Posted on 05/22/2008 10:46:31 AM PDT by ElkGroveDan
SAN ANGELO, Texas - A state appellate court has ruled that child welfare officials had no right to seize more than 400 children living at a polygamist sect's ranch.
The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the grounds for removing the children were "legally and factually insufficient" under Texas law. They did not immediately order the return of the children.
Child welfare officials removed the children on the grounds that the sect pushed underage girls into marriage and sex and trained boys to become future perpetrators.
The appellate court ruled the chaotic hearing held last month did not demonstrate the children were in any immediate danger, the only measure of taking children from their homes without court proceedings.
The only danger was of an overreaching government sticking their noses in where they are not wanted.
In before gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands!
The mob will not be pleased.
But five minutes ago would have been ok?
L
That’s just an AP thing that I inadvertantly copied.
FYI
I just got your screenname....clever....:-)
The state has found zero abuse or otherwise the appeals court would have ruled otherwise. The warrant should have ended the second they found out that the call was fake.
Oh, my.
Heh. If it hadn’t been “legally and factually insufficient” how would you tell it had been performed by CPS?
I got excoriated by quite a few people here when I suggested that just blindly taking all of these children away from their mothers was unjust.
Pass the popcorn, this should be good.
They got to release those kids back to their parents.
“child welfare officials had no right to seize more than 400 children...”
Damn right they didn’t! They will deserve every lawsuit that’ll come out of this.
Militant
No sweat, the CPS will just round them up and bus them back to the ranch, right?
Judges: CPS improperly removed FLDS children
By Chuck Lindell | Thursday, May 22, 2008, 12:32 PM
A Texas agency improperly removed more than 450 children from a polygamist ranch in West Texas, an Austin appeals court ruled today.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services failed to prove that children at the YFZ Ranch were in danger and needed to be removed from their homes, the 3rd Texas Court of Appeals ruled.
In addition, the appellate court ruled that District Judge Barbara Walther abused her discretion by failing to return the children after three days of hearings last month.
“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 state law, the court opinion states.
yeah I know, was just teasing you.
I see the appeals court didn’t order a return yet. So it seems the appeal ruling hangs on the definition of what “immediate” is.
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