Evidence presented in the trial court indicated that the Department began its investigation of the YFZ Ranch on March 29th, when it received a report of sexual abuse of a sixteen-year-old girl on the property.
On April 3rd, the Department entered the Ranch along with law-enforcement personnel and conducted nineteen interviews of girls aged seventeen or under, as well as fifteen to twenty interviews of adults. In the course of these interviews, the Department learned there were many polygamist families living on the Ranch; a number of girls under the age of eighteen living on the Ranch were pregnant or had given birth; both interviewed girls and adults considered no age too young for a girl to be “spiritually” married; and the Ranch’s religious leader, “Uncle Merrill,” had the unilateral power to decide when and to whom they would be married.
Additionally, in the trial court, the Department presented “Bishop’s Records” — documents seized from the Ranch — indicating the presence of several extremely young mothers or pregnant “wives”[1] on the Ranch: a sixteen-year-old “wife” with a child, a sixteen-year-old pregnant “wife,” two pregnant fifteen-year-old “wives,” and a thirteen-year-old who had conceived a child.
http://www.supreme.courts.state.tx.us/historical/2008/may/080391d.htm
I ain’t none too impressed with the new frontman. Seems he is swaddled in the old school virtues of the sect. One could hope they find leadership that wants to make sure rules apply to everyone, including their “flock” as you call em.
No one has been charged, thus no trial yet, and no trial court. What you mean is not the trial, but just a temporary custody hearing. One where the state got to present it's assertions, but the other two sides, children and parents, got very little chance to refute. No one got to judge that evidence, except the Judge who was over ruled by two higher courts, who said the evidence was insufficient even for the limited purpose of the state retaining custody of the children.
The other folks involved will get chances to refute later, as they should have in the first place. They'll get it again if and when there are criminal charges and criminal trials.