Posted on 04/23/2008 12:02:27 PM PDT by Politicalmom
SAN ANGELO — Lawyers from across the state will return to a courtroom here this afternoon to voice their dissatisfaction over foster care placements of their child clients, the children of a polygamist sect who have been in state custody for nearly three weeks.
''A lot of attorneys have very specific concerns,'' said Guy Choate, a San Angelo attorney who is speaking for hundreds of volunteer lawyers who have been assigned to represent the children's interests.
The attorneys were caught off-guard Tuesday when 114 of the 437 children who had been staying in San Angelo public buildings were put on buses and transported to group homes and emergency child shelters around the state.
The lawyers sought a delay in further foster placements so they could review the 15 facilities selected to house the children. They also are raising concerns about mothers being separated from their nursing babies and some sibling groups being separated.
The attorneys will appear before state District Judge Barbara Walther, who yesterday ordered that the 437 children seized from their parents be placed in foster care once each child underwent DNA testing.
The group of children transported by bus Tuesday ranged in age from 5 to 17.
Authorities raided the Eldorado-area compound of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on April 3 after receiving an abuse report. Child welfare officials sought custody of all of the children, alleging that the sect's practices of marrying underage girls to older men put them at risk.
Judge Walther ordered all children and adults who lived at the Yearning for Zion Ranch to be fingerprinted and photographed and to submit to DNA testing in an effort to untangle family relationships.
On Tuesday, 54 men and women living at the ranch submitted to tests at a public building in Eldorado. Child welfare officials said testing was completed Tuesday night of all of the children and adults staying at the San Angelo Coliseum.
More than 100 adults are believed to be on the ranch. It's not clear what will happen if some of them don't show up for testing.
A spokeswoman for the Texas Attorney General's Office acknowledged that authorities have no complete list of the adult followers of the FLDS church in Eldorado.
''We can guess, but we don't have a name of every parent for every child,'' said Janece Rolfe. She said noncompliance by parents could result in jail time or the permanent severing of parental ties.
''They jeopardize their ability to have their children returned,'' Rolfe said.
Of course, parents who fear the tests could indicate that underage sex occurred might be inclined to forgo it just the same, Lynn Kamin, a family law attorney in Houston, said this week.
''I think it's naïve to think everyone's going to submit to DNA tests when everyone's been giving different names every time an official asks a question,'' said Kamin, who is not involved in the case.
Rolfe noted that parents, ''or individuals who assert themselves to be parents," must submit to testing.
But she added that, at this stage, ''we're not going to force them to do it.''
lsandberg@express-news.net
Wrong.
The original phone calls have not been proved to be fake, and had no obvious errors.
The Colorado calls are a diferent matter entirely. No connection has been proven between the two sets.
Wasn’t Jeffs charged and convicted of being an accessory to rape for presiding over the “marriage” of 14 year old Elisa Fall to her 19 year old half-cousin?
Honestly,
I’ve fostered before, and in the case of these kids, the quicker they get into one solid, consistant setting the better. Like ripping off a bandage, slow change is still change continuing.
That was one of many charges.
Speaking of Waco,
have you read the interviews and auto-biographies of the survivors or former members? Especially the girls?
“Wasn’t Jeffs charged and convicted of being an accessory to rape for presiding over the “marriage” of 14 year old Elisa Fall to her 19 year old half-cousin?”
Yes, and I think that a lot of people are under the impression that this is a little cult bust where we really don’t know much, but that we had a lot of wild imaginings that may be causing a lot of pain on relative innocents.
The more that people realize that there isn’t as much mystery about this cult as they think, and that we have been trying to stop their abuses for decades, then the more people will become interested in what is being accomplished, and less obsessed their own wild imaginings about Texas attacking innocent families.
Warren jeffs is not the only member convicted so far, or the only one presently facing trial.
“PHOENIX, Arizona (AP) — Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs was handed over to Arizona authorities Tuesday to face sex charges stemming from the arranged marriages of two teenage girls to older relatives.
Warren Jeffs, shown during his Utah trial, faces another trial on charges of arranging marriages to child brides.
He already has been convicted in Utah in connection with one of those cases, involving a 14-year-old girl.”
“Now it’s our turn,” Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said. “I hope the message is very simple: the law applies to everybody, whether they’re the head of a large religious group, or somebody who’s not. It’s a crime to abuse children, and there are no exceptions.”
“Jeffs, 52, is charged as an accomplice with four counts of incest and four counts of sexual contact with a minor in an indictment.
The Arizona charges stem from the arranged marriage of a man in his early 50s to a 17-year-old relative and another between a 19-year-old man and his 14-year-old cousin.
Jeffs was convicted last year in Utah of rape as an accomplice in the latter case, but Arizona prosecutors say that doesn’t preclude them from bringing charges here.”
Oh, I understand now. You’re not only an expert on Constitutional law, but now you’re also Miss Cleo, gazing into the crystal ball and divining what people are thinking. We are just SO honored.
Ya know Mz Cleo is in jail? Seems her mind readin’ wasn’t that great.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2005898/posts We will find out eventually.
That’s the post she’s referring too (in post 18)
To you know why the girls husband was not prosecuted? Her 19 year old half cousin?
As of December 23rd he was still awaiting trial.
By Nancy Perkins
Deseret Morning News
ST. GEORGE — A 5th District Court judge agreed to postpone a hearing scheduled Thursday in St. George in the upcoming trial of an FLDS man accused of raping his ex-wife.
Allen Glade Steed was charged with a single count of rape, a first-degree felony, one day after he testified on behalf of Fundamentalist LDS Church leader Warren Jeffs. Steed was 19 years old when he was informed he would marry his 14-year-old cousin, Elissa Wall.
Arranged or placement marriages are part of the FLDS culture. Faithful FLDS members practice plural marriage as a central tenant of their faith.
It was Wall’s testimony that jurors said they found most convincing when they convicted Jeffs of two counts of rape as an accomplice for his role in marrying the couple and counseling them to multiply and replenish the earth.
Wall testified she did not want to marry Steed and that he raped her about three weeks after the wedding ceremony took place at a Nevada motel.
Steed’s testimony centered on his belief that he tried hard to be a good husband to Wall and that he never forced himself on his young bride.
Steed’s Salt Lake attorney, Jim Bradshaw, said a new court date would likely be scheduled in mid-March. Bradshaw said he is still waiting for Washington County prosecutors to respond to his motions for discovery.
I think one of the problems they are going to have with prosecuting him is that the Jeffs trial was rife with cards and letters from the girl professing her love.
Swinton was arrested April 16 at her Colorado Springs home on suspicion of false reporting to authorities in connection with similar claims made in February.
That day, Texas Rangers questioned her about the phone calls leading to the April 4 raid at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado, where 416 children were removed and placed into state custody following allegations of abuse.
I will take your word for it. It seems counter-productive to me, but I am no expert and did not stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night.
If they knew what was going on, it sounds like they had probable cause long ago. In that case, they should have gone in before now. If not, this sounds like the fake phone call led to a fishing expidition that resulted in finding something. I suppose it all comes down to what they knew and when they knew it. (I hope it does not happen as it did in the OJ case, where the zeal of the police led them to overstep and manufacture evidence, blowing their whole case.)
Until today, and I still haven’t seen the actual affidavit, there was no proven connection.
I don’t think they’ll have to manufacture anything. Just the current nutritional status and mental accuity of the kids is pretty damning. Delayed development in every direction.
Oh, and no one being really sure of ages, parentage etc.
Then there will be the DNA sorting out. And honestly, I’d love to be part of the group that works it all out. When you have so many children who’ve been moved around so much, I wonder if anyone anywhere knows who belongs to whom so DNA will be the only way to match them up....and determine ages of mothers at time of birth of their child.
Plus the lost boys.
Plus the welfare fraud.
They have all they need and then some.
We will just have to see if he gets away with it or not. It is pretty hard to argue about the dates and the ages, and Jeffs has already been convicted for the same “marriage” that the husband is being tried for.
The victim’s sister has already won custody for her own children from the Canadian branch so the cult is suffering some setbacks.
“I think one of the problems they are going to have with prosecuting him is that the Jeffs trial was rife with cards and letters from the girl professing her love.”
Jeffs and the rape victim’s husband that testified for him lost, so the “wife’s” letters could not mean much.
Since you are making me do so much leg work for you, where did you get that detailed testimony?
I would like to have access to it also, thanks.
Group plans to protest Jazz game due to FLDS situation
April 23rd, 2008 @ 12:35pm
(AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Tom Callan reporting
Sympathies for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint families in Texas are now reverberating beyond the courtroom and into the arena.
Some Utah supporters of the FLDS families are calling for the cancellation of the next two playoff games between the Utah Jazz and the Houston Rockets.
Salt Lake City attorney Bob Breeze is calling for a protest rally tomorrow night and Saturday outside the EnergySolutions Arena. He says this is the perfect opportunity to get nationwide media coverage on the civil rights violations being committed in Texas.
Breeze is asking local FLDS supporters to show up at the hotel rooms of the Rockets' players. "We're working on a plan to have a number of the polygamist women go and have a meeting with the team players," he said.
He says he will provide the paint to make your own protest signs.
E-mail: tcallan@ksl.com
ROTFL...Breeze is asking local FLDS supporters to show up at the hotel rooms of the Rockets' players. "We're working on a plan to have a number of the polygamist women go and have a meeting with the team players,"
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