Episode 146: Runaway Judges with John Dinger

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:00)
Hi, this is Lindsay Hansen Park.

**John Dinger** (0:02)
And this is Bryan Buchanan.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:04)
Bringing you the story of Mormonism from the shadow of the Everlasting Hills, straight out of Zion. This isn't your grandpa's Mormon history.

**John Dinger** (0:32)
This is the tale of Mormon saints and sinners from our roots until present day. Saddle up.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (0:37)
Gird your loins, lock your hearts, and pay your tithing, because we're bringing you the story of Mormonism in all its paradisiacal glory.

**John Dinger** (0:44)
It's the Sunstone History Podcast.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:09)
Hi, and welcome back to the Sunstone Mormon History Podcast. I am your host, Lindsay, and I'm not with Bryan right now because I am doing the duty as the host today, but don't stress, don't sweat it. I'm not completely alone. I am wandering into the hinterlands of the north, the great north of Idaho, with our good friend, John Dinger, who we have been teasing for this podcast to talk about our favorite subject, Runaway Officials. John, say hello.

**John Dinger** (1:41)
Hello. Thank you for having me back.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:44)
It's weird calling you John. You're Dinger. That's what I'm saying. You were your first name. I'm really excited to talk about this. Anytime that Dinger can squeeze on Idaho history, Idaho frontier history, he's going to try to do it, which I appreciate. Thanks for coming on and talking about this. Again, we've talked about this before.

**John Dinger** (2:06)
We have. You and I did a little podcast years ago.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:09)
We did it. Yeah, it does our drama that you can look up, and we're going to get into it and talk more about that, but we have covered this subject in detail before, and you're getting a taste of it on the podcast, but we're going to sort of adapt that for today to get into some juicy bits about this topic. But John, before we get into it, why this topic? How did you get into this topic?

**John Dinger** (2:35)
I just love Mormon history. I love Western history and I love legal history. And so this is really a combination of all of them, where I really get to hit all those passions all in one place.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:47)
Well, why don't we get into it?

**John Dinger** (2:50)
Perfect. So I really enjoyed the podcast on the Runaway officials that you guys did last week, and hopefully I can add something worthwhile. And you both discussed what I would say is the exciting stuff, the beatings, the throwing legal documents in the privy. But I'm wondering if I can talk about a bit more of the nerdy stuff, and hopefully I can make it interesting, but that's what I am. So that's what I want to talk, is that nerdy stuff.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (3:15)
You want to throw us into that Briar Patch? Oh no, don't be too nerdy on this podcast. What will we do? Nerd away. We would never ask you to come on the podcast and not be yourself. That's precisely why we brought you on. So get as nerdy as you can allow.

**John Dinger** (3:31)
All right, I will take it. We're going to be talking about old acts, all sorts of stuff. But I think sometimes we get stuck on the Runaway official incident and weirdly, we both overstated its importance and understate its importance. Because the Runaway officials were not something that was just specific to Utah. This happened in all the territories. As you dig into territorial law and how they were set out, it's easy to see why. When territories were formed by Congress, they passed something called an Organic Act, which served as a constitution of sorts for the territory. States have constitutions, territories don't. They have organic acts. Every territory got its own organic act. If you look at them and compare them to the western territories, they're all very similar. When you dig into these and start talking about these, you also see why Utah tried so hard and so many times to become a state.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (4:22)
Yeah, I don't know how many times we've already said on the podcast or how many times we're going to say it in the future, but Utah tries to become a big official big kid state six times, six times, and the sixth time is finally the charm. So it's usually three, five, and seven for Mormons, but for some reason it was six, six, six. I don't know why.

**John Dinger** (4:46)
Yeah. So Idaho only had to try once. So I agree with you that this is another way, Lindsay, that Idaho is six times better than Utah, but I digress.