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Texas Courts Lose Mind, Rule Removal Of FLDS Kids Unjustified
AngelHedgie
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Seriously, what's in the water down there?
The Texas Third District Court of Appeals overturned the ruling authorizing the removal of the children from the Yearning For Zion compound of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). To say this is stupid is an understatement.
For those of you who don't know, the FLDS is probably one of the largest and most well connected cults active in the US and Canada (one of their largest compounds, Bountiful, is located up in British Columbia, where memories of heavyhanded treatment of a sect in the past has helped stay government hands.) Their leader, Warren Jeffs, was on the FBI Top 10 Most Wanted up till his arrest several years ago - currently, he is serving time for several charges related to the FLDS's practice of child marriage. Furthermore, up till recently, the FLDS used communal control of property and subversion of governmental structures to enforce the control of the elders. There are so many issues with this group, it would take a thread to list them all - I would recommend the following posts and articles if you want to learn more:
So, why did the court rule that the removal of the children was unlawful? I think I'll let the decision speak for itself (emphasis mine):
Seriously, how blind do you have to be? The behaviors of the FLDS are well documented, both in the US and Canada. The leader of the cult is currently spending quality time in a US federal penitentiary because of his role in enforcing these mores. To make these claims, at least in my eyes, is to be blind to what is happening. I understand that Texas courts may be somewhat gunshy after Waco, but this sore of conduct is in fact what allowed the Branch Davidians to become a threat - the courts should not obtuse legal theory to turn a blind eye to what's happening.
The Texas Third District Court of Appeals overturned the ruling authorizing the removal of the children from the Yearning For Zion compound of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). To say this is stupid is an understatement.
For those of you who don't know, the FLDS is probably one of the largest and most well connected cults active in the US and Canada (one of their largest compounds, Bountiful, is located up in British Columbia, where memories of heavyhanded treatment of a sect in the past has helped stay government hands.) Their leader, Warren Jeffs, was on the FBI Top 10 Most Wanted up till his arrest several years ago - currently, he is serving time for several charges related to the FLDS's practice of child marriage. Furthermore, up till recently, the FLDS used communal control of property and subversion of governmental structures to enforce the control of the elders. There are so many issues with this group, it would take a thread to list them all - I would recommend the following posts and articles if you want to learn more:
- By Sara Robinson:
- The Third Strike
Well, Warren Jeffs finally got sent to prison. The sentence was two consecutive five-year terms -- which means he'll be paroled in seven, the way things usually go -- which hardly seems like enough for a guy who arranged for the statutory rape of dozens of adolescent girls, each of whom will be scarred for life by the choices he made on their behalf. But it's the first time in a long time that anybody in the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) has seen the inside of a jailhouse, and I suppose we should be grateful for a good start.
- Are FLDS Women Brainwashed?
Almost every feature of these women's lives is determined by someone else. They do not choose what they wear, whom they live with, when and whom they marry, or when and with whom they have sex. From the day they're born, they can be reassigned at a moment's notice to another father or husband, another household, or another community. Most will have no educational choices (FLDS kids are taught in church-run schools, usually only through about tenth grade -- by which point they girls are usually married and pregnant). Everything they produce goes into a trust controlled by the patriarch: they do not even own their own labor. If they object to any of this, they're subject to losing access to the resources they need to raise their kids: they can be moved to a trailer with no heat, and given less food than more compliant wives, until they learn to "keep sweet."
- The Secret Lives Of Saints
One of the most perceptive and tenacious reporters covering these developments as been Daphne Bramham of the Vancouver Sun...Bramham's focus has been on the remote 2500-member Bountiful compound just outside Creston, BC, which was founded in 1947 by Roy Blackmore and a group from one of Canada's largest historical Mormon settlements in Cardston, AB. Roy's son Winston Blackmore inherited the role of patriarch for the community until Warren Jeffs cheated him out of control in 2002.
- What We're Not Talking About, Part I - Other Issues With The FLDS
*How Dangerous Is The FLDS?One of the things we need to understand is just how the FLDS managed to stay so far under the radar for so long -- and what twisted consequences were allowed to follow from that lack of oversight. Bramham shows that they did a stunningly effective job of building their own self-sufficient infrastructure of community institutions -- hospitals, police forces, courts, financial trusts, schools, and employers -- that allowed the church to function without interacting with the outside world any more than necessary. Most of the group's institutions were designed to mimic and supplant outside authority well enough to keep the group (and especially its treatment of women and children) hidden from the prying eyes of outsiders. And, for 60 years, those who were responsible for providing higher-level oversight for all these institutions have almost always been somehow induced to look the other way.One of the trickiest parts of dealing with the extremist right is figuring out whether a given group is just harmless garden-variety crazy -- or harboring the special kind of insanity that will lead to acts of local violence or outright domestic terror.
It's a question worth asking in the wake of the state of Texas' intervention in the Eldorado colony of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints. As the country is thrust into a fresh debate over individual religious freedom versus our collective interest in protecting people's civil rights, we're struggling once again with the deeper question: When should we leave people alone? And when does the state have a public duty to intervene?
- The Third Strike
- By Daphne Bramham:
- The Secret World Of Polygamy
This massive report details the practices of the FLDS at Bountiful, and the repercussions thereof.
- The Secret World Of Polygamy
So, why did the court rule that the removal of the children was unlawful? I think I'll let the decision speak for itself (emphasis mine):
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....
Seriously, how blind do you have to be? The behaviors of the FLDS are well documented, both in the US and Canada. The leader of the cult is currently spending quality time in a US federal penitentiary because of his role in enforcing these mores. To make these claims, at least in my eyes, is to be blind to what is happening. I understand that Texas courts may be somewhat gunshy after Waco, but this sore of conduct is in fact what allowed the Branch Davidians to become a threat - the courts should not obtuse legal theory to turn a blind eye to what's happening.
XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
AngelHedgie on
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Furthermore, it's a legitimate point that what a religion teaches and what they practice often come apart. You're not going to have the female children of christians taken out of their homes because the bible tolerates rape and slavery.
Except that the conduct of the FLDS is well documented. That was what CPS was working on, not just the beliefs.
Obviously not. What the court is saying is that the "documentation" that was provided indicating why this raid happened was insufficient.
But their a cult full of crazy people is not a legal reason for a raid. You need hard evidence of wrong doing.
-Terry Pratchett
This is Texas though.
Sadly this is true. If the impetus for the raid is doesn't pass the legal mustard, than the results found in said raid are not submittible in court, irreguardless of any wrong doing uncovered.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
The impetus was a phone call allegeing abuse and then they physically saw pregnant teenagers. I was under the impression that if cops pull you over for a broken tail light and your puffing on a crack pipe they can arrest you, how's this different?
-Terry Pratchett
Alternatively: They could just kill the snitch and pretend it was staged.
But the calls were to 911, surely they were recorded. The police have to respond to that shit, even if it is a prank.
-Terry Pratchett
Lawyer would probably just say it was a conspiracy to get an excuse to raid or something.
Honestly, they probably just didn't want to deal with the logistics. Save it for later when there are 1,600 children to deal with.
I don't think it works that way, otherwise anonymous tips would be useless information because anyone could declare them to be a set up. If true it sets up horrible precedents for domestic and child abuse cases, where such calls are what often bring in the authorities
-Terry Pratchett
Are these judges assigned by election?
When one child is being abused you don't leave the others in the home. You take them all out. This community was a threat.
-Terry Pratchett
There were no pregnant 14 year-olds. The state's investigation has yet to turn anything up about pregnant minors. Or even about minors being married off. That whole thing stemmed from what CPS agents thought were young women (based off of looks, not any ID's).
My thoughts on this whole thing are, the courts were right to make this ruling. CPS was incredibly heavy-handed in removing all of the children from the YFZ compound (community? living-area? commune?). Was there probably abuse somewhere in the YFZ compound? Yes. Whenever you have 500+ people living together, odds are that someone is bound to be a bad parent. However, I doubt that even a majority of the children there were abused at all. I'm guessing it'd be a small percentage. In any case, splitting up every family in the YFZ community wasn't necessary.
Which leads me to another point. The fact that mothers have to travel hours upon hours just to see their children is completely fucked. CPS didn't even make a suitable effort to kids in the same family together.
I may not agree with the YFZ ideals at all, but they weren't hurting anyone. No one has found any evidence of minors being married off or impregnated.
Actually, the wiki article has a lot of good resources on this whole thing. Take it for what it's worth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YFZ_Ranch
From what I've read and heard in the news Texas CPS has yet to find any evidence of pregnant teenagers. They thought they had one minor who was pregnant, but it turned out that she never was.
Fair enough, if that's the case I can see how this happened. Weren't they haveing trouble verifying the children's ages as well?
-Terry Pratchett
Yeah. Agents had to just pull "minors" out on gut-feeling. So, a lot of people were mis-identified during the raid. They didn't want to leave any minors behind, so if they felt like someone might be under 18, they'd grab them anyhow.
I mean, I understand that CPS wants to keep children from being abused, but they went about this whole thing in the worst possible way. It really smacks of persecution because they don't like what these people stand for. I admit that I'm not a fan, but these people were within their rights, and they weren't violent or dangerous people.
Well I could see the initial removal, there was certainly probable cause, but if they never found any confirmed cases within a few days then I can see where this ruling comes from
-Terry Pratchett
if part of that crazy cult's practices involve marrying teenager off to cousins?
Yeah it does
Please, do us all a favor and read up on the FLDS. Then tell me that they're being persecuted.
I've often wondered about this with regards to the lost boys. I mean they basically just throw these boys out on their butts with no support. Seems like at the age of 14-15 they just abandon these boys for any excuse. You'd think that would be illegal.
-Terry Pratchett
Unfortunately, because abusive behavior is part of majority culture, outlawing it is extremely difficult.
I know why Warren Jeffs is in jail. I can also read. But, the fact remains that there has been no evidence found of any wrong-doing at the YFZ ranch. The whole situation makes the Texas government look like they're just trying to stomp these people out. I hope that isn't true, but the heavy-handedness and complete disregard for human decency by the Texas CPS is alarming.
Like I've said, I don't agree with what the YFZ ranch stands for, but they aren't doing anything illegal. No one has found pregnant or married minors, and I'm guessing by this court ruling that there hasn't been any evidence of widespread abuse.
I mean, if you aren't doing it legally, then legally you aren't actually married to begin with....
Well, these people stem from a branch of Mormonism that allows bigamy, which is being legally married to someone, and then marrying another person on top of that. It's illegal in Texas as far as I know. But I'm not sure what kind of relevance is being placed on that in relation to this, or whether the state of Texas really gives a crap about it. There hasn't really been much word on it from what I've seen.
I dunno man. I don't even have a serious girlfriend, let alone two wives.
Because for a LONG time in the longer established communities, the FLDS controlled the local government apparatus.
Okay, so the government agents that were FLDS broke the law. But how is that happening now?
They get spiritually married. They are married by the church just not officially. This also allows the pregnant "single" mothers to go on welfare
-Terry Pratchett
Actually, I saw Larry King's interview with some YFZ people tonight. He brought up the point of how a lot of polygamist families will do that, and asked if any of them had gone on welfare. They said that they didn't know of anyone who had. I can't say if it's true or not, but apparently the YFZ ranch is completely self-sufficient, so I can't see much need for them to go onto welfare.
How is that different from two kids in kindergarten declaring "Okay we are married now let's go play with frogs!" is what I don't get.
As for the second part, we clearly need better welfare scam laws.
Articles I've read and interviews with that one woman who left Warren Jeffs community stated that they do this. I'd find some documentation but I'm about to turn in. I can see them stopping the practice though because it would make it really easy to see something was going on by looking at the % of your compound on welfare.
-Terry Pratchett
This is also true with many immigrant communities and other forms of ghettoization.
Well, this was YFZ people talking about their own compound in particular. I'm guessing that they really don't want to be on welfare because they want to keep the government out of their lives as much as they can. I'm thinking they don't want to go on welfare for reasons other than what most people would expect.
You DO know that the Amish require their young folk to spend a year in the world at large to even become a full adult member, and then the person has to willfully choose to do so, right?