SALT LAKE CITY -- A Southern Utah judge has set an Aug. 18 date for a hearing on a request that polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs be granted a speedy trial.
Jeffs was charged in 5th District Court in 2006 with two counts of felony rape as an accomplice. A jury convicted him of both counts the following year.
But the Utah Supreme Court reversed the convictions Tuesday and sent the case back for a new trial. Within hours, Jeffs' defense attorneys, Wally Bugden and Tara Isaacson, filed a motion seeking a "speedy trial before a jury of his peers."
Court papers also say Jeffs "has been incarcerated for many months."
At a news conference Tuesday, Bugden said he planned to seek bail for Jeffs, 54, the ecclesiastical head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Southern Utah-based church practices polygamy in marriages arranged by FLDS Church leaders.
On Wednesday, Judge James Shumate, who presided over the 2007 trial, ordered a hearing on a retrial.
Deputy Washington County Attorney Brian Filter has said officials haven't decided how they'll proceed in the case. Prosecutors first plan to meet with the victim and law enforcement and conduct a legal analysis of the high court's ruling, Filter said.
Jeffs' criminal charges stem from the 2001 marriage of a sect girl who was 14 at the time and her 19-year-old cousin. Jeffs performed the marriage between Elissa Wall and Allen Steed in a Nevada motel and later counseled the young bride to give herself "mind, body and soul" to her husband to try to make an unhappy marriage work.
The Associated Press and Standard- Examiner do not typically name victims of alleged sexual assault, but Wall has frequently spoken publicly about the case.
During the trial and later in her book, "Stolen Innocence," Wall said she objected to the marriage and was forced into sexual relations with her husband.
In its unanimous ruling, justices said faulty jury instructions denied Jeffs a fair trial and that prosecutors could not equate Jeffs' actions as a religious leader with those of Steed, who allegedly had nonconsensual sex with Wall.
Steed was charged with rape the day after Jeffs' conviction, but the case hasn't been resolved.
Jeffs is in Utah State Prison, where he has been serving two terms of five years to life on the convictions.
Prison spokesman Steve Gehrke on Wednesday said that, depending on how the case proceeds, Jeffs could be returned to Washington County's Purgatory Correctional Facility in Hurricane. Jeffs also could be placed in the custody of federal authorities, who have a pending indictment, or sent to Texas, where Jeffs faces multiple criminal charges for his own alleged marriages to underage girls.
A hearing to address Jeffs' extradition to Texas was canceled Tuesday after the Utah Supreme Court issued its ruling.
It's unclear when another hearing might be set.
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