The Deseret News - "Additionally, since the defendant relinquished his role as leader of the FLDS while in Utah custody, he cannot now assert that he was in control of the YFZ Ranch as the leader of the FLDS at the time of the search on April 6, 2008," Smith wrote. "It is settled law that one has no standing to complain of a search or seizure of property he has voluntarily abandoned."
This is based on recordings of jailhouse conversations with other members of the FLDS visiting Jeffs. I suppose Warren could contend that his "resignation" had not been accepted. Similar issues exist in unemployment compensation cases. Believe me, I know. I've had people quit verbally and unemployment compensation entities in a state I shall not mention have insisted that the employee couldn't be held responsible for outbursts and had to be confronted with the consequences of such outbursts and given the chance to contemplate the consequence of such and outburst. In other words, knowing that you'd lose your salary and unemployment compensation had to be told to that employee by the employer for their resignation to be valid and they had to be allowed to "cool off." Warren could probably argue he was under stress and overwrought and assume the reigns of FLDS command again. Maybe.
"Search warrant affidavits do not represent the end of a criminal investigation, in which contested issues of fact are resolved by a jury in determining guilt or innocence," he wrote. "Rather, search warrant affidavits are presented in support of investigative tools that are used as part of a criminal investigation to determine whether criminal violations have occurred."
This last quote seems to imply that there was an ongoing criminal investigation and that entry via the warrants was just an event in the timeline of that investigation. This implies some murky other cause(s).
If that is the case, though not a lawyer, I've never heard of this legal justification before. Arizona is saying that Texas and/or possible other entities had ample unspoken justifications for entering that they could have used but choose instead the vehicle of the abuse of the fictional Sarah. They also seem to imply that the could use any cause once they made up their minds to go in because of those unspoken other causes, EVEN IF THEY KNEW that those causes are shown to be wrong because of all the other valid causes they were investigating.
Hmmmm. To sum up, they seem to be playing up to the idea that something was found once they were in YFZ (eventually) so they could make up a cause or didn't need a cause. The support for this argument will be what they did find probable crimes via the Grand Jury and their indictments. I personally think it's bunk, but this will be interesting if they are in fact claiming it. It amounts to asking to bust down a door because we all know something is going on, and busting down the door and shouting "See?"
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