This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
If you love the right against self incrimination, this is your week in the trial of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.
The U.S. Department of Justice this week is expected to, kind of, call Lyle Jeffs and Joseph Allred.
Jeffs is the brother of imprisoned Fundamentalist of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints President Warren Jeffs. Lyle Jeffs runs the day-to-day operations of the church, who is not a party in the civil rights lawsuit.
Lyle Jeffs won't be testifying in person. After some back and forth between attorneys on all sides, the Justice Department will play a video recording of the deposition Lyle Jeffs gave before trial. In it, he cited the First and Fifth amendments in refusing to answer almost any question about the church or its relationship, if any, with Hildale and Colorado City.
Also this week, the Justice Department is expected to call Colorado City Mayor Joseph Allred. The precursor to this trial was a 2014 trial in which a Colorado City couple, Ron and Jinjer Cooke, alleged the towns illegally denied them utility connections. Allred was called at that federal trial and refused to answer almost anything.
He had reason to for such. In that 2014 trial and the current trial, there has been testimony about how Allred wrote to Warren Jeffs when Warren Jeffs was fleeing from the FBI and how Allred married an underaged girl.
That didn't help the towns' cause. The jury awarded the Cookes $5.2 million. The parties later settled the case for $3 million.
Jinjer Cooke is also expected to testify this week.
Twitter: @natecarlisle