The Stuff of Movies

This is the stuff of a good John Grisham novel.  A few months ago, Sim Gill, the Salt Lake County district attorney decided to file formal charges against former Utah Attorney General, Mark Shurtleff, and disgraced (former) Attorney General, John Swallow.  The charges, both felony and misdemeanor, were for various crimes:- accepting bribes, interfering with criminal investigations, and various other acts of corruption.  For a list of the charges go to this article.

I met Bishop Swallow once.  He seemed like a nice guy.  He said he came from polygamous stock and would never intentionally harm polygamists.  I guess it doesn't matter any more.  He's likely to go to prison.

Shurtleff is another proposition.  He has always seemed to me to be a bit imperious and self-serving.  You always want to assume the best of your political representatives (unless they are Harry Reid [a relative of mine] or Nancy Pelosi).  I guess when you are an ambitious Mormon attorney and politician, it is easy to get tempted into corruption.  Shurtleff has had his share of adversity - months in an Ilizarov frame, colon cancer, heart attacks, a troubled daughter, and more.  I wouldn't wish that on anyone, but I am wondering what the mystical meaning is in this grand story.

Shurtleff was the one who, in 2005, executed the takeover of the (FLDS's) UEP trust, handing over day-to-day control of the trust to his corrupt crony, Bruce Wisan.  Wisan has recently quit his law firm job and his role as UEP Trust fiduciary in the wake of his public shaming for getting caught with a prostitute and lying about it. 

This is the stuff of movies.  I would cast Russell Crowe and Alec Baldwin.

I think the irony of it is the hypocrisy - the fact that Shurtleff championed his holy war on the Fundamentalist Mormons (for their alleged criminality), shopping Utah's stupid anti-bigamy statute to Texas, feigning good will towards us, all the while thinking only of his own personal advancement and political career.  Now, as I predicted, Shurtleff's is the fate of Governor Pyle, only worse.  He is likely to go to prison, hopefully among the felons he put away.

One of Shurtleff's errands for the blue suits at 50 E. North Temple was to keep the polygamists under control.  Thankfully the Church has no use for him any more.

Shurtleff's and Swallow's successor, AG Sean Reyes, has a few more days left to announce whether he intends to appeal Judge Waddoups' recent final ruling in favor of the Kody Brown family and the voiding of Utah's bigamy statute's unenforceable anti-cohabitation clause.  Let's hope that Reyes has some political corruption skeletons in his closet so that he too can be shamed for making war on the saints.

The drama continues.

Wait, You Forgot Something !!

I don't know how we missed this. I mean - there's no mention of it in the Brown decision.  Everybody seems to have forgotten about it. 

A few years back, in his relentless campaign against our culture, Snortleff cooked up this cunning idea to target us further.  His battle cry was always about "the children" and the abuse he believed was rampant in our communities.  Well, he wasn't wrong about Warren Jeffs.  Warren Jeffs was having group sex with young tweens and teens. He should be killed.

Convictions of Tom Green and Rodney Holm demonstrated the State's ability to target adult polygamists, but their partners were (in some cases) minors. The "adult" bigamy statute (merely a third-degree felony) didn't give Sharkleff all the teeth he wanted.  He hit upon the idea of a "Child Bigamy" statute.  He convinced the Utah state legislature to go along with the plan.  With little resistance the bill passed, and it is now law.  Here is the language of the statute:


76-7-101.5. Child bigamy -- Penalty.
(1) An actor 18 years of age or older is guilty of child bigamy when, knowing he or she has a wife or husband, or knowing that a person under 18 years of age has a wife or husband, the actor carries out the following with the person who is under 18 years of age:
(a) purports to marry the person who is under 18 years of age; or
(b) cohabits with the person who is under 18 years of age.
(2) A violation of Subsection (1) is a second degree felony. 

I always had problems with this move.  The "adult" bigamy statute was broad and vague enough to ensnare any polygamist, but Sharkleff had to have more. 

The first problem is that the statute singles out a religious minority for disfavorable treatment.  Why? - because if a 20-year-old guy with a wife takes a 17-year-old as a second "wife", he will serve 15 years in prison, whereas if it's just a "girl-friend"(/adultery) situation, the law must look the other way.  What determines whether the guy walks free or does 15 years is his religion.  If he is a Fundamentalist Mormon, he's done for!

The second problem is that paragraph (b) would make me a second-degree felon if my family lived in Utah.  I "cohabit" with my kids who are minors. They live in my houses.  "Cohabit" is too vague and ill-defined.  You'd have to put half the state in prison.

The fourth problem is that, despite having opportunities to use the statute on some of Utah's truly bad polygamists, law enforcement never used it.

The fourth and BIGGEST problem is that Waddoups just struck down the "cohabits" language from Utah's (dumb) adult bigamy statute, so this one is therefore equally doomed.

Maybe it won't matter.  Maybe the voiding of one statute will result in the voiding of the other one(s) spawned by it.  We'll see.

76-7-101.5. Child bigamy -- Penalty.
(1) An actor 18 years of age or older is guilty of child bigamy when, knowing he or shehas a wife or husband, or knowing that a person under 18 years of age has a wife or husband, theactor carries out the following with the person who is under 18 years of age:
(a) purports to marry the person who is under 18 years of age; or
(b) cohabits with the person who is under 18 years of age.
(2) A violation of Subsection (1) is a second degree felony. - See more at: http://statutes.laws.com/utah/title-76/chapter-07/76-7-101-5#sthash.KkpWJRxE.dpuf

76-7-101.5. Child bigamy -- Penalty.
(1) An actor 18 years of age or older is guilty of child bigamy when, knowing he or shehas a wife or husband, or knowing that a person under 18 years of age has a wife or husband, theactor carries out the following with the person who is under 18 years of age:
(a) purports to marry the person who is under 18 years of age; or
(b) cohabits with the person who is under 18 years of age.
(2) A violation of Subsection (1) is a second degree felony. - See more at: http://statutes.laws.com/utah/title-76/chapter-07/76-7-101-5#sthash.KkpWJRxE.dpuf

76-7-101.5. Child bigamy -- Penalty.
(1) An actor 18 years of age or older is guilty of child bigamy when, knowing he or shehas a wife or husband, or knowing that a person under 18 years of age has a wife or husband, theactor carries out the following with the person who is under 18 years of age:
(a) purports to marry the person who is under 18 years of age; or
(b) cohabits with the person who is under 18 years of age.
(2) A violation of Subsection (1) is a second degree felony. - See more at: http://statutes.laws.com/utah/title-76/chapter-07/76-7-101-5#sthash.KkpWJRxE.dpuf

Here's The Thing: -

Here's the thing - -

The State of Utah has no attorney general right now.  The last two, Bishop Swallow and Shark Murtleff, are both being investigated by the feds for fraud and corruption. The latter made it his mission to exploit polygamists for political gain.  The former says he comes from polygamy and has nothing but warm feelings for its practitioners.  Either way, technically, their future successor is duty-bound to defend Utah's laws and appeal today's (12/13/13) ruling from the District Court striking down the cohabitation prong of Utah's idiotic bigamy statute.

But here's the thing - judge Waddoups' decision is so well reasoned and so constitutionally sound, that any appeal will be an uphill battle.  Since virtually none of the facts is in dispute, the only controversy is whether or not the language and execution of the bigamy statute are legally sound.

Waddoups voids the "cohabitation" prong as operationally unsound because by the nature of its enforcement it singles out a religious minority for disfavorable treatment (AND because it ignores the freedoms reiterated by the 2003 Lawrence decision).

More importantly, however, Waddoups takes his scalpel to the heart of Utah's polygamy foes by attacking the centerpiece of their arguments - compelling government interest.  Utah's bigamy statute defenders argue that the higher courts must not apply any heightened or strict scrutiny to the bigamy statute because it was framed under a clearly "rational" basis - namely the compelling state interest of protecting the institution of monogamous matrimony in Utah.  Aside from the fact that that argument is silly (does the fact that gay people walk Utah's streets injure the Judeo-Christian institution of holy matrimony?), Waddoups reminds us that since more than ONE of the Browns' constitutional liberties have been hurt, the review standard is driven by the "hybrid rights" doctrine developed in Employment Division v. Smith. Simply put, when both your 14th Amendment (due process) and 1st Amendment (free exercise) rights have been harmed, the level of scrutiny required of the appellate courts is now HEIGHTENED scrutiny.  Turley and Waddoups articulated no fewer than six constitutional harms inflicted upon the Browns by the statute and its enforcers. This means that the state can no longer cower behind the pathetic rational-basis argument about protecting traditional marriage at the expense of the Browns' freedoms.

Thus the court(s) has a duty to take a good hard look at the spirit and effect of the statute and to see if it survives constitutional analysis.  Kody Brown has four ladies.  He sleeps with all of them.  Many Utahns can be said to have done the same thing, just not calling their partners "wives".  Prosecuting Brown for using the wrong word violates his free speech liberties - not to mention his freedom of association and right to equal protection under the law.

Here's the thing - - I invite Utah's next AG to take a swing at the decision in the 10th Circuit.  Waddoups has covered every base in his 91 pages.  Any appeal has to draw on a strong legal argument refuting Waddoups and demonstrating the critical merits of criminalizing religious polygamists.  I submit that it cannot be done.  No self-respecting 10th Circuit jurist would dare disagree with one paragraph of Waddoups' ruling.

Think of it this way - - millions of Americans are deeply resentful of gay marriage.  Their religious sensitivities are mortified at its proliferation.  However, when you get right down to it, the anti-gay-marriage arguments are all groundless and emotional.  My favorite one is the one asserting that children do best when raised in a two (-gender) -parent home.  That makes a lot of sense.  The problem is that you cannot compel that.  If two lesbians are already raising a kid, it is unlikely that that kid's upbringing will deteriorate simply because the two mothers get a legal marriage certificate.  The argument falls apart.

Same thing with plural marriage.  Utah has had tens of thousands of polygs for 150 years.  Traditional monogamous matrimony cannot be demonstrated to have suffered as a result.  There is no rational way to argue that it has.  Perhaps monogamous marriage has suffered FAR MORE as a result of people getting divorced.  Yet the government makes no attempt to outlaw divorce.

So, I say to Gary Herbert and his prospective AG nominee, "Have at it!  Send Jerrold Jensen or Laura DuPaix to Denver to argue that polygamists hurt Utah by existing, and that they all need to go to prison.  See how far you get with that!"  The principal reason (and Waddoups observed this) why these arguments fall flat is because they are tendered in bad faith.  These AG lackeys have NO DESIRE to prosecute polygamists, they just want to wag the moralistic finger of LDS piousness to menace an unpopular minority.  Waddoups saw through it.

All the more delicious is the fact that Waddoups is a home-grown BYU graduate who finally saw through the hypocrisy and bigotry, and dared to buck the trend.  I almost wonder if he isn't going to get pulled in by his Stake President and threatened with disfellowshipment for making the LDS Church look (even more) like a fool.

See you in Denver, Laura.
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Off With Their Heads

I am still scratching my head over the FLDS implosion.  In 2005, the State of Utah seized the FLDS UEP trust and ran up millions in inflated fiduciary fees.  The Hooles assisted with the rewording of the UEP trust statement, hoping to plunder the trust for their own gain.  Warren told his followers to "Answer them nothing."  Young men were illegally detained and imprisoned in an Arizona prison, simply because they had no idea of Warren's whereabouts and could not disclose something they didn't know.

Warren was captured in 2007, but his conviction in a Utah court was overturned.

In 2008, 439 children were confiscated from the FLDS ranch in west Texas.  The feds knew at the time that Warren was molesting little girls.  The little kids were returned thanks to Julie Balovich, but Warren was later convicted by a Texas court, and should remain in his Texas prison until the next millennium.

Probably dozens of the young teen girls (now adults) still remain under FLDS house arrest.  Only God knows how they can regain a normal life in the wake of the destruction of their perverse, fairy-tale culture.

Fiduciary Bruce Wisan eventually had to get his filthy lucrative fees from the Utah legislature.  Mark Shurtleff, then the A.G. who targeted the FLDS, found himself at cross purposes with Judge Denise Lindberg, who would make a ruling in favor of the FLDS if her life depended on it.

Federal Judge Dee Benson demanded that the State return the UEP trust to its trustee (Warren Jeffs), but that got thwarted, too.

A wise man once told me that one can liken the UEP trust to an egg.  The egg was once fresh and whole and desirable.  Then somebody scrambled it and cooked it.  Then someone else came along and burned it.  Try as you might, you cannot return that egg to its shell, and put things back to how they were before.

Willie Jessop sued the FLDS church to recoup the money he loaned Warren to pay for all the lawyers who defended him.  Answering "them nothing", Warren watched Willie win the suit by default and earn a $20 million award.  Since then, Willie has gained control of the spectacular mansions built for Warren by his followers since his incarceration.  The porn theaters have been removed. 

After a period of time under the leadership of John Wayman, the control of the FLDS people has been handed back to Warren's brother, Lyle.  Warren and Lyle have bled virtually every penny out of the remaining faithful.  The number of faithful is dwindling steadily as they are systematically ejected from the fold because of any number of petty violations or heresies.  Families and children are abandoned, then jumbled up at Warren's whim.  Warren is now certifiably insane, so one has to wonder why Lyle complies with every directive.  Perhaps it is because he likes not working and living for free off other people's labors.  No one has been allowed to marry since 2006, and rumors abound now that a select group of men has been selected to play the role of community impregnators.  One thing is for sure - hundreds of families have been ripped to shreds, and some exiles are still trying to gain back the infant children they handed over to the church police while they were still sucked in by Warren.

This is turning out to be one of the worst humanitarian disasters since the days of Stalin.  It is a true tar baby for the State.  The State may have had a vision of some sort to rehabilitate the twin towns, but it didn't come about.  My sense is that the degree of indoctrination in the FLDS was so extreme, that many of the excommuniqués barely understand what has happened to them.  Would you feel guilty if you had been born into an oppressive cult, and had surrendered your free agency to a lunatic, just because your church's theology so dictated?  Would it be your fault, or just the fault of the lunatic and his cronies?

I wrote a blogpost in 2011 - Critical Mass - in which I pondered the eventual dissolution of the community.  I guess we are there now.  If we accept the premise of a pre-existence, we allow that all of the participants in this adventure consented to come to earth at this time and be tested by it.  For us outsiders, our duty is to provide whatever kindness and support is desired by those who have become victims of the nightmare.  I hope that we remember that it was NOT POLYGAMY that caused all this.  It was stupid humans doing cruel, selfish stuff.  That's the lesson.

Disingenuousness

Those of you who read my hyperbolic posts must by now be somewhat numb to my ranting and pontificating.  I don't want to be a windbag or a broken record, but I have to follow up my last post with another indictment of Utah's Attorney General's office.

I went back and re-read Jeryold Jensen's cringing reply in the Kody Brown bigamy statute challenge, and I noted that he quoted liberally from the book God's Brothel by Andrea Moore Emmett (a rabid anti-Mormon).  Moore-Emmett trots out the trumped-up sob-sob stories of her harpie Tapestry cronies.  Deputy AG, Jeryold Jensen, dredges the litany of exaggerated horribles in his reply to the court . . . . . Polygamy hurts women . . . . Polygamy hurts children . . . . . Polygamy brought down the Twin Towers . . . .  on and on and on.

You know, Jerry, if polygamy and its practitioners are truly that despicable, and you are so hell-bent on proving the constitutionality of the bigamy statute, why won't you prosecute polygamists?  You had David Kingston for unlawful sex with a minor.  You had John Daniel Kingston for allegedly roughing up his daughter.  You had Jeremy Kingston for marrying his aunt.  You had Addam Swapp for bombing a church building.  Every one of them was assumed to have two or more wives.  You prosecuted none of them for bigamy.  What's more, you had Warren Jeffs!  You had pictures of him with DOZENS of wives.  Oops, wait - - -  nobody thought of charging him with bigamy.  Is it because you know that your stupid statute is UNCONSTITUTIONAL ???!!!!!

I saw a banner at a polygamy rally once which read:

"LAWRENCE TRUMPS REYNOLDS - ARREST US OR SHUT UP !!!".

No kidding!  Utah will soon watch its departing AG slither into oblivion, and be replaced by Mormon bishop, John Swallow.  Will Swallow swallow his Church pride and usher in a new era of liberty and oversee the end of the discrimination against Utah's most traditional families?

Based on the signals being given off by Judge Waddoups, I believe he will allow the evidentiary hearing to proceed, AND he will rule that the Browns have been harmed and that the bigamy statute violates the U.S. Constitution.  Then what?  Swallow's role will require him to appeal the district court's ruling to the 10th Circuit in Denver.  If that is unsuccessful, he will have to hope for help from the U.S. Supreme Court - the court that wrote the Lawrence decision (6 to 3) decriminalizing ALL adult intimacy.

On the other hand, he could save the State millions of dollars in legal fees and embarrassment simply by getting the legislature to remove the offending words in the bigamy statute - or would that be too easy?  You decide.

Topsy-Turvy

I have made this point before in my post: "THOUGHT vs. DEED".  Jerryold Jensen's motion and recent reply in the Kody Brown case seeking a ruling on the constitutionality of Utah's farcical bigamy statute prompted me to make it once again.

The First Amendment forbids government to burden Americans' exercise of their religious beliefs. The Reynolds court came along and eviscerated this liberty.  It said that states could itemize a list of religious activities which can be believed in but NOT practiced.  Thus, Utah (and some neighboring states) could include polygamy as a conduct which could be criminalized.

So, in the wake of Reynolds, you could believe in polygamy to your heart's content (as Mormons do), but you could not practice it.  The thoughts were just fine - the ACTIONS were not.

So, there are tens of thousands of Fundamentalist Mormons in the Intermountain West who eagerly embrace plural marriage in their minds.  Utah residents who proceed to take a plural wife are presumptive felons (although the current Attorney General's office insists on NOT prosecuting them).

The prohibited actions (contemplated in Reynolds) occur when a man is married to one person and goes to bed with a different person (male or female).  That makes you a felony bigamist.  The 2003 Lawrence decision overruled that legislation, otherwise tens of thousands of Utahns would be in prison now for bigamy.  So they can't prosecute the SEX.  They have to rely on the other prong of the bigamy statute - the "purport" prong.  You are guilty of bigamy if you are married to one person, and assert (believe) that you are married to another.  Kody Brown has ONE legal wife.  He THINKS of the other three ladies as "wives" in a religious sense, but the State has already said that having additional spouses is legally VOID and impossible.  Legally, the other three women are girl-friends, mistresses, or just partners in an affair.  So, Brown can call them "wives", but wives they are not.

As Jerryold Jensen points out in his reply, Kody's sexual activities with the various ladies are utterly shielded by Lawrence.  It is the fact that Brown THINKS of them as "wives" that makes him a felon.

So now we have the unintended consequences of the Reynolds insanity.  We have a state that REFUSES to prosecute the prohibited exercise (actions) of the believers, while it insists on criminalizing  . . . . . . . . . . . .

THEIR THOUGHTS !!!!!!!!!!

Wait though!  It criminalizes their lifestyle (existence and mindset) as did Bowers to homosexuals (until 2003), but the chief Mormon law enforcement officers of the state dare not prosecute it now for fear that someone like Kody Brown will come along and TEST the statute in the courts.  The Church wrote the statute.  Is it not the Church now who is frantically trying to salvage it?  I wouldn't be surprised if those Lehi Keystone Kops have already been excommunicated for the biggest tactical blunder in modern Church history.

Topsy-Turvy.

The following YouTube video is a Monty Python skit about church police.  Skip to 00.36.

When Kody Comes Home

Today it was reported by the Associated Press that Jeff Buhman, the Utah County prosecutor has FINALLY made up his mind what to do about the Browns' bigamy case.  He has completed his "investigation".  He has decided that, though guilty of bigamy, the Browns will not be charged, and that his policy (like that of the Attorney General) will be to prosecute bigamy only when there is a "victim" or fraud.

So what now? Do we all sigh a big sigh of relief?

Buhman is asking that Kody Brown's civil rights lawsuit against him be dropped because, now that the county's policy is to not prosecute polygamists, the case is "moot".  This is ridiculous.  It's much like saying, "I'm not hitting you any more, so you shouldn't complain about my hitting you."  One element of 'standing' in a Constitutional challenge is that the parties need to have been harmed or threatened with harm.  Clearly the Browns felt sufficiently threatened that they relocated to Sin City.  The judge (Waddoups) agrees.

The other silliness in this situation is that, however sincere Buhman is in his determination not to prosecute Kody and the four wives, the stupid bigamy statute is still firmly in place and still threatens most Utah families.

OKAY !!! - you and I both know that these idiots are smart enough to absolutely never use this lame statute on consenting adult polygamists, because that would do exactly what Jonathan Turley is doing right now - it would create a watertight test case to challenge the statute on the basis of Lawrence v. Texas (June 2003). The Church dreads this. When the Lawrence decision thoroughly decriminalized gay sex ("sodomy"), Utah did not instantly repeal its sodomy statutes, yet they are VOID nonetheless.  Well, the language of  Lawrence did not confine itself solely to homosexuality - it in fact decriminalized ALL consensual adult intimacies.  This (as Snortleff so eloquently argued in his Amicus brief in Lawrence) reaches all such conduct and inevitably VOIDS Utah's anti-polygamy codes.

Truth is, in spite of Lawrence, Sharkleff and Buhman have for a very long time preferred to "menace" the Browns and their fellow polygamists with the specter of prosecution.  If you are always flinching and cringing under the threat of incarceration, maybe you'll cloister yourself away somewhere in a dark, isolated corner of the state and keep your mouth relatively shut. As a stigmatized, marginalized minority, you can be more easily trampled on, and all the supercilious, pious Church-folk can go to bed at night peacefully knowing that those filthy polygs are second-class citizens - outlaws - lepers - nothing like our brave polygamous pioneer ancestors.

So here's the problem - if the Browns take Buhman at face value, they could perhaps venture back across the state line and resume residence in Lehi, reassured that arrests are now not imminent.  How does this protect them however from the prosecutors in the other counties they might visit?  Two other county prosecutors have charged polygamists in recent years. You get my point.

Let's cut through the fluff.  If no self-respecting prosecutor (besides Sean Reyes) will seriously pursue consenting adult polygamists, why is it SO DOGGONED important to keep that dumb, utterly-unenforceable bigamy statute in force?

Because the Church DREADS this one simple question:

Elder Soandso, now that polygamy is no longer a crime in the United States, will the Church resume its once suspended solemnization of plural marriages and stop excommunicating members who embrace it?

The Horns of a Dilemma

The following is excerpted from an article by Emiley Morgan (of Utah's Deseret News).  Writing about Federal Judge Waddoups' ruling yesterday, she reports:

 ------------

'He [the judge] wrote that [Utah County prosecutor] Buhman conducted interviews with the Deseret News, The Salt Lake Tribune and People magazine where he made it clear that he intended to investigate and prosecute the Browns. "The fact that no charges have, in fact, been filed, does not matter," Waddoups wrote.

"The entirety of actions by the Utah County prosecutors tend to show either an ill-conceived public-relations campaign to showboat their own authority and/or harass the Browns and the polygamist community at large, or to assure the public that they intended to carry out their public obligations and prosecute violations of the law," the judge wrote. "Without any evidence to the contrary, the court assumes that these are consummate professionals making announcements of criminal investigations to apprise the public that they are doing their duty and seeking to enforce the law."'

 -------------

In the case before the Federal District Court, Utah's Attorney General argued that the Brown family could not claim standing (to wit - they have had not been harmed or threatened with harm) sufficient to warrant the case being heard.  Judge Waddoups disagreed.  This is historic, folks.  Now the federal courts MUST consider whether Utah's bigamy statute (and the Reynolds decision on which it relies) should be struck down as being unconstitutional.

Snarklips must be stewing still over the Utah County prosecutor's (Jeff Buhman's) blunder.  I love this!!!  Buhman said he was (and still is) investigating the Browns for felony bigamy.  What is there to investigate?  The law makes anyone with more than one bed-partner a bigamist and a felon.  The Sister Wives show is all the evidence he needs.  But now he finds himself in a pickle.  Here are his options:

1.  Insist that the bigamy investigation is still continuing, thus giving the Browns all the ammunition they need in order to prove that they must continue to fret under the specter of the threat of prosecution and incarceration. . . . . . . . .  OR he can - - -

2.  Announce that the investigation is now concluded because he lacks sufficient evidence to prove that Kody Brown is a polygamist (or announce that Utah County has elected to disregard Utah's felony bigamy statutes and will no longer prosecute even blatantly public polygamists like the Browns).

If Buhman takes option #1, the Browns' claim of harm and standing wherewith to challenge Reynolds is reinforced all the more.  If Buhman takes option #2, he further bolsters the Browns' argument that a law which neither the state nor the counties will ever prosecute must be repealed.

Now that Snarklips and Herbert have been let off the hook, they can point the political finger of blame squarely at Buhman - let him go down in history as the dimwit who got polygamy decriminalized.

Polygamist Doctor Escapes Prosecution

SPECIAL REPORT

Chief Court Reporter, Renn Oldsbuster
November 9, 2011

Famed doctor, Conrad Murray, has escaped prosecution and conviction for his crime of polygamy.  Murray, who was found guilty yesterday of involuntary manslaughter in the death of king-of-pop, Michael Jackson, has evaded incarceration for his polygamous lifestyle.  Unlike Utah, where polygamy is considered an aggravation - an "enhancement" to other crimes (committed by Fundamentalist Mormons), California has chosen to turn a blind eye to what, in this case, was probably a more serious violation of the law ( - - see Murray below, along with three of his wives in happier times).

Dr. Murray allegedly had children from a number of these plural wives, but it is not clear whether the women in this polygamous family have gotten along smoothly. 

This complete disregard of the blatant crime of felony bigamy is part of a disturbing trend in recent years in America.  Hugh Hefner, perhaps America's most notorious polygamist, has never been charged.  Tiger Woods' polygamy was utterly ignored by Florida's Attorney General.  Charlie Sheen, an inveterate and flagrant polygamist, has evaded prosecution for years.  Warren Jeffs, a virtually unknown polygamist from Utah, has not been convicted of religious bigamy, even though he is reputed to have taken over four thousand wives (mostly between the ages of 4 and 12).

Of special note recently, the Kody Brown family of Lehi, Utah; and Las Vegas, Nevada, has flaunted its egregious polygamy in nationally-broadcast, videotaped confessions.  He has 17 children and four wives, and Utah's Attorney General, Mork Shortlift, has adamantly refused to enforce the law he has spent his entire career aggressively defending.

All fifty states have some sort of anti-bigamy statute, although it appears that all of them have lost the stomach for putting America's millions of casual and religious bigamists in prison.

This legal ambivalence is not confined solely to the prosecution of the crime of religious polygamy.  In recent months, monogamous President Balack Obama has instructed the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division to stop deporting illegal aliens and has directed the Justice Department to sue the states of Arizona and Alabama for attempting to enforce immigration laws.

??????????????

-------------------

Make Up Your Mind

I am including the full text of an AP article below because it is indicative of the insanity of the State of Utah.  Attorney Jonathan Turley recently filed a lawsuit against the State of Utah, challenging its idiotic bigamy statute, on behalf of the Kody Brown family.  Utah's Attorney General is arguing that the Brown family lacks the necessary standing to challenge the law.  The assertion is that the Browns have not been sufficiently "harmed" to claim justifiable standing.

It's all fine and dandy for the AG to support an ongoing criminal investigation, then say that charges will not necessarily be forthcoming, but he has to eventually make up his fricking mind.

If the Utah county prosecutor proceeds to arrest the Brown family, the Browns will then have the harm/standing they need to challenge the law.  Buhman will likely not do that, because neither Shurtleff nor his Church wants Reynolds overturned.

If the AG insists that there is ZERO possibility that the Browns will ever be arrested for consenting adult polygamy (protected under Lawrence), then he is in effect saying that Utah's stupid bigamy statute is unenforceable and that he never intends to apply it.

I'm no legal scholar, but it seems to me that, if a law is utterly eviscerated and effectively dead, then someone - namely someone who is still menaced by it - ought to be able to step up and demand that the courts or the legislature repeal it, permanently.

The double-talk coming out of assistant A.G. Jerrold Jensen's mouth is stunning.  He says that no mere consenting adult polygamists have been arrested for more than 50 years.  READ MY LIPS - this is a LIE !!!!!!!!!  Mark Easterday (of Monroe, Utah) was arrested in 1999 for practicing polygamy with his wife, Pepper, and his girl-friend Marian.  He pleaded the charge down to adultery and paid a $500.00 fine.  Since that time, someone has gone into the court records in that county and changed the documents to reflect that Easterday was originally charged with adultery.  This is fraud.

I expect that the Federal court will look dimly on Utah's lack-of-standing argument.  There has been enough saber-rattling in the last year to frighten any family into exile, let alone a family with four wives and a TV show.

Anyway, I don't care.  Utah has now painted itself into an exquisite and impossible corner.  It is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't.  What's more, I just got wind of another consenting adult polygamist family which is going to storm into the spotlight next week.  Sooner or later, Snotlick is going to have to make up his mother-loving mind and grow a backbone.  Listen - there are tens of thousands of polygs in Arizona and Utah.  Make up your mind - arrest us or shut up.  You simply cannot have it both ways.  If you think this legal ambivalence is trivial, think about it this way - - - - -

I, Renn Oldsbuster, hereby challenge the Attorney General AND the Utah legislature to pick one of the following two statements and then publish it in the newspaper and online:

A.  "Utah's bigamy statute squarely applies to informal religious relationships between consenting adults, and we intend to pursue the prosecution of all Utahns found to be involved in such relationships."

OR ---

B.  "We admit that the purport and cohabit prongs of Utah's bigamy statute constitute impermissible targeting of a religious minority, therefore we publicly proclaim our repudiation of this statutory language, and promise all consenting adult polygamists that, even if the law stays on the books, we will NEVER apply it to them.  We also encourage the legislature to change the statute to criminalize only those parties who fraudulently obtain more than one legal marriage license."

Pick one, SNOTLICK!

Further evidence of the AG's broken memory is the fact that Judge Walter Steed was removed from his judgeship because he has three partners.  If the anti-bigamy statute will not be used to target polygamists, why does the AG use it to target them?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Sept. 6, 2011 — 
State attorneys say a federal court challenge to Utah's bigamy law by the "Sister Wives" cable TV show family should be dismissed because they can't prove they've been threatened with arrest or prosecution.

Polygamist Kody Brown and his four wives — Meri, Janelle, Christine, and Robyn — filed their lawsuit in Salt Lake City's U.S. District Court in July. A criminal investigation of the family began after the launch of their TLC reality show in fall 2010.

No charges have been filed by either the state of Utah or prosecutors in Utah County, where the family, which includes 16 children, lived. The family moved to Nevada in January and contends they were forced to leave Utah in order to avoid prosecution.

But in court papers filed Sept. 1, the attorney general's office argues that criminal charges aren't necessarily forthcoming.

"They have not been warned that if they do not cease to engage in their polygamous relationships that legal actions will be taken against them," Assistant Utah Attorney General Jerrold S. Jensen wrote. "And — what is probably the tipping point — there have been no arrests or prosecutions for the mere practice of polygamy in Utah in over 50 years."

Court papers say the policy of the Utah attorney general's office is only to prosecute polygamists for bigamy when it occurs in conjunction with other crimes.

In a statement provided by e-mail, the Brown's attorney, Jonathan Turley, said the state's motion for a dismissal is an effort to avoid scrutiny of an unconstitutional law.

"Under this extreme position, state officials can criminalize any private relationship while denying the right of citizens to challenge the law, even when those citizens are denounced as presumptive felons by prosecutors in the media," Turley, a professor at George Washington University in Washington D.C. "We will vigorously oppose the effort to close the door of the courthouse to this family."

Under Utah law, it is illegal for unmarried persons to cohabitate, or "purport" to be married. A person is also guilty of bigamy if they hold multiple legal marriage licenses.

The third-degree felony is punishable by up to five years in state prison. Both men and women can be prosecuted under the law, which also applies to unmarried, monogamous couples that live together.

The Brown's lawsuit asks a federal judge to declare the law unconstitutional.

Appellate court records shows that only three bigamy cases have been prosecuted in Utah since 1960, the state said in its court filing. All three cases involved crimes other than bigamy, including fraud, criminal non-support of spouses and children and sexual assault of a minor.

Utah County has no stated policy on prosecuting polygamy, but historically has a similar practice, Jeffrey Buhman, the county attorney states in affidavit filed with the court.

Buhman has said his office's investigation is ongoing and no decision about whether or not to prosecute the Browns has ever been announced.

Early Mormon settlers brought polygamy to Utah in the 1840s. Leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints abandoned the practice in 1890 however, as Utah moved toward statehood.

The Browns belong to the Apostolic United Brethren, one of handful of self-described Mormon fundamentalist churches that continue the practice as part of their faith.

The polygamy advocacy group Principle Voices estimates there are about 40,000 fundamentalists who practice or believe in polygamy living in Utah and other western states.

Like most polygamists in Utah, Brown is legally married only to his first wife, Meri. He subsequently "wed" Janelle, Christine and Robyn only in religious ceremonies and the couples consider themselves "spiritually married."

Turley has said the focus of the family's lawsuit is really privacy, not polygamy. The Browns are not challenging Utah's right to refuse to recognize plural marriage nor are they seeking multiple marriage licenses.

"What they are asking for is the right to structure their own lives, their own family, according to their faith and their beliefs," he said at a news conference outside the federal courthouse two months ago.

Two Policies

I find it ironic that we have two states, Texas and Utah, who have diametrically dissimilar approaches to fantasy polygabigamy prosecutions.

In recent TV reports, we have heard that Warren Jeffs participated in "spiritual marriages".  If these marriages were "spiritual", then how does the state have any power over them?  Granted, if minors and sex were involved, then a prosecution should (and did) ensue.  Nevertheless, Texas is pushing forward with "bigamy" charges for several men, including Jeffs.

Mark Shurtleff recently stated that, in his response to Jonathan Turley's challenge of Utah's (nutty) bigamy statute, he will argue that Kody Brown doesn't have standing to bring suit because he and his family were never charged or harmed (just threatened [to the point of flight] by endless prosecutorial saber-rattling).

Meanwhile Shurtleff's less reticent Texas counterpart, Greg Abbott, has no qualms about charging consenting adults (like Wendell Nielsen and his life-partners) with violating adult sex guidelines (!!!).  Abbott must be one of the few AGs who were sleeping under a rock when the Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas.  

This will be a fascinating time.  I wonder if Jonathan Turley will now go to Texas and take up the cause of Wendell Nielsen - to prove his commitment to illustrating the absurdity of post-Lawrence morality statutes and prosecutions - in more than one state.

Again, now that Texas is eating Jeffs for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I wonder if the Mo' Church will reach out to Texas prosecutors and IMPLORE them to drop the remaining, looney bigamy prosecutions (in order to preserve its treasured Reynolds decision).

Irony of Ironies

Simpson

Lintbag

General Authority

Stake President

An article today in Utah's Salt Lake Tribune reported that Judge Diseased Lintbag just ordered Shark Murtleff to pay Brutal Wisass's trumped up ($5 million) in fiduciary (ripoff racket) fees.  There are too many ironies in all of this for me to capture all at once.

Perhaps the biggest irony is that these three characters are all establishment Mormons - I mean - the kind of Mormons for whom Church membership is a badge, a trophy, a lubricant, a passport, a club membership card, an indulgence, a free pass, a mask,  - - - you know what I mean.  One thing it is not is a guarantee of purity.

They are locked in a bitter struggle despite their unstinting allegiance to the mother Church.  Clearly, Lintbag is in Wisass's corner.  She has NEVER NOT ruled in his favor.  She is his advocate.  She must almost be hoping for a cut of the ill-gotten gains. She desperately wanted to sell UEP property chunks to raise money for Wisass's commissions. Now that it looks like there is little chance of getting blood out of the UEP stone, Lintbag has decided to mine slightly deeper pockets - the Utah A.G.'s.  She now finds herself in Dee Benson's corner.  Perhaps Lintbag's campaign against the FLDS and the federal judge must take a back seat to the need to secure cash for Wisass.

The FLDS and Shurtleff made repeated good-faith efforts to arrive at a settlement agreement, but Lintbag refused at every turn, effectively causing Wisass's fraud meter to keep on running.  The only conclusion I can make is that Lintbag spent so much time at Happy Valley U, that her brain went permanently soft.

As I have said before, just because the leader of the FLDS community has long been devolving in a pathetic public disintegration, is that justification to persecute an entire community???  Lintbag and Barbie must have taken Hubris 101 together.  Governor Pyle could have taught them a thing or two about tar babies.

Several Cases Like This

The spokesperson for the Utah Attorney General's office, Paul Murphy, was interviewed today regarding Jonathan Turley's (VERY ENTERTAINING) lawsuit on behalf of the Kody Brown family.  Murphy was heard to say approximately the following:

"There have been several cases like this brought before the courts in Utah, and the courts have consistently ruled that the State has the right to regulate marriage and to ban bigamy.  The only thing different about this case is that the plaintiffs are on TV."

My gosh, Murphy must be almost as confused as his boss, Shurtleff, who opined yesterday that Turley's lawsuit is a mere P.R. "stunt" designed to promote the TLC series.

First - publicity stunt or not, this case profoundly impacts the lives of 38,000 fundamentalist Mormons (many of whose lives have been ruined by decades of cruel anti-polygamy crusades) and of tens of thousands of non-"Mormon" polygamists.  Turley has said that he will pursue this cause for as long as it takes (and pro bono by the way).  There are likely several other attorneys who are equally dedicated and who have devoted their lives to this cause. Snortleff can scoff at this effort, but his scoffing will have to end at some point.

Secondly, the court cases which preceded this one are (list not exhaustive):

     Potter v. Murray City
     State v. Green
     State v. Holm
     Bronson v. Swensen

Potter should have won. The court said that, as long as the people of the state of Utah were content to leave the Irrevocable (anti-polygamy) clause in the state constitution (despite its unconstitutionality), Potter's plural relationships could be criminalized.  If this case had occurred after Lawrence, Roy Potter would still be a police officer.

In State v. Green, Tom Green had the disadvantage of an attorney who briefed the case somewhat insufficiently, and Green had impregnated a 13-year-old.  The subsequent Holm case was stronger, but Holm had a wife who was 16.  The state told the Supreme Court that it should not take the Holm case because Utah categorically does not prosecute consenting adult polygamists (a LIE because Utah prosecuted Mark Easterday in 1999).  If Utah does not prosecute consenting adults, why then does Shurtleff not terminate the criminal bigamy investigation of the Browns ??? - (because that would be an admission that the stupid bigamy statute is unenforceable and needs to be repealed).  Utah charged Holm with ADULT BIGAMY (there was no child bigamy law at the time of his arrest).  Utah's supreme court chief justice, Christine Durham argued vigorously that Holm should be acquitted.

The Bronson v. Swensen case involved no criminal defendants.  It was a federal lawsuit challenging Utah's refusal to grant a polygamous trio a second marriage license. The case filed today has little in common with these other cases aside from the fact that each complained bitterly that Utah must stop persecuting an unpopular minority culture.  If these cases are all just a same-song broken record, then the message to us must be - "This is Utah, don't look for constitutional protections here!"  The case filed today is the culmination of generations of preceding pleadings.  The case today is the natural descendant of Griswold, Eisenstadt, Roe, Yoder, Lukumi, Romer, and Lawrence.  This case has no defects.  The plaintiffs cannot be painted with traditional anti-polygamy generalizations. If it were not to be the Browns, there would be dozens of other suitable, willing families. The only flaw in this case is that Murphy, DuPaix, Shurtleff, Herbert and Monson don't want it to succeed, so they are already spouting the deflecting smoke-screen stuff.

Thirdly, Utah DOES have the authority to "regulate" marriage.  It just does not have the authority to regulate any more of the Brown family's marriage than that contracted by Kody and Meri.  It may not regulate whether Kody may kiss Christine or hug Janelle or make a new baby with Robyn.  That would be an overreaching of authority (one of Snortliff's favorite pastimes).

Fourthly, Utah DOES have the authority to ban bigamy (all states do).  Kody Brown does not commit bigamy.  He only has one wife.  The other three ladies are life-partners.  Kody pretends that they are wives (and so do they).  They even use the term "wife".  To outlaw the family's use of the word, "wife", would be a gross violation of the free speech clause of the First Amendment.  A state supreme court ruled last month that governments may not prohibit (even) the (public) utterance of specific words.

The long-awaited day has finally arrived when we can have an intelligent dialogue (in a U.S. court) about this last great civil-rights battle.  I encourage you public officials to get on the right side of it, lest you risk appearing like bigots, desperately defending a pathetic, 19th-century relic of early American barbarism.

Plus, Mr.(short-memory) Murphy, Tom Green was all over the TV.

Think before you spokes-speak next time!

The First Salvo

Kody Brown

Jonathan Turley

Not too many months ago, the Kody Brown polygamous family came out very publicly on the TLC cable channel with the first season of the Sister Wives series.  Before too many suns set, the local Kops started a felony bigamy investigation (DUHH !!).  I always wondered why the Browns (with their top-flight George Washington law school attorney, Jonathan Turley) did not simply fire the first salvo.  The Browns faced a choice - either tremble endlessly while waiting for Lehi police to show up with four or five sets of handcuffs - or file a federal civil rights lawsuit against the pretty, great State of Utah for violating their freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of association - not to mention trampling on every 14th Amendment privilege enshrined in the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision (decriminalizing all adult consensual sex).

You cannot go before the higher courts with a complaint unless you have suffered harm.  The bozo cops and county attorneys provided the requisite "harm" by threatening the family with potential prosecution.  The Browns were in a perfect position to challenge the Reynolds decision and Utah's stupid Church/State-sponsored polygabigamy statute.

With the Browns' inaction, I guess I assumed that another more enterprising family might step up and brave the limelight and scrutiny, falling on the sword for the rest of us 39,000 criminal plygs.

But NO!  Tonight the news emerged that the Browns are making their case this Wednesday in federal court.  Oh happy day!  Frankly, it matters not who does it.  I am just glad that someone finally has the courage to step forward and say, "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH !!!"  I wonder if Dee Benson will win this dice roll.  Turley would be smart to bone up on the vast body of pleadings already filed in the British Columbia reference case.

The Supreme Court punted the State v. Holm case, even though Rodney Holm's prosecution was for ADULT - not CHILD - bigamy.  However, Holm's third "wife" was 16.  The Supremes were most likely loathe to hand him and Christine Durham a victory.  Kody Brown has not married or slept with any minors, and, despite his much criticized hairdo, he has scant little dirty laundry to fuss over.

I can hear it now -

KODY:  "My family and I are afraid because of the constant saber-rattling from law-enforcement and the specter of prosecution."

SHURTLEFF;  "We will definitely prosecute any polygamy case where we have enough evidence . . . . . wait, . . . .  uh, no we won't, I mean yes we will, will we? Oh crap! Forget everything I said."

My gosh, if this court challenge proves successful, li'l ol' Renn will be able to shut this ranting blog down and ride off into the Maricopa sunset.

Perhaps the buzz surrounding this inevitably monumental court case will inject some new life into next season's Sister Wives storyline.

GO KODY !!!!!!!

Head Scratch

He's cuter than she is !!!

I'm still scratching my head.  I heard a news reporter last night pose the question of whether, in the history of our nation, two different sovereign courts have ever gotten into such a tussle as the one currently escalating between the Utah district court (Pousse Lintbag) and federal district court (Dee Benson).

Today, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay on Judge Benson's order to return FLDS documents (at least until it can be briefed on the controversy).  I told you - polygamy gets people all lathered up. If this thing gets any more crazy, I think the world could split in two.  Actually, worse than that, the FLDS might not get their trust back.

The court wants more hearings and who knows if the attorneys are getting paid? Brutal Wisass is about to be disqualified as an evil trespasser, and, worse still, the internal squabble over FLDS leadership threatens to derail the return of the trust to its rightful owners - the FLDS people.

Looking at the big picture, I seriously doubt that Shortlaff and crew want to keep their fingers in the UEP Trust pie for very long. It has brought them nothing but expense, frustration and humiliation.  Maybe some people just want to see it destroyed - wiped off the map.

I think it's time for the parties involved who are stupid, wrong, selfish or evil to back off and realize that the community was created by decent, honorable people, so it should only be controlled by decent, honorable people, and not by liars, plunderers or outsiders who care more for themselves than for the welfare of the people.

However, as I scratch my head, I think of the feud that lasted years in Northern Ireland between virtual kinfolk - the Irish Protestants and Catholics.  They bombed and murdered each other until the children could no longer remember what the original argument was about, or who hit whom first.  I wonder - does it need to get that bad?  Do these kinds of battles help the participants to show their true colors and their true nature?  Did we come to earth (or to the Rocky Mountains) to show God whose side we are on (as evidenced by the way we treat our fellow man [or woman])?

I believe this war has been about religion and authority - whether Monson or Jeffs or Wisan or someone else is the true holder of the keys of leadership in the restored church.  Do we truly want to come to blows over a theological nuance (or has it been about money and control all along)?

Not Messing Around

He's not messing around!  Yesterday, Judge Dee Benson followed through on his promise to give the UEP trust back to the FLDS.  He accepted the settlement compromises negotiated by the Utah Attorney General's office, and removed Brutal Wisass as manager of the trust, requiring him to turn over all pertinent documentation.  Read the AP article.

The FLDS have agreed to comply with the stipulations (not to kick out the ex-members who were given leases, not to sell off UEP trust property, etc.).

Wisass is claiming to be owed (along with Shields) some $1.5 million for his activities in recent years.  "Pay me for the abuse I inflicted on you!" he says.  So, here's what I think - - the fiduciary was hired by the Utah AG's office, and he did the bidding of the AG's office (one would assume).  The UEP trust is a land-holding entity.  It does not have "liquid" cash.  It even allegedly still owes back property taxes.  For Wisass to be paid, there would be three options.  Get ready to select an option - -


1.  Take more money from the FLDS people (GOOD LUCK WITH THAT !!!)
2.  Sell more of the UEP trust property (Benson forbade that, didn't he  . . . . ?)  - - or
3.  Have the Utah AG's office pay him for the spectacular work he did for it.

I vote for number 3.  Is there a fourth option?

They Punted

Okay, I'm not a lawyer, although I play one in my house.  It's time for me to weigh in on the urination contest between Utah's very Supreme Court and Federal Judge Dee Benson.

The Utah Supremes are miffed because, after they elected to ignore the merits of the FLDS church's claim against the State for reforming its trust, Judge Benson addressed the merits head-on and found egregious Constitutional violations (primarily from Diseased Lintbag).  The Supremes hinged their decision (to effectively "punt" the matter) on a legal doctrine known as "Laches".  The idea of Laches is that, if you feel you have been wronged, you have a duty to make any valid protests within a reasonable time period (or else too much water will flow under the bridge, and people will have moved on with their lives and placed faith in the new status quo).  This is not necessarily a bad principle but, the way Judge Benson looked at it, if what the State (and Limprag) did was a Constitutional violation ab initio, then irrespective of the (late) timing of the complaint, the trust beneficiaries had been being abused from the very start, and on a continual, ongoing basis.

If I am comfortable with Benson's argument for any reason, it is at least because Brute Wisass conducted a spiteful, selfish, disdainful campaign of disregard against the FLDS leadership and membership from day one.  It might well be argued that, if Warren Jeffs was telling the folks to "Answer them nothing!", they were risking having everything taken from them by the Fooles and the Hischers.  Judge Benson sagely noted that, if that was what the beneficiaries really wanted, it was NOBODY's business to charge in and compel them to do otherwise.  Attorney Rod Parker suggested that the period of inaction was framed as a "test of faith" for the membership.  Let's not also forget that, whenever an FLDS member showed his or her face in a Utah courtroom, he or she was immediately slapped with a subpoena to cough up the whereabouts of Warren Jeffs or else face detention in Arizona's Florence dungeon till the start of the next millennium.  The persecution of the people became intolerable.

So what are the key principles in this situation?

1.  The Fooles and the Hischers had conflicts of interest in the trust reformation in that they were suing the trust for gain and then colluded in the rewriting of the UEP trust language.

2.   Jugg Desleaze Lintrag showed extraordinary prejudice at every turn and should have been removed from the start.

3.  Brutal Wisass was a disgrace to the LDS Church and to the accounting profession in that he waged a personal and self-serving war against a generally innocent community.

4.  The Utah Supreme Court waxed spineless (as it did in State v. Holm) and did not want to get to "the merits", so it punted the case, finding comfort in the convenience of the "Laches" excuse.

5.  Judge Benson watched the case from a distance and agreed (in 2008[?]) to get involved in the event that the Utah Supreme Court failed to take appropriate action.  The Supremes punted the case, so Benson thought long and hard about the merits and his own eligibility to decide the matter.  He concluded that he does have jurisdiction, that the reformation of the trust was fraudulent at the start, and that, since the Supremes had punted the matter of the merits, he must step in and remedy the error.

The Supremes are irritated because Benson disagreed with the Laches excuse and insisted that a State can never invade a private trust and alter it at will in violation of its original intents.  The Supremes are now toying with motions from both sides regarding whether they can or should disregard the federal court's ruling (plus there are two other FLDS matters still pending in their court).

The hardest part of this is that this is relatively uncharted legal territory.  The last (and perhaps only) instance of such an egregious trust invasion was the one perpetrated against the LDS Church in the 1880's.  Either way, the entire siege was disingenuous, deceitful, collusive, and criminal from the beginning.  It was reminiscent of Missouri Governor Boggs' extermination (of Mormons) order - - public officials twisting the legal process in an effort to achieve devious political ends.  Such gross official license and creativity has no place in honorable government.  Even the LDS Church must be having second thoughts about the wisdom of confiscating church trusts for mere gits and shiggles.

I think that despite Justice Christine Durham's sincere desire to hear reasonable new pleadings from both sides, it is (ironically) too little - too late.  They had their chance to explore the merits before, and they punted. Now, everybody involved can see the writing on the wall. This is another tar baby.  Whisetrash is about to be convicted of felony trespass.  Snortlips doesn't need any more public embarrassments.  The 10th Circuit is bound to stand behind Benson, and, if Spent Bunshaker is onto something more than a rumor (for the first time in his weasely career), there could well be a season of healing and renaissance in the community. In large part, Fundamentalist Mormons are extraordinarily loyal and committed people.  Public officials prefer the "divide and conquer" program, since they fear that united we will be strong.  It's one thing to boast of having tackled the "polygamy problem", but entirely another to trample on the property and free agency of an entire culture.  It backfired in 1953 and 2008, and backfire it will again.