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Posted on 05/30/2008 5:34:10 PM PDT by festus
SAN ANGELO, Texas - A plan to begin reuniting parents with more than 400 children removed from a polygamist group's ranch has been thrown into doubt because a judge and the families are clashing over proposed restrictions.
Texas District Judge Barbara Walther has refused to sign an order restoring custody to the parents until they agree to more restrictions than state child-welfare officials have proposed.
Walther was directed by an appeals court to reverse her ruling last month putting all children from the Yearning For Zion Ranch into foster case. The Texas Supreme Court affirmed the appeals court's decision Thursday and rejected the state's argument that all the children were in immediate danger from what it said was a cycle of sexual abuse of teenage girls at the ranch.
Most of these children are going back because the Supreme Court ruled they aren’t in imminent danger. That doesn’t mean the children don’t need protecting, and the court will oversee that.
Exactly.
what makes you think these children need protecting?
This is the same court who 2 months later has yet to file a significant charge, ANY kind of indictment and certainly no convictions. All that this court has done is to issue invalid warrants based on fraudulent "evidence."
The children were safe with their parents. Its the court and CPS that endangered their welfare by trampling their parents parental rights and responsibilities and farmed them out to total strangers most of who are into this for the money.
The underage teenage pregnant girls, some with more than one child. Fathered by much older men?
No, there's not as many as previously thought, but they're still there, and the cult promotes it. Sex with a minor is still a crime. That hasn't changed.
Different story, same info.
Can you say "Contempt of Court?" I knew you could. (Judge is defying Appeals Court order to vacate her earlier order. This will cause a Writ Of Mandamus to issue, under the terms of the Appeals Court ruling, upheld by the Texas Supreme Court.
Once that's proven as fact in evidence, I'm all for trying and jailing the perp.
But there's been no evidence introduced that there was any underage girls pregnant by much older guys.
It's been 2 months. what's it gonna take? 4 months? 6 months? a year?
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This judge should be impeached.
You forgot the judges on the Appeals court, whose order she is defying, the six on the Supreme Court merely upheld their ruling.
Hmm, I wonder what provisions exist for the appeals court to enforce it's order. (Texas Rangers with Handcuffs would be nice, but I doubt that's the first remedy to be tried).
Good parents don't marry off the 13 year old daughter (of wife number four, pastel pink) to a drooling old holy-joe pervert.
Why? It's irrelevant to this judge defying the court above hers.
Wow... you would think this is happening in california.
Jeffs is the leader of the FLDS. His photo is hanging in rooms all over the Texas ranch. He was there in Texas and married girls at the ranch that were 12, 14, and 15 years old.
And that's your justification for upsetting in a major way, the lives of almost 500 children???
That girls parents MIGHT need parenting classes. The rest have done no wrong until it's proven in a court of law.
LAW! Do you even understand the concept???
Hanging a photo of a criminal in one’s home is **not** a crime, or child abuse.
That statement does not agree in the details with the statements in the affidavit for the warrant. Mainly the ages are different, and the affidavit alleges that he "married" one of the girls, the oldest, but then 14, in Utah, that her baby was born in Utah when she was 16, and only latter did she move to the YFZ ranch in Texas.
Getting their allegations straight would not seem to be that difficult in so weighty a matter.
It doesn't matter. The custody and the agreements are two different issues. The judge is WRONG to suggest that all 400 or so children must be taken from their parents unless the parents agree to some conditions which obviously have not been based on particular family circumstances.
The judge shouldn't even be involved in the agreements at this time. Each family deserves to hear from CPS specifically why they should agree to some intervention. Then, and only then, if the family fails to convince CPS that the agreement is not warranted and refuses to agree, the judge can consider removing the children from those parents' custody.
The Texas Supreme Court has ordered a complete do-over, but the CPS is making a blanket claim that failure to do whatever CPS demands is sufficient to take the children. The Texas Supreme Court has already ruled that insufficient evidence exists to take the children.
The childrens' lawyers need to go back to the Appeals Court asking for the court to clarify that release of the children is not conditioned upon any agreement. The Appeals Court should then order the children returned and relieve the lower court judge of any further involvement in this case.
Yeah, she'll sign it under her conditions. But that is not what the higher court ordered her to do. They ordered her to vacate her previous order. She can impose new conditions under a new order, but she'll have to "tailor" that to individual cases. That she seems unwilling to do. It would require evidence, but there seems to be sufficient of that now, in some cases. But she may not want to risk that evidence being challenged.
Yes, but on an individual basis. Shotguning is for bird hunting, not the Texas Justice System. The appeals court ordered her to vacate her order granting custody to CPS. The Supreme Court said that CPS, and the Courts, could institute other measures for protection of those children shown to need such protection, which the court indicated was not most of them, since most are under 5. But while she can issue new orders, upon application by CPS and with evidence showing the need for them on a case by case basis, but she wasn't given the option of not vacating her previous order.
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