Posted on 05/23/2008 9:33:55 AM PDT by deport
AUSTIN – Texas Child Protective Services will ask the state's highest court to keep a polygamist sect's children in state custody, following a Thursday appeals court ruling that ordered the youngsters be returned to their homes.
Texas Supreme Court spokesman Osler McCarthy said attorneys for the state called Friday morning and said they'd be "filing an action in this court" later in the day.
On Thursday, a state appeals court ordered many though perhaps not all of a polygamist sect's children returned to their parents Thursday, saying Texas failed to prove they were in physical jeopardy and urgently needed to be separated from their families.
The mere existence of a belief system that may condone polygamy and "spiritual marriages" involving underage girls is not by itself enough evidence to justify the removal of some 460 children from the sect's ranch, said a three-judge panel of the Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals.
In their unanimous opinion, Republican judges Kenneth Law, Robert Pemberton and Alan Waldrop said Child Protective Services had to show every individual child was at imminent risk of physical harm and simply had to be swept into foster care. CPS instead offered only sketchy evidence to a trial court last month — and none about whether it explored less intrusive ways of protecting kids, the judges said.
CPS was tight-lipped about its plans late Thursday.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
From the get go I suspected there was something not right about this entire episode. Looks like the Courts after looking at the evidence CPS has agrees.
CPS everywhere has become Gestapo-like in their abuse of power. They have insufficient oversight and way too much state power to abuse.
They deserve to be slapped down HARD, and I hope they are.
I am not an FLDS supporter, by the way. I AM a strong supporter of due process and citizens’ constitutional rights.
I would expect an expedited ruling here.
What? CPS really will have to obey the law? Boy that's gonna pizz `em off. < /sar >
Wait till this thing gets to the point of attempting to prosecute people based on the DNA evidence that have taken. Hoo-boy, the State prosecutors are gonna get steamed.
Good. I’m glad they’re constesting this. The police are very often reversed by ideologically-biased courts on child-custody cases - because of course, it’s not the judge that has to go and pick up the beaten body of the child whom he has returned to the parents. The judges get off scot-free and are never held responsible for their bad decisions.
The child, of course, is left completely without defense, but that doesn’t bother the courts.
I would expect an expedited ruling here.
The article alludes as much in that they expect if the court decides to hear the appeal it will be done to minimise the time impacting the children...... And it should be quickly no matter the outcome. This entire process needs to be done within the laws.
What do they mean by Republican judges? They ran for political office as Republican candidates? They were appointed by a Republican? They are registered Republicans? I didn't know following the law is a political occupation.
They ran for political office as Republican candidates?
You got it...... They may have been appointed to the court at first but the must run for election and the race is partisan.
First of all, there's a major difference between "child-custody cases", which are usually disputes between divorcing parents or other relatives, and child endangerment/abuse cases. I will grant that there are ideologically-driven superior court judges that take one side or the other in custody cases (you can have pro-mother judges and pro-father judges, neither is right, they ought to be applying the law), but I don't get where an ideology would come into the endangerment cases. Nobody in the court system is "for" child abuse. Nobody.
The endangerment cases don't originate with the police as a general rule, but with the child protective services. That bureacracy is like any other bureacracy -- once established its primary purpose becomes to perpetuate itself. Too many hacks exploit the system to keep themselves in a regular paycheck, and the system also attracts those who like to exercise power over others.
My own personal observation is that the child protective folks love a high-profile media case. Usually it's more along the lines of a middle class family getting enmeshed in the system through a vengeful neighbor, but this Texas case is just a bonanza for the publicity seekers within the department.
I'm inclined to think that the appeals court is trying to do their job -- child services can't just snatch children away en masse on the basis of rumor, anonymous calls, and evidence that one or two children have been abused. The problem is not so much whether or not there actually IS abuse in this particular case -- just like it isn't the question of whether a warrantless search actually uncovered some contraband. The problem is whether the state is allowed to uncover misdeeds in violation of the Constitution -- because if they're allowed to do it just because their targets are guilty, then the innocent are their next targets.
These folks may be nutty, have some kooky ideas about sex and marriage, they may even be criminal (although as the appeals court observed there's been no actual hard evidence of that yet.) But the State must follow the rules -- otherwise it becomes a police state, and you or I might become the next victims.
Judges here run on a special non-partisan ballot. There's some legal dispute going on right now about just how political their campaigns can be, and what issues they can raise, but as a general rule judicial campaigns are low key and interest only the lawyers.
I’ve posted very little on the FDLS threads, but I’ve followed the case. The parallels to the Duke Lacrosse Frame are striking. That case I am quite familiar with and for which I keep the ping list here on Free Republic.
We found out in the Duke case that nothing in the newspapers and on television and on cable could be believed. The DA, the Durham cops and the Duke U administration FRAMED the three students and tried to lynch them.
That “authorities” will lie in legal proceedings is not arguable. And the self-appointed “watchdogs” of the press are too damn dumb to figure it out.
Judges here run on a special non-partisan ballot.
Well where ever here is it isn’t in Texas. They have a party primary and then a general election. You’ll see LP and I guess sometimes other 3rd party types with a candidate although I can’t name you one nor remember one.
Well said, AAM.
“CPS everywhere has become Gestapo-like in their abuse of power. They have insufficient oversight and way too much state power to abuse.”
I agree with you there. I do not agree with the FLDS church and I feel that they are breaking the law. I feel that they should have put the MEN in jail and not taken the women and children.
I’m not sure how they could have legally put the men in jail. Can you enlighten me?
susie
The contested judicial election, if there is one, shows up in the primary. The nonpartisan ballot is attached to the back of both party ballots.
Except that in THIS case there is ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE that ANY of the children were being abused. All they have is a phone call by SOMEONE who has not been identified. Read the appellate court judge’s ruling.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2020157/posts?page=20#20
CPS screwed the pooch royally on this one in several areas and far overstepped their boundaries just because they didn’t like what they THOUGHT the FLDS’s belief system was. They treated ALL the families the same even though they weren’t living under the same roof.
If they can do this to one religious group, what is there to stop them from deciding that another group’s opposition to abortion and homosexuality is too far removed from “normal beliefs” and the children should be taken away from every member of that church?
Yes, judges OUGHT to be non-partisan, but in truth, are any of them?
Being put in foster care also harms the child. So each time a child is falsely put in foster care, it is the state that has abused them.
So, how do you know how many kids needed to be put in foster care, vs how many should have been left with their parents?
There’s a study that’s been posted that shows that 63 kids in foster care had some terrible things happen to them, death, rape, stuff like that.
Now, how many kids the CPS decided to leave in the homes later died or suffered abuse? Was it 63?
How many innocent families do we need to break up, how many innocent’s children to we need to traumatize, in order to save an additional child who IS being abused?
This isn’t a simple choice. Those who support the CPS often pretend that putting a kid in foster care is a zero-harm move, that allows things to remain unchanged while the investigations are made.
In fact, taking a child from parents and putting them in the foster care system can cause irrepairable damage. There are risks in NOT acting, but there are risks in ACTING.
So we better make certain that we choose correctly. Each bad choice, either to take the kid or to leave the kid, can harm the child.
I hope that isn’t considered controversial.
Now, I’ll say something that IS controversial.
There are 4 logical possibilities:
1) Don’t seize kid, no abuse
2) Don’t seize kid, abuse was happening
3) Seize kid, abuse was happening
4) Seize kid, NO abuse was happening
The best case is 1: We don’t take the kid, and he wasn’t being abused.
The second best case is not 2, but rather 3: We take the kid, and it turns out the kid WAS being abused, so while foster care isn’t perfect, it’s better than being abused.
The 3rd best case is not 4, but 2: We don’t seize the kid, and he’s being abused. Why do I say this? Because:
In case 4, we took a kid who had NO abuse, and we ABUSED him. And we did it using the power of the state.
In case 2, we allowed a kid who was ALREADY being abused to suffer FURTHER abuse.
And yes, I’m saying that if a kid has already been abused, he is already damaged. And allowing MORE damage to an already damaged kid is NOT as bad as inflicting the ORIGINAL damage on a kid who was not being abused to begin with.
I’d rather have half the kids being abused continually, than have half abused up to point A, and the other half abused after point A.
Therefore, it is very important that CPS only take kids if there is a pretty good probability of abuse already happening.
BTW, the Texas state law is written more to weigh 2 worse than 4, but ONLY for a brief time — 2 weeks. In other words, for 2 weeks CPS only has to have a vague notion that there is abuse, and they can take the kids. The state has decided that two weeks of separation for an innocent family isn’t all that much harm.
But after 2 weeks, the kid goes back, unless the CPS has specific evidence that the child is in IMMEDIATE DANGER from abuse if they go back, AND the CPS shows there was no way short of foster care to protect the child.
In other words, with the 2-week time period, the state agrees with me that 4 is worse than 2, and that it is the STATE that must show convincing evidence of harm, or else we give the kids back.
There is a subtext behind most of the pro-CPS posting here at FR. That subtext is a strong belief in the veracity of an ex-FLDS woman who is now trying to sell a book about how bad FLDS is.
This FLDS compound was in the news before the kids were taken, and there were threads on the subject in February of this year for example.
If you believe the ex-FLDS woman, you would be strongly predisposed to support the CPS, because you would believe that the FLDS parents were pure evil. You probably were already on record blaming CPS for not acting to save the children. You already were ready to hang the leadership, and to throw the men in jail.
Those who have been more critical of the CPS are much more likely to not have believed the ex-FLDS woman, or to not have followed that aspect of the case.
There are bad judges (I've appeared before a few) but the vast majority are trying to do right. At least in Georgia, the judicial ethics code requires them to stay the heck out of partisan politics.
I would say it is easier to categorize judges as trending liberal (pro-plaintiff, pro-criminal defendant) or trending conservative (pro-defendant, pro-prosecution) than supporting a particular political party. But even then there are surprises -- the battle lines in the legal world aren't drawn in the same places as in the political world. For example, an appellate judge who has sat on the trial court bench will usually try to back the trial court's decision, whether it was 'liberal' or 'conservative'. I don't know these Texas appellate judges, but it is an unusual thing for an appellate court to tell a trial court that it was wrong on a matter such as this, involving discretion. Usually appellate courts bend over backwards to affirm a trial court's exercise of discretion.
Your logic is missing a branch - the parts where the kids a siezed, and abused under CPS care.
If you run the baysian probabilities, that changes your conclusions completely.
The lost boys, thrown out of US sect so that older men can marry more wives
Doesn't surprise me that somebody who left this group is campaigning against them - especially if trying to sell a book.
“I feel that they should have put the MEN in jail and not taken the women and children.”
The basis for the order things happened is that complaints were handed to CPS, who investigated to see if the children were safe or not.
Then, they (allegedly) got the evidence during those search warrants that could prove there were crimes, and who to arrest. The DNA testing is still being analyzed, last I heard.
While the custody thing plays out, we are still waiting to see what evidence and what arrests come out of this.
Or if none do.
They could have all the evidence in the world, and, as others have stated, if it’s not done legally, it won’t matter, and we won’t even know what it was.
It is possible, even if there are trials for the ‘guilty’ that we won’t be privy to all the evidence.
Another ‘law’ that protects the rights of minors.
I didn’t know we were gonna have a math quiz.
I woulda studied if I’d a known.
Signed ‘Complete Idiot’ (soon to be promoted to Major)
I’ll tell you what’s wrong with AAM’s long-winded diatribe...
.....
..... uh...I got nothing.
(What does diatribe even mean?)
A= abused. NA = not
S= siezed, NS = not
1. A>S>A (common - kid no better off)
2. A>S>NA (Only reason for CPS)
3. A>NS>A (sad)
4. A>NS>NA (scared straight?)
5. NA>S>A (revenge?)
6. NA>S>NA (sad, but kid ok)
7. NA>NS>NA (no case)
8. NA>NS>A (unpredictible)
I'll be happy to.
They could have convened a Grand Jury, presented some evidence, given the Accused an opportunity to testify during those proceedings, and then attempted to get an Indictment.
If they secure an Indictment, then the authorities can go make arrests.
It's a pretty simple procedure actually. It's written down in a dusty, little used Document called the US Constitution.
Really...you can look it up.
L
“They ran for political office as Republican candidates?”
Jane: No. How?
Joe: Real Fast!
So if a muslim leaves his/her religion and rights a book about it, we should discount it because they may have an axe to grind?
“6. NA>S>NA (sad, but kid ok)”
Kid may not be ok. The tiny ones can be terribly traumatized by being separated from their mothers. Some of them may suffer ill effects from this for the rest of their lives.
Uh . . . something you disagree with?
< g > ;-)
I thought Charles point was that these things occurred at other FLDS sect locations, and not necessarily in Texas.
Sure there are the LOST BOYS, but did they come from Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Mexico, or Canada?
There's a lot more evidence regarding islam around than there is regarding this particular sect, of course.
Very well said, AnAmericanMother.
I just hope that the Texas SC takes this very quickly, and slaps CPS down hard.
Oh, so now it’s algebra and boolean logic.
I shoulda known. More tests.
The SC should take this quickly. In my home state, there are "expedited" appeals and "emergency" appeals -- the expedited appeals go to the front of the line, and the emergency appeals are the midnight telephone call to the judge at home.
Hopefully they will have an "emergency" fast track to deal with this in a matter of days.
” They could have convened a Grand Jury, presented some evidence, given the Accused an opportunity to testify during those proceedings, and then attempted to get an Indictment.
If they secure an Indictment, then the authorities can go make arrests.”
Uh...How long would that take? Just an estimate.
You are, of course, correct.
Stop doing that to me today.
LOL
I’m sorry. I’ve been obnoxious like that since I was in grade school. My husband says I must have been one of those little girls who sat in the front row, with my hand always waving in the air, saying “I know. I know. Choose me.”
He’s right.
Funniest post of the day.
The only way to learn more is when somebody has the courage to leave and tell others about it.
I also firmly believe that a lot of the people who are screaming about what CPS did would be cheering if the people were muslim.
My husband tells me the same thing. Thank goodness he's a very easygoing and patient man.
"Now be quiet, and let some of the other kids have a turn."
I think women like us have to marry easygoing and patient men. Otherwise, we’d kill each other.
I'm not for CPS, I'm not for FLDS.
I'm for the rule of law.
It's like the St. Thomas More character says in "A Man for All Seasons" - after you cut down all the laws in England, how will you stand against the wind that will blow then?
LOLOLOL
ibidinum. et tu, magister?
LOLOL
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