Dear Schleicher County, Shirley Emmons & Norma Torres, Tired of Trials? Already? Here's what to do:

Be careful what you wish for:

The San Angelo Standard-Times - "Anybody who did not serve on the jury in the first case involving an FLDS member that wrapped up last week is eligible to sit on a jury for the remaining cases. There are still 11 other cases involving church members from the Yearning for Zion Ranch.

'The only way they’re out of the mix for the other trials is if they’ve served,' (Schleicher County’s Elections Administrator Brenda) Mayfield said.

Some Eldorado residents have already had enough of the trial.

'I think it’s a mess,' Shirley Emmons said. 'It’s going to make our taxes go up for all that trial.'

Others say that the trials' ubiquitous presence is too strong.

'It’s going to be very hard for our community here,' Norma Torres said. 'That’s just what’s on everybody’s mind. That’s all you hear is them talking about that and having all these state troopers. Everybody knows what’s going on. Overwhelming is what it is.'

51st District Judge Barbara Walther, who decides where the trials will be held, was out of the office Friday and not available for comment."

Wanna stop it? First, let me rant a little. You brought this on yourselves. You peered voyeuristically over the YFZ fence, your Newspaper railed at them, and you listened to the Flora Jessops of the world. Now you have these trials. I hate to be rude, but DEAL WITH IT.

Here's how: Whoever you are, in the Keate trial, vote for acquittal. It is your right. Two "Not Guilty" verdicts in a row or two hung juries in a row and I'll bet the trials go away.

Otherwise, I don't want to hear about it. Your taxes are going to go up, your time will be wasted and you stand a good chance of having all the guilty verdicts reversed on appeal. That took brains didn't it?

I hate to be so hard on you but when you're at the bottom of a hole, as all of us are sometimes, the first thing to stop doing? STOP DIGGING! Call it off, use your rights. It's called Jury Nullification.

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Jury? Trial starts at 3:30pm (UPDATED)

There may has been an announcement soon.

The San Angelo Standard-Times - "Judge Barbara Walther this morning dismissed another 44 prospective jurors.

A crowd of prospective jurors who had been summoned for a 10:30 a.m. appearance today at the Memorial Building in Eldorado were told to come back at noon.

Walther said further announcements will be made by noon, fueling speculation that she may be ready to seat a jury."

UPDATE (2:25PM EDT) - SAN ANGELO, Texas — ELDORADO — "A jury has been seated in the trial of polygamous sect member Raymond Merril Jessop.

Judge Barbara Walther announced that a jury had been chosen out of the original 300-member jury pool after two and a half days of selection.

The trial will begin with opening arguments by the prosecution and defense this afternoon at 3:30 p.m. The trial will take place in the Memorial Building in Eldorado, the same location where jury selection occurred. Two weeks has been set aside for the trial."

I'm quite cynical about this, and figure she found a way to broom all the FLDS jurors. We'll see though.

I always supply a motivation or two to Walther, one of which is that she is part of the prosecution, the other being she figures a guilty child molester's conviction will be a prickly thing to overturn, regardless of how it was arrived at.

Brooke Adams "Twittered" the following:

"Seven men and seven women on jury in Raymond Jessop trial. Five are Hispanic."

That's 12 and 2 alternates. No word on whether or not the 14 contain FLDS members, or whether they are alternates or regular jurors.

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FLDS and Texas position themselves. The Jury.

Trial dates are now set for the Jessop custody case in September, and the alleged adult molesters in October. What goes on in between? Well, for one, a little legal jury tampering.

The Salt Lake Tribune - "Willie Jessop met with the four-member commission during a recess in a criminal hearing for 10 FLDS men being held on an upper floor of the county courthouse.

Jessop, spokesman for the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints, invited the commissioners to 'mosey out' to the ranch as part of a plea that the county 'acknowledge we exist.'

More pointedly, Jessop said the FLDS feel they aren't fairly represented in the county despite the ranch's status as the third largest property taxpayer.

'Do we have a say on what goes on in the county at all?' Jessop asked.

He questioned why no FLDS had been called to serve on juries in the small county, which has a jury pool of 2,500.

Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran explained the random selection process, which draws jurists from voter's registration and drivers license records. About 140 FLDS members registered to vote after the April 3 raid on the ranch."

Several trials, and 2500 available potential jurors represent an interesting problem as there are now several FLDS related trials, the custody trial of Merrianne Jessop coming first, from another article;

"(Barbara Walther) acknowledged that seating a second jury in Schleicher County after the initial trial could be difficult. There are 2,500 people in the county's jury pool, she said. She recently had to cull through 175 names to get 45 people qualified for an unrelated criminal case."

Willie also said after pointing to the prodigious amount of Tax YFZ contributes;

"(I)t now feels like 'we're paying for our own demise.'

Jessop told the commissioners that the sect needs 'your help in giving us some ideas on what we can do to be the best neighbors.'

The response from the commission? 'Duly noted,' said commissioner and county judge Charlie Bradley."

We're now getting an idea of what jury trial in small town America used to be like. There weren't a lot of available jurors, they all knew you if you were local. They had to balance what they knew about you, what they knew would be the result of the trial with what they believed about your guilt. They could also, in the end, practice jury nullification, deciding as a "jury of peers" that the law, not the defendant was wrong. Jury nullification is an old principle, dating back to the days of our founders, and part of the principle behind the idea of jury trial. It is rarely included in any kind of jury instruction by the judge, but it is not a constitution twisting idea, rather it is an anti despotism idea. "If you make laws that don't apply to us, fine," the idea goes. "We'll just vote against them one by one as they come up, in our community." It's the American Citizen's right to hold a little revolution, right in their own town, and go home in time for dinner. It is designed to prevent dominance of one branch of government over another, through criminalization. Texas can make it illegal to have open pit barbecues, but Scheicher County can just refuse to convict.

If Texas has trouble coming up with neighbors who will convict the FLDS after they've had all year to campaign with the locals, that's their problem. If Texas can't find enough jurors without including those of a major religion in Scheicher County, they should have thought of these things first. It's going to be a literal hot house environment, as well as a political hot house. The courthouse in Eldorado, has no air conditioning.

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