Posted on 08/19/2008 8:09:30 AM PDT by Alice in Wonderland
To nearly every question she was asked, Barbara Jessop gave the same answer: "I stand on the Fifth." "Can you name the children you have given birth to?" Texas Child Protective Services attorney Jeff Schmidt asked her during a contentious custody hearing here on Monday.
"I stand on the Fifth," she replied stoically.
"What dates did you live at the YFZ Ranch?"
"I stand on the Fifth."
"Is it wrong for a girl under 17 to marry a man more than 21 years older than she is?"
"I stand on the Fifth."
Child Protective Services is seeking to remove seven FLDS children from their homes and place them in foster care.
They are among the hundreds taken in the April raid on the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch who were subsequently ordered returned a couple of months later. Two cases involving three children are being negotiated in hopes of a possible settlement.
"We're hopeful that there will be an agreement and that the judge will hear it," said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.
At the hearing Monday, Jessop's attorney said she didn't want to answer the questions because they could incriminate her in a criminal investigation that is under way.
(Excerpt) Read more at deseretnews.com ...
"Yes," Jessop replied, breaking from her usual reply.
Then Jessop went back to exercising her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, refusing to answer more than 50 questions peppered at her. A wife of YFZ Ranch leader Merril Jessop, she is fighting Child Protective Services' efforts to have two of her children placed in foster care.
Merril Jessop did not appear for the hearing.
The hearing is scheduled to resume again today, with Barbara Jessop's attorney, Gonzalo Rios, presenting his case. On Monday, he repeatedly stood up, objecting to everything from evidence to the hearing itself.
"They are not alleging anything that's happened since these children have been with my client," Rios said, referring to when they moved into a home in Converse, Texas, after the courts ordered all of the children taken in the April raid on the YFZ Ranch returned to their parents.
As a surprise witness, CPS lawyers called Merril Jessop's ex-wife Carolyn Jessop to the witness stand.
In dramatic testimony, the best-selling author described her marriage and accused both Merril and Barbara Jessop of abusing her children.
"I was involved with the FLDS for 35 years," she said. "I am able to protect my children. Most, I believe, are in a safe place now."
She described her former "sister-wife" Barbara Jessop beating one of Barbara Jessop's children with a broom as the family sang a hymn, "Love At Home," during a Sunday school session.
Carolyn Jessop left the FLDS Church about five years ago, taking her eight kids with her. She chronicled it in her memoir, "Escape."
Under cross-examination, she acknowledged that her 19-year-old daughter, Betty, returned to the FLDS Church. She also acknowledged she saw Barbara Jessop do things that would be considered "good parenting."
Rios suggested Carolyn Jessop was testifying for publicity and money. She acknowledged she was paid nearly $250,000 for her book but said that she has not worked since she left the FLDS Church and has been the sole provider for her children, including one who is handicapped.
Some of the incidents Carolyn Jessop described happened as far back as 20 years ago, Rios said.
"Have you ever hit your children?" he asked her.
"A few times before I left (the FLDS)," she replied. "I didn't like hitting. After I left, there's never been an episode."
Apparently stunned by the testimony, FLDS member Willie Jessop escorted Betty Jessop into the courthouse as the afternoon session began. She is expected to testify today.
"We'll see if she has a different story," Willie Jessop told the Deseret News. During the hearing, Rios attacked the evidence seized from the YFZ Ranch, including marriage certificates, photos, love letters and bishop's records. At one point, he sought to have evidence excluded but then asked for the hundreds of thousands of pieces of YFZ evidence to be brought into the case.
"Is that really what you want?" Judge Barbara Walther asked him.
Rios successfully got photos of FLDS leader Warren Jeffs kissing underage girls kept out of his case, but Child Protective Services introduced records that detailed at least nine marriages involving underage girls to older men.
Concerning Barbara Jessop's 14-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son, CPS workers said they have exhausted efforts to avoid placing them in foster care. Efforts to find others to care for the children haven't worked out.
"How many am I supposed to contact?" CPS investigator Ruby Gutierrez asked a lawyer representing Jessop's daughter.
Gutierrez acknowledged that the 11-year-old boy has shown no signs of abuse but said his sister being married to Jeffs at age 12 no doubt had an effect on him. She testified that two of Jessop's adult sons took underage brides, and three daughters were married underage.
But with Jeffs in jail, Rios asked her if she had any evidence to show marriages are happening now. She said she did not have any beyond Aug. 2, 2006 — weeks before Jeffs was arrested.
"What would it take for the children to stay with their mother?" Walther asked at the end of the hearing.
Gutierrez said she had concerns about Jessop's disciplinary behavior, the children's education and financial well-being, and she sought to have a DNA test for Merril Jessop.
"I can't go back and undo the 12-year-old marriage," she said.
A Texas grand jury is scheduled to meet on Thursday to hear evidence of crimes involving FLDS members. Six men, including Jeffs, have been indicted on charges ranging from sexual assault of children to bigamy and failure to report child abuse.
Give her immunity and disallow that response. The mothers are not in jeopardy here.
Read it and highly reccommend it, for an inside look at the FLDS.
Ping
She doesn’t want to abide by the laws of the land but she wants to hide behind the laws of the land.
How special.
What a remarkably unintelligent comment - sarcasm used to plaster over a complete lack of rational arguments.
Thank you for posting this article.
I may not like you, lady, but stand on your rights.
Good to see you took it exactly as I stated it.
LOL They are trying to take her kids away from her. Why don't you take that paralegal course that you failed, again.
She does have that right.
If they're not in jeopardy, there's no reason to grant any immunity.
Apparently that Migraine has affected your logic circuits...
L
Apparently Barbara Steed Jessop is wary of indictments that maybe forthcoming based upon the following from an article in the San Angelo Standard Times.......
http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2008/aug/19/hearings-make-halting-progress/
snip
Criminal investigations are still ongoing, and she and her husband are accused in CPS affidavits of allowing and participating in nearly a dozen marriages of underage girls to older men. So Jessop invoked her constitutional right during a hearing in which she was fighting to maintain custody of two of her children.
“It may incriminate her in light of the ongoing criminal investigations,” San Angelo lawyer Gonzalo Rios, her attorney, told the court.
Rios will present Jessop’s case when the hearing continues this morning.
Defendants in criminal cases can invoke the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment and avoid testifying altogether. But Jessop, because she was in civil court, pleaded the amendment to each question she was asked - except one.
When Schmidt asked whether it was in a child’s best interests for a parent to keep him or her from harm, she said simply, “Yes.”
end snip
Apparently yer book larnin bout the Constitution stopped at Amendment the Fourth.
L
The mothers are not in jeopardy here.
Maybe you should enlighten her attorney who seems to disagree with your assessment.... See his quote in #14.
What is being misunderstood here, exactly?
The entire reason for immunity in the first place is to guarantee Fifth Amendment rights.
“Read it and highly reccommend it, for an inside look at the FLDS.”
Yup, but it does NOT constitute testimony under oath in the case currently before the court.
As I recall, just because you are part of a group does not mean that you are guilty of the sins of members of the group, nor even guilty of the sins of the group itself. As I recall, the court has to show that you did actual bad acts in order for you to be convicted.
I have no doubt that people in this group did lots of things that I find reprehensible. Then again, so did a bunch of priests, and I don’t see the Texas government raiding the Catholic churches. I lived w/ the Amish as a kid, and I “heard” that there were some awful things done by some of the Amish to their kids, but the government doesn’t round up the Amish, do they?
Shocker Ping!
I see ole Willie has Carolyn’s daughter brainwashed.
That would depend on the type of immunity offered. If it's 'transactional' immunity, it guarantees nothing. If it's 'complete' immunity, then that's completely different.
Transactional immunity only guarantees that their specific testimony in that specific forum won't be used against them. There's another name for 'transactional' immunity.
That name is "worthless".
L
That is their own free decision, made on their own evaluation of the deal they are being offered.
Uh, Carolyn Jessop DID testify under oath, yesterday.
Your ignorance is showing.
Are you suggesting that Catholic churches should have been raided?
As with all groups, there are good and bad. Whether they are Amish or FLDS. Don’t try and blurr the issue here.
If there is an AMish community who lets their 12 year old girls be married off to dirty old men, then yes, most people with common sense would support the removal of those kids.
Ths sad thing is 150 years ago their practices would be considered normal but now put them in prison.
What exactly are you suggesting is sad? That 12 year olds cannot be married off to 40 year old men and traded like baseball cards? Surely I misunderstand your point.
susie
WOW!
So what...
Man’s opinion changes over time even though right and wrong don’t change at all.
Remember the Hypocratic oath once used in medicine? One pillar of that oath was that Doctors would not help a woman to get an abortion. Now, medical schools conduct abortions as education.
Don’t lecture me about how ‘wrong’ it is for a youth (not a child) to marry an adult if we cannot agree that morals of man change over time.
From link 2: Once immunity is granted, the witness may not refuse to testify on the basis of the Fifth Amendment, because such testimony can no longer be self-incriminating.
That's as plain as plain can be my friend.
What are you, Russian?
L
An admission of guilt.
Unbelievable. "Once the immunity is granted" - in other words: once you have voluntarily agreed to waive your Fifth Amendment right.
Let me explain it to you in terms my three year old would be able to grasp.
You have a right protected by the US Constitution that says no one can make you say things that can get you in trouble.
You can decide to give up this right as long as your decision is one you make by yourself.
If you decide to give up this right in exchange for something else, then you've given up the right.
You cannot enjoy the right and also the thing you gave up the right for at the same time.
It's one or the other.
Hopefully that's clear enough.
What are you, Russian?
Well argued.
I think that by not answering questions and being generally uncooperative, she is going to lose custody of the other children.
They aren’t getting “married”. They are being used as sex slaves and incubators.
Apparently, there are bats lurking in your belfry. While the ladies may certainly perceive they are in jeopardy (who doesn't when they're in the dock?), it is the men the state is after. By granting immunity, they will get real testimony and deprive the men of this 5th amendment ploy, which is really being used to protect them.
Once Immunity is granted....
Immunity can be granted without the person waiving or wishing to waive their 5th amendment right. It can be used to force testimony.
Under cross-examination, Rios sought to discredit her testimony, saying most of the incidents Carolyn Jessop was talking about occurred two decades ago. He also criticized her for the amount of money she has earned from her book, "Escape" about her experience in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints community.
In documents submitted with the state's custody petition, the (12-year-old) girl is quoted as telling a caseworker that a young teenage girl marrying an older man "can't be a crime because Heavenly Father is the one that tells Warren when a girl is ready to get married."
Didn't say she is not culpable; I said I believe the state is primarily after the men in this case. Granting a woman immunity takes the jeopardy off her in exchange for testimony. The 5th is being taken here, ultimately, to protect the pedophile men.
Once upon a time Scooter Libby told a story to the FBI and the Grand Jury. Tim Russert told a bit different story to the FBI and the Grand Jury.
The Persecutor decided that Russert’s story was more credible and therefore Libby did not tell the truth to the FBI and the Grand Jury.
A trial was held which convicted Mr. Libby of lying to the FBI and the Grand Jury, largely based on Mr. Russert’s recollection vs. Mr. Libby’s.
Had Mr. Libby used his 5th amendment protection he would not have been convicted of anything. Maybe fired, for “not cooperating” but not convicted.
I pretty much have decided that if the FBI comes to my door I will use my 5th amendment protections.
“The 5th is being taken here, ultimately, to protect the pedophile men. “
Yes. But I don’t think ‘she’ sees it that way.
Many of the FLDS women have expressed publicly that they see nothing wrong with ‘child-brides’ as it is the word of God, conveyed through Warren.
And people who are the subjects of unsought-for immunity can (and do) seek full guarantees against prosecution.
I think some on this thread are confusing the real right not to incriminate oneself with an imaginary right of not having to testify in court if you don't want to.
Let me explain something to you that a mentally challenged Freeper can grasp.
Immunity can be granted whether it's asked for or not.
Therefore it's not 'voluntary'. Kapisch?
The only one who is confused here is you. That or you're being deliberately obtuse. Or, you're just stupid.
Those are the only three possibilities I see, anyway.
L
99% of immunity deals are worked out between two willing parties. It is extremely rare for a prosecutor to put a hostile witness on the stand whose testimony has not already been vetted - it's an invitation to disaster.
How about the fourth alternative:
The Fifth Amendment actually isn't what you imagine it to be, but what the Framers intended for it to be.
It was never considered normal
People fail to realize that the kids can be removed for her refusal to stop the crimes. Refusing to testify does not equal innocent.
So which is it? Is it 'always' or '99%'. They aren't the same you know.
L
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