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.
Sorry, but under our Constitution, "real" conservatives like you don't get to use government power to define what is and is not a "cult."
United States Constitution, Amendment ICongress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Heads are gonna role and those FLDS women will get their kids back and have a pretty good amopunt of money to build up their ranch — all the courtesy of the Texas taxpayer who will be forced to pay for the CPS idiocy!!!
So who decides when due process is not necessary? And on what basis?
G-ma called CPS and reported bruises on the baby. (She knew the situation, but had previously made claims that she wanted the kid for herself. Shortly after CPS gave her custody of the child, she actually had a baby shower.)
My friend then went through two years of hell trying to get he baby back. CPS held her to the most insane standards of house-keeping that I've ever heard of. They used the excuse of a dirty house to keep her from reclaiming her child for most of that time. One time it was bread crumbs left on the counter near the toaster. Another time it was a small hair left on the rim of the toilet. Another time it was a load of clean laundry she was in the process of folding when the surprise inspection came.
Well, she towed the line and eventually got her baby back. But this marked her for life. This robbed her to the joys of motherhood and clouded the next 20 years of her life with fear.
Yes, CPS can do wonderful things for abused kids, but way too many of the workers are inflated with power and have lost all common sense and compassion. They say they do all these things for the good of the children, but how is traumatizing a mother for the good of the child?
Parents? Most of the fathers can't be found. Many of those seem to have absconded since the children were taken, for fear of getting hit with criminal charges for the crimes they know full well they've committed. At least one mother testified in court that she hasn't seen the children's father in over a year and doesn't know where he is. The others are just saying they don't where the father is. Then there are the excommunicated fathers (whose wives and children have since been "reassigned" to other men) turning up, saying they haven't been allowed to see their children in years -- they've finally been able to see them again, thanks only to CPS.
There's plenty of immediate danger to children in a cult where they're subject to having their fathers abruptly thrown out of their lives on the leader's whim, and being reassigned to a new man who they're expected to treat as their father from the second they're assigned to him. Watch for this decision to be overturned at the next appeal level.
God sakes, this will cost Texas a train load of treasure. It'll take years and be in the newspapers longer than the McMartin Preschool fiasco. News story after news story of 'who's who' in the case, their backgrounds, case histories, questions about competency, finger pointing, crap rolling downhill, and ultimately blaming some poor low level schmuck like Dennis Fong from OJ case infamy who was a junior examiner at a crime lab.
Greta van Sustern will renew her contract with FOX News for five more years at $14 million on this case alone. The gagmen for Leno and Letterman are already proposing monologue jokes.
I bet there's a meeting going on right now at some level of Texas state government discussing the top level amount that they're willing to offer as a settlement and drafting indemnity documents right now paperclipped to a blank check.
Welcome to America's newest reality-based pop culture legal spectacle sensation, everyone.
There was nothing that the Rangers could have seen that would justified removing ALL the children, unless the Rangers saw marks on the kids, or walked in on incestuous sex.
That case (Washington or Oregon, right?) had slipped to the back of my mind.
Witch hunts are NEVER a good idea.
Why, do you know the real Ron Jeremy? ;-)
I did not mention the government.
I said I BELIEVE this group is a cult.
Good one.
You actually got me to look it up.
Um... Where do you think the Texas Supreme Court is located?
Recall that the original allegation came from a woman who...
1] was not a teen, as she claimed,
2] was not a resident of the ranch, as she claimed,
3] was not even in the state of Texas.
And she had made similar claims previously, none of which resulted in any prosecutions.
GOOD. Let the bastards go to prison. But let the kids who were *not* abused go back with their moms.
In the end, there should be just teenage girls in custody. And NONE of them should loose their kids. (Last time I checked, it wasn't against the law for a teenage girl to get pregnant in Texas.)
I was actually decapitated online by one Freeper for doing same. Really!
If I have some time, I think I'll dig back in and see if I can't ping some of those pitchfork sweethearts who told me I was a child-rapist lover, etc.
I agree completely . Since girls get pregnant now these days at 12, we should just make it legal since no one prosecutes them anyways. And obviously CPS is just pure evil. There are no circumstances where they would be a better solution to a home life. And there should never be a raid of ANY religious establishment, only its individual members. So, for instance, we shouldn’t imprison Al-Qaeda members just because they belong to a group we disagree with. We should only prosecute their members after we have absolute proof they have committed a crime.
/sarc
The court was making the point that the CPS claim was in error since it was based on harm to children - those under the age of puberty.
If the FLDS can get all these kids sent back to them with no strings attached, what’s to stop NAMBLA from setting up an isolated compound in Texas to keep their kids hidden in for their own sick purposes?
This is certainly not a "fact". It is most common for an alleged abuser to be removed from the home leaving the other members at home and together.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.