Kool Aid comes in lots of flavors
I heard commentators today wondering if Warren Jeffs could get a fair trial, given the LDS and Fundamentalist LDS temperament of Southern Utah, in which he’s being prosecuted for several counts of rape. If you don’t remember, Jeffs is the President of the polygamous sect [FLDS] that offers up children to multiple marriage, sometimes with family members as noted in the case being tried, and boots out its male children … not enough women to go around, I guess. He first caught our attention because he was on the FBI Most Wanted list.
This is one of those loaded cases that gives us information on all sociological levels — for instance, nuanced questions arise such as what’s abuse, exactly? The young [incredibly courageous] woman accusing Jeffs was 14 at the time of her arranged marriage with her cousin — in Utah, 14 is legal. But was it moral? Was it coerced? And is making young children sit for countless hours being harangued about their moral duty to God “abuse” as well? That’s what happened in Waco, under the leadership of David Koresh — in Jonestown, under the drug-addled and paranoid eye of Jim Jones. There were egregious allegations of sexual abuse in both those movements — absolute power, corrupt absolutely. So where does freedom of religion end and public concern begin?
Difficult.
In the 70’s we had a lot of cults — and we had “deprogrammers.” Of course, anyone who had to be rescued from brainwashing had to be lured away and kidnapped by family members and shocked back into reality after being held for several emotional days; and there the law stepped in. The legal ramifications were so stringent that the deprogramming movement finally ceased.
Like most all cults, the FLDS church has a compound; several, actually, but a big one under construction in Nevada. These kinds of facilities are countries unto themselves — and this is not a new battle between Mormons and the US Government. The Mountain Meadow Massacre* [a new movie about this is in release, or soon to be] was a Brigham Young [never proven, but likely] plan to frighten off the US Government from pursuing Utah as part of the nation. Perhaps a guilty verdict in the Jeffs case would “close” this incident — the Universe is asking us for closure, now … but you know that.
Cults are cults, freedom is freedom — but the children suffer. They suffered in Waco, beaten and raped, and ultimately burned to death by an overzealous use of authority; they were force fed cyanide-loaded Kool Aid in Jonestown, crying and fighting — and they’re married off to patriarchs in Utah, submitting to a life of drudgery, obedience and child-bearing.
The question, today on CNN, was about Jeffs ability to get a fair trial — and I wonder as well. The question of “jury of your peers” brings up a lot of dross, now that we’re no longer a country confident in rule of law. Jeffs “peers” would be those who believe as he does — would a trial of Charlie Manson includes peers like Jeff Dahmer and Ted Bundy? “Peers” of people like Jeffs, Koresh and Jones don’t actually exist — our best shot is to guarantee a jury of average citizens, preferably those disinterested in the religious question.
The actual jury, which seems to be down to a mere seven members, will likely tell us soon how this will shake out — they’re hung up on one count, at this point. In a time of religious extremism, this is an important case … and I think it should have been moved from S. Utah to a less controversial area, the jury pulled from average folks who are not influenced by the polygamous movement, which is powerful if dark.
From Utah to Washington DC the message seems clear to me — we could use a few good deprogrammers, even if that isn’t “politically correct.” Even if its true that freedom isn’t free — we each have free-will on this plane. How we use it tells the tale — and accountability must have its day if we are to survive.
Jude
* Most of you know the MMM interests me because my own family crossed to California by wagon train, launching from Springfield, MO THE DAY AFTER those who were murdered, taking a slightly more northern route. It seems serendipitious that my own DNA survived to discuss the event today … but life IS serendipitious, we are all connected, we are all part of the whole cloth. What happens in Utah does not STAY in Utah — or what happens in BURMA — or IRAQ. It effects us all. Which … I s’pose … is the entire point of this post.
CORRECTION: There are eight jury members in the Jeffs case.
Polygamy and Forced Sex in the Name of God
The view of polygamy as just another lifestyle choice has been countered by the growing evidence of communities rife with abuse.
Ellen Goodman, Washington Post Writers Group via Alternet
September 24, 2007
BOSTON — I’m glad I didn’t fall for the latest Internet hoax. MarryOurDaughter.com? Hello? Did the millions who clicked onto this site actually think there were parents out there putting a bridal price on the head of their 15-year-old Ashley ($37,500) or 16-year-old Kristin ($49,995)?
The hoax proved to be the brainchild of John Ordover, a Brooklyn man practicing his viral marketing skills. It was Ordover who hyped this site as an “introduction service assisting those following the biblical tradition of arranging marriages for their daughters.”
But before you deep-six your most paranoid fantasy about the arranged marriages of young girls, let us turn to reality. In a courtroom in St. George, Utah, there is a defendant named Warren Jeffs who surely regards himself as a celestial matchmaker.
Jeffs is the autocrat and reigning prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), a polygamous community of about 10,000 that regards itself as the one true Mormon faith. It survives much to the embarrassment of mainstream Mormons, who gave up polygamy in 1890, and much to the horror of the state.
Jeffs is either deeply creepy or downright evil depending on how you label religious leaders who consider themselves the voice of God and marry multiple women, including 30 of their late father’s youngest widows. He is infamous, among other things, for kicking hundreds of teenage boys out of his community and matching hundreds of their sisters into plural marriages. For those hooked on “Big Love,” Jeffs makes Alby Grant look appealing.
But the man is not on trial for being a polygamist, let alone a creep. As the judge and prosecutor told the jury, this case is not about polygamy. Jeffs is being tried as an accessory to rape. He’s charged with intentionally aiding the sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl by her husband.
To hear the alleged victim, known only as Jane Doe, describe her marriage is to be as deeply saddened as the jury was. After resisting Jeffs’ order to marry her 19-year-old first cousin, she found herself at the altar, head hanging, forcing out the words, “OK, I do.” After refusing sex, she went back to Jeffs for counsel and was told to “repent,” to “do your duty,” and be “obedient.” And so the girl who didn’t know what sex was or where children came from says she was forced to submit to her husband.
Did this teenager make her own choice? We forget how the rules governing consent have changed. Conflicting state laws now navigate between a girl’s sexual maturity and her vulnerability. In many states, including Utah, a girl can marry with her parents’ permission at a younger age than she can have sex.
But this case raises a different question about consent. How much power did the religious leader wield over the 14-year-old? If you refused to marry the chosen husband, Doe testified, you would “lose your chance at salvation.” How could she refuse to obey the husband who was “my ticket into heaven”?
No, polygamy is not on trial. But its history is interwoven with questions of consent.
Opponents to plural marriage in the 19th century included women’s rights advocates who equated polygamy with slavery. No mature woman, they believed, would voluntarily enslave herself.
In the late 20th century, the idea arose that consenting adults could make their own sexual arrangements from serial monogamy to, well, polygamy. Indeed, at this trial, FLDS women described themselves as “empowered.” But the view of polygamy as just another lifestyle choice has been countered by the growing evidence of communities rife with abuse.
Doe’s forced marriage falls easily into the moral category of child abuse. So I sympathize with the desire to get Warren Jeffs. Get Al Capone for tax evasion. Get O.J. for chasing down his memorabilia. But I’m troubled by the charge that Jeffs is an accessory to felony rape. University of Utah law professor Daniel Medwed calls it “an ill-fitting suit draped over this case.” I’m afraid he’s right.
The argument is that Jeffs told Doe to submit or be damned. It will be hard enough to prove that he was explicit in encouraging rape by her husband. For that matter, how can you convict a man as an accessory to rape when the alleged rapist himself — the husband — hasn’t been charged? On the stand, he denied forcing her.
This case highlights what it’s like to be a girl imprisoned in the FLDS world. Have no tolerance for a community, even a religious one, that so estranges its young from shared values, including liberty.
But this charge doesn’t fit Warren Jeffs’ moral trespasses. It’s too much. And way, way, too little.
Jeffs charged with being an accomplice to rape
Polygamous sect leader’s jury says it is close to a verdict
Brooke Adams, The Salt Lake Tribune
09/25/2007
Warren Jeffs Trial, Day 8
ST. GEORGE - Jurors deciding the fate of polygamous sect leader Warren S. Jeffs deliberated for about 11 hours Monday without reaching a verdict, but said they are close to decisions on the two counts of rape as an accomplice.
Fifth District Judge James L. Shumate sent the five men and three women home at about 8:15 p.m., asking them to return to court at 9 a.m. today. Through a bailiff, jurors told the judge they thought it would help their deliberations to “sleep on it.”
The jurors had sent Shumate a note shortly after 3:30 p.m. Monday, saying they were deadlocked on the second count.
The note read: “We have a hung jury regarding the second count. We do not believe further deliberation is needed. How do we go about it at this point?”
In response, Shumate brought the jurors into the courtroom and referred them to a jury instruction that urges them to keep an open mind. He sent them back to continue deliberations, which continued over a pizza dinner.
Jeffs, leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is charged with two counts of being an accomplice to rape related to a marriage he conducted in 2001 between Elissa Wall, who was 14, and Allen Steed, then 19.
Prosecutors allege the first rape count occurred between April 23, 2001 - the day Jeffs conducted Wall’s marriage - and May 12, 2001, when she and Steed took a trip to Canada to visit her sisters.
The second count is alleged to have occurred between May 13, 2001, and September 30, 2003.
Wall, who has agreed to the use of her name at the time, was in the courtroom with her current husband and one of her attorneys when Shumate later sent the jurors home for the night. A dozen FLDS members also were in court.
The jury began its deliberations Friday, spending two hours before breaking for the weekend.
Now 21, Wall testified she objected numerous times to being married but Jeffs, then first counselor in the FLDS faith, ignored her.
She also said her husband had sex with her despite her protests and that Jeffs later refused her plea to be released from the marriage.
Allen Steed offered jurors a different account of their first sexual encounter, saying she had initiated it and that he never used force or coercion in their marital relations.
He told jurors that Jeffs counseled them to work on their marriage with love and kindness.
Jeffs, who has been incarcerated at the Purgatory Correctional Facility in Hurricane, will temporarily remain there regardless of the verdict. He faces a federal charge in Utah of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution and, in Arizona, felony charges related to two underage marriages he performed.
One of those cases is based on Wall’s marriage.
Washington County authorities filed their case involving Wall against Jeffs in April 2006.
Jeffs spent nearly 14 months as a fugitive, even making the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. While in hiding, he moved among safe houses in various states.
He was arrested on Aug. 28, 2006, during a traffic stop on I-15 outside Las Vegas.
One Jeffs juror to be replaced by alternate
Ben Winslow, Deseret Morning News, Salt Lake City
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
ST. GEORGE — The eight-member jury deliberating in the Warren Jeffs case has run into a problem resulting in one member being dismissed today and replaced with one of four alternates.
“We have had an event with a juror,” said Nancy Volmer, spokeswoman for the Utah State Courts. She declined to elaborate.
This morning the jury and attorneys returned to the 5th District Courthouse for another day of deliberations.
But a few minutes later, defense attorneys for Jeffs quickly left the courthouse accompanied by an FLDS Church member. They marched toward the Washington County Attorney’s Office followed by prosecutors.
A few minutes later the defense team returned to the courthouse. When approached by news reporters, defense attorney Wally Bugden said, “No comment.”
Prosecutors did not immediately return to the courthouse.
The jury that has been deliberating the case is comprised of five men and three women. The four alternates are all women.
The alternates sat through all in-court proceedings of the trial. Since deliberations began last Friday, they have been free to return to their normal activities but they were admonished by the court to refrain from talking about the case and avoid exposure to news media coverage about it.
The jury indicated late Monday it was close to a verdict on all counts.
“I was informed that the jury had inquired of a bailiff if they could be released for the evening,” Judge James Shumate told a packed courtroom of lawyers, Jeffs’ loyal followers, the alleged victim and dozens of reporters gathered for any news of a verdict.
“They believe they’re close to a verdict on both counts but would like to sleep on it overnight,” he said.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys left the courthouse without commenting on the latest developments.
Jurors deliberated for 11 hours Monday, working through both lunch and dinner before sending a note about 3 p.m., indicating they had a “hung jury.”
“We have a hung jury regarding the second count. We do not believe further deliberation is needed. How do we go about it at this point?” the note said.
There was no mention of a decision on the first count.
Shumate read the jury’s note in open court with Jeffs present. The judge said he discussed the note with prosecutors and Jeffs’ defense team, and that they all wanted the jury of five men and three women to try to reach a verdict.
“Keep your minds open, think things over again, and work on count two a little bit longer,” Shumate told the jurors, asking them to review jury instruction number 16, which says jurors are judges, not advocates.
As news of the jury’s deadlock and deliberations spread, security outside the courthouse intensified, with SWAT teams positioned on the rooftops of nearby buildings. Police said they were preparing for a possible verdict.
“We’ve had no threats of any kind,” said St. George police Sgt. Craig Harding. “We’re just preparing for the big event.”
Jeffs, 51, is charged with two first-degree felony counts of rape as an accomplice for his role in conducting a 2001 spiritual marriage between an unwilling 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin, which eventually led to sex between the two. If convicted, Jeffs could spend the rest of his life in prison.
Washington County prosecutors say Elissa Wall, now 21 and married to another man, would never have even kissed her cousin, Allen Steed, if Jeffs hadn’t ordered her to do so.
Under Utah law, a 14-year-old can consent to sexual intercourse. However, such activity is considered rape if the other person is three years or more older and the 14-year-old is enticed or lured into having sex.
Wall testified her stepfather arranged the marriage, that Jeffs would not stop it, and that her mother insisted she go through with it. Three weeks after the wedding ceremony and a short honeymoon, Wall said her new husband forced her to have sex. Wall admitted she never reported a rape or told her mother or sisters she was being raped.
Steed, who is now 26, testified he tried hard to be a good husband, never forced his young wife into sex and sought counsel from Jeffs as his spiritual leader. Steed’s version of what happened the first time the couple had sex differed starkly from Wall’s testimony, saying Wall initiated sex by rolling up next to him and asking if he loved her.
Defense attorney Wally Bugden also pointed to Jeffs during his closing statement, telling the jury that the case isn’t about sex; it’s about Jeffs’ religion. He also noted Wall had filed a civil lawsuit against Jeffs and the FLDS Church.
Regardless of whether Jeffs is convicted or acquitted of the first-degree felony charges, he will next go to Arizona to face charges there, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Utah said Monday.
In Arizona, Jeffs is facing charges of sexual conduct with a minor as an accomplice and incest as an accomplice, stemming from his alleged orchestration of more child-bride marriages.
Defense attorney Richard Wright told the Deseret Morning News he will represent Jeffs on the Arizona charges alongside a criminal defense attorney from that state. He also will continue to represent Jeffs in a federal case alongside Bugden.
Jeffs was indicted by a federal grand jury in Salt Lake City on charges of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, relating to his time on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.
Contributing: Nancy Perkins
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
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