Warren Jeffs found guilty on two counts of sexual assault

[LSN80]

A jury in Texas found Mr. Jeffs guilty of sexual assault on both a twelve year old girl and a fifteen year old, and will deliberate on sentencing today. Jeffs, the leader of the the Fundamentalist sect of the Church of the Latter Day saints(The Mormons), was found guilty after only 3 and a half hours of deliberation.

5 days into the trial, Jeffs bizarrely fired his expensive and high-powered legal team, choosing to represent himself instead. He immediately asked for constitutional protection citing religious beliefs, which was immediately denied. His request for a continuance so he could further prepare his own defense was denied as well by judge Barbara Walthers, who stated the following:

"Allowing for further delays would be tantamount to manipulating the court.
Mr. Jeffs, the court is not going to recess these proceedings to let you go to law school"

Jeffs reasoned that he fired his attorneys in that despite he spent a large amount of time schooling them in his beliefs, he felt they were unable to present him with a pure defense. Jeffs further said the following:

"I feel this is an injustice being performed. Allowing the case to go forward means that true justice is unable to be served. Isn't that the the purpose of the court of law in a nation that professes true justice be served?"

Despite Jeffs attempts to hide behind religious freedom and rights, the evidence against him is very damning. Prosecutor Eric Nichols presented a photo of the then 12(now 14) year old girl with her arm around Jeffs, brandishing a marriage certificate that listed the girl's age at 12. photo of her with her arms around Jeffs, and a marriage certificate which listed the girl's age as 12 at the time. The prosecution also presented audio recording which showed Jeffs instructing the fourteen(now 15) year old girl on how to please him, noting that pleasing him the proper way would bring her "closer to God." The 14 year old girl was considered to be Jeffs "spiritual wife", and paternity tests showed Jeffs fathered a child with her when she was 15. After presenting this evidence, Nichols closed with this:

Do not be swayed by Jeffs' frequent invocations of religious freedom as a defense.This case has nothing to do with an attack on religion. Instead, it is about Jeffs and his actions.

The case grew even more bizarre when Jeffs failed to defend himself for the most part. He called no witnesses, took forever to answer simple questions from the judge, and did not object to any evidence or testimony from witnesses. During his closing arguments, Jeffs simply stared at the jury for 20 minutes silently, before utterring the words "I am at peace." The question raised by the media throughout the trial was if Jeffs was using the "Answer them nothing" defense, which is the same thing he instructed his 10,000 followers to do throughout the investigation. Jeffs created his own sect of the church due to the Mormons denouncing polygamy, and now claims over 10,000 followers, of which he continues to oversee from prison through blogs to them.

Regardless of his defense, or his "beliefs" surrounding his freedom of religion, the prosecutor hit the nail on the head. This has nothing to do with religion, beliefs, or faith. It has everything to do with using those things to coerce others into following him into his deviant lifestyle blindly, including those who were too young or naive to know better. The worst part is those who genuinely desired to please God, and were so convinced by Jeffs that this was the right way. The man deserves to rot, and gives other religious leaders who do hold to moral beliefs a bad name. Jeffs is a perfect(and deservedly so) "scapegoat" for people to point to whenever a religious leader is called into question for impropriety, whether right or wrong. However, that's just my opinion, what say you?


With Jeff's possibly sentencing to be between 5 years to life in prison for the assault on the 12 year old, and 2 to 20 years on the fifteen year old, what would you consider a just sentencing?

Is this case an indictment on only Jeffs, but also on his 10,000 followers who practice similarly to him as well?

With Jeffs still running his "church" from prison, is this a time the government should step in to stop this?

 

[#hamler]

I'm perfectly fine with Jeffs presenting himself as the savior, profit, jesus or whatever else you want to call him but when he brings a child into his belief the line needs to be drawn. There is no doubt in my mind Warren Jeffs hid behind the first amendment the entire time he was sleeping with these children. Yes, one does have freedom of religion in this country but at the same time you cannot break the laws that are there to protect the people and children. It's like saying my religion revolves around killing people - not ok. I do believe Jeffs and his followers should be allowed to practice polygamy if they please but you cannot hide behind the first amendment to sleep with children. Totally inexcusable.

 

[Dagger Dias]

He deserves life in prison because no matter how much he tries to hide behind his religious beliefs, he still broke the law by acting the way he did around someone who is too young to know any better. This is something that might haunt those kids forever. Let him sit there for life, thinking about what he did.

It is also an indictment on all of his followers due to them sharing his beliefs. They all obviously would have done the same thing. Now, the government cannot really do anything at the moment as far as "stopping" them. They have freedom of religion. What they can do however is keep people informed so that if any of his followers try to do anything similar then they can be brought to justice as well.

 

[Mustang Sally]

5 days into the trial, Jeffs bizarrely fired his expensive and high-powered legal team, choosing to represent himself instead.

Not so surprising; rich people are used to hiring high-powered legal representation.....because they can pay the exorbitant fees. For their money, they expect to be completely absolved of any wrongdoing in a court of law. Jeffs' lawyers probably told him that while they could get the charges reduced to almost nothing, he would still have to plead guilty to something in order to give the prosecutors a conviction on which a deal could be based.

If I were to guess, I'd say this was totally unacceptable to Jeffs, who was untroubled by the emotional and physical affliction he caused these two young girls; he figured a man of his wealth, stature and religious principles should surely walk free. Hallelujah!

So, he fired his team of lawyers. Not surprising at all.

 

[dude_d_dude]

Just the "I am at peace" thing shows you that this is a criminal who truly doesn't care.

But believe it or not, you've got to admire his boldness, the man is IN a courthouse facing everything and doesn't give 2 ass cracks. He's basically like "yeah so what?"
No half-ass apology or nothing, this guy just says what he feels.

I sure as hell hope he burns in hell for it, but at the same time you've got to be like "wow".

A just sentencing would be the maximum, if he doesn't give a shit then neither should we.

Until they find and prosecute ALL of his followers it's really only against him at this point, I'm glad they're taking these steps to try and intimidate any idiots trying to mimic him but there's WAY too many of them I'm sure to really say you've got them under control.

Legally I don't think the government can touch them until they do something illegal but I'd like to think they'll survey them or deploy something tactical to catch them in the act.

 

[LSN80]

Just the "I am at peace" thing shows you that this is a criminal who truly doesn't care.

Im not so sure about this, to be honest. I think somewhere, in this man's delusional mind, he sees nothing wrong with what he did. Sadly, he probably thought he was "serving God" through his actions. He's literally the definitio of a sociopath, someone who is at peace with their actions and believes they did the right thing.

But believe it or not, you've got to admire his boldness, the man is IN a courthouse facing everything and doesn't give 2 ass cracks. He's basically like "yeah so what?"
No half-ass apology or nothing, this guy just says what he feels.

I don't admire him, or his boldness, whatsoever. In his allotted 30 minute closing, these were the only words he said. Again, showing that he believes what he did was right. He fired his lawyers essentially because they didnt "get his faith", and felt the only way to truly get "justice" was to explain his "faith" from his perspective. Because surely the head of a religious organization can't be wrong, right?

Until they find and prosecute ALL of his followers it's really only against him at this point, I'm glad they're taking these steps to try and intimidate any idiots trying to mimic him but there's WAY too many of them I'm sure to really say you've got them under control.

Hes not the only one whose essentially in hot water. One of the things I forgot to include in the OP was that there was a raid on his compound, and they found evidence of wrongdoing by many of his followers. So the government seems to be doing their best to take steps to an end. An end that abolishes this "fundamentalist movement" altogether, I hope. Wishful thinking, I know.

Just as an update, the following happened during his sentencing hearing on Friday.

Warren Jeffs, A polygamist sect leader convicted of child sexual assault walked out of his sentencing hearing in protest Friday, after reading a statement he claimed was from God. The statement promised a "whirlwind of judgment" on the world if God's "humble servant" wasn't set free.

I mentioned in the OP that the prosecution planned on presenting "disturbing evidence" that had yet to be presented in trial in his sentencing case. These are things that cant truly be brought up in the trial itself, as they don't essentially relate to the specific charges. They can be used in sentencing hearings, however, because they show patterns of behavior and can be used by the prosecution to encourage jurors to "throw the book at him", if you will.Here's some of what the prosecution presented at the sentencing hearing.

Jurors were shown typed notes documented by Jeffs nephew from 2003 after a nephew of Jeffs testified that his uncle sodomized him when he was 5 years old. Brent Jeffs, now 28, said Warren Jeffs told him during the alleged assault that "this is God's work." Jeffs was never charged with sexually assaulting his nephew.

For starters, Jeffs had 78 wives along with his legal spouse, and 24 of them were under age 17, said Eric Nichols, lead prosecutor for the Texas Attorney General's office, which is handling the case. Nichols also said he would show that Jeffs committed six other sexual assaults and either witnessed or performed more than 500 polygamist marriages, as well as 67 other sect marriages involving underage girls.

I don't see a way this man doesn't get life in prison, and will be disgusted if he receives anything less. His sentencing hearing continues today, with the prosecution to present specific testimony from some of Jeffs former "wives."


Any additional thoughts on this case after seeing this new information?

Is there any chance whatsoever Jeffs avoids life in prison?