I thought the State of Texas was wrong from the beginning to seperate these families out-of-hand the way they did. It is a good day for children in Texas...

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the state offered "legally and factually insufficient" grounds for the "extreme" measure of removing all children from the ranch, from babies to teenagers.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24777095/

Your link isn't working for me (but bear in mind my computer sucks hairy ones). That said, I haven't followed this story much since the raid. Now I feel that what was going on at that ranch was pure evil, not to mention illegal as hell, and I'd bet that you feel similarly, so please fill me in on the details of what the state did that was detrimental to the children? Obviously I'm missing some details here.

[The link works for me... -Tal]

SAN ANGELO, Texas - In a ruling that could torpedo the case against the West Texas polygamist sect, a state appeals court Thursday said authorities had no right to seize more than 440 children in a raid on the splinter group's ranch last month.

It was unclear how many children were affected by the ruling. The state took 464 children into custody in April, but Thursday's ruling directly applied to the children of 48 sect mothers represented by the Texas Rio Grande Legal Aide, said Cynthia Martinez of the agency. About 200 parents are involved in the polygamy case.

The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the state offered "legally and factually insufficient" grounds for the "extreme" measure of removing all children from the ranch, from babies to teenagers.


This is essentially what the court found in the case:

The state 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, the appeals court said. It also failed to show evidence that more than five of the teenage girls were being sexually abused, and never alleged any sexual or physical abuse against the other children, the court said.

It was not immediately clear whether the children scattered across foster facilities statewide might soon be reunited with parents. The ruling gave Texas District Judge Barbara Walther 10 days to vacate her custody order, and the state could appeal...The appeals court said the state was wrong to consider the entire ranch as an individual household and that the state could not take all the children from a community on the notion that some parents in the community might be abusers.

"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 court said in its ruling.

The court said that although five girls had become pregnant at age 15 or 16, the state gave no evidence about the circumstances of the pregnancies. It noted that minors as young as 16 can wed in Texas with parental consent, and even younger children can marry if a court approves it.

Balovich said the appeals court "has stood up for the legal rights of these families and given these mothers hope that their families will be brought back together."


It seems the state cannot rip familles apart because it disagrees with their religious practices.

I don't see what this has to do with the childrens' rights. The mothers' and potentially fathers' rights, sure, but preserving the childrens' 'right' to a safe and healthy upbringing is what at issue in this entire case. Both sides are claiming they are serving that right.

I can imagine that you probably don't like Nancy Grace much, but what she said last night on this topic struck home with me. I think those kids are in very real danger of emotional and sexual abuse, and a former FLDS woman who says she "escaped" (and don't let the quotes fool you, I myself firmly believe she escaped, but I want to emphasize that I think she escaped) says that the physical abuse, coupled with the isolation and degradation experienced by the females in the compound, is heinous.

I would say that the judges made a mistake here, but perhaps they were not presented with sufficient data. If that is the case, it's a sad day for those kids.

Sounds more to me like they didn't have much evidence. But hey, if Nancy says she has the "scoop" on all those parents, then maybe she has something the courts haven't taken into consideration - like TV ratings and commercial sponsors....

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.



Yes, that inspires confindence in the state.

nancy grace is SUCH an idiot! just look at her statements about the duke lacrosse players & you will never take anything she says seriously again. like chandos says(dang, there i go agreeing with him, AGAIN!) i don't have a lot of confidence in the state when they start meddling in the welfare of families.yes, i know that some of the kids were in trouble but this was akin to throwing the baby out with the bathwater! remember, one of the biggest lies of all times is : we're from the goverment & we're here to help. :)

Hey, I take offense to that! I'm from the government, a state government even, and I DO help people! Of course, I mess up a lot of people to, but only when they're breaking the law!

And I see alot of people messing with other people either because they think they know things they actually don't, or more often just because they're lazy. Ok, I take it back, I'm not so much insulted by your statement as sullied by my work place. And they don't even pay well.

I do not understand how so many people have a "we and them" relation to the government. Most of live in democracies but even if you don't the government is made up of people. The state and the government is all of us and everything they do they do in our name, we are the government it isn't some malevolent faceless machine. The only difference is that the government generally and hopefully have some clue as to what they are doing and why which is a whole lot more than I can say about most individuals. In any conflict between an individual and the government I am prone to side with the government for hte simple reason that it is much more likely that the individual is a complete moron than the government is in the wrong. This is not to say that the government is always right, far from it but only that it is or at least supposed to be an extension of us all and at least my government and bureaucracy has earned the benefit of my doubt in any situation. Individuals are very very often idiots while there are bound to be some reasonable people in any government agency.

joacqin, my poor lad, you have obviously never dealt with a large govt bureaucracy. they have no mind or sense, it simply follows rules set done even if they make no sense what so ever. government knowing what they are doing? yeah, thats why in the state of norht carolina when you get home owners insurance, by state law, you have to purchase outbuilding insurance even if you don't have an outbuilding! There are thousands of examples out there joacqin. the govt has mutated into a huge self serving mechanism & does what it will come h#!! or high water.

p.s. what i(& i think others) are trying to say are that we like our government but we don't trust the mechanisms that it uses. i think that sums it up.

joacqin,

There are bound to be both reasonable people and idiots in both the general population and in government agencies (including both elected officials and non-elected government employees). The problem is that if normal people do something stupid, they only screw up their own lives and maybe a few others. They pay the price for their own stupidity. When government does something stupid, it screws up for everybody. And everybody, except government, pays the price. Which means government doesn't have to think before it acts. And often doesn't.

Remember the old adage, The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Well, the road to Hell on Earth is paved with other peoples' good intentions.

Even when government is elected, I don't trust it to be omniscient, omnipotent or for that matter omnibenevolent. But I do trust government to see me and my life as nothing but convenient means to government's aims.

I am NOT prone to side with government against the individual, for the simple reason that I have too often seen government trample all over individuals for whatever lofty goal government was pleased to call "The Common Good".

@martaug: By the way, it was Ronald Reagan who said that: The nine scariest words in the English language are, "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help!" :)

any large burocracy is inherrantly a rules-bound, inflexible mechanism, even if it is composed of the wisest and kindest people on Earth. The big problem with government, though, is that their rules are generally formed by commities, and they generally are NOT filled with the wisest and kindest people out there.

On the other hand, I would like to remind everyone that it is also the state that decided to send the children back. The DoCFS is only one section of the government, and the judicial branch is another.

"I'm from the government, and I'm here to help!"

Isn't that an Oxymoron?