish?—
    Brief Summary: Critics claim that Joseph Smith lied about Warren Parrish, falsely charging him with financial misconduct, and trying to shift the blame. An examination of surviving Kirtland Safety Society notes provides concrete evidence for Joseph's charge. (Click here for full article)
    ∗       ∗       ∗
  • Money boxes filled with sand?—
    Brief Summary: Critics claim that Joseph Smith misled investors in the Kirtland Safety Society by collecting boxes full of sand with money placed on top, in order to make it appear that the bank had more hard money than it did. (Click here for full article)
    ∗       ∗       ∗
  • Notes from KSS to be "as good as gold"?—
    Brief Summary: Critics make light of Joseph Smith's claim that Kirtland Safety Society notes would be "as good as gold." (Click here for full article)
    ∗       ∗       ∗

Nauvoo city charter

Summary: What was unique about the city of Nauvoo's charter? Why did it anger some non-Mormons?

• • Habeas corpus—
    Brief Summary: This writ is a judicial order “to a prison official ordering that an inmate be brought to the court so it can be determined whether or not that person is imprisoned lawfully and whether or not he should be released from custody.” Thus, one obtains such a writ so that a local judge can rule on whether or not an arrest warrant is legal or appropriate. The purpose of habeas corpus is to prevent prisoners from being transported long distances on insufficient charges, or held for long periods without trial. (Click here for full article)
    ∗       ∗       ∗
  • Usurpation of power?—
    Brief Summary: Critics charge that the Mormon's use of the Nauvoo city charter to invalidate writs from other jurisdictions was improper. Carlin, the governor of Illinois at the time, characterized it as an "extraordinary assumption of power….most absurd and ridiculous…[a] gross usurpation of power that cannot be tolerated." (Click here for full article)
    ∗       ∗       ∗

Nauvoo Expositor

Summary: Did Joseph violate the law by ordering the Nauvoo Expositor destroyed? Critics claim that Joseph "could not allow the Expositor to publish the secret international negotiations masterminded by Mormonism’s earthly king."

• • Nauvoo Expositor Full Text—
    Brief Summary: The Nauvoo Expositor had a single issue published. The events surrounding its publication lead to the martyrdom. The full text is provided for study. (Click here for full article)
    ∗       ∗       ∗

Detailed Analysis

Entire books have been written on the legal history of the Church in its early days. (See Further Reading below.) Some specific legal issues are considered in separate wiki articles:

Introduction

Wrote a leading scholar of Joseph's legal history:

Joseph Smith believed that his enemies perverted legal processes, using them as tools of religious persecution against him, as they had been used against many of Christ's apostles and other past martyrs. Although he often gained quick acquittals, numerous "vexatious and wicked" lawsuits consumed his time and assets, leading to several incarcerations and ultimately to his martyrdom. Beginning soon after his ministry began and continuing throughout his life, Joseph Smith was subjected to approximately thirty criminal actions and at least that many civil suits related to debt collection or failed financial ventures.^[2]

Ohio

After the Church moved to Kirtland, Ohio, in 1831, several religious-based charges were prosecuted against Smith and other LDS leaders, but were dismissed on the grounds listed following each charge: assault and battery (self-defense), performing marriages without a valid license (one was procured), attempted murder or conspiracy (lack of evidence), and involuntary servitude without compensation during the Zion's Camp military crusade to Missouri (won on appeal). In turn, Church leaders successfully instituted charges and recovered damages for assaults occurring while they were acting in a religious capacity. However, the financial Panic of 1837 swamped the Prophet and others with civil debt-collection litigation. Worse still were suits for violating Ohio banking laws when the Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking Company (see Kirtland Economy) failed soon after it was organized in 1836 without a state charter. Charges of fraud and self-enrichment were raised but not proven; a jury conviction was appealed, but Joseph Smith left Ohio for Missouri before it was heard.^[3]

Missouri

In Missouri, most actions against the Latter-day Saints were extralegal, brought by non-Mormon vigilantes prejudiced against the Saints' opposition to slavery, their collective influx, and Smith's religious teachings concerning modern revelation and the territorial establishment of Zion in Jackson County. Civil magistrates routinely refused to issue peace warrants for Mormons or to redress their personal injuries or property damage. For example, despite being beaten and tarred and feathered and having the printing office destroyed, the LDS printer was awarded less than his legal fees and the Presiding Bishop received "one penny and a peppercorn." All three branches of state government seemed paralyzed or supportive of mob action, as the Saints were repeatedly dispossessed and expelled from county to county.^[4]

Illinois

In 1838-1839 the Saints settled in Nauvoo, Illinois, after their wrongful expulsion from Missouri. To avoid the "legal" persecutions suffered in earlier states, they obtained a liberal Nauvoo city charter for Nauvoo, which granted broad habeas corpus powers to local courts. These helped to free Joseph Smith and other Latter-day Saints when they were sought on writs by arresting officers from outside of Nauvoo. In 1841 state judge Stephen A. Douglas set aside a Missouri writ to extradite Joseph for charges still pending there, and in 1843 a federal judge did the same for a similar requisition after the alleged shooting of then ex-governor Boggs. However, the increasing use of the writ of habeas corpus by Nauvoo magistrates, preempting even state and federal authority, escalated distrust among non-Mormons who felt that Joseph Smith considered himself above the law.^[5]

== Notes ==

1. [note] Joseph I. Bentley, "Legal Trials of Joseph Smith," in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4 vols., edited by Daniel H. Ludlow, (New York, Macmillan Publishing, 1992), 3:1346–1347.off-site
2. [note] Joseph I. Bentley, "Legal Trials of Joseph Smith," in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4 vols., edited by Daniel H. Ludlow, (New York, Macmillan Publishing, 1992), 3:1346–1347.off-site
3. [note] Joseph I. Bentley, "Legal Trials of Joseph Smith," in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4 vols., edited by Daniel H. Ludlow, (New York, Macmillan Publishing, 1992), 3:1346–1347.off-site
4. [note] Joseph I. Bentley, "Legal Trials of Joseph Smith," in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4 vols., edited by Daniel H. Ludlow, (New York, Macmillan Publishing, 1992), 3:1346–1347.off-site
5. [note]  Joseph I. Bentley, "Legal Trials of the Prophet: Joseph Smith's Life in Court" (2006 FAIR Conference presentation) FAIR link (Key source)

Further reading and additional sources responding to these claims