Posted on 05/23/2008 3:59:55 AM PDT by familyop
SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) — A Texas appeals court said Thursday that the state had no right to take more than 400 children from a polygamist sect's ranch, a ruling that could unravel one of the biggest child-custody cases in U.S. history.
The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the state offered "legally and factually insufficient" grounds for the "extreme" measure of removing all children from the ranch, from babies to teenagers.
The state never provided evidence that the children were in any immediate danger, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court approval, the appeals court said.
It also failed to show evidence that more than five of the teenage girls were being sexually abused, and never alleged any sexual or physical abuse against the other children, the court said.
It was not immediately clear whether the children scattered across foster facilities statewide might soon be reunited with parents. The ruling gave Texas District Judge Barbara Walther 10 days to vacate her custody order, and the state could appeal.
FLDS spokesman Rod Parker said sect members feel validated, having argued from the beginning that they were being persecuted for their beliefs.
"They're very thrilled. They're looking forward to seeing the children returned," he said.
The appellate decision technically applies only to 38 of the roughly 200 parents who challenged the seizure. But their lawyer, Julie Balovich of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, said she expected attorneys for all the other parents to seek to join the ruling.
"It's a great day for Texas justice. This was the right decision," said Balovich, who was joined by several smiling mothers who nonetheless declined to comment at a news conference outside the courthouse here.
Every child at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado was taken into state custody more than six weeks ago, after Child Protective Services officials argued that members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints pushed underage girls into marriage and sex and groomed boys to become adult perpetrators. Only a few dozen of the roughly 440 children seized are teenage girls; half were under 5.
The appeals court said the state was wrong to consider the entire ranch as an individual household and that the state couldn't take all the children from a community on the notion that some parents in the community might be abusers.
"The existence of the FLDS belief system as described by the department's witnesses, by itself, does not put children of FLDS parents in physical danger," the court said in its ruling.
The court said that although five girls had become pregnant at age 15 or 16, the state gave no evidence about the circumstances of the pregnancies. It noted that minors as young as 16 can wed in Texas with parental consent, and even younger children can marry if a court approves it.
Balovich said the appeals court "has stood up for the legal rights of these families and given these mothers hope that their families will be brought back together."
CPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins said department attorneys had just received the ruling and would make any decision about an appeal later.
"We are trying to assess the impact that this may have on our case," he said.
Even before Thursday's ruling, the state's allegations of teenage girls being pushed into sex appeared to be deflating.
Of the 31 sect members CPS once said were underage mothers, 15 have been reclassified as adults — one was 27 years old — and an attorney for a 14-year-old girl said in court that she had no children and was not pregnant, as officials previously asserted.
Five judges in San Angelo, about 40 miles north of Eldorado, have been hearing CPS's plans for the parents seeking to regain custody. Those hearings, which began Monday, were suspended after the appellate ruling Thursday.
The custody case has been chaotic from the beginning. The hearing in which Walther ruled that the children should all enter state custody ran two days.
Hundreds of lawyers crammed into a courtroom and nearby auditorium, queuing up to voice objections or ask questions on behalf of the mothers who were there in their trademark prairie dresses and braided hair.
CPS has struggled with even the identities of the children for weeks and scattered them across foster facilities all over the sprawling state, with some siblings separated by as much as 600 miles.
The sect children were removed en masse during a raid that began April 3 after someone called a domestic abuse hot line claiming to be a pregnant abused teenage wife. The girl has not been found and authorities are investigating whether the calls were a hoax.
The FLDS, which teaches that polygamy brings glorification in heaven, is a breakaway of the Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago. Members contend they are being persecuted by state officials for their religious beliefs.
Wow.
You can flippin bet this will cost the state of texas 100’s of millions. Then they will sue in fed. court.
Then you have some self-righteous liberal government bureaucrat wanting to take your children away from you even if the accusations are proved false.
I must admit, that while I believe in the 1st Amendment’s freedom of religion, when a state can’t step in and rescue children from as a clearly pernicious cult such as this, it’s a very sad day—for them, and us.
Un F’n believable. Too bad the State of Texas along with US Delta force didn’t just kill them all like the Waco bunch. Oh wait, that was Bubba’s doing and he is immune.
I hope the officials who concocted this scheme are disbarred and thrown in jail. This will cost the State of Texas Billions.
Yup. Never make assumptions based on hearsay...
Megaditto’s, FRiend.
But the burden of proof rests with the state to prove the residential situation of these children is “clearly pernicious”.
They appear to have screwed up, when I had ferverently hoped they hadn’t.
This is a tough, tough case in so many ways.
The only problem with that is the lack of evidence in this case as the Appeals Court has determined.
Based on your position, any neighborhood in the United States could be raided and all the children taken away from the parents by the government without due process.
Imagine every single child being taken away in Baltimore because (and this is a daily occurrence there) a few pre-teens got pregnant or are abused by family members.
We may not like their religious practices but they are still Americans and deserve their day before court and due process.
I heard that there were indeed some underage girls who were pregnant at the time of the raid. What will become of the criminal cases involved with these victims?
I must take issue with your statement. Every thing we know about this case is what we where told by the authorities. you are assuming that everything the CPS said is true. You and I do not really know what was going on in the FLDS compound. As always in this country we convict by what we are told in the media. Remember the Duke rape case or many other cases. We have found out so many things that we where told have not been true. So I suggest for everyone to just wait and see. I am not convicting or acquitting at this point. Obviously this judge didn’t watch the 9 o’clock news.
Until the CPS can come up with some proof of abuse of some sort and convince a judge then the children should be returned. CPS must live within the laws just like us. They are not an independent body that can just go in and take away your rights. or at least they shouldn’t be.
Missing in the entire dialog is the fact that a 12 year old girl can get an abortion and no one bats an eye. If someone reports that a Christian group as a pregnant 16 year old girl it is the end of the world. If children are taken away from this group because some of the girls are under 18 and pregnant then every abortion clinic in the U.S. should be shut down for the same thing. Not reporting rape and abuse of young girls. Who is worse. The FLDS or the tens of thousands of rapist who are protected by Planned Parenthood every year.
Sounds like someone in CPS was sure of the “facts” before any real investigation was done.
It was reported here that one of the accused was 28.
sorry this was meant for familypop not you :)
This sure is good business for the lawyers and gubmint. /s
Bad analogy. These are not persons living in our community--randomly abused. These are folks stranded in a fortress like cult--miles away from freedom, by an organization that teaches such abuse is normal and good.
Your idea of religious freedom also makes possible similar Islamist compounds where the members and their children are daily trained in the art of terrorism. There are many such camps in America, but hey, we have to respect their "religion" right? No matter what it teaches...
When a religion systematically teaches breaking the law (and yes, polygamy--like terrorism--is still against the law) it ceases to be a legitimate religion, and the state has a right, even a responsibility, to step in, ACLU dominated courts be d*mned.
You are Soooo right.
We do know for certain that the FLDS has, as a fundamental doctrine, the deliberate breaking of the laws against polygamy. It is not a legitimate religion, if it advocates violating the law—especially as a basic tenet.
This is a mid-level appeals court ruling, so, other than what that court has said, we don’t know yet whether the state messed up—as the ruling can (and will) be appealed.
FOX news talking heads this morning were all over the story about how the families were wrongly treated by Texas state authorities.
Gee, wasn’t it FOX and Friends and O’Reilly that were all over the story orginally and agreed that the children should have been taken from their mothers and put in good homes, with TV, internet, Brittany Spears videos, sex, drugs, and more fun stuff?
What a bunch of hypocrites.
No worries. Rick Perry will just raise taxes and build more toll roads.
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