Of course authorities didn’t know the wrong name was on the warrant. Nor is it 100% clear that the name WAS wrong, at least beyond the level of misspelling. There are so many people with the same last names in this group, and fairly common/ordinary first names especially for the men, so there are certainly lots of duplicate first/last names. The name on the warrant was Dale Barlow. According to two women in Utah who have been involved with helping women and girls flee the group, the man who this girl was actually “married” to is a relative of Dale Barlow’s, who is in his late 30s, and has the surname Barlow, and a first name that sounds “similar” (maybe David? Daniel? apparently at least one of the women gave the actual name, but the media is not reporting it, since he hasn’t been named a suspect or subject of a warrant). http://origin.sltrib.com/ci_8859783
There will be no problems with this warrant beyond some nuisance motions filed by the child-rapists’ attorneys and promptly denied. And in fact it was reported today that an FLDS lawyer who had filed a challenge to the search has already dropped it — not likely, if he thought he had a snowball’s chance in hell of succeeding with it. http://www.team4news.com/Global/story.asp?S=8144372&nav=0w0v
The notion that the warrant would be invalidated by an understandable error in identifying the man accused or rapes and beatings by a terrified girl whispering into a cell phone she couldn’t afford to be caught with is simply laughable. First of all, they didn’t go into the compound just to look for the man, they also went into to try to find and rescue the girl (which in all likelihood they have succeeded in doing). These people have no legal residence, they are all moved between compounds whenever the leaders order it, and in the past this has often been done to hide people who authorities were searching for. Most of them also have no public records of their identities, birth dates, etc., so authorities can use the usual means to try to confirm such details. When authorities tried to pin down an identity of a man named Barlow who fit the description the girl caller gave, the best match they could find in public records was a similar-first-name Barlow who just happened to be a member of the FLDS group AND just happened to have a conviction for sexual abuse of a 16 year old girl under his belt. Little wonder they figured Dale must be the guy. By now they probably realize that there must be least a hundred men named Barlow who are members of this “church” and have raped and beaten adolescent girls.
This is a tightly organized group with a long and well-documented history of systematic sexual abuse of minor girls. At the very least, somebody at a domestic violence hotline center told police that a girl had called from inside the compound owned and controlled by this group, and given the information described in the warrant. Given the combination of the source of the report and the group’s well-documented history, that was plenty to support the initial level of the search which involved entering the compound grounds and a large multi-family residential building, and during which a number of visibly pregnant girls below legal marriage age were observed. The more in-depth search, including the search of the temple, was based on subsequent warrants which were supported by the observation of the pregnant girls. No warrant issues here at all, and it’s more than a little bit disturbing to see how many FReepers are trying to make a case that there are.
Under what law are men being prevented from leaving their property? Are they under arrest? If so, why do they not have the rights of any common criminal defendant?
Why were boys taken into custody?
Are the mothers free to come and go. Can they communicate with their children? Can they communicate with attorneys?
Cordially,
no it appears it was dropped because there is a duplicate federal warrent which CYA the state screwup.
If it was the state alone the motion would still be there. However, we still don’t know if it was “dropped” on condition it would be preserved for appeal.
Sloppy police work only helps the criminals.