Salt Lake City, USA - The Utah Supreme Court says it won't get involved in a dispute over moving a criminal trial for the leader of a polygamous sect out of southern Utah.
Attorneys for Warren Jeffs had asked the court to review a decision by a District Court judge, who is keeping the September tenth trial in St. George.
The attorneys want to shift the case to Salt Lake City, claiming Jeffs -the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - can't get a fair trial because the case has received too much publicity in Utah's Washington County.
In a one-sentence ruling, the state Supreme Court didn't elaborate on the denial.
The 51-year-old Jeffs is charged with two first-degree felony counts of rape as an accomplice for his role in the 2001 spiritual marriage of a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin.
The case has focused international attention on Jeffs and his church, whose members practice polygamy in arranged marriages often involving young girls.
Most members live in the border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Arizona - about 50 miles east of St. George.