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Phoenix • The Justice Department lawsuit against the polygamous towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., is in recess until Monday and is scheduled to last another three weeks.

The seven men and five women on the jury have heard about a lot across six days of testimony. Here is a synopsis:

• The defense is adamant that the towns' mistakes were few and a long time ago. The Justice Department contends the municipal governments in Hildale and Colorado City, collectively known as Short Creek, collude with the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to discriminate against people who do not follow the church. Much of the Justice Department case is built on documents that law enforcement seized while hunting for FLDS President Warren Jeffs, or while investigating the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas. These documents include letters from town officials and marshals to Jeffs, and ledgers showing tithing they gave to the FLDS.

The documents are between 10 and 12 years old, The defense is trying to use that to its advantage.

During cross examinations, Hildale attorney Blake Hamilton and Colorado City attorney Jeff Matura read a list of current officials and marshals in the towns and ask the witnesses if they have any documents concerning them. The witnesses answer no.

The Justice Department must demonstrate a pattern of discrimination in housing and policing. The defense contends all the Justice Department evidence is old and doesn't show a pattern.

• Jeffs isn't micromanaging the towns from prison. Investigators in the Texas prison system began recording Jeffs' visitations at least by December 2012, one of those investigators, Gary Wilbanks, testified. Yet the Justice Department has offered only a short clip where Jeffs and his brother Isaac Jeffs are discussing some records that the Short Creek marshals may have helped recover for the church.

Under cross examination,

described how">Wilbanks testified he was unaware of recordings that capture Jeffs giving directions to the towns or the marshals. Jeffs' mail is inspected, too, and none of his outgoing prison mail has been offered as evidence.

Jeffs is often described as running the FLDS Church from prison. Maybe he does run the church from there, but it appears he either can't or won't extend his reach to details concerning municipal government.

• Lyle Jeffs might be micromanaging the towns. When this trial is over, someone should obtain the transcripts and compare the number of times Warren Jeffs' name was mentioned compared to Lyle Jeffs, his younger brother and the bishop of Short Creek.

The testimony from former FLDS members, including Dowayne Barlow, Willie Jessop and Charlene Jeffs, discuss how it was Lyle Jeffs deciding who would serve in municipal posts and on the marshal's force, and that the towns would not settle a lawsuit that was the forerunner to the current Justice Department case.

Defense attorneys have attacked the witnesses' recollections and pointed to how it was still up to the town councils or the voters to make the appointments and how, in the case of the marshals, the states of Utah and Arizona certified them as peace officers.

• Welfare appears to be used in Short Creek just like you've heard it is. The idea of polygamists, particularly the mothers who have no legal husband, utilizing food stamps has been recited so often it's a cliche.

Charlene Jeffs, the ex-wife of Lyle Jeffs, described how she didn't use food stamps because she was married. But her "sister wives," to quote her, did qualify for food stamps.

Both Charlene Jeffs and Dwayne Barlow described how the FLDS would use debit cards issued by food stamp programs to buy groceries that would then go to the FLDS storehouse. That is where people in the FLDS' elite subset, called the United Order, were supposed to obtain food.

• Warren Jeffs does not want his followers to know he sexually abused girls. There has been repeated testimony about the lengths to which Warren Jeffs tries to keep the evidence against him a secret.

The FLDS are prohibited from using the internet unless they have special permission, Charlene Jeffs testified. This policy seems to be designed to keep members from learning about the church president. She described how deciding Warren Jeffs is not the true prophet acquires extra heresy if your conclusion is based on internet research.

Warren Jeffs also selects who gets to see his writings and other records and considers those documents, including evidence of the sexual abuse he committed, to be sacred. Jessop contended in his testimony that the reason the FLDS burglarized his excavating business in 2011 was to retrieve a recording of a confession Warren Jeffs made to a brother in the jail in Hurricane.

The United Order is shrouded in secrecy, too. Charlene Jeffs testified that those FLDS who qualify for the Order must undergo a baptism then take an oath not to discuss the Order with anyone, even other members. The only way someone knows who else is in the United Order is by looking around to see who else is attending the church meetings.

• Plenty of people still love Warren Jeffs. A lot of people — hundreds or perhaps even thousands — have left the FLDS over the last decade. Yet an employee who oversees inmate mail at Jeffs' prison in Palestine, Texas, testified he receives up to 300 letters a day, not all of which he reads. The rest of the prison receives 2,000 letters a day.

Twitter: @natecarlisle