D&C 102: Half the Council Is Assigned to the Accused

"Who checks the umpire?"

Caleb asked it from the back seat of the Tacoma yesterday, maybe forty seconds after we left the field lot. He'd been called out at the plate in the fourth inning by what he measures as a foot, and I was down the third-base line with the lineup card and had a fair view, which I kept to myself. I told him nobody checks the umpire and the call stands, which is most of what makes it a game. He said that was a bad system. I said fair enough and turned up the radio.

Doctrine and Covenants 102 spends thirty-four verses on his question. It reads like minutes because it is minutes, with vote counts and a list of names and a drawing of lots, but somebody in a room in Kirtland worked out who decides and who speaks for whom and who gets to say the decision was wrong, and I don't know another chapter in the standard works that does it so plainly.

What happened in Kirtland on February 17, 1834?

A council of high priests met at the house of Joseph Smith to organize the first high council of the Church. Verse 1 says it was to have twelve high priests and "one or three presidents as the case might require." Verse 3 names everyone, with Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon and Frederick G. Williams as presidents and twelve councilors from Joseph Smith Sr. down to Luke Johnson. Joseph revised the minutes on the 18th and the council accepted the revision on the 19th, and they were printed in the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, which is how a set of meeting minutes ended up as a section.

The purpose in verse 2 is narrower than I expected, since the council was appointed "for the purpose of settling important difficulties which might arise in the church, which could not be settled by the church or the bishop's council to the satisfaction of the parties." So it's where a matter goes after the closer places failed to settle it. Section 98 is one person and the person who wronged him, which I went through in D&C 98 and What Happens on the Fourth Offense, and section 102 starts where the parties and the bishop's council couldn't finish.

One thing in the numbers bothers me, and it's that verse 1 says "twenty-four high priests" assembled, and verse 5 says forty-three people voted to appoint the councilors, broken down as nine high priests, seventeen elders, four priests and thirteen members. Those do add up to forty-three. Nine high priests among the voters and twenty-four high priests in the room don't match on the page, and I can't make them match, though maybe the first number counts a group the second doesn't.

Why does the accused get half the council?

Verses 12 through 14 come first, where the twelve councilors cast lots by number and the numbers decide who speaks first. A case that isn't difficult gets two speakers, a difficult one gets four, a more difficult one gets six, and "in no case shall more than six be appointed to speak."

Then verses 15 and 17:

The accused, in all cases, has a right to one-half of the council, to prevent insult or injustice. (D&C 102:15)

"Those councilors who draw even numbers, that is, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12, are the individuals who are to stand up in behalf of the accused, and prevent insult and injustice."

Look at the numbers allowed in verses 13 and 14, which are two, four and six. Every one is even. If the speakers go up in order from number one, as verse 12 has it, the split comes out even each time, whether the speakers are numbers 1 and 2 or 1 through 4 or 1 through 6. The text never remarks on that. The arithmetic just works in every case it permits.

Verse 34 gives the actual draw from that first day, and Oliver Cowdery got number 1, so he spoke first. The evens went to Joseph Coe, Luke Johnson, Sylvester Smith, Orson Hyde, Joseph Smith Sr. and Martin Harris. So on that day's draw Joseph Smith's own father stood on the accused's side of the table, and nobody got to ask whom they'd rather stand beside, because the number decided it.

The odd numbers aren't called prosecutors anywhere, and verse 16 gives every speaker the same instruction, to present the case "in its true light" and to speak "according to equity and justice." Nobody in the chapter is hired to lose. The even numbers carry one extra assignment, which is to stand up for the accused, and the rest are told to keep the case honest.

I keep setting this beside a verse from Proverbs:

He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him. (Proverbs 18:17)

The very next verse says "The lot causeth contentions to cease." I'm not claiming the 1834 council had Proverbs in mind, since the minutes don't say. But the two verses sit side by side and describe the same machinery: the first account always sounds right and somebody has to search it, and a lot is a fair way to decide who.

Does being assigned to argue the other side change anything?

I'd have said no until April, when a config change had held a batch of merchant payouts for about three hours on a Tuesday and the review was set up the way these things usually are, as a meeting about what Priya missed. Priya was the engineer who pushed the change. The manager running it did something I hadn't seen before. The afternoon before, she picked two people and told each of us to prepare the case that Priya had followed the runbook.

I was annoyed, because I'd read the Slack thread and thought I knew what had happened. I spent about ninety minutes on old tickets and the runbook anyway since I'd been told to, and found that the runbook did say to verify the flag in staging before pushing. Staging had been missing that flag since a rebuild in January. So Priya had done the step, and the step passed, because there was nothing in staging to check.

The meeting turned into a conversation about staging and stopped being about a person.

Nobody would have gone looking for that if I hadn't been handed Priya's side.

That's what verse 17 does with its lots, and I think it's the reason it uses lots. A volunteer for the defense is a friend, while a person assigned to the defense has to go and find out.

Verse 18 closes the loop in a way I almost missed. After the evidence is heard and the appointed councilors have finished, "the accuser and the accused shall have a privilege of speaking for themselves." The parties speak last, so all the structure I just described, the lots and the half-and-half, comes before the two people it's about get to say their own piece.

What stops the president from simply deciding?

The president of the council gives the decision "according to the understanding which he shall have of the case," and the twelve then "sanction the same by their vote" (verse 19). Read fast, that sounds like a rubber stamp.

Verse 20 is why it isn't a rubber stamp: any of the councilors who didn't speak can "discover an error in the decision of the president" and the case gets a rehearing. Count who that is. If at most six of the twelve were appointed to speak, at least six sat and listened, and each of those six has the standing to say the president got it wrong. One is enough. It doesn't take a majority to reopen a case.

If after a careful rehearing "any additional light is shown upon the case, the decision shall be altered accordingly" (verse 21), and if no additional light is given then "the first decision shall stand" (verse 22). I like how blunt that is. A rehearing doesn't get a second chance at the same arguments, only a second look for anything new.

Past the council there's an appeal, and a council of high priests abroad has to send a copy of its proceedings, "with a full statement of the testimony accompanying their decision," to the high council at the seat of the First Presidency, and either dissatisfied party can appeal there (verses 26 and 27). Verse 33 adds a gate I hadn't registered. The president or presidents there decide whether the appealed case "is justly entitled to a re-hearing, after examining the appeal and the evidences and statements accompanying it." An appeal isn't automatic, then, and somebody reads the file first.

The traveling high council of the twelve apostles is set apart in verses 30 through 32. Its decisions can't be appealed, and it "can only be called in question by the general authorities of the church in case of transgression." The chapter gives no reason for the difference, and I won't make one up.

What surprised me most is in verse 23, where a case turns on doctrine or principle and "there is not a sufficiency written to make the case clear," the president "may inquire and obtain the mind of the Lord by revelation." The condition sits inside the sentence. Inquiring isn't offered as the first move, since it comes after the written material has been used and found short.

Frequently Asked Questions

Did they really decide who spoke by drawing lots?

Verse 12 says so, and verse 34 shows the result of the first draw. The lots set the order in which the twelve speak, and since the even numbers are the ones assigned to the accused, the order and the assignment come out of the same draw. Verse 34 calls it casting "lots or ballot," so I wouldn't picture anything fancier than numbers drawn from a hat.

Does D&C 102 describe how church councils work now?

It doesn't, because these are the minutes of the first high council in Kirtland in 1834 and the Church has changed a good deal since. If you have a real question about a council today, ask your bishop or stake president, because I'm not going to guess from a page of 1834 minutes.

Why can't the apostles' decisions be appealed?

Verses 30 through 32 say that they can't, and say what can be done instead, which is that the general authorities can call them in question "in case of transgression." The chapter doesn't say why the two bodies differ. I'd leave it at what the verses state.

What does "additional light" mean in verse 21?

Nothing in the chapter defines it, and read next to verse 20, where the councilors hear "the evidences and pleadings impartially," and verse 26, where the testimony is written down and sent along, my reading is new evidence or new argument. A change of heart about the same facts doesn't seem to count, since verse 22 says the first decision stands if nothing new comes.

Tomorrow I'm reading Mosiah 26 with a pencil, since Alma is handed a crowd of people accused by their own brethren, verse 9 says he "did not know concerning them," and verse 13 says he went and asked the Lord what to do. I'm going to mark every person who stands next to him in that chapter. My guess is the number is zero, and after reading this chapter that bothers me more than it did.

— D.