The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1885-07-18
THE BEAR LAKE CASE:


The paper presented to Chief Justice
Morgan, of Idaho, by the thirteen
Mormons who had been empaneled and
sworn as Grand Jurors for the District
Court term being held in Bear Lake
County, and which paper was published
in Fridays issue of The HERALD was a
remarkable document. It should
induce some serious thinking on the
part of government officials in Idaho
and at Washington. AS is well known
the Idaho Legislature. last winter,
passed law depriving al of the rights
of citizenship who belonged to religious
or other organization or society which
believed in, practiced or taught the
rightfulness of polygamy- Chief Justice
Morgan was one of the conspirators
who devised the infamous act, and he
was counted upon by his fellows in the
plot TO maintain the law when 1T should
come before him. True to the compact,
when the act was brought into his court
on the question of its eonstituionality,
he held that the law was coed, the
Legislature having right to pass it.
The bill itself was outrageous, but not
more so than was the sustaining:
opinion of the Chief Justice. Finally
1t became necessary to hold court in
Bear Lake County, where the popula-
ton is almost exclusively Mormons, or
members of the DISTINGUISHED class. /
belonging to an organization that
teaches that polygamy is right. Nor
gan realized the ugly predicanant in
which his decision had placed him,
that it had made 1t impossible for him
to hold court in the county with grand
and petit iuries, hence he retreated
somewhat, saying that persons who had
not heared the rightfulness of plural
marriage taught by the leaders
of their society or organiza-
ton since the passage of the
law. could act as jurors. Under this
ruling thirteen Mormons were en-
paneled and sworn, but before enter
ing on their duties, they drew up and
signed the explanation and request to
be relieved from service published
morning. They set forth
that the law prohibits them from serv-
ing as Jurors, and that they cannot
conscientiously undertake to discharge
the duties of Grand Jurors under the
ban Of law, as we now understand it,
without degrading our manhood as
citizens, and before God doing violence
to our eonseiences." Hence they ask to
be relieved from the performance of a
1uty which they "can neither consci-
nor legally discharge"
No wonder Morgan was sick a. his
stomach when he read the statement"
IS our correspondent puts it. A !
healthier man than he would have
'een made sick when he was forced to
ace and contemplate the infamous work
f which he had been guilty. What a
I'LL be the outcome of the L
usiness can only be guessed at.
It present there is chaos in Bear Lake .
county as far as laws are concerned. .
will be utterly impossible to obtain .
ither grand or petit .juries that are y
gal according to the new law. and u
'ithopt such iuries courts are useless &c
nd society becomes without restraint II
he innocent cannot be protected nor 10
ne guilty punished, and civil suits can 81
OF be tried. The awkward and pl
nomalous condition of things should p
ION be changed for the better. w
Meantime the thirteen men who de- Ut
med to be placed in the position of ST
olating law. unjust and unconstitu- al
onal as that law clearly is, and also
Tough they had the sanction and -
of the Judge to assume -
e position, are to be congratulated on A,
e manly stand they took. -
-