The difficulties of prosecuting a polygamist
Yesterday the Utah Supreme Court overturned the conviction of polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs on two counts of ‘rape as accomplice’ because of faulty juror instructions. The leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was convicted in 2007 for marrying 14-year-old Elissa Walls to her 19-year-old cousin, Allen Steed.
The justices unanimously ruled that the case must be retried because jurors were not instructed to find that Jeffs performed a marriage in which he knew there would be unwanted sex, even though Walls testified during the original trial that she objected to the marriage and to having sex with her future husband.
We speak with Jeff Robinson, news director at Salt Lake City’s KCPW, about the implications of the reversal of the Jeffs convictions and the complicated relationship between the state of Utah and its many polygamist sects.
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