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| Sword of Laban... |
 Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 5:57 pm |
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Difficulties for Prosecutors in Trial of Sect Leader
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
The New York Times
Published: November 3, 2009
ELDORADO, Tex. — A year and a half after the state authorities raided
a fundamentalist Mormon ranch here, the first of a half-dozen leaders
of the sect has gone on trial on charges that he had sex with an under-
age girl who state officials assert was one of several wives assigned
to him by church elders.
The trial, taking place in a makeshift courtroom in this rural hamlet,
has opened a window on the polygamous world inside the Yearning for
Zion ranch, the compound of log buildings built around a stone temple
where the state contends that arranged marriages involving under-age
girls were commonplace.
But the proceeding has also exposed the difficulties prosecutors face
in proving sex crimes were committed at the ranch, since the young
woman at the center of the case, like most of the female sect members,
has not cooperated with the authorities.
The state’s case rests mainly on genetic evidence that links the
defendant, Raymond M. Jessop, 38, to a child born in 2005 to the 16-
year-old girl he was living with along with several other women.
On Monday, Amy Smuts, a forensic scientist at the University of North
Texas, testified that DNA samples taken from Mr. Jessop, the young
woman and her baby showed Mr. Jessop was the likely father of the
child. She said there was a 99.9 percent probability Mr. Jessop had
fathered the child, who is now 4.
In addition, the state has introduced dozens of documents and
photographs seized from the ranch in April 2008 in an effort to prove
that Mr. Jessop was not legally married to the girl at the time and
that she was impregnated by him while they were living in Texas. Both
are necessary for the charge to be valid.
The defense, meanwhile, has fought to keep the jury from seeing any
evidence regarding Mr. Jessop’s polygamous lifestyle, arguing that it
is irrelevant to the charge of sexual assault.
Defense lawyers have also labored to cast doubt on the state’s genetic
expert, forcing Ms. Smuts to acknowledge that mistakes had been made
in the university’s laboratory in the past and that the laboratory did
not take into account the possibility that a relative of Mr. Jessop’s
might be the father.
Further, Mr. Jessop’s lawyers have raised questions in court about
whether the state can prove any assault even took place in Texas.
Mr. Jessop faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. He also faces
a separate charge of bigamy that has yet to go to trial. Four other
senior members of the sect, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints, face similar charges, chief among them Warren S.
Jeffs, the founder of the group.
Mr. Jeffs is jailed in Arizona awaiting trial on charges related to
arranging under-age marriages there. He was also arrested in Utah in
2006 and later convicted as an accomplice to rape.
The prosecutor, Assistant Attorney General Eric Nichols, said at a
hearing on Monday, with the jury in a separate room, that the girl had
been moved to the ranch from another state and placed in a “celestial
marriage” with Mr. Jessop in November 2003, when she was 15. In
previous court filings, prosecutors have said Mr. Jessop had nine
wives.
In all, 12 members of the church have been indicted since the Texas
authorities raided the Yearning for Zion ranch in April 2008, seized
hundreds of documents and took 439 children into state custody. The
raid turned into a disaster for state authorities when an appellate
court later ruled that the children should be returned to their
parents because the state had not proved they were endangered.
Still, documents seized in the raid are being used by the Texas
Attorney General’s Office in the trial of Mr. Jessop and the other
defendants.
The sect is a splinter group not recognized by the Mormon Church,
which renounced polygamy more than a century ago. Though the group has
its roots along the Arizona-Utah border, church members bought a ranch
outside Eldorado about six years ago.
The ranch had a clinic set up specifically as a birthing center for
the women on the ranch. A portrait of Mr. Jeffs, whom the members of
the group refer to as a prophet, can be seen hanging over the delivery
bed in photographs shown to the jury.
In a lengthy hearing on Tuesday without the jury present, Mr. Nichols
said the state intended to prove from documents kept by the church
that the 16-year-old girl underwent three days of difficult labor in
the clinic, but that Mr. Jeffs, in a dictated memorandum, ordered that
she not be taken to a hospital because social workers might question
her about her relationship with Mr. Jessop.
Mr. Jessop’s lawyer, Mark Stevens, argued that the document should not
be shown to the jury because it was unclear who the author was and
because it alleged misconduct that had nothing to do with sexual
assault. “It goes beyond the charge in the indictment,” Mr. Stevens
said. Judge Barbara Walther of State District Court overruled him.
The judge also said she would allow into evidence another memorandum,
supposedly dictated by Mr. Jeffs, that said the girl had previously
been assigned as a wife to Raymond Jessop’s brother Ernest M. Jessop
in November 2003. The memorandum suggested that the girl was
transferred to Raymond Jessop in August 2004, a year before she gave
birth.
Throughout the first week of the trial, Mr. Jessop has sat calmly at
the defense table in a white shirt and no tie, resting his chin on his
hand, with a genial expression, as the details of his private life are
discussed. He has not spoken to reporters.
http://www.truthandgrace.com/1890USAvsLDS0519.htm |
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