Judge Ponders Fate Of Polygamist Sect Kids

(CBS/AP)  The judge and lawyers involved in one of the biggest child-custody cases in U.S. history struggled Monday with the legal and logistical morass of deciding the fate of 416 children seized by Texas authorities in a raid at a polygamist sect.

"Quite frankly, I'm not sure what we're going to do," Texas District Judge Barbara Walther said after a conference that included three to four dozen attorneys either representing or hoping to represent youngsters taken two weeks ago from the Eldorado ranch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a renegade Mormon sect.

The turmoil and confusion deepened Monday when the children were taken by bus under heavy security out of the historic Fort Concho where they had been staying to the San Angelo Coliseum, which holds nearly 5,000 people and is used for hockey games, rodeos and concerts. Authorities ordered the move after some of the youngsters' mothers complained to Gov. Rick Perry that the children were getting sick in the crowded fort.

About 20 children had a mild case of chicken pox, said Dr. Sandra Guerra-Cantu with the state Health Department.

Perry spokesman Robert Black said the governor did not believe the children were being housed in poor conditions at the fort. "Let's be honest here, this is not the Ritz," Black said, but he called the accommodations "clean and neat."

The courtroom conference was held to work out the ground rules for a court hearing beginning Thursday on the fate of the children. The state is accusing the sect of physically and sexually abusing the youngsters and wants to strip their parents of custody and place the children in foster care or put them up for adoption.

The judge made no immediate decisions on how the hearing will be carried out. Among the questions left unanswered: Would a courtroom big enough hold everyone be available at the Tom Green County Courthouse, or would some kind of video link be employed?

Texas bar officials said more than 350 lawyers from across the state have volunteered to represent the children free of charge. Moreover, the 139 mothers who voluntarily left the sect to be with their children may hire lawyers, too, to help them fight for custody.

The sheer numbers left the judge perplexed as she considered suggestions from the lawyers for how to handle Thursday's hearing.

"It would seem inefficient to have a witness testify 416 times," the judge offered. "If I gave everybody five minutes, that would be 70 hours."

In an unintended illustration of the problem, Walther gave the lawyers 30 minutes to break into groups and report back to her with ideas. It took almost two hours for everyone to reassemble.

The raid April 3 followed a call to a domestic violence hot line from a 16-year-old girl who said she was beaten and raped by her 50-year-old husband.

In addition to becoming a monumental legal morass, the case is proving to be a public-relations headache for the state.

Over the weekend, some of the mothers went on the offensive, complaining the children are falling ill and are frightened and traumatized from living in cramped conditions at the fort, with cots, cribs and playpens lined up side by side.

The secretive nature of the sect - and the indoctrination children receive from birth to mistrust outsiders - have added to the confusion.

Randoll Stout, one of the lawyers who plan to represent some of the children, said the youngsters "seem to change their names. Adults change their names. Children are passed around."

Lawyers said the state told the mothers that if they leave the shelters where their children are being held, they will not be let back in. Griselda Paz of Legal Aid of Northwest Texas said she had never seen such restrictions in 20 years of legal work.

"By isolating them, by not letting them talk to their lawyers or giving them the choice between leaving their children and being able to talk to lawyers and prepare for this hearing, they feel that that's unfair," said Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City lawyer who has represented the FLDS and some of its members in civil and criminal cases. "And of course they are out of their element, they're frightened of all those things."

Betty Balli Torres, executive director of the Texas Access to Justice Foundation, said it is vital that the mothers be represented by lawyers. Otherwise, they could lose their children - "what we call kind of the death penalty of family law cases."

She said 10 women went into the San Angelo legal aid office last week seeking help and reported there were 100 more women who needed lawyers. Attorneys began meeting with the women over the weekend.

A church lawyer, Rod Parker, said the 60 or so men remaining on the 1,700-acre ranch have offered to leave the compound if the state would allow the women and children to return to the place with child welfare monitors. But the state Children's Protective Services agency said it had not yet seen the offer and had no comment on it.

The sect practices polygamy in arranged marriages between underage girls and older men. The group has thousands of followers in two side-by-side towns in Arizona and Utah. The sect's prophet and spiritual leader, Warren Jeffs, is in prison for forcing an underage age into a marriage in Utah.

[brattysoul]

sevenveils wrote:
%u201CA college education for these children%u2026out of the question.%u201D
%u201Ccrimes%u2026 will probably be unveiled%u201D
%u201Cwith incomes below the median level and many women and children to support%u2026not afford%u2026ranch in Texas%u201D
%u201Cthese Fundamental Later Day Saints%u2026receiving financial support%u2026outside%u2026their own private Idaho.
--------
The YFZ ranch has a cement plant, cheese making plant & other forms of income
-Obviously not living on state help.
Just like the Amish they prefer to remain apart from the worldly society and raise their children in their faith--the Constitution allows freedom of religion.
The one thing that they have to do is follow the law and that is the only thing that must be ''enforced''. Going in like they were the Branch-Davidian cult was outrageous and unnecessary!
There was NO investigation done which is the way ALL accusations are handled! CPS went straight to law enforcement and created insanity causing the law to react like storm troopers all because people hate the FLDS lifestyle & Faith. The police should have investigated allegations of rape%u2013their job not CPS%u2014They put Warren Jeffs in jail.
Those children have no been exposed to a world they would have never known and quite frankly didn''t HAVE to know--So when are we going to take away Amish children for being removed from worldly ways and not going to College?
Tell us WHY they MUST belong to the world?

[iseeihear]

"Children should not know fear, or death, or suffering, for it is not their lot to know. Theirs is a time for joy, and wonder, and a time of great discovery. Let them never despair, or hurt, or want. This should be our highest calling, and our most sincere dedication."
SearingTruth
posted by Humanavance

I think that this is kind of funny because all around us everywhere there is killing, their is pain, their is hurt. Our children are exposed to this everyday in everything they do from what they watch to what they play. When saying this it''s kind of like saying cut them off from the world and teach them what we belive which is exactly what the FLDS has done.

[lovingmomfou]

The FLDS are not alone, Americas families are being persecuted by abusive, power hungry, money hungry, family courts who have no interest in the "best interests of the child" that they claim. Follow the federal dollars to see why this is happening. Go to fightcps.com or americanfamilyrightsassociation.com to read more. Some previously abused social workers think they are doing the right thing, but actually perpetuating abuse themselves. The worst abuse occurs in foster care. Once these kids are drugged, and raped in foster homes, I''m sure they will come out better. At least they won''t be conservatively dressed, quiet, Christians anymore. A warrant would issue for the persons to be seized, this looked like a huge fishing expedition to me. How can young boys be grabbed when the allegation was a teenage girl being abused? Arrest the 50 year old man, if he exists and question the teen girls. I hope they can prove someone really made that call. Sorry, I just don''t trust those lying social wreckers.

[jehovahwtnss]

As usual, impersonal american officialdom never knows when to stop does it?

[tse5]

The sad truth is; we will save them from "what" to "what"? The police have already commented that they were extremely well behavied, polite and respectful. Now that we have got them out of that horrible situation, we can emmerse them into the proper invironment where the odds will tell, in just a few short years they will be overweight, unhealthy, angry children and will join a gang somewhere. At that point we will be satisfied enough to leave them alone.

[iseeihear]

I feel this was an unconstitutional act and should be stopped.
Sadandhurt:"I am neither ignorant of the doctrine nor think i am better.. lets think about the law of moses... it was put in the bible for the "time" that it was needed... Then came the new law... Jews still practice the Law of Moses but those who don''''t but whos ancestors did are not "jews" correct???"

The law of moses was given because the people where unable to live the higher laws Jesus taught. The laws didn''t change they where upgraded this new law called the new and everlasting law I would think is everlasting. The Mormons did teach it but said they stopped when they signed the manifesto. This group of people have decided not to give it up and have lived it for a number of years in peace I feel that if the government wanted to hurt them they hit a low by taking the children from their parents if you did somthing you grew up doing and had your most precious thing taken you would feel hurt.

[wlmrtpatriot]

Public hysteria only exists on the internet sites. Most people see this for what it really is and hope the best for these people. The best for these people will be decided by lawyers.

[sevenveils]

Obvious the laws first act is to determine the parentage of the children. This information can identify parentage, and relationships of the pedophiles and polygamists. This will prove/disprove the majority of the children are not related to the adults in this compound as they were taken (chosen is too kind of a word)from their parents for the premium processing treatment.

With national test standards being required from even home schooled children it will be interesting to discover what the average level of education is in the FDLS population. A college education for these children growing up isolated from the real world seems out of the question.

Illegal gangster like crimes including money laundering and other illegal means will probably be unveiled as these people with incomes below the median level and many women and children to support could not afford the ranch in Texas, much less the various other villages in other states.

All these Fundamental Later Day Saints are receiving financial support from outside of their own private Idaho.

All ILLUSIONS OF GRANDEUR!

[isnogod-2009]

It is shocking to realize that there are many states with known compounds and villages where polygamy, child abuse, manipulation of the welfare system and religious brainwashing has been an everyday occurrence for decades; and until now, not one branch of federal, state or local police have bothered to enforce the laws written to protect individuals from blatant acts against human rights as well as federal and state laws. Why is only now that a conscience has awakened and realized that religon should never be guise for criminal acts? By churches or cults embracing and or hiding their abuses they become organized crime in a religious front. Isn''''''''t there a whole Federal Office whose job it is to fight interstate organized crime, money laundering, kidnapping and slavery? The FDLS is guilty of of these criminal acts and more. - yongamerica

When it comes to crimes committed by the Catholics and Mormons the law seems to be blind. It''s time these churches and others are recognized as corporations bent on making a profit at the expense of their customers. Kind of like the oil companies.

[cpaide]

yes, let''s brainwash the morman''s children and make them like everyone else. in a few years time, may they can be shooting their classmates like everyone else in america.