Decision will “allow courts to draw distinctions between a casual conversation with a cleric at a public, crowded sporting event and a private meeting with a pastor in connection with a counseling session”

New Jersey’s high court recently adopted a new, broader definition of the cleric-penitent privilege and used it to exclude from evidence a criminal defendant’s inculpatory statements to an acquaintance who was also a minister.

The Supreme Court ruled that the privilege applies if, given all the circumstances, an “objectively reasonable” person would believe that a communication was made in confidence to a cleric and in the cleric’s professional character or role as a spiritual adviser.

“Rather than focus on the subjective views of a penitent or cleric in deciding whether the privilege applies, judges are to consider the objectively reasonable expectations of the penitent in light of all the circumstances,” Chief Justice Stuart Rabner wrote for the 6-1 majority in State v. J.G., A-44-08.

Under that standard, defendant J.G.’s confession of child sexual abuse to Rev. Glenford Brown, a pastor he had known since childhood, is privileged, even though the conversation took place outside church doors and the pastor claimed he was not acting as a spiritual adviser at the time.

After J.G.’s daughters told their mother that J.G. had sexually abused them, she called Brown and met with him that evening at the church to discuss the details. According to Brown’s testimony, he felt he had a duty as the family’s pastor to protect the children by preventing J.G. from returning home. He called J.G. at work and the men met outside Brown’s home the next day.

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