ARIZONA
azcentral.com
Associated Press
Dec. 15, 2004 04:51 PM
Don't count on confidentiality if you make confessions about criminal conduct to church personnel who aren't considered clergy by the church involved.
The Court of Appeals refused to expand the so-called "clergy-penitent privilege" by overturning a trial judge's decision to permit a woman's admissions to a church's volunteer music director to be used as evidence in court.
After being indicted in 2003 on a felony charge of sexual conduct with a minor, Korri Lee Waters had contacted Dawn Worth, the music director of the Church on the Word in Glendale, asking for forgiveness and explaining that she wanted advice for how to start over. advertisement
Worth, who had the honorific title of "minister" at the nondenominational Christian church, forwarded the e-mail to the church's pastor, Daniel McCluskey, who told Worth that Waters would have to admit what she'd done.
Waters did so in an e-mail acknowledging her relationship with a 16-year-old boy in graphic detail, court papers said.