Polygamists: Authorities Prepare For the Worst in Texas

A long history of eliding detailed legal rules and procedures is the reason we've yet to see a single trial end in a conviction at Guantanamo Bay. Let's hope it will not now prove the reason we don't see a single conviction at the Yearning for Zion Ranch.

Until it is shown conclusively that the allegations of child abuse are wrong, I will not feel any jusice has been served here.

The frustrating part is that this raid will be a costly, damaging failure that will accomplish very little. In fact... by eliminating any chance that social services can reach out to families in need within this community, it makes their lives much worse.

edgarblythe wrote:

Until it is shown conclusively that the allegations of child abuse are wrong, I will not feel any jusice has been served here.

That's not how the rule of law works. The way it works is that people are presumed innocent until proven guilty of a crime. Child abuse is a crime. Therefore it was up to Texas to prove that the children in this lawsuit were victims of it. The court found that the state didn't carry its burden of proof.

So justice has been served by the court's decision. The only thing that hasn't been served is your unjust and bigoted demand that fundamentalist Mormons be presumed guilty of child abuse until proven innocent. But America is a free country, where suspects don't have to prove their innocence to anyone, including you. If that contradicts your feelings about justice being served -- too bad for your feelings.

CPS plans to appeal YFZ Ranch custody ruling to Texas Supreme Court

Thomas wrote:

edgarblythe wrote:

Until it is shown conclusively that the allegations of child abuse are wrong, I will not feel any jusice has been served here.

That's not how the rule of law works. The way it works is that people are presumed innocent until proven guilty of a crime. Child abuse is a crime. Therefore it was up to Texas to prove that the children in this lawsuit were victims of it. The court found that the state didn't carry its burden of proof.

So justice has been served by the court's decision. The only thing that hasn't been served is your unjust and bigoted demand that fundamentalist Mormons be presumed guilty of child abuse until proven innocent. But America is a free country, where suspects don't have to prove their innocence to anyone, including you. If that contradicts your feelings about justice being served -- too bad for your feelings.

Thomas,

Did edgar actually make an "unjust and bigoted demand"? The child abuse allegations have not been conclusively resolved yet. Neither "unjust" "bigoted" nor "demand" applies to what edgar said.

Commentary: Appellate court wrong on FLDS
(By Sunny Hostin, CNN, May 23, 2008)

It sounds like legal mumbo-jumbo.

The Texas Court of Appeals for the Third District found the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services failed to demonstrate there was either a danger to the physical health and safety of FLDS children, or an urgent need for protection of the children requiring immediate removal from their parents. The court also found the Department failed to make reasonable efforts to prevent the children's removal from their parents' custody.

What does all that mean without the legalese?

The court found no legal basis for FLDS kids to be taken from their mothers. They effectively think the district judge got it wrong.

And they told the district court judge she had 10 days to make it right or else. Well I think the appellate court got it wrong. Why?

Isn't this a polygamist ranch we are talking about? Under Texas law, it's illegal to be married to more than one person. Weren't all of these children living on a ranch purchased in 2003 and built by Warren Jeffs, the self-proclaimed prophet of the group, who was convicted last year in Utah of being an accomplice to rape?

Yes they were.

Weren't there 20 girls living at the ranch who had become pregnant between the ages of 13 and 17 and "spiritually married" to old men picked for them by Jeffs or his followers?

Yes there were.

And if you live on this ranch, don't you believe in polygamy, arranged marriages between young girls and old men, and that Jeffs is a prophet?

I would think so.

And if you are a young girl that lives on this ranch, isn't it true you will also be "spiritually married" to an old man chosen for you? Yes to that too. And isn't this dangerous for the children? What do you think?

There are some fundamental problems with the court's opinion. The court states that because not all FLDS families are polygamous or allow their female children to marry as minors, the entire ranch community does not subscribe to polygamy. Wrong.

They are living on a polygamist ranch and are members of the church -- a sect that left the Mormon Church so it could practice polygamy.

The court even reasoned that under Texas law, "it is not sexual assault to have consensual intercourse with a minor spouse to whom one is legally married" and that Texas law "allows minor to marry -- as young as age 16 with parental consent and younger than 16 if pursuant to court order." Wrong again.

The polygamists are not "legally married" to anyone since it is illegal to marry more than one person. They are "spiritually married" and abusing young girls. Finally, the court also states there "was no evidence that .... the female children who had not reached puberty, were victims of sexual or other physical abuse or in danger of being victims if sexual or other physical abuse."

Oh, I get it. The Department should wait until the kids are actually abused before doing anything. It's almost as if the Department can't win: If they act, they are overzealous; if they don't act, they are not doing the job entrusted to them -- protecting our children.

So how do we make this right? The Department now has the option of appealing the decision to the Texas Supreme Court.

Let's hope the Department takes that option and let's hope that court gets it right.

This last article explains a lot.

Columnists are paid to reflect and express public prejudice. It is the duty of judges to follow the law while ignoring public prejudice in favor of reason.

If columnists ever become judges... it won't just be polygamists who are in a whole load of trouble.

I don't see how any ethical judge can do anything other than follow the law-- meaning these kids, assuming there is no legal reason to keep them, will be sent home with their families.

No easy answers
(Fort Worth Star-Telegram Editorial, May 24, 2008)

No one disputes that removing more than 450 children from their parents in the Yearning For Zion ranch outside Eldorado had to be disruptive -- even traumatizing -- to those youngsters. The question is whether the children's interests were better served by placing them in foster care than by leaving them with a sect in which girls are made to marry and have children while still children themselves.

It's hard for child welfare officials to win. They're accused of over-reacting because they removed all the children from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints compound. Had they not acted, they might be accused of not protecting children from sexual abuse.

On Thursday, a three-judge appellate panel in Austin ruled that officials acted hastily, that they hadn't proved that a large number of younger children were in immediate danger and that a trial judge should have returned almost 130 children to their families after custody hearings in April.

But on Friday, the state appealed to the Texas Supreme Court, saying the appellate panel wrongly second-guessed the trial judge and would force the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to return children to an atmosphere of "continuing sexual and emotional abuse."

Ruling on a petition filed by about three dozen mothers, the court said that state District Judge Barbara Walther erred in not overruling the decision to remove the children from their families on an emergency basis. The court's reasoning: Though the state identified 20 women at the ranch who became pregnant while they were between 13 and 17 years old, all but five now are adults, none lived with the women petitioning the court, and there wasn't evidence younger children had been physically or sexually abused.

The appeals court rejected the state's arguments that the ranch community was one "household" and that all the children were in danger because of the "pervasive belief system" that young girls should marry and have children. The court also said that the state hadn't tried ways of protecting the children that would keep families intact.

The sect's belief system by itself doesn't put the children in physical danger, said Chief Justice Kenneth Law and Justices Bob Pemberton and Alan Waldrop.

"Even if one views the FLDS belief system as creating a danger of sexual abuse by grooming boys to be perpetrators of sexual abuse and raising girls to be victims of sexual abuse as the department contends, there is no evidence that this danger is 'immediate' or 'urgent' ... with respect to every child in the community."

But in its Friday petition, the agency argued that Walther had done "what was prudent and cautious based on the evidence available" at the hearing and that the appeals court engaged in "a poor analysis of misstated facts."

Though the ruling would require that children be returned to their parents, agency lawyers argued that it's still not clear which children belong to which parents.

The authenticity of the abuse report that triggered the state's raid now is in question, but it's clear the community encouraged, even forced, underaged girls to have children.

The case has raised difficult legal, moral and social questions. And no doubt it's agonizing for families to be split while the legal process runs its course.

Children and their parents should be reunited as soon as possible -- but not until state officials and the courts are assured that children now in foster care aren't being returned to a situation that clearly risks their welfare.

edgarblythe wrote:

Until it is shown conclusively that the allegations of child abuse are wrong, I will not feel any jusice has been served here.

That's not how the rule of law works. The way it works is that people are presumed innocent until proven guilty of a crime. Child abuse is a crime. Therefore it was up to Texas to prove that the children in this lawsuit were victims of it. The court found that the state didn't carry its burden of proof.

So justice has been served by the court's decision. The only thing that hasn't been served is your unjust and bigoted demand that fundamentalist Mormons be presumed guilty of child abuse until proven innocent. But America is a free country, where suspects don't have to prove their innocence to anyone, including you. If that contradicts your feelings about justice being served -- too bad for your feelings.