Hearing today on Jeffs lawyers' bid to depose Texans
 
By Ben Winslow
Deseret News
 
An Arizona judge has scheduled a hearing today on a request by lawyers for Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Warren Jeffs to depose Texas Rangers.

In newly filed court documents, the polygamous sect leader's criminal defense attorneys also say they don't buy Arizona prosecutors' assertions that they won't use evidence seized in the April raid on the FLDS Church's YFZ Ranch in Texas.

"The court is concerned that perhaps the state for now will want to reserve its options, not commit itself one way or the other as to whether it intends to use any of the Texas evidence and only make that decision at some time in the future," Mohave County Superior Court Judge Stephen Conn wrote in an Oct. 23 order released Monday.

"The problem with the latter possibility is that the court and the defendant have the right to know now rather than later whether the state intends to use the Texas evidence at trial."

Jeffs' attorneys are fighting to keep any evidence from the YFZ raid out of the FLDS leader's upcoming trial in Kingman, Ariz., on charges of sexual misconduct with a minor. Jeffs is accused of performing child-bride marriages. He was convicted in Utah of rape as an accomplice for performing a marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin.

The Mohave County Attorney's Office has said it does not intend to use any evidence seized from the ranch in Jeffs' trial. But defense attorneys Richard Wright and Michael Piccarreta note that Arizona law enforcement has been in Texas reviewing thousands of documents.

"The state has just disclosed an 'FLDS Evidence Inventory' of items received and reviewed by the state of Arizona from the Texas raids," they wrote. "The inventory itself comprises 23 pages and references thousands of documents and other items, including religious materials that are obviously constitutionally protected and other privileged communications."

They point to federal authorities' acknowledgment of a database for information sharing among several states with criminal probes into the FLDS Church and Jeffs in particular.

"Given the extraordinary extent of these coordinated prosection efforts, the court may understand the defendant's reluctance to accept the state's assurance that those efforts, designed specifically to obtain evidence against him and others, will have no bearing on the current criminal proceedings," Wright and Piccarreta wrote.

The judge said that unless a deal is struck between prosecutors and Jeffs' defense team, he may have to rule on the legality of the search in Texas.

"How the latter determination would be made is difficult to fathom," Conn wrote.

Jeffs' lawyers have complained of difficulty in getting interviews with Texas authorities. They also expressed frustration that a woman connected with one of the cases refused to meet with them. In another filing in one of the Jeffs cases, the attorneys did file notice that they had scheduled an interview next month with ex-FLDS member and anti-polygamy activist Flora Jessop.

E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com
 
DeseretNews.com
Originally published Monday, Oct. 27, 2008
 
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