Jeffs' fate now in hands of the Utah jury

ST. GEORGE — A jury has started deliberations in the trial of polygamist-sect leader Warren Jeffs, who is charged in 5th District Court with two first-degree felony counts of rape as an accomplice.

Each count carries a sentence of five years to life in prison.

Jurors started deliberations shortly after 3 p.m. Before deliberations began, the judge dismissed four alternates, all women. The jury now consists of five men and three women.

The panel today heard impassioned arguments from both prosecutors and defense attorneys.

The jury will have about 45 pieces of evidence to review. The jury can acquit Jeffs of both charges; find him guilty on both counts; or guilty of one count.

This afternoon, in a rebuttal to Jeffs' defense team's closing arguments, Washington County Attorney Brock Belnap reminded jurors of testimony given by the woman who says she was forced to marry and have sexual relations with her teenage cousin when she was 14.

The woman, he said, "would have never had sex, would have never entered the bedroom, if not for the actions of Warren Jeffs."

"You don't have to find that this is religious persecution," he said. "Perhaps that is what (Jeffs' attorneys) want you to do. But if you apply the law, you will find Warren Jeffs guilty."

The woman who testified against Jeffs — and who has been referred to in court documents and in court as "Jane Doe" — is Elissa Wall. Her attorneys made her name public today and relased a photograph of her taken 7 months before she was married to her 19-year-old relative in a 2001 ceremony presided over by Jeffs.

"She was 14 years when this happened," said Wall's attorney, Greg Hoole. "It is important to know that."

Earlier today, Wally Bugden, one of the attorneys defending Jeffs, spoke for nearly two hours in Jeffs' defense, spending time scrutinizing Wall's on-the-stand account of her marriage and relationship with man FLDS Church leaders chose as her husband.

Bugden reminded the jury that Washington County prosecutors had not presented any evidence that supported the woman's claims that she was being forced against her will to submit herself physically to her husband.

"You have to ask yourself, then," he said. "Why would sex happen? Because she wanted it to happen ... What happened in the bedroom was no different than anything else in their relationship. She did exactly what she wanted to do. She was not subservient to" her husband.

Bugden said Jeffs' prosecution was about religion.