The D.A.S. Team

The Defendant Aid Society is officially recognized by the IRS as a registered 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation. The entity is organized and registered with the State of Utah.

D.A.S. is overseen by a Board of Directors, currently with four members. Three directors are attorneys with a substantial combined breadth of legal, academic and political experience. The day-to-day operations of D.A.S. are managed by the fourth member of the board; a non-attorney Executive Director. D.A.S. also maintains a network of affiliated attorneys who might be interested in working or volunteering, please reach out. If you are an attorney (or if you’d like to refer an attorney to D.A.S.) contact us.

D.A.S. also maintains a network of citizen volunteers who help with inmate support, court contacts, filings, media outreach, back office support, paralegal work, etc. You can become a DAS volunteer by contacting us.

Jewel K.S. Franklin
Executive Director, Board of Directors

Jewel founded DAS in 2019. She had previously served as a corporate executive and business entrepreneur. Jewel’s primary interest in the business world has been as an educator. She was previously engaged in curriculum development, public speaking, school faculty and parent training. She is also the author of the Kimber Reading Program.

Jewel has been advocating and organizing community outreach since the age of 17. She founded and coordinated Youth of America—a civics group for young people—traveling the country teaching youth about their responsibility as America’s future leaders.

In these efforts Jewel worked with and was mentored by several prominent leaders, theologians and activists in the freedom movement such as Dr. W. Cleon Skousen, Elder Hartman Rector, Jr., her parents Dr. Glenn and Julianne Kimber, Reverend Donald N. Sills, and William H. Doughty. Jewel also successfully helped build the Free Capitalist Project’s 22,000-member program and the daily Free Capitalist radio program to its peak of one million listeners worldwide.

As a specialist in American patriotism and family relations, Jewel has been involved in civics programs and political forums her entire life. She has served as a political party delegate on the county and state levels and was a candidate for the Utah House of Representatives in 2012. Jewel holds to the charter: value all people, prepare for opportunity, and accomplish every task with heart and soul. She resides in Grouse Creek, Utah and is a devoted wife to Claud R. Koerber Franklin, proud mother of eight, and grandmother of seven. Jewel also serves regularly in her local church congregation.

Russell C. Skousen
Board of Directors

Russ is an active attorney, and a well-known community leader in Utah. He has held many prominent positions over the last several decades including elective office, and serving as the policy director for Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr, during his first campaign. Russ is also a former Executive Director of the Utah Department of Commerce.

Russ earned his B.A. Degree, cum laude, in Political Science from Brigham Young University. He received his Juris Doctorate, cum laude, from the J. Reuben Clark School of Law at Brigham Young University in 1991. He is admitted to practice law in Utah and California; and is currently the managing partner at Skousen Law, PLLC.

While in law school, Russ served as the Executive Editor of the BYU Journal of Public Law and won the “Founding Fathers Freedom Award.” In 1991, Russ joined the law firm of Wood, Spendlove and Quin (eventually named Wood Crapo,LLC) until the fall of 1998. During his tenure at Wood Crapo, LLC, Russ also served as the managing editor of the Utah Employments Law Letter. He worked primarily in commercial litigations and business transactions with substantial experience employment, contract, real estate, banking, redevelopment, water law, environmental, intellectual property and constitutional law. In 1999 he co-founded the law firm of Thompson Hazen and Skousen, LLC (which later merged practices with Mackey, Price, Thompson and Ostler). There he concentrated his practice in business, corporate law, real estate, franchise and distribution law, trademarks, state and local government law, litigations and products liability. In 2009, Russ partnered with Fred Penney and founded the law firm of Skousen & Penny, LLC. In 2015 he founded Skousen Law, PLLC.

Russ is an active participant in local and state government and community associations. In 2000, he was elected as Salt Lake County’s first County Councilman from Council District 4. He has also served on the Unified Fire Authority’s Board, the Clark Planetarium Board, the Utah Association of Counties Executive Board, The Salt Lake Boundary Commission, the Parley’s Rails, Trials and Tunnels Board of Directors, The Salt Lake County Board of Equalization, the Salt Lake County Redevelopment Agency, and the Salt Lake County Associations of Community Councils.

Russ resides in Highland, Utah with his wife, Debbie. They are the parents of four children. Russ has served in several local ecclesiastical positions in his local ward and stake, and as a young man served a full-time church mission. He enjoys running, swimming, cycling,snowboard, golf, martial arts, books (especially biographies), old movies and political philosophy.

J. Morgan Philpot
Board of Directors

Morgan is an active attorney, former elected official and well-known political activist. Morgan previously worked in the Utah Attorney General’s office and also previously served as a White House intern. He has been active in law and politics throughout his adult life.

Morgan has practiced law throughout the western United States. His portfolio is comprised of diverse experiences including high profile civil liberties cases, criminal law, civil litigation and appellate cases. He served as lead attorney in the Malheur Oregon Refuge Occupation trial (co-counsel with Marcus R. Mumford)(attorneys for Ammon Bundy), as well as the LaVoy Finicum wrongful death suit in Oregon. In Nevada, he contributed to the Bundy Ranch Standoff trial defense as co-counsel for Ammon Bundy, and he brought the Count My Vote case before Utah’s Supreme Court.

Prior to his legal career, Morgan was elected to office as a Utah State Representative (District 45, Salt Lake County) in 2000 and 2002, and also served as Vice-Chair of the Utah Republican Party. As a legislator, he was awarded the Friend of the Taxpayer title by the Utah Taxpayers Association as well as top honors from Utah Grass Roots. The NFIB acknowledged Morgan as a Guardian of Small Business.

Though his political contributions were prolific, Morgan could not ignore the call of law and left the legislature to attend law school. He counts himself privileged to have learned from great minds such as Judge Robert Bork and Professor Charles Rice. Upon completion of his law degree, Morgan clerked for Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and served four years as the General Counsel and Government Affairs Director for a prominent Utah company. He counts fatherhood among his greatest accomplishments and resides with his family in Utah.

Paul K. Savage
Board of Directors

Paul graduated from Brigham Young University, B.A., Honors History, magna cum laude, 1992. Paul has several significant accomplishments in his educational experience. He was the Vice-President, Student Alumni Association; Phi Kappa Phi and Golden Key Honors Associations; Phi Alpha Theta, History Honors Assoc.; Wright Leadership Fellow; and E.S. Hinckley Scholar. He earned several Best Paper and Best Student awards. Paul also attended the University of Bern, Switzerland, 1995-1996. He was a Fulbright Fellow at Columbia Law School, J.D. in 1995. He was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, 1993-1995; Honors Certificate from the Parker School for Foreign and Comparative Law; and Foreign Language Area Studies Fellow, at the U.S.Department of Education. Paul was also a Staff Editor for the Journal of East European Law.

Paul previously worked for the law firm of Kirton & McConkie in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was first admitted to practice law in 1997. He has been as licensed in New York, and Utah; and for the United States Tax Court; the United States Court of Federal Claims; and the Federal District Court for Utah.

His current practice areas include Alternative Dispute Resolution; Business; Corporate and Partnership Tax; Foreign Direct Investment; Global Migration and Employment; International; International Trade and Taxation; Tax and Estate Planning.

Marcus R. Mumford – In Memoriam

Marcus was instrumental in the ultimate founding of DAS. Marcus was the attorney for Jewel’s husband Claud R. Koerber Franklin (Rick) from 2009 through 2016. Through that process Marcus and the Franklins became good friends. Rick brought Marcus on to be co-counsel with Morgan Philpot for Ammon Bundy in the Oregon Malhuer Wildlife Refuge case. Marcus and Rick worked on several other prominent cases together from 2012-2019. After Rick was incarcerated, Marcus and Jewel worked together to assemble Rick’s appellate team in 2019; and Marcus repeatedly visited Rick to discuss his appeal. During these visits at the Weber County Correctional Facility they also found themselves discussing ideas related to what has now become DAS. Marcus tragically and unexpectedly died in April 2020.

Marcus graduated from Brigham Young University’s law school (J. Reuben Clark law school), clerked for federal appellate judge Monroe G. McKay, (one of few Marcus considered a mentor) and worked as a litigation attorney for eight years at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom (one of the most successful and well-known legal companies in the world) before returning to Utah to begin his own private law practice. Marcus was known as a uniquely passionate, intense and zealous advocate for defendants – the likes of which are not common in modern legal practice. He was once dubbed a modern day Atticus Finch and had a remarkable record of success in prominent criminal trials. His motto – when facing the daunting power of federal prosecutors was simply, “hit hard – good things will happen.”

“To be an effective criminal defense counsel, an attorney must be prepared to be demanding, outrageous, irreverent, blasphemous, a rogue, a renegade, and a hated, isolated and lonely person. Few love a spokesman for the despised and the damned.”

Clarance Darrow, Trial Attorney [1857-1938]

Of course, Marcus knew the deeper truth that fighting for those whose freedom and liberty were on the line, was fighting for the most noble, most exalting, and most worthy of human causes. As the scriptures encourage: “Therefore that we should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things…let no man count them as small things…Therefore,…let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.” D&C 123-13-17.