Salt Lake City, USA - Attorneys for polygamous-sect leader Warren Jeffs say he deserves a new trial because a juror was replaced after hours of deliberations, according to just-released court documents.
The defense team's complaint was disclosed Tuesday by prosecutors in previously sealed filings released by a Washington County judge.
The filings show it was prosecutors who sought a mistrial when problems emerged with a juror. The request was denied by 5th District Judge James Shumate, but now the defense is trying to raise the same issue.
Shumate will hear arguments in St. George on March 6.
Jeffs, 52, was convicted of two counts of rape by accomplice for his role in the 2001 arranged marriage of a 14-year-old follower to her 19-year-old cousin.
Elissa Wall, now 21, said Jeffs used his church authority to coerce her into the marriage and sex by threatening her eternal salvation.
While Jeffs serves two consecutive prison terms of five years to life in the Utah State Prison, prosecutors and his attorneys are fighting over whether he received a fair trial in September.
Documents released by Shumate show that prosecutors sought a mistrial after learning that a juror had failed to reveal that she had been raped as a 13-year-old.
At the time, prosecutor Brock Belnap feared the jury could be prejudiced by the woman, who had participated in 13 hours of deliberation.
Shumate, however, summoned an alternate juror and told the jury to start over. The defense apparently agreed at the time.
``The defendant's lawyers encouraged the court to do exactly what they now claim is error," the prosecutors wrote, noting that the Utah Supreme Court has repeatedly held that a ``party cannot take advantage of an error committed at trial when that party led the trial court into committing the error."
Court transcripts quote defense lawyer Wally Bugden as saying problems with the juror would not prevent the jury from reaching a fair decision.
He asked for a new trial in court papers filed Dec. 5, saying unspecified ``errors and improprieties" occurred during the four-day trial in St. George.
Several media outlets sought to have documents opened to the public.
Telephone messages left for Bugden after regular business hours Tuesday were not immediately returned. A call to Washington County offices went unanswered.
The Associated Press does not generally identify people who allege sexual assaults, but Wall has repeatedly used her maiden name in public. She and her lawyer have declined to say what name she uses now.
Prosecutors have also charged her former husband, Allen Steed, with rape.
Jeffs took over as head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 2002 after the death of his father. About 6,000 followers live in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.
He also faces trials in Arizona on similar charges stemming from church-arranged marriages of underage girls and is under federal indictment in Utah for flight to avoid prosecution.