A Polygamous Sect and the Prosecution of Its Leader

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) is a sect that separated from the mainstream Latter-day Saint tradition in order to continue the practice of plural marriage (polygamy), which the main LDS Church formally abandoned in 1890. Concentrated in communities on the Arizona-Utah border and elsewhere, the FLDS maintained a distinctive, highly ordered communal life under a "Prophet" holding near-absolute authority. The group is important in the public record chiefly because of the prosecution of its leader Warren Jeffs. Concerns centered on the practice of marrying underage girls to older men within the community.

Following a 2008 state raid on the group's Texas ranch (which itself became controversial over the removal of many children, most later returned by court order), evidence gathered led to Jeffs's prosecution: in 2011 he was convicted in Texas of sexual assault of children he had taken as "wives" and sentenced to life imprisonment. These are matters established through the criminal courts, not merely allegation. The FLDS continues in a diminished and fractured form. The case is widely discussed in connection with the legal and human-rights questions raised when religious-freedom claims intersect with the protection of minors.