Michigan Court of Appeals: Members of Clergy Not Required to Report Child Abuse

By Kevin Grasha
Detroit Free Press
August 23, 2013

http://www.freep.com/article/20130823/NEWS06/308230114/Michigan-Court-Appeals-Members-clergy-not-required-report-child-abuse

The state appeals court has ruled that a member of the clergy is not required to report child abuse when a church member seeks confidential guidance.

The published opinion by a three-judge Michigan Court of Appeals panel was released Thursday.

The case originated in Ionia County, involving a woman who in 2009 suspected her husband had her daughters touch their own genitalia in front of him. The woman went to her pastor, John Prominski of Resurrection Life Church in Ionia, seeking “family and spiritual guidance and spiritual advice,” according to court documents.

Prominski told the woman it was something he could handle through counseling, according to court testimony, and told her she didn’t need to report it to police.

Two years later, however, the husband was accused of sexually touching one of her daughters.

In court testimony, the woman said: “I woke up to (my daughter) screaming, ‘I hate you, I hate you, don’t ever touch me again.’ I went in there and.... asked her what happened. And she said that he was touching her.”

The woman again went to Prominski, who told her this time that she needed to report the incident to police or else he would, court documents say. It was during the investigation of this incident that police learned about the 2009 conversation with the woman. Later, her husband was convicted of criminal sexual conduct and sentenced to prison.

Prominski was charged with failure to report child abuse. But the charge was eventually dismissed in district court, and the appeals court upheld that decision.

Ionia County Prosecutor Ron Schafer said he has not yet determined whether he will appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court.

Members of the clergy are among those, who under state law, can be considered “mandated reporters” of child abuse. The only exceptions are communications between an attorney and a client, or between a clergy person and a church member in a “confession or similarly confidential (setting).”

The appeals court’s ruling says that communication between a clergyman and a church member can be considered confidential when the church member has an expectation that the information will be kept private.

“Although the mother did not make a confession, she had a similar expectation the communication would not be shared,” the opinion states. “Therefore ... (the) defendant was not required to make a report.”

Schafer said a third party’s report of child abuse to a member of the clergy should not be confidential.

“If they get to decide when the bell is rung, so to speak, then the law is wrong, and we’re not protecting children,” he said.