Eldorado, Texas case of FLDS Sect

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Marina
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Postby Marina » Wed May 21, 2008 6:02 pm

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http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_9330822?source=rss

FLDS hearings: Texas' case weakens as moms turn out adults
Only 17 women, out of original 26, are left in the state's disputed-age group

By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 05/21/2008 07:56:04 AM MDT


SAN ANGELO, Texas - An underpinning of the state's case for taking hundreds of FLDS children into custody continued to weaken Tuesday as officials acknowledged four more women whose ages were disputed are adults - including one who is 27.
Still to come: The state was prepared to admit one additional mother was an adult, but her hearing was postponed. Four women had been deemed adults before Tuesday; other women's hearings have yet to come up in court.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services has maintained a "pervasive pattern" of underage marriages justified removing all children from the YFZ Ranch and their parents, members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
It specifically claimed that 31 girls between the ages of 14 and 17 were pregnant, mothers or both - a tally that originally included 26 women whose ages were in dispute.
One case that supports the state's claim was postponed Tuesday: that of 17-year-old Suzanne Johnson, who is eight months pregnant and has a 16-month-old child.
But now, 17 women are left in the disputed-age group, and one attorney expressed outrage Tuesday about the state's tactics in dealing with the mothers.
Andrea Sloan, who represents Leona Allred, said the state was given official documents showing the woman to be 27 the day it raided the YFZ Ranch. On Tuesday,
more than six weeks later, Allred's case was dismissed without the state receiving any additional information, Sloan told a Texas judge.
Sloan was informed of the impending decision Monday evening - but the state continued to tell Allred she could not participate in hearings on Tuesday for her two children because she was a minor. Allred turns 28 on June 2.
Allred had been warned, Sloan said, that as an adult she would not be allowed to remain at the Fort Worth shelter with her two children, including a 15-month-old - which a state attorney confirmed during the hearing.
But that apparently did not sit well with the judge hearing her case.
"For a month, six weeks, this mother has been with these children in this facility," he said, resetting the hearing for May 27 to give CPS time to work out an alternative.
Other judges also pressed CPS to accommodate the young mothers who have been in state custody for more than a month - something that one FLDS spokesman said was encouraging.
"Inch by inch and day by day, the truth is starting to come out about what is really happening here," said Rod Parker. "We find that parents haven't done anything wrong and the state can't articulate to any parent what the parents did."
Examples of the accommodations being made: Judge Jay Weatherby told CPS to allow Rebecca Allred, 20, and husband Wendell Jeffs, 23, to have a four-hour, unsupervised visit once a week. The couple have a 9-month-old son.
Judge Tom Gossett told CPS to find a way to reunite Louisa Barlow Jessop with two children who were with her until she gave birth on May 12. A day later, the state acknowledged she was 22; it left the newborn in her care but moved the younger children, ages 2 and 3.
A guardian ad litem "implored" Gossett to return the children, saying they have done poorly since being separated from their mother.
"The 3-year-old has become very withdrawn," Marie Clark said, while the couple's son "is not eating well or sleeping well."
The judge said it was "not acceptable" when told by a CPS worker there was no place that could take the mother and her children and gave the agency a week to resolve the issue.
It may not take that long. Louisa Jessop, who participated in the hearing by telephone, said the shelter she is in will let them join her.
Asked by her husband, Dan, why the state had taken his children, Gossett said a "wide loop" had been thrown around the FLDS community that might not fit all parents. The state, he said, had concerns about the FLDS' beliefs, plural and underage marriages and "communal attitude."
If those allegations prove unfounded, "I'll be the first to apologize to you if it turns out you're not a person who has abused your child," the judge told Dan Jessop, who was in the courtroom. "There is no proof of abuse in your case. That gives you a leg up."

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Marina
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Postby Marina » Wed May 21, 2008 6:06 pm

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http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,5143,700227705,00.html

FLDS custody case has cost more than $5.2 million
By Amy Joi O'Donoghue
Deseret News
Published: Wednesday, May 21, 2008 1:06 a.m. MDT


SAN ANGELO, Texas — A month after the raid on the FLDS ranch in Eldorado, Texas, state agencies had racked up $1.7 million

...


Requests by the child welfare agency detailed in the report include:
• Adding 70 more staff, including 42 more caseworkers and reducing caseloads specific to the FLDS custody case.

• Hiring 10 attorneys and/or legal assistants to facilitate the judicial process as the agency works toward an April 9, 2009, reunification goal.

• Hiring nine employees to coordinate the delivery of services to FLDS families.

...

Both Perry and the chair of a legislative appropriations committee over health and human services have said they stand by the actions of the raid and they will make sure local entities and the state agency's costs are covered

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Postby Marina » Wed May 21, 2008 6:18 pm

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http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,5143,700227803,00.html

FLDS hearings advance amid confusion, angst

A Few new items - long

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Marina
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Postby Marina » Wed May 21, 2008 6:27 pm

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/suzette-s ... 02787.html


A Modern Day Inquisition

Posted May 20, 2008 | 10:56 PM (EST)


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A modern-day Inquisition is taking place and the forcible rending of child from mother is the state-sanctioned form of torture. In the massive roundup from the polygamist community of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of The Latter Day Saints in El Dorado, 463 children are in the labyrinth of the Texas court system. The children have been warehoused since April 3. Only now, six weeks later, the court is sorting them out into individual case files.

A modern-day witchhunt - based on sensationalized but unproven allegations of a community's 15 and 16-year-olds being forced into marriage - is unfolding before our eyes.

Yet how is the investigation of forced marriage served by taking away babies, toddlers and school age children from their mothers?

To date, there has been no proof of widespread child abuse within the individual families. But the community is being criminalized as a group.

"This is about children who are at imminent risk of harm," said Texas Child Protective Service's Marleigh Meisner in an early report.

And how right she was. The certain trauma the children must have felt at being herded onto a bus, given into the care of strangers indefinitely, and watching their weeping mothers held back at gunpoint.

How far reaching are these tactics?

One could make the same "protective" argument for kids anywhere else. Let's pretend that rumors indicate a student body suffers from failing grades, teen pregnancy or brushes with the law. Then one day a government agency decides their parents are unfit and so, they dragnet all of the students into "protective custody." How would you feel about being funneled into that nightmare?

Just because commentators freely banter words like "rape," "groomed perpetrators," or "pedophilia ring," doesn't make it a fact. Now the truth is emerging to correct former reports. According to a May 18 Associated Press story, "Two dozen of the children may actually be adults; authorities are still trying to sort out whether nearly half the teen girls they've had in foster care facilities are actually adults. Last week, they conceded two women who gave birth since the raid are actually 18 and 22."

Stories of "possible" sexual abuse to boys stoked public outrage, but out of 463 cases, nothing has been documented. The courts even cleared abuse charges over the 6-year old son of Warren Jeffs, FLDS leader and main suspect.

Accusations are what sell newspapers. Facts appear like afterthoughts.

In this country, one is allowed to face their accuser, but there is no accuser in this case. The raid on the 1,700-acre compound was based on an alleged phone call made on a borrowed cell phone by a "Sarah" who reported being raped, beaten and cowed into a forced marriage.

This "Sarah" has never been located. Foul play? Maybe, but with all the high-tech surveillance available, why hasn't the owner of the borrowed cell phone been located? Perhaps the phone call was a hoax or maybe it was staged to justify the raid. It's amazing how massive forces were marshaled so quickly based on one emergency phone call.

(The government spreading misinformation to justify their actions? Surely not.)

Make no mistake. Fully punish those guilty of forcing minor marriages, rape and violence. But the wholesale tearing apart of families is a dangerous precedent.

We are being duped into criminal complicity against our own system of due process. Child abuse is a very specific crime. There must be evidence within a particular family that warrants intervention. Charges must be individual-specific, not community-wide. Full protection of individual rights is what sets the United States apart from the rest of the world.

Our American system of justice is founded on "innocent until proven guilty." Yet scores of bewildered and terrorized women lost their children with no individual charges ever being filed.

An agency's rules should never supersede the U.S. Constitution. Child protective services claims that mere suspicion is enough to take widespread action, and their rules support this. Objection! Then aren't we all in danger? Mere suspicion isn't made of much. Protesting quasi-Gestapo tactics is not the same as condoning child abuse. Be careful of advocating such broad, overreaching policies.

Going down the path of so-called "collective good," puts us on the same footing as China, a government with sweeping and invasive powers. Remember that China's draconian "one baby" policy was born of good intentions - to reduce explosive population growth in a culture where having 8-10 children was considered a personal blessing. But with the goal of societal good came enforced sterilization, baby murder and other horrors.

Our moral compass is broken if we believe wholesale persecution is the safest approach to child protection.

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Marina
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Postby Marina » Thu May 22, 2008 4:21 am

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http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_9343001?source=rss

Lawyer: FLDS girl isn't pregnant

By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 05/22/2008 04:25:24 AM MDT


SAN ANGELO, Texas - A lawyer for a 14-year-old FLDS girl argues her client - listed by the state of Texas as an underage mother - is not pregnant and does not have children.
Attorney Andrea Sloan with the Texas Advocacy Project said the girl has taken a pregnancy test to confirm she is not pregnant.
Texas child welfare officials originally claimed 31 girls from the YFZ Ranch between the ages 14 to 17 were either pregnant, have children or both.
So far, however, they have acknowledged that 11 girls are actually adults. At least six more are likely to get that designation today, when status hearings resume at the Tom Green County Courthouse.
Sloan said her client is the youngest girl included on the list. While a judge told her the girl's status was not relevant to Wednesday's hearing, Sloan said the record should be corrected because Texas Child Protective Services has used the girl to mislead the public. Doing so would improve the mother's chances of regaining custody of the girl, Sloan added.
District Judge John Specia told Sloan to work with CPS to get the girl's status clarified.
In afternoon hearings, state attorneys acknowledged another three mothers are adults: Barbara Joy Jessop, Lenora Jeffs and Janet Jeffs Jessop.
Judge Jay Weatherby ordered CPS to quickly move Barbara Joy Jessop and her 8-month-old
daughter quickly to a family shelter where she will be allowed more freedom than the facility where they are currently housed.
Attorneys for parents and children continued Wednesday to seek modifications to the boilerplate service plans the state has set up, arguing neither the claims nor remedies fit their clients.
And the requirements may set parents up for failure, attorneys said, as they crisscross Texas trying to hold down jobs and visit their children.
Parents' suggestions for modifying the plans have been rejected by the judges.
Caseworkers acknowledged they had little to do with crafting the one-size-fits-all plan, which they said was put together by "culturally sensitive" experts.
A CPS spokeswoman told The Salt Lake Tribune that psychologists and psychiatrists from across the country helped write the plan, but said specific names of those individuals weren't available. The plan calls for the parents to undergo psychological evaluations, take parenting classes, get jobs and live independently.
Many FLDS women have already moved, gotten jobs and begun lining up evaluations in hopes they will be accepted by CPS.
Sarah Draper, 37, has moved to Abilene, Texas, and taken a job as a registered nurse to be near her four children, who are in Henderson Home.
"I feel very blessed," she said, praising the facility and its activities, which have included trips to the zoo and a local fire department.
Inexplicably, caregivers there told Draper on Monday her children would no longer be allowed to participate in off-campus excursions. No one could explain why or who ordered the change.
"And frankly, I would rather have my children going to the fire department than sitting in front of television all day," she said.

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Postby Marina » Thu May 22, 2008 3:59 pm

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http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2008/ma ... -right-to/

BREAKING NEWS:
Sect parents, attorneys overjoyed at court ruling against state

By Paul A. Anthony (Contact)
Originally published 12:47 p.m., May 22, 2008
Updated 03:46 p.m., May 22, 2008


Standard-Times photo by Brian Connelly


Attorneys and mothers alike wept this afternoon on the Tom Green County Courthouse lawn, rejoicing in today's reversal by an Austin appeals court of a San Angelo judge's decision to remove hundreds of children from a polygamist Mormon splinter sect.

The Third Court of Appeals ruled 51st District Judge Barbara Walther's court "abused its discretion" by relying on "legally and factually insufficient" evidence to maintain custody of children whose parents are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

The immediate ruling applies to 48 of the mothers, but by extension, attorneys expect it to apply to nearly all the roughly 455 cases.

"It is a great day for families in the state of Texas," said Julie Balovich, an attorney with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, which filed a pair of requests in recent weeks on behalf of 48 mothers the group is representing.

Attorneys for the state's Child Protective Services agency now have 10 days to follow the court's order to release the unknown number of children in question, or to appeal the case to the Texas Supreme Court.

The agency has not decided whether to appeal the ruling, said spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner, referring additional questions to a statement that defends investigators' determination that a "pervasive pattern of sexual abuse" existed at the ranch.

"While our only duty is to the children, we respect that the court's responsibility and view is much broader," the statement reads. "We will work with the Office of Attorney General to determine the state's next steps in this case."

Status hearings in the case, which had been ongoing since Monday, have been canceled for the rest of the week and are in doubt for next week, as well, local attorneys said.

The ruling has the potential to sweep away a case that had been viewed as weakening throughout this week's status hearings.

At least half the mothers taken from the polygamist sect's ranch and put in child foster care have now been declared adults, significantly chipping at CPS statistics that seemed to demonstrate its allegations of widespread abuse.

The ruling said the state's Child Protective Services agency did not present enough evidence at an en masse two-day custody hearing last month in state district court in Tom Green County to justify the removal of the children from the sect's YFZ Ranch in adjacent Schleicher County, part of the same court district. The ruling was made by arguably the three most conservative justices of the court.

"The department failed to carry its burden with respect to the requirements" of state law, the opinion states. "The danger must be to the physical health or safety of the child. The department did not present any evidence of danger to the physical health or safety of any male children, or any female children who had not reached puberty."

CPS, with state law enforcement, raided the ranch, Texas home of the sect, for a week starting on April 3, removing more than 450 children and claiming the group fostered a "pervasive pattern and practice" of sexual abuse and forced "marriages."

"I don't know what to think," said local family law attorney Tom Goff, who represents children in the case, today. "I think I'm glad. I didn't expect it to end this soon."

Mothers represented by the legal aid group wept behind Balovich as she spoke to stunned reporters on the courthouse lawn. Balovich herself also struggled to contain her emotions.

The facts of the ruling and a companion opinion issued shortly after include only 48 mothers named in the group's motion, but Balovich said the reasoning that CPS failed to present any evidence of immediate danger to the vast majority of the children at the sect's YFZ Ranch applies to all the FLDS children removed from the ranch.

"I'm amazed," said Dallas attorney Susan Hays, representing children in the case. "My head's spinning."

Sect spokesman Rod Parker said he expects attorneys for the rest of the parents in the case will spend the next hours preparing similar motions to assure their children, too, can be returned.

"It validates some of the things we've been saying for quite a while," Parker said. "No threat of immediate danger was shown."

James and Nancy Dockstader, standing with an attorney outside the courthouse, expressed quiet relief with the decision.

"We're so grateful that somebody would actually listen to the facts," Nancy Dockstader said, "and listen to us as individual families."

Elsewhere on the lawn, Eileen Jeffs and Sarah Barlow said in chorus, "Praise the Lord!"

"We're grateful for anything positive," Barlow said.

Regarding the alleged underage mothers, attorneys for CPS have been conceding, one by one, that many of the mothers authorities cited as evidence that the sect committed widespread sexual abuse of girls are actually adults.

They had admitted by midday today that 15 of the 31 mothers listed as underage are adults; one is actually 27. A few are as young as 18, but many are at least 20.

Another girl listed as an underage mother is 14, but her attorney said in court she is not pregnant and does not have a child.

The sect's children, ranging from infants to teenagers, have been the subject this week of custody hearings designed to help parents learn what they must do to get their children back.

More mothers listed as underage are likely to be reclassified as adults in coming days.

On Wednesday, child welfare authorities returned once again to the Yearning For Zion Ranch near Eldorado, asking to look for children who may have arrived since the April raid. Sect members turned them away because they had no court order.

"The people they are looking for, I cannot produce them, because they don't exist," said Willie Jessop, a sect elder. But, "If they bring in their heavy law enforcement and raid us again, I cannot stop them."

Meisner said the agency wanted to investigate reports of children who may have arrived at the ranch in the weeks since the children were taken and put in foster care.

The child welfare agency could seek a court order to force ranch residents to allow officials in, but one had not been granted by mid-day today.

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Postby Marina » Thu May 22, 2008 4:02 pm

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http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2008/ma ... olygamist/

LIVE FROM THE COURTHOUSE:
Day 4 of the polygamist sect's child custody hearings



Courtroom A - Rick Smith

The phrase "a safe environment" received special attention in a hearing this morning.

To eventually be reunited with their children, sect parents must agree to follow a service plan and meet a number of requirements.

One requirement is for parents to provide a safe environment for their children.

In the hearing before 119th District Judge Ben Woodward, attorneys suggested some state-selected shelters where the nine children of Marie and Joseph Steed are living may not constitute safe environments.

The couple's 8-year-old son, Rulon, suffered a spider bite while in one shelter, a lawyer said, and their 10-year-old daughter, Martha, broke her foot while on the shelter's playground.

Other shelter-related concerns mentioned in the hearing ranged from problems with replacing one child's shoes and eyeglasses to questions about whether the children can participate in organized religious services while in the shelters.

Woodward urged attorneys and the state's Child Protective Service workers in the courtroom to meet and work out solutions to the problems.

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Postby Marina » Thu May 22, 2008 5:35 pm

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Associated Press

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080523/ap_ ... st_retreat

Texas seizure of polygamist-sect kids thrown out

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Postby Marina » Thu May 22, 2008 5:45 pm

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eugene-vo ... 03124.html

Texas Appellate Court Rules Against State's Seizure of the FLDS Children

Posted May 22, 2008 | 03:00 PM (EST)

From the opinion, which is a sharp and detailed rebuke of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (emphasis and some paragraph breaks added):

Removing children from their homes and parents on an emergency basis before fully litigating the issue of whether the parents should continue to have custody of the children is an extreme measure. It is, unfortunately, sometimes necessary for the protection of the children involved. However, it is a step that the legislature has provided may be taken only when the circumstances indicate a danger to the physical health and welfare of the children and the need for protection of the children is so urgent that immediate removal of the children from the home is necessary. [Tex. Fam. Code. Ann. § 262.201.]


In this case, the Department relied on the following evidence with respect to the children token into custody from the Yearning For Zion ranch to satisfy the requirements of section 262.201:

Interviews with investigators revealed a pattern of girls reporting that "there was no age too young for girls to be married";
Twenty females living at the ranch had become pregnant between the ages of thirteen and seventeen;
Five of the twenty females identified as having become pregnant between the ages of thirteen and seventeen are alleged to be minors, the other fifteen are now adults; [footnote: One woman is alleged to have become pregnant at the age of thirteen. She is now twenty-two years old.]
Of the five minors who became pregnant, four are seventeen and one is sixteen, and all five are alleged to have become pregnant at the age of fifteen or sixteen;
The Department's lead investigator was of the opinion that due to the "pervasive belief system" of the FLDS, the male children are groomed to be perpetrators of sexual abuse and the girls are raised to be victims of sexual abuse;
All 468 children were removed from the ranch under the theory that the ranch community was "essentially one household comprised of extended family subgroups" with a single, common belief system and there was reason to believe that a child had been sexually abused in the ranch "household"; and
Department witnesses expressed the opinion that there is a "pervasive belief system" among the residents or the ranch that it is acceptable for girls to marry, engage in sex, and bear children as soon as they reach puberty, and that this "pervasive belief system" poses a danger to the children.
In addition, the record demonstrates the following facts, which are undisputed by the Department:
The only danger to the male children or the female children who had not reached puberty identified by the Department was the Department's assertion that the "pervasive belief system" of the FLDS community groomed the males to be perpetrators of sexual abuse later in life and taught the girls to submit to sexual abuse after reaching puberty;
There was no evidence that the male children, or the female children who had not reached puberty, were victims of sexual or other physical abuse or in danger of being victims of sexual or other physical abuse;
While there was evidence that twenty females had become pregnant between the ages of thirteen and seventeen, there was no evidence regarding the marital status of these girls when they became pregnant or the circumstances under which they became pregnant other than the general allegation that the girls were living in an FLDS community with a belief system that condoned underage marriage and sex; [footnote: Under Texas law, it is not sexual assault to have consensual sexual intercourse with a minor spouse t0 whom one is legally married. Texas law allows minors to marry--as young as age sixteen with parental consent and younger than sixteen if pursuant to court order. A person may not be legally married to more than one person.]
There was no evidence that any of the female children other than the five identified as having become pregnant between the ages of fifteen and seventeen were victims or potential victims of sexual or other physical abuse;
With the exception of the five female children identified as having become pregnant between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, there was no evidence of any physical abuse or harm to any other child;
The Relators have identified their children among the 468 taken into custody by the Department, and none of the Relators' children are among the live the Department has identified as being pregnant minors; and
The Department conceded at the hearing that teenage pregnancy, by itself, is not a reason to remove children from their home and parents, but took the position that immediate removal was necessary in this case because "there is a mindset that even the young girls report that they will marry at whatever age, and that it's the highest blessing they can have to have children."


The Department argues that the fact that there are five minor females living in the ranch community who became pregnant at ages fifteen and sixteen together with the FLDS belief system condoning underage marriage and pregnancy indicates that there is a danger to all of the children that warrants their immediate removal from their homes and parents, and that the need for protection of the children is urgent. [Footnote: The Department's position was stated succinctly by its lead investigator at the hearing. In response to an inquiry as to why the infants needed to be removed from their mothers, the investigator responded, "[W]hat I have found is that they're living under an umbrella of belief that having children at a young age is a blessing therefore any child in that environment would not be safe."] The Department also argues that the "household" to which the children would be returned includes persons who have sexually abused another child, because the entire Yearning For Zion ranch community is a "household." ...

The Department did not present any evidence of danger to the physical health or safety of any male children or any female children who had not reached puberty. Nor did the Department offer any evidence that any of Relators' pubescent female children were in physical danger other than that those children live at the ranch among a group of people who have a "pervasive system of belief" that condones polygamous marriage and underage females having children. [Footnote: The Department's witnesses conceded that there are differences of opinion among the FLDS community as to what is an appropriate age to marry, how many spouses to have, and when to start having children--much as there are differences of opinion regarding the details of religious doctrine among other religious groups.]

The existence of the FLDS belief system as described by the Department's witnesses, by itself, does not put children of FLDS parents in physical danger. It is the imposition of certain alleged tenets of that system on specific individuals that may put them in physical danger. The Department failed to offer any evidence that any of the pubescent female children of the Relators were in such physical danger. The record is silent as to whether the Relators or anyone in their households are likely to subject their pubescent female children to underage marriage or sex. The record is also silent as to how many of Relators' children are pubescent females and whether there is any risk to them other than that they live in a community where there is a "pervasive belief system" that condones marriage and child" rearing as soon as females reach puberty.

The Department also failed to establish that the need for protection of the Relators' children was urgent and required immediate removal of the children. As previously noted, none of the identified minors who are or have been pregnant are children of Relators. There is no evidence that any of the five pregnant minors live in the same household as the Relators' children. [Footnote: The notion that the entire ranch community constitutes a "household" as contemplated by section 262.201 and justifies removing all children from the ranch community if there even is one incident of suspected child sexual abuse is contrary to the evidence. The Department's witnesses acknowledged that the ranch community was divided into separate family groups and separate households. While there was evidence that the living arrangements on the ranch are more communal than most typical neighborhoods, the evidence was not legally or factually sufficient to support a theory that the entire ranch community was a "household" under section 262.201.]

There is no evidence that Relators have allowed or are going to allow any of their minor female children to be subjected to any sexual or physical abuse. There is simply no evidence specific to Relators' children at all except that they exist, they were taken into custody at the Yearning For Zion ranch, and they are living with people who share a "pervasive belief system" that condones underage marriage and underage pregnancy.

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" as contemplated by section 262.201 with respect to every child in the community. [Footnote, slightly moved: The simple fact, conceded by the Department, that not all FLDS families are polygamous or allow their female children to marry as minors demonstrates the danger of removing children from their homes based on the broad-brush ascription of every aspect of a belief system to every person living among followers of the belief system or professing to follow the belief system.] ... Evidence that children raised in this particular environment may someday have their physical health and safety threatened is no evidence that the danger is imminent enough to warrant invoking the extreme measure of immediate removal prior to full litigation of the issue as required by section 262.201.

Finally, there was no evidence that the Department made reasonable efforts to eliminate or prevent the removal of any of Relators' children [as required under §262.201]. The evidence is that the Department went to the Yearning For Zion ranch to investigate a distress call from a sixteen year-old girl. [Footnote: The authenticity of this call is in doubt. Department investigators did not locate the caller on the ranch.] After interviewing a number of children, they concluded that there were five minors who were or had been pregnant and that the belief system of the community allowed minor females to marry and bear children.

They then removed all of the children in the community (including infants) from their homes and ultimately separated the children from their parents. This record does not reflect any reasonable effort on the part of the Department to ascertain if some measure short of removal and/or separation from parents would have eliminated the risk the Department perceived with respect to any of the children of Relators....

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Postby Marina » Thu May 22, 2008 5:48 pm

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080522/ap_ ... retreat_35

Texas officials: 15 mothers wrongly in foster care

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Postby Marina » Thu May 22, 2008 6:10 pm

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http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/ ... e.html?npc

UPDATE:
State on appeals court ruling: Our duty is to protect children

Web Posted: 05/22/2008 07:09 PM CDT

Lisa Sandberg and Terri Langford
Hearst Newspapers

SAN ANGELO — A Texas appeals court ruled today that a San Angelo judge exceeded her discretion when she ordered the state to take custody of children from a polygamist sect.


The order by a panel of the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin directs State District Judge Barbara Walther to vacate her order, which applied to more than 460 children.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the decision means the children will be returned right away to the custody of their parents, followers of a breakaway Mormon sect called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

The state could ask the 3rd Court to reconsider the unanimous ruling by the three-judge panel, or it could appeal to the Texas Supreme Court, experts noted.

"Any decision regarding an appeal will be made later," said Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for Texas’ Child Protective Services, saying attorneys were reviewing the order.

Two FLDS mothers whose children were placed in foster care learned of the decision from reporters as the two made their way to the courthouse in San Angelo, unaware that child custody status hearings that started here this week had been canceled in the wake of the appellate ruling.

"Hurray. Praise the Lord," said Sarah Barlow, 45, who has two children in foster care. "We’re grateful for this." Ilene Jeffs, 45, who has three children in foster care, said, "We’re grateful for anything that’s positive."

FLDS spokesman Rod Parker said families not involved in the court action ruled on Thursday will be filing paperwork to ensure they "get the benefits of this ruling."

The Department of Family and Protective Services, which includes Child Protective Services, said in a statement, "Child Protective Services has one duty ― to protect children. When we see evidence that children have been sexually abused and remain at risk of further abuse, we will act.

"The Department of Family and Protective Services removed children from the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado after finding a pervasive pattern of sexual abuse that puts every child at the ranch at risk," said the statement in part, concluding, "While our only duty is to the children, we respect that the court’s responsibility and view is much broader. We will work with the Office of Attorney General to determine the state’s next steps in this case."

In the decision, the 3rd Court ruled that CPS failed to provide any evidence that the children were in imminent danger. It said state acted hastily in removing them from their families.

The agency had argued that the children on the ranch were either abused or at risk of abuse. The Texas Family Code allows a judge to consider whether the "household" to which a child would be returned includes a person who has sexually abused another child. Child welfare officials alleged that the polygamist sect's practice of marrying underage girls to older men places all its children at risk of sexual abuse.

"The existence of the FLDS belief system as described by the Department’s witnesses, by itself, does not put children of FLDS parents in physical danger," said the unanimous ruling by the three-judge panel of the 3rd Court. "Removing children from their homes on an emergency basis before fully litigating the issue of whether the parents should continue to have custody of the children is an extreme measure.

"The danger must be to the physical health or safety to the child," the appeals court wrote. "The Department (CPS) did not present any evidence of danger to the physical health or safety of any male children or any female children who had not reached puberty."

The court wrote, "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."

Cynthia Martinez, a spokeswoman for Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, which represented 48 mothers in the custody suit against the state, said she wasn’t certain how soon the children might be returned to the 1,700-acre Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado

"The way that the courts have ignored the legal rights of these mothers is ridiculous," added Texas Rural Legal Aid attorney Julie Balovich, who also represents FLDS mothers. "It was about time a court stood up and said that was has been happening to these families is wrong."

The 3rd Court also ruled the same way today in a separate court case involving three additional mothers from the polygamist sect -- a mother of daughters, one with sons and one who was alleged to be an underage pregnant mom, but whose lawyer says she’s actually 22. The last, a mother of young children, gave birth last week.

"I think it’s going to be hard to say the proof-problem that the state ran into here wouldn’t be applicable to everybody (all the parents whose children were taken into state custody)," said Dallas lawyer David Schenck, representing the three.

Schenck said he expected parents and children to be reunited "pretty quickly."

"I think it’s going to play out to everyone’s benefit," Schenck said. "I think it’s going to focus CPS’ investigation more narrowly on the circumstances where there’s actual evidence a particular child is at risk with respect to a particular set of parents."

At a training for foster care providers in Spring this afternoon, Scott Dixon, a CPS regional director, said some shelters and facilities were already getting calls from parents asking when they could pick up their kids. Dixon advised them not to release any of the children until they get word from the state to do so. Carolyn Jessop, who fled the sect in 2003, was leading the training. She called the decision "a shock."

"I am just hoping that enough people will come out and protest it," said Jessop. She is an ex-wife of Merril Jessop, the assumed leader at the Eldorado compound.

Scott McCown, a former judge and executive director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, said the appeals court isn’t saying the children could not be removed from their families, only that Walther had overstepped her authority by issuing an emergency order. He said protective services could still remove the children after a full trial.

But McCown said there is a very real risk that if the children are returned to their parents they will be moved to another state, Canada or Mexico and be outside the jurisdiction of Texas’ protective custody.

"One of the real dangers is flight, and the court doesn’t address that at all," McCown said.

Dallas attorney Susan Hays, an attorney representing a 3-year-old girl, said in today’s order, "What they’ve been told to do is start over, and do it right."

Parker said, "All of the families want to express their thanks to Texas Rural Legal Aid for achieving this wonderful result. They’re ecstatic. They’re looking forward to being reunited with their children."

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Postby Marina » Thu May 22, 2008 6:23 pm

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http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_9347022?source=rss

Appeals court rules Texas acted improperly in seizing FLDS children
By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 05/22/2008 07:33:50 PM MDT


Updated: 7:33 PM-SAN ANGELO, Texas - A state appellate court has ruled that child welfare officials had no right to seize more than 400 children living at a polygamist sect's ranch.
The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled Thursday that the grounds for removing the children were "legally and factually insufficient" under Texas law.
Child welfare authorities defended their seizure of the children from the ranch as they mulled their next move.
In a statement on its Web site, the Department of Family and Protective Services recounts the evidence it felt showed the children were in danger. But it concludes: "While our only duty is to the Court of appeals ruling children, we respect that the court's responsibility and view is much broader. We will work with the Office of Attorney General to determine the state's next steps in this case."
The Third Court of Appeals said the state did not have sufficient evidence that the children on the ranch were at immediate risk of abuse.
It is not yet clear how soon children will return home, and the timeline depends in part on the next move by Child Protective Services.
The ruling is considered immediately in effect, said Julie Balovich, an attorney with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, which filed the appeal.
The agency represents 48 mothers from the polygamous
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The appeals court rulings covered 41 of the mothers.
At a press conference earlier in the day, Balovich had said there was a 10-day period for the district judge to vacate the order placing children in state custody. That is incorrect, Balovich said Thursday evening.
CPS could choose to comply with the order and return some or all children. It could seek a stay of the appellate ruling. And it could appeal, a move it has already indicated to TRLA attorneys that it intends to make.

If CPS and the district judge do nothing, the appeals court will order the children returned to their parents, Balovich said.
Status hearings cancelled
As Balovich spoke to reporters in San Angelo, FLDS women stood behind her beaming and teary-eyed. Afterward, they declined to comment, but gathered in groups and hugged one another.
The court ruled the FLDS sect's belief system alone did not endanger the children, and that the ranch should not have been treated as one household, Balovich said.
"It's great thing for families in Texas, it's a great thing for justice in Texas," Balovich said.
Attorneys for FLDS children have been arguing the state has not shown individual children were abused or in danger.
"All they did was prove these children exist and they lived at the ranch," said Amanda Chisholm, also a TRLA attorney.
Meanwhile, hearings on the children's status, scheduled for this afternoon and Friday, have been cancelled. District judges are conferring about what to do next.
Critiquing the state's case
Texas officials raided the YFZ Ranch, home to the sect's members, to investigate a later-discounted abuse allegation. Once at the ranch, they found evidence of a pattern of abuse - such as sex with underage girls - that justified removal of all children, CPS said.
"The very first interviews at the ranch revealed a pattern of underage girls being "spiritually united" with older men and having children with the men," its Thursday statement said. "Investigators also observed a pattern of organized deception in those first interviews."
Records found at the ranch "further confirmed the pervasive pattern of sexual abuse," it added. They listed "13 girls who were ages 16 and 17, including nine living at the YFZ Ranch. All nine of the girls living at the ranch were listed as wives in the document."
But the appeals court ruled CPS failed to provide, as required by Texas law, "any evidence of danger to the physical health or safety" to children on the ranch who had not reached puberty.
The department also did not prove pubescent girls were in physical danger, the judges said.
CPS officials testified that five girls who became pregnant at ages 15 and 16 - coupled with an FLDS belief system condoning underage marriage and pregnancy - warranted immediate removal. But that simply wasn't enough, the judges said.
"The existence of the FLDS belief system as described by the department's witnesses, by itself, does not put children of FLDS parents in physical danger," the appeals court wrote. "It is the imposition of certain alleged tenets of that system on specific individuals that may put them in physical danger."
Reaction to the ruling
While the appeal was filed on behalf of TRLA's clients, the reasoning would apply to all of the children, Balovich said. Attorney Rod Parker, a spokesman for the sect, agreed.
"This validates what we've been saying for days. There's no immediate danger to the children," he said. Parents "are very thrilled. They are looking forward to having the children come home," he said.
In San Angelo, attorney Polly Rea O'Toole, who represents Richard and Susan Barlow, said of the ruling: "I am overwhelmed. I'm just thrilled. It is exactly the right decision."
The couple has eight children.
"They were overcome with emotion and thrilled at the prospect of getting their children back," she said. Richard Barlow said he thanked God and his attorney.
Two FLDS women walking into the courthouse who were approached by a reporter hadn't yet heard about the decision.
"Hurray!" said Sarah Barlow, 45, as she received the news.
Added Ilene Jeffs, 45: "Praise the Lord. We're grateful for that."
Barlow has two children in state custody. Jeffs said three of her children were taken by the state.
Attorney Stephanie Goodman, who represents an FLDS mother, said: "We're just very pleased right now. We'll wait to see what happens next."
Added attorney Gonzalo Rios, who also represents FLDS mothers: "It feels real good. Every day it's been an uphill battle."
Lawyer Nancy DeLong praised the appeal courts' criticism of the mass hearing that was held before a district judge ordered the children into state custody. At the hearing, general evidence about the sect was presented, rather than evidence about each child's situation.
"I think this is a first step toward recognizing the hearing was not done correctly and that there are certain rights parents have," she said. "We're very hopeful the district court will abide by this decision."

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Postby Marina » Thu May 22, 2008 6:27 pm

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http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_9343002

How did the situation develop?
FLDS shun Texas officials twice at ranch
The polygamous sect was told of an allegation that five children are there, including a boy with Down syndrome
By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 05/22/2008 04:25:24 AM MDT



ELDORADO, Texas - Texas child welfare officials returned to a polygamous sect's ranch twice Wednesday because they had "new information" that children were there but were not allowed on the property.
Two Child Protective Service (CPS) workers, accompanied by a Schleicher County Sheriff's deputy, first asked to be let on the YFZ Ranch shortly before noon Wednesday.
The workers told Guy Jessop, who met them at the gate, they were "looking for more children" but he refused to let them enter without a search warrant.
News of the visit reached the Tom Green County Courthouse, where the third day of status hearings for about 450 FLDS children was under way. Several FLDS spokesmen - and media - made a mad dash to the ranch, whose residents are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
CPS officials spoke with FLDS member Willie Jessop after being rebuffed and were told he would allow them on the ranch, according to spokeswoman Marleigh Meisner.
Investigators returned to the ranch at about 6 p.m. but Willie Jessop met them at the gate and turned them away, she said.
Willie Jessop said ranch residents would allow authorities to investigate any legitimate claims of abuse. "If they have an honest complaint, we'll be honest, but we were lied to," he said, noting that authorities have never produced the teenage girl whose
allegations of abuse led the state to remove all children from the ranch in April.
Jessop said he does not know whether there are children at the 1,700-acre property, which includes 19 separate residential buildings. If there are, they would have arrived with parents who came to comfort relatives in the wake of the April raid, he said.
Meisner said she did not know what action CPS might pursue next in its effort to search the ranch.
Meisner would not comment on the new information the agency has received. She said CPS, which does not conduct criminal investigations, never uses search warrants.
"These attempts are part of our ongoing investigation," she said.
A search warrant was used when Texas Rangers and CPS workers raided the ranch in April.
Rod Parker, a sect spokesman, said CPS officials told Willie Jessop that an informant claimed there are five children at the ranch, including a boy who has Down syndrome.
A 5-year-old boy with Down syndrome was among the children previously taken from the ranch, though it is not clear if CPS officials are looking for a different boy with that same condition.
Meisner would not confirm any information about children CPS believes may be at the ranch or say when the agency received the information.
The timing of the account was unclear and it could be weeks old, Parker said.
This marks the first time investigators have returned to the ranch since completing a raid and weeklong search that began April 3. CPS said it found evidence of a pattern of abuse - such as sex with underage girls - that justified removal of all the sect's children.

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Postby Marina » Thu May 22, 2008 6:47 pm

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http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,5143,700228253,00.html

Texas loses another court battle with FLDS family

By Ben Winslow
Deseret News
Published: Thursday, May 22, 2008 5:38 p.m. MDT

ELDORADO, Texas — On the same day that Texas child welfare workers were dealt a humiliating blow by an Austin appeals court over custody of hundreds of children, a San Antonio court took another shot at them.
The 4th Court of Appeals this afternoon denied a request by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to delay a hearing scheduled for Friday over the planned separation of Lori Jessop, 25, and her 1-year-old son, Joseph Steed Jessop Jr.

The court will instead hear the couple's request to allow her to stay with the infant.

The state challenged a judge's decision to issue a temporary restraining order to halt the separation of a mother and her child taken from the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch. The separation was scheduled for May 15, when the boy turned 1. Texas officials have allowed mothers of children under 1 to remain with them in foster facilities.

The judge had also ordered the government agency to disclose the locations of Jessop's other children — Zianna Glo, 4, and Joseph Edson Jessop, 2 — and allow daily visits with them.

"This is a truly shocking development. The writ of habeas corpus is one of the most precious of all legal protections, designed to protect people from illegal restraint by the government," said Rene Haas, a lawyer for the father, Joseph Steed Jessop Sr. "The Texas Constitution says that it can never be suspended. Yet, the department wants to prevent a judge from
deciding the legality of the restraint of these children. Absolutely amazing."
In its filing, attorneys for the Texas DFPS essentially said Judge Michael Peder stepped on another court's authority.

"This is an extraordinary case involving a collateral assault of a child protection court of dominant jurisdiction by a sister court attempting to exercise habeas corpus jurisdiction in a case involving three children, two of whom are not in Bexar County, Texas," Michael Shulman wrote in his response.

He attached a statement of facts, repeating what Texas Child Protective Services has claimed is happening on the ranch — a pervasive pattern of sex abuse with young girls growing up to become child brides, and young boys growing up to become sexual predators.

Journal entries and interviews with children, CPS claims in the court documents, indicated numerous girls who were mothers at age 16 and one who was 13 when she conceived a child.

In court hearings playing out in San Angelo, attorneys have attacked the number of pregnant or underage mothers. CPS officials have conceded that many are actually adults. A 14-year-old girl on the list was not pregnant or even a mother, her attorney claimed in court.

However, one case involving a 17-year-old girl with a 14-month-old was recently brought up in court. The hearing was continued because the girl is pregnant and due to give birth soon. A spokesman for the FLDS Church has told the Deseret News there may be a few isolated cases of minors having children, but it is not as widespread as Texas authorities believe.


Page: 2

Other cases
The Jessops' case is just one of many beginning to hit the court system, challenging the mass decision to remove all of the children from the YFZ Ranch and place them in foster care.

The ruling in Austin's 3rd Court of Appeals declaring that CPS officials had acted improperly in removing all of the children has sent shock waves throughout the legal community, but it is unclear how it will affect these other cases.

Another motion was filed in San Antonio on behalf of three fathers, claiming their children are being illegally restrained and that Texas authorities knew going into the raid that the call prompting it was most likely a hoax.

The fathers say there is no evidence their children were abused and they have been denied their rights to hearings and due process.

The raid on the FLDS compound began April 3 when authorities responded to a call from someone claiming to be a 16-year-old girl, pregnant and in an abusive marriage to a 49-year-old man. When law enforcement and child welfare workers responded, they said they saw signs of other abuse — including other pregnant minors.

That prompted a judge to order the removal of all of the children from the property. They are now in foster care facilities across Texas.

Outside the YFZ Ranch on Thursday, the wind howled and kicked up clouds of dust. There were many smiles as people came back from court hearings that had abruptly been canceled 45 miles away in San Angelo.
The FLDS had feared a second raid by CPS, who attempted twice to get on the ranch Wednesday to search for what they believed were more children living on the property. They have been accompanied each time by a Schleicher County sheriff's deputy. Sheriff David Doran told the Deseret News his office was merely assisting in a civil process matter, referring all other inquiries to CPS.

A CPS spokeswoman said she did not know if they would return to the ranch today.

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Postby Marina » Fri May 23, 2008 1:49 pm

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http://www.sltrib.com/polygamy/ci_9359188?source=rss

Texas officials appeal FLDS ruling to state Supreme Court; custody decisions begin

By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 05/23/2008 03:40:23 PM MDT



Updated: 3:31 PM- SAN ANGELO, Texas - Three couples whose children were seized during a raid at a West Texas polygamist sect's compound were granted temporary custody of their children today pending an appeal of a state court's ruling that Texas officials failed to prove the children were in danger, a San Antonio Web site reports.
The couples learned of the ruling about 3:30 p.m. in a Bexar County court, according to KSAT.com. The children will remain in the custody of their parents until a ruling is handed down by the Texas Supreme Court or until June 9, when a hearing is scheduled on a temporary restraining order previously filed in a Bexar County court.
The San Antonio court's decision came on the same day the Texas Department of Family and Protective Service asked the state Supreme Court to stay a lower court's ruling that FLDS children were kept in state custody improperly and that they should be returned to their families.
The DFPS request contends that the ruling issued Thursday by the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin was overbroad and would "irreparably" affect the outcome of cases involving hundreds of childen taken from the polygamous sect's ranch in Eldorado last month.
The department asks that the Texas Supreme Court bar the appellate court from enforcing its order.
Earlier today, a DFPS spokesman had planned a statement,
but postponed it until after a 1:30 p.m. Central time hearing regarding Louisa Bradshaw, who gave birth while in state custody. Bradshaw is one of three women named in mandamus appeal that was approved by the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin on Thursday.
The appeals court also granted a second appeal petition that 51st District Judge Barbara Walther's April order be vacated. More than 460 children were taken into state custody in April after a state raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints' ranch in Eldorado.
The Bradshaw hearing is a mandatory 14-day procedure to ask whether her infant remain in state custody. She is with her baby, but her other two children are in a separate shelter.
Earlier this week, another judge told state Child Protective Services to let those children rejoin their mother.
On Thursday, a lawyer for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid had said that the state had 10 days to decide what to do. That was a misstatement.
The order tells Walther to vacate her order to keep the children in state custody. There is no timeframe in the appeals court ruling, but the three-judge panel said that if Walther doesn't act, the higher court's ruling will take effect.
Julie Balovich, a TRLA attorney, said Thursday her firm would give Walther a "reasonable" amount of time to follow the appeal court's order.
Another hearing today in San Antonio will take up the case of Joseph Steed and Lori Jessop, who have petitioned to have their children returned. Yesterday, the 4th Appeals Court denied an emergency request by the state that the hearing be denied.

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Postby Marina » Fri May 23, 2008 1:54 pm

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http://www.sltrib.com/polygamy/ci_9346914

Number of underage mothers claimed by Texas continues to dwindle
By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 05/23/2008 09:48:05 AM MDT



SAN ANGELO, Texas - Tina Louise Steed had just one question for a judge who declared her an adult Thursday morning.
"I'm wondering how come they wouldn't believe my ID in the first place?" she asked Judge Jay Weatherby.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services acknowledged that Tina Louise and three other "disputed minors" are actually adult women - admissions that came as the Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled it never had sufficient evidence to remove any children from a polygamous sect.
At least three more women were to be declared adults Thursday afternoon or Friday, but those hearings were canceled after word of the decision reached the Tom Green County Courthouse.
And more are on the docket next week.
The admissions by the state left a rapidly diminishing count of women in a disputed age category that is central to its claim of underage mothers found at the YFZ Ranch.
The state alleged that 31 women ages 14 to 17 were pregnant, mothers or both, a count that included 26 mothers whose ages were disputed.
As of noon Thursday, just eight mothers remained in the disputed category.
And an attorney for one 14-year-old said Wednesday her client also is wrongly being listed among the 31 pregnant or mothering teenagers.
The women declared
adults on Thursday range in age from 20 to 24; a coming hearing would have shown one remaining disputed minor is 27.
Attorney Kim Bridges, who represents Priscilla Zitting's daughters, told Judge Barbara Walther Thursday she has never been able to get information on why the state deemed the mother a minor or why it had now changed its position about her status.
The state listed Priscilla Zitting as "approximately 16" on one court filing for the status hearing, though it showed her correct 1988 birth year on a chart offered as evidence during a hearing before Walther in April.
Adult status created a problem for the mothers, who are no longer eligible to remain in some shelters and face the prospect of being separated from their children who are older than 12 months.
In at least two instances, judges told CPS in earlier hearings to work something out that would let the mothers and children remain or be placed together in an appropriate facility.
The state also alleged that ranch residents, members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, have physically abused and emotionally neglected their children. No evidence of either has been presented in the dozens of individual hearings held so far this week.
Before the appellate ruling, attorneys for the parents and children complained the plans were vague and overly broad, but those arguments fell flat before the five judges hearing the cases.
The hearings were hobbled by mix ups like this one:
David Barlow Steed came to Texas to help support his sister, Lori,whose child is now in state custody. When he arrived at the courthouse, a baliff wrote his name on charging papers identifying him as the father of his sister's child.
Just like that, Steed, who has never lived in Texas or been to the YFZ Ranch, found himself embroiled in the case. Weatherby planned to sign a document releasing Steed from the case Thursday afternoon.

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Postby Marina » Fri May 23, 2008 2:06 pm

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http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700228544,00.html

Texas appeals to state Supreme Court in FLDS case

By Ben Winslow and Amy Joi O'Donoghue
Deseret News
Published: Friday, May 23, 2008 2:06 p.m. MDT

SAN ANGELO, Texas — Texas child welfare authorities have filed an appeal with the Texas Supreme Court challenging yesterday's appeals court decision that ordered the return of children seized from the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch.
Attorneys representing 38 FLDS mothers told the Deseret News they are already drafting a response.

Rod Parker, a Salt Lake attorney representing the FLDS Church, said any appeal by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services would be an uphill battle.

"They ought to take a step back and think about what they're doing here and if it's really best for the children in the face of what's happened to them so far and their inability to produce any evidence," he said.

"This is an agency that's out of control."

In the first paragraph of its appeal, attorneys for DFPS wrote: "This case is about adult men commanding sex from underage children; about adult women knowingly condoning and allowing sexual abuse of underage children; about the need for the department to take action under difficult, time-sensitive and unprecedented circumstances to protect children on an emergency basis ... "

It also questions the appeals court's order to return the children "without giving the court the opportunity to determine which parents are entitled to possession of which children."


The department has complained that children switched names and both children and mothers have refused to answer questions about identities of family relationships, making it difficult to determine which child belongs to which parents.
The Texas department asks the Supreme Court to stay the appeals court order and keep the children where they are in foster facilities until the high court considers their arguments. It argues the more than 450 children will "suffer irreparable harm" if the appellate court order is followed and says the children "will be at risk of sexual and emotional abuse" if returned to their parents.

The appeal repeats allegations of a "pattern of girls reporting that there was no age too young" to be married and boys at the ranch are groomed to be "perpetrators."

DFPS identified five underage girls from "Bishop's Records" that are pregnant or had conceived a child, including one girl who was 13 when she conceived a child.

"By necessity, the record establishes that not only children as young as age 13 were pregnant but also that men must have engaged in the sexual abuse of children at least nine months before, if not at an even earlier age," the court document states.

The department justifies the removal of babies from the ranch, citing a Child Protective Services supervisor's statement that "the little boys, the babies, the girls, what I have found is that they are living under an umbrella of belief that having children at a young age is a blessing and therefore any child in that environment would not be safe."


Page: 2

In a separate filing asking for emergency relief, CPS said if the appellate decision were allowed to stand "the department will be compelled to return approximately 124 children from YFZ Ranch to approximately 34 alleged mothers."
The department went on to say it was important to establish family relationships in order to determine potential risks of sexual abuse. Allowing the children to return to the ranch would impede that investigation. "In addition, the children have a constitutional best interest right to know with absolute certainty who their parents are. Due to the orchestrated conspiracy of silence, neither the department nor the trial court was able to match alleged parents with the children."

The ruling the agency argued would force the return of these children to an environment in which adversarial hearings clearly established that there is a practice of forcing under-aged girls into marriages with older men. Such practice, the agency argued, is "an institutional practice, a practice that was supported by the alleged mothers. This would subject the children to continuing sexual and emotional abuse."

The state agency also argued that the Court of Appeals ignored long-standing precedents from previous court rulings. In order to show that the trial court abused its discretion, the appeals court judges would have to have found that Judge Barbara Walther's decision to place the children in state custody was "so arbitrary and unreasonable" that she committed a prejudicial error of law.


Thursday's decision from the Texas 3rd Court of Appeals "offers a poor analysis of misstated facts," and overstepped its authority in ordering that the children be returned, DFPS attorneys said.
The department said it would not be safe for any child to return to the ranch "because the adults on the ranch expressed that they 'aren't doing anything harmful to their children.'"

Meanwhile, CPS lawyers were back in court in San Angelo this afternoon for a hearing involving Louisa Jessop, who gave birth two weeks ago to a son while in state protective custody. Judge Barbara Walther must determine what will happen to the child. That decision has been made more complicated by Thursday's appeals court decision.

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Postby Marina » Fri May 23, 2008 2:10 pm

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http://www.ksat.com/news/16377887/detai ... t&psp=news

3 FLDS Couples Regained Custody Of Children Pending Appeal

POSTED: 3:37 pm CDT May 23, 2008
UPDATED: 5:02 pm CDT May 23, 2008


SAN ANTONIO -- Three couples whose children were seized during a raid at a West Texas polygamist sect's compound were granted temporary custody of their children pending an appeal of a state court's ruling that Texas officials failed to prove the children were in danger.

The couples' attornies negotiated a deal with state Child Protective Service officials about 3:30 p.m. in a Bexar County court. The children will remain in the custody of their parents until a ruling is handed down by the Texas Supreme Court or until June 9, when a hearing is scheduled on a temporary restraining order previously filed in a Bexar County court.

A spokeswoman for attornies Rene Haas and David Perry, who are representing the three couples, released a statement following the court's decision.

"An agreement has been reached in San Antonio between attorneys and DFPS to release 12 children to their parents under minimal supervision until the Texas Supreme Court rules on the 3rd court of appeals decision," Teresa Kelly wrote. "The families will be housed in and around San Antonio at undisclosed locations. ...The agreements were reached prior to a scheduled hearing today in San Antonio District Court over the Jessop’s children."

KSAT 12 News is reporting Joseph and Lori Jessop, one of the families involved in Friday's agreement, will regain temporary custody of one of its three children.

...

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Postby Marina » Fri May 23, 2008 2:20 pm

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http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/05/22/fld ... cnn_latest

updated 8:48 a.m. EDT, Fri May 23, 2008

FLDS mom, 18, says state wanted her baby

From David Mattingly
CNN


ELDORADO, Texas (CNN) -- An 18-year-old who gave birth in state custody after she was incorrectly seized in a raid on a polygamist sect ranch says the state kept her in foster care in an effort to seize her baby.


Pamela Jessop says the state knew how old she was when they raided her home.

Pamela Jessop said authorities knew how old she was when they raided her home on the Yearning for Zion Ranch, which is owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"I gave 'em my name. I gave 'em my age," Jessop said. "I was honest. Showed 'em my birth certificate and they acknowledged it, that I was 18."

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The state apparently agreed that Jessop was not a minor. A caseworker signed a statement saying Jessop gave her age as 18. Her birth certificate says so, along with a "bishop's list" collected as evidence from the sect's records.

There was also no denying she was weeks away from giving birth to her second child. And that, she believes, is why she wound up in foster care.

Despite the evidence, the state placed her on a list that said she was a minor.

Texas officials denied that Jessop showed them any documents demonstrating she was 18. They also said she was happy to remain in foster care because she was allowed to stay with her 1-year-old son.

For more than a month, the state said, Jessop never asked to leave.

She said, however, that she asked them why they were keeping her "a hundred times at least."

When she went into labor, Jessop said what should have been one of the happiest days of her life turned into one of the worst.

"One of the most stressful, feeling like hawks were all around me, trying to snatch my baby the minute I shut my eyes or laid him down," Jessop recalled.

She said foster care workers were in the delivery room with her. Shortly after his birth, the baby joined her in foster care.

Jessop's attorney said she sees a pattern among FLDS clients, one in which the state ignores hard evidence and classifies adults as minors.

"They put them on that list so that they could continue to have them in custody so that they could either question them in connection with their investigation without attorneys present or, in the cases of women who are going to deliver their babies while in state custody, so they can get the babies," said attorney Andrea Sloan.

The state said any disputed minor who proves she is an adult is released.

After Jessop gave birth, she went to court and a judge ruled she was an adult. She was released from state custody. State officials said the hearing was the first time they had seen her birth certificate.

Jessop's two children remain in foster care, and she has been allowed to remain with the baby.

Jessop stands by her story, and her attorneys say they are considering a federal lawsuit against Texas officials for violating her civil rights.

"They're dealing with our lives and they've treated us like animals," Jessop said. "I can't trust a single person now."

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Marina
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Postby Marina » Fri May 23, 2008 2:28 pm

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http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,5143,700228606,00.html

CPS attorneys grill FLDS mother in custody hearing

By Ben Winslow
Deseret News
Published: Friday, May 23, 2008 4:12 p.m. MDT

SAN ANGELO, Texas — Lawyers for Texas Child Protective Services dropped several bombshells in court today as they try to make their case for why the state should take custody of a 1-week-old baby born to a woman who was once declared a minor.
During gruelling questioning on the witness stand, Louisa Jessop answered, "I don't know" to many questions CPS lawyers posed to her, including where she lived before, how she came to be there, and who lived in the home with her.

Testimony revealed she lived most recently in a home with YFZ Ranch leader Merrill Jessop and his son Dan, who is her husband.

But Jessop struggled to name anyone else who lived in the home, aside from Merrill Jessop's wife Barbara and her own husband, Dan, and her children.

Jessop testified she was married to her husband by FLDS leader Warren Jeffs. She didn't know her husband that well before she married him.

Pressing their case about the department's belief about a pervasive pattern of sex abuse on the ranch, where girls grow up to be child brides and boys predators, CPS attorney Ellen Griffiths showed photos to Jessop, claiming that the girl in the picture was 13.


"Is that (the girl) in that picture?" Griffiths asked.
"Yes," Jessop replied.

"Who is that," she asked, pointing at the man in the picture.

"The prophet."

"Warren Jeffs?"

"Yes."

Jessop said she had never seen those pictures before.

"Do you know whether (the girl) is married to the prophet?"

"I do not know for sure."

In later questioning, CPS lawyers presented more photos and described Jeffs in the photos as kissing the girls in a manner of "how a husband kisses a wife."

Lawyers for Jessop objected to the use of the photographs, but lawyers said they were presented to show Jessop's state of mind and how she would protect her children.

"It just happens to be Warren Jeffs in the pictures," Griffiths said.

On the stand, Jessop described how she has been treated by child welfare workers, saying she has had few meetings with them and they only determined she was an adult the second she gave birth to her son.

Asked about her children, she broke down into tears and said, "Just to think of them now breaks my heart."

She said the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services has never talked to her about services, has never identified any physical dangers to her son or told her she ever failed to protect her child from abuse.

"Have you ever lived in a place where you felt unsafe?" her attorney asked.

"No."

"If you felt unsafe, how would you react?"

"I've never lived in an unsafe home."

Asked if she would allow her 3-year-old daughter to marry at age 14, Jessop replied, "No. Not right now."

Asked what is age appropriate to be married, she replied "Seventeen or 18."

Asked if the prophet had ever told anyone in her family to marriage at age 14, Jessop said not that she knew of.

The judge took a brief recess but has not made a decision on whether the baby will be placed in state protective custody or go home with his mother.

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Marina
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Postby Marina » Sat May 24, 2008 8:03 am

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deborah-k ... 03338.html

Appealing to the Texas Supreme Court to Save the Children
Posted May 23, 2008 | 05:10 PM (EST)

The Department of Family and Protective Services appealed to the Texas Supreme Court today, bluntly stating that "this case is about adult men commanding sex from underage children; about adult women knowlingly condoning and allowing sexual abuse of underage children." They asked the Supreme Court of Texas to intervene.

Their petition is nearly 27 pages long and is chock full of fascinating facts: how the mothers refused to identify themselves, and just exactly how many underage girls, pregnant or with babies, they had found. They could establish that girls as young as thirteen were pregnant, proving that men must have sexually abused them at least nine months before. Some FLDS members stated that when a girl begins her period, she is ready for marriage.

The Department's petition to the Texas Supreme Court said that the appellate court improperly reviewed the evidence of the trial court. The appeals court's role was simply to determine whether or not a lower court abused its discretion, not to look over the evidence and second-guess the lower court's decision. The appeals court ruling was highly unusual in that it granted relief in a case that had not yet been decided.

Stay tuned for more developments early next week!

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Postby Marina » Sun May 25, 2008 11:24 am

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http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,5143,700228905,00.html

Will signing abuse papers come back to haunt FLDS?

By Amy Joi O'Donoghue
Deseret News
Published: Sunday, May 25, 2008 12:12 a.m. MDT

SAN ANGELO, Texas — Desperate to be reunited with their children, many Texas FLDS parents signed family service plans that concede child abuse and neglect.
It's an admission that may come back to haunt them if criminal charges are ever filed accusing them of being abusive parents.

With Thursday's appellate ruling, the civil case against the families appears to be unraveling, but the criminal probe continues. Results from DNA testing on the parents and children are anticipated in the next week and could potentially link adult men to children of underage girls.

That is why several attorneys this past week appearing in status hearings in the Tom Green County Courthouse advised their clients to refuse to sign.

Both Stephanie Goodman and Gonzalo Rios were adamant that the FLDS parents they represent steer clear of the family service plans drafted by the state Department of Family and Protective Services.

"It could be construed in a criminal case that it is an admission that those are the things that happened on the ranch," Goodman said.

The plans crafted for the more than 450 children taken into custody by the agency in April include several mandates the families were to have followed in order to get their children back.

All the plans were identical and included the requirement that parents get counseling as it relates to child abuse and child sexual abuse.
That requirement, Rios said, immediately concedes child abuse and sexual abuse took place — a concession that would jeopardize a parent's rights in criminal court.

"You can't sign a document in one case that admits abuse and go to court on another case and say that you're innocent, that these things didn't happen. You can't have it both ways."

To the chagrin of state attorneys representing the child welfare agency and to the annoyance of the judge, Rios in hearings on Monday would not even let his client, Barbara Steed Jessop, verbally acknowledge that she had read the document. He told Judge Barbara Walther — the same judge who approved taking the children in early April — that his client had read and understood the plan, and he answered on her behalf.

"There's a criminal investigation that is ongoing, and my client is not in any way, shape or form agreeing with allegations contained in the plan," Rios told the judge.

The service plans in child welfare cases are like a contract between the parents and the agency, Goodman and Rios explained, and the parents they represent would have been legally bound to follow all their requirements.

They do not feel that a refusal to sign the plans puts their clients at a disadvantage but rather that action gives them bargaining power and lands them in a position to negotiate.


Page: 2

"I think it gives a client the leg up if you are going to request a jury trial or even have it before a judge quite honestly. They (her clients) are not going to sign some piece of paper and be held to every word and possibly be misconstrued as to whether they completed the task," Goodman said.
Goodman, a former prosecutor who now practices family and criminal law in San Angelo, said that by signing the service plans, her clients would been subjected to the "subjective" assessment by Child Protective Services as to compliance with the mandates.

"If you sign off on all these agreements in the service plans, then CPS can continue to beat them over the head as to what they did or did not do," she said.

Goodman represents one FLDS mother with two children in state custody and a couple from Canada who had children on the ranch. She said that was another inherent problem with the plans because her couple did not even get a chance to physically review the mandates in any depth.

It was the intent of Goodman and Rios to demand a jury trial to hear the components of the plan the child welfare agency wanted their clients to sign.

If Thursday's appellate ruling declaring the child agency had insufficient evidence to remove the children had not happened, the duo was prepared to try the justification of the plan's components before a jury or a judge and perhaps win some concessions of their own.


While he has been critical of the plans from the outset, FLDS spokesman Rod Parker said the parents who did sign could later say they agreed to the dictates because they were under duress.
"The parents could just say they made me sign it. My lawyers said I had to sign this in order to get my children back," he said.


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Marina
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Postby Marina » Sun May 25, 2008 11:29 am

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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chr ... 00902.html

May 25, 2008, 11:34AM

CPS dealing with reimbursement backlog in FLDS raid


Associated Press


AUSTIN — Caseworkers are struggling financially as the state faces a backlog to reimburse them for travel expenses connected to the removal of more than 400 children from a polygamist sect's West Texas ranch.

The Texas State Employees Union has fielded complaints about slow reimbursements. ..

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Marina
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Postby Marina » Sun May 25, 2008 11:43 am

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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/chr ... 00274.html

May 24, 2008, 8:58PM

Lawyers cry foul in FLDS seizures


By MARY FLOOD
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle


Many lawyers for children and parents in a Texas polygamist sect are boiling mad about the growing number of legal errors they claim the state has made in seizing and holding more than 460 children.

From the way officials handled an April anonymous phone tip about a sexually abused girl allegedly at the sect's ranch, the seizure of the children, the court hearings and the questioning of children and parents alike, many attorneys are crying foul.

The lawyers breathed a slight sigh of relief Thursday when some of their cries seemed answered by an Austin appeals court. The 3rd Court of Appeals said the state had no right to seize most of the children and the local trial judge incorrectly left them in the custody of Child Protective Services.

But by Friday, CPS and its umbrella agency asked the Texas Supreme Court to overturn the appeals court decision and leave the children where they are — in foster homes and camps around the state, most far from their home at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' Yearning for Zion Ranch in West Texas.

"They have created chaos. They don't know what to do. This case has holes in it the size of the Grand Canyon," said Laura Shockley, a Dallas family law specialist with six clients in the case. "There is no way to fix this."

She and other lawyers say some of the seized people, especially those who it turns out are 18 or older, have potent federal civil rights lawsuits against the state.


Allegations of errors
In papers filed in court and in interviews for this story, lawyers for the children and parents have complained that the state (primarily through CPS, but also through law enforcement and the courts) has made a number of legal errors including:

•Insufficient investigation of the initial tip and tipster.
•Insufficient investigation at the ranch about who was in immediate danger.
•Treating the entire compound as one household, though there were 19 separate residences.
•Taking all children instead of just the post-pubescent girls who could have been subjected to the feared sexual abuse by older men.
•Insufficient evidence presented at the first hearing for the children.
•The hearing should have been for each individual child, not all in one hearing.
•Shifting burden of proof to parents to prove innocence, rather than having CPS prove guilt.
Amy Warr, an Austin appellate specialist who is working on a response to the state's request to the Supreme Court, said she got involved in the case because of how badly the state has handled it.

"The result is a lot of people did not get due process. As a lawyer and a mother I know the reason the Legislature set high standards before the state can take kids," Warr said. She said those standards were not met.

The lawyers complain that CPS was supposed to consider removing only children in immediate danger, not children who might grow up to abuse others. The lawyers said CPS was supposed to explore alternatives before removing any children. The appeals court made those same points.

Patrick Crimmins, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, the primary state agency involved, said Friday that the agency had no comment. But in its request to the high court the agency defended its actions.

"This case is about adult men commanding sex from underage children; about adult women knowingly condoning and allowing sexual abuse of underage children; about the need for the Department to take action under difficult, time-sensitive and unprecedented circumstances to protect children on an emergency basis," states the request to the high court.


Wrong legal standards
The state agency also argued that the appeals court overstepped its bounds and used the wrong legal standards and processes when it told the local court to send some of the children back home.

"It seems likely they initially started trying to do the right thing. But when they proceeded beyond questions limited to young females, or taking young females into custody, they got into real trouble with the law," said Tim Lynch, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Cato Institute's Project on Criminal Justice.

Susan Hays, a Dallas appellate lawyer who is representing a 2-year-old, said this was a "perfect storm legal disaster."

One exacerbating problem, she said, was basic funding. "The state put money into the raid but not into the courts," she said.

She said copies, an overhead projector, enough assistants to be sure children didn't drop through the cracks without representation were all missing, causing children and parents to have their rights abridged. "The courts were dying — in need of resources."

Donna Broom, a South Texas College of Law clinical faculty member who has volunteered to represent a child, said many things are problematic and atypical here, compared to normal CPS cases.

"They normally have to prove the danger is immediate and to show they can't use other reasonable alternatives to removing the child," she said. "Normally, there is more investigation."

She and all the lawyers are in limbo about what will happen next in their cases. Individual hearings scheduled for Tuesday have been postponed as the local judges try to decide what to do next, given the appeals court decision and the pending request of the Supreme Court.

"Every day is a new day in this case. Every attorney is trying to digest what's happened," Broom said.

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Postby Marina » Tue May 27, 2008 3:12 pm

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http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,5143,700229470,00.html

Texas Supreme Court considering options
By Ben Winslow
Deseret News
Published: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 2:55 p.m. MDT


SAN ANGELO, Texas — Lawyers for child welfare authorities and a group of FLDS mothers filed more papers with the Texas Supreme Court today, but still no decision from the high court on what it will do about hundreds of children in state protective custody.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services urged the high court to grant its request for an emergency stay of a ruling by Austin's 3rd Court of Appeals.

The appellate court ruling said that Texas Child Protective Services acted improperly in removing all of the children. It ordered more than 100 children to be returned to their mothers and opened the door for other FLDS parents to seek the return of their children.

In today's filing, agency lawyers said that they still have been unable to identify family relationships and repeated claims that the parents made it deliberately difficult to establish paternity. Establishing those relationships, CPS claims, is critical to determining the risk of a sexual predator being in the home.

"Failure to grant a stay will mean that approximately 124 children will be returned to alleged mothers without any male sexual perpetrators being identified," Texas CPS lawyer Duke Hooten wrote.


Texas CPS lawyers also expressed concern that if the Supreme Court upheld the 3rd Court of Appeals decision, the FLDS might flee Texas — noting that they have no legal authority to compel anyone to remain in the state, as opposed to a typical divorce case.
"What greater threat could exist to the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court regarding this mandamus proceeding than the subject mothers and their 124 children fleeing the jurisdiction of the state of Texas and taking refuge in Hilldale (sic) Utah, Colorado City, Arizona, or some other undisclosed location?" Hooten wrote.

Lawyers for the 38 mothers filed a response hours later, taking issue with the agency's characterization of a San Antonio court proceeding that ended with 12 children being reunited with their parents. The FLDS mothers' attorneys noted that CPS agreed to send the children back to their parents under certain conditions.

"The Department's agreement to reunite some children with their parents undermines the reasons it has articulated for the stay," Amy Warr wrote. "First, it undermines the Department's insistence that every single child is in imminent danger of abuse because of the parents' beliefs."

Warr also said it contradicts CPS' claim that without DNA testing, it can't match children with their parents and that the agency has been allowing visitation and requiring family service plans to be signed, undermining its own positions.

If the 3rd Court of Appeals ruling stands, CPS said, the FLDS children "will be at risk of continuing sexual and emotional abuse, which certainly is not in the children's best interest."

A spokesman for the Texas Supreme Court said that attorneys worked over the holiday weekend on the case, but it is too early to say if the court will act today.

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