I was sickened this morning when I read the headlines that polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs’s 2007 rape convictions were thrown out by the Utah Supreme Court. The judge sent the case back for a new trial, saying that the instructions given to the jury during his prosecution were faulty.  I can only imagine the sorrow and anger the victim, Elissa Wall, must be feeling right now. My heart goes out to her.

Mr. Jeffs’s lawyer argued that though Jeffs had encouraged the marriage and advised the couple to stay together, he never intended for Allen Steed, then 19, to rape Elissa, then 14. Prosecutors argued that Jeffs knew the marriage would lead to nonconsensual sex (euphemism for rape), but insisted that the union go forward anyway. Elissa said that Jeffs had refused to release her from the marriage, despite her pleas.

Jeffs’s lawyers argued in their appeal that the judge should have told the jury to focus on Steed’s actions, not on Jeffs’s sway (euphemism for power) over the couple in his capacity as the all-powerful leader of the sect, which has around 10,000 members.

How can Jeffs’s power over his sect not have anything to do with this? His power has everything to do with what happened to Elissa. The theology of the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints teaches that every FLDS man in good standing with the “church” will someday populate his own planet with the wives he takes here on earth. He has the power to call each of his wives into heaven, into eternity, with a secret name that he alone knows. In other words, he has the power of her salvation, and she must please him in order to reach heaven.

LDS prophet and founder Joseph Smith said (long before polygamy was outlawed by the Mormon church we know today) “I did receive this revelation without error. God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man. It is the same for each of us. Our glory in the next world will be determined by the knowledge we gain in this world and the excellence of our works upon the earth. If you enter heaven with ten wives you will have tenfold the glory of a man with one, and your advance toward progress, toward godhood, would be ten times as rapid as that of the man who’s been blind to the truth upon the earth.”

Polygamy is now against the law and today’s Mormons disavow its practice. So the cult-like fundamentalists who practice it have retreated into remote compounds, with leaders such as Jeffs who rule with an iron fist of fear, keeping his followers from contact with the outside world, keeping them uneducated, keeping them from any information that would let them know anything about life outside the compound. Male members of the commune are allowed computers and other media outlets, but the women are not. Male leaders of such families hold absolute power. How can this fact be discounted?

Did this judge NOT do his homework? The power of Jeffs over both the 19 year old man and the 14 year old girl was absolute! They knew no other life than to do what Jeffs commanded. Even a “suggestion” of “going forth to populate the earth” would be taken by the Mr. Steed as permission, or even a command, to rape his young first cousin who had been given to him in marriage.

After the ruling, Jeffs’s attorney said he was “thrilled.” He also said that, “We talk about the rule of law and that we don’t allow emotions and sentiment to enter the decision-making process.”

Utah attorney general  said he was shocked by the court’s decision, adding that it would most likely be difficult to retry Jeffs on the same charges. “I am left scratching my head,” he said, “as to how we can, in the executive branch of law enforcement, go about protecting children from the actions of religious leaders like Warren Jeffs.”

Jeffs won’t be released from custody in Utah because there is an outstanding warrant for his arrest in Texas, where prosecutors are seeking to extradite him on sexual assault and bigamy charges. He was indicted in 2008 on a felony charge of sexually assaulting an under-age girl, with whom he is suspected of fathering a child. There are other charges in Texas as well, stemming from his time at Yearning for Zion Ranch, a church compound that was raided in 2008 over accusations of under-age marriage.

If convicted in Texas, Jeffs will face up to 99 years in prison.

I pray that justice will finally be done in Texas! And especially today, I pray for all the women and children held in these remote compounds through fear and manipulation, and especially today, I pray for Elissa Wall.