Texas Ranger, sheriff to be questioned by Jeffs' lawyer
 
By Suzanne Adams
Kingman Daily Miner

and Ben Winslow
Deseret News
 
KINGMAN, Ariz. — Lawyers for Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Warren Jeffs will be able to interview three Texas law enforcement officers about evidence seized from the polygamous sect's Yearning For Zion Ranch.

Mohave County Superior Court Judge Steven Conn on Tuesday ordered Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran, his deputy John Connor and Texas Ranger Brooks Long to submit to interviews with Jeffs' defense team — or face a deposition.

Contacted by the Deseret News on Tuesday, Doran was unsure if he would submit to an interview.

"Until I receive something officially, I can't answer that," he said. "We're going to work with our attorney general's office and take advice from them."

During Tuesday's hearing, Jeffs' attorney, Michael Piccarreta, said he warned the Mohave County attorney and the attorney general's special prosecutor not to go or send any Arizona officers to Texas. They ignored his advice.

Piccarreta said the defense has a right to interview the three Texas officers because they had contact with Arizona law enforcement and investigators.

"These people have injected themselves into this case," he said. "I find it hard to believe that they have no information or relevance to this case."

Mohave County Attorney Matt Smith told the judge the Texas evidence was already separated from the rest of their evidence with no plans to use it in court.

"We are comfortable with the cases and don't need the evidence from Texas," Smith said.

Smith was willing to vow in court that prosecutors would not use any evidence from Texas in either of the cases against Jeffs, if the court and the defense was willing to drop the motion to depose the Texas officers.

Smith raised concerns that having Arizona attorneys depose or interview the Texas officers could hurt the case that Texas authorities are preparing against Jeffs.

A vow from prosecutors not to use the evidence seized from the YFZ Ranch during Jeffs' upcoming Arizona trial is not enough, Piccarreta said. He said he was willing to travel to Texas and interview the officers at times most convenient to them. Jeffs was also willing to waive his right to be present in those depositions, Piccarreta said.

Doran said he did not know why his office would need to be interviewed as part of Jeffs' criminal case in Arizona.

"I have no idea because the state of Texas, I don't believe, has anything to do with their case," he said.

Nine men, including Jeffs, have been indicted by a grand jury in Eldorado, Texas, on charges ranging from sexual assault of a child to bigamy to failure to report child abuse. It stems from the April raid on the YFZ Ranch where hundreds of children were taken into state custody amid abuse allegations.

A pair of Texas courts returned the children to their parents two months later, ruling the state acted improperly and the children were not at immediate risk of abuse.

The judge did not rule on the defense's motion to suppress evidence from the Texas raid and expressed reservations about not ruling on that motion.

"I would rather rule sooner than later on the legality of the search," the judge said.

Neither attorney seemed to be willing to push the matter during Tuesday's hearing.

E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com
 
DeseretNews.com
Originally published Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2008
 
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