I see. So you don't even know if Joseph receive any compensation for his efforts other than room and board?
Room and board ARE compensation, Fig. And Stowell says that he "employed" Smith, he just does not say how much he paid him.

Joseph had room and board elsewhere.
Prove it. ...And let me help you out here: before you go rummaging through some LDS, "faith-promoting" web site to try to find some minor hint that he was living at the expense of two separate households realize that EVEN IF he DID have room and board elsewhere that does not obviate the FACT that Stowell was remunerating Smith while "employing" him.

Also, are you sure this was a trial, or was it just an examination? The record shows that Joseph was just 'examinded'.
oh brother ...this is the kind of desperate grasping at straws that so perfectly characterizes virtually all efforts at formulating an apologetic for the LDS religion.

Fig... let me fami****ize you with a little basic legal terminology: witnesses, plaintifs and defendants are all "examined" at a trial. Their "examination" does not mean that the trial in which their testimony is examined is not a trial!

Yes it was a trial. Smith was charged and tried in what would today be something akin to a "small claims" court in that no attorneys were retained. The plaintiff was the family of the victim. The defndant was Joseph Smith. The judge was a state-appointed official acting under the color of law. Yes ...it was a "trial". Even if SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE called it a fruit pie, it was STILL a "trial".

Get it?

-BH

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