.JPG)
Submitted for your approval, the most prominent examples of fundamentalist Mormon polygamy of recent years. First, from the United States, as reported by Nate Carlisle of the Salt Lake Tribune, December 13, 2017:
Lyle Jeffs, who once was the day-to-day leader of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, was sentenced Wednesday to nearly five years in a federal prison for defrauding a government assistance program and then fleeing.The second item, from Canada, as reported by Daphne Bramham of the Vancouver Sun, December 14, 2017:
U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart sentenced Jeffs to 57 months in prison, followed by three years of probation. Jeffs also was ordered to pay $1 million in restitution to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the program that Jeffs and his fellow FLDS members were convicted of defrauding.
“I acknowledge my mistakes and my decision-making and how it has affected the law,” Jeffs, 57, told Stewart in Salt Lake City’s federal courthouse. “I humbly accept responsibilities for my actions.”
“As far as my religious beliefs, they are sincere,” he added, specifying he doesn’t watch television or listen to modern music.
“I don’t intend to compromise that,” Jeffs said. He then asked Stewart for leniency.
Prosecutors had sought a 71-month sentence.
Wednesday’s hearing at times went into territory already covered during the prosecution — Jeffs’ and the FLDS’ beliefs, which includes a communal form of living.
Defense attorney Kathryn Nester has argued throughout the case that FLDS members, under Jeffs’ direction, were merely donating their benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the same way that people of other faiths might take a covered dish to a church potluck.
Prosecutors have contended it was a fraud that cost taxpayers almost $12 million — though Stewart on Wednesday sided with a defense estimate of about $2 million —and took food away from FLDS members who had no other means to eat.
Nester began her arguments Wednesday by saying nothing about the case was ordinary.
Everything about it “has been without precedent, as far as I’m aware, in this country,” she told Stewart.
Nester told Stewart the crimes won’t be committed again.
Stewart referred to letters he received in support of Jeffs, and which are not part of the public court record. Stewart then apparently summarized what some said.
“‘It was persecution of the worst kind,’ ” Stewart said. “ ‘The man has done nothing wrong, and what the community as a whole did was not a mistake.’
“And that troubles me,” Stewart said, speaking for himself, “because it could happen again. The effect has not been felt by the community.”
Federal prosecutor Rob Lund argued that Jeffs, while a first-time felon, had broken laws for years, including presiding over marriage ceremonies to underage brides, violating child-labor laws and other misdeeds ordered by his brother, FLDS President Warren Jeffs.
Warren Jeffs is serving a sentence of life plus 20 years in a Texas prison for crimes related to sexually abusing two girls he married as plural wives.
Lyle and Warren Jeffs presided over a “culture of corruption” in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., Lund said.
“This case cries out for a message to that community,” Lund told Stewart. “They must obey the law.”
In explaining the sentence — 45 months for pleading guilty in September to one count of defrauding SNAP, and 12 months for a count of failure to appear in court — Stewart said it was “overly simplistic” to blame Lyle Jeffs for food shortages among the FLDS, but that his actions did harm that community.
“His conduct has shown that Mr. [Lyle] Jeffs has shown no respect for the laws of the United States,” Stewart said, “and will place the dictates of his faith above everything else.”
Prosecutors contend Jeffs pressured or ordered FLDS members to turn over the food they purchased with SNAP debit cards to the church, or to swipe the cards at two church-controlled groceries so the benefits could be converted to cash.
But the case against Jeff changed in June 2016, when he slipped off his ankle monitor and absconded from pretrial release. He was arrested almost a year later in Yankton, S.D.
Stewart later ruled that jurors would be able to hear about the absconding while they also considered whether Jeffs committed fraud. The plea deal was reached shortly after that ruling.
Jeffs’ co-defendants fared better. Two of them — John Wayman, another former FLDS bishop, and Seth Jeffs, another full brother to Lyle — pleaded guilty to felonies. They received credit for time served and were released from jail after entering their pleas.
Seven other defendants pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and received no jail time, no probation and did not have to pay restitution. The charges against another co-defendant were dropped.
Lyle Jeffs’ position and standing within his church declined leading up to or during his run for the law. FBI documents filed with the court discussed a falling-out between Lyle and Warren Jeffs. Nester on Wednesday told Stewart that her client had not received any family visitors at the jail and had no money in his commissary account. No supporters of Lyle Jeffs were apparent in court Wednesday.
Yet, Nester told Stewart that her client would ask to be sent to one of two federal prisons in Colorado to make visits easier for his family.
After the hearing, Lyle Jeffs’ eldest son, Thomas Jeffs, who left the FLDS years ago, said outside the courtroom that he was satisfied with the prison sentence.
“Maybe if he spends enough time in there, he’ll think about things,” the son said.
Lyle Jeffs once had nine wives, and he has about 60 children, according to family members. His legal wife, Charlene Wall, divorced him in 2015. A plural wife, Christine Black, is seeking child support from him through the state of Utah, according to filings in state court.
CRANBROOK, B.C. — For two decades, B.C. attorneys-general and prosecutors refused to lay polygamy charges and believed, based on legal opinions, that the Criminal Code sanctions against the practice were constitutionally invalid.And as reported by Ms. Bramham in the Vancouver Sun, December 13, 2017:
It began in 1992 with a press release explaining why two men from the fundamentalist Mormon community of Bountiful would not be charged. The polygamy law, it said, was unconstitutional because of the guarantee of religious freedom.
People in Bountiful celebrated. They took it to mean that, after a century, it was suddenly legal to take multiple wives, even though the law remained on the books.
And marry, they did.
The bishop, Winston Blackmore, married 23 women in religious ceremonies, in addition to his one legal wife. James Oler, who succeeded Blackmore as bishop, took four wives in addition to his one legal wife.
In July, both men were finally convicted on one count each of polygamy.
This week in B.C. Supreme Court, Blackmore argued that the verdict should be stayed or that he should be exempt from punishment because his constitutionally rights to a fair trial were trampled.
A similar argument was made on Oler’s behalf by the amicus (friend to the court), Joe Doyle, appointed by the court after Oler chose not to actively participate in the trial or hearing.
At the heart of Blackmore’s constitutional application is that 1992 news release.
It said that based on “exhaustive” research by legal experts both in the attorney-general’s ministry and from outside, it was unanimously concluded that the polygamy law was unconstitutional because of a Charter guarantee of religious freedom.
It went on to say that the polygamy section of the Criminal Code was “obsolete” and that the best course of action wasn’t prosecution, but to “encourage” the federal government to rewrite the law.
There was another RCMP investigation in 2004, but again no charges were laid.
But when Wally Oppal became attorney-general in 2006, he said he disagreed that the law was invalid. After a series of legal misadventures involving special prosecutors, Oppal’s opinion was upheld in 2011 following a constitutional reference case.
Chief Justice Robert Bauman determined that the law is a “justifiable limit on religious freedom” because of its “inherent harms.”
Fast forward to now. Among the questions that Justice Sheri Donegan must determine is whether it was reasonable for polygamists — in this case, fundamentalist Mormons — to believe that they would not be prosecuted even though the Criminal Code law remained.
But beyond that, the judge needs to determine whether, by following what turned out to be bad advice from a succession of attorneys-general, that Blackmore and Oler were legally disadvantaged and their legal rights breached.
If she does decide that, Donegan must then determine whether the law allows or requires that they receive some sort of legal remedy in the form of their convictions being stayed or to be individually exempted from that one section of the Criminal Code. And if they can be exempted, should that exemption be limited to a specific time period.
Both Blackmore’s lawyer Blair Suffredine and Doyle made plain-spoken arguments. As Doyle said, it wasn’t as if the advice was being given by “some guy over the counter — it was the highest law officer in British Columbia.”
Suffredine said, “I find it close to offensive that the attorney-general can issue a press release and then say everyone should have ignored it.
“If I was an average person and heard the attorney-general ruled that what I did would not be prosecuted and it was not unconstitutional, I wouldn’t seek legal advice from a lawyer. I would presume that from the highest source that I would have to accept it as true even if I think it might not be.”
The prosecutors, however, spent several hours Thursday making legal arguments about prosecutorial discretion, the threshold and standards of proof needed before a court should step in with the extraordinary remedy of staying convictions to valid laws or make constitutional exemptions for individuals.
Ignorance of the law is not a defence, Micah Rankin said, noting that officially induced error is “an exceptional defence.”
“It’s not a justification,” he said. “(Officially induced error) is only where the state is at fault or has contributed to the fate of an individual by setting them on the wrong path.”
But Blackmore and Oler were already practicing polygamy. All of Oler’s marriages took place before the 1992 press release.
Six of Blackmore’s marriages were before 1992. And, as Rankin’s colleague Peter Wilson pointed out, even after the polygamy reference case upheld the law — “a sea change in the legal landscape” — Blackmore continues to live with multiple wives in a cluster of residences in Bountiful.
“Nothing in his conduct has changed,” Wilson said.
In addition to the stacks of material that the lawyers had given Donegan prior to the hearing, the amicus only provided his submission to the court and the prosecutors on Wednesday.
Wilson didn’t object to the late addition. But he did ask for and received permission from Donegan to have time to prepare a written response by Jan. 15.
It is yet another delay in a case that began in April and would have concluded in July with the two men’s convictions if not for Suffredine filing the constitutional application (the subject of this week’s hearing) in mid-trial.
The application was set to be heard in November, but was adjourned because Suffredine filed Blackmore’s affidavit on the eve of the hearing.
Now, because of this further delay to allow the prosecutors time to respond to the amicus’s submissions, it will be Jan. 22 before a date is even set for the judge to deliver her decision.
CRANBROOK, B.C. — Convicted polygamist Winston Blackmore testified Tuesday that his religious marriages to 24 women — nine of whom were underage — were all legal under his god’s laws, but conceded that those marriages are illegal in Canada.
It was a stunning admission in court, since a mainstay of Blackmore’s application to have his guilty verdict thrown out is that he had no criminal intent and believed that plural marriages are legal because of the constitutional guarantees of religious freedom and freedom of association.
His application in court, which contends that Blackmore was unfairly charged, states that when the attorney-general decided not to charge him with polygamy in 1991, Blackmore was “expressly told no charges would be laid against him and that his religious practices were protected.”
Under cross-examination, Blackmore admitted that no one from the attorney-general’s ministry specifically told him that.
Blackmore’s concession that he knows polygamy is illegal in Canada came after nearly a full day under cross-examination and at the end of an at-times testy exchange with special prosecutor Peter Wilson.
“You told us it’s your belief, and I respect it’s sincerely held, that you consider your celestial marriages to be legal, lawful and proper in the eyes of God. Yes?” Wilson asked.
“Yes,” said Blackmore.
“I’m suggesting that you know that they’re not considered to be legal, lawful and proper in the eyes of the Government of Canada. Fair statement?” Wilson asked.
“Fair statement,” Blackmore replied.
The former fundamentalist Mormon bishop of Bountiful, B.C. contends in his court application that his many marriages between 1992 and 2007 were “induced by the public position of the attorneys-general over many years.”
That public position — based on legal opinions from a former provincial chief justice and a retired appeal court judge — was that Canada’s polygamy law was unconstitutional because it infringes on the guarantee of religious freedom.
So, if Blackmore believed polygamy was legal, why didn’t he follow the marriage laws in British Columbia? Why didn’t he get the written consent of the parents of the girls who were under 19 when he married them? Why didn’t he get the required court approval to marry Lorraine Johnson, who was only 15 at the time of their “celestial marriage”?
“I think in the hundreds of years of Mormon plural marriage, no one has ever done that,” Blackmore responded.
“Because it’s unlawful,” Wilson interjected.
“I don’t think anyone would have given them the time of day, if they would have applied,” Blackmore continued.
“Because it’s unlawful, right?”
“It’s not unlawful,” Blackmore insisted, noting that Canadian law allows men and women to “freely associate in any sort of capacity, sexual or other” with multiple partners.
“I am aware the Charter guarantees their right. And all I’m asking, My Lady, is that this Charter grants us the same protection as it grants other citizens of Canada.”
Making that Charter argument in legal terms will be left to Blackmore’s lawyer, Blair Suffredine, in the coming days.
But Suffredine got off to a rocky start when he provided Justice Sheri Donegan with a brief outline of his case before Blackmore’s cross-examination.
As part of his argument, Suffredine said that because Blackmore and his first and only legal wife divorced in 2004, the polygamy law shouldn’t apply.
He also contends that with Blackmore’s ex-communication from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 2002, the religious marriages were invalidated.
But since Suffredine had initially made the application as a challenge under the Constitutional Question Act, the judge asked which provisions of the Charter he would be arguing. Suffredine said he probably wouldn’t use all of the ones that he mentioned in the application.
As Suffredine fumbled and said that he wasn’t sure and that he needed to read the sub-sections, the judge gave him time to do that after admonishing him, telling him that she needed “a clear articulation of what is being sought … this is critically important.”
In July, Donegan found both Blackmore and James Oler, another former bishop of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, guilty of one count each of polygamy.
Those verdicts were not registered, and neither man was sentenced, pending the outcome of Blackmore’s constitutional application.
Oler is not named on the application, but because its outcome has a direct bearing on him, Oler is in the courtroom. As at the trial when he was found to have had five wives, Oler has no lawyer and is not actively participating...
No comments:
Post a Comment