Please be patient with me. Can this be taken to the US Supreme Court?
Breaking News: Berry girls lose high court appeal
by loveis 57 Replies latest jw friends
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loveis
An appeal can be MADE to the U.S. Supreme Court (that can be done for any case that has exhausted all of the state appeal possibilities), but the consensus is that the chances that it would decide to hear the case are virtually nil. Barring a miracle, it would be dismissed without comment, which is what the U.S. Supreme Court does with 99% of the petitions made to it.
To get the nation's highest court to hear your case, I believe the standard is that you must have a very good issue involving either a constitutional question, or a question or interpretation of federal law or statutes.
(Also, for the record, Brian Rees, whose 1999 Maine case (cited and quoted in the opinion), against the WTS and congregation was almost identical in nature (except that the sexual abuse was perpetrated on him by a neighbor who was an ordinary JW in good standing, instead of by a parent), unsuccessfully appealed the dismissal of his suit (upheld by the Maine Supreme Court) to the U.S. Supreme Court, early in 2000. It was dismissed without comment. (In legalese, this is done with a short 9-word response: "The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied."))
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horrible life
Thank-you Loveis I understand.
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blondie
The high court said although the criminal statutes require the Jehovah’s Witnesses to report to police any sex abuse against children, they cannot be held liable in civil court if they do not report it.
Under what circumstances then could JWs be criminally charged for not reporting.
The head of SNAP points out where the focus of change needs to be.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) had been monitoring the case. "It’s terribly disappointing; our hearts ache for these brave young women," said SNAPS national director David Clohessy. "I think the ball is now squarely in the legislators’ court. They have to reform the statute of limitations and other laws to protect kids and to expose predators and those who enable them, transfer them and shield them."
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purplesofa
great comments and of course the courts do not realized that in the JW religion the laws are higher than those of the land, so could not understand the bond its members have with the "clergy" and the loyalty and submission required of its members.
on a personal level, I have found the truth does not always come out in court, and is very discouraging.
purps
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Sunspot
Needless to say, I am extremely upset and very angry at this outcome. This "hollow victory" for the slithering WTS and their even more slimy lawyers is appalling. If it is even humanly possible, I HATE the WTS more than I did yesterday.
The terrorist WTS should be investigated and found as a threat to people under the "Homeland Security" criteria. They certainly deserve the title.
Seeing glaring injustice like this makes me desperately want to see the WTS not only pay for what they have knowingly done, but to see this CULT beaten down and demolished SOON!
Annie
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sf
uh........... I can't remember ......... why are Jehovah's Witnesses "no part of the world"?
I seem to have forgotten how that works.
I was thinking the exact same thing.
Whoever lives in the areas of where these newspaper articles were written MUST write an editorial and exclaim your disgust.
I would also encourage a few calls to Watchtower Legal.
Incidently, as I was in the middle of reading the the transcript...my doorbell rang. I was like..."oh great, what timing". Yet it was some kid selling something.
Had it been jws, I would have given them their just desserts.
{{ compassionate hugs for the Berrys }}
sKally
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DannyHaszard
The Watchtower legal whores could never best anyone in a jury trial.Just think if they tried to come after me in my county in Maine.
Criminal or civil state or federal court.Come and get it!
Danny Haszard Bangor Maine
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JT
Since freedom of religion is such a core belief of the US, the courts will not dig too deep into the inner workings of a religion. And if they don't get to the issue of control and manipulation by the religion and its spokesmen(elders) they will never understand.
I've discussed these kind of situations with people who have no real religious affliation or background, and they always question why the innoncent parent didn't seek help from the proper authorities. When I tried to explain the relationship of elder to publisher, they didn't get it. They have never been indoctrinated into a cult-like religion therefore had no concept of being under the control of someone else enough to not be able to think or act for yourself. I think the courts are the same way.
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excellent point, and this is just a fact, most persons use their own personal exp as a ref point
"If i dont like my church i just get the hell up and leave, that is what you should have done"
and with that as the back drop it is a very difficult case to argue
just ask any former jw who is now married to a nonjw, how many times they have been told by the nonjw mate "Just get on with your life, you have left those folks now"
and i can understand why they say that, and for that reason we have seen so many xjw come here and state while my new mate is supportive they don;t really understand, and of course they don't
the best example i can personally think of is when a white person despite his or her best intentions will never understand what it is like to be black and face the many shades of rasism-
unless you have been black there are just some things a white person will never understand and for me as a black man that is who i see nonjw, unless you have been a jw and i mean one who was deep into the org, such as one who grew up from youth to adult hood, one will never understand the feeling of what it was like to come to a meeting sit beside and elder and your mag for sunday was not studied
or to have 30 kids laugh at you cause he had to leave the room during the flag ceremony
i will never understand what it is like for a woman to have a baby, i can feel for her --but until i push a quarter out of my Willy Willy i fully cant grasp what a woman exp having a baby
so when i see judges rule like this in cases we all understand exactly what happened
and the wt plays and counts on the fact that most folks know nothing about jw other than they wake folks up on sat morning -
but time will tell, hopefully we can get an listening ear, but in the mean time, let not your heart be heavy
smile
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Elsewhere
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050716/REPOSITORY/507160317/1013/NEWS03
Article published Jul 16, 2005
Church not liable in abuse Victims lose Jehovah's Witness sex assault case By ANNMARIE TIMMINS
Monitor staff--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In a split decision, the state Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by two sisters trying to sue their Jehovah's Witness congregation for not reporting abuse by their father even though church elders were told of it a dozen times. Dividing the court was the question of how much responsibility church leaders have toward their parishioners.
The majority of judges concluded that people can be criminally charged but not sued for failing to report child abuse unless they have a heightened level of responsibility to the abused. Leaders of the Jehovah's Witnesses, even though they counseled the girls' parents about the abuse, did not meet that threshold, according to three of four judges who heard the case.
The one person in this case with that "common law"responsibility, the majority ruled, was the girls' mother, who knew her husband was abusing their children.
Justice Linda Dalianis dissented, saying church leaders did have a special obligation because they told the girls' mother to pray about the abuse and "be a better wife" but not to report it to the police. Also, Dalianis found the church had been told often enough about the physical and sexual assaults to expect them to continue.
"In this case, elders of . . . (the) Wilton Congregation not only created an opportunity for Paul Berry (the girls' father) to continue abusing the plaintiffs precisely because of their inaction, but actively facilitated the continuing abuse by their instruction to (the girls' mother) not to act," Dalianis wrote. (The emphasis is hers.) "It is not unreasonable to infer that Berry continued abusing . . . his daughters, safe in the knowledge that (their mother) was not going to report him to secular authorities."
The sisters' attorneys said yesterday they are considering asking the state Supreme Court to reconsider.
The state attorney general's office weighed similar questions of church responsibility when it brought child endangerment charges against the Catholic Church in 2002 for repeatedly moving abusive priests to unsuspecting congregations. But legal experts said yesterday there are significant differences between that case and this one.
For starters, the state brought a criminal case alleging child endangerment against the Catholic Church; this is a civil lawsuit.
But more importantly, the Catholic abusers and their supervisors were paid church employees while the elders of the Jehovah's Witness churches are not. The Catholic victims had a different relationships with that church because they were often altar boys or members of church youth groups or camps, not merely members of the church. Also, they were often abused on church property or on church outings.
The sisters, by contrast, were only members of the church and were abused by their father off church grounds. And he was not a church official.
Paul Berry began physically and sexually abusing his daughter and stepdaughter in the 1980s, when they were 3 and 10, according to court records. At the time, the family attended the Jehovah's Witness church in Wilton. In once case, Berry hung one daughter by her wrists from hooks on a barn wall.
Their mother, Sara Poissson, reported the abuse to church officials many times. The Jehovah's Witness church requires two witnesses before it levels sanctions against a molester, and a child cannot be his or her own witness. The elders met with Poisson and her husband to talk about the abuse but did not report it. And they told her not to report it, according to court records.
The police learned of the abuse after another of Poisson's children arrived at school with the imprint of a fly swatter on her leg, according to the court file. While investigating that incident, a state child care worker learned of the other abuse and reported it.
Berry was convicted in 2000 of abusing one of the girls and is serving 56 to 112 years in prison. Authorities dropped the charges involving the other daughter. A year after sentencing, the girls brought their civil lawsuit against Berry and the church.
A superior court judge concluded the lawsuit against the church had been filed within the required amount of time, over the objections of the church's attorneys. But he dismissed the lawsuit after concluding that the Poisson had disclosed the abuse in private conversations with church elders that were protected by a state law.
In New Hampshire, everyone is obligated to report suspected child abuse. But church leaders are exempted from reporting the abuse to the authorities if they learn of it during a confession or other confidential conversation.
The sisters appealed the judge's ruling to the state Supreme Court on several grounds. The church filed its own appeal, arguing that the trial judge had erred in letting the sisters' lawsuit be filed at all because it was initiated more than three years after the abuse occurred. (The judge found the sisters had met the three-year mark because they had brought the case within three years of discovering the church's alleged violations.)
The high court heard oral arguments on the appeal in October. In its ruling yesterday, the majority avoided some of the bigger questions by deciding the case on the more narrow issue of responsibility.
For example, the sisters' attorneys had asked the high court to decide whether the obligation to report abuse trumps the exemption clergy enjoy when they are in private conversations with parishioners. None of the justices, even Dalianis in her dissent, responded to this issue.
The sisters also asked whether they could bring their lawsuits without violating the First Amendment protection of freedom of religion. The majority of justices did not address this issue, but Dalianis did. She noted that while courts around the country are split on this issue, she did not find a religious doctrine that would be burdened by requiring the church to protect the sisters from abuse.
Her minority opinion, however, is not binding.
J.R. Brown, spokesman for the Jehovah's Witnesses, could not be reached yesterday.
Jared O'Connor, who represents the sisters, said he thought the high court ruled as it did to avoid "a slippery slope" where anyone could be sued for not reporting child abuse. But he didn't buy the conclusion, given the culture of the Jehovah's Witness church.
"The mother had no place else to turn," O'Connor said. "The majority opinion makes it sound like any other situation where people are free to go out and seek help from the secular authorities. There is much less opportunity in this church, especially for women, to seek help elsewhere."
O'Connor was also disappointed with what the ruling didn't say. He was hoping the judges would clarify the difference between mandatory reporting and religious exemption. He said it may now be up to the Legislature to do that.
Marcus Hurn, a professor at Franklin Pierce Law Center, liked the distinction the high court made between criminal and civil liability. While everyone should report abuse, he doesn't believe people should be sued for not doing so.
"We are in a denial of responsibility era," he said, "where we have people saying they are not responsible for what they eat and smoke."
He continued. "This is a hard case, and a lot of reasonable people could say these elders went too far," he said. "But I don't think the majority should be criticized for sticking to the traditional principles. A sane adult parent has the primary responsibility for the protection of their child."
Peter Hutchins, a Manchester attorney who represented several victims of clergy abuse in lawsuits against priests, said victims at least have something to celebrate in Dalianis's ruling because she concluded the three-year window for bringing lawsuits is somewhat flexible. While her decision isn't binding, Hutchins said lawyers will be able to cite it. And, he now knows were at least one Supreme Court justice stands on that issue.
(Annmarie Timmins can be reached at 224-5301, ext. 323, or by e-mail at [email protected].)
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By ANNMARIE TIMMINS
Monitor staff