The Church and Child Abuse: An Experimental Argument

[Res Ipsa]

...The priest-penitent privilege doesn't forbid disclosure -- it simply prevents evidence of the confession from being introduced in a legal proceeding...

To make sure I understand this, let me make an example.
1) a bishop discloses abuse to authorities.
2) bishop's report is used to acquire warrants
3) on the basis of warrants, evidence is collected and used to charge a person
4) in legal proceedings, the evidence collected in 3 is sufficient to find person guilty.
5) no reference is made to bishop's disclosure (?is this possible)

I apologize if I have not used the terms correctly, hopefully you can see my question. Does my example shown in 1-5 constitute a case where disclosure can be made without the confession being introduced in a legal proceeding?

I think I understand your question. A couple of tweaks to what you wrote:

Because a confession can't be introduced as evidence, I don't think a judge could legally issue a search or arrest warrant based on the content of the confession. But I'm not sure. If Dr. Exiled is reading this thread, he may know.

But, I think both the child protective service and the police could investigate to look for evidence that corroborates the confession. The prosecution could then bring a case based on the evidence other than the contents of the confession. The defense could bring a pre-trial motion in limine to exclude any evidence of the source of the initial report. That type of motion is standard in almost every litigated case. So, your point 5) is definitely possible.

With those tweaks, I think the answer is yes. I need to look at some cases in which the privilege is invoked to make sure. I think this is the way the AZ case would have been handled if the Bishop had reported the confession. Not only that, but because the statute gave the Bishop the option of reporting, the law arguably shielded him from any breach of confidentiality suit from the person that confessed.

[Marcus]

Thank you for your responses, that helps clarify things.

[Res Ipsa]

Thank you for your responses, that helps clarify things.

You're welcome. I read a law review article that cited a couple of cases holding that derivative evidence obtained from disclosure of a privileged communication also falls within the privilege, but they appeared to be outliers.

[yellowstone123]

...The priest-penitent privilege doesn't forbid disclosure -- it simply prevents evidence of the confession from being introduced in a legal proceeding...

To make sure I understand this, let me make an example.
1) a bishop discloses abuse to authorities.
2) bishop's report is used to acquire warrants
3) on the basis of warrants, evidence is collected and used to charge a person
4) in legal proceedings, the evidence collected in 3 is sufficient to find person guilty.
5) no reference is made to bishop's disclosure (?is this possible)

I apologize if I have not used the terms correctly, hopefully you can see my question. Does my example shown in 1-5 constitute a case where disclosure can be made without the confession being introduced in a legal proceeding?

You don’t need warrants to do an initial investigation. Both CPS and Law Enforcement will do their own preliminary investigation just by a phone call. This is on the west coast. The person the department files a petition against whether male or female will end up in criminal court and juvenile court and two simultaneous investigations under going. The burden of proof in criminal court is beyond a reasonable doubt but CPS just has to prove a preponderance of evidence. So one Court may close their case while it’s going full steam in the other. Also many moons ago CPS could use hearsay evidence.

[Marcus]

To make sure I understand this, let me make an example.
1) a bishop discloses abuse to authorities.
2) bishop's report is used to acquire warrants
3) on the basis of warrants, evidence is collected and used to charge a person
4) in legal proceedings, the evidence collected in 3 is sufficient to find person guilty.
5) no reference is made to bishop's disclosure (?is this possible)

I apologize if I have not used the terms correctly, hopefully you can see my question. Does my example shown in 1-5 constitute a case where disclosure can be made without the confession being introduced in a legal proceeding?

You don’t need warrants to do an initial investigation. Both CPS and Law Enforcement will do their own preliminary investigation just by a phone call. This is on the west coast. The person the department files a petition against whether male or female will end up in criminal court and juvenile court and two simultaneous investigations under going. The burden of proof in criminal court is beyond a reasonable doubt but CPS just has to prove a preponderance of evidence. So one Court may close their case while it’s going full steam in the other. Also many moons ago CPS could use hearsay evidence.

Thanks for your comment, yellowstone. Cps on the East Coast also seems to use hearsay, or they did years ago when my exMIL was a nutrition specialist for the women, infants and children program. She was always upset about the lack of social workers available to check on her legit children's nutrition cases.

[yellowstone123]

You don’t need warrants to do an initial investigation. Both CPS and Law Enforcement will do their own preliminary investigation just by a phone call. This is on the west coast. The person the department files a petition against whether male or female will end up in criminal court and juvenile court and two simultaneous investigations under going. The burden of proof in criminal court is beyond a reasonable doubt but CPS just has to prove a preponderance of evidence. So one Court may close their case while it’s going full steam in the other. Also many moons ago CPS could use hearsay evidence.

Thanks for your comment, yellowstone. Cps on the East Coast also seems to use hearsay, or they did years ago when my exMIL was a nutrition specialist for the women, infants and children program. She was always upset about the lack of social workers available to check on her legit children's nutrition cases.

Hearsay was established in California with a case argued in 1990 in front of the State Supreme Court called Malinda S. I think you can google it and read. It shows what the CPS workers really go through.