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Summarized by Kent Larsen
LDS Bishop Criticizes Abuse Reporting Law
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH -- LDS Bishop Bruce R. Christensen, who was charged
earlier this year with failing to report child abuse, is saying that the law
is wrong and that his case was mishandled by the prosecution, according to a
report in the Deseret News. The charges against Christensen were dropped
earlier this month after prosecutors interviewed the mother who originally
made the report.
The charges against Christensen arose in the acase of a 13-month-old girl
allegedly abused by her father. According to police reports, the mother told
Christensen in an interview about the abuse, but when she was interviewed by
prosecutors, she said she had presented Christensen with a hypothetical
situation.
In the Deseret News, Christensen expressed frustration over how prosecutors
handled his case. "Why did the prosecutor wait to interview the primary
witness?" Christensen asked. "Why wasn't the primary witness interviewed
before the charge was filed?" But Deputy District Attorney Angela Micklos
said that this is routine. "It is very routine for us in filing charges to
use the police officer's information," Micklos said, noting the logistical
difficulty of interviewing every victims before filing cases. "Unfortunately
that's not terribly practical. We'd have our office flooded with victims all
the time."
Christensen also criticized the abuse reporting law for its failure to
carefully address when clergy should report. "The law ties my hands as well
as those of every other clergyman in the state of Utah. I cannot be both a
police informant and a confidant to my parishioners at the same time, and
this law requires me to do both." But again Micklos disagreed, "I'm not sure
[the law has] ever been challenged before," Micklos said. "But the statute
is constitutional on its face."
Source:
LDS bishop questions how DA handled charges against him
Deseret News 15Oct00 N1
By Angie Welling: Deseret News staff writer
Christensen says report statute is unfair to clerics
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