Flagstaff, USA — An Arizona judge has denied a request from attorneys for polygamist leader Warren Jeffs to force Texas authorities to fully answer questions about a raid at a sect compound.
Mohave County Judge Steven Conn said in an April 3 ruling that he wasn't sufficiently briefed on the matter. But he said the request could be reconsidered later, depending on whether the officers voluntarily consented to an interview with Jeffs' attorneys in December or did it under a court-ordered deposition.
Jeffs' attorney, Mike Piccarreta, said Thursday he would file a motion to specifically address re-interviewing the Texas authorities. Piccarreta wants to know when Texas officials found out that a fake phone call had triggered their April 2008 raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints compound in Eldorado, Texas.
Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith has opposed the move to re-interview the Texas authorities.
Piccarreta had argued that the raid showed reckless disregard of the truth by Texas authorities and wants all evidence collected from the raid barred from Jeffs' trial in Arizona.
Conn said he won't rule on the request to suppress evidence from the raid until after a similar request in Texas has been decided.
Jeffs is awaiting trial in a Kingman, Ariz. jail on four counts of being an accomplice to sexual conduct with a minor. The charges filed in 2007 are related to marriages he allegedly performed between older men and underage girls.
He's already been convicted in Utah of two felony counts of rape by accomplice and faces similar charges in Texas.
Smith has said he doesn't plan to present evidence collected from the Texas raid during Jeffs' trial in Arizona — a statement Conn has said he's not entirely convinced of.
Piccarreta said Smith failed to acknowledge in his response to the motion to suppress evidence from the Texas raid that the call was a hoax and asked Conn to strike certain portions of the response. The judge denied the request.
Smith has said he is willing to acknowledge which facts that led to the Texas warrant later proved to be untrue.