In 1842, as part of the Wentworth letter,

Joseph Smith declared, “We believe in being subject to kings,

presidents, rulers, magistrates, and in obeying,

honoring, and sustaining the law.”

Coming up next: Joseph Smith and the Law.

KJZZ television, in cooperation with the Church History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, presents this weekly series highlighting the research of scholars and historians as they prepare for the publication of the Joseph Smith Papers. And now your host, Glenn Rawson.

As part of the Joseph Smith Papers,

there will be a series of several volumes devoted entirely to the legal affairs of Joseph Smith.

With the law so much an integral part of the Prophet’s life, no study of his life would be complete without it. However, in this research,

there have been several challenges encountered.

You know, as we work on the Joseph Smith Papers Project, on the legal series, there’s several hurdles that we have to get over to get our product completed. The first is that the actual documents have never been collected in a way that we could organize them and then annotate them for publication.

The second challenge is that even those of us who are trained as lawyers have to kind of re-educate ourselves to understand exactly what was the law in Joseph's day.

And some might think, well, isn't just that you have to look at how it looks today and then relate it back to that day?

And so we have to then really re-educate ourselves to go back in time and understand this kind of hybrid system that is being used in the law, the British system, at its origin,

the American system as it is emerging.

And so, while we can use our legal background to maybe come up to speed more quickly. The process still is really to re-educate ourselves so that we actually think like the lawyers were thinking in their day

and not to try to put it through the lens of today's practice.

And to do that, we have started collecting the books, the law books of their day.

And one of the basic rules we have as we look at

these cases and as we annotate them is that we will not use any resource that wasn't available to the lawyers in their day. So we will refer to their statute books,

their pleading books, their commentary,

rather than using modern commentary or analysis. And that has been a challenge to actually find, for example,

this statute book in Ohio.

Clearly this—every 10 years, they would revise their statutes and put it into a new volume.

So this one, being dated 1841, would contain all the law from 1831 to 1841.

While it's been widely believed over the years that Joseph Smith was involved with the law in several dozen court cases,

scholars with the Joseph Smith Papers have discovered that Joseph was, in fact, a party with the law more than 200 times.

Now, needless to say, all of that gave Joseph considerable practical experience.

Daniel H. Wells, who was a constable and later a justice of the peace in Nauvoo, then emigrated to Utah, became attorney general of the territory of the State of Deseret, later a legislator, and for 10 years, second mayor, or third mayor of Salt Lake City, had considerable experience with the law and lawmen.

He wrote, “I have known legal men all my life.

Joseph Smith was the best lawyer I have ever known.”

Why would he make such a statement?

I think the answer is that Joseph Smith had a whole lot of on-the-job training.

Joseph was involved in over 200—

we think perhaps more than 220—lawsuits,

most of which happened in an 18 year time period, 1826 to 1844. That’s a lot of cases! That’s a lot of litigation even for an attorney.

So you see the on-the-job training happening. Having a legal background myself, I understood that even a single lawsuit could be so highly disruptive to an individual's life as to nearly destroy it. People sometimes, when sued, lose everything they have, including their mental health and their emotional well-being.

And to think of a man who only lived to the age of 38 and a half, being engaged in 200-some legal matters,

often as a party in litigation,

just stymies the mind,

the effect that that could have on an individual could be devastating, and yet he seemed to go through that kind of situation in the same way that he faced other opposition.

I love the passage in the Doctrine and Covenants in which he writes an epistle.

And in that epistle, he says,

“deep water is what I am wont to swim in.”

Through the course of his life, he faced enormous opposition and eventually became

so accustomed to it that he said that if he didn't have it, he would almost feel like a fish out of water.

Of the more than 200 legal cases that Joseph was involved in,

Some 50 of those were where criminal charges were levied against the Prophet. In all of those, he was acquitted.

Now, the remaining hundred and fifty or so were civil cases. In some of those he was a witness.

And even though it’s not commonly known, in some of those cases,

Joseph Smith was the judge.

Of that group of civil cases, the three-fourths, in about one-fifth of them

Joseph was the plaintiff. In the other four-fifths he was the defendant or codefendant.

The great majority of them were what we would call collection cases. In addition to the cases he would either party to or a witness in there were a number of other cases that he presided over that we'll be talking about later, because he was a judge,

by virtue of being mayor of the Nauvoo City Council,

he was the chief justice of the Nauvoo Municipal Court.

And they sat over a number of cases. So he acted as judge. In addition to that, as lieutenant general of the Nauvoo Legion,

he presided over courts martial in the Legion.

All of which suggests there was a considerable legal involvement.

Now, besides all of that, there are a whole lot of business and legal records,

promissory note, deeds, contracts, and the rest of that.

What follows now in the show are a few examples of early cases involving Joseph Smith that will eventually be published in the Papers.

Joseph's first encounter with the law came not as a defendant,

but as a witness. It happened in February of 1819 in Palmyra, New York. Joseph Smith was 13 years old.

The case, called Hurlbut v. Smith,

not the Hurlbut that would be in Ohio,

but it's one that Joseph's father and his older brother, Alvin, bring a case against Hurlbut, a local farmer in which they had bought some horses.

The horses fail. I'm not sure exactly what that means in today’s world, but in their day it would mean it’d be no longer useful. It looks to be for using them on the farm.

And the suit is brought to recover

the money that they had paid off, on the note,

through the labor of the boys.

Certainly, Joseph, being 13, under the laws in the state of New York at the time, could be a witness.

However, before he could testify, there would have to be a couple of things that would happen.

First, the judge would have to make a determination as to whether he was competent, meaning he knew right from wrong. He understood the testimony. He understood the nature of the proceedings.

That would be a judicial determination by this justice of the peace. And then if he was found to be competent,

then the determination whether he's credible, believable,

would be left to the jury. And in fact, in this case, there was a 12 man jury on this case. OK. Well, the record is clear and it clearly shows that Joseph

and Hyrum were called as witnesses.

It also shows that Joseph actually did testify. It comes out if you look at how the judgment falls,

that it appears that every item that Joseph testified on and his brother Hyrum were given to the Smiths as credible,

and accepted. So what does that say?

Well, that says that early on, Joseph found himself in court.

Early on, Joseph found the process of the law to have the ability to do what's right in that in his case, they won their case. The underlying importance of the case establishing clearly where Joseph was in Palmyra before 1820,

establishing that he was considered a competent, credible young man.

Joseph Smith was only 20 years old when he became a defendant before the law for the first time.

It happened in 1826,

about 18 months before Joseph Smith received the gold plates from Moroni. He was working in Bainbridge, New York, the southern part of the state, for Josiah Stoll.

When a complaint of being a disorderly person, a glass looker, was filed against him.

It was a trial for being a criminal action for his being a disorderly person. Justices of the peace are charged with preserving the peace and morals of the community.

A whole lot of writers have written about it.

Some claiming that he was convicted.

Some claiming that the hearing was not in front of just the justice of the peace. But three justices of the peace comprising what we’d call a court of special sessions

and others have claimed that he was convicted.

The three judge special sessions court doesn't fly because,

as you will see, you'll be showing that slide. The basis for discovering that was a man named William Wesley Walter finding a bill in the basement of the Chenango County Sheriff’s Building in Norwich, New York, of the Justice of the Peace, Albert Neely,

as well as the bill of the constable, Philip De Zeng,

which refer to a Joseph Smith.

The title and the name Joseph Smith is “the Glass Looker.”

The title on the Neely Bill.

And then the amount of his charges in his bill for that particular case,

along with several other cases that he’d handled in 1826.

On the basis of those two bills, Walters concluded,

and others have agreed with him, that it was a three judge court,

that Joseph was convicted,

but was either allowed to escape or was severely admonished and then released, or in fact,

he slipped through the cracks, or, as one other writer said, he took the leg bail. He just he ran. All right. Those are the presumptions.

There was nothing from the bill to suggest any such result.

There in addition to those two bills had previously been printed

a reminiscence by a witness who had been at the trial,

a man named William Purple,

who was asked by the judge to take notes of the testimony.

More often than not, the testimony would reduce to writing after the trial and would then be read to the witness and the witness would then sign it.

So it would be a summary, not necessarily word for word, question and answer, et cetera.

There were no such reports generally in justice court.

And so the docket book of the justice would list

the name of the case, the names of the witnesses for both sides,

the jury and the result. No testimony.

Everything in the middle is—

Yeah, no testimony reduced in that record at all.

As for the three judge court that the other three justices in South Bainbridge, New York, where this case was heard all submitted their 1826 bills and she had them, none of them refer to a case with Joseph Smith.

Since there is no charge for which he is cognizant,

we don’t have any of the county clerk’s records of peace bonds submitted by justices of the peace. So we can't prove its existence or not.

But the mere fact that it isn't shown on the bill,

it seems to me to indicate just like the absence of the item in the De Zeng bill, he was never convicted.

Now, that is corroborated by the only eyewitness: Purple. He indicated that Joseph, following the testimony of Josiah Stoll, was discharged. Why?

Well, because the law in that day provided, to be guilty of

the misdemeanor of being a disorderly person meant you had committed some kind of a public fraud. And the very Neely Bill says glass looker, and then next to it, misdemeanor, in case there’s any question.

There it is, in the handwriting of the judge at the time, “misdemeanor,”

which rules out any preliminary hearing with me that had to be a single judge case. Now, finally,

if indeed there had been a conviction,

Neely would have had to do one of two things. Either put Joseph Smith under a bond to keep the peace

or commit him to what they called or wrote the “bridewell.”

Meaning, the bridewell, which means the poorhouse.

If, in fact, Joseph had been convicted and sentenced to the bridewell, there would have been an additional item in

the De Zeng constable Bill for 23 miles—

ten cents a mile—to conduct the prisoner to the bridewell.

And there is none. Joseph Smith isn’t on there.

Moreover, neither is Judge Neely. Neely

never did send anybody to the poorhouse in 1826.

In April of 1829,

Oliver Cowdery travels from Palmyra, New York, down south to Harmony, Pennsylvania,

to meet the prophet Joseph Smith.

Samuel, the prophet's brother, is Oliver's traveling companion.

Now, according to the history,

they arrive on the evening of April the 5th. On April the 6th, the record says they conducted business.

And then on April the 7th,

Joseph and Oliver begin the work of translating the Book of Mormon,

and they go until completion.

But what was that business that was conducted on April 6th?

It's been largely overlooked until now.

Well, for lawyers and business, people, we say, “well, what would be the business he did on Monday?” And in fact, we we do know what happened.

There's an agreement written in Oliver's hand,

which is the agreement by which

Joseph is going to buy that 13 and a half acres. Interesting in a couple of regards.

I'm going to read that this agreement made and concluded the sixth day of April, AD, et cetera, et cetera,

between Isaac Hale of the Township of Harmony in the county of Susquehanna and State of—

I can’t read that—

Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. Yes.

Of the—can’t read that either.

And, oh, on the par and Joseph Smith Junior. Exactly, this is the property. This is the property. All right. Also interesting, Oliver is one of the witnesses.

But the other witness is also interesting, Samuel Smith.

People have speculated at some time, how early did Samuel come to Harmony? Did he come before or after Hyrum? Well, this clearly gives us the answer that he came with Oliver.

So before Hyrum.

Another legal document has been discovered that relates to Joseph's farm in Harmony, Pennsylvania.

It seems that he borrowed a significant sum of money from a friend and then used that money to pay off his father-in-law,

Isaac Hale. Now, some have continued to charge that Joseph defrauded on that loan with Noble.

Noble moves from Harmony.

And appoints—gives the power of attorney or an appointment to

an agent to be the party to collect.

On that note, and that document is also there to be observed. And then going back to the original judgment on the left side below the title,

it shows payment on the date and the date indicates that he paid one hundred and ninety five dollars.

And is within this six months time period. He was an honorable man.

He bought the land from his father-in-law,

made him is timely payments,

got the money for the final payment from Noble and additional money, and then Joseph, having reduced it to a dollar suit, borrows enough only to make the final payment to his father.

Added it to what had already been billed up. Has his credit secure, pays Noble on the land. And then within six months pays him. On June 28th, 1830,

Joseph was visiting the Joseph Knight family in Colesville, New York, when a constable appeared and arrested him.

The charge, as was before,

stemmed from his having once been a treasure seeker.

Two charges, again under disorderly person.

The same statute first in Chenango County before a justice of the peace named Chamberlain and a constable named Hatch.

And those show their bills again,

like the 1826 bills naming Joseph Smith.

Immediately having been discharged, and several witnesses were present at court to testify. That case that took all of one day.

The very night of that day of that trial, Joseph gets rearrested by a comfortable from neighboring Broome County and taken to Coleville

and retried this time before a three judge court

or special sessions.

Now we don’t have any court record on the Broome case.

We do have, however, a reminiscence printed in a newspaper for the first time in 1832, just two years later by Joel B. Noble.

Noble himself admits that since there was no showing of any glass looking for two years prior to the time of the trial,

the statute of limitations had run and he had to be discharged.

In 1833

Doctor Philastus Hurlbut—Doctor being his given name,

not his profession—became a Mormon in Kirtland.

That didn't last long.

A short time later, he was excommunicated. Bitterly, Hurlbut traveled to New York and Pennsylvania

and began gathering up slanderous affidavits against Joseph.

His motivation was nothing more than revenge against Joseph Smith and the Church.

If, therefore, Philastus Hurlbut had been brought to court in Ohio

to substantiate these affidavits,

or if the individual affiants who signed those statements were brought to court, they could be cross-examined

so that the reliability of what they had written could be questioned. Evidently, they never were. And they weren’t.

No one ever has. They’ve just been published and taken at face value.

That’s what you would cross-examine him about if he were there. And then you would ask him, the final question would say, Mr. Hurlbert,

you were kicked out of the Church

and then threatened to take the life of Joseph Smith, saying you would walk in his blood. He threatened

to kill him? Threatened to take his life. And you were tried, a criminal action was brought, Joseph Smith was the complainant.

You were tried and convicted and put under a bond to keep the peace. And were assigned to pay the court cost of one hundred and two dollars and fifty cents. Right? Yes.

Now, tell me, Mr. Hurlbut, which is worse?

To be called names, or to be charged a hundred and two dollars cost and skip town without paying it.

Which is worse?

In late 1836 in Kirtland,

Church leaders decided to form a bank.

They organized themselves and they began printing notes.

However, the legislature of the state of Ohio did not grant the charter that they'd been expecting for their bank.

But the need for the bank still remained.

So Joseph and his brethren went ahead

and formed something different. The Kirtland Safety Society.

So they reincorporate.

And instead of being a bank, they decided they’re going to be an anti-bank,

meaning we’re going to be the opposite of a bank. We're just going be a private company,

not chartered by the government

and going to issue, rather than banknotes, we’re going to issue promissory notes. Now to us, we might say, well, are they just trying to tap dance around what they’re really doing? And the clean answer is no. There is clear legal distinctions between these two types of entities. And promissory notes were a method of currency in Joseph’s day.

And we have an example of one of them that you can see,

There was only one lawsuit ever filed over the Kirtland Safety Society.

Once—that lawsuit was filed by a guy named Samuel Rounds.

He filed it. But it becomes clear as we go into this case that really Grandison Newell was the person that was the real party.

The case moves against Joseph and Sidney

for operating this Kirtland Safety Society without a proper charter.

It gets litigated that summer, into the fall, and a judgment is entered against Joseph and Sidney

for having operated the bank,

apparently without the proper charter. They get the judgment. So it’s for two thousand dollars, a thousand against Joseph, a thousand against Sidney Rigdon.

They try to execute on it, collect on it,

and they're able to execute on some property,

some personal property, and they get about six hundred dollars.

And so that leaves a balance of fourteen hundred dollars.

Now, remember, Grandison Newell gets half. State gets half.

Then Joseph and Sidney file an appeal.

Joseph will leave Kirtland before the appeal is heard.

Had he not in that same term, the Ohio Supreme Court issued an opinion on a very factually similar case of someone being fined this thousand dollar fine for operating a bank without a charter

and found guilty at the trial level. And on appeal, it got reversed.

A argument that would have would have been exactly the same that Joseph and Sidney would have made had they

continued their appeal. And so there’s that judgment sitting out there.

Judgment being of—for about thirteen to fourteen hundred dollars. And we have a document which we will show here, which is this the payment and satisfaction of that

judgment by William Marks and Oliver Granger,

where they paid Grandison

Newell sixteen hundred dollars to satisfy the—what we’ll call the Round’s case.

It's an important document because it shows that by late ’38, that’s now resolved. It's a done deal.

Now, with that, Grandison Newell has been paid—overpaid, in fact,

receiving not only his share of the judgment, but the state of Ohio's as well.

Now, where that should have been the end of it all,

it turned out, to the detriment of the Church, it was not.

Well in 1859—so we’re now talking 15 years after the death of Joseph— Grandison Newell goes to the legislature of Ohio.

And he goes and he says,

“I want you to assign me your half of the Round’s case.” They do.

They assign it to him. So he now has it, he’s collected in our

minds. But its story doesn’t stop there. In 1861, 18 months later, he moves the court, the probate court, to revive the judgment.

No one’s back there in Ohio to oppose it. And so they—it gets revived. Joseph’s estate is being probated.

And this is really something of a person who’s dead.

And so they have to appoint a personal representative or an administrator over Joseph’s estate. They filed a notice in the local paper like they’re required to do.

And this administrator, representative of Joseph,

confirms that this is a good judgment and it hasn't been satisfied. And they order appraisal of any property that's left in Kirtland that could belong to Joseph.

So it could be part of a sale to satisfy

the rest of that obligation.

Very few properties left in Kirtland that belong to Joseph.

In fact, the one that they’re interested in— and I think the whole point of the whole deal would be the— Kirtland Temple. Exactly.

It gets appraised and he then bids it at a credit bid

and he buys it for about 214 dollars

and acquires the Kirtland Temple. Wait a minute.

You’re saying this man, through these legal manipulations, acquired the Kirtland Temple for 214 dollars?

Correct.

On the night of January the 12th,

1838, Joseph Smith left Kirtland for Missouri.

And even though he had planned to do so for some time, still,

it was under difficult circumstances.

When Joseph left, there was unresolved business matters. Now,

on Part Two of Joseph Smith and the Law,

we’ll talk about the resolution of those business matters in Kirtland. I’m Glen Rawson. See you next week.