Posted on 05/15/2008 7:37:59 PM PDT by Saundra Duffy
AUSTIN - Lawyers for the state conceded in court today that the woman from the polygamist sect who gave birth this week while in the state's custody is not a minor and said she is free to return to her home in West Texas or remain with her three children -- including the newborn -- under protective care.
I do wish they would seriously start prosecuting statutory rape. I suspect the problem is that the girls aren’t telling who the baby daddies are, and it would take incredible manpower and $$$ to pursue these cases. However, I think it would save $$$ and untold misery in the long run if they would.
susie
that is irrelevant don't ya know knarf?
/sarc
Assume that after wrecking the house, the fire department puts you and your family in jail because you set it on fire.
Six months later, after your “day in court” that never should have been necessary to begin with, you are declared not guilty and are allowed to return to your ruined home.
My example is silly?
Don't blame me. You chose the example of a fire and a speedy “rescue”.
All well and good, unless you are dealing with government run amuck.
By the way, you said that CPS “must have a good reason”.
Never assume that there is a good reason unless you know what that reason is. So far, only suspicions, not reasons.
Most of the child protective agencies are run by idiots. I don't know why. It should not be that way. But one constantly reads of agencies that either seize a child for the most trivial reason or ignore the most flagrant evidence of child abuse and allow a child to die needlessly. Whether it is training or the fact that those agencies seem to have immunity from the legal restraints under which other agencies must operate, I have no idea.
But if you read enough, you will see horror story after horror story. I believe this to be another horror story of a government agency out of control.
“And, please explain (I’ve asked you this before) how the state could investigate the case and get evidence to charge the men without taking the kids into custody, especially when at least many of the women were lying.”
That is the state’s problem. They can’t break constitutional law because they have a hunch. You can’t deprive people of their constitutional rights. Constitutional rights trump everything; otherwise, tear it up and none of us have any rights.
If this is allowed to stand, none of us are safe in our homes because someone may make a false report about us and katy bar the door!
Remember, this whole mess got started with a false report. You can’t just lump an entire community into one big pot and condemn them all over a false report. As I recall, there was one supposed teenage girl (the hoax) who accused one FLDS man of abusing her. Now, why didn’t they look for that one man and leave everyone else alone?
I don’t like the way Jehovah’s Witnesses raise their kids and I don’t like the way Christian Scientists raise their kids - you know withholding of blood transufions and medical care. Kids have died, you know. Suppose we go round up all the children born in the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christian Scientists cults - we will do it “for the children”.
I’m scared to live in a country where the authorities have this much power.
It’s a very slippery slope.
I don’t think the slope is nearly as slippery as you make it out to be. And it will remain to be seen if their Constitutional rights were violated (I don’t think they were). So, are you always against removing children from apparent abuse situations?
susie
adults can and do refuse blood. In an ER a judge can decide for the child. It happens a lot.
“apparent abuse”
“Apparent” - there’s the rub. I know your heart is in the right place, fellow FReeper.
As I know yours is. It will be interesting to see how this thing plays out. I wonder tho, since it involves minors, how much of it will be public record.
susie
I am sorry you miss the point.
I will try to help you.
If a person commits rape, that is a criminal act that can and should be prosecuted.
But that is not at all what I was discussing.
My discussion was relative to the idea that the state has the right to round up everyone in a community, separate them from their families and put kids in foster homes because there is a SUPPOSED crime.
To be silly to make a point, the same as if everyone on your street were locked up because there was a rape on your block.
That is not the way our laws are supposed to work.
Now back to the case in point: The woman has been determined to be of age. There has been no claim that she abused her children in any way. There is no reason to hold her. She should be released to go as she pleases.
Then each and every individual should be released as they are determined to be OK.
Actually, it is my belief that everyone should be released until an investigation determines that some individual or individuals have committed a crime and then only those should be held.
That is really the way our laws were intended to work.
I’m kind of proud of us tonight. With the exception of one post which I asked be pulled (#40), we have had a pretty stimulating and not really that contentious discussion. Way to go.
I believe she will have a 14-day hearing on Friday (actually, her newborn has the hearing, but she and the father are allowed to be represented and to present their case). At the hearing, the state is required to present evidence of abuse, and the child gets a lawyer to argue for the child’s best interests, and the parents get to refute the charges.
I am wondering if this “agreement” will preempt the hearing. There have been some news accounts that the parents are afraid of making any claims against the CPS because of retaliation. The mother may feel that getting to stay with her children (most weren’t allowed to stay with their older children, only the infants), is worth not rocking the boat.
And the CPS may have done this to avoid having to stand up real evidence against an individual. It would be much harder for them than the group “hearing” they ran before.
Calling LE names for enforcing the law just seems...I don’t know.
Enforcing the law and accusing one of breaking a law when you don’t know for a fact whether they did or not are two entirely different things.
CPS is LE. They enforce our law by removing children they consider in danger. Are they arrogant at times...of course. Are they needed? It’s an ugly job but someone has to do it. I sure don’t want to.
You say that two little children are spread all over TX?
Impossible, and gross exaggeration. IMO you just cited an example of how you think.
“what a culture can’t assimilate, it destroys.”
Yes, and that has a lot to do with some of the stuff in the papers and on TV.
Here we have powerful religious beliefs and as a result some very powerful emotions.
How old was she when she had her first child? Did she, of her own free will, choose the man she married OR did Jeffs, her father, or one of the elders of the community make that decision for her?
These, of course, are rhetorical questions. I don't expect either she or her husband to say other than that they "freely fell in love with each other" and their decision to marry was totally between the two of them.
That's not the way the FLDS in Texas works. Jeffs, the "Prophet", who receives "direct revelations from God", makes all the decisions.
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