The Scott M. Matheson Courthouse in Salt Lake City is shown in this undated photo. The building houses the Utah Supreme Court and the Utah Court of Appeals. ROY — The Utah Supreme Court has revived a religious freedom dispute, instructing an Ogden court to take another look at a suit filed by a woman who alleged Jehovah’s Witnesses leaders in Roy subjected her to humiliating discipline as a teenager after she accused a fellow church member of rape. In 2008, four church elders at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Roy convened a disciplinary hearing to determine whether the 15-year-old girl had engaged in "unclean sexual conduct" and, if so, whether she was "sufficiently repentant." They had an audio recording of the rape, which had been provided by the male, and played it while questioning her, "suggesting that she consented to" the sexual acts, the lawsuit alleged. The suit alleged the church intentionally inflicted emotional distress and humiliation on the girl, and the church advanced a defense of religious freedom from government interference in church disciplinary matters. Second District Judge Mark DeCaria in 2016 dismissed the woman’s civil suit, saying the court could not disentangle the claimed […]
