The pictures were entered into evidence on Friday in the custody hearing for Richard Joseph Jessop, born last week to Louisa Bradshaw (Jessop) and her husband, Dan Jessop. The state is seeking custody of the baby.
I guess the state of Texas is going to try to prove that the FLDS environment is abusive. However, in America we don’t take children away from their parents because they might be abused in the future (except in the cases where the children have been abused in the past and the parents show a pattern of abuse.) CPS has proved nothing to this point, and has not followed their own rules, which is to take children from homes immediately when they are in imminent danger. A few years down the road is not imminent danger.
Do I think there is underage marriage at the YFZ ranch? Yes. However, it needs to be proven in a court of law. We all are innocent until proven guilty in America, aren’t we?
Most shocking was the state's release of a picture from summer 2007 showing imprisoned sect leader Warren Jeffs, now 52, deeply kissing a then-12-year-old girl, the aunt of the infant born May 12 whose custody was the subject of the hearing.
Rulon Daniel Jessop, the girl's brother and the infant's father, said he sees nothing wrong with his children being in the same house with underage "sister wives" of much older men. .. .. .. I do not consider a girl kissing a man sexual abuse."
Jessop identified the girl, who is listed in FLDS bishop's records as being born July 3, 1994, and is shown in pictures dated July 27, 2006, as his sister.
Exactly right.
That is how we do things in the land of the Free.
The pictures were entered into evidence on Friday in the custody hearing for Richard Joseph Jessop, born last week to Louisa Bradshaw (Jessop) and her husband, Dan Jessop. The state is seeking custody of the baby.
And the use and release of these obviously disturbing images by the State is another example of the depths to which the State of Texas has sunk in this case. First off, if the pictures depict what they appear to, and the additional acts the State is alleging or suggesting occurred, then the State of Texas has disclosed the identity of a minor victim of sexual assault. I'm not familiar with Texas law enough to know if that is illegal or not, but in every state I am familiar with minor children who are victims of sexual assault are never publicly identified -- and pictures are never made available to the press. In this case the State of Texas apparently chose to enter the photos into evidence - without putting them under seal - and released sufficient information in open court (as well as the photos) to identify the girl pictured in the photographs. Moreover they did it in a case where the photograph is only of minor evidentiary weight.
The custody hearing that the State disclosed the photos in does not concern the man or the girl pictured in the photographs. Instead, the girl in the photograp is allegedly the sister of Dan Jessup - the father of the week old baby boy who is the subject of the custody hearing. Assuming that the young girl pictured was a victim of sexual abuse, what relevance does that have as to whether or not her brother and his wife are fit to parent their baby boy? There is no logical connection, and no inference which can be drawn as to what Dan Jessup and his wife would do with their son.
Put another way, if your sister, or sister in law is the victim of a crime that you are in no way involved with how does that affect your ability to be a parent? In an ordinary case, without the government theatrics we are seeing here, can you really imagine an attorney arguing in court that because your sister was sexually assaulted that somehow your home and family presented an imminent danger to your newborn baby?
What I see in the release of these obviously disturbing photographs by the State of Texas is callous disregard for the young girl, and the willingness to use whatever damaging images they can to impugn people involved in the custody cases before them. Remember - the only relationship between the pictures and the couple whose parental rights are being litigated is that the victim in the pictures is the sister of Dan Jessop, the father in the litigation.