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I was going to tack this on to previous discussions about church reporting of abuse but not finding one I really liked for it decided to make it its own thread. The following article appeared in Deseret News recently: https://www.deseret.com/faith/2024/2/1/24057665/church-calls-charge-against-latter-day-saint-stake-president-misguided ” class=”bbcode_url”> https://www.deseret.com/faith/2024/2/1/24057665/church-calls-charge-against-latter-day-saint-stake-president-misguided I will say that I am a little confused by the article, but the gist is that the current stake president of the Harrisburg Pennsylvania stake (Rhett Hintze) has been charged for failure to report a case of child sexual abuse as a mandated reporter. The abuse actually occurred many years before his tenure as stake president, but apparently he was made aware of it and that’s how Pennsylvania laws work. (The state police release linked in the article and other articles are a little more clear on the circumstances, just Google “stake president charged.”)
The stick in my craw is once again the church’s response.
Quote:“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints works actively to prevent abuse,” church spokesman Sam Penrod said in a statement. “Our hearts ache for victims of abuse, and the church is committed to addressing such incidents wherever they are found.
“The church trains its leaders and supports their lawful efforts. The charges now brought by local prosecutors for failing to report the abuse are misguided and the church will vigorously defend him.”
I went to school in Pennsylvania and worked there for some time and I was a mandated reporter. Before retirement I was also a mandated reporter in my current state. I think it would be possible for the stake president to make the argument that he did not understand his responsibility in this case since it happened so long ago and not while he was the accused’s leader, but in both states I recall it being made pretty clear to always err on the side of safety and if in doubt report (and CPS would then decide what to do with the report).
So the church is once again trying to hide behind doing what was “legally” right regardless of what have been morally right. Except this time it appears the stake president was not legally right. Do I hope the stake president gets released, goes to jail and loses his job? Not necessarily, but I do believe the message to the church needs to be very clear – it is wrong to cover up abuse under any circumstances. And while I’m not normally a fan of American “lawsuit culture” I wouldn’t mind seeing the victim get a payout from the $100 billion nestegg from a lawsuit.
I agree, the article is very confusing. I had to resort to google to fill in some gaps in the reporting, specifically the chronology of events. 1997-2000: When the sexual assaults took place.
2018: When Hintze was called to be the stake president
2020: When Hintze allegedly became aware of the abuse
2022/2023: When the assaulter was arrested
Back to the deseret article.
Quote:Police said Hintze, who as stake president oversees more than half a dozen congregations, is a mandatory reporter of abuse under Pennsylvania’s Child Protective Services Law because he is a religious leader.
But like most states, Pennsylvania law carves out an exception for information clergy learns through privileged communication often known as priest-penitent privilege.
This confuses me a little because under the law, religious leaders are mandatory reporters but at the same time there’s an exception for priest-penitent privilege? I find the exception to be confusing. Where does the religious leader end and priest-penitent privilege begin?
Does this mean that information shared in a formal confession is protected? If so, what’s the non-Catholic equivalent to this? Any time someone goes to an ecclesiastical leader with the intent to confess something?
I’d also have to know the ins and outs of the exception when it pertains to the same information shared during a confession being shared outside of a confession. For example:
Someone confesses to their bishop. The law probably says that’s protected.
After the confession is over, the bishop mentions it to his stake president. Is that still protected or is it mandatory reporting because the stake president learned about it though other channels that weren’t direct confessions?
Or what if after the confession a family member approaches the bishop to confirm that the person confessed to the abuse. Would the information being related by the family member be considered obtaining information outside the confines of a confessional and then the bishop is required to report?
Lots of questions.
That the church is trying to protect the guy is no surprise. Ironically I think the church’s response often does more harm to the good name of the church than whatever harm they imagine they’re protecting the church from.
That said, I’d hate to be a bishop and potentially go to jail because I was following bad advice from a church hotline or out of fear or being intimidated by the situation. It’s a small miracle the church can get anyone to serve as bishop.
nibbler wrote:
Quote:Police said Hintze, who as stake president oversees more than half a dozen congregations, is a mandatory reporter of abuse under Pennsylvania’s Child Protective Services Law because he is a religious leader.
But like most states, Pennsylvania law carves out an exception for information clergy learns through privileged communication often known as priest-penitent privilege.
This confuses me a little because under the law, religious leaders are mandatory reporters but at the same time there’s an exception for priest-penitent privilege? I find the exception to be confusing. Where does the religious leader end and priest-penitent privilege begin?
I’m not a lawyer and I’m not an expert in Pennsylvania laws concerning mandated reporting. But it’s not clear from any of the articles I read that there is an exception for priest-penitent privilege, and the Deseret News article is the only one that mentions it. Of course the other sources were mostly local Pennsylvania news outlets reporting facts. It is interesting to note the differences in some of those articles in this regard.
From WHTM, Harrisburg
https://www.abc27.com/local-news/harrisburg-lobbyist-lds-church-leader-charged-with-not-reporting-child-rape-allegations/ ” class=”bbcode_url”> https://www.abc27.com/local-news/harrisburg-lobbyist-lds-church-leader-charged-with-not-reporting-child-rape-allegations/ Quote:According to police documents, Hintze’s church leadership role made him a “mandated reporter” under Pennsylvania’s Child Protective Services Law, which dates to 1975 but expanded in 2014 following the Jerry Sandusky scandal to include more categories of people as mandated reporters and to increase the penalties for not reporting allegations….
Police say Hintze, who was also chief operating officer of the Harrisburg-based Bravo Group (which tells abc27 News he is on leave as of late Wednesday), knew about the allegations against Gooden as early as October 2020, while Gooden was a church leader and nearly two years before he was arrested. State Police say Gooden and the victim “had disclosed the sexual assault” to Hintze, who “failed to report the abuse to authorities.”
From WPMT:
https://www.fox43.com/article/news/crime/harrisburg-religious-leader-arrested-child-sexual-assault-rhett-hintze/521-d7e58bc1-d6e3-499a-95a6-1ad42d204182 ” class=”bbcode_url”> https://www.fox43.com/article/news/crime/harrisburg-religious-leader-arrested-child-sexual-assault-rhett-hintze/521-d7e58bc1-d6e3-499a-95a6-1ad42d204182
Quote:Rhett Hintze, 50, is accused of shirking his duty as a mandated reporter when he failed to notify police of a sexual assault of a 12-year-old boy in 2000. Shawn Cory Gooden was not charged with the assault until 2023, according to PSP.
Troopers say they discovered during their investigation into the alleged assault that the victim and Gooden told Hintze about the incident. Hintze was a mandated reporter at the time due to his position as Harrisburg Stake President for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
From the New York Daily News
https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/01/31/pennsylvania-mormon-leader-charged-not-reporting-sexual-abuse/ ” class=”bbcode_url”> https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/01/31/pennsylvania-mormon-leader-charged-not-reporting-sexual-abuse/
Quote:According to police, Gooden [the alleged abuser] and the victim “had disclosed the sexual assault’ to Hintze as early as October 2020. Under Pennsylvania’s Child Protective Services Law, Hintze’s role as a stake president, which includes counseling other church officials, made him a mandated reporter, one of many categories of people — like social workers and school employees — who “are required to report suspected child abuse if they have reasonable cause to suspect that a child is a victim of child abuse,” according to the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services.
None of these articles mention anything about priest-penitent privilege.
I’m not one to say that just because the police arrested someone they’re obviously guilty. The police can be wrong or make mistakes, as can prosecutors. But I am guessing the Pennsylvania prosecutors might know Pennsylvania law a bit better than a certain Utah law firm, and I’m pretty sure the Pennsylvania lawyers have less of a bias in favor of the church (at least in part because the church isn’t paying them and does not dominate local politics). The fact that the victim also reported the abuse to the SP must carry some weight and ostensibly that was not a confession subject to priest-penitent privilege.
DarkJedi wrote:
The fact that the victim also reported the abuse to the SP must carry some weight and ostensibly that was not a confession subject to priest-penitent privilege.I didn’t see that the victim also told the SP. I’d think it would be tough to make the priest-penitent privilege defense, if there is even one in this case.
I wonder whether the SP was trained and what the hotline counseled him to do.
I’d assume that the job of the hotline is to be keep current with the legal requirements for all states/countries but I also wonder whether they’re a little more cavalier with keeping up with laws in the USA because religions are one of the most protected classes. They know they have the religious freedom card to fall back on.
At your job I’m sure someone sat you down at some point and communicated to you that you were a mandated reporter. Someone should be telling potential leaders in Pennsylvania that they will be mandated reporters before they are set apart in a leadership calling. Not that ignorance of the law is a defense but it’s very bad policy for people to find out the hard way, as it was in this case.
nibbler wrote:
At your job I’m sure someone sat you down at some point and communicated to you that you were a mandated reporter. Someone should be telling potential leaders in Pennsylvania that they will be mandated reporters before they are set apart in a leadership calling. Not that ignorance of the law is a defense but it’s very bad policy for people to find out the hard way, as it was in this case.
Yes, back in the day in PA I was indeed informed of my responsibilities as a mandated reporter. That was well before these later changes mentioned in the articles. I don’t recall there being reminder/refresher type trainings, however, and it could very much be like the church “training” everyone was supposed to do before teaching youth/children. I know many people who just “clicked through” that as we used to call it at more more recent job. And at that more recent job from which I retired, which was a state job working with youth, we had required yearly day long refreshers on mandated reporting (in person, no “clicking through” like some of the video annual trainings). We all very clearly understood our responsibility and the penalties for not reporting (loss of job, loss of license, possibly jail). I won’t get into boring nitty-gritty but there was even a mechanism to report even if you knew it had been reported just to CYA. As noted in an earlier post the premise was report and let CPS decide what to do with it.
That said, I highly doubt the SP or others in similar positions are required such rigorous trainings. I know a nurse and a couple teachers who work in PA, if I run into them I’ll ask them what they get.
DJ, in the state where you were a mandatory reporter, what are the consequences to a mandatory reporter who doesn’t report? Criminal charges? Civil charges? What?SilentDawning wrote:
DJ, in the state where you were a mandatory reporter, what are the consequences to a mandatory reporter who doesn’t report? Criminal charges? Civil charges? What?
Both criminal (class A misdemeanor) and civil (can be sued by those harmed by failure to report). Also, if licensed by the state (doctors, teachers, therapists, etc.) loss of license. Clergy are not mandated reporters in this state.
This seems clear that there is a priest-penitent exception. I am guessing that a Stake President is not considered a “member of the clergy” who would hear a confession and/or that he heard about it from someone else – not as part of a confession.
I have no idea how it will be decided, if that is the case. I could make either argument compelling.
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