Texan authorities had no right to remove more than 400 children from a polygamist sect’s ranch, the state’s appeals court has ruled.
By Tom Leonard in New York
The ruling, which followed an appeal by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), could scupper one of the biggest child custody cases in US history.
The court decided that the state had not provided sufficient grounds for the “extreme” measure of removing all children, from babies to teenagers, from the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado.
The sect’s children – the girls, like their mothers, wearing old-fashioned prairie dresses – were removed en masse by police during a raid that began on April 3.
It was prompted by anonymous phone calls to a domestic abuse hotline from a girl claiming to be a pregnant abused teenage wife. The girl has not been found and authorities are investigating whether the calls were a hoax.
According to the appeals court, the Texas authorities never provided evidence that the children were in any immediate danger, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court approval.
Officials also failed to provide any evidence that teenage girls were being sexually abused and never alleged any sexual or physical abuse against the other children, the court said.
The children are scattered around various foster homes and it was not immediately clear how long it would take to reunite them with their families.
Child protection officials have claimed that the sect pushed underage girls into marriage and sex, while grooming boys to become adult perpetrators.
However, the appeal court said in its ruling: “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 also said the state was wrong to consider the entire ranch as an individual household and that any abuse claims could apply only to individual households.
The authorities have 10 days to comply with the ruling.
The FLDS, which teaches that polygamy brings glorification in heaven, is a splinter of the Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago. Members claim they are being persecuted by state officials for their religious beliefs.
5 responses so far ↓
wil // May 23, 2008 at 10:47 pm
It was a practice run for the California homeschoolers.
Mom of 2 // May 24, 2008 at 12:51 pm
These kids need to be put with families who wont molest them and force them to marry at 15-16, thats sick and each and everyone of these parents need to be put in jail. Its not a way of like having more then 1 wife, it never has been, one nasty pervert back in 18something started it isn’t how life was its wasn’t and still isn’t how life is was. These people are doing something wrong moraly, and Ethecly wrong. These kids need a chance at a real healthy life as kids not as workers and young parents to keep a cult alive.
Judy // May 24, 2008 at 1:13 pm
I hope CPS continue there watchfull eye on these kids they need to keep the gates unlocked.
If these teens want to leave they should be able to remove them selfs and there kids with out running. Obvioulsy there all kept captive.
THey need random house checks on these kids and i think cps should be able to attend there so call weddings making sure there noot under age 18. It makes no sence how any normal citzen would be looked into in this manner but there playing there relegious card and trying to get away with it, being a nasty pervert raping small children isn’t how it used to be. Like the above psoter said it wasn’t how life was, its something 1 man did that united the rest of the pedofiles to make a cult to hold woman captive young force them to marrye them and make them have kids. Its not different the case witht he man who held his daughter captive in the basement forcing her to have many kids with him, one is to say if he would have have sex with the kids he had with his daughter no one will know he got caught and look he is charged and in jail and these men and woman get there kids back after forcing them to marry young anf have kids young, no actual hospital what the heck. there being treated different cause there a religous group Um no there not Mormons don’t allow that no more they havent for years, there should be a law about starting so called relgious groups. no basis in the bible states this is ok. So there group is fraudulant and not ethecly right or moraly right to continue whats gonna happen is some one will end up continuing this makign more raid s int he feature, also i see threats made to these people and even bomb threats from people outraged about tese cult people. This needs to end with kids in loving homes where they can be kids not slave workers.
Robert L. Rice // May 30, 2008 at 6:04 am
Kids are America’s most precious and most at-risk citizens. With drugs and peer pressure facing them on a daily basis, it’s no wonder that mental illness and drug abuse is at an all time high. Problems facing American children.
dctommy // July 14, 2008 at 3:39 am
This is a horrible example of one group trying to force its views on another right here in America. The original phone call was found to be a fraud from a known insane woman in another state. The trauma which was inflicted on these families is far worse than the way of life that these folks have chosen. Historically and in most parts of the world, polygamy has been more the preferred lifestyle than the American nuclear family. It was also practiced by many prominent characters in the Bible. In a modern world where families so often are disrupted by infidelities and children are ripped away from much loved parents, the nuclear family hardly seems to be a more successful model. With a 50% divorce rate and loads of children living with a single parent: it is a rarity to find the stability, commitment, and continuity that these children enjoyed until their life was abruptly interrupted. Many people prefer to keep their kids out of the public schools and home schooling is on the rise in America. with all the drugs and guns that go to school in our big cities its easy to understand why this so-called sect prefers to keep their children safely away from these dangers in a more protected, close-to-the-earth, way of life. The draconian approach to justice implemented in this tragedy reminds me of The Crucible. This famous book by Arthur Miller, covers the story women who were falsely condemned as witches during the early history of our country. America is about choice: and the FREEDOM to choose what will work best for us. The state needs to make a clear distinction between protecting children in a reasonable manner, and becoming the sledgehammer which forces the views of one group onto another.