Jeffs v. State

• Decision Date: 24 February 2012
• Docket Number: NO. 03-10-00272-CR,03-10-00272-CR
• Parties: Lehi Barlow Jeffs aka Lehi Barlow Allred, Appellant v. The State of Texas, Appellee
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Lehi Barlow Jeffs aka Lehi Barlow Allred, Appellant v. The State of Texas, Appellee

NO. 03-10-00272-CR

TEXAS COURT OF APPEALS, THIRD DISTRICT, AT AUSTIN

Filed: February 24, 2012

FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF SCHLEICHER COUNTY, 51ST JUDICIAL DISTRICT

NO. 1000, THE HONORABLE BARBARA L. WALTHER, JUDGE PRESIDING

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Appellant Lehi Barlow Jeffs aka Lehi Barlow Allred, pleaded no contest to an indictment accusing him of sexually assaulting a child. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 22.011(a)(2)(A) (West 2011). The district court adjudged him guilty and assessed punishment at eight years' imprisonment, in accordance with a plea bargain agreement. Appellant brings forward twenty-five points of error. The first twenty-one points assert that the trial court erred by denying his pretrial motion to suppress evidence. The remaining four points complain about the trial court's denial of his motion to quash the indictment. We affirm the conviction.

I. BACKGROUND

The YFZ (Yearning for Zion) Ranch is a 1,691-acre property near Eldorado in Schleicher County. More than two hundred persons lived on the ranch in 2008, all of them membersof the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). Among the structures on the property were a temple and a temple annex, nineteen residential buildings, a school, a clinic, a warehouse, a water treatment plant, and several commercial buildings. County tax records reflected that the land and improvements were owned by a single entity, YFZ Land, LLC. The ranch property was not subdivided, and there was no evidence that any of the buildings were owned or leased by an individual. The ranch was fenced, and access to the property was controlled by a locked gate, a manned guard house, and observation points.

On March 29 and 30, 2008, six telephone calls were received by the New Bridge Family Shelter Crisis Hotline in San Angelo from a person who identified herself as Sarah Jessop Barlow. She told the shelter workers that she was sixteen years old, pregnant, and the mother of an eight-month-old infant daughter. She said that she lived at the YFZ Ranch and was the fourth wife of Dale Barlow, who she said was sexually and physically abusive to her. She said that she wanted to leave the ranch, but she was afraid of the punishment she would receive if she were caught trying to escape.

The trial court found, and appellant does not dispute, that the hotline employees who took the March 29 and 30 telephone calls believed that they were genuine. In truth, however, the calls were a hoax. There was no sixteen-year-old mother named Sarah Jessop Barlow. Instead, the calls were made by a woman named Rozita Swinton, a resident of Colorado, who apparently made the calls from that state. The hoax was not discovered until April 13, 2008.

The calls to the shelter hotline were immediately reported to the department of family and protective services (DFPS) office in San Angelo and to Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran.In turn, Doran reported the calls to Texas Ranger Brooks Long. On April 1, Long received the call notes from the shelter. He also received documents showing that in August 2007 a Dale Barlow had been placed on probation for three years following a conviction in Arizona for conspiring to commit sexual assault of a minor. On April 2, Long interviewed the shelter workers who had taken the calls, and on April 3, he received their signed affidavits describing the contents of the calls. Long applied for a search and arrest warrant later that day. In summary, Long's probable cause affidavit stated:

• Long had been on the premises of the YFZ Ranch on several occasions and had observed the fences, guard house, and other security measures limiting access to the ranch. Long had spoken to Frederick Merril Jessop, who identified himself as the "authority" at the ranch and the "point of contact" for law enforcement and other government officials who wanted access to the ranch. Jessop had told Long that approximately one hundred persons lived on the ranch.

• On April 2, 2008, Long interviewed Alisa Thomas and Jessica Carroll, employees of the New Bridge Family Shelter in San Angelo. As part of their duties at the shelter, Thomas and Carroll answered telephone calls to the "crisis hotline" available for those persons in need of the shelter's assistance.

• Thomas told Long that on March 29, 2008, she had a forty-two minute conversation on the crisis hotline with a female caller who identified herself as Sarah. Sarah told Thomas that she was born on January 13, 1992, had an eight-month-old child, and was pregnant. She said that she and her child lived with her husband, the father of her child, on a ranch in Eldorado. Sarah told Thomas that her husband hits her and that she would get in trouble if anyone learned that she had called.

• Carroll told Long that on March 29 and 30, 2008, she had multiple telephone conversations on the crisis hotline with a caller who identified herself as Sarah Barlow, maiden name Sarah Jessop. Sarah told Carroll that she was sixteen years old, pregnant, and the mother of an eight-month-old child. She identified her husband and the father of her child as Dale Barlow, age forty-nine. She said that she lived with Barlow at the YFZ Ranch. She said that Barlow was physically and sexually abusive to her. Sarah said that she wanted to escape from the ranch with her child but was afraid to try because of the guard house at the gate. She said that if she were caught trying to leave the ranch she would be locked in her room and denied food. Sarah also described her fear of the outside world, saying that she had beentold that outsiders would hurt her. During one of the calls on March 29, Sarah told Carroll that she wanted Carroll to forget she had called.

• Given Sarah's age and the age of her child, Long believed that Dale Barlow had penetrated Sarah's sexual organ with his sexual organ when Sarah was fifteen years old. Long said he "knows of no provision under Texas law for lawful marriage at the age of fifteen."

• Long confirmed through the sheriff that a Dale Barlow, born November 5, 1957, had been arrested in Arizona in July 2005 for conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor. In August 2007, Barlow had been placed on three years' probation for this offense.

• Long believed that Sarah Jessop, her child, and Dale Barlow were currently located at the YFZ Ranch. Long also believed that medical records and other information relevant to the age and true identity of Sarah Jessop, the birth of her child, and her marriage to Dale Barlow could be found at the ranch.

At 5:50 p.m. on April 3, 2008, the judge of the 51st District Court, sitting as a magistrate, signed a warrant to search the YFZ Ranch for records relating to the age and identity of Sarah Jessop, any pregnancy or child of Sarah Jessop, any marriage of Sarah Jessop to any party including Dale Barlow, and any marriage of Dale Barlow to any party, including Sarah Jessop. The warrant also ordered Barlow's arrest.

Also on April 3, the DFPS filed a petition in the 51st District Court for an order in aid of investigation of a report of child abuse. See Tex. Fam. Code Ann. § 261.303 (West 2008). Attached to the petition was the affidavit of Ruby Gutierrez, a department caseworker, describing the calls to the hotline and Dale Barlow's Arizona conviction. A few minutes after signing the first warrant, the judge signed an order giving the department investigatory access to Sarah Jessop Barlow and her infant daughter at the YFZ Ranch.

Later that evening, Texas Rangers and other police officers acting under the search warrant and DFPS caseworkers acting under the order for investigation entered the YFZ Ranch. The caseworkers immediately began a process of interviewing every female on the ranch between the ages of seven and seventeen. During these interviews, several of the girls reported being married to, and mothers of children with, adult men who lived at the ranch. Some of them also stated that the men to whom they were married had other wives. On the morning of April 4, the police began a structure-by-structure search of the ranch pursuant to the first warrant. They did not find Sarah Jessop Barlow and her infant daughter, nor did they find Dale Barlow.¹ They did, however, observe evidence—several beds in the temple and marriage records—tending to confirm the girls' descriptions of underage sexual activity and bigamy.

On April 6, 2008, Long applied to the judge of the 51st District Court for a second search warrant. The complete probable cause portion of Long's April 6 affidavit is attached as an appendix to this opinion. In summary, the affidavit stated:

• Long had been on the premises of the YFZ Ranch on several occasions, most recently on April 4, 5, and 6, 2008, and had observed the fences, guard house, and other security measures limiting access to the ranch. Long had spoken to Frederick Merril Jessop, who identified himself as the "authority" at the ranch and the "point of contact" for law enforcement and other government officials who wanted access to the ranch. Jessop had told Long on April 4 that approximately two hundred fifty persons lived on the ranch.

• On April 5, 2008, while conducting a search of the ranch pursuant to the first warrant, Long saw computers, vaults, and locked drawers inside the temple and temple annex. He also saw several beds in the temple, in one of which the linens were disturbed and there was a strand of what Long believed, due to its length, wasfemale hair. He also saw a document indicating marriages between one man and over twenty wives.

• On April 6, 2008, Long spoke to three DFPS employees, Tina Martinez, Ruby Gutierrez, and Rebecca Baxter. Between April 4 and 6, Martinez, Gutierrez, and Baxter had interviewed eight juvenile females living at the YFZ Ranch. During these interviews, the girls stated that they were in plural marriages with men at the ranch or knew others girls who were. They

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