Polygamist leader Warren Jeffs faces unbeaten Texas prosecutors

But Patrick Metze, a professor at the Texas Tech University School of Law who is familiar with the FLDS attorneys, said the jury pool in West Texas may be growing tired of the cases.

In the last trial of an FLDS member, jurors deliberated the longest and handed out a shorter sentence. Keith William Dutson Jr., 25, was convicted in November of sexual abuse of a child. Prosecutors said he was in his early twenties when he took a wife who was 16.

Jurors met for about five hours, by far the longest deliberation. His 6-year prison sentence is also the shortest punishment to an FLDS member in Texas.

Jeffs' case "won't be an easy trial for the state," Metze said.

The sect leader's attorneys in Utah had opposed his extradition, arguing that sending him to Texas before a long-running criminal case in Utah was resolved would deny him the right to a speedy trial. But the Utah Supreme Court ruled Nov. 23 that it would not block the transfer.

Jeffs had been jailed in Utah since his arrest, and eventual conviction, on two charges of rape as an accomplice for his role in the 2001 marriage of a 14-year-old follower to her 19-year-old cousin. In July, the Utah Supreme overturned that 2007 convictions.