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Polygamist sect
June 2, 2008
First sect family leaves Austin shelter
Following this morning’s court order to reunite families from the YFZ Ranch, a mother and child left the Austin Children’s Shelter around 12:30 p.m.
Though the shelter was shielded by three large blue tarps erected this morning by CPS staff, the mother could be seen leaving the house wearing a light blue dress as she smiled and waived to reporters.
A car with Arizona license plates arrived at the shelter just before noon and left with mother and child about a half-hour later.
Gena VanOsselaer, executive director of the Austin Children’s Shelter, said about 21 sect members stayed at the shelter, including seven mothers who were 18 to 21 years old. The mothers cared for their children well, and shelter staff did not see any signs of abuse, she said.
“They’re all looking forward to some stability,” VanOsselaer said of the children.
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Judge allows all sect children to go home
District Judge Barbara Walther this morning ordered that every child seized from the Yearning for Zion Ranch be returned to their parents.
Parents can pick up their children from foster homes across Texas beginning at 10 a.m. today, though it may take up to a day before families are reunited.
“CPS has told us that they need 24 hours’ notice to prepare for the situation,” said Cynthia Martinez with Texas RioGrande Legal Services, which represents many of the polygamist sect’s mothers.
“We are working with the department to get things ready as soon as possible,” Martinez said.
Walther’s order (see it here) comes with several strings attached:
Before picking up their children, parents must submit fingerprints, be photographed and fill out paperwork listing contact information.
In coming weeks, parents must successfully complete parenting classes as determined by Child Protective Services.
Parents must provide current addresses for every child, and open their homes for unannounced visits from CPS caseworkers between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. every day. Parents also must list every adult living in the same residence as a child.
Parents must notify CPS at least seven days before changing residences, or within 24 hours of an emergency move. CPS must have 48-hour notice of any travel beyond 100 miles from the home.
No child can leave Texas without court approval.
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May 29, 2008
Court: Polygamist sect's children must go home
Child Protective Services should not have seized more than 450 children from the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado, the Texas Supreme Court ruled Thursday, moving families from the polygamist sect a large step closer to reunification.
The almost unanimous decision — three judges filed a separate opinion disagreeing with part of the ruling — is a blow to CPS efforts to keep the children in foster care.
CPS removed the children in April, alleging that the brand of polygamy practiced at the West Texas ranch meant that underage girls are groomed to become brides, and sex partners, to much older men.
“Removal of the children was not warranted,” the court opinion states.
Supreme Court justices brushed aside CPS objections that reunited families would flee to towns in Arizona and Utah where the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a breakaway Mormon sect that owns the ranch, is based.
The trial court can make orders “for the safety and welfare of the child” — including restricting sect families from leaving Texas, the court said.
Last week, the Third Court of Appeals ordered more than 120 children, seized in April from the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado, to be returned to 38 mothers who had filed the appeal. CPS failed to prove that the sect’s children were in immediate danger, as required by law, the Austin-based appeals court ruled.
CPS lawyers responded by asking the Supreme Court to void the ruling and issue an emergency stay delaying the family reunions.
The Supreme Court justices never acted on the emergency stay. Instead, on Wednesday afternoon they told the mothers’ lawyers to file a reply brief by 9 a.m. today — a tight deadline that signaled the court’s intention to make a quick ruling.
The state’s highest civil court made its ruling without hearing oral arguments.
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Latest brief supports CPS, blasts court
A leading Texas lawyer specializing in child abuse cases has submitted a Texas Supreme Court brief supporting the seizure of the YFZ Ranch children.
The 3rd Court of Appeals, which ordered many of the polygamist sect children to be returned to their parents, misapplied state law and should be reversed, writes Barbara Elias-Perciful, a Dallas lawyer and incoming chair of the Texas State Bar Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect.
“Other children will be left unprotected in light of the appellate court’s shocking precedent to completely substitute its judgment for the trial court’s judgment, ” Elias-Perciful told the state’s highest civil court.
Other points:
“This case involves the systematic rape of minor children — conduct that is institutionalized and euphemistically called ‘spiritual marriage.’ That label, however, cannot change the fact that the conduct … is child sexual abuse as a matter of law.”
“Adult men impregnating minor children is sexual abuse per se, and mothers ‘who fail to make a reasonable effort to prevent sexual conduct harmful to a child’ are equally culpable under the law despite innocent looks and prairie dresses.”
“It is particularly troubling that the 3rd Court of Appeals cites and then chooses to ignore ‘evidence that 20 females had become pregnant between the ages of 13 and 17.”
“To return the children now will send a message that sexual abuse of young girls is not a serious matter. It will also eliminate the parents’ incentive to make the difficult changes necessary to ensure the safety of their children. For many, this will mean having to make a choice to leave behind a lifestyle that included sexual abuse of young girls, training girls to accept abuse, and training boys to be perpetrators.”
Read the brief here.
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New briefs filed in polygamist case
Lawyers representing 38 YFZ Ranch mothers filed a brief this morning refuting arguments from Child Protective Services, which is seeking to overturn last week’s lower court ruling requiring more than 120 seized children to be returned to their parents.
Yesterday afternoon, the Texas Supreme Court ordered that the reply brief be filed by 9 a.m. today, and families from the polygamist sect’s ranch are bracing for a high court decision that could come as early as this afternoon.
Some highlights of the brief:
Arguments that CPS cannot reunite families because they have not properly identified which children belong to which parents are “disingenuous.” “The department cannot scatter hundreds of children — including infants and toddlers — to the four winds and then complain that it cannot put the pieces back together again,” the brief says.
District Judge Barbara Walther should have reunited families when hearings were held two weeks after the children were seized because CPS failed to meet three legal requirements for retaining child custody. Children must be returned home, the brief argues, unless CPS shows that “a person of ordinary prudence and caution” can conclude:
The child’s physical health and safety was in danger.
The need for protection was so urgent that the children’s immediate removal was required.
CPS made reasonable efforts to return the children home but could not because of “continuing danger.”
“The issue here is not whether the department acted in good faith at the time of removal, but whether — 14 days later — it had satisfied the Legislature’s mandatory criteria for continued custody of children,” the brief argues. “Under the Legislature’s mandatory scheme, it is time for the children to be returned home.”
- Families at the YFZ Ranch are not a risk to flee Texas if reunited. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a breakaway Mormon sect that owns the ranch, is based in two cities along the Arizona-Utah border. But the brief argues that Walther could order families to remain in Texas because the CPS lawsuit, which asks the district court to place the YFZ Ranch children in state custody, would remain pending in her court.
Read the brief here.
Also today, the American Civil Liberties Union filed an amicus brief supporting the sect mothers. Read it here.
UPDATE: A prominent Texas child-abuse lawyer files a brief supporting CPS.
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