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.

VINDICATION !!!!

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF UTAH

CONCLUSION
"¶53 Because we hold that the trial court’s instructions to the jury regarding lack of consent were in error, we reverse Jeffs’ two convictions of rape as an accomplice and remand for a new trial."

Wow !!! Yours truly could not possibly be happier today. I always said that I wished that I could have been on the Warren Jeffs jury, because I would have hung that jury faster than you can say NOT GUILTY. Frankly, I cannot figure out why intelligent, upstanding American jurors like those in Warren's case did not also see the absurdity of the charges. Could it be that people can be swayed by religious prejudice and bigotry?

This morning, the Utah State Supreme Court ruled (unanimously) that Warren Jeffs' conviction as an "accomplice to rape" was BOGUS (in particular because of erroneous jury instructions).

If I am enjoying satisfaction over this, it is because I know that the people who pursued Warren Jeffs did not have clean hands. They had hatred and malice and hubris. They wanted his blood, and they would stop at nothing to inflict harm on him, even though they knew that they were guilty of lying and cheating and distorting. They stretched the statute of limitations; they fabricated evidence; they committed perjury on the witness stand.

I believe our Republic is dead. Just look at ObamaCare and Cap and Trade! Our government is entirely corrupt and headed for the dung-heap of history. However, those conspirators who lusted for Warren's blood will reap the sorrow and despondency that they sowed. Today, they will have some wind knocked out of them, because Utah's justices faced up to the fact that you can't charge someone as an accomplice to rape for performing a void ceremony where the intent to rape was absent.

I rejoice with those members of Warren's family who must now finally be seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. I laugh loudly at the prospect of a re-trial, since JEFFS-TRIAL II would be a bigger circus than the first. Does Utah's Attorney General seriously want to risk his precious reputation by getting that pack of lying jackals back on the stand to perjure and fabricate, when everyone knows they are frauds? I think not.

I think back to August of 2006, when the hysteria was peaking. Warren was on America's Top Ten Most Wanted list with Charles Manson, Theodore Bundy, Saddam Hussein, Timothy McVeigh, Obama Bin Laden, Adolf Hitler and the Unabomber. All that fuss!!! Do you think polygamy had anything to do with it?

Warren's jailers have scorned him not a little for fasting and praying for justice and vindication. Arizona has dropped its charges. He is free of Utah's charges. Now, all that is left is for Texas to charge him with having sex with a girl with whom he could not possibly have had sex.

Maybe Texas, Utah and Arizona should arrest him again and charge him with felony unpopularity or something similarly creative and fantasmagorical. I can't count on a momentum shift, but I sure wouldn't mind if the Court were soon to stick it to Lintbag and Wisass, too.

CHURCH-STATE CONFUSION

The travesties and absurdities just keep on coming. Some of you may have seen the news the other day that reported that a 12-year-old girl in New Hampshire has been ordered by a judge to stop home-schooling and attend public school. The judge complained that the girl's religious beliefs are too "sincere" and too "rigid" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/04/home-schooled-christian-girl-ordered-to-join-publi//print/

As is my tendency, I tried to think about the legal principles implicated in this decision. I feel strongly that words have meaning and power, and that designing men can use clever words to wrest power from the unsuspecting. This judge (Sadler) should enlighten us on the intended meaning of the word "rigid". The girl's non-custodial father appears to resent the fact that the mother is teaching the girl from the Bible. Are we to conclude that parents who teach their children from the Bible are indoctrinating them into "rigidity" because the Bible teaches that adulterers should be stoned to death, along with ungovernable teenagers? Is the Bible too "rigid" because it teaches us to honor our parents and that the meek will "inherit the earth"?

I pray that the girl will be blessed with a crack team of indignant attorneys who will get this judge overruled and demonstrate what an IDIOT he is. Was John Singer's martyrdom for nothing?




















(Photo from "Death of an American" by David Fleisher and David M. Friedman)

On another note, I just learned that the Utah Supreme Court has agreed to hear Warren Jeffs' appeal of his "rape-as-an-accomplice" convictions. They probably realize that you can't just sweep this case under the rug. I still wonder how Jeffs can be doing time for being an accomplice to a rape that wasn't committed. I mean - if the state of Utah really genuinely has evidence to convict Steed for rape, then I can see how it could be argued that a rape occurred and that there were accomplices. I think the state decided to charge Steed because so many people wondered at the disingenuousness of charging the putative accomplice but not the alleged perpetrator himself. However, if the case against Steed falters (and I bet it will), then no rape will have been proved, and Jeffs can have been an accomplice to nothing, and ought to go home to his wives and children.

I am thrilled that the Utah Supremes will review the case. I am utterly mortified that the Supreme Court hearing will be held on the campus of Brigham Young University. That is about as lopsided as having a SuperBowl game played between the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers on the Packers' home (Lambeau) field. Where's the neutrality? It is a farce! How can these goons think that such blatant and shameless partisanship will go unnoticed? Talk about "home-field advantage"!!! I seem to remember that they did the same thing when they removed judge Walter Steed from his judgeship (not to mention Tom Green's BYU jury). Last I heard, the LDS Church has not been shy about publicizing its intense revulsion at polygamy and polygamists.

Work with me here just a little. Let's assume that the FLDS elect not to file a motion to have the hearing venue changed. Let's assume that no crusading reporter writes an article denouncing the flagrant unfairness of holding this hearing at the law school owned by the Church Corporation that masterminded the 1953 Short Creek raid.

So - BYU campus it is. I can see it now. Early on the morning of November 4th, a caravan of hundreds of Suburbans and 15-passenger vans will make its way from Colorado City/Hildale to Provo. Three thousand warmly-clad men, women (and women) and children will shiver quietly around the J. Reuben Clark law school, showing their solidarity (as they did just weeks ago at Salt Lake's Matheson Courthouse).

Next step, the LDS Church writhes uncontrollably in distaste over having so many mangy polygamists traipsing all over its pristine campus, and overreacts (like never before). Soon, a hundred BYU police and many more of their Provo City counterparts appear on the scene and begin ordering the peaceful visitors to get off the Church's private property. After all - this is not public, neutral property. This is the seat of modern, ecclesiastical disinformation, where dissenting or even mildly neutral views are not tolerated and must incur appropriate disciplinary action.

Am I the only one who smells something rotten in Denmark?

"Tin soldiers and Nixon's comin',
More dead in Ohio."

Neil Young