PHOENIX — The attorneys for two girls molested for years by their father are making a last-ditch — and perhaps insurmountable — effort to convince the justices of the Arizona Supreme Court they were wrong in holding the Mormon church immune from liability over what its bishops and others knew.
Lynne Cadigan said she and co-counsel John Trebon are not arguing that clerics have to disclose everything they hear in confession. That clearly is protected by Arizona law.
But Cadigan said the justices got it wrong when they concluded that each religion gets to decide not only when they can ignore laws that require everyone else in Arizona to report ongoing child abuse but even to define for themselves — free from oversight by Arizona courts — what is considered a protected “confidential communication,” even when multiple people have heard it.
