A special prosecutor has urged British Columbia’s Court of Appeal to overturn the acquittal of a polygamous leader who was accused of taking a 15-year-old girl across the border for a sexual purpose.
In February, 2017, a B.C. Supreme Court judge concluded the Crown failed to prove James Oler arranged the transfer of the girl from Canada to the United States to marry another member of his fundamentalist sect.
A prosecutor told an appeal hearing on Thursday that Warren Jeffs, prophet and president of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the United States, called Mr. Oler in 2004 when he was the presiding elder and bishop of the community in Bountiful, B.C.
Mr. Jeffs told Mr. Oler to bring the girl to the United States to be married and, because followers of the religion believe Mr. Jeffs has a “direct connection to God,” Mr. Oler swiftly complied, Peter Wilson argued.
“That’s the hierarchy. God speaks to the prophet, Warren Jeffs,” he said.
A woman originally from Bountiful testified at the trial that she was 16 when she and two adults crossed the border into Idaho a day after Mr. Jeffs called Mr. Oler in 2004, Mr. Wilson said. The trio stopped at a wooded rest area just off the highway, he said.
Mr. Wilson said the woman testified that a second van arrived containing Mr. Oler and the 15-year-old girl Mr. Jeffs had ordered him to bring to the United States. The woman who was 16 at the time and the two adults with her piled into the second van, Mr. Wilson said.
Marriage records show the 15-year-old girl married a 24-year-old man, with Mr. Jeffs performing the ceremony and Mr. Oler acting as a witness, the prosecutor argued.
“This was not simply a circumstantial case. There was direct evidence,” Mr. Wilson said.
The trial judge acquitted Mr. Oler because he was not convinced Mr. Oler did anything within Canada’s borders to arrange the girl’s transfer. There was no evidence confirming Mr. Oler’s location when he received the phone call from Mr. Jeffs and no record of either Mr. Oler or the 15-year-old girl crossing the border.
But Mr. Wilson said proof of wrongdoing inside Canada is not necessary to convict the man.
The law against removing children for a sexual purpose is designed to protect youth who are taken to another country and subjected to an offence that would be a crime under Canadian law, he argued. It therefore applies to Mr. Oler’s actions in the United States, Mr. Wilson said.
“This was an error of law,” he said. “But for the error, Mr. Oler would have been convicted.”
Mr. Wilson asked the appeal court judges to either convict Mr. Oler or order a new trial.
Mr. Oler sat in the courtroom on Thursday. He did not have a lawyer at the hearing, so an impartial adviser has been appointed to assist the court and provide balance.
The adviser, Joe Doyle, disputed Mr. Wilson’s interpretation of the law. The section of the Criminal Code specifically applies to offenders who “remove” children from Canada, he said.
“It’s impossible for him to commit the offence because he can’t remove her if she’s already out of the country,” he said.
Mr. Oler declined to speak at the hearing.
Following the same trial that led to Mr. Oler’s acquittal, the judge found Emily Ruth Gail Blackmore and her estranged husband Brandon Blackmore guilty of bringing a 13-year-old girl to the United States to marry Mr. Jeffs.
Emily Blackmore, also known as Gail, is appealing her conviction and her lawyer told the appeal court on Wednesday that she likely didn’t know about the planned marriage when she accompanied her husband on a trip to the United States.
The panel of three judges reserved their decisions on both appeals on Thursday.
In a separate case, a B.C. Supreme Court judge found Mr. Oler guilty of polygamy last July for marrying five women and he’ll be sentenced on that conviction next week.