Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Latter-day Saint movements YFZ Ranch near Eldorado, TX, USA · 2011

Warren Jeffs: life and 20-year sentences for two child-sexual-assault convictions

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Disposition and response

Material that narrows or disputes the record

Appellate history

2012-03-29

The court dismissed Jeffs's pro se appeal for want of prosecution after the appellate record was not filed and he did not respond to the court's notice.

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

FLDS prophet and president, religious-marriage authority

Organization

Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

The cited record identifies prophetic authority, purported spiritual marriage, child-marriage doctrine, and institutional isolation as the material spiritual doctrine, practice, authority, or pretext connected to the documented harm. The relevant authority role is FLDS prophet and president and religious-marriage authority.

Prophecy or divine command
Institutional obedience or isolation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2011-08-09 · jury verdict and sentence

51st Judicial District Court, Schleicher County, Texas. A jury convicted Jeffs of aggravated sexual assault of a child and sexual assault of a child. The court imposed life and twenty-year prison terms.

Documented coercion mechanisms

prophetic authority
purported spiritual marriage
child-marriage doctrine
institutional isolation

Cited record

Sources

court appellate opinion Warren Steed Jeffs v. State of Texas, No. 03-11-00568-CR, Texas Third Court of Appeals (Mar. 29, 2012).: The appellate opinion records the two jury convictions, the life and twenty-year sentences, and dismissal of Jeffs's appeal for want of prosecution.
contemporaneous reporting sentencing report Associated Press / CBS Texas, 'Polygamist Leader Sentenced To Life In Prison' (Aug. 9, 2011).: Contemporaneous court reporting records the sentence, the ages of the two underage followers without naming them, and the church's purported spiritual-marriage framing.
appellate court institutional authority finding United States v. Town of Colorado City, No. 17-16472, Ninth Circuit opinion (Aug. 26, 2019).: The federal appellate opinion records Jeffs's continuing role as FLDS prophet, the deference followers gave that office, instructions concerning underage marriages, and the church-linked control structure established in the civil trial.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis: https://law.justia.com/cases/texas/third-court-of-appeals/2012/03-11-00568-cr.html Corpus classification: court; evidentiary role: appellate-opinion.
Retrieval: 2026-07-27 · Retrieval failed; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis: https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/polygamist-leader-could-spend-life-in-prison/ Corpus classification: contemporaneous-reporting; evidentiary role: sentencing-report. SHA-256 b818125e3f6c15dbfb0b072a944bad84cfb46a67ac9a0f69db07ec51f3cd2083
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis: https://www.justice.gov/crt/case-document/file/1224501/dl Corpus classification: appellate-court; evidentiary role: institutional-authority-finding. SHA-256 e298b6fb4785aa5e2ba5d6c55c1b01e64569fa159ab51390ce9ef16893d1101f
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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