Fifth District Judge James L. Shumate ordered Jeffs to stand trial April 23-May 4 on two first-degree counts of rape as an accomplice for his role conducting the spiritual ceremony that united Doe at age 14 to her 19-year-old cousin. Each charge is punishable by five years to life in prison.

Jeffs, 51, agreed to an immediate arraignment and pleaded not guilty as 16 devoted followers looked on from the gallery.

Shumate postponed a bail hearing at the request of Jeffs' attorneys. That means Jeffs will remain at the Purgatory Correctional Facility in Hurricane. The jail is about 45 minutes from the twin towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., home to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

As they had earlier in the day, the FLDS members stood in respect as Jeffs was escorted out of the courtroom.

Jeffs, who has served as FLDS president since 2002, spent 15 months as a fugitive before being apprehended Aug. 28 during a traffic stop on Interstate 15 outside Las Vegas. He also faces three felony sex crime charges in Arizona for his role conducting underage marriages. During Thursday's hearing, Jeffs agreed to waive extradition to Arizona once the Utah prosecution is completed.

Jeffs offered no visible reaction to the judge's decision. During breaks in the hearing, he often turned to exchange glances and smiles with his followers, who left the courthouse without comment.

Former FLDS member Ross Chatwin, who attended the hearing, said he doubts Jeffs' loyalists will be told what happened in court.

"They will hear that all went well and told that Warren is innocent," Chatwin said.

But Chatwin, whom Jeffs ousted from the faith, said he is pleased the case is going to trial. "This is a good message to the world," Chatwin said.

Ezra Draper, another ex-FLDS member, said that unlike the dozens of men Jeffs has banished, "The beauty of our [court] system means Warren will get the opportunity to prove his innocence, unlike those who have been excommunicated and did not have the right to a trial."

Doe, who testified before Shumate on Nov. 21, was not in court because she gave birth to her second child last week. Roger Hoole, her attorney, telephoned her afterward and said she was "pleased and relieved." Hoole also is representing Doe, 20, in a multimillion-dollar civil suit against Jeffs.

The hearing opened with the defense questioning a single witness: Shauna Jones, the detective whose interviews led to the criminal charges against Jeffs.

Jones acknowledged that Doe had not explicitly told Jeffs her husband was forcing her to have sex, only that he "did some things and touched her in places that made her uncomfortable."

Shumate later said that the inference was clear, however, and that Doe had already made her opposition to the union known to Jeffs.

Even during the ceremony - which took place April 23, 2001, in Caliente, Nev. - Doe hesitated while speaking her vows and had to be assisted by her mother, he said.

"To say her agreement was reluctant this court finds is very clear," Shumate said.

While sexual relations may never have been discussed as part of the marriage preparations, there was an expectation the marriage would be consummated, the judge said, pointing out that Jeffs told the couple to multiply and replenish the Earth.

"Without medical intervention, that implies sexual intercourse," he said.

Doe again made her opposition known after the ceremony, Shumate said, by expressing "disdain, reluctance and opposition and total dislike of sexual relations" with her husband.

Doe may have used coded language, such as "husband-wife" relations, but the judge said he believed Jeffs was "on notice" that she was objecting to sexual intercourse.

Nevertheless, Jeffs sent her back to her husband, Shumate said.

As a former teacher, principal and religious leader, Jeffs held a position of special trust over Doe, and used his authority to entice her to proceed with and stay in the union, the judge said.

Shumate rejected arguments by Walter Bugden, one of Jeffs' three attorneys, that Jeffs had merely conducted a marriage ceremony and offered standard marital advice to Doe and her husband.

Bugden contended there was no proof that Jeffs knew Jane Doe was having nonconsensual sex or that her husband knew she was not a willing participant. The husband has not been charged, although prosecutors have said that's a possibility.

A "person who does not know a crime is occurring can't be held liable for it," Bugden said. "It doesn't matter if I was encouraging someone to do something if a crime doesn't happen."

Bugden said Jeffs gave Doe "generic religious" counsel common to many faiths about the relationship between husbands and wives - among them the Southern Baptists, who during 1998 adopted a statement that wives were to submit themselves willingly and graciously to their husbands.

He said countless marriage ceremonies available on the Internet use similar language and that Jeffs' instruction that the couple "go forth and multiple and replenish the earth" is taken straight from Genesis in the Bible.

"That is a blessing," Bugden said. "As some people would say, it's a blessing to have children. A reference in a marriage ceremony to that is not a command to have sexual intercourse tonight or within a month."

But Washington County Deputy Attorney Ryan Shaum rejected Bugden's argument that Jeffs could not have known that Jane Doe's husband would have sexual intercourse with her. Jeffs' instructions that they "multiply and replenish the earth" meant only one thing, Shaum said. "He is saying, 'go procreate.'

"This is a religion where marriage means children. How could it reasonably refer to anything else?" Shaum asked.

He said Jeffs ignored Doe's pleas that she was too young to marry and didn't want to marry her cousin.

"She was fighting it tooth and nail right up to the marriage ceremony," he said.

Given Jane Doe's aversion, there was no way the cousin could have convinced her to marry him or have sex with him, Shaum said.

Only Jeffs could have made the marriage happen or stopped it, Shaum said. He said Jeffs used psychological and theological pressure, portraying the union as "God's will," to make Doe comply.

Jeffs "broke her will down, broke her options down, let her know this was the only way she was going to get to heaven," he said.

After the hearing, Bugden said the state had "overreached" in its charges against Jeffs.

"Does a priest, a rabbi or a marriage counselor subject himself to a charge of accomplice to rape anytime he or she counsels a married couple having domestic problems to make their marriage work?" Bugden said. "Does a Mormon bishop become an accomplice to rape when he suggests that a couple think about having children?"

The counsel that Jeffs gave the couple, Bugden said, is no different from what religious leaders tell their faithful "every day across America."

brooke@sltrib.com