Arizona police regulators advance their probe of polygamous towns’ marshals

Arizona's police regulators on Wednesday formed a subcommittee to examine the marshals in the polygamous towns on the state line with Utah, but did not discuss what an investigation has found thus far, says a lawyer who attended the meeting in Flagstaff.

Attorney Jeff Matura, who represents the marshals and municipal government in Colorado City, Ariz., said the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Council discussed the subcommittee for about four minutes and did not specify its mission. Matura, however, assumes the subcommittee's function is to recommend to the council, known as Arizona POST, whether to revoke his clients' police powers.

Arizona POST has been communicating with the marshals for months, asking questions and seeking documents, Matura said. He said his clients have cooperated.

"If they think the officers did something wrong, we're happy to discuss it," Matrua said. "If they think they did something right, we're happy to discuss that, too."

Matura said the council appointed four people to the subcommittee and made Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels its chair. Neither Dannels nor Arizona POST Executive Director Jack Lane returned messages seeking comment Friday.

Lane told The Salt Lake Tribune earlier this month that investigators have been examining the five full-time and two reserve marshals who police Colorado City, Ariz., and adjacent Hildale, Utah, collectively known as Short Creek.

Lane said that once the subcommittee was formed, it would report to the entire council at its August meeting. Matura on Friday said he did not hear any deadlines set.

Short Creek is home to the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. There have been accusations for decades that the marshals are biased against non-church members.

After a civil trial in federal court in Phoenix, a jury in March found that the towns and the marshals discriminated against people who did not follow or were out of favor with FLDS leaders.

The U.S. Department of Justice, which was the plaintiff in the lawsuit, called a former marshal and multiple other witnesses who testified about how the marshals refused to investigate FLDS members for crimes ranging from vandalism to marrying underage girls, and how the marshals aided the church security force to surveil people and obstruct outside law enforcement. An investigator from Arizona POST sat in the courtroom for much of the trial.

The Justice Department wants the judge in the case to disband the marshals office. The county sheriffs on each side of the state line would then police the towns.

Matura and a defense attorney for Hildale have argued in court filings that the problems with the marshals are not so egregious that the office should be dissolved, and that there is no precedent for the judge to disband the office. The defense attorneys also have pointed out that no Short Creek marshals have been decertified since 2007.

The marshals have police certification in both states. In the past, when a marshal has lost certification in one state, regulators in the other state automatically moved to revoke certification there.

ncarlisle@sltrib.com

Twitter: @natecarlisle