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A West Texas jury delivered a guilty verdict for Warren Jeffs. He's the polygamist leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Jeffs was convicted of sexual assault involving two children .
NPR's Wade Goodwyn has been covering the case and he joins me now. And Wade, the jury reached this verdict very quickly, just deliberated for a couple of hours.
WADE GOODWYN: Yes, three hours. The evidence that the state prosecutors presented convinced them pretty quickly. I think first and foremost, the DNA evidence that showed that Warren Jeffs and a 15-year-old girl were the father and mother of a baby boy by a margin of certainty that exceeded 99.99 percent was a big part of the case.
And as with the 12-year-old girl that Warren Jeffs spiritually married, the state ended their entire case with an audiotape of Warren Jeffs purportedly having sex with her. He said her name out loud several times during the recording. And as damaging as the DNA evidence was, that audiotape was also bad because you have to believe that many of the jurors were wondering to themselves why in the world Jeffs would make such a tape? That that he would, I believe, undermined his projection of himself as a man of God with the jury and made him seem more like a dirty old man.
BLOCK: It sounds, Wade, that like Warren Jeffs really didn't do himself any favors either by firing more than a half a dozen defense attorneys. He insisted on representing himself in this case.
GOODWYN: And, of course, Judge Barbara Walther warned him not to do that, not to take what she called an unwise course. He'd been hiring and firing his defense lawyers for months. And over time, it became apparent by his timing - you know, he'd fire them just before a critical hearing was about to begin - that he was just trying to delay his trial as long as he could. So when Jeffs fired his defense attorneys again the morning the trial began and he asked for another continuance, she said no. And Jeffs sat at the defense table all by himself throughout this trial, often pouted and refused to say anything. He wouldn't give an opening statement.
BLOCK: Did he, in the end, put on any defense at all?
GOODWYN: Hardly. He objected when prosecutors began presenting evidence seized from his temple. He said the government had no right to prosecute him, that it was a violation of his religious freedom. And really, that was just his main point. He kept saying that over and over. He told the court that God told him that if the court didn't stop the proceedings immediately, that God would strike them with illness. And Judge Walther responded with considerable restraint, I thought, when she told him not to threaten the jury, and Jeffs said, well, I'm not threatening the jury. It's God. And the judge said, well, you know, nevertheless, you know, let's keep these negative prophecies to yourself. And the interesting was, he would. And that was Jeffs' strange defense posture: mostly silent, at times full of indignation and righteousness, but always ineffective in defense.
BLOCK: And in the end, Warren Jeffs, again, found guilty on these two charges of child sexual assault. This, though, is not the end to the legal saga, right?
GOODWYN: That's right. The punishment phase is starting right away, right now, and that's where this trial could get interesting. The government has a list of more than 600 of what it calls bad acts by Warren Jeffs and evidence that is admissible in the punishment phase. And there's been some speculation that this evidence is so bad that it could turn Warren Jeffs' followers against him, that it might be too much for even the FLDS to stomach. Now, I've been covering this sect for years, and I think that expectation might be a bridge too far, but the fact that there's even talk about this possibility is a sobering indication of the kind of testimony this jury may be hearing next.
BLOCK: OK. NPR's Wade Goodwyn. Wade, thank you.
GOODWYN: It's my pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.