Posted on 06/24/2008 9:41:49 AM PDT by Alice in Wonderland
SAN ANGELO, Texas — A court-appointed attorney for a 16-year-old FLDS girl caught up in a grand jury investigation will go to court today under armed guard. Natalie Malonis confirmed to the Deseret News she has received death threats since she sought a restraining order against a high-profile member of the Fundamentalist LDS Church to prevent him from contacting her client.
"I've been getting death threats and I am being provided a security detail," she said this morning. "That was not even at my request. Law enforcement recognized the need for it."
Malonis said she did not know who has made the threats. She represents four FLDS members — including Pamela Jeffs, for whom she was praised by FLDS supporters when she managed to secure additional rights in court for the woman once declared by Texas authorities to be a minor.
Malonis' 16-year-old client, meanwhile, has fired off several e-mails asking her to step aside.
In e-mails sent to the Deseret News and posted on pro-FLDS Web sites, Teresa Jeffs accuses her court-appointed lawyer of not acting in her best interest.
"My attorney is going against my wishes. Maybe you need a restraining order that you can absolutely have nothing to do with me and you have to stay 1,000 feet away from me! What do you think of that?" she wrote in an e-mail to Malonis.
Jeffs has been subpoenaed to testify Wednesday before a grand jury investigating crimes involving FLDS members. The Texas Attorney General's Office said it could not find Jeffs to subpoena her, and Malonis went to court seeking a restraining order against FLDS member and spokesman Willie Jessop. In court papers, she accused Jessop of coercing the girl to avoid the subpoena and interfering with her relationship with her client. Judge Barbara Walther signed a temporary restraining order that technically prevents Jeffs' mother from allowing her daughter to have any contact with Jessop. A hearing on a more permanent restraining order will be held this afternoon.
On Monday, Malonis said she spoke with the attorney for Jeffs' mother, but no agreement could be reached.
"I hoped we could, but no ... ," she told the Deseret News.
Malonis said she is prepared to call witnesses and present evidence to suggest that the girl is being intimidated and pressured by FLDS members. The judge is not expected to consider Jeffs' request for a new lawyer.
Rod Parker, a Salt Lake attorney acting as a spokesman for the FLDS, believes Malonis is not following her court-appointed duties. Because Malonis is Teresa Jeffs' attorney ad litem and not her guardian ad litem, her job is to be an advocate for the child, he said.
"I think that she's really out on a limb in doing what she's doing and injuring her own client in a very public way," Parker said. "This is just a very unhealthy and dysfunctional attorney-client relationship. The court ought to grant Teresa's wish and give her another lawyer. This system of justice does not work appropriately when attorneys and their clients are at odds with each other." When the Texas Supreme Court ordered the hundreds of children taken in the April 3 raid to be returned to their parents, Jeffs was exempted.
Malonis said in court papers it was because the girl was an identified sex-abuse victim who had been "spiritually united" to an older man at 15. A special order was put in place for Jeffs, preventing her from contacting her father — FLDS leader Warren Jeffs — and a man named Raymond Jessop, who was not further identified.
The Deseret News normally does not name sex-abuse victims, but the girl has gone public in media interviews and in an e-mail forwarded to the Deseret News. She insists she is not a victim. In her e-mail, the girl said neither Willie Jessop nor Raymond Jessop has ever threatened her.
"That have treated (sic) so very kindly," she wrote.
Jeffs wrote in the communication with Malonis that she did not want the grand jury subpoena, but acknowledged being served.
"Well, they want me to appear before a grand jury. I do not have confidence in you and how can I get you to help me in such a situation that I am in when it feels like to me all you are doing is going against me," she wrote. "So, that is the reason that I am asking you to step aside and let me do what I need to do to and get me a different attorney."
Good grief. So do the Southern Baptists and the Westboro Baptists. What is the point....
First question freely chosen by who?
It is my understanding the lawyer is neither in a prosecution or defense stance but working for what she sees as the best interest of the child.
Having said that with all the publicity I think both the judge and lawyer should step aside.
Not that they are bad people but the publicity has created such a fuss a new judge and lawyer would not have to deal with those pr problems.
Than maybe they could get closer to the truth of what is going on and who needs charged with what.
Where have I heard this before?
It's very difficult to disassociate Eric Rudoplh with the pro-life movement...
It's very difficult to disassociate David Duke with the Republican Party...
And so on, and so on...
I would gather many don’t take the flds group seriously either. I can’t agree with the way they are; doesn’t exempt them from constitutional rights though.
And watch the thread you are on get pulled for "childish behavior" when an LDS disruptor mounts personal attack after personal attack without getting booted, and see the same disruptor carrying the attacks into PM.
Post your own thread and see it segregated into the Smoky Back Room immediately because the subject doesn't suit the FR LDS, even when it's an article from the Salt Lake City Tribune and totally factual, due to "multiple abuse reports".
Start a daily FLDS thread with much factual information and valuable links in it and rather than the FLDS defenders posting their own links on it, they complain to the point that the Daily Thread is discontinued.
Yep, just LOTS of options there.
Some people need a new hobby perhaps?
The LDS church as a whole doesn’t run to the FLDS defense either, just a few characters. At that, as I stated earlier, the LDS church excommunicated the FLDS so it seems the LDS has made their official position clear about the FLDS cult.
The lawyer is appointed by the court. The lawyer as attorney ad litem has a duty to ascertain the wishes of the client and to give deference to those wishes AS LONG AS THOSE WISHES DO NO RUN COUNTER TO THE CHILD'S "BEST INTERESTS".
In this case, the attorney claims she had a friendly, productive relationship with the child until she came under the influence of Willie. The attorney further claims Willie demands that the lawyer advocate for the "lifestyle of the flds". The lawyer says she received information which she believes to be credible that the girl was 'spiritually married' to an older man at age 15. She sought a court order barring Willie from being in contact with the girl. That question, as well as whether the lawyer will be replaced, is to be taken up at a hearing scheduled to start in about 20 minutes.
As far as the judge being removed, she has not been shown to have the degree of bias which would support removal. Even though I agreed with the higher courts reversing the trial court's temporary order rulings, there is no reason to think she will be removed from the case. Judges get reversed quite often.
That is because the courts corrected them. They still have an argument to play later if they desire, but the court system did its job to reverse an idiotic decision by the lower court judge.
Funny, you've posted two Open Religion Forum threads with LDS in the title over the last week and they both are still there and not in the backroom...
A matter of degrees on a slippery slope, but for the purpose of this thread and simplicity, it will suffice.
However, there seems to be a concentration of the characters you mention here, and given the general view of both, you would have to understand one’s drawing of somewhat understandable conclusions.
Not that they are bad people but the publicity has created such a fuss a new judge and lawyer would not have to deal with those problems.
This is well-organized FLDS generated publicity in an effort to do just what you suggest, remove the attorney, who they formerly praised. They are the ones who released the girl's emails, letter to the court, etc.
Isn't that the truth. In any threads that have even the slightest things to do with Mormons, I see the same two or three coming over and over in attempts to make it into a fight, almost as though they want to somehow drive Mormons out. Some of those also seem to only spend time on Mormon related threads, never anywhere else. At the same time, the Mormon church defenders seem to be generally all over the place discussing lots of different topics. A lot of folks forget we are all on the same side here. Our Mormon FRiends are just as Conservative (if not more) than the rest of us, and frankly, they live their faith to a strength that should put most of us to shame.
Anything else is a leap, one which has been made here over and over again.
I will leave the details of my answer to another thread more conducive to such discussions, however I will say that though I share you POV of Ron Paul and his folks, I don't share your rosy view of the LDS now. Indeed there are some parallels...
The problems with changing lawyers include--
-You don't want to reward what amounts to misconduct by flds members.
-A newly appointed attorney would NOT be someone requested by Teresa, so who's to say the new attorney would have any better luck with this client.
- A new attorney would have to start from scratch.
I doubt Malonis is removed (but I guess it could happen), and I'd be willing to bet the TRO as to Willie will be extended.
It is unconstitutional to hold an adult as a minor that provided the requisite paperwork for instance. That hasn’t even been dealt with yet. They did that in several documented cases. Also, from a constitutional assessment the courts determined that they can not be treated as one entity but must be treated individually under the law. What parts of the constitution do you disagree with or what parts of being treated individually as required by Texas law (as determined by the appeals court and the Texas Supreme court) don’t you understand? The courts ruled on the basis of those two items, and the Texas statutes are clear on individual due process which did not happen in the initial hearing. Two upper courts determined that. All laws are looked at as written and then if the upper courts had upheld the unlawful ruling, then the flds folks would have had the opportunity to challenge the laws as constitutional or not. So far, the Texas law is constitutional but the court actions did not abide by the law in a constitutional manner.
This is pretty clear to me. From day one, many of us said you cannot treat all 400 plus cases as one case. You have a constitutional right to individual due process.
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