King v. Tatum

I agree with this Court’s decision to deny the petition for a writ of mandamus filed by Cornell L. Tatum, Sr., Charlie Hardy, and Charles Lancaster (“the petitioners”). I write specially to emphasize that a circuit court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction to apply judicial notions of due process to church proceedings when the highest adjudicatory body of a church decides a purely ecclesiastical matter. Additionally, I write to note that, a circuit court may recognize a decision by the highest adjudicatory body of a church concerning a purely ecclesiastical matter and, based on that decision,…