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.
One of our esteemed members here at FR actually said last night that they armored vehicle was to protect the police from rattlesnakes. Honest ... you can't make this stuff up!
No, I avoided it because it convoluted & obfuscated a different discussion. ...but have it your way, let's discuss it, and do so somewhere suitable - this thread.
So, to your question:
In Jefferson's day it was not unusual for 15 year old girls to be married and expecting a child. How does this fall under your 'idea' of liberty and where were you on the Texas Mormon issue?
Per this thread, a judge has reviewed the warrant & raid, and ruled that there was no suitable legal reason for the raid.
Per other threads, there is increasing doubt as to whether there was anything legally wrong going on (weird, maybe, but not illegal), and I'm getting increasingly suspicious that much of the news reports on the subject are skewing the facts, or outright lying, to spin the story into the one people WANT to hear (scandal! outrage! moral indignation! gossip!) instead of what the story IS (which may be far less objectionable/interesting).
In light of what was normal/acceptable in Jefferson's day & culture, what exactly is the problem? (Be ready to show verifiable facts, not just hearsay.)
Agreed! The Children in the projects are in much more danger than these kids.
Links to evidence thereof? (Not argumentative, just interested in facts.)
Links to evidence thereof? (Not argumentative, just interested in facts.)
It's painfully obvious that horrible things were going on but not to the “judges” who live in the clouds of legal theory.
It is painfully unbelievable that we have people here who think little naive and ignorant girls getting married “spiritually” to alpha males 30 + years older who then molest them that they are is OK. That based on the govt. abuses of Ruby Ridge and WACO the authorities have no right to act to protect innocents!
http://messengerandadvocate.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/flds-affidavit.pdf
I would hope that the court did NOT rule that the state had no “right” to take the children. That almost HAS to be a reporter and/or editor showing their ignorance. Surely to God the court ruled that the state government exceeded the limits of its POWER by seizing the children.
Because if a judge does not know that governments have POWERS, not RIGHTS, and that only INDIVIDUALS have rights, then he/she is not fit to occupy a place on the bench.
Amen.
The key phrase in your post is "believed to be." In other words, the facts have not yet been established. And, of course, government never lies to us. Government is never heavy handed.
Of course, of those 53, at least 9 are now acknowledged to be adults. Which leaves 21 out of 44, some of which are still disputed.
And of course, 14-17 year-olds can get pregnant without a criminal act in Texas, so you have to look at the specific circumstances of each pregnancy to know whether a crime was committed. 16-year-olds can get married with the parent's permission, 17-year-olds can choose to have sex, and between 14-17 if your partner is within 36 months of your age the rape statute is waived.
And of course, it is not a crime for a girl to have a child, even if the girl was raped. So the significance of underaged girls who are pregnant would be that some men might well deserve to go to prison, NOT that the girls be required to forfeit their babies, or that the girls be incarcerated by the state.
I presume that all this means is that following questioning (that should be complete), most of the kids will go back to their nut-job parents until each are proven to be unfit. I have no problem with that.
I don’t think that you have to support polygamy in order to agree that the standard for any government seizing a child from its biological family should be stratospherically high. You’d better have evidence, a court order, and one hell of a case before you do that to a kid. Texas had little to none of this.
Thousands of lives were probably saved, ultimately, or would be if these kids are gotten out of there.
Speaking of which, I have a family member who is a detective in the crimes against minors unit of a Western police dept. Do you know how often the police take a kid out of a home because of a report by a teacher or neighbor, followed up by investigation - and the courts send the child back to the abusers (because you “can’t break up the family”) and within weeks, the child ends up dead? She just had a case like that a couple of months ago; the courts felt that the police were being too extreme in taking a child out of the abusive home, and as soon as the parents got the kid back, the treatment resumed. That time the child didn’t survive to complain.
I hope the courts do not send these children back to that cult.
There were 460 children in a single home? Must have been a damned big home...
L
Sarah Draper, 37, has moved to Abilene, Texas, and taken a job as a registered nurse to be near her four children, who are in Henderson Home.“I feel very blessed,” she said, praising the facility and its activities, which have included trips to the zoo and a local fire department.
Inexplicably, caregivers there told Draper on Monday her children would no longer be allowed to participate in off-campus excursions. No one could explain why or who ordered the change.
Or how about the 18 yr old who delivered after the raid. They kept her baby from her for the first 3 weeks after birth.
Spare me the involvement of "culturally sensitive" experts. Sheesh!
Good point. There is no lack of danger for girls under 18 getting pregnant in the general society. Surely, we need mass raids everywhere.
Actually, at least one of the pregnant “underage” girls later turned out to be 19 or 20 years old.
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