At first, I thought it was odd what has been said so far about the Morg's lawyers basically refusing to address the actual charges. But then I realized, that wasn't their purpose in this hearing. Their entire strategy for this hearing was to PREVENT the charges from ever being talked about, by getting the case thrown out so that the Morg would never have to answer the charges. If they had their way, no one would ever know that these issues even existed.

This case is like a bright spotlight shining on their dark underbelly. The lawyers' job today wasn't to try to show that the dark underbelly wasn't really so bad, it was simply to do whatever they could to turn out that blasted light! That way they could all go back to pretending as though their church is perfect.

I doubt we will know much more of anything besides speculations on both sides until next Thursday. I am so effing Nervous!!!

I am surprised at how inept they were. They couldn't even state the name of the church. The wise ones must have hired UK lawyers without vetting them very well or didn't pay them for enough time to dedicate to preparation. The way I visualize today's events based on the blogs is that they were in contact with SLC and at some point the church guys fired them, realizing that these guys were screwing them up. Probably the church doesn't have any real good trial lawyers in the UK, or if they do they don't want risk exposing them to the complaint.

They can't use their Utah lawyers directly because they aren't licensed to practice in the UK. But my guess is by Thursday they'll have Utah Lawyers on the ground directing their UK colleagues and the UK lawyers will have spent some billable hours doing nothing but studying the culture and the case.

Behind the scenes in the defense lawyers offices:

OK, are we all ready to kick some legal butt?

Yeah, but what's the church name again? We'd better rehearse.

It's 'The Jesus Church of the Saints', I think.

No, No, it's 'The Saints of the Latter-Day in Jesus Name.'

You're both wrong...try 'The Church of Joseph Smith in These Latter-Days'....I don't think Jesus has anything to do with it, at least I've never heard much.

Whatever, then everyone just say 'Mormon' and we'll be cool.

and exactly Why is this 'news'?

Simply put: Despite what TSCC/Des News would have people believe, I think Tom has a surprising strong case. You can be a highly experienced and very smart lawyer, but if you're arguing from a fundamentally weak position, you're going to look somewhat inept.

It's a bit like smart apologists debating with smart non-member professors. Who do you think will come off better? Of course all of this only really counts for something if the judge ultimately agrees on the fundamental points of law that we believe point towards a full trial.

Next week we will see the big guns.

LDS lawyers from Utah, and the court will throw the case out immediately after hearing their testimony...

I think their tactic of briefing their first legal counsel to try and get the case thrown out rather than addressing the issues raised may have raised a few more problems for TSCC.

The counsel said under oath in court some things that the 2nd legal counsel who will have to argue the finer points of this in the crown court if it gets passer over would never have allowed.

2 contradicting statements from the defence both sworn in under oath would raise some questions. I should imagine TP's team will be picking them apart very carefully.

Next weeks decision will made without further input from Churchco lawyers, as Judge Riddle indicated that they didn't need to be present March 20th.

Yep.

Next week will be the decision as to whether to move the case forward or not.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/15/2014 09:20AM by notamormon.

Most Mormon leaders, missionaries, etc are well trained in dodging awkward questions. They usually attempt to answer the questions they think should have been asked rather than those that were actually posed. If the Tom Phillips case progresses further, they will get short shrift from the judge if they try to pull that stunt in the courtroom.

It's impossible to have a rational conversation and attempt to address the issues.

You can't start with a rock in your hat and finish with a flurry of logic.

I've tried to get a grasp of the UK case against LDS and I don't see it succeeding.

One could convict virtually any religion in such a court with such a law. For example any religion preaching a literal Noah flood would be in the same category as LDS with its fake Egyptian and Amerindian scriptures.

I have my doubts the UK courts will allow this to happen as the result would be to make religion virtually illegal in the UK.

The Anglo-Saxon judiciary will certainly grind through "due process" as we call it in the U.S.. But I cannot see the case succeeding.

You don't understand, it's not their beliefs which are in court, but the so-called "facts" they teach to extort money from the members.

It's nothing to do with religion, as such. It's telling provable lies to get money off people = fraud.

Actually, it makes me proud to be English, which doesn't happen every day ;-)

Tom in Paris

Plus it's telling the lies to extort 10% of members' incomes. In most other churches donations are completely at the members' discretion. Members are not told that they must pay X amount of money to be "right with God," they pay a small amount to support their church (mortgage, salaries, etc.) In theory you could pay *nothing* and still get complete church services. In Mormonism, you must pay a full tithe to get complete church services and ordinances (temple, temple marriage, access to certain callings, etc.) It's a fee-for-service religion. Once you start charging a fee for something, what you are "selling" becomes open to fraud investigation.

help from the church. So they must pay 10% of their meager income to get some food or a financial assistance. It make NO sense. But the fact that it is required makes it rather ugly (not to mention humiliating).

Exactly!

How many other churches have a two-tier membership? Catholic/Anglican/Methodist - once you're in, that's it. You don't get extra benefits for paying more.

The other item is that what goes on the plate in these churches is recorded and they usually have a monthly or annual comittee meeting that is open for all to attend with published minutes distributed later showing what was collected over the period and exactly where it went.

We get a weekly summary of what was collected the previous week from all the masses.

Once a year we get a complete P&L with all income and expenses.

Both are in the church bulletin which is also available online.

I see four distinct tiers in the Celestial MLM scheme:

1. non-tithe payers, unendowed

2. tithe payers, full participants, endowed

3. second anointing recipients

4. "paid clergy"--all those who receive "stipends" for their "leadership" such as mission presidents, GAs

If I understand correctly, it wasn't necessary for there to be discussion of the actual issues. That will come after the case gets referred to the Crown Court (I think we'll find out on Thursday if it does).

Nickname, I think you're right. The whole point of the hearing was to see if there was sufficient cause to allow the case to go to trial. The job of the LDS barristers at this hearing was to try to prevent it from going forward.

Even so, I thought they did a poor job. But they either didn't have much they could throw out there, or they were inept.

If it goes forward (which I think it will) we'll see if they're better able to answer the charges or not.

The Morg's lawyers actually did an excellent job. Tom Phillips case was thrown out of court.

They lost on costs.