San Antonio, USA - The polygamist sect men facing criminal charges in West Texas have indicated they do not plan to seek a change of venue for their trials, meaning a tiny courthouse that hasn't seen a jury trial in at least a decade could face a stampede in the coming year.
"What would be a better place? At this point, we don't intend to ask for a change in venue," said Kent Schaffer, a Houston attorney who represents a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints member facing bigamy charges.
Other defense lawyers and a church spokesman have also indicated they don't plan to ask Texas District Judge Barbara Walther to move the trials out of Schleicher County.
In all, 11 sect men have been charged with felonies including sexual assault of a child, bigamy, conducting an unlawful marriage ceremony involving a minor and tampering with evidence. A 12th man, the sect's doctor, has been charged with three misdemeanor counts of failure to report child abuse.
Because the men were charged separately, each face separate trials. No dates have been set yet.
The tiny two-story courthouse in Eldorado has not held a jury trial in "a long, long time," said Schleicher County Clerk Peggy Williams, estimating it's been at least a decade.
Asked whether the county that has only about 2,000 registered voters could handle a dozen trials, she said: "I couldn't tell you. It depends on what the attorneys come up with."
Venue changes are rare. Although prosecutors can request them and judges can decide independently to order them, the moves are most often sought by defense attorneys arguing their clients can't get a fair trial in their home county because of publicity surrounding the case.
In Schleicher County, members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints have been the talk of the town for years as their neighbors saw them transform a small dusty ranch into a full-blown community with soaring temple, schoolhouse and homes. The FLDS is a breakaway sect of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; the Mormon church renounced polygamy more than a century ago.
When child welfare officials and law enforcement raided the FLDS-run Yearning For Zion Ranch in April, the sect with women who wear distinctive pioneer-style dresses drew worldwide news coverage. Child welfare authorities accused the group of forcing underage girls into marriages and sex.
But Schaffer, who represents Wendell Nielsen, said moving to another county probably wouldn't solve the problem of pretrial publicity.
"Whatever publicity exists is pervasive around the state," he said.
The Attorney General's Office, which is handling the prosecution for the county, hasn't requested venue change, and spokesman Jerry Strickland declined comment on whether it would.
But FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop said sect members would willingly face their neighbors in court.
"We're in that county to stay. We're not going anywhere," he said. "We're not going to run. I think everyone has gotten that message loud and clear."
William Allison, the director of the University of Texas Criminal Defense Clinic, said venue changes are not easy to get, and there could be some advantages to staying in Schleicher County.
"In West Texas, you're going to pull a very conservative but libertarian type of conservative" jury pool, he said. "When you think about it, that's probably a pretty good fit."