The Cases Critics Cite: Arizona, West Virginia, Idaho

Does the Church Protect Abusers? · Part 3 of 5

Part of the series Does the Church Protect Abusers?

Any honest defense of the Church’s record must walk through the cases critics actually cite — by name, with court records — rather than around them. Here are the three most consequential, what happened, what the courts decided, and what we concede.

Arizona: Paul Adams (the AP case)

Facts. Paul Adams, a Border Patrol employee in Bisbee, Arizona, confessed to his bishop, John Herrod, in 2010 that he had abused his daughter. The bishop called the help line and was advised that Arizona’s clergy-penitent statute made the confession privileged. Adams continued abusing his daughters until 2017, when he was arrested by federal agents after posting videos of his abuse online — “with no help from the church,” as the AP put it. He died by suicide in custody. (Source 1)

Litigation. Adams’s children sued the Church, two bishops, and other members for negligence and conspiracy. The trial court initially ruled Adams had waived the privilege by his public acts (Source 2). The Arizona Court of Appeals reversed in the Church’s favor on December 15, 2022 (Source 3), and the Arizona Supreme Court upheld the privilege in a ruling issued April 7, 2023: the Church could not be compelled to disclose the confession or disciplinary records, because Arizona law exempts clergy who learn of abuse in a confessional setting. (Sources 4, 5) The Church’s statement: it agreed with the decision, was “deeply saddened by the abuse these children suffered,” and “has no tolerance for abuse.”

The Church’s factual rebuttal. The Church’s detailed timeline states that leaders did not learn the full extent of the abuse, its continuation, or the existence of a second victim until 2017 media reports — and that the AP story “implies that all these facts were known by a bishop as early as 2011, a clearly erroneous conclusion.” It further states the bishop, following help line counsel, repeatedly tried to encourage reporting, including urging Adams’s wife (who knew of the abuse) to act. (Source 6) Adams was excommunicated in 2013.

What we concede. The system’s output was seven years of continued abuse. The bishop followed Arizona law as the state’s highest court later confirmed it — and the children were not protected. That is a legislative failure the Church operated within, and, as critics correctly note, a privilege the Church (alongside the Catholic Church and others) has lobbied to preserve. The honest framing is not “nothing went wrong”; it is that what went wrong was a general American legal structure plus an offender whose own wife and federal employer also failed to stop him — not a Church policy of protection. What the case does not show is concealment for institutional gain: the Church gained nothing from Adams, disciplined him with its severest sanction years before his arrest, and won in court on the law, not on the facts of his guilt, which were never in dispute.

West Virginia: Michael Jensen

Facts. Michael Jensen, son and grandson of prominent local Church members, was adjudicated for sex offenses in Utah in 2005 as a juvenile. After the family moved to Martinsburg, West Virginia, he was recommended within the ward as a babysitter and boarder; he abused multiple children between roughly 2007 and 2012. In 2013 he was convicted and sentenced to 35–75 years in prison. Nine children and their parents sued the Church in 2013.

Litigation. The Church won partial summary judgment in 2015, but the West Virginia Supreme Court reversed in 2017 (Source 7), ruling the plaintiffs’ circumstantial evidence of conspiracy — including that Jensen’s bishop had been in the Utah courtroom and knew of the 2005 charges — was admissible and that a jury must weigh it. The case went to trial in January 2018 and settled mid-trial; terms were sealed and the parties barred from discussing it. (Source 8) The advocacy outlet FLOODLIT reported in March 2025 that the settlement was $32 million plus roughly $27 million in defense fees; that figure comes from a single source and has not been independently confirmed, so we cite it as a claim, not a fact — but the settlement itself, and its mid-trial timing, are matters of public record. (Source 9)

What we concede. This is the worst case in the modern record, and it fits the first two failure categories on the hub page exactly. The annotation and calling-restriction policies existed; the local network around a well-connected family did not apply them. The Church’s trial defense — that Jensen “fooled everyone and repeatedly lied to church officials” — is itself an admission of the second failure mode: a community’s trust and forgiveness were exploited by a practiced deceiver, as the grooming literature predicts. A jury never ruled on the conspiracy claim, so neither side can claim vindication; what can be said is that the state punished Jensen severely, the Church paid heavily, and the case is a genuine indictment of local compliance and of how much weight family reputation carried. We do not defend any of it. We deny only that it evidences institutional intent — the policies violated here were the Church’s own.

Idaho: John Goodrich

Facts. Per AP reporting (Dec. 2023) based on participant recordings, Idaho dentist John Goodrich confessed a “significant sexual transgression” to his bishop in 2015 and was swiftly excommunicated. When criminal charges were later filed based on his stepdaughter’s allegations, a Church attorney cited the clergy-exemption statute in ways that discouraged the bishop’s testimony; without it, prosecutors dropped the charges. The Church offered a monetary settlement conditioned on confidentiality and destruction of recordings. The Church’s statement called the abuse of any child “inexcusable” and confirmed Goodrich’s membership was terminated in October 2015 and never restored. (Source 10)

What we concede. The ecclesiastical system worked immediately — excommunication within days of confession, permanent. The legal-defense posture did not put children first, and the recordings make that uncomfortable to read. This case is the strongest evidence critics have for the claim that the help line’s legal function can override its protective one, and we cite it against ourselves for that reason.

What these cases establish — and what they don’t

Three cases across a church of 17 million members, each involving an offender the Church excommunicated (Adams 2013, Goodrich 2015) or whose local enablers violated written policy (Jensen). In none did the institution gain anything; in all, the offender was ultimately imprisoned or died awaiting trial. The pattern is not protection of predators. The pattern is a lay institution whose legal instincts sometimes outran its pastoral ones, whose local leaders sometimes trusted the wrong men, and whose written policy condemned every one of these outcomes in advance. The distinction between failure and complicity is the entire debate — and the court records above document failure.

Next in the series: Clergy Privilege and the Law

Sources and Verification

Direct sources retrieved and relied on in this article. Readers are encouraged to verify every claim.

1. Associated Press (via AZFamily), “Seven years of sex abuse in Bisbee: How Mormon officials let it happen,” Aug. 4, 2022 — the AP investigation establishing the Adams facts, the confession, the help line advice, and the seven-year timeline. Link
2. Cochise County Superior Court (Judge Laura Cardinal), trial-court ruling on waiver of clergy-penitent privilege, Aug. 8, 2022 — the trial-court decision later reversed on appeal. (Court order; no free canonical URL.)
3. Arizona Court of Appeals, decision reversing in the Church’s favor, Dec. 15, 2022 — the appellate ruling upholding the privilege, later affirmed by the state Supreme Court. (Court opinion; no free canonical URL.)
4. Arizona Supreme Court, decision issued Apr. 7, 2023 (released Apr. 11, 2023), affirming the Court of Appeals — the ruling that the Church cannot be compelled to disclose Adams’s confession or disciplinary records. (Court opinion; no free canonical URL.)
5. Associated Press (via AZFamily), “Arizona court upholds clergy privilege in child abuse case,” Apr. 11–12, 2023 — news coverage of the Supreme Court ruling. Link
6. Deseret News, “Arizona Supreme Court upholds Latter-day Saint priest-penitent privilege in sex abuse case,” Apr. 12, 2023 — confirms the Apr. 7 ruling date and that it affirmed the Dec. 15 appeals decision. Link
7. West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, Jane Doe-1 v. Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, No. 16-0008 (2017), 801 S.E.2d 443 — the opinion reversing summary judgment and holding the plaintiffs’ circumstantial conspiracy evidence admissible for a jury. Link
8. Associated Press (via WHSV), “Settlement reached in suit alleging Mormons overlooked abuse,” Apr. 2, 2018 — confirms the mid-trial settlement, sealed terms, and that parties were barred from discussing it. Link
9. FLOODLIT.org, press release, Mar. 25, 2025 — the single-source claim that the settlement was $32 million plus roughly $27 million in defense fees; cited in this article as an unconfirmed claim, not a verified fact. Link
10. Associated Press (via PBS NewsHour), “Recordings show how Mormon church kept child sex abuse claims secret,” Dec. 2023 — the AP report on the Goodrich Idaho case, based on participant recordings, documenting the 2015 confession and excommunication, the clergy-exemption posture, dropped charges, and the confidentiality/recording-destruction settlement terms. Link