By James Nelson
Salt Lake City - The Utah Supreme Court on Tuesday tossed out the 2007 sexual abuse conviction of polygamist leader Warren Jeffs and ordered a new trial on charges of forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry her first cousin.
Jeffs, the self-proclaimed prophet of a breakaway Mormon sect, was sentenced in November 2007 to a term of 10 years to life in prison for two felony convictions on charges he was an accomplice to rape.
But the Utah High Court ruled that the trial judge had erred in giving instructions to the jury.
Jeffs, revered as infallible by his followers but reviled as power-crazed and delusional by others, will remain in prison for now, though his lawyers are expected to seek his release.
He is considered the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or the FLDS, a polygamist sect that has an estimated 10 000 followers in Utah, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, South Dakota and British Columbia.
The Utah court ruling sparked outrage among opponents of the group.
"It makes me sick to my stomach that the system does this to victims," said Flora Jessop, a former FLDS member and advocate for children still in the sect. "The victim has to go through (another trial) and be victimised by the courts, by the system that's supposed to be protecting her."
Jeffs spent 15 months on the run and was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list of fugitives before his August 2006 arrest during a routine traffic stop outside of Las Vegas.
He was convicted in September 2007 on two counts of first-degree felony rape as an accomplice, stemming from his alleged performance of a marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin. - Reuters