Church leader’s conviction challenged

SALT LAKE CITY -- Attorneys for polygamous church leader Warren Jeffs on Tuesday said his 2007 criminal conviction should be overturned because the case facts never fit the charges and that prosecutors were motivated by a desire to bring down an unpopular church.

Jeffs, head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was convicted of two counts of first-degree felony rape as an accomplice for his role in the arranged marriage of a 14-year-old follower, Elissa Wall, to her 19-year-old cousin, Allen Steed. The marriage in 2001 was not legal.

Prosecutors charged Steed with one count of rape the day after a jury convicted Jeffs in September 2007, but that case has not gone to trial.

"The state could have easily charged Mr. Jeffs with performing an illegal marriage. Instead, they decided to charge him with something called accomplice to rape. ... It doesn't fit the facts," defense attorney Walter Bugden said. "This is an unpopular religion, and the state decided to find a way to bring down this unpopular religious figure."

FLDS church members practice polygamy in arranged marriages. The illegal practice is a holdover from the early teachings of the Mormon church, which today excommunicates those who practice it.

Arguing before five Utah justices, Bugden said Washington County prosecutors mixed and matched the definitions of several legal concepts to hold Jeffs liable for a crime by stretching the law beyond its original intent.

It's unclear when the state's high court will rule in the case.

Wall voiced objections about the marriage to both her family and Rulon Jeffs, Warren Jeffs' father who was the church's prophet in 2001. During the trial, she testified that she went ahead with the marriage only after encouragement from her family and church leaders.

Wall has published a memoir, "Stolen Innocence," about her life leading up to the trial.

Warren Jeffs did not arrange the marriage but performed the couple's wedding ceremony at a motel in Caliente, despite knowing of the girl's objection, Assistant Utah Attorney General Laura Dupaix said Tuesday.

He later counseled the girl to be obedient and to give herself "mind, body and soul" to the marriage.

"Under Utah law, that makes Warren Jeffs an accomplice to rape," Assistant Utah Attorney General Laura Dupaix told the court Tuesday.

State law prevents a 14-year-old from consenting to sex with individuals who hold positions of special authority or trust.

As a leader of the FLDS church, Jeffs not only held such trust but controlled every aspect of life for Wall and other church members, Dupaix said.

Among the decisions Jeffs made for the girl was "when and whom she had to marry, and by virtue of that he decided when she was forbidden and when she was required to have sex," Dupaix said.