VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- A witness in a British Columbia Supreme Court polygamy case was grilled extensively Tuesday on her research expertise.
Angela Campbell ultimately was qualified as an expert by Chief Justice Robert Bauman and will be the first witness when she testifies Wednesday, The Vancouver Sun reported.
Campbell was questioned for more than an hour by George Macintosh, the lawyer arguing against multiple marriages in the Vancouver case that could redefine Canada's polygamy laws.
She explained her qualifications and the approach she took when she conducted her research in the town of Bountiful, The (Vancouver) Province reported. Fifty percent of the town is Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and allegedly practices polygamy, the Sun reported.
Campbell said polygamy should be decriminalized because the harm to women and children doesn't come from plural marriages, but rather from the attached social stigma.
"Although the threat of criminal sanction does not seem to thwart or halt polygamy in (the fundamentalist Mormon community of) Bountiful, participants indicated that the fact that polygamy is criminalized causes them to feel stigmatized and looked upon with disdain within the larger community," Campbell said.
Due to the stigma, women are less likely to seek help for their children or themselves because they fear they may be arrested, put in jail, or have their children taken away from them, Campbell said.
Craig Jones, a lawyer with the province attorney general, challenged Campbell because the affidavits Campbell filed in support of her position is based on interviews with 22 anonymous women during the course of two visits to the town over a total of 12 days.
Privacy agreements Campbell signed with her subjects, in which the women remain anonymous and full transcripts of the interviews, make cross-examination virtually impossible, Jones said.
Opposing expert witness Nicholas Bala, a law professor at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, said Campbell's research is based on "a sample of women who are most positively disposed [to] this practice," and that women who have had negative polygamous experiences may have been intimidated into silence.
