Conti Respondent’s Brief - Can AnnOMaly’s theory Rescue Simons’ CRITICAL FACT ?

by 4rationality 42 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse

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  OnTheWayOut

  Watchtower defenders, don't worry about your theories and facts and whatnot.
  God will protect the organization and reveal all. If the Watchtower loses, it doesn't matter. Armageddon is so close that God will make sure Miss Conti doesn't get a chance to enjoy her settlement/award.
  Why these minors think they can manipulate things to get out of field service and go have sex with an adult is so beyond me, but Jehovah will not forget How Miss Conti and her legal team smeared the good name of Jehovah's Witnesses.
  
  If Watchtower's penalty is reduced, you know you will be in our faces talking about this great victory and you will, either way, forget about the child.
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  MissFit

  I do think defenders lose sight of the main point. How are our children being protected.

  They say it is the parents responsibility to protect their child. If parents dont have the information , how can they? Parents are trained to trust and go to the Elders, that the Elders have their best interest at heart and are guided by holy spirit.

  Parents should be told to go to the authorities first for "physical protection, then go to the elders for "spiritual" protection. Take it out of the Elders hands and let the secular authorities deal with the crime part. The elders can deal with the sin part when they visit the guy in jail.
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  4rationality

  flipper, Pistoff, Ding, et al,

  Don't worry, be happy. If your assumptions are correct Simons wins.
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  Fisherman

  Judges, prosecutors, the president of a nation enjoy privileges of immunity. Doctors, lawyers enjoy the privilege of confidentiality. -And so does the church.

  Should judges be punished? How about prosecutors? Not unless the legislation changes.

  Should a lawyer be compelled to turn in their client? If that ever happened.......

  I saw a warning sign at a doctor's office stating that he would notify authorities if he found that a child was being sexually abused. A foxy custodian would never take his child to a doctor if he knew he was going to be turned in.

  How many innocent people have gone to jail for decades, falsely accused, prosecuted and convicted for sex crimes they never committed. How many innocent people have been executed. No accountability.

  In Family Court proceedings, it is the easiest thing to do and the clever thing to do, to falsely accuse a spouse of child abuse. The Family Court policy (I have heard) is that "it is better to err on the side of safety" so an innocent person suffers for the rest of his life. I have heard that In cases when the child becomes an adult and later reveals that he was never abused, nothing happens. -But that is a rare scenario when the truth is revealed- because the adult child loves the custodial parent and would never betray her.

  What I think everyone is saying here is that EVERY "guilty" person should be punished severely. No privileges for anyone, no confidentiality for anyone. No defense for the "guilty", no freedom.

  Why go to church if there is a risk of being turned in. A lot of sins are crimes. NO one would ever confess their sins for spiritual reasons. IF the church has to work with the authorities, one cannot trust the church. Also, why go to a lawyer or a doctor if they would turn you in? OR should ONLY the church be targeted?
  
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  OnTheWayOut

  Fisherman, this has been clearly dealt with here. The courts may be a bit slow to rule on some of the issues but that's because lawyers stand in the way.

  Watchtower is not dealing with confidential confessions like we have heard about with Catholic priests. If someone confesses or is accused to JW elders, the VERY FIRST thing they do is give specific information about who that person is and exactly what they are accused of to authorities. The problem is that their authorities are at Watchtower Headquarters. They can't have it both ways- confidentiality and consulting with lawyers.

  As far as innocent people being accused in order to sue Watchtower or punish someone, there will always be people who do that, but what we have seen here does not fit that description. To sway yourself over to thinking that there is no merit to this particular case is simply putting blinders on. We here at this forum about Jehovah's Witnesses are not able to solve the problem of innocent men being put in jail or being executed in all the past decades. We are specifically looking at the problem in one area- the fertile ground established for pedophiles in the congregations of Jehovah's Witnesses due to the unique situation of sending children out in recruiting and hiding matters with the one-witness rule, compounded by an organization insisting on secrecy.

  And we are not talking about whether one would ever confess their sins for spiritual reasons. If some creep wants to go to one or two elders and confess his sins in order to be helped to stop, and no little boy or girl has previously come forward with an accusation, and those elders can keep from reporting to legal counsel, then I am okay with such a confession being "clergy privilege" and unavailable to the courts. That's a specific situation where someone is seeking help before being accused. But that's a narrow line I have drawn. I don't think that criminals should be able to find a doctor for their victim that won't report the crime or a priest that can't cooperate with authorities because the criminal is a member of his church. And that still doesn't absolve the congregation elders from issuing some kind of warning to parents, even if it were not specific in naming the creep.

  Fisherman, if your issue is that pedophiles will never "confess" at their judicial committee meeting due to the fact that courts will compel the elders to cooperate, then I say "What the hell are elders investigating such matters for before the law knows about them?" Treat such accusations as the criminal accusations they are. If a child accused a member of murder, they would not try to ascertain guilt before calling the police.
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  Fisherman

  OTW, and therefore, the legal system is what it is in the USA and not how you or I like it to be.

  It is not correct to say that :The courts may be a bit slow to rule on some of the issues but that's because lawyers stand in the way. The Court is in impartial arbitrator sort of speak. And what I mean by that is that the Court does not produce evidence. It decides on what side of the evidence it will stand. Courts are not slow to rule because they rule when they are good and ready and are not manipulated by any lawyer. The Court allows a lawyer to do what the Court wants and a lawyer also does what he is legally allowed to do. That is not slowing things down and it is not standing in the Court's way. -It is legislation.

  
  

  
  
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  Mad Sweeney

  Suppose 4rationality is legally correct and the Borg wins its appeal.
  
  That changes nothing about how evil and morally culpable the local elders and the Watchtower Society are. If 4rationality believes in Jehovah, he/she really ought to be afraid for the eternal salvation of his/her beloved "brothers." Any just God will destroy them.
  
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  Fisherman

  Is 4rat an apologist because he teaches the doctrine of estoppel on this thread? I have not followed this case so I do not have an opinion on the case. But in any case, if a competent Court determines that a litigant is not sticking to his original position, the doctrine stops him from making that illegal chess move and having it both ways.

  But even if in this case the Court does not believe that the Plaintiff's position is a new one, I do not believe that the Court will find the Defendant liable based on the "Custody and Control" evidence and argument. Defendant was performing a religious worship, service, ceremony, ritual, ministry -and that does not establish any special custody and control of the child by the church. But let us say that the the competent Court rules that the church is liable when performing religious acts, it would be the end of religious freedom in the USA.
  
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  zed revisited

  4 seems to know a lot about this case, he sounds as haughty as the WT lawyers did in the original trial.

  Is that you, Bro. McCabe?

  zed
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  Fisherman

  I thought that the philosophy of this Forum has been that a man should not be attacked because of his opinions -but that his beliefs can. But that should no be a license for people to preach here. I do not think this is the place to do it.