Legal scholars: JW court cases before Supreme Court were "accidental wins."

by TerryWalstrom 24 Replies latest watchtower scandals

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  TerryWalstrom

  ". . . the outcomes of Jehovah's Witness court cases, to most First Amendment scholars, the Witness successes in court, especially the Supreme Court, were accidental. Legal scholars have uniformly dismissed the Witnesses' methods for bringing about First Amendment cases, referring to their legal successes as mere unintended consequences of fanatical preaching. For example, legal scholar Bernard Schwartz noted that Jehovah's Witnesses, "who became involved in trouble with the law were only seeking to propagate their unpopular creed."

  (3) Law Professor Charles Hasson queried that there must "be some basic difference within the tenets of the Witnesses' religion to produce this flood of litigation." His conclusion: Witnesses "trample upon the sensitive nature of modern society." (4) Legal scholar Louis Boudin speculated that civil liberties cases generally, and the Jehovah's Witnesses' cases more specifically, "are usually the outgrowth of temporary excitement, either general or local; and are frequently the result of action which is the reverse of deliberate." (5) To these scholars and others, the Jehovah's Witness had no legal strategy. They simply fell headlong into Supreme Court litigation."

  _________________________

  The above is a quote from: 

  The Jehovah's Witnesses and their plan to expand first amendment freedoms.

  Journal of Church and State - September 22, 2004

  Jennifer Jacobs Henderson

  ______________________

  I am posting this because, in my opinion, it removes the high gloss shine from the Supreme Court decisions ruled in favor of what is glowingly called, "Freedom of Religion" by the Watchtower.

  (Society attorney Oline Moyle, as we all know, sent a letter to Watchtower President, J.F. Rutherford, privately counseling him about bad language, drunkenness, and high living which caused the Judge to go nuclear in response. Rutherford had Moyle DF'd immediately and printed libelous things publicly seeking to destroy his fellow attorney in an extreme flame war. Moyle sued successfully and was awarded $30,000 by the court. Appeal after appeal knocked that down to $15,000 which is about two-hundred thousand adjusted for inflation. Moyle spent many decades trying to collect, btw.)

  Because Moyle had been DF'd right in the middle of the Gobitis flag-salute case, Judge Rutherford stepped in to fill his shoes. Moyle had had only positive results until Rutherford took over and LOST the case, resulting in a nationwide wave of persecution against JW's.

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  When you have time, why not familiarize yourself with this information; it rewards careful reading.

  http://www.manitobaphotos.com/theolib/downloads/First_Amendment_Freedoms.pdf
  
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  TerryWalstrom

  The following needs to be edited into making the statement chronologically accurate.

   "In 1935, Rutherford asked Olin Moyle to take over a legal department that had been inactive since 1907 when Rutherford left the position to take over the presidency. "

  1917 was most likely intended.
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  TerryWalstrom

  "Witnesses were often sent into confrontational situations unaware of the danger, (37) but they did not question Covington's plan. Even when they may have suspected trouble, Witnesses were taught not to question decisions from the Watchtower leadership who claimed they had a direct line to God. Also, Witnesses saw themselves as instruments of God, and "God was fighting this battle." Witnesses believed that they should be used in whatever way necessary to advance the cause. Newton explained that Roscoe and Thelma Jones, whose case Jones v. Opelika would reach the Supreme Court in 1942, believed "if their convictions could be used to further the larger cause ... then their convictions must be part of Jehovah's divine plan." 
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  Barrold Bonds

  Do you have links to those letters from Moyle?
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  TerryWalstrom

  How many JW's today know, in the 30's, membership cards attesting to 'ordained' status as ministers were carried by Brothers and Sisters when they went out in field service?

  
  

  Each publisher and pioneer carried an identification card indicating his or her ministerial status and connection with the society. These membership cards were the Witnesses' only "official" link to the headquarters and were used to identify themselves to the public, the police, and government officials.

  The Jehovah's Witnesses' identification cards read in part, "Jehovah's witnesses are ordained and commissioned by God, and the signer of this card Scripturally claims such ordination and commission, as set for this the Bible at Isaiah 43:9 12; Matt. 10:7-12; Matt. 24:14; Acts 20:20; 1 Peter

  2:21; 1 Cor. 9:16. Being one of Jehovah's witnesses, in obedience to God's commandments, preach the gospel and worship almighty God by calling upon people in their homes, exhibiting to them the message of the gospel of said Kingdom in printed form." (67) Witnesses were instructed to show the card "to any policeman who arrests them," (68) thus establishing themselves as clergy immediately upon being taken into custody.

  The plan for legally establishing identification for Witnesses as ordained clergy was implemented prior to Covington's tenure. Olin Moyle, Covington's predecessor, also used the identification cards as evidence of ministerial work. In Schneider v. New Jersey, Moyle wrote that Clara Schneider's work "consisted of visiting residents of Irvington, exhibiting to them her Testimony and Identification Card (R. 35-36) and leaving or offering to leave with them certain printed literature." (69)

  Identification as a minister was important to the legal cases of Witnesses. Covington insured that whenever possible, these identification cards were introduced into evidence as proof of the appellant's religious status. For example, Covington began the facts section of his brief in Marsh v. Alabama by noting that "Grace Marsh is an ordained minister of Almighty God.... The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, under the direction of which she carried forward her ministerial activities,

  issued to her a certificate of ordination and identification." (70) "The Watchtower Society issues to its authorized agents, ordained ministers of Jehovah God, a certificate of identification and ordination (Exhibit 9, R 33)," Covington wrote in the Supreme Court brief for Largent v. Texas. (71)

  Identification cards were used as the basis for two prominent legal arguments in Witness cases. First, the cards placed Witnesses squarely in the occupational category of clergy. Many of the community ordinances applied to specific vocations. By identifying themselves as ministers, Witnesses could be exempt from these regulations. Second, the identification cards issued by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society allowed Witnesses to claim that the distribution of their literature was, in fact, worship.
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  TerryWalstrom

  Here is Olin Moyle's letter to J.F. Rutherford:

  http://www.jwfacts.com/images/Moyles-letter-to-Rutherford.pdf

  
  

  OLIN R. MOYLE Counselor

  117 Adams Street. Brooklyn. New York

  Telephone Triangle 5-1474

  July 21, 1939

  Judge J. F. Rutherford, Brooklyn, N. Y.

  Dear Brother Rutherford: (see above)
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  Vidiot

  "Legal scholars have uniformly dismissed the Witnesses' methods for bringing about First Amendment cases, referring to their legal successes as mere unintended consequences of fanatical preaching. For example, legal scholar Bernard Schwartz noted that Jehovah's Witnesses, 'who became involved in trouble with the law were only seeking to propagate their unpopular creed'."

  Twenty-twenty hindsight.
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  DesirousOfChange

  An active JW would just say that the fact they are perceived as "accidental wins" just adds further evidence of the involvement of the Holy Spirit.

  "Ordinary and unlettered men" can accomplish anything -- even as if by accident -- with the backing of the Sovereign of the Universe.  With God, all things are possible.

  Doc
  
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  TerryWalstrom

  "The Witnesses' reasons for refusing to obtain a permit were not always accepted as valid by the Supreme Court justices. Justice William O. Douglas recalled Justice James McReynolds's disgust with Judge Rutherford's argument for supporting his client's refusal to obtain a permit in Lovell v. Griffin. At one point in Rutherford's oral arguments, McReynolds interrupted, saying, "Instead of applying for a permit, which seems to me a reasonable requirement, this lady defied the law. Tell me, why did she do it?" Rutherford pointed his finger to the sky and in his booming voice replied, "This lady did not get a permit, because Jehovah God told her not to." (87) McReynolds left the bench for the remainder of that day's arguments."

  In fact, it was because Rutherford had wilfully cancelled the instruction given in the Bible. 

  Romans 13:1Young's Literal Translation (YLT)

  13 Let every soul to the higher authorities be subject, for there is no authority except from God, and the authorities existing are appointed by God,

  Young's Literal Translation (YLT)

  In effect, Rutherford WAS Jehovah.

  
  
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  TerryWalstrom

  By the time my court case came along in 1967, the Organization would not provide either membership card (to prove I was eligible for a IV-D minister exemption from the Selective Service) nor would they provide a letter attesting in any way to my defense.

  Why the change?

  In 1962, twenty years after Juge Rutherford's death, Knorr and Franz revoked the bogus interpretation of Romans 13: 1,2 (see above.)

  Ironically, I wasn't given Covington's booklet by my congregation, DEFENDING and LEGALLY ESTABLISHING the GOOD NEWS.  Had that been available to me, I would have fully realized the flip-flop had been perpetrated just in time to hang me out to dry in facing off against the Universal Military Training and Service Act.