Posted on 05/18/2008 6:41:53 AM PDT by Saundra Duffy
Cases for seven children from one family, five from another and at least two fathered by polygamous sect leader Warren S. Jeffs are among those set for court Monday as the next phase begins in the largest child welfare action in United States history.
“The children are not subject to a criminal complaint, they have committed no crimes. So on what bases is questioning barred.”
Do you also believe that Miranda rights only apply after a person is charged with a crime? Sounds like you would. At least if the person were an FLDS member.
Miranda only applies to people subject to charges. If LEO could not ask questions then no one could be charged for anything unless the cop was witness.
So in your world a child that was sexually abused by a parent could not be asked about it without the parents approval, also since the court has made these children wards of the sate the defacto parent is the state. What comic book law manual have you been reading.
Alleged, what people, maybe that is your source of confusion.
“So in your world a child...”
Disputed minor. Big difference.
Read real slow, ward of court age is of no importance. until the men and woman are charged with abuse. And no one is asking the ones to be charged questions.
They are “alleged” to have abused children. There are 31 girls allegedly underage and allegedly pregnant. It is alleged that there are small boys with broken bones.
Your first statement!
They are “alleged” to have abused children. There are 31 girls allegedly underage and allegedly pregnant. It is alleged that there are small boys with broken bones.
Your second statement.
Now you can see you are talking about two different subjects. The children are not subject to any charges, they are the abused.
The criminally charged are the ones that become alleged abusers.
I still haven’t figured out why it’s the children who are in court and need attorneys.
Yes, we can just imagine the kindly government questioning of the "abused" "disputed" minors without benefit of council.
Something along the lines of,
"If you ever want to see your children again you're going to have to co-operate fully with us and give us the information we need. Now tell us about the father of your child..."
"I would like to talk to a lawyer about getting my children back."
"You don't get a lawyer. You are the victim. Now, if you want to ever you your children again you better start talking..."
This is sickening.
Not as sick as your made up fantasy statement! Since the whole thing is in your own mind.
This is the sick part. I didn't make it up.
From the article:
They also agree Louisa Jessop, who gave birth last Monday to her third child, is 22 years old.
Both women are in monogamous marriages and their attorneys say none of the state's allegations fit their situations.
But the state, as laid out in the service plans, maintains that the couples and other FLDS parents "have chosen to be members of a community that appears to support systemic abuse of children."
Previously CPS claimed Ms. Jessup was a minor - even though she insisted she wasn't, and presented a drivers license and birth certificate as evidence of her age. CPS nevertheless insisted she had no proof of her age. Finally, they had to admit the obvious.
But now, even though they have before them a 22 year old woman married to a 24 year old man with several children born after she was 18 years of age, just because Ms. Jessop and her husband belong to a particular religion, the state refuses to return their children to them. If that doesn't fit the definition of "sickening" I don't know what would -- perhaps you need them to be stuffed into cattle cars and hauled off to a death camp before it bothers you, but for me this type of governmental conduct is a simply unacceptable abuse of the law.
That is a good one, a plan, attributed to and approve by whom.
In my own personal opinion many of these children should be put up for adoption, if that is what it takes to remove them from this cult BS.
They also agree Louisa Jessop, who gave birth last Monday to her third child, is 22 years old.
Reading the sentence as written, "A different document, filed in April, had said she was 18, as officials now acknowledge.", say that the people acknowledge the document, it does not say there is one word of proof are approval by the court that the rest of the statement is in fact true. The judge gave limited custody of the child born a few days ago to her, because the child was not subject to original warrant, since the baby was not born.
The spin by the supports of this cult in Utah is out of the world.
What a mess.
Yep you are correct. Had the FLDS been a little different then this mess may not have to be dealt with. But they chose the lifestyle and now it has to be dealt with.
So where are the criminal charges?
Criminal charges aren’t a part of the child custody proceedings. They will come from the DA and maybe the feds in some instances if they are brought. Criminal charges are an absolute in child custody cases are they?......
Small steps
Follow-up custody hearings great in number, incremental in progress
Five judges. Hundreds of hearings. More than 460 children.
One blueprint.
Beginning Monday and lasting for nearly three weeks, the largest custody case in U.S. history returns to San Angelo as dozens of state attorneys present polygamist sect parents a plan to reunite them with their children.
The service plan is mostly boilerplate, attorneys say. It's short on specifics and leads many of those representing mothers in the cases to make amendments by denying charges of abuse or noting that no specific allegations have been made against their clients.
"Most attorneys that I'm aware of are taking the service plans and adding modifications," said local attorney Brad Haralson, who represents some mothers in the case. "CPS is taking a boilerplate service plan and applying it to everyone."
The state's Child Protective Services agency has taken temporary custody of more than 460 children who lived at the YFZ Ranch, a Schleicher County compound run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. That Mormon splinter sect split decades ago from the mainstream Mormon Church after the latter renounced polygamy.
Beginning Monday, CPS attorneys will tell Tom Green County's district judges what the parents must do to regain their children, with the steps spelled out in individual service plans.
Language in the plans is similar because each child is in a similar situation, said CPS spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner, but she added that caseworkers will meet with parents after the hearings to individualize the plans - a process the public will not see.
"They'll all look very similar, but we'll continue to assess them," she said. "It is important to remember these issues are very similar."
While attorneys may seek clarification about their specific clients, the hearings are not expected to produce major changes in course. In more traditional family cases, status hearings generally take 30 minutes and are held informally in front of the judge's bench.
Decisions about the placement of children are not generally made at such hearings.
Although the template is largely the same in each case, its language heartened some attorneys by listing family reunification as the state's ultimate goal.
"I am encouraged it's unification and not termination," said Susan Hays, a Dallas attorney in the case.
That's of little consolation to attorneys such as Ellen Haas, a former Corpus Christi district judge whose client, Joseph Steed Jessop, 25, lives in a monogamous relationship with his adult wife, Lori. He has fathered three children since their marriage five years ago and lived in a single-family residence on the ranch.
Lori Jessop, 23, testified April 17 during an en masse initial custody hearing, telling the court she had worked as an emergency medical technician and would willingly live away from the YFZ Ranch to regain her children.
"Her husband does not fit any of the boilerplate or any of the en masse descriptions," Haas said.
Last week, Haas won a temporary restraining order preventing the state from removing Jessop's infant son once he turned 1.
"They're supposed to individualize these plans," Haas said. "Parents are supposed to be a part of it."
The plans do not address specific cases, instead telling all parents they must undergo genetic and psychiatric testing, provide proof of income and allow CPS to monitor their homes. That's regardless of whether the parents have been specifically accused of abuse, or even whether they have children at an age where the state says abuse was likely.
The plans do not make clear whether returning to the YFZ Ranch is an option, Hays said, and do not discuss polygamy, a core tenet of the FLDS faith, which involves spiritual unions not intended to be recognized by the law.
"If they take a hard line on polygamy, you're putting a lot of moms out there who are now single parents," she said. "If abuse is even living on that ranch, you've made them all homeless, and that's a real potential problem."
CPS must provide all the parents their service plans by Monday - the 45th day after CPS sought and received an emergency order from 51st District Judge Barbara Walther to remove all children found at the ranch - and all hearings must be completed by June 5, the 60th day.
With Walther, the county's other three district judges and a retired appellate judge will hear the cases, which will be sorted by sibling groups based on the children's mother.
The Tom Green County District Clerk's Office continued to update settings lists through the end of the past week, warning attorneys and reporters that the schedule was subject to change without notice. As well, the office warned that questions - such as whether a listed child was a duplicate of a similarly named child, or whether a particular hearing had been set twice - remained unresolved, "but it is not because we have not tried."
The difficulty of the case is undeniable, Haas said.
"It worries me as a mother and a grandmother," she said. "It's not that people are trying to do something bad. It's complicated. We need to really be thoughtful about each family situation."
Live reports
- Follow the sect children's hearings with regular reports from the courthouse on Monday. gosanangelo.com
Sect buys land in Colorado
Friday, May 16, 2008DENVER - Members of a polygamist sect have been quietly buying up property in Colorado's Custer and Fremont counties and settling in, according to the Custer County sheriff. Full story » | Comments (218)
The thing seems to get worse each day. One of the big hate speech things about this cult is that they are on welfare.
If Texas Welfare is anything like California welfare was when I was on it as a kid—they wanted Social Security numbers, birth records etc... Maybe they do it different in Texas but I don’t think so.
If they want to get rid of the cult they are doing fine but wait until it gets out of hand and the lawyers get their hands on the public treasury. This will cost Texas many millions.
The real losers in the end are, as always, the children.
I know that criminal charges aren’t always part of custody issues...
BUT, these people have been accused in the media of some horrible crimes- are you saying you think it is ok if all they do is take the children and let those accused of child rape walk? I don’t think that would be a good outcome in this mess- for one thing if no one is charged/convicted of child abuse it will be hard to keep from returning the children. For another thing if some of the men are child rapists, what will keep them from simply starting over, raising more children? What kind of solution is it if all they do is take the children- only to have to return them later?
It’s funny that you are now characterizing this as a custody issue. I thought the issue all along was child abuse- serious child abuse- criminal child abuse. So where is the DA with the criminal charges?
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