Arizona judge takes FLDS case under advisement
 Polygamous church seeks eviction ruling against disaffected members
 
By Jane Zhang
The Spectrum
 
KINGMAN, Ariz. -- After a hearing that lasted more than four hours, an Arizona state court judge didn't rule Thursday on whether a Colorado City family should be evicted from their 5,000-square-foot home built on property owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Judge James E. Chavez of the Arizona Superior Court, said he would issue a ruling on an unspecified date on the eviction of Milton and Lenore Holm, who became apostates in 2000 after Lenore refused to give permission to have her 16-year-old daughter married as a plural wife.

The case has been closely watched by both anti-polygamy activists and FLDS church leaders, who crowded the courtroom Thursday in Kingman, Ariz.

One of the fastest-growing polygamist groups in North America, the church still teaches the practice of polygamy as a religious principle. Through the United Effort Plan, the FLDS church holds most of the land in Hildale.

"This case involves a rather unique issue, and that has to do with whether a church trust can control its membership," argued UEP attorney Rodney R. Parker.

As the Holms have been ousted from the church, he said, they should carry out the eviction notice that was issued in July 2000.

George McKay, the defendants' attorney from Community Legal Services, Inc., said the court should follow the precedent of the Utah Supreme Court case of Jeffs v. Stubbs, which allowed tenants to live on the land as long as they live, or to compensate those who had made home improvements.

"The legal issue of the case has already being solved," McKay said. "It's the same people, the same church, the same land, the same area."

In 1976, the FLDS prophet gave Milton Holm, then a bachelor, permission to build a house on a UEP lot.

"He told me to build like I'll stay forever," he said.

A construction worker, Milton Holm has built the house in his spare time and bought materials with cash to add new rooms, furnish tiles in the kitchen and redo the basement.

As "a tenant at will," Parker said, Milton Holm understood from the beginning that Leroy Johnson wanted him to obey the rules in order to live on UEP land. And Holm never had the deed to the property.

"The church didn't give up ownership," he said. "That isn't a promise. That isn't a contract."

Paul Knudson, Lenore Holm's ex-husband who has left the FLDS church, said church members trusted the leaders, who told them deeds were not available. The clause of "tenant at will," he added, had only been added to the UEP trust in the 1980s.

Leroy Jeffs, one of five UEP trustees since 1986, said members are told to donate land to the church.

"We should all live the same, believe the same in order for the Lord to bless us," he said.

More than 10 apostates, however, live on UEP land, he admitted.

Parker dismissed Lenore's daughter's story is irrelevant to the case. Lenore Holm, who wasn't present while Milton was given the lot in 1973, has never received permission to live on the property, he added.

"I was just a woman," said Lenore Holm, who still lives in the house with Milton and seven children under age 12.

Parker asked if Lenore Holm has "actively campaigned" to put former prophet Rulon Jeffs in jail. She denied it.

"I have actively managed to seek the rapes to underage girls stop," she said. "In the name of God, they are doing it and it's awful. And I think it's ridiculous."

Lenore Holm said Milton Holm lost his "priesthood" because they refused to let her daughter Nichole marry at age 16. On the eve of Nichole's 16th birthday, Lenore Holm said, the girl was taken to then-prophet Rulon Jeffs' home. Both parents, Knudson and Lenore Holm, had protested the marriage of the minor to Jessop.

But Parker dismissed Nichole's story as irrelevant to the case.

"The reason for their eviction is not religion," he said. "They can be evicted for any reason."
 
TheSpectrum.com
Originally published May 16, 2003
 
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