Gospel Doctrine: Selections from the Sermons and Writings of Joseph F. SmithSmith, Joseph F. (Joseph Fielding)
Religion
Gospel Doctrine: Selections from the Sermons and Writings of Joseph F. Smith
Smith, Joseph F. (Joseph Fielding)
Latter Day Saint churches
REVELATION AND LEGAL EVIDENCE. Recently a man charged with the murder
of another man was examined before a committing magistrate in Salt Lake
City. The father-in-law of the murdered man, during the examination
on the part of the State, related a conversation had between himself
and the accused soon after the commission of the crime. During the
conversation, according to newspaper report, the father-in-law of
the murdered man laid the crime at the door of the accused. In the
cross-examination the attorney for the defendant pressed the witness as
to how he knew that the accused was guilty of the crime. The reply, as
given in the press, was, because God had revealed it to him. It does
not appear from the further proceedings in the case that the testimony
was excepted to or withdrawn, or that the magistrate informed the
witness that such evidence was incompetent and could not be received.
The statement {50} gave rise to comment in the press and has been the
subject of discourse from the pulpit. Of course, every person must know
that such evidence is not admissible in a court of law, and if it had
been in a trial before a jury it would have been the duty of the judge
to order the testimony stricken out, and in the charge to the jury,
they would have been warned to disregard it altogether. In view of the
probability that there are those who may persist in the association
of such evidence with the religious body of which the witness is a
member, it may be proper to say, without discrediting in the least the
witness' conviction of the revelation he had received, that no member
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints should, for one
moment, regard such testimony as admissible in a court of law, and
to make the case perfectly clear it may be further stated that such
evidence would not be permissible even in a Church court, where rules
of evidence, though not so technical, are founded largely upon the same
principles that govern the rules of evidence in a court of law. Any
attempt, therefore, to make it appear that such evidence is in keeping
with the tenets of the "Mormon" faith is wholly unjustified.--_Juvenile
Instructor,_ p. 114, Feb. 15, 1902, Vol. 37.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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