Judge mulls sale of FLDS farm

As hundreds of Fundamentalist LDS Church members gathered outside and jammed the inside hallways, a judge inside mulled an idea to resolve an issue over a controversial farm owned by a polygamist community trust.

Judge Denise Lindberg suggested Wednesday she is considering putting the Berry Knoll farm up for sale to the highest bidder to pay the trust's $3 million debts and remove any incorrect suggestion that the court is biased.

After listening to seven lawyers and 21 clearly unhappy people in a nontraditional court hearing that more closely resembled a town hall meeting, the 3rd District judge said she would re-evaluate all the information and issue a ruling later.

"It is amply clear we are just as far apart now as we were four years ago," Lindberg said. "I have no animus for or against the FLDS, but when I put on this robe, I am constrained by the law."

Outside the Matheson Courthouse and throughout the hallways, it almost looked liked a Pioneer Day picnic.

Hundreds of men, women and children jammed the hallways to show how unified they are in opposing the proposed sale of the farm, a piece of property owned by the United Effort Plan, which is a communal program begun years ago by the FLDS Church. Four years ago, a court took control of the UEP due to lawsuits and claims of financial mismanagement.

With women in floor-length dresses and the signature braided hairstyles, men in plaid shirts and cowboy hats, they clustered together inside and outside the courthouse, greeting each other with handshakes and sitting patiently in lawn chairs.

Many looked tired, serious, anxious and hopeful.

The farmland was the dominating thought on the minds of those gathered, whether young or old, male or female.

"We came up to help defend our land," said a man who called himself E.J.

"We're here because we are concerned about our land being stolen," said a teenage girl named Kayla, as her friends shifted away.

But it was also about solidarity and uniting for a cause they believed in, said one woman sitting quietly on a bench.

"It's exciting," she said. "It helps you to realize you're not alone in the whole wide world."

The demonstration was a replay of a hearing in St. George's 5th District Court last fall. Mike Holm and his family were there then and traveled to Salt Lake City Wednesday to help demonstrate a specific message.

"We hope that message would be to have our lands back," Holm said. "Our families, our fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers owned this land and dedicated it to this cause."

The UEP is fashioned after the United Order, a 19th-century religious concept under which church members donate all their assets to a communal organization and everyone would share so there would be no poverty or materialism.