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.
Thereby putting herself in contempt of the Appeals court, as upheld by the Texas Supreme Court.
Well we all did have the same haircut
and we all wore the same color and type clothes
and we all studied the same stuff
and we all traveled together and the same way by foot
and we all had one leader who we had to obey
There you go!
BTW- Thank You for your service!
But he's no threat to the children, since he currently resides at 415 Pine Street, Kingman Arizona, in the Mohave County Jail.
You are comparing this cult to family farmers? Wow, are you ever off base.
I sure know what a family farm is. This was not a family farm, there were no empolyees and to compare the cult to the family farm shows you ignorance.
Now you are calling a man living with his harem of women as a single family home. I wouldn’t call it that. Calling it a whorehouse would be more appropriate, seeing as the man is the whore.
Look at this photo. The homes are huge. If you want to go one believing that those buildings housed mostly a man, woman and their children, go ahead.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/12/us/raid600.jpg
Um, he is their prophet. They do as they are told. Jeffs cannot sin.
So if he thinks that 12 year old girls are ready for marriage, don’t be shocked if his followers think the same.
So you think this compound was boot camp? Boot camp for what? Polygamy? Molestation?
That's the key point. You don't know, I don't know and neither does the court. Even the dissent in the Texas Supreme Court only indicated that they thought that sufficient evidence of *imminent* harm or ongoing abuse, was presented for the pubescent female minors. Not all of the kids, the vast majority of whom are under 5. About half of them are boys, who are also under no imminent threat.
The CPS and the Court have to play by the law, just like the BATFE is supposed to do. They failed to do so according to the Appeals Court and the Texas Supreme Court.
If CPS and the Court had done it right, virtually everyone here, including me, would be cheering them, and volunteering for the firing squad, if that was the penalty for the crimes committed. I don't think it is, but it should be.
No she's not, she's on the side of the rule of law, particularly the Laws and Constitution of the State of Texas. After the requirements of those have been satisfied, she'd probably stick the needle in herself. (again if the law allowed that).
Kinda neat thing about the good old USA is that everybody gets their day in court something the Texas Supreme Court has affirmed. Tell me again and again and again how bad these people are but we are are finally going down the day in court road. Judge Walther not withstanding.
Actually not quite. The Appeals court didn't even order that. The appeals court ordered the district court judge to vacate her order allowing CPS to retain custody. The SC refused to issue an order to the Appeals court to vacate that order, thus affirming it (after actually hearing arguments on the merits and a review of the evidence, not a mere refusal to take the case as often happens with the US Supreme Court). Still, the judge late yesterday refused to vacate her previous order, which would seem to at least put her at risk of contempt of the appeals court.
Once that order is vacated, however that occurs, then the CPS would also be in contempt, if not much worse, if they continue to hold the children without legal authority to do so.
BTW- Thank You for your service!
It was my great honor
I am not comparing this group to family farmers- you were!
I said you can call them a cult or whatever for their beliefs- but to say the way they set that place up is the reason they are a cult just ain’t so.
So now it is the size of the homes that is a problem? So are those in McMansions cultists too?
It is their beliefs, and what they may (I say may- because I haven’t seen it, but likely since they don’t deny it) do behind closed doors that make them a cult, not the way they live- that is the point I am trying to get through to you.
Thanks... I’ve read the orders for myself in the past. I didn’t say they were ordered to show up just that they didn’t.
I've never read any allegations of that sort of incest in the FLDS. They are accused, and likely guilty, of "marrying" girls too young to be married under the laws of most states. But not to their own children, nor anything closer than "cousin", unspecified how close a cousin. They are a relatively small community and to some extent even if they were not polygamist, but separate for some other reason, they'd have a hard time avoiding marriages between "cousins", just as many communities in Appalachia do or did up until the current generation.
However those would be the current laws, previous laws, as recent as August 2005 in Texas, would allow for monogamous marriages of girls as young as 14, and some such as those seem to have occurred. Others cases, in Texas and with the girls of appropriate age to fall under the laws for age of consent (17 unless the other partner is less than 3 years older, then 14) to older men are alleged, and probably occurred, but have not yet resulted in any charges. No evidence of such was submitted before granting custody to the Texas CPS. That is what the courts, and many here, are objecting to. If they, that is CPS in particular and the state in general, can ignore the clear provisions of the law in this case, "for the children", they can do it in other cases and to other people.
You are really confused. The first person to bring up family farms was you.
I said you were wrong.
So that makes me the one comparing this cult to family farmers?
Logical thinking is not your strong suit.
The person in that picture is in prison for that. How can evidence of something he did be used against a third party who has never met him? If I have evidence that someone from your town is in prison can I take the evidence used to convict him and use it to take your children away from you?
If you have evidence like that used to convict Jeffs and for which he is in prison, then call the CPS so they can send that person to prison too. Just don't round up everyone if the evidence doesn't support it.
It may or may not be reasonable. But it doesn't comport with order of the court above hers. The law has provisions, pointed out to her by the courts above, to protect the children truly in danger, and to prevent them from being moved out of the jurisdiction of the Texas Court, even just of her court. But those provisions do not allow for "voluntary" agreements signed under the duress of the state maintaining custody of the children, in this case where higher courts have ruled that custody order was not valid in the first place. (If it had been, then that would be different) CPS is just acting under it's SOP for returning children, but those don't apply when the original taking of them is invalid under the law.
Your logic is faulty. You claim Jeffs is raping children and therefore the children should not be returned to their mothers lest they end up a victim of him. But Jeffs is in prison. He is raping no more.
She is not a family law judge. Just the only district judge in the several county area covered by her judicial district. She probably does normally do quite a bit of "family law", but also ordinary criminal cases as well.
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