Polygamists: Authorities Prepare For the Worst in Texas

It is the difference in how Catholics (a mainstream religion) are treated from this "fringe" group that is the problem.

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It is the difference in how Catholics (a mainstream religion) are treated from this "fringe" group that is the problem.

imo there is at least ONE difference :

catholics live amongst the general population and don't keep their children and women on "ranches" surrounded by walls .

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It is the difference in how Catholics (a mainstream religion) are treated from this "fringe" group that is the problem.

imo there is at least ONE difference :

catholics live amongst the general population and don't keep their children and women on "ranches" surrounded by walls .

Texas makes deal with FLDS couple

Both sides jockey Texas Supreme Court with sect case filings
(Staff Report, San Angelo Standard-Times, May 27, 2008)

Arguments continue to pile upon arguments in the polygamist sect's child custody case.

In a filing today, the state Child Protective Services agency argued in favor of maintaining custodial possession of the roughly 450 Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints children out of concern that the parents could take them out of state if the children are given back to their mothers.

CPS today filed its reply with the Texas Supreme Court in an attempt to further bolster its contention that the court should not allow a large number of the children taken into state custody in the early April raid on the Schleicher County ranch to be returned to their parents.

On May 22, the Third Court of Appeals in essence told the state it had 10 days to give back custody of the children of more than 40 mothers from the ranch. The ruling, handed down in response to a writ filed by attorneys for the mothers, was sufficiently broad to have encompassed all but a handful of the children the state had removed.

The state on May 23 filed with the Texas Supreme Court to have the appellate ruling stayed. Attorneys for the mothers filed a response the same day, and the state has now filed a reply to that response.

The high court has yet to speak on the issue.

The attorneys for the mothers contend that the state has presented no evidence of child abuse against their individual clients, and the appeals court agreed that the evidence presented to date fails to meet the legal threshold for immediate removal.

CPS, in asking the Supreme Court for a stay, argued in part that it could not be conclusively established which children belong to which parents. The mothers' attorneys replied that denying the stay would only have the effect of allowing the children to remain with their parents while the CPS investigation continues.

In its reply to that, however, CPS warned that returning the children could result in the parents fleeing the jurisdiction with them. The agency argues that allowing the appellate order to stand could harm the investigation in several ways, including the return of 124 children to their mothers "without any male sexual perpetrators being identified."

Activities continued in court today.

CPS on Tuesday's hearing
(Brooke Adams, Salt Lake City Tribune, May 28, 2008)

A cloak of silence that has surrounded the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services lifted briefly after a custody hearing for the 2-week-old infant of Louisa and Dan Jessop was put on hold.

The department has issued this statement:

''We are pleased that the baby shall remain in the state's care.

''Investigators have been able to go through more of the documents found at the ranch and that means CPS has even more evidence detailing family relationships, including marriages of underage girls. It is clearer than ever that children were at risk of sexual abuse at the ranch.

''We were prepared to present that evidence to the court [Tuesday]. We do not know if the parents or the FLDS agreed to a quick solution in this case in order to avoid the public disclosure of that evidence.''

Texas Supreme Court asks for responses by tomorrow morning
By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
SAN ANGELO, Texas -- The Texas Supreme Court has asked attorneys representing nearly three dozen mothers from a polygamous sect to answer the state's bid to overturn an order returning their children.
The supreme court was already considering the narrow issue of whether to stay the ruling, which was issued a week ago by the Third Court of Appeals. It found a trial judge improperly kept some 450 FLDS children in state custody.
Now, the supreme court is giving attorneys for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA) a deadline of Thursday at 9 a.m. to respond to the state's broad appeal of that ruling.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services also filed a second petition Wednesday with the state supreme court seeking a stay and a ruling on an identical decision from the appeals court in favor of an additional three mothers.
The court gave Legal Aid of Northwest Texas until Thursday morning to file an answer to that petition.
The news may mean no decision will come this week on the state's appeal.
DFPS contends the Third Court of Appeals erred when it found evidence for keeping custody of all children from the YFZ Ranch was lacking and that 51st District Judge Barbara Walther abused her discretion in making that order.
The children, whose parents are members
of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, are currently in shelther facilities across Texas.
Earlier this week four sets of parents were allowed to join their children in temporary housing while the legal arguments play out.
Meanwhile, status hearings to review family service plans that list what parents must do to regain custody of their children are on hold.
The state says in court documents filed over the past week that it can not match children to their parents until it gets the results of DNA samples taken in April.
Janece Rolfe, a spokeswoman for the Texas Attorney General's office, said Wednesday the results are expected by the next of the week - next week at the latest.
Laboratory Corporation of America, based in North Carolina, is processing samples from about 500 people affiliated with the sect. Each test costs about $100, she said. The state is picking up the tab.
DFPS has said in court filings it does not know the identities of most children's parents. The DNA results will solve that mystery, it says.
TRLA attorneys call that argument a "red herring" because the state matched children and parents for status hearings that began May 19.
The firm, as well as parents' attorneys, say many FLDS members provided accurate names, dates of birth and documents supporting the information when first questioned by investigators after the April 3 raid on the YFZ Ranch in Eldorado.
Investigators said they found evidence of abuse at the ranch that justified removal of all children. They also said parents and children engaged in a "conspiracy of silence" that made it difficult to figure out family relationships.
Rolfe said the lab will provide reports linking children, mothers and fathers, if their samples were provided, to Walther. Reports also will be provided to attorneys for the state, parents and children, she said.

First, Why don't you credit adult women the rights or the ability to make decisions for themselves and their families (for this group, but not for Catholics)?

i'm all for ALL PEOPLE making FREE decisions for themselves !
but i believe that many of the women on the ranch had been deprived of making THEIR OWN free decisions by their leaders and so-called "husbands" .

Yes the isolation of this group is a difference... but it does not mean they cease to be human beings, nor does it mean they lose their civil rights.

the women and children certainly are HUMAN BEINGS , but were often NOT treated as human beings by their leaders and husbands .


My position is that they should have investigated the reports of abuse. My issue is with the tragic, excessive way they chose to respond. The Texas Child Protective Services screwed up not by taking their responsibility to protect children seriously, but by refusing to accept that these were human beings.

perhaps they did act excessively . however , i wonder what the public reaction would have been if the CPS would have dragged their feet and ignored the abuse ?
i remember how long it took for members of the catholic church to come forward and report the abuse - many were grown men and women before they had enough courage . even then , the catholic authorities played a game of DENY ,DENY , DENY !
(remember how the priests were shuffled around to make identifucation more difficult ?)

They would have done a much better job at protecting the children had they acted reasonably without bigotry.

i have trouble seeing how "bigotry" was involved here - but am willing to admit that i do NOT know the whole story .

Nun Who Worked To Expose Sex Abuse Dies

BOSTON, May 20, 2008
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(AP) Sister Catherine Mulkerrin, who pressed Roman Catholic church leaders in Boston to warn parishioners about priests who had been accused of sexually abusing children, has died. She was 73.

Mulkerrin died Saturday at Bethany Health Care Center in Framingham after a 24-year battle with cancer, said Sister Joanne Gallagher, spokeswoman for her religious order, the Sisters of St. Joseph in Boston.

Mulkerrin "was a gentle, caring woman with a wonderful sense of humor which those who knew her saw manifested in many ways," the order said in a statement.

As assistant director of the Boston Archdiocesan Office for Victims of Abuse from 1992 to 1994, Mulkerrin received allegations of clergy abuse and dealt directly with victims. She once said she heard allegations against more than 100 priests during that period.

Many of her memos to supervisors were later released as part of lawsuits filed against the archdiocese by alleged victims.

"I know I sound like a broken record," according to a memo from Mulkerrin that was released in 2002, "but we need to put in church bulletins: `It has come to our attention a priest stationed here between 19XX and 19XX may have molested children - please contact ... ."'

She said archdiocese leaders ignored her repeated concerns that priests accused of sexual abuse were allowed to return to parish work without the kind of supervision she had recommended.


"I expressed concern, consternation. What are we thinking of? What are you thinking of?" Mulkerrin said in a deposition released April 8, 2003, about her conversations with Bishop John McCormack, who handled sexual abuse complaints involving priests as an aide to Cardinal Bernard Law, then head of the archdiocese. Law resigned in 2003; McCormack became bishop of New Hampshire in 1998.

She said in the deposition McCormack told her he was trying to address her concerns. He later said through a spokesman he was following policy but acknowledged making mistakes during his time in Boston.

"She really confronted the Archdiocese of Boston six years before the sexual abuse scandal broke out. ... I think that she was incredibly brave to do that," said Sheila Boyle, 60, who received a settlement from the church after she was abused by a now-defrocked priest. "It took a tremendous amount of guts to do that at a time when no one really knew the breadth or scope of crisis was."

The clergy abuse scandal erupted in Boston in 2002. Pope Benedict XVI repeatedly addressed the issue on his U.S. visit in April. He also met privately with five victims and Law's successor as archbishop, Cardinal Sean O'Malley.

Mulkerrin became a nun in 1955, working as a teacher and college librarian. She served six years as president of her order in Boston, resigning after her cancer diagnosis in 1984. She later began working for the Boston Archdiocese.

i'm all for ALL PEOPLE making FREE decisions for themselves !
but i believe that many of the women on the ranch had been deprived of making THEIR OWN free decisions by their leaders and so-called "husbands" .

i'm all for ALL PEOPLE making FREE decisions for themselves !
but i believe that many of the women on the ranch had been deprived of making THEIR OWN free decisions by their leaders and so-called "husbands

the women and children certainly are HUMAN BEINGS , but were often NOT treated as human beings by their leaders and husbands

perhaps they did act excessively . however , i wonder what the public reaction would have been if the CPS would have dragged their feet and ignored the abuse ?
i remember how long it took for members of the catholic church to come forward and report the abuse - many were grown men and women before they had enough courage . even then , the catholic authorities played a game of DENY ,DENY , DENY !
(remember how the priests were shuffled around to make identifucation more difficult ?)

Many child-welfare experts across the nation, who have as a group watched the high-profile Texas case closely, say the raid on the polygamist ranch diverged sharply from the recommended practices both in Texas and elsewhere in the country.

They say a growing body of research supports the contention of the mothers that forceful removal can have both significant short-term and long-lasting harm, particularly for younger children. Some studies have found that the wide-ranging effects include anxiety, extreme distrust of strangers and, in the future, higher rates of teenage pregnancy and juvenile incarceration.

[...]

Some experts in Texas state law and procedure say the state not only violated minimum national standards, which are written into the Texas Family Code, but they also violated due process considerations. These were essentially the findings of the appeals court.

"They made no effort to keep the children there at the ranch," said Johana Scot, executive director of the Parent Guidance Center in Austin, which helps advocate for the rights of parents who have had their children taken into foster care.

"And even worse, they did not give the families individual hearings, which they are also required to do by the code," Ms. Scot said. "They've really botched this."

[...]

Steven D. Cohen, a senior associate at the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation, a national child-advocacy organization, said that while he could not say whether Texas officials acted improperly in taking the children from their mothers, he did think that they had violated numerous standards of best practice widely used elsewhere.

"Breaking all of the ties to several parental figures and siblings, and taking them to a remote and unfamiliar place raises many red flags about trauma and its effect on children," Mr. Cohen said

Experts say younger children, who often do not have a sense of the passage of time, can be particularly hard hit by such separations. About 100 of the children removed from the sect were 2 years old or younger.

Shelly Greco, a court-appointed lawyer for a 14-month-old girl removed from the ranch, says the child had been up crying uncontrollably many nights because she was so abruptly weaned.

I also add that if that is America's position then it might be time to outlaw Christianity, because until the bible is repealed Christians believe that women should submit to men, and men are to take care of their wives.

perhaps hawkeye feels that christian women MUST submit to their husbands - no matter what . i haven't met any of them amongst our friends or in our neighbourhood - but i have lived for over 50 years
in ontario/canada and that is certainly not a good place to ask women to SUBMIT to their husbands . :wink: