BOUNTIFUL POLYGAMIST's being investigated

B.C.'s attorney general has appointed a third special prosecutor to investigate whether charges should be laid against members of the polygamist community of Bountiful, in the province's southeastern Interior.

Wally Oppal instructed the province's Criminal Justice Branch to hire another special prosecutor, Terrence Robertson, to review the results of the latest police investigation and consider charges.

Robertson will look at results of the RCMP investigation, consider charges, offer advice to the police, write a report, and if he believes charges are warranted, conduct the prosecution.

Oppal said he disagrees with the recommendations of two previous special prosecutors, Richard Peck and Leonard Doust, whom he appointed, and who both recommended the Criminal Justice Branch not proceed with charges.

"I think this is something we, as a society, need to be concerned with. The whole idea of men with senior ages, 50-year-old men, having relationships with younger women between the ages of 14 and 16 and 17 … I think Canadians would find abhorrent," said Oppal.

In April, Doust, a prominent Vancouver lawyer, recommended the government ask the courts to clarify whether the law prohibiting polygamy is constitutional before considering pressing charges.

Section 293 of the Criminal Code of Canada explicitly bans polygamy and threatens offenders with a five-year prison term.

But Doust declined Oppal's request that he prosecute on the polygamy allegation when the two met in May, saying he felt it would be unfair.

On Monday in a written statement, Oppal said upholding the law is not unfair, and that's why he has asked the criminal justice branch to appoint Robertson as the third special prosecutor to handle the investigation.

"It is my opinion that the Criminal Justice Branch is mistaken in its belief that section 293 of the Criminal Code of Canada is unconstitutional. Both Mr. Doust and Mr. Peck believe section 293 to be constitutionally valid legislation. A valid criminal law is and should be enforced. To do so is appropriate and is not unfair," Oppal said in written statement.

The polygamist community of Bountiful is home to a community of several hundred polygamists with links to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in the U.S.

A woman who used to live in Bountiful said she hopes the latest special prosecutor will recommend charges be laid.

Debbie Palmer, who left Bountiful 20 years ago with her eight children, told CBC News on Monday she wishes the provincial government would approach the issue more directly.

"I thought that he [Oppal] would have the power to go ahead and designate that they should go ahead and prosecute charges of polygamy and child sexual assault without asking for yet another opinion," Palmer said.

Texas ruling allows children, parents to reunite
In Texas on Monday, a judge ordered the return of more than 400 children taken by state authorities from a ranch run by the polygamist group.

According to the ruling, parents are allowed to pick up their children but can't leave Texas without court permission and must participate in parenting classes.

They have also been ordered not to interfere with any ongoing child abuse investigation and to allow the children to have psychiatric or medical exams if required.

The order comes days after the Texas Supreme Court said child welfare officials had no right to seize hundreds of children from the west Texas ranch.

Child welfare officials removed more than 400 children from the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, about 300 kilometres northwest of San Antonio.

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In a related Story: Bountiful opens its' Doors

By Meghan Wood

AFTER YEARS of keeping a low profile in B.C.'s lush Creston Valley, the community of Bountiful opened its doors to the public April 21 -- media and protestors alike -- to set some records straight.

A group from the community, calling itself the Women of Bountiful, hosted a press conference at a community centre 10 km away in Creston. Their aim was to show Canada that they are fully aware of their lifestyle choice, they enjoy sharing husbands even though they admit polygamy is illegal in Canada, and they will use Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms to argue that plural marriage is covered by their freedom of religion.

"We the women of our community will be silent no more," said Zelpha Chatwin to the 300 people in attendance. "I love the fact that my girls and I only have to cook and clean once a week. [Polygamists are] a team of players who care for each other."

The women also said plural marriages come with various benefits, such as pooling resources and talent, and higher household incomes, reported the National Post.

"The Bountiful Women's Society is an organization of the women in the community and [The Women of Bountiful] includes most but not all of them," said Winston Blackmore, Bountiful's former bishop and a powerful businessman.

"It was organized many years ago, but because of the division in our community has been inactive for sometime. It has been recently revived and is now active with some 100 members. They decided to hold this conference because of the continued claims by ex-members that they spoke for the women of Bountiful. These women speak for themselves."

The women of this fundamentalist Mormon group said reports of child abuse and kidnappings were "false allegations" and "common misconceptions fostered by irresponsible journalists." They also announced that girls under 18 will no longer enter into plural marriages.

"There is definitely an interest among the parents that their children at least reach the age of 18 before they should think about becoming someone's wife," Blackmore explained. "In our province, any 16-year-old that has the consent of their parents can get a marriage license and marry the person of their choice no matter what the age. In our communities for many years, no one was married before they graduated from high school."

Only two girls younger than 16 have ever entered into what the Women called "plural marriages."

Blackmore said it is the wife's choice, never the husband's, about whether they will participate in plural marriages.

The men of Bountiful who live the polygamous lifestyle marry one woman legally and then take more wives in "celestial unions," which are recognized solely by their church, part of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a sect of Mormonism. According to Apologetics Index, the sect separated from the Mormon church when the Church renounced plural marriage in 1890.

"They believe polygamy and large families will gain them access to the highest tier of heaven," states the web site. "Women reportedly bear an average of 10 children each. Fundamentalists believe monogamy is limiting for both men and women, that plural marriage allows a man and his 'ladies' greater opportunity to provide bodies for waiting heavenly spirits and increases their ability to populate this and future worlds."

The women taken as celestial wives refer to one another as "sister wives." Jane Blackmore, Winston's first legal wife, recently divorced the minister and left the commune. She is a nurse who served as the community's midwife and told MacLeans last year that she has aided in births to mothers as young as 15 and has even delivered many of her ex-husband's estimated 80 children by other wives.

The division Blackmore mentioned was caused by a split in the community where some of the members of Bountiful chose to follow Warren Jeffs, 49, a self-proclaimed prophet who lives by the mandate: "One vision. One Plan. One Man." Insiders say Jeffs used his father's weakened state to position himself as leader by removing his potential rival, Blackmore. Jeffs lives in Hildale, Utah but runs Bountiful's provincially funded school and encourages women to marry young before the world ends.

"Warren Jeffs is interested in the end of the world," said Blackmore. "I am not, for that will come soon enough for all of us. He made himself into the leader. I did not want to follow his views for they were not in keeping with our fundamental sacred values."