Mormon and non-Mormon usage Although each of the Justices were prominent church leaders in their own right (Kimball was one of the original twelve apostles under
Joseph Smith and the First Counselor to
Brigham Young in the
First Presidency of the church, while Taylor succeeded Brigham Young as the president of the church after Young's death), Mormons living in the State of Deseret were encouraged by church leadership to take their grievances to their immediate ecclesiastical leaders, rather than going through the civil channels. Non-Mormons, on the other hand, relied more heavily on the courts of the State of Deseret, although they too submitted to the church tribunals on occasion. B. H. Roberts cites
Captain Howard Stansbury's recollections of the operation of the court: Their courts were constantly appealed to by companies of passing emigrants, who, having fallen out by the way, could not agree upon the division of their property. The decisions were remarkable for fairness and impartiality, and if not submitted to, were sternly enforced by the whole power of the community. Appeals for protection from oppression, by those passing through their midst, were not made in vain: and I know of at least one instance in which the marshal of the state was dispatched, with an adequate force, nearly two hundred miles into the western dessert, in pursuit of some miscreants who had stolen off with nearly the whole outfit of a party of emigrants. He pursued and brought them back to the city, and the plundered property was restored to its rightful owner. ==References==