Posted on 05/30/2008 6:40:22 PM PDT by Utah Girl
The devil was in the details.
Discussions about a proposed order involving the return of children taken from the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch broke down late this afternoon when attorneys for the families wanted to review proposed changes with their clients.
Judge Barbara Walther announced the attorneys had better get all of their clients' signatures before she would sign the agreement and abruptly left the bench late this afternoon.
A lawyer for the families, Laura Shockley, said she expected attorneys would return to an Austin appeals court Monday to push for an order returning the children. It was the 3rd Court of Appeals that said Walther should not have ordered the children to be removed from the ranch and warned that if Walther failed to act, they would do it for her.
Lawyers for the families said that an agreement had been tentatively reached with Child Protective Services when they walked into court earlier today. Walther, however, expressed concerns about the proposed agreement and called an hourlong recess. She then returned to the bench with her own proposed order.
That led to concerns from many family attorneys who raised objections and questions on behalf of their clients.
The judge added additional restrictions to the the agreement, including psychological evaluations and allowing CPS to do inspections at the children's home at any time. Several of the more than 100 attorneys in the courtroom and patched into the hearing through phone lines objected to the judge's additions.
"The court does not have the power, with all due respect, to enter any other order (other than vacating)," said Julie Balovich of the Texas RioGrande Legal Aid over the telephone. She argued that no evidence justifying the additional restrictions had been entered as evidence before the judge.
After reviewing the appellate court decision, Walther returned to the bench and announced she believed the Supreme Court's decision upholding the appellate court decision gave her the authority to impose whatever conditions she feels are necessary.
"The Supreme Court does say this court can place restrictions on the parents. I do not read that this decision says that this court is required to have another hearing to do that. You may interpret that however you choose."
With that, the judge abruptly left the bench, saying she would await any submitted orders.
Immediately, attorneys in the courtroom and over the phone, expressed confusion.
"What did she say?" one attorney asked.
"Do We have another hearing?"
"What did she order?"
No additional hearings are currently scheduled. The judge signed no orders that would allow for the release of any children.
Lawyers for CPS left the courthouse declining to speak about the hearing.
"I'm going to do what the court directed," said CPS attorney Gary Banks.
Hard cases make bad law.
You are wrong. The "Judge" has the power to make many orders, but she does not have the power to force the mothers of these children to sign the orders so she can pretend that they "voluntarily" agreed to them.
If they don't voluntarily agree, the orders are reviewable by a higher court.
Apparently she does. The kids have not yet been returned to their abusers. The ball is still in her court.
Really? I have had people accuse the priests of sr//wing the nuns and the pope advocating all of it including having young novitiates serving the male religious in the vatican..
Let’s put them all in jail!
Not to mention that all Catholics worship Cleopatra as a Saint!
...small minds...
You are right -- he runs the one with middle-aged priests and 13 and 14 year old boys.
I was told the Cleo thing when I was a kid.. LOL...
and they were serious.
Are you presuming innocence or guilt prior to trial?
Do you have proof? ie bathroom permission slips?
Don’t forget Jeffs is in prison. He has zero privacy. If his attorney is caught passing notes, then his attorney will be busted just like the attorney in NY and the blind cleric case.
This is not TV where you have the Don in jail with all the comforts of home. There is no expectation of privacy in jail. There is case law allowing authorites to tap jail phones, open mail, and have microphones to ensure there is not “king from inside the jail” orders.
As a Catholic I am sorry to have brought up this image, but those without sin ...
Follow the dots: Gov. Rick Perry, Att. Gen. Abbott, then the judge. The Texas Supreme Court broke rank with Perry and Abbott - good for them. The judge is still hanging onto Perry’s and Abbott’s wishes.
Well said.
Agenda thwarted....
Maybe not the current Pope. (Although I don't know that he isn't). But past Popes have been, and the Catholic Church still regards them was Vicars of Christ, so all Catholics must be guilty and should have their children taken from them. That'll make somebody happy.
All variations of it too.
I think I'm just bright enough to see that this whole "religion" is a nifty scheme to keep a fresh supply of young dependent girls coming to a herd of dirty old goats.
Or, as in the case of Jeffrey Dahmer, return a drugged and frightened child to the clutches of the monster who was determined to kill and eat him.
Yeah, it’s bizarre. Those people are in an evil pedophile cult that waterboards babies to teach them to stay silent and preps 12 year old girls to be third, fourth and fifth wives to pedophile rapist husbands 50 years old, and some people are indignant that Texas tried to stop it!
I cheer Texas for what they did. I hope they succeed and I hope Utah and Arizona do the same thing with the pedophile cults in their states!
Ed
The "disgusting lifestyle" of the FLDS is unlikely to be relevant or admissable in a civil trial to determine whether the CPS and/or the lower court judge violated the rights of these people. Don't you understand that the Supreme Court of Texas has already ruled that the taking of the children was unlawful? And now the judge has compounded the error by willfully defying the authority of the Appeals Court.
The CPS and the lower court judge in this case have become a lynch mob, unfettered by THE LAW. There is NOTHING that justifies what is happening here.
Yes but even then the court and law enforcement BUILT a case, several in fact to get the guilty man. AT NO time did they arrest or restrict every person who had contacts with him.
No judge or politician suggested nor in fact ordered that half of Chicago should be under strict control of the court living at the sole discretion of the court.
That is what is so dangerous here. No evidence that any of the mother's committed, conspired, or abetted criminal activity either by someone else or themselves. Put criminals in jail or heck, give them the death penalty. But do not treat all related to the situation as criminals. Especially without proof.
That is not how it worked with Al Capone, and should not be how it works with the children involved in this case. Some on this thread obviously have lost the understanding or appreciation of our rule of law and Constitution... and why the founders even set it up the way it is.
The founders have shown time and again that they were right by the fact that in retrospect we have gotten this far using their divinely inspired Constitution. It saddens me that so many on this thread are second guessing the founders.
Convict (or execute) those PROVEN guilty but do not let some mob rule mentality fix the crime, guilt, and sentence of those not yet charged.
“Nothing is more common,” Hamilton wrote, “than for a free people, in times of heat and violence, to gratify momentary passions, by letting into the government, principles and precedents which afterwards prove fatal to themselves.”
I think you are VERY VERY WRONG here. Are you claiming that the Appeals Court ordered the lower court judge to vacate her order regarding custody of the children CONDITIONED on reaching satisfactory agreements with the families?
The families don't have to agree to ANYTHING. If the judge wants to set conditions, she can probably do so unilaterally, but she can't condition the release of the children on ANYTHING. The taking was unjustified and must be reversed.
If the judge sets conditions unilaterally, she may also find out that setting the same conditions for ALL the families is UNJUSTIFIED. She must consider the conditions of the particular children involved. This judge is in a lot of trouble and is about to be relieved of duty. That is my prediction.
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