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.
My cult compound had multiple "residences" with a Supreme Leader (we called him an FTO, ours was a Captain, most were Majors) assignd to each, and then a Really Supreme Leader, (A full bull) over the whole thing.
We also had a bunch of ... well... Mormons, from "Bring 'em Younger" U, as one poster termed them. One of my roomies, we switched halfway through, is a Mormon. The one who wouldn't eat the rabbit during "survival" training. He didn't have to eat it, but he did have to help skin it. I think he went off into the dark and barfed afterwards. :) One the Mormons, a big gal-lute, went through about 4 pairs of boots in 6 weeks. I still have the ones they issued to me...in 1971. Just so happens that at the time, BYU had the largest AFROTC Cadet *Wing*, in the country. Most detachments had cadet Groups or even Squadrons, but BYU had and has a wing. They are Detachement 855.
As I understand it, a truly voluntary agreement could not be challenged in a higher court. An imposed order could be.
I had a 71 Toranado, it was even bigger than the 98.
It wasn’t a tank, it was a damn boat.
http://www.sltrib.com/contents/ci_9439383
Woman linked to calls that triggered FLDS raid claims life of abuse
By Lisa Rosetta
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated:06/01/2008 01:52:11 AM MDT
The largest child custody case in U.S. history - discredited last week by the Texas Supreme Court - was prompted by soft-spoken Sarah Barlow’s pleas for help.
That Sarah doesn’t exist. But the caller may have been a woman who, like the fictitious girl, claims to have endured childhood sexual abuse.
Police have linked the calls that triggered the Yearning for Zion Ranch raid to Rozita Swinton, a 33-year-old Colorado Springs woman who they say has assumed at least nine different personalities since 2005, among them “April,” “Dana,” “Ericka” and “V.”
snip
http://www.sltrib.com/contents/ci_9439392
Abuse calls from ‘Sarah’ convinced others that ‘she has lived this’
By Lisa Rosetta
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated:06/01/2008 12:08:40 AM MDT
Sarah Barlow’s tearful pleas were convincing: She was a desperate, pregnant 16-year-old mother in need of rescue.
Her calls to a battered women’s shelter in Snohomish County, Wash., began on March 22. She started calling the NewBridge Family Shelter in San Angelo, Texas, on March 29. Anti-polygamy activist Flora Jessop in Phoenix says she received her first call from Sarah the next day.
Sarah’s pain and the details she offered had the shelter workers and Jessop certain her story was legitimate.
“She has lived [through this kind of abuse],” Jessop says. “I believe she has lived this.”
On April 3, Texas Rangers entered the YFZ Ranch in Eldorado, where Sarah claimed her polygamous husband was physically and sexually abusing her. Their unsuccessful search for Sarah triggered the massive raid that swept more than 450 children from the ranch - home to members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - into state custody.
The FLDS assert authorities knew before the raid that Sarah’s calls to the San Angelo shelter had been made with a cell phone registered in the area of Colorado Springs, Colo.
Had police traced the owner first, the sect argues, they would have linked the phone to Rozita Swinton, a Colorado woman with a history of hoax calls.
snip
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/letters/orl-myword0108jun01,0,188889.story
With liberty and due process for all
James N. Coffin
June 1, 2008
Congratulations to the Texas Supreme Court for upholding an appeals-court ruling that the state’s Child Protective Services had no right to separate more than 440 children from their Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints parents — because the agency had failed to show that the youngsters were in immediate danger.
And congratulations to the agency for taking the welfare of children seriously.
“Whoa!” I hear you saying. “How can you support such opposites?”
“Because the concerns of both are legitimate,” I reply. “It’s a matter of appropriate balance — which, unfortunately, wasn’t achieved initially.”
I don’t know about you, but I’ve read enough horror stories about parents and other relatives committing atrocities against children that I want the state to take such children’s welfare seriously. Tragic though it be, some parents have shown themselves unfit to raise their own kids. I want those children protected. And I think you do, too.
snip
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/casey/5811766.html
The state’s red-headed stepchild
By RICK CASEY
They’re the abused stepchild of state government, given too little food and too much work and yelled at mercilessly when, in their fatigue and malnourished condition, they make a mistake.
When Child Protective Services makes a mistake, to be sure, it can have terrible consequences. Children mistakenly left in abusive homes are sometimes killed. Children mistakenly taken from their parents are scarred.
snip
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5811827.html
Critics say CPS failed to foresee nuances
Agency faulted in taking routine route on FLDS
By JANET ELLIOTT
AUSTIN — In the early days of the state’s raid on a West Texas polygamist sect’s compound, child welfare officials insisted that they were going by the book in removing children from a potentially dangerous living situation.
Only the numbers made the case unusual, representatives for Child Protective Services repeatedly insisted.
snip
Only the numbers made the case unusual, representatives for Child Protective Services repeatedly insisted.
</CYA> That stretches credulity beyond the breaking point. They know the law backwards and forwards. This is their business. If they really were that stupid and incompetent they should all be immediately fired.
The law says there has to be an imminent threat to the physical safety of each child taken. The CPS had to know that it would be impossible for it to meet it's evidentiary burden of proof with respect to each child taken. They knew or should have known that they were taking the most drastic action possible even though other, less severe, legal alternatives were readily and obviously available to them. They knew or should have known the absolutely devastating impact that separation from parents and siblings has on young children, and yet they did it anyway, with clinical indifference to the suffering they needlessly inflicted on these HUNDREDS of young children.
It wasn't done "by the book" and they know it.
Cordially,
Beg to differ, there has never been individual hearings, required by law, on custody of the children.
How do you consider ignoring the law as “judges with a spine”?
I had some concerns in the following areas from the beginning:
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasoonable searches and seizures...
[Warrants need to be narrow in scope to be legal and I could not imagine a warrant or even multiple warrants that could cover all the activity that was taking place at the YFZ] I waited for more to come out on the news, expecting imminent arrests, because if you have a warrant that allows you to go into so many buildings and areas and take so many things usually the evidence is overwhelming and there are immmediate arrests. That is why the concerns mounted when there were not immediate arrests based on things found there.
***************
Amendment IV- again, I think under the law children are considered persons- I consider them to be for sure- ...
As the children were all gathered up, I could not imagine any circumstance that would warrant the immediate removal of that many children at once. It was telling to me that mothers were allowed to accompany the children- if CPS was allowing the mothers to go with the children- then that showed they did not feel like the mothers were a danger to the children at that time- so made no legal sense that they would be removed from the mother’s custody and care. It seemed to me if the mothers were not seen as a danger to the children at that time, then the situation must have been the perceived danger, so why not have the mothers and children, or the men relocate- with custody staying with the mother while investigations continued?
******************************************************
Amendment XIV
Due process- courts have ruled that part of due process is to have the right to a seperate hearing and the first hearing was held as a group hearing. As far as I know, no other group hearing of this size has ever been held before, so this was very troubling to me. In fact, it seemed bizarre. I assumed it was done this way because there was a time limit to have a hearing in order to keep the children, if the court had held round the clock hearings- there still would not have been enough time to meet the legal time frame. But the law does not usually allow for a court to use that excuse to evade legal requirements- people are released from jail every day in this country because circumstances did not allow them a timely hearing- generally due to overcrowded courts.
********************
Am I a Constitutional Scholar- or what?
You had a well reasoned post until you just had to be flip here- but I guess there will be a learning curve.
Under the definition of scholar, I find one meaning to be student. So using that meaning, yes I am a Constitutional Scholar. I have for many years and still do study the Constitution, I try to resolve meanings in my own mind, and by reading opinions of others as to meaning. I have had several classes that touched on the subject, it is a area of considerable interest to me. I try to keep up with Court decisions that impact the way the Constitution is interpreted. I believe ALL Americans should be Constitutional Scholars. That piece of paper and the way is it used is the only thing between us and Tyranny. It really is vital to our lives.
That was another concern I had when it came out that the Sheriff spoke to the man's probabtion officer, and the man by phone BEFORE the raid- if indeed that was reported accurately by FOX. If that is true it would seem to me to taint the warrant badly; a warrant is not valid if there can be no expectation of finding what is listed in the warrant. Because of course then it is a fishing expedition.
I will check that out- don’t have Comcast cable here in the sticks, but will try to find a way to check them out.
The way their asking for registration forms was breathlessly reported on here as if it were horrible- I would not be surprised.
You've got that right! I personally offered to castrate men convicted of child rape in one of my posts- of course I would do that only if it was legal. I am still willing though.
Concur on law - but, I trhink the definition used in law was purposefully made to make non-machine guns subject to machinegun restrictions.
You know I’ve been thinking- I didn’t like the looks of that “thing” either and would be terrified spitless if it were used against me by the goverment. In fact I would likely believe I was definately under siege if they came on my place with it.
I live very near the border with Mexico- If I had one of those and say drove it along the border with my hubby and a few other Good Ol’ Boys along obviously armed and dressed the same way those men in that vehicle were- I bet the U.S. and Mexican government and the media would make a BIG deal out of my actions. I bet I could get much more interest than it’s use in this raid got- yet it would be the same vehicle, and weapons. Just a thought. I wonder- is it possible for civilians to own one of these things?
Problem with your thinking is, no one has proven them to be illegal polygamists in a court of law. Darn those little details that keep us civilized.
Thank you for your service!
If that Mormon boy would have been one raised in the little Mormon community near me, he would have happily and deftly skinned that rabbit and cooked and ate it quickly. The one you posted about must have been one of those city slicker Mormons.
Not only that, but the primary purpose of boot camp is repersonification.
Definately cult-like.
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