Posted on 04/17/2008 9:04:57 AM PDT by deport
Live updates from the Court House as the hearing progresses:
Hearing log
Standard-Times reporter Matt Phinney updates the FLDS child custody proceedings in the 51st District Court while reporter Sandy Rojas reports from outside the courthouse. The hearing was scheduled to start at 10 a.m.
10:24 a.m. - The attorney for a woman whose last name is Barlow objects to: lack of notice, the hearing's format, and failure to meet requirements of the Texas code that entitles each child to a full adversarial hearing.
More attorneys make objections, and Judge Walther asks them to allow the court to get started. She says no perfect solution exists, and the state is required to get started after 14 days.
The judge tells the attorneys their objections are premature.
10: 12 a.m. - The judge swears in people who will testify. Child Protective Services recommends that the state maintain temporary custody of the children. CPS asks to obtain DNA samples from adults to match with children.
The first witness is called. Judge Walther tells a woman to take a seat, saying she will not have people jumping up and down and shouting at the court.
10:10 a.m. - All rise. Judge Barbara Walther enters the courtroom.
9:54 a.m. - A man tells everyone in the City Auditorium to put their cell phones on silent and gives the crowd the password for wireless access. Activity picks up in the courtroom, but the judge has not entered yet. A buzz of conversation echoes in the auditorium.
Four Texas Rangers enter the back of the courthouse.
A woman drives by in a white SUV screaming at bystanders to "leave the children alone." The screening lineup is gone. A man hands out 25 percent-off coupons for the Rodeo restaurant.
9:41 a.m. - Live video feed begins from the Tom Green County Courthouse. The judge's bench is empty, and staff members in the courtroom check the volume settings on the microphones. Attorneys stand around talking and sit scattered through the City Auditorium. More attorneys continue to arrive and take their seats.
Outside the courthouse. Diane Gomez, a San Angelo resident who once lived in Schleicher County, says she worked at the property now occupied by the YFZ Ranch when it was a ranch owned by Curtis Stockton. "I feel like this shouldn't have happened," she said, referring to the FLDS moving in. "Eldorado should have stopped this a long time ago. They knew what was going on."
Rita Casarez of San Angelo came out to watch the proceedings. "This is history in the making," she said.
9:07 a.m. - Attorneys slowly begin filing into the city auditorium after going through a metal detector. Several San Angelo police officers mill about watching the buzz, and one remarks that it's going to be a long day. Several media outlet representatives begin taking their seats to wait for the largest child custody case in Texas history to begin.
Outside the courthouse, state Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, arrives shortly after 9 a.m., chats with bystanders and shakes hands with a few people, then bypasses the security screening line and vanishes into the courthouse. Among the 80 or so people waiting in line were a about a dozen women wearing pastel-colored, ankle-length dresses customary of YFZ Ranch residents.
A woman outside the courthouse is handing out magazines titled "Mormon Focus: Exploring the Diversity of Mormon Culture." An article inside is titled, "It's all about family - an inside look at today's plural marriages."
Hard to believe something like this is happening in America.
Link to updates is blocked here at work. Anybody who can get to it could you post them? Thank you.
Excuse my previous post...... wasn’t paying attention..
10:30 a.m. - The judge swears in the first witness, an official from the Texas Department of State Health Services. He is asked about medical records from at least three women. A lull in the proceedings passes, and lawyers in the City Auditorium ask for copies of the court documents before they are submitted as evidence. This promises to be a long process. Attorneys in the City Auditorium want to know how they can make objections from the remote location.
As a practical matter, Walther said she doesn’t want to cut anyone off from looking at the evidence.
When lawyers in the courtroom see the evidence, a bailiff will take it to City Hall, a distance of about two city blocks. Walther said she will step off the bench to give lawyers time to view the evidence. Then they will reconvene.
10:26 a.m. - Men and women from the YFZ Ranch walk into the City Auditorium, take seats in the auditorium and begin watching the hearing.
I don’t get it. The women and children are being detained and the men.....who supposedly commited a crime.....are still free. Where’s the proof that anything is wrong? Child Protective Services needs to prove that they received that phone call. There are records available if they wanted to look.
More of the; your children really belong to the government (aka the slave owner) and you have no rights except to work to pay your taxes. Imagine a men having sex with more than one woman. What happened to the screams of “the government can not legislate morality?
Two different things going on....... A civil proceding regarding the custody of the children, etc.
The criminal proceding will follow if any. They will have to have evidence gatherings, grand jury procedings, etc, indictments, arrest, bondings, hearings, trials.
This situation if it proceeds on both fronts will take a very long time is my guess.
The women and children are being detained
I thought only the children were being held. I didn’t realize the women were being detained. I think they were there of their on free will in order to be with the children.
11:05 a.m. - Announcement is made about a list of names so mothers in the court can find the attorneys they need to talk to. Court in recess.
11 a.m. - The court remains in recess. Attorneys mill about in packs, discussing different topics. Women and men from the YFZ Ranch lean over talking to one another, or sit and watch the scene around them. One man from the ranch sticks his finger to his mouth in a universal sign of “shh” to a group of ranch members across the aisle. The live video feed from the courthouse shows a paused shot of the judge’s
This will be a long long long process even if it can be conducted as they are attempting to do.
These “women” were thirteen year old girls, and those men were pedophiles.
Ed
Yeah, it’s tough to withhold judgement when something so crazy is happening, but I don’t want to look like an idiot by jumping to conclusions about something this early in the game.
I have a feeling some of the people spouting off about this now are going to be embarrassed by their quick judgement.
I don’t support pedophilia. At what age can a girl legally get married?? 16 or 15? I have known 16 YO girls that were legally married and thousands that have kids from age 13 on, out of wedlock, never to get married.
CPS is god in Texas; they don’t have to prove anything. They operate under the aegis of the Texas Family Code. All they have to do is make an allegation and the defendant must prove his/her innocence.
Right now it’s all about the DNA evidence; they’ll use that to tie the women to the kids and then ultimately to the pedophilic men/boys. These people have no idea the extent to which their lives are over. The men/boys will go to jail for the remainder of their existence upon the surface of this orb. The women will be bankrupted, some will be jailed as accomplices and repeatedly raped by Lesbian prison guards. The kids will be placed in foster homes, apparently in crime ridden Houston, where the females will be subjected to further physical and sexual abuse, ensuring they end up on the streets on drugs and the males will join gangs or end up in prison some other way.
Then of course the compound and buildings will go for back taxes at a less than open auction attended by todies of the Governor and/or the rich people who back him. They will probably turn the grounds and the compound into an exotic game ranch. The judge and several of the Lawyers will get rich on book deals and one or more of the women might have the smarts, (I doubt it) to sell the story to a Studio for movie/t.v. rights.
That’s the way it goes.
There are no women being detained, and there have not at any time been any women detained.
“mothers in the court can find the attorneys they need to talk to.” The fathers can’t talk to the attorneys? Before anyone jumps the gun keep in mind that the father of a sixteen year old pregnant girl is not the same person (hopefully) as the 50 year old man, who took her as his fourth wife and got her pregnant at 15.
There are no women being detained, and there have not at any time been any women detained.
I know that. All I was doing was trying to get RC2 to bring froth proof of his allegation that they were detained. There is mixing of 1/2 truths, pure falsehoods, speculation and allegations among this entire event until it’s hard to keep what is going on in prespective.
From your statement that is obvious. But then you will never get my statement either.
In Texas it varies, but a little girl can never legally marry a pedophilia that is already married.
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