[Vision2020] Court: Texas Had No Right to Remove Polygamists' Children
Tom Hansen
thansen at moscow.com
Thu May 22 11:32:02 PDT 2008
>From CNN at:
http://tinyurl.com/3l24ce
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Court: Texas had no right to remove polygamists' children
SAN ANGELO, Texas (CNN) -- The state of Texas should not have removed the
more than 460 children it took from a polygamist sect's ranch, an appeals
court ruled Thursday.
In its ruling, the Texas 3rd District Court of Appeals decided in favor of
38 women who had appealed the removals, as well as a decision last month
by a district judge that the children will remain in state custody.
"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 three-judge panel said.
The state's Department of Family and Protective Services "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," the judges
ruled.
According to the ruling, the mothers said the state should have proved
that the children's health or safety was in danger; that there was "an
urgent need for protection" that required immediately separating the
children from their parents; and that the state made "reasonable efforts"
to avoid removing the children.
Because no such proof was presented, the mothers argued, the District
Court -- which backed the department's seizure of the children -- "was
required to return the children to their parents and abused its discretion
by failing to do so."
"The legislature has required that there be evidence to support a finding
that there is a danger to the physical health or safety of the children in
question and that the need for protection is urgent and warrants immediate
removal," the ruling said.
It concluded, "Evidence that children raised in this particular
environment may some day 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 prior to full litigation of the
issue."
The children were removed last month from the Yearning for Zion (YFZ)
Ranch in Eldorado, Texas, which is owned by the Fundamentalist Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Mormon offshoot that practices
polygamy.
The sect is linked to jailed "prophet" Warren Steed Jeffs.
Authorities raided the ranch after they received reports of child abuse.
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Seeya round town, Moscow.
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
"People who ridicule others while hiding behind anonymous monikers in chat-
room forums are neither brave nor clever."
- Latah County Sheriff Wayne Rausch (August 21,
2007)
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