Posted on 05/22/2008 10:46:31 AM PDT by ElkGroveDan
SAN ANGELO, Texas - A state appellate court has ruled that child welfare officials had no right to seize more than 400 children living at a polygamist sect's ranch.
The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the grounds for removing the children were "legally and factually insufficient" under Texas law. They did not immediately order the return of the children.
Child welfare officials removed the children on the grounds that the sect pushed underage girls into marriage and sex and trained boys to become future perpetrators.
The appellate court ruled the chaotic hearing held last month did not demonstrate the children were in any immediate danger, the only measure of taking children from their homes without court proceedings.
And a new lexicon is born. Good job on this thread BE!
No clue.
Now you are showing what you think this is all about.
Fair enough, if polygamy in Texas is illegal, and it is punishable by jail time...
Then the State of Texas needs to charge the alleged polygamists, try them before a jury of their peers. If they are CONVICTED, then they should serve the punishment laid out by law.
Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?
Here’s a link to the VIDEO of the interview with Three of the FLDS women.
http://www.religionnewsblog.com/21231/flds-polygamy-6
No need to apologize. Minor digs here and there aren’t a problem, I apologize for a minor stab myself. You, of course never called people child rape supporters and polygamists and accused people of being Mormons when they are not.
The second part of the court’s statement was that the CPS brought no convincing evidence to the court of actual abuse; the part about under-age distinctions is where the CPS authority ends and therefore the DA should have brought that to court if it existed.
Since they are still being held by CPS the children are too young (under 17) to go out unattended while the rest should be free to go right now.
If they lied to the judge to get the warrant, or withheld relevant information, then I think the warrant would have been invalid from the beginning. I think they may have already had the warrant when they found out that Barlow had never been in Texas. BTW, that was confirmed, not just by Barlow, but by Barlow’s Arizona parole officer.
Here is what I think happened. They went in the first time, using the fake phone call/Dale Barlow warrant. I don’t know whether they knew at the time they executed that first warrant that it was fishy. We may learn that they had information undermining that initial warrant before they ever set foot on the ranch. But they almost certainly knew that the first warrant was fishy before they seized the children.
After gaining access to the ranch the first time, they used the fact that they saw some girls who appeared to be pregnant teenagers as an excuse to go back again and again and seize children.
But the appeals court clearly said that the mere presence of a pregnant teenagers — if they indeed were teenagers — is not proof of “abuse.” And it is certainly not proof that all other children are in imminent physical danger, as the law requires.
Then, when these jerks got to the hearing, they put on evidence — not of physical abuse or physical danger. Rather, they put on “experts” to testify that the teaching of the FLDS religion to the children was “abuse,” sufficient to justify taking away each and every child. IOW, they wanted to punish these people for their beliefs, because those beliefs might, sometime in the future, cause some of the kids to participate in illegal acts. And that judge bought it. Because she is probably an idiot and because she almost certainly wanted to buy it.
Does anyone think that this might be a set up on the part of the FLDS?
Lets look at the overall picture first. We have a vilified, persecuted, group of people whose leader is in prison. This group is no stranger to The Law and Court Rooms, they have been fighting the legal system for many, many years. They send a high profile, hand picked, well funded group of followers to Texas where they build a huge Temple and compound. This is a very visible statement.
The group is instructed to obey all of the laws of Texas especially regarding underage girls. Then they wait for the inevitable raid by the authorities. The basic plan was probably to simply demonstrate that there were no illegal activities going on, that will put the Texas authorities on the defensive and make them reticent to bother the FLDS again. The inside informant may very well have been a double agent, truthfully reporting to the Sheriff, as instructed by the FLDS leaders.
Now that the CPS has grabbed all of the children, I can almost see the FLDS lawyers salivating. They probably never imagined that something like this might happen, this is almost like winning the lottery. The CPS are probably dumbfounded right now that they don’t have a hundred cases of rape, incest, bigamy, murder, kidnapping, etc. and all the young girls lining up to testify against their torturers. The CPS seems to have simply acted on the assumption that if they grabbed everyone then they would be able to find enough cases of abuse to justify their actions.
I wonder what the odds were of the CPS finding no statutory rape cases? I am almost beginning to feel sorry for the CPS. Who would have guessed that the FLDS compound was not a cesspool of rape and incest based on everything that has been reported about the FLDS.
The CPS is facing a big dilemma right now. If they don’t appeal they will look like idiots giving the children back to the FLDS. If they appeal and lose, they will be facing a permanent diminishment of their agencies power and possible lawsuits ranging into the hundreds of millions. This is high stakes poker and I am beginning to think that the FLDS have a few aces up their sleeves.
And here is three of the FLDS men.
And they are their own worst enemy.
http://www.religionnewsblog.com/21235/flds-polygamy-7
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2020282/posts?
AUSTIN – Texas Child Protective Services will ask the state’s highest court to keep a polygamist sect’s children in state custody, following a Thursday appeals court ruling that ordered the youngsters be returned to their homes.
Texas Supreme Court spokesman Osler McCarthy said attorneys for the state called Friday morning and said they’d be “filing an action in this court” later in the day.
You are going off on tangents. We are talking about polygamy. Not a lifestyle. Polygamy. Overturned in Reynolds. Read the decision.
As for the creepies in Texas, go after them on welfare fraud, child molestation, polygamy whatever. Put them out of business. Totally.
Deny them every hidden niche they can conjure up behind their “religion”.
If Texas/FEDS don’t have the cojones to do that, get ready for human sacrifice...of course based on one’s “religion”.
“If that turns out to be the truth, then I would agree.”
IF? I thought the court ruled they had no legal basis for their actions?
Unless you have lots of money and a very good lawyer you don’t seem to have any rights these days. With those you can get away with anything.
LOL
well I do have a SIG P229
“Without finding any evidence, or just without accumulating enough evidence to attain a warrant before this? “
I assume they are one and the same. If he had evidence of a crime than he would be able to get a warrant. If all he had was suspicions then he wouldn’t be able to get a warrant (except in CA).
Seems pretty obvious what happened. They didn’t like this screwball and were looking for a way to bring him down. They had an out of state call telling them of a crime by a person they KNEW had never been in their jurisdiction. They used that flimsy excuse to stomp on these peoples religious freedom, property rights, parental rights, and on and on. Then once they obtained access to the site they sought to use material found to justify their illegal entry.
On top of that they tell us about the chapel bed used to celebrate marriages with the young girls. Never mind this was a complete fabrication.
I would posit this: The people who took the children are the same who believe that motherhood *in general* is a trap. I think that they believe that any woman who chooses motherhood and family over college and carers are "brainwashed" and hasn't been "liberated" via the feminist movement. In their mind, a group of women who choose a conservative lifestyle must be abnormal.
It is clear that the entire basis for the warrant and raid were, as many saw early on, a sham and hoax, so why then not return the vast majority of the children to their mothers?
This has not finished paying out by a long shot...but I believe the state of Texas is going to pay heavily financially for this...and I believe that there are those who should also pay criminally for it.
The real shame is that, IMHO, they have made it much more difficult in the future, should true evidence and defendants come forward, for the State to address those issues with this group or others should they arrise.
They are not dummies. They are crafty/conniving/sneaky as hell. I’m sure they have reat the best legal advice - ACLU, Muslim groups, Libertarians, secularists, etc. That is what I gathered from the King interview with them last night. Scary not dumb.
As for other lifestyle choices...such as homosexual marriage/adoption my only response is that states get goofy.
We need a SC packed with Alitos and Scalias and Thomas to right those injustices.
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