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S U N S T O N E
JEANETTE ATWOOD, BASED ON CONCEPT BY HUGO OLAIZ
who are fundamentalists are not
Mormon. And it’s a great disservice,
I think, when that term is
used. It’s very confusing to the
people.”
“I can certainly see your point
from a public relations standpoint,
and it certainly could confuse
people,” Cooper replied.
“We’ve even tried to show the difference
as much as possible. But I
think part of the problem from
the media’s point of view is that
you have these people out there
who call themselves Funda-mentalist
Mormon, and they will tell
you that they are the true followers
of Mormon [sic]. They believe
Joseph Smith was a prophet;
they follow the Book of Mormon.
So it’s a difficult thing for an outsider,
I think, to figure out what
terms are appropriate to use.”
Elder Tingey then focused on
another complaint leveled by the
public affairs department—
namely, the use of Temple Square
as background for the Jeffsthemed
broadcast. “I think it’s a
great disservice,” said Tingey, “for
example, to maybe show the icon
of the Mormon temple when discussing
fundamentalists, because
guilt by association can be very
confusing to the listeners.”
Told by Cooper that the FLDS
expects to retake the Salt Lake
Temple one day, Tingey said that
the two groups should be judged
“by their fruits” and emphasized
the differences between LDS and
FLDS. “Ours is a worldwide
church, 175 countries, four hundred
[thousand] converts a year,
growing at 4 percent a year. We
have over 130 operating temples.
We are a distinct religion completely
unassociated with those
who call themselves fundamentalists.”
UTAH AND ARIZONA COURTS
RULE IN SEVERAL CASES
IN A 4 TO 1 DECISION THIS
past May, the Utah Supreme
Court declared Utah’s bigamy
statute constitutional, upholding
polygamist Rodney Holm’s conviction
on two felony counts of
unlawful sexual conduct and one
count of bigamy. Holm was ordered
to serve one year in county
jail with work release privileges
and three years’ supervised probation.
In 1998, Holm, who already
had two wives, married 16-yearold
Ruth Stubbs in a ceremony
solemnized by FLDS president
Warren Jeffs. Holm later had two
children with Stubbs. Holm
maintained that he never sought
to legally marry Stubbs, but the
“Aren’t you curious to read the book the FBI found in
Warren Jeffs’s possession when they arrested him?”
justices concluded that Holm had
“purported to be married” to
Stubbs by the nature of their
wedding ceremony and relationship.
According to Utah’s bigamy
statute, it is illegal to “purport to
marry” or cohabit with another
while married to another person.
“At the ceremony, Stubbs
wore a white dress, which she
considered a wedding dress,”
wrote Justice Matthew Durrant
with the majority. “In short, the
ceremony in which Holm and
Stubbs participated appeared, in
every material respect, indistinguishable
from a marriage ceremony
to which this state grants
legal recognition on a daily
basis.”
Ruth Stubbs
Rodney Holm
Even though the decision led
many Utah polygamists to worry
about the state deciding to prosecute
all bigamist and polygamist
marriages, Assistant Utah
Attorney General Laura DuPaix
said prosecutors are not
going after polygamist marriages
between two adults,
only marriages involving minors.
“We are concerned
about older men marrying
younger girls and taking
them as younger wives,”
DuPaix said. “Quite frankly,
we believe that’s child
abuse.”
TWO MONTHS AFTER THE
Utah Supreme Court’s
ruling, eight men were set to
stand trial in Kingman,
Arizona, for marrying underage
girls polygamously.
With no victims coming forward,
the cases rely heavily
on birth certificates and testimonies
of ex-FLDS members.
The first of the eight to
stand trial, Kelly Fischer, 39, was
found guilty on 7 July of sex with
a minor and conspiracy to
commit sex with a minor. On 2
August, the Colorado City,
Arizona, man was sentenced to
forty-five days in jail and three
years’ probation. Fischer is appealing
his conviction.
On 8 September, Donald
Barlow, 49, the second man on
trial, was found not guilty on the
charge of sexual conduct with a
minor. According to a story in
The Kingman Daily Miner, defense
attorney Bruce Griffen spent
most of his time arguing that the
crime did not happen in the state
of Arizona. The judge’s instructions
to the jury made it clear that
the state has to prove beyond
any reasonable doubt that
Barlow committed the crime in
Arizona.
Lawyers for the third man,
Randolph J. Barlow, 33, reached
an agreement to go to a bench
trial. The state dropped two
counts of sexual assault charges
against Barlow, who is charged
with two counts of sexual conduct
with a minor, both Class 6
felonies. If convicted, he could receive
a sentence of anywhere between
four months and two years
in prison or receive probation.
The case against Barlow took
an unexpected turn when Candi
Shapley, 20, who is regarded by
the state as the key witness to
prove Barlow’s guilt on two
counts of sexual conduct with a
minor, refused to testify. Shapley
was held in contempt of court
and sentenced to live in a local
shelter for thirty days. It is not
clear if Shapley will testify in
court when Barlow’s new trial
date arrives.
The other five men set to
stand trial are: Dale Evans Barlow,
48; Rodney Hans Holm, 39;
Vergel Bryce Jessop, 46; Terry
Darger Barlow, 24; and David
Romaine Bateman, 49. The trials
are being held in the same courthouse
where many of the men’s
fathers and grandfathers were
brought after the 1953 raid of the
FLDS community in Short Creek,
Arizona.
PAGE 72 SEPTEMBER 2006