Jury selection starts today in Jeffs trial in St. George

ST. GEORGE — The process of selecting a jury that will decide whether jailed Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Warren Steed Jeffs is guilty of arranging the marriage of an underage girl to her 19-year-old cousin starts today.

Two weeks ago, 300 Washington County residents received a summons from 5th District Court to appear for jury duty in the Jeffs case, scheduled to begin next week.

Jeffs is charged with two first-degree felony counts of rape as an accomplice.

The large jury pool is needed, Judge James L. Shumate has said, so that an impartial jury can be seated for the trial that is expected to last nearly two weeks.

Polling data that had been presented by Jeffs' defense team showed 52 percent of the 210 Washington County respondents believed Jeffs was guilty or likely guilty of the charges filed. Those results were not enough to persuade Shumate to move the trial to Salt Lake County, where the population is approaching 1 million.

Today, potential jurors will gather at the Dixie Center in St. George to fill out a questionnaire prepared jointly by the defense and prosecution. On Monday, jurors will be taken 50 at a time into the Washington County Courthouse to learn whether they have been dismissed or are being retained for further questioning.

That process will continue until eight jurors and at least two alternates are selected. A copy of the blank questionnaire will be posted on the court's Web site once jurors have turned their completed copies in to the court, a court spokeswoman said.

Potential jurors will also face questioning from prosecutors and defense attorneys during a one-on-one session with the judge in his chambers. If a full jury can be selected, the trial will begin immediately.

Seating an impartial jury in the Jeffs case could prove difficult, observers say, and opinions vary widely on the probability of finding 10 residents of Washington County who are unbiased when it comes to Jeffs.

For a conviction, jurors must decide that Jeffs intentionally and knowingly encouraged the girl's cousin to commit unlawful sex with the 14-year-old against her will.

"I don't think Warren Jeffs can get a fair trial in Washington County," said Hazel Zitting, a Centennial Park, Ariz., resident who grew up in a plural family and has become a voice for polygamists living in the area. "People can be so prejudiced here. I was raised in Salt Lake City and never got the stares, sly remarks and rudeness that I've seen here."