Helping Clergy Help Their Parishioners

May a parent spank a child -- legally?

How can a spouse escape an abuser if she must disclose her address before she can obtain a restraining order?

Do the poor have the same right against self-incrimination as the rich?

Those practical questions were posed by religious leaders during a seminar last week organized by the Los Angeles County Superior Court to foster better understanding.

“We hope we are giving the clergy valuable information they can use,” said Superior Court Judge Richard L. Fruin Jr., who organized the event. “They have an impact on a broader audience.”

The seminar is part of a national push, begun in the 1990s, to promote public confidence in the courts through community outreach. In California, the state Judicial Council added public outreach as an official function of the courts in 1999 in its standards of judicial administration. The council encourages judges to become active in their communities to foster better understanding of the judiciary.

Fruin, who wrote a manual for judges on community outreach, said he began the court-clergy program last year to provide religious leaders with accurate information for the people they counsel.

He borrowed the idea from a North Carolina judge who organized a similar event after attending a funeral at which the minister blamed the death on judges’ softness on drunk drivers.

Dhirubhai Patel of the Gayatri Temple in Hawaiian Gardens came looking for advice for a 27-year-old immigrant who had sought his aid after her husband tried to poison her. “She just came from India two months ago, and she doesn’t know what to do,” he said.

The woman needs help navigating the courts, from being a witness in the criminal proceeding against her husband to divorce court and eventually to immigration services, he said.

Ministers asked about drug and three-strikes laws, and what they can do to help congregants through the criminal justice process.

“Where I come from, this is very relevant,” said Carolyn Turner, whose husband, Bishop Edward Turner of Power of Love Church, leads Sheriff Lee Baca’s Clergy Council. “Small churches do not have access to this kind of information.”

Dorothy Rocha said her affluent congregants at Holy Family Church in South Pasadena, where she is a social worker, often need more help getting through the court system than the poor families that visit her church’s food bank.

When her parishioners get in trouble, especially if domestic violence is alleged, they turn to the church for confidential advice.

Clergy who said they have unsuccessfully tried to go to bat for parishioners got a lesson on how their good intentions could do more harm than good.

Javier Stauring seemed frustrated that he had offered himself as a character witness for a number of defendants but had never been called to testify. He wanted to know why the justice system was not interested in his contribution.

Francis Bennett explained that a lawyer faces “some real pitfalls” in calling a character witness because, if a pastor testifies the defendant is a peaceful man, the door may be opened for prosecutors to bring in evidence of an isolated prior violent act that otherwise would have been kept from the jury. Bennett is a defense attorney.

The same sort of unintended damage can be done when a minister sends unsolicited letters to the court. Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza, a former public defender, said such a letter might provide prosecutors with incriminating information that could damage a defendant’s case. Judges are ethically obligated to inform both sides -- prosecution and defense -- about information they receive, including letters from clergy.

Despite those hazards, judges at the conference urged clergy to get involved in court matters ranging from where to place a child whose parents were jailed to helping a judge determine if a first-time offender is likely to commit another crime if released on probation.

Espinoza said he gives great weight to letters from clergy when deciding what sentence to impose. Commissioner Martha Bellinger said she once ordered house arrest for a 14-year-old boy who took a gun to school after his grandmother, her pastor and a few older men from the church promised to keep him out of trouble.

“They convinced me he had support,” she said.

Someone asked if a poor defendant without a lawyer can refuse to answer questions posed by police without legal consequences. “It doesn’t matter if you are indigent or you have a million dollars, the same rights apply,” Bennett said.

The daylong court-clergy conference took place at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena last week.

Bellinger said state law permits a parent or guardian to spank a child with an open hand on the buttocks. But Judge Veronica McBeth said that in many of her cases, children still suffered from bruises and welts days later in court.

When children are removed from their homes, McBeth said, state law prohibits her from placing a child with a relative who has any criminal conviction -- even if she was convicted 25 years ago for shoplifting.

And another panelist recommended that victims seeking restraining orders should ask for permission to use the address of their churches, instead of their own, to conceal their whereabouts from abusers.

Stauring said he was attending the conference because he, as a member of Faith Communities for Families and Children, an interfaith coalition of religious leaders for juvenile justice and child welfare, believes the clergy should take a more active role in the justice system.

“The churches need to be more involved in advocating for our community and not leave it all up to the courts.”

Another coalition member, Nirinjan Singh Khalsa of the Sikh Dharma of Southern California, said the U.S. justice system is intimidating, especially to immigrants. He urged clergy during a panel discussion to “try to help people learn how not to be so afraid of the system, and learn to use it.”