April 17, 2008

• Texas judge holding custody hearing for polygamists’ kids

  Texas
  judge holding custody hearing for polygamists’ kids
  By MICHELLE ROBERTS
  
   

  The 416 children who
  once led cloistered lives on their church’s ranch outside a tiny town in
  West Texas have spent the past two weeks
  sleeping on cots, shuffled from shelter to shelter.

  On Thursday, a judge
  was to hear from their attorneys, along with attorneys for their parents and
  Child Protective Services, on whether the children ought to be returned to the
  ranch run by a polygamous sect or be placed in permanent foster
  care.

  “Our attorneys are
  going to take all the evidence we have and make a case for keeping the children
  in our care,” CPS spokeswoman Marissa Gonzales
  said.

  At least a dozen sect
  members wearing long, pioneer-style dresses quietly made their way to the
  courtroom early Thursday. Most of the women, accompanied by lawyers, looked down
  as they passed a throng of video cameras and news
  reporters.

  “I hope we can come up
  with a resolution where these child can be safe and happy,” Susan Hays, an
  attorney representing a 2-year-old girl in the case, said Thursday before the
  hearing. “It’s difficult when you have a case this
  large.”

  Tom Green County Judge
  Barbara Walther signed an emergency order nearly two weeks ago giving the state
  custody of the children after a 16-year-old girl called an abuse hot line
  claiming her husband, a 50-year-old member of the sect, beat and raped her. The
  girl has yet to be identified by investigators.

  Authorities raided the
  Eldorado ranch and spent a week collecting documents and disk drives that might
  provide evidence of underage girls being given to adult men in marriages by the
  Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which owns the
  ranch.

  The children, first
  taken to shelters in Eldorado, were later moved to a historic fort and then to a
  domed coliseum on the fairgrounds in San Angelo. All but 27 adolescent boys are
  staying in the coliseum and a nearby building; the teenage boys are at a boys
  ranch near Amarillo.

  If Walther gives CPS
  permanent custody of the children, the agency will begin looking for foster
  homes in a case that has already stretched the legal resources of this San Angelo and the state’s
  child welfare system.

  The custody case is
  one of the largest in U.S. history and involves children
  from six months to 17 years in age. Roughly 100 of the children are under age
  4.

  State officials
  contend the children were being physically and sexually abused or were in
  imminent danger of such abuse. In initial court filings, they said girls were
  forced into spiritual marriages – relationships ordained by the church but not
  legally recognized – with adult men and that boys were conditioned to be abusers
  as they grew up.

  FLDS members say the
  state is persecuting them for their faith and that their 1,700-acre Yearning for
  Zion Ranch, with its soaring white temple and log cabin-style houses, is simply
  a home isolated from a hostile and sinful world.

  They deny children
  were abused.

  “It’s the furthest
  thing away from what we do here,” said Dan, a sect member who spoke at the
  compound Wednesday but declined to give his last name because he fears how it
  will affect his children in state custody. “There’s nothing that’s more disliked
  and more trained against.”

  Attorneys for the
  parents were seen entering the compound Wednesday, and a parade of attorneys
  recruited by the state bar association was interviewing children at the shelter
  in advance of Thursday’s hearing.

  Typically, each child
  would be given a separate hearing, but given the number of cases, it’s likely
  the judge will have the state, the children’s attorneys and the parents’
  attorneys make consolidated presentations, at least initially, said Harper
  Estes, president-elect of the state bar.

  “You can’t go
  one-by-one,” Estes said.

  Walther’s courtroom is
  expected to be jammed with attorneys and parents, so a live video feed has been
  set up in nearby City Hall to allow the media and the public to watch the
  proceedings.

  If the judge gives the
  state permanent custody, CPS will have an enormous challenge in finding homes
  for the children in an already tight foster system.

  CPS has relied on
  volunteers to help feed the children, launder linens and provide crafts and
  games for them in a dorm-style setting for the past two weeks. But the agency
  will have to find stable homes and try to decipher sibling relationships that
  should be preserved if it gets permanent custody.

  Even identifying
  groups of siblings has been challenging so far.

  “There’s quite a lot
  of difficulty in identifying how many of these children are biologically related
  to one another. There’s a large number who are half-siblings,” Gonzales
  said.

  The children, who
  dress in pioneer-style clothes meant to emphasize modesty, have been raised in
  the insular FLDS community.

  The sect came to
  West Texas in 2003, relocating some members
  from the church’s traditional home along the Utah-Arizona state line. It traces
  its religious roots to the early theology of the mainstream Church of Jesus
  Christ of Latter-day Saints, which now denounces polygamy and excommunicates
  members found practicing it.

  Meanwhile, Texas
  Attorney General Greg Abbott said Thursday that FLDS members may face legal
  troubles other than abuse allegations and custody battles for their
  children.

  Abbott said FLDS
  mothers who have been defending their polygamous lifestyle in interviews this
  week may be subject to prosecution for bigamy.

  On ABC’s “Good Morning
  America,” he said the mothers, in nationally televised interviews Wednesday,
  “admitted to living in a state of bigamy.”

  “That also would be
  grounds for legal prosecution in the state of Texas,” he said.

  UPDATE:

  Hundreds of lawyers in Texas are studying the first piece of evidence
  that was supposed to be introduced at a court hearing. The hearing is
  aimed at deciding the fate of hundreds of children seized from a
  polygamist retreat.

  The demand to examine the evidence quickly
  caused a recess to be declared. The judge has decided to let the
  children’s attorneys read over the evidence and decide whether to
  object as a group or make individual objections.

  • 2:30 pm
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