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.
You better not call it a tank if you know what’s good for you.
Dang right.
Who is the State to say they can't marry off little 14 year old Susie as fifth wife to some drooling geezer?
That has to be a fundemental right!
Right?
Uh oh, you committed the unpardonable sin. You called it a tank. I caught such fury for calling it a tank. It is not a tank, even though it looks like a tank and acts like a tank. It is in actuality an armored personnel carrier and the FLDS little boys just loved it. Law enforcement guys let the boys inside to play and have fun . . . just before they rounded them up and whisked them away from their home and their mothers.
First, start with CPS saying all parents refused to give names, kept changing names and/or DOB. Evidence was backed by those who produced birth certificates, driver's licenses, &/or marriage licenses.
Second... TX - MHMR (the state counseling/mental health/psychological agency assisting CPS at the original deportation center/coliseum) collaborated what the "hostage" mother's were saying... being lied to, degraded, deplorable conditions in the deportation center/coliseum, as well as the unprofessional conduct of the CPS agency toward the "accused & their children" and toward the MHMR staff.
AND... they don't know who the mother's are to whatever child/children.
Simple... they should have lined the mothers up in chairs in the center of that coliseum with the kids on the other side of all those closed doors. Told the mom's to play "freeze"... or else. Opened the doors... letting the kids into the coliseum "floor."
I guarantee... those kids would have run straight to their mother's... especially in that situation they were in.
Sure, but they don't take the kid away from her, and they don't take away all the kids of parents who live in the same neighborhood or belong to the same church. They prosecute the abuser, and only the abuser, not his brothers sisters and cousins, They don't even prosecute his wife, unless she's shown to be complicit in the rape, which could be the case here, and if so, individual prosecution would be warranted.
Our Constitution, and our whole legal system, is about individual due process, not group guilt.
They vacated the lower court’s ruling and told her to act according to their decision, which says that CPS failed to meet its burden on virtually every point. If the judge doesn’t comply, they’ll issue a writ of mandamus telling her exactly what to do.
I think that means she’ll have to send them back to their parents immediately, but I’m not entirely sure.
Does this ruling only apply to those FLDS parents who petitioned the higher court to get their children back?
I thought the petition did not include all parents/children.
Perhaps, even likely. But not Imminent Danger, which is what the law requires if children are to be taken without an adversarial due process proceeding, as was done in this case.
I agree with your sentiment, but if the FDLS members are interbred to the point it causes a medical condition, do you think DNA testing could prove conclusive parentage?
With everyone (literally) related to everyone else, they would share the same DNA, would they not?
proof?
It’s an old M113 Armored Personnel Carrier.
Do I detect a bit of defensiveness?
My own problem is very simple, I don't keep track of who says what, and in this particular instance, I should have.
The fascists here are dangerous, just as the Block Watchers in the old USSR were dangerous.
Here, they pose a threat to our freedoms, and our way of life. We need to be aware of who they are.
No, but once they went to the compound to investigate the call and found polygamy and teenage mothers ‘married’ to old men, then they had evidence of the law being broken there.
If the police have a warrant to go into an apartment to investigate a murder and find no evidence of it, but while they are there they see lots of drugs, they will certainly arrest the person for the drugs. That’s what happened here isn’t it? Once they went in there they saw evidence of polygamy and rape so they acted. That is just how I want the police to behave. They were breaking the law in that compound, and they need to accept the consequences of that. In my opinion. People don’t just get to ignore the law because of their religious beliefs. Otherwise you could have cults doing ANYTHING.
Our Constitution, and our whole legal system, is about individual due process, not group guilt.
Yup.
And it’s also not about what you MIGHT do, but what you actually did.
I added the KIDNAPPING keyword to the whole thread, because if you or I did what CPS did, that’s what you would get charged with. And assault. And conspiracy. And probably a dozen others.
Gotta correct you I think. They let the boys inside to play and have fun AFTER they rounded them up and scared the beejeebers out of them. Then they whisked them away into satans den(s).
;-)
No it just got knocked up to the next level. The Third Court of Appeals is the second most overturned appeals court in the state. The most overturned appeals court, the Thirteenth Court of Appeals in Corpus Christi, is a wholly owned subsidiary of the trial lawyers.
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