Court rejects alleged LDS bias

It is a well-known fact that a significant portion of the population of the State of Utah is affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That's what three inmates in the the Utah prison system tried to used to their advantage in a recent lawsuit against the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole. Three convicted sex offenders filed individual suits alleging that the parole board gave preferentialtreatment to sex offenders that were members of the LDS Church. The cases were consolidated before a district judge.

Last Friday, U.S. District Judge Tena Campbell rejected the inmates' arguments, stating: "The uncontroverted affidavits of each board member attest that religious affiliation or participation is not considered in making parole decisions. There is also no evidence that religion was a significant factor in the board's decisions regarding Plaintiffs."

We would hope that members of the Utah parole board, if they were indeed members of the LDS Church, would have the professionalism and ability to consider individual inmate circumstances without religious affiliation coloring their judgment. Opportunistic lawsuits by inmates are legendary, but exploiting the local prevailing religious beliefs to escape prison time is particularly undesirable and would set bad precedent.

For more information, see the article in the Salt Lake Tribune.

What the Warren Jeffs case is about

Findlaw.com has a good article about the Warren Jeffs case. As you may be aware, the leader of the FLDS polygamist sect has been indicted on child rape charges. While many news outlets have plugged the case mercilessly ever since Jeffs was placed on the FBI's most wanted list, very few articles have accurately identified the legal issues. The Findlaw article correctly states that the case has little to do with polygamy, but everything to do with child rape.

The article is by Erik Luna, director of the Utah Criminal Justice Center at the University of Utah Law School. Luna discusses the legality of anti-polygamy laws, but he notes that the Jeffs case is not related to those issues. Most interesting for those interested in criminal law, Luna looks at the allegations Jeffs faces, and discusses some of the factual and legal defenses Jeffs may raise. The article is here.

One more reason to live the Gospel

NPR reports this morning about a false sex solicitation on Craigslist:

The men who responded to an Internet sex ad did not quite realize what they were getting into. The lonely woman who posted the ad wasn't a lonely woman at all. It was a graphic designer, who is now posting all the replies he received. The men's e-mail addresses and photos have been put online. Privacy experts say he didn't break any laws, although Craigslist -- an online service for classified ads -- says he did violate their policies.

I imagine Craigslist is referring to 7(h) of its Terms of Use, which prohibits the posting of information that "includes personal or identifying information about another person without that person's explicit consent." But other than getting kicked off Craigslist, I don't see much in the way of legal consequences for this enterprising young designer. While I don't condone his actions, the men who gave him their e-mail addresses and photos were extremely foolish. You don't have those problems if you don't respond to online sex advertisements. Sometimes the Gospel makes things simpler.

This incident is similar to the recent case of a hacker who seeded an online forum dedicated to child pornography with a Trojan horse virus. The program allowed the hacker to access the computers of the users who downloaded the Trojan. The hacker, who purportedly is from Turkey, then e-mailed the Montgomery, Alabama police department saying "I found a child molester on the Net." When the police asked for more details, the hacker gave the police information that lead to the arrest of Bradley Joseph Steiger, who was subsequently convicted for sexual exploitation of children and child pornography charges, and is currently serving a 17-year sentence. A year later the same hacker provided authorities information that led to the arrest of William Adderson Jarrett, a Richmond, Virginia man who plead guilty to similar charges and is currently serving a 19-year sentence.

From a legal standpoint, the Turkish hacker poses a problem: if he were in the U.S., it would be illegal. But U.S. law doesn't apply to him, so he can't be arrested. In fact, an FBI agent told the hacker by email: "[you] will not be arrested--that is a promise. You have helped to save at least two lives in the U.S. and [you] should be proud of that fact." So far, the convictions of the child molesters have held up: the 11th Circuit upheld Jarrett's conviction, and last month a U.S. District court judge refused to throw out Steiger's conviction.