Supreme Court and Warren Jeffs

[pam]

Breaking news so I don't have an article yet to link to:

Supreme Court overturns Warren Jeffs' conviction and orders new trial. You have got to be kidding me.

They just added: ksl.com - Utah Supreme Court overturns conviction, orders new trial

[UrbanFool]

What a creep.

[Dravin]

Am I the only person who's eyebrow cocked at this part?

According to the high court, the jurors should have been instructed that in order to convict they had to find that it was Jeffs' intent that Elissa Wall be raped without her consent.

As opposed to raped with her consent? If she consented (legally speaking) it's not rape folks, this is pretty basic stuff.

[hordak]

Breaking news so I don't have an article yet to link to:

Supreme Court overturns Warren Jeffs' conviction and orders new trial. You have got to be kidding me.

They just added: ksl.com - Utah Supreme Court overturns conviction, orders new trial

I think it is a good thing if the Judge didn't do what he was supposed to. The juriors need to know what is required for conviction. Everyone deserves a fair trial regardless of the crime they are accused of.

Plus i think it shows that Utah. a "Mormon" state is more interested in justice then distancing itself from it's polygamous roots( with an unfair trial for a polygamist), as would be an easy accusation had they overlooked this.

[Just_A_Guy]

Good.

Jeffs is probably a slimeball, but here the State's case was that Jeffs encouraged rape by a) while performing the marriage ordinance, telling the couple to "be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth", and b) in post-ceremony marriage counseling, encouraged her as a general matter to submit to her husband (though it was not at all clear that Jeffs was talking about sex). The way the state wanted the statute interpreted was just ridiculous, and could result in the imprisonment of pretty much any clergyman who officiates in a marriage that later goes south.

Wall's mother and at least a couple of her sisters pressured her heavily to go through with the marriage, and you don't see the state putting them on trial.

Prosecutors don't get to make up new laws in order to imprison a guy just because they think his religion is creepy. I'm glad the Utah Supreme Court hasn't forgotten that. Next time, hopefully they'll convict him of a law he actually broke.

Edited July 27, 2010 by Just_A_Guy

[NeuroTypical]

As opposed to raped with her consent? If she consented (legally speaking) it's not rape folks, this is pretty basic stuff.

I thought it was pretty basic that if you're under the age of consent, then the law considers you unable to consent. Hence the term "statutory rape" (translated, "it's rape because the law says it's rape - it's not about what the girl wanted").

Occasionally you get a rape conviction despite the young girl testifying on his behalf, and doing everything else humanly possible to get the guy off the hook.

The girl in this case was 14. Age of consent in Utah is 16, in Texas it's 17.

This is basic stuff, right?

Edited July 27, 2010 by Loudmouth_Mormon

[Dravin]

I thought it was pretty basic that if you're under the age of consent, then the law considers you unable to consent. Hence the term "statutory rape" (translated, "it's rape because the law says it's rape - it's not about what the girl wanted").

Occasionally you get a rape conviction despite the young girl testifying on his behalf, and doing everything else humanly possible to get the guy off the hook.

The girl in this case was 14. Age of consent in Utah is 16, in Texas it's 17.

This is basic stuff, right?

Yep it is pretty basic. Such a girl cannot give legal consent, thus such sex would be without her legal consent and thus rape. I'm confused what about my post you are supposedly having issues with as you don't appear to be making the claim that sex that one legally consents to is rape or visa versa (that sex one doesn't legally consent to isn't rape). You post is 100% in agreement with my statement that if she consented (legally speaking) it's not rape. The reason I didn't digress into a qualifier about how minors (of a certain age) cannot give legal consent is I thought it was basic enough that talking about legal consent (aka legally speaking) covered it.

I'm not saying it isn't rape, I'm saying the statement I quoted sounds curiously redundant. I know you are a father but you may want to step back and take a deep breath.

Edit: My Brother-In-Law who is more legally savy than I has explained that even though she can't give legal consent and thus it would be rape regardless of whether she wished to participate or not if it was forcible (she didn't wish to participate) that such changes the exact charge and that one can be charged as an accomplice (as he explained it) to the forcible rape charge but not for the statutory rape charge. So the distinction isn't quite as redundant as I assumed, I was reading consent in a legal sense (which is what I assumed a Judge would be instructing a jury in) not the did she want to or not sense.

Edited July 27, 2010 by Dravin

[NeuroTypical]

I'm not saying it isn't rape, I'm saying the statement I quoted sounds curiously redundant.

I don't think we have anything to disagree about, except maybe whether I need a breath or not. :)

LM

[Just_A_Guy]

The girl in this case was 14. Age of consent in Utah is 16, in Texas it's 17.

A point of order: In Utah, a fourteen-year-old can give consent (and thus it isn't statutory rape) if her partner is fewer than seven years older than she is. See Utah Code Ann. 76-5-401.1. That was the case here--Steed was only nineteen years old, five years older than Wall.

Under the court's standard (and the law as-written) Jeffs had to knowingly assist in a rape, not just consensual sex. The prosecution was essentially trying to interpret the statute in such a way that anyone who encourages a woman to have sex with a man is guilty of rape-as-an-accomplice if the woman does in fact have intercourse with that man.

[Moksha]

Makes you wonder what politics went on in this ruling over a technicality, when they have refused to consider so many other cases.

[Moksha]

Under the court's standard (and the law as-written) Jeffs had to knowingly assist in a rape, not just consensual sex. The prosecution was essentially trying to interpret the statute in such a way that anyone who encourages a woman to have sex with a man is guilty of rape-as-an-accomplice if the woman does in fact have intercourse with that man.

Does this mean that child brides are sanctioned by the State of Utah?

[Just_A_Guy]

Does this mean that child brides are sanctioned by the State of Utah?

No; it just means Utah doesn't punish nineteen-year-olds who have intercourse with fourteen-year-olds (or the third-parties who tell them that such behavior is OK).

The same loophole that applies to the FLDS applies to hundreds--if not thousands--of high-schoolers (and their friends, and the media they consume) annually.

[ADoyle90815]

If Texas found the need to press charges against him, they should send him there for trial. After all, others in his cult have received stiff prison sentences. If he were to be convicted by a jury in Texas, he might have more life sentences.

[Just_A_Guy]

I suspect Utah will extradite Jeffs - he's too hot for them to just release.

The Texas case could be interesting. If they try to get him on rape as an accomplice, they could run into the same trouble that they did here in Utah: rape-as-an-accomplice statutes are generally geared towards (pardon the graphicness) gang members who hold the victim down while someone else does the deed; not towards a person who merely encourages a woman to agree to have intercourse.

If Texas tries to get him on statutory rape per se--well, there are pictures suggesting that Jeffs is indeed married to a couple of twelve-year-olds, but those pictures were seized in the YFZ raid which may have had constitutional issues. (I think there have been a couple of other convictions based on evidence seized in that raid, but I think those cases are on appeal.) Plus, Texas has to show that intercourse occurred within the state of Texas. If the victims won't testify, the Texas DA isn't going to have a heckuvalot to work with--those pictures could have been taken anywhere.

Edited July 28, 2010 by Just_A_Guy