Is Warren Jeffs Losing Sanity?
 
Rod Decker Reporting
KUTV Channel 2 News
Warren Jeffs

(KUTV) SALT LAKE CITY Has the polygamous prophet Warren Jeffs become insane in jail and incompetent to stand trial?

Secret proceedings in a St. George courtroom may indicate that is so.

Judge James Shumate took a motion from attorneys in secret and issued a secret court order in the Jeffs case earlier this month.

Attorneys for news media say those secret proceedings should be open. And their filings say the secrets may have to do with whether Warren Jeffs has lost his sanity.

Speaking for news media, lawyer David Reymann is asking for public proceedings. And his papers suggest what the judge and lawyers may be keeping secret.

"There is a presumption that the public should have access to public proceedings," says Reymann.

The papers say the secret documents may suggest that Jeffs has lost his mental balance, and is incompetent to help with his defense.

Note, Judge James Shumate has cancelled all further hearings, something that often happens when the defendant’s sanity is in question, but doesn’t happen too often otherwise.

And recent courtroom pictures show, Jeffs slept in the last hearings and could hardly pay attention to what was going on.

Jeffs tried to hand the judge this paper, and the Deseret News reports a digital enlargement of the photo shows the paper said, "I was not a prophet and am not the prophet."

So Jeffs seems now to deny the claims to leadership of the FLDS Church he made before.

Reymann emphasizes he doesn’t know for sure the contents of the secret court documents.

"The whole problem with secret documents is that you can only speculate what they are," says Reymann.

Meanwhile, another attorney, Brian Barnard, says blowing up a court picture to read a document is something the media shouldn’t do.

"What the Deseret News did is an abuse of cameras in the courtroom," says Barnard.

If Jeffs sanity or competence is in question those determinations will likely be made public.
 
KUTV.com
Originally broadcast April 20, 2007
 
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