Free Republic

Today: November 24, 2006 at 12:5:13 PST Polygamists Worry Jeffs Case Harms Image By JENNIFER DOBNER ASSOCIATED PRESS ST. GEORGE, Utah (AP) - A criminal court case here paints a polygamist sect's leader as a controlling abuser who breaks up families and forces girls to marry men sometimes decades older. But polygamists who aren't associated with Warren Jeffs' group say the case is giving people unfair perceptions of their way of life. "I think everyone that lives the lifestyle now is guilty by association," said Rachel Young, 45, a polygamist wife and mother of 12, who is a member of...

Several weeks ago a memorably strange ruling came down from our Circuit Court bench. In a death penalty case involving the fatal stabbing of one prison inmate by another, Judge Pamela North instructed the jury that a person may arm himself "in reasonable anticipation of an attack." After hearing that, the jury acquitted Robert McFarlin of first-degree murder in the 2004 death of Damon Bowie, who was stabbed five times on the sidelines of a basketball game at the Maryland House of Correction in Jessup. McFarlin claimed he armed himself with a knife because he believed there was a "hit"...