This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

- Jeffs sentence: FLDS prophet got what he deserved - Salt Lake Tribune Editorial

Warren Jeffs got the sentence he deserved. Evidence presented in the penalty phase of his Texas trial suggested that the polygamous prophet is a serial pedophile. The jury was right to send him to prison for life, not only to punish him for his crimes of sexual assault of children but to protect others in his sect from possible predations by him in the future.The prosecution told the jury that Jeffs married — and we use that verb advisedly — 12 girls under the age of 15. The state also provided evidence that Jeffs married four 12-year-old girls while on the lam from criminal charges.Marriages under these circumstances to brides so young amount to rape. That is why the laws in most states, including Utah, hold that a girl that young cannot give her legal consent to sex.......The judge seemed to do everything within her power to convince him to use defense lawyers, short of allowing further delays in the trial, but he declined. Like his other decisions, he now must live with his actions.One prosecutor summed up by saying, "Evidence in this case shows this is not the prosecution of a people, this is a prosecution to protect a people." That is surely right.

- Folks, I got even more than I bargained for at the Warren Jeffs trial - Lindsay Whitehurst, The Salt Lake Tribune

... But throughout the trial, Jeffs seemed to absolutely believe what he was saying, whether he was pitching his voice to read a "revelation from God" or talking about a "sacred trust" inherent in the evidence.My take on his self-defense was that he wanted us all to understand that he is God's prophet. To make us all, at least to some extent, believers.He never addressed the charges — not even to say he was innocent. I only heard him say one of the victim's names one time. ...

- Warren Jeffs Trial: The Wit and Wisdom of Judge Barbara Walther - Torie Bosch, Slate

... One of the bright spots of the frequently sickening trial was the judge, Barbara Walther, who exhibited patience and wit even as Jeffs, surely unused to listening to an authoritative woman, acted out like a petulant child. ...

- Child marriage and the Warren Jeffs polygamist trial - Christian Science Monitor Editorial

... Worldwide, though, more than 60 million girls end up as child brides, meaning they marry before the age of 18, which is classified as underage by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. ...

- Where Texas leads on polygamy, Canada should follow - Roy Green, National Post

... Last Sunday I reminded British Columbia Attorney General Barry Penner that the Texas jury heard testimony that several of Warren Jeffs' underage brides were from Bountiful, [British Columbia].The A.G. insisted the province is giving the matter priority attention. Curious then that so little appears to be publicly taking place. Has an official action been filed to have the girls returned to Canada? If not, why not? ...

- Trial of man who claimed to have killed 600 trumps Jeffs' - Rick Smith, San Angelo Standard-Times

Our most infamous trial in the past 50 years involved a defendant who made Jeffs look like a choirboy.In the spring of 1984, our old courthouse was the setting for what one Standard-Times reporter called the "Halloween horror story of Henry Lee Lucas."......Lucas claimed to have killed as many at 600 victims in 26 states, mostly women. He confessed to 100 to 165 murders, depending on whom you ask, and later claimed he didn't kill anyone but his mom....... As Standard-Times reporter Rex Henderson wrote, "He can discuss the vilest of acts the way other people discuss the weather."