Editorial: Justice in Jeffs’ trial

Thursday, Sept. 27, 2007 | 7:21 a.m.

A St. George, Utah, jury spent three days deliberating the case of Warren Jeffs, the leader of a polygamist religious group charged with being an accomplice in the rape of a 14-year-old girl.

Prosecutors said Jeffs forced the girl to marry her 19-year-old cousin. Jeffs' attorneys said the girl was a willing partner. On Tuesday the jury rightly convicted Jeffs.

"She was 14," said juror Jerry Munk, dismissing defense claims. "She didn't have to say anything for a rape to occur."

The case is noteworthy because it takes on the practices of polygamist groups such as Jeffs' Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for what they are - child abuse.

Jeffs' supporters argue this case was a way to prosecute his religion. The mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints outlawed polygamy more than a century ago.

"Religion was definitely involved, but I don't think it was about that," juror Heather Newkirk said.

No, it was fairly simple. Jeffs is seen by his followers as God's prophet who has the power over everything from marriages to eternal salvation. He told a 14-year-old girl to marry her cousin. She had no choice but to lose her family and her spot in heaven.

It is despicable that anyone would even argue that a 14-year-old could agree to such an arrangement. She was a child forced into a marriage.

The case wasn't about religion, and it wasn't about polygamy. It was about the vileness of child abuse cloaked in religious garb.