Texas To Reunite 12 Kids With Sect Parents
Families Will Be Supervised While Court Considers Appeal Of A Ruling That The State Had No Right To Take The Children
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Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints mothers smile as they leave the Tom Green County courthouse after hearing news of a court ruling in their favor in San Angelo, Texas, Thursday, May 22, 2008. An Austin, Texas, appeals court ruled that the state had no cause to take their children. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
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Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints mothers hug after the news of a court ruling in their favor in San Angelo, Texas, Thursday, May 22, 2008. An Austin, Texas appeals court ruled that the state had no cause to take their children. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
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Mother from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints walks past a sheriff deputy on the steps of the Tom Green County courthouse during the fourth day of custody hearings near San Angelo, Texas, Thursday, May 22, 2008. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
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Willie Jessop, right, and Rod Parker head to the front gate at the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' Yearning for Zion ranch near Eldorado, Texas, Wednesday, May 21, 2008. Church members turned away Child Protective Services caseworkers and sheriff deputies that wanted to enter the ranch to search for more children. The authorities did not have a search warrant to enter the property and left without entering. (AP Photo/LM Otero) (AP PHOTO)
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Play CBS Video Video Polygamist Families Reunited A dozen children removed from a polygamist ranch in Texas have been reunited with their parents amidst allegations of child abuse and underage marriages within the compound. Hari Sreenivasan reports.
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Video YFZ Representative Speaks Out Jeff Glor speaks with Will Jessop, spokesman for the controversial polygamist YFZ ranch, who says that his children were unfairly taken away from him by Texas state officials.
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Video Polygamists Get Big Court Win An appeals court ruled Texas officials did not prove the children of a polygamist sect were in immediate danger. Hari Sreenivasan reports.
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Photo Essay Separation Anxiety Some mothers in polygamist sect separated from children as part of abuse investigation.
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Photo Essay Polygamist Compound Raid Secret calls from alleged abuse victim lead to raid of religious sect's compound.
Teresa Kelly, a spokeswoman for the parents' lawyer, says Child Protective Services agreed on Friday to allow the parents to live with their children in the San Antonio area under state supervision.
Texas child welfare authorities asked the state Supreme Court Friday to block a stinging appellate court ruling that they had no right to round up more than 440 children from a polygamist sect's ranch.
Child Protective Services also asked the high court to allow it to keep the other children in foster-care facilities around the state while justices consider their appeal.
"This case is about adult men commanding sex from underage children; about 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," the state agency said in its appeal.
The filings Friday come one day after the Third Court of Appeals in Austin said the state failed to show the children were in any immediate danger when they were rounded up last month.
Some court-appointed attorneys for the children are in a holding pattern, reports CBS News correspondent Hari Sreenivasan. Susan Hayes, who represents a 2-year-old, says she is not worried about abuse if the child is returned.
"I have not seen anything about my client, and there are a lot of ad litems that have seen nothing about their particular clients and their families," she said.
On Thursday, the Third Court of Appeals in Austin ordered a lower-court judge to rescind her decision giving the state custody of more than 100 of the children. The appellate court said state law allows children to be taken without court order only when they are in immediate physical danger, and that only five children at the ranch have apparently been abused.
The ruling technically applies only to the 38 mothers who filed the complaint, but it was broad enough to cover nearly every child swept up in the April raid on the Eldorado ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
CPS said the appellate court overstepped in its ruling because the lower court had discretion in the custody case.
In the appeal, CPS cited as "documented" sexual abuse a statement from a girl who said she knew a 16-year-old who is married with a 5-month-old baby; and a statement from another girl that "Uncle Merrill" decides who and when she will marry. The state also cited five underage pregnant girls.
The agency also said it can't return 124 children to the mothers who filed the complaint against the state because the agency can't sort out which children belong to which parent.
State-ordered DNA test results are not expected back for at least another week, the agency said.
"The department is not in a position to properly identify the correct mothers or fathers at this time," CPS said in its appeal.
The agency accused parents of being uncooperative and not providing proper identification - though in dozens of individual custody hearings this week, parents provided state-issued birth certificates. Other sect members mistakenly believed to be minors also provided drivers' licenses as proof of their age.
The state conceded this week that at least 15 of the 31 mothers they held in foster care as minors were actually adults; one is 27.
FLDS spokesman Rod Parker said the CPS appeal was no surprise "although one would hope that at some point they would realize the futility."
The parents were prepared for extended legal wrangling, he said.
"They're hopeful to get on with their lives, but in reality, they understand," he said.
The FLDS, which teaches that polygamy brings glorification in heaven, denies allegations by child-welfare officials that church officials pressure girls into underage spiritual marriages with older men.
The Third Court of Appeals said the state acted hastily - especially with regard to the boys and younger girls who were removed. Half the youngsters taken from the ranch were 5 or younger.
"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 ... there is no evidence that this danger is 'immediate' or 'urgent,"' the court said.
"Evidence that children raised in this particular environment may someday have their physical health and safety threatened is not evidence that the danger is imminent enough to warrant invoking the extreme measure of immediate removal," the court said.
The children were taken into custody more than six weeks ago after someone called a hot line claiming to be a pregnant, abused teenage wife. The girl has not been found and authorities are investigating whether the calls were a hoax.
Five judges in San Angelo, about 40 miles north of Eldorado, had been holding hearings on what the parents must do to regain custody when the appellate decision was issued. Those hearings were suspended after the ruling Thursday.
The youngsters are in foster homes all over the sprawling state, with some brothers or sisters separated by as much as 600 miles.
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Michelle Obama tells how her role as the First Lady has changed her perspective.
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See all 134 Comments"It was no secret that a polygamist sect that built a compound in the West Texas desert believed in marrying off underage girls to older men. And the sheriff had an informant for four years who was feeding him information about life inside the sect."
Now, the stated reason for removing all the children was because everyone on the ranch knew what was going on inside the ranch and everyone had the opportunity to stop the child abuse, but did not. Apparently, this knowledge includes the local sheriff. Why didn''t the sheriff or CPS come to these children''s rescue long before the "phone call."
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Yes it was. Thank you.
"dallas morning news''
Posted by kamsack50 at 08:18 PM : May 23, 2008
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No one was required to own slaves but America decided it was wrong to force someone to live a lifestyle they did not choose. This is no different. Girls born and raised with restrictions on education, freedom of thought, no access to outside information and no freedom to come and go are no better then slaves were. They are brainwashed to except a life they have no control over.
This in itself is child abuse.
Was there polygamy, underage brides etc. etc? Not in this raid. Do I believe in the FDLS theology? No, I think it''s strange and alien.
These women and children, who previously lived in individual homes, in a productive community seem now to be homeless. Did these teenaged brides bring this on themselves? No.
I hope this country is more than advocates of burning up children and women. I had hoped we had progressed a little beyond that. The CPS system apparently should be reigned in just a little.
This seemed to be a well thought out raid in some areas, in others it has limped along like a wounded pup.
Give these "poor sad teens" some of the sects money and land so they can become productive and model citizens like the rest of us. Allow these abused women to return to some sort of normalcy.
These women "the very ones who have allegedly already been abused" are further being abused within a system who have threatened these women with arrest if they waved to friends.
This is justice?
The raid was supposed to be exlusive for the young teenagers at risk.
Texas did a massive raid since this cult doesn''t have birth certificates, marriage licences... or any of the legal documents REQUIRED" by law, which we all have to obey.
To add to the chaos, there are other sects of this cult in other states, where the teenagers have been "reassigned", thus to the massive search.
This is the result of years and years of letting these people get away with ilegal actions. Period.
The law is the law...
Agreed, state of Texas has massively made a big mess and chaos out of this... but I guess it''s not easy to undo so many years, so many children born that have become adults of who knows which parents and figure out all the way back.. and how old are these children since there are no legal documents to stipulate it.
As usual, children pay for the parents mistakes... it happens every single day in our lives... this is no different.
How about the young boys that are thrown out of the cult to maintain a "balance" in proportion for so many wives to each husband... where are their rights???
Easy to judge from the comfort of your home... but this is serious
Posted by Gaye5
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Exactly right. Centuries of experience. Whether or not the discussion of other ways of doing things is bad or not, the results in 2008 show wanton violence, children having children (or getting caught in the bathroom wearing a condom because they think it''s okay), wearing crude t-shirts in school and thinking nobody would get upset... people saying it''s nobody''s business and then parading everything and demanding attention... it''s hard to condone much when our modern, near-anarchic society is the result.
Indeed, some glbt magazines even talk about if the community is "ready" for "marriage". (while the article was from ~5 years ago, nothing''s changed since then. Few want it because "wham bam thanks, now go get tested for diseases, my 50th friend with benefits" what is the majority. One reason of many why I escaped the phony style; it''s morally wrong.)
So has America done away with one wife one man as well???.
Wow, this opens the door to all sorts of relationships, after all it is better for a woman to have two or three husbands than it is for a man to have three or more wives, as she can keep up with them se''''xually but most men cant keep up with 3 or 4 wives, and besides imagine the money coming into the house girls.. we could live like a Queen... each man would be trying for our attention.
Of course I am joking but this is so, why not three homosexuals a lesbian a bisexual man and a bisexual woman all getting married and expecting the same laws to include them as a hetrosexual marriage, well why not you are pushing for gay marriages under the guise of they love each other and the law is discriminating if we dont let them, so why not many wives or many husbands etc..
Stupid, yes... but do away with one law and were do you stop..laws are made through logic and centuries of experience.
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We have no civil rights today, thanks to the current administration. It scares the he*ll out of me and if we were not retirees, we would be leaving American behind.
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