Update: Plan to reunite polygamist sect's children falls through

[maddezmom]

Source: DallasNews

AUSTIN – An agreement to reunite children removed from a West Texas polygamist ranch with their parents fell apart at the last minute on Friday, after a district judge and attorneys for the religious sect sparred over the details.

The courtroom drama followed four hours of negotiation on a plan that would’ve returned the youngsters to the Yearning For Zion ranch starting on Monday, as long as their parents agreed to keep them in Texas and fully cooperate with child welfare investigations.

Now, it’s unclear when the children will go home – and how soon a new compact can be reached.

State District Judge Barbara Walther wanted to place additional restrictions on the parents and give state child protection workers more authority to monitor the families.

Judge Walther said she would sign the order after the parents, all members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Eldorado, agreed to those terms.



Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/053108dntexpolygamistsect.44c30e11.html

---

FLDS Update: Judge-Attorney conference ends in confusion

~snip~

By day's end, Walther had not vacated her original order seizing the children as the higher courts had ordered. That means that about 450 children may not be going home on Monday, as proposed, attorneys for the families said.

Attorney Julie Balovich of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, which represents many of the
families from the FYZ Ranch in Eldorado, told the judge that the message from the higher courts was clear: Walther must vacate her order.
Walther disagreed with Balovich's interpretation, saying to the legal aid firm, "You get an order signed by all your clients and I will sign it."

After the conference, attorneys said that such an order would require negotiations and the signatures of the 38 mothers who appealed Walther's original order, which could take a long time.

more:http://origin.sltrib.com/news/ci_9428706

[jeff30997]

1. "Zion ranch"

Yeah,right,wathever...:puke:

[beac]

2. Ah yes, "Texas Justice" at its finest.

I am still STUNNED that the seizure of the children was deemed illegal....

What? Do they have to be roasting them over an open fire before those poor kids will be considered in enough danger to terminate parental rights?

[razors edge]

12. Maybe you should be stunned.

TASER International comes to mind. When the conservatives come for your kids for not taking them to church, I will wounder if you finally get it.

[beac]

13. Hey, chill my friend. These kids were being ABUSED.

Also, I think it weakens your case when you propose violence upon ME to support your argument for RIGHTS.

[razors edge]

14. I'm chill as they get,

but I don't lump everyone into the guilty pen without evidence.

Guilt by association cool with you?

[cstanleytech]

21. For most cases you would be right on

however this is a pretty unique case because it does involve whats little more than a cult and whos practice appears to be marrying and forcing sex on minors, thats usually called rape BTW.
So yeah taking the kids while heartbreaking might actually have been the lesser of the two evils until they sort the mess out or atleast until they get the DNA gathered from who fathered who, then after they have that evidence arrest the men involved and release the children to their mothers.

[razors edge]

22. I wish I could make up law as I went along also,

Collective punishment, while expedient, is still a pretty fucked up and extremely steep slope to tread.

Anyone can say, as happened in this case, that some "ONE" has done something wrong, that does not justify tearing an entire peaceable people to shreds.

Taking the kids without proof of evil leaves only one evil in evidence, as the judges made clear.

I didn't post much about this situation when it happened, a lot of people did come out condemning these people because of their relationship to Warren Jeffs, we could round up all people with relationships to nut bag religious freaks, we may even stop a Jones Town, but it still lacks credibility and mimics that we hate most about the whole Gitmo issue.

Innocent until proven guilty. Ring any bells? I bet you had good seats to this show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHwlpScj7-A

I do give a damn about these kids, but not one, let me repeat that, NOT ONE has alleged abuse.

So go ahead and set that president with a bar so low it grazes the floor, just don't come back crying about how you were wrongfully persecuted by those who you gave the authority to do so in the first place.

Watch out what you ask for, you just might get it.

[The Stranger]

25. Removing the kids from the rape ranch isn't "collective punishment."

Get your fucking facts straight.

[aquart]

32. "Collective punishment"?

Wonder which site coined that term.

[cstanleytech]

26. Hey, this is not about punishment but

that there is pretty compelling evidence that they were abusing children at that time and leaving other children there even though they were not being abused at the time would have been neglectful of the states goal which was to protect the children.
Repeating for you again though so you have this clear, its not about punishment for the parents its about protecting those children.
Edit: for your part of saying "I do give a damn about these kids, but not one, let me repeat that, NOT ONE has alleged abuse."
Incase you were unaware of it, rape and especially rape of a minor is abuse.

[Trajan]

29. The facts reveal a criminality against children ....

Parents, AND society, have an obligation to defend children against sexual criminality ...

To present a Strawman, like apprehending children who do not go to church, as an analog for those children who have clearly been sexually violated at ages younger than 16, ... well ? ... that is NOT an apt analogy ....

I don't mind disagreeing with you on this .... Until the situation is completely evaluated and verified as SAFE for children to return, then the FLDS has no right to expect repatriation ....

Current violations of the law cannot be compared to violations of imaginary future laws ...

[razors edge]

15. Have you seen these people?

Would you send in the Marines to check out the situation, for the good of children, of course?



Members of one of Brazil's uncontacted indigenous tribes have been photographed in a protected area of the Amazon jungle near Peru. All pictures: Brazil National Indian Foundation (Funai)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/7426869.stm

Those who know whats best for us must rise and save us from ourselves.

A simple cold could wipe out the tribe, but if a logging company says they are abusing the kids, oh well, we gotta check it out, right?

Edit: I said maybe, I always hold out hope that people can become less judgmental when they know they are not intimate with the facts presented. WMDs ring a bell?

[beac]

16. Oh for crying out loud, now your just being ridiculous!

And AGAIN, I say that your wish to see me tazed for expressing my opinion negates anything else you have to say.

Gotta put you on "ignore" now. Bye!

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[uppityperson]

33. Hoping you realize Brazil is not part of the USA

:shrug: Invading other countries is not part of this equation.

[The Stranger]

24. This wasn't the "conservatives coming for your kids," on the contrary, it was the conservatives

raping kids by the dozen. And the state stepped in, including some "conservatives" who haven't yet lost their fucking mind to the religious cults so prevalent.

[agincourt]

3. Conservative judges at work nt

[Duke Newcombe]

4. More like the Constitution at work.

A government entity just can't decide that the Constitution is "just a damned piece of paper", and that they can take you family away without due process or reasonableness or "for the children". They actually have to do. their. jobs. correctly.

I can't understand how some folks on DU are selective about who can avail themselves of the U.S. Constitution's protections.


Duke

[roguevalley]

5. perhaps but I doubt 31 pregnant underaged girls would agree.

[WolverineDG]

7. Except there aren't 31 pregnant teens

sorry to burst your bubble, but even CPS now admits that they were adults....& one of them is 27.

dg

[Duke Newcombe]

8. 31? The government you trust with your rights can't even get THAT right.

The number was tentatively 23 as of 5/16, and I didn't even have to search long for this

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/05/16/polygamist.retreat.ap/index.html
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1808219,00.html?xid=feed-cnn-topics

Time:

(SAN ANGELO, Texas) — Child welfare officials have said in the opening days of individual custody hearings for members of a polygamist sect that at least eight mothers once held in state custody as minors were actually adults. One is 27.

The disclosures, which have dribbled out in hearings held across five courtrooms, brings the number of underage mothers in state custody to 23, eroding statistics state officials have cited to bolster their claims of widespread abuse. Other reclassifications are likely to follow as judges sort out family relationships in custody hearings scheduled to last three weeks.

Look, if the FLDS did in fact violate young women, then the Texas CPS can go through the steps that they have successfully initiated to remove children from the home that are in imminent harm. Noone, including yours truly has an issue with that. However the _wholesale_ removal and detention of ALL children (including some adults, as we're now seeing), the duplicity, and now the cover-your-ass behvior of Texas CPS disturbs me.

Duke

[TheMadMonk]

6. "For the sake of the children." Is another potent brand of Kool Aid.

And one that is palatable to those on both sides of the aisle.

[rpannier]

20. It's the last refuge of governments and those who would sign away your rights

We're doing it for the children.

Someone much smarter than me once said, "The only thing a government in a true democratic society should guarantee you is, that you are safe from the government itself. It does not guarantee you protection from other citizens or from yourself. If you want to be protected from your fellow man you will have to move to a more restrictive location. One where you don't fear your fellow man, but you do fear the government."

[tctctctc]

9. I agree with you..it's unconstitutional...

To go take their children away ...the only evidence is one anonymous phone call?

That's nuts!

[Duke Newcombe]

10. An anonymous FALSE phone call, from someone with a record of such things.

Yet, some here are completely okay with peoples children being taken away on this flimsy piece of "probable cause". Or perhaps, they're okay with THESE FOLKS' kids being taken away.

If it can happen to them, don't delude yourselves folks--it can just as easily be you next.

Duke

[cstanleytech]

28. Was the call the only thing they had?

Didn't they also have adults, women that is who had fled the commune and had gone to the authorities with their stories about abuse and the forced marriage of young girls?
Furthermore after they took the children didn't they discover that something like 15 to 17 of the underage girls from the community were pregnant?
I could maybe buy one or two due to the statistical odds of teen pregnancy but not 15 to 16.

[kestrel91316]

23. NOPE. The phone call was merely probable cause upon which to base the

original search of the ranch. Once there, the evidence was apparent to their very eyes. Pregnant minors and minors with children already born.

Oh, and last I heard, the order to return the kids only involved about 175 of them. The rest (over 200) are still not in dispute and being kept in state custody.

[Why Syzygy]

19. Technically. No.

Not only our children, but we ourselves belong wholly to the state. The big issue for the state in this case is not the "abuse". It's the fact that these children were undocumented. Probably many of the adults are too. They don't want a paper trail from the state office to their front door, and now that is exactly what they have. They do not want to be part of this society. I, for one, don't think they should have to. But I guess that isn't very practical.

I don't agree with their lifestyle. That's not the point. The state owns everyone born on this soil. We are actually governed by maritime law. When the DOCK delivers you, you've got to get your delivery papers. You are assigned a number and will be traced for the rest of your life if for no other reason than to extract the TAXES you owe by merit of being born. The collection arm of the FED, the IRS, will do their duty to the fullest extent of the law. They will leave you destitute if they get a chance. They don't care. You are cargo. You'll get your exit papers upon departure.

These children, and I assume some of the parents, have been DNA labeled, assigned social security numbers, and are WAY into the system. Their lives will be DIRECTLY, rather than indirectly, controlled by the state, probably forever. Or until another Waco. All they want is to be left alone. I am not for a minute defending their motive (polygamy), but I can certainly id with the sentiment.

[The Sushi Bandit]

11. So you can more of this??

These Children are not safe with these Adults!



Court sees pictures of Jeffs with his child brides
Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun
Published: Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Just how creepy is the jailed prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints? Judge for yourself after looking at these photos filed last week in a Texas courtroom as evidence that Warren Jeffs presides over a pervasive, systemic culture of abuse.

Child protection officials there say they have evidence that the one girl - Merrianne - was 12 when Jeffs married her in a religious ceremony at the Yearning for Zion ranch. The other girl - Loretta - was no more than 12, according to a family member.

Texas officials are trying to prove that they were justified in seizing more than 400 children from the ranch in April after receiving a phone call from 'Sarah' who purported to be a pregnant 16-year-old, who had already given birth to a child fathered by a man in his 50s.


Polygamist prophet Warren Jeffs with Marianne, one of his child brides, in photos entered as exhibits in U.S. District Court in Tom Green County, Texas, on May 23.

Before the photos were released, a Texas appeal court ruled that the state's child protection service had overstepped the law. In their ruling, two judges wrote that it had not presented any evidence that "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 under-age females having children."

The judges also ruled that the department hadn't established that the children at the ranch were in immediate danger or in urgent need of removal.

Jeffs was convicted in Utah last September on two counts of being an accomplice to the rape of 14-year-old Elissa Wall, who he forced to marry her 19-year-old, first cousin. Jeffs was sentenced to two consecutive terms of five years to life in Utah, but he is currently in an Arizona jail awaiting trial later this year or in early 2009 on similar charges relating to the marriages of under-aged girls to adult men.

[email protected]


Posted on Smoking gun yesterday

and this??

and this???

[greengestalt]

18. Child abuse = "Charge of witchcraft"

I've got issues with Mormons. Personally, I like the few I know, but as a group I'm really paranoid of them...


However, despite my misgivings I'm reminded of when I was a very little kid. In the early 70s. My parents were "Hippies" and some of my very early memories were in "Commune" like settings.

A lot of "Counterculture" types formed Communes, usually a "Get back to nature" thing. Except they were frequently busted up by the authorities going in, arresting everyone, breaking everything and harassing them. CoIntelPro, using local police. The pigs had a "Snitch" who'd anonymously call in a complaint or report and they'd burst in. Often they planted drugs when it turned out they WERE growing Lima beans, but when public opinion turned against them and the media started exposing this, they went to the next best thing; "Child abuse". Pictures of hippie kids getting dirty playing in the mud they could say "look at the parents, drugged out while their kids revert to beasts!" although what kid back then didn't get dirty playing? And frequent raids and taking children disrupted those places, for the women usually then forced their men to leave to avoid losing the kids permanently.

This pattern played a part in the genocide against "MOVE" ending in an early WACO style massacre. A lot of "Good Christians" cheered the burning of the "Communist Hippie N-ggers" on that day, but then had utter shock and horror about Waco.

And I remember this, not from studying history, but from what adults were talking about. I don't think I was in an official commune, but just a bunch of cheap homes in a university town being turned into an informal one.


I think the state of texas just decided they didn't like them. There's rumors they cheated on Welfare and called it "Bleeding the Beast", so perhaps there's more reason than just the "Reds under the beds" fear they had to attack communes.


The way the state uses force under some pretense with initial "Evidence" gained from a snitch reading a script is an abomination worse than that cult. And it is a modern equivalent to a "Witchcraft" trial. An accusation of horrible crime and if anyone disputes the charge, they become charged themselves.

[cstanleytech]

27. Yeah, its possible but I say let the investigation see what it

finds and then let a court decide, thats what the court is there for after all.
If they are unhappy with the ruling then they can appeal but to leave the kids where the state knows that there is a high probability that they could be abused/raped would be neglectful of the state.

[emad]

30. Polygamy is slavery. Hope the kids' legal rights are upheld.

District Judge Walther is doing a commendable job.

[fasttense]

34. I agree with you emad.

Polygamy is also illegal, the last I looked. Did they change the law?

If you were making meth in your family home with your children there. Your children would be removed from you. But raping little girls is A OK by Texas state law.

[emad]

31. Polygamist sect leader Jeffs faces DNA test over alleged sex attacks on girls

SNIP from today's Times:
Chris Ayres in Los Angeles

Criminal investigators in Texas have taken DNA samples from the jailed polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs in an attempt to prove that he sexually assaulted four girls at the compound where more than 450 children were seized by the state’s Department of Child Protective Services (CPS).
.................................

Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for the Texas Attorney General’s office, said that the DNA samples were taken on Thursday at an Arizona jail where Jeffs awaits trial on charges of being an accomplice to incest and sexual conduct.

He was sentenced previously to prison in Utah as an accomplice to rape in arranging a marriage between a 14-year-old and 19-year-old. Jeffs is considered a prophet by the FLDS, which separated from the mainstream Mormon faith in the 1930s when the latter banned multiple marriages.

Investigators believe that Jeffs may have sexually assaulted four girls at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in January 2004 and July 2006. They have wedding photos and church records indicating that he had spiritual unions — marriages recognised by the FLDS but not the law — with four girls ranging in age from 12 to 14, according to an affidavit filed by Denis Gilbert, an Arizona police officer. At least one girl conceived a child at 15, the affidavit says. Under Texas law girls younger than 16 cannot consent to sex or marriage. Photographs of Jeffs are hung throughout the school at the ranch and alongside pictures of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4036201.ece

[ravencalling]

35. Last time I checked...

Polygamy was illegal. So is raping children, and last time I checked, a child is not considered consensual.

So if it is the majority opinion that we should turn a blind eye, then I have a much better idea!!!!

I would like to start my own religious cult. I'll call it.. Jonesin for money. In this cult it is against my belief to pay government taxes. I won't bother anyone. I will run a closed society out of the mainstream. Honestly people will think I am quaint as I plan to dress prairie style and make my own bread. Braids are mandatory.

In addition to not paying taxes, it is my belief that males of my new holy order are nothing but fodder for manual labor, and should be put into servitude in order to support ruling class females. Those deemed worthy will be harvested for their sperm. Male children will be indoctrinated to support and worship the ruling class females. Ruling class females will be allowed as many male spiritual slaves as my recently discovered holy stones which only I ( cause I am the leader.. duh ) can interpret.

Other then that, my new cult will be unassuming, law abiding citizens. It's only a few laws we are breaking .. nothing to worry anyone about, no threat to society. Besides it is our religion!

And believe me when I say, that the males of this society WANT to be slaves! When we get through with the brainwashing.. they literally beg for it! :)