Lack of Prosecutions for the Meadows Incident

[_beastie]

Hamblin - whose brother was involved in the attack and who was viewed as having reliable information on it - updated BY as to what happened in almost immediately.

I am very skeptical that BY didn't know the details until 1870. In fact, I find that an extraordinary claim.

[_rcrocket]

Hamblin - whose brother was involved in the attack and who was viewed as having reliable information on it - updated BY as to what happened in almost immediately.

I am very skeptical that BY didn't know the details until 1870. In fact, I find that an extraordinary claim.

It was common knowledge by 1857 that Lee and other Mormons were involved in the attack. Federal reports, especially one prepared by Indian agent Garland Hurt, contain this information. No doubt Young knew these rumors.

According to Woodruff's diary, however, neither Hamblin nor Lee made a report after the incident implicating Lee. Indeed, Lee wrote a letter disclaiming any responsibility to Young. (Bagley claims this was a false denial requested by Young, but there is no evidence of that; I have to go on the evidence.)

Hamblin, however, claims to have received Lee's confession in 1857, in detail. He so testified at trial in 1876. The problem with this is that the confession he recounts at trial is incredible, i.e., non-credible. I am one of the few Massacre scholars who believe that Hamblin lied at the trial and just wanted to make sure Lee was convicted. (After all, Hamblin knew that Lee had previously offered to deliver a confession to the DoJ in a plea bargain attempt but that the DoJ had rejected it because it didn't implicate Young.)

To really confuse the issue about Hamblin, and whether he knew: Lee's lawyer, during closing argument, told the jury that he believed Hamblin was telling the truth about his encounter with Lee. Lee's post-trial diary entries claim that Hamblin made it up.

But, I believe that Young knew some details but not enough to take action against Lee. Church officials are prohibited from taking membership action without either a confession or witnesses. Young had neither for many years.

The Lee family has made a big deal about Lee's continued good standing in the church -- Young granted permission for at least one more wife and stayed once in Lee's house after the massacre. But relations between the two deteriorated significantly in the late 1860s. The Church has no "duty" to excommunicate people at a particular time, nor need it explain why it has reinstated people. Lee was essentially out of the Church for many years before 1870, living in hiding.