| Week 1 of Jeffs’ trial offers unexpected He represents self with silence, then 'soliloquies' he | |||||
|
By Matthew Waller San Angelo Standard-Times | |||||
SAN ANGELO, Texas — Warren Jeffs entered the courtroom confidently Friday afternoon, breezing through the gallery with strides that were a little wider than when he bumbled in Monday at the beginning of his trial on charges of sexual assault of a child. He entered ready to read what he — as the 55-year-old spiritual head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints — said was a new revelation from Jesus Christ. "I, the Lord God of heaven, call upon the court to cease this prosecution against my pure, holy way. ... I shall let all peoples know of your unjust way. ... I shall send a scourge upon the counties of prosecutorial zeal to be humbled by sickness and death," Jeffs read aloud to 51st District Judge Barbara Walther before the jury returned. Walther warned Jeffs not to make threatening statements to the jury and brought the panel back into court. Jeffs faces two counts of sexual assault of a child that could put him in prison for 119 years. In the first week of the trial, he bounced between steady silence and oratorical loquaciousness. At first he did not object to evidence; on Friday, his objections were so frequent they interrupted the prosecutor as he tried to admit evidence. He did not, however, object to the admission of two key pieces of evidence: a supposed audio recording of Jeffs in the act of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl, at a time when Jeffs was 50 years old; and the DNA evidence obtained to substantiate the state allegation that he fathered a child on a girl who was 15 at the time of conception. The state alleges that Jeffs was 49 at the time. As those exhibits were admitted into evidence Thursday afternoon and Friday morning but not presented to the jury, special prosecutor Eric Nichols said he thought the state might finish its presentation on the guilt and innocence phase of the trial by Tuesday. On Friday afternoon, the pace began slow as Jeffs became more vocal. The state was able to call only six of the 10 witnesses it had ready to testify for the day, one of them on recorded video. The evidence admitted included public records, pictures of the alleged victims and aerial views of the temple on the FLDS Yearning for Zion Ranch in Schleicher County. The YFZ Ranch was the location of a state raid in April 2008 that was prompted by what is now widely believed to have been a hoax phone call from a woman claiming she was a teenager being abused at the ranch. The slowdown Friday came after a relatively quick jury selection, which lasted about two days. "It should be an interesting case," Nichols told the jury of 10 women, two men, and one male and one female alternate after it was sworn in. During jury selection, Jeffs had his seven high-powered attorneys close by: Two hired to get the evidence from the YFZ Ranch raid thrown out, two to try to remove 51st District Judge Barbara Walther from the case, two whom Jeffs wanted removed but were told to stay as active counsel by Walther, and one lead attorney, Deric Walpole. Walpole and Nichols whittled down prospective jurors quickly, with one question in particular about whether anyone could presume Jeffs innocent — about half of the 207 people there said they could not. The defense and the state then questioned jurors one-on-one, and one of Walpole's questions was, "Do you have an opinion in a man having more than one wife in a religion revealed from heaven by God's own word through a prophet in that religious organization to govern their lives in pure and holy ways by continued revelation from God through a prophet to guide their lives in ways of pure religious motive and practice?" The prospective jurors most often said they had no opinion. None of the jurors individually questioned was let go, a strong contrast to previous trials, where the defense interviewed each juror and frequently asked for prospective jurors to be released. Most of the debate in past criminal trials of FLDS members has been about whether prospective jurors could give probation as the sentence in a sexual assault case, but that issue was disposed in Jeffs' trial. Instead, a poll during general questioning asked prospective jurors to hold up their blue laminated number cards to say that they could not consider probation. The state wasn't prepared for the speed of jury selection. An evidence suppression hearing convened Wednesday for a few hours but had to adjourn until Thursday because prosecution witnesses were not available. Thursday morning, Jeffs dropped his bomb, announcing that he wanted to represent himself without any legal counsel. Like a reporter's dream come true, he spoke slowly, pausing between every phrase for a couple of seconds, and speaking for about half an hour. He has continued to give soliloquies, as Nichols calls them. Walther has mostly allowed him to speak, although she has put her clasped hands to her forehead when Jeffs persisted in interrupting the court proceedings. | |||||
|
gosanangelo.com Originally published July 30, 2011 | |||||
| Back | |||||
| For more information email: | |||||
