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Unethical Conduct of County Attorney Matt Smith and Sheriff Tom Sheahan

2010-07-19 07:49:55

By Donald Richter

 

The following article was written over a year ago while Warren Jeffs was still a prisoner in Kingman, Arizona. Out of concern for his life and safety, we decided not to make this information public at that time. 
 
At a Mohave County Republican forum held at the Elks Lodge in Kingman, Arizona, on February 10, 2009, County Attorney Matt Smith, who is conducting Arizona’s criminal case against Warren Jeffs, and Mohave County sheriff Tom Sheahan made a number of remarks intended to arouse prejudice against the FLDS Prophet. From one of the men who attended this public meeting, we have obtained an audio tape, documenting the shockingly unethical conduct of these officials.
 
Among the approximately fifty-five people listening to these remarks were two Mohave County judges—Rick Lambert, a Kingman justice of the peace, and Lee F. Jantzen, Superior Court judge pro tem.
 
Just before relating his stories about Warren Jeffs, Mr. Smith provoked laughter from his audience by remarking, “So, you’re going to see some trials… later this year, so if any of you end up being called for jury selection, pretend that you didn’t hear any of this.” County Sheriff Sheahan elicited more laughter by adding, “But they’re all guilty!”
 
Mr. Smith then said, “Warren Jeffs is still in our jail, yes. He has been in prison or in jail for over two and one half years now, and for the most part he’s been a pretty model prisoner, although Jeff can tell you some stories about how Jeff has to tell him from time to time to quit praying, because he’s a very religious man; he is a man of God.” Lt. Jeff Brown is the administrator at the Mohave County Detention Center.
 
Although Mr. Smith acknowledged Warren Jeffs’ strong religious convictions, instead of being properly respectful of those convictions, he held them up to ridicule. “He was always on his knees praying,” he said, “and he ends up getting sores on his knees to the point where they get infected. So Jeff basically told him, not on my watch, you’re not going to do that any more. And Warren said, ‘Well, you don’t understand; this is what I do.’ Jeff said, ‘No, you don’t understand. You’re not going to do that in my jail because I’m responsible for you.’” Then Matt Smith turned to the side and in a low tone added, “We have to take care of you son of a bitch!” This vulgarity was greeted by loud laughter from the audience. Mr. Smith continued, “We have to take care of him and make sure that he’s healthy and that he can stand trial here in Mohave County.”
 
A much simpler and more humane solution would have been to provide a small mat so that Mr. Jeffs could say his prayers without having to kneel on the hard concrete floor. Certainly, this would not be too great a concession toward a man whom the county attorney already admitted was a model prisoner and deeply religious.
 
Continuing his stories of Warren Jeffs, Matt Smith distorted the facts by claiming that the Arizona cases against the FLDS Prophet involved arranging marriages between two girls, fourteen and sixteen years old, and their first cousins. Arizona had attempted to file charges against Mr. Jeffs in these cases as an accomplice to incest. However, on June 4 of last year, Mohave County Superior Court Judge Steven Conn threw out the charges because the girls were not first cousins at all but second cousins and the relationship did not fall under the incest laws.
 
Commenting later in the meeting on a question from the audience concerning how certain frivolous lawsuits ever get into the court system, Matt Smith seized the opportunity to take another jab at the FLDS people. “I can tell you story after story of people that take absolutely frivolous lawsuits,” he said. “You know, look at Rodney Parker, spokesman for the Colorado City people. I mean, no matter what, he’s being paid so much money by them that he’s their mouthpiece, and you’re going to see him in the media every day.”
 
Sheriff Tom Sheahan asked, “Can I tell one more Jeffs story if we got two minutes?” He suggested that he would like to see Warren Jeffs placed in the general prison population, where he would be at the mercy of the other prisoners. “He’s in isolation because if we put him in the regular pods, the other inmates would love to get their hands on him, and, you know, unfortunately we can’t do that.”
 
The FLDS religion teaches its members to fast and pray in times of need as a means of getting close to the Lord. The sheriff referred to Warren Jeffs’ practice of this principle as staging a hunger strike. “He goes on a hunger strike, collapses, and ends up going to the hospital,” he said. “And who gets the bill again? We do…. We had to get a court order. We got to force feed this guy because we are not going to be paying these bills every time he doesn’t want to eat.”
 
He said that research showed they didn’t need a court order because Mr. Jeffs was in his custody and he could do what was necessary to get him to trial in a healthy condition.
 
“So they got him in a bunk,” he said. “Four pointed him down hands and legs, tied him down; and the doctor came in from the jail, took that feeding tube, shoved it right down his throat, and (laughter) Mr. Jeffs ended his hunger strike immediately! He’s actually put on some weight.” These remarks were greeted by loud laughter and applause. 
 
The sheriff obviously took a sadistic delight in being able to humiliate Warren Jeffs and trample on his personal dignity. The implication in his remarks seems to be, “That’s the way we treat these FLDS!”
 
Both the county attorney and the sheriff show that they deal with Warren Jeffs and the FLDS people through prejudice and hatred rather than through fairness and impartiality. Such conduct is especially inexcusable on the part of the county attorney, who is placed in a position of trust that requires a high level of ethical conduct.
 
While it deals specifically with prosecutors on the federal level, Berger v. U.S., (1935) states standards of conduct applicable to a county attorney as well:
 
The United States Attorney is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape nor innocence suffer.
 
Hosford v. State (Miss. 1988) emphasizes the ethical duty of a prosecuting attorney “to hold himself under proper restraint and avoid violent partisanship, partiality, and misconduct which may tend to deprive the defendant of the fair trial to which he is entitled…”
 
The conduct of these two public officials is totally inappropriate for men in positions of responsibility and trust in our justice system.
 


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