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Posted: 2:13 PM- SAN ANGELO, Texas - A Dallas appellate judge will begin a private review today of computer hard drives and 1,000 boxes of documents seized from the Yearning for Zion Ranch to determine which may fall under the protections of the clergy-penitent privilege.
The content of the boxes, stacked floor-to-ceiling high in a Texas Department of Public Safety room, includes letters written to FLDS Prophet Warren Jeffs, church membership lists and genealogy charts, medical records and hand-written notations pertaining to ongoing criminal cases. The documents were taken from the ranch, owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, in a raid that began April 3.
Defense lawyers Bob Switzer and John Fahle, both of San Antonio, began going through the papers two weeks ago, Switzer said after a hearing Monday before 51st District Court Judge Barbara Walther.
But the state asked for an independent reviewer to take over the job. Officials were unsatisfied with the pace at which the lawyers were reading the documents - it took Switzer an entire day to read about half of the papers in one box labeled "bishop's records" alone - and were concerned that they may assert privilege in an attempt to exclude evidence from potential criminal cases.
Defense counsel "should not be the ones to conduct the initial review, but should be allowed to challenge" it, said Tom Green County prosecutor Allison Palmer.
But defense attorney Cynthia Orr argued the FLDS are being conservative as to what they're asserting is privileged and that "taking counsel out of the equation makes too much room for mischief."
Going through the papers is tedious work, the defense lawyers said, because in some instances only a few sentences on a page are privileged and need to be redacted. Much of the material has no evidentiary value and does not serve the interests of the children, they said.
Walther said Justice Molly Francis, who sits on the Texas Court of Appeals' Fifth District bench, will begin examining the papers today to assess the situation and set up guidelines for going through them.
Meanwhile, FLDS mothers were expected on Monday to visit children being treated at the Shannon West Texas Memorial Hospital here.
Cynthia Martinez, a spokeswoman for the Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid Society, said the state's Child Protective Services has set up a supervised visiting schedule for the parents. "We're definitely pleased with that," she said.
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