“I desire to represent myself,” he told the judge in his trademark hypnotic voice. “They are not comprehending who they are dealing with.” Those who know Jeffs tell The Daily Beast that what he was trying to say is that his attorneys don’t recognize he talks to God.
(SNIP!)
Jeffs’ followers tell a different story. One of them assured me, “Uncle Warren is the purest man on earth. All the world needs to know is that he is one of the cleanest people you’ll ever meet.”
(SNIP!)
“He will get out. And it won’t be done by us. It’ll be because of God.”
The FLDS knows this because their prophet told them so. Every Sunday, Jeffs’ speaks to them from a pay phone in his jail cell. “Last week, he told them he’s not going to trial at all,” says Brower. “And more alarming, he’s prophecizing that he’ll be ‘translated.’” Translated, according to Brower, means being changed from mortal to immortal. “Everybody’s wondering if he’s going to kill himself.”
(SNIP!)
Subpoenaed by the prosecution? Seventy-eight of Jeffs’ “wives.”
The writer also goes on to compare Jeffs to Brian David Mitchell, the perv who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart. Also mentioned is that the fLDS continues to try to have Judge Walther removed from the case. She says that Walther has a target on her back--I'm sure the writer means that in legal terms, but many of us have also read or heard rumblings that the terminology might be valid literally, too. I hope the the good judge has some very good protection for this trial, and perhaps after.
* Posted July 28, 2011 at 9:32 p.m.
The Warren Jeffs trial took an interesting, if not entirely unexpected, turn on Thursday when the 55-year-old leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints fired his seasoned defense team and asked for permission to represent himself.
Before granting the request, 51st District Court Judge Barbara Walther, as she is required to do by law, warned Jeffs of the risks involved and personally discouraged it, saying she had never seen a defendant successfully self-represent in her 30 years of licensed law practice.
(SNIP!)
Jeffs’ former attorneys declined to say whether they were privy to his plans, but that they fully support his decision to represent himself because it is his legal right as long as he does so knowingly and intelligently. Law also requires that it be done before the jury is sworn in, which was the case.
“It’s absolutely his right, it’s his choice and I support it,” said Deric Walpole, Jeffs’ former lead counsel. “It’s always preferable to have an experienced counsel at the defense table, but it’s not necessary and it can be done or the law wouldn’t allow for it.”
(Excerpted--you can read the rest here.)
I do get the feeling that Walpole was VERY supportive of him being off the case. ;)