Eldorado, USA - Polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs' daughter is done. So is her formerly court-appointed attorney, Natalie Malonis.
51st District Judge Barbara Walther dismissed all petitions and attorneys involved with the case of the now-17-year-old girl alleged to have been married to a 34-year-old man just after her 15th birthday -- closing for good one of the highest profile and most contentious aspects of the long-running litigation surrounding the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
"I just couldn't believe what she was saying," the girl's beaming mother, Annette Jeffs, told the San Angelo Standard-Times after the hearing. "It's too good to be true."
Walther rejected Malonis' contention that she should remain on the case to ensure Annette Jeffs was given full custody of the girl, instead citing a decision by the state's Child Protective Services agency last week to dismiss the teen from the case as the overriding factor in whether any further proceedings should take place.
Malonis had argued that a series of prospective witness statements from CPS in December stating that the girl had been in a "harmful, abusive environment" should be considered before Walther dismissed the case.
"The court can take notice of many things," Walther replied, "but the court must follow the law. The court cannot make the law. ... This is
an unusual case, but I don't see any authority for you to continue."
With that, Walther dismissed a raft of motions filed in the moments leading up to the hearing -- including a motion filed by the Standard-Times to quash a subpoena filed against one of its reporters, as well as an ongoing fight over whether to seal the deposition transcript from YFZ Ranch leader Merril Jessop.
"I was prepared to continue doing what I thought I needed to do," Malonis said, "but I'm relieved to have relief."
Walther also accepted the withdrawal of Carmen Symes Dusek as the attorney for a 14-year-old girl alleged to have been married to Warren Jeffs, the sect's leader, and signed an agreed order to seal a guardian's report filed in the case.
The quick resolution - Walther left the bench about 30 minutes after taking it - was a surprise to many in the courtroom, which housed 15 attorneys and another dozen or so potential witnesses and onlookers at the hearing's start.
"We didn't expect that to happen today," said Mindy Montford, Annette Jeffs' attorney. "This case has been dismissed. (The girl) is free to go about her life."