CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

Enormous Mismanagement of the FLDS Case, Loss of $12 Million to Taxpayers, And an Egregious Affront to Fundamental Principles of Law

By: Houston Criminal Defense Lawyer John T. Floyd and Mr. Billy Sinclair

Since the April 2008 military-styled raid, led by the Texas Rangers and the state’s Child Protective Services, on the Yearning for Zion Ranch owned by Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints (FLDS) in Eldorado, Texas, we have been consistently been critical of the methods used by law enforcement and the CPS efforts to destroy the FLDS church. These official efforts stem from allegations that some male FLDS members used religious practices to engage in “spiritual marriages” with underage teenage girls. CPS reported in August 2008 that it was still investigating 10 cases involving marriages of girls ranging in ages from 12 to 16. As we have previously reported, these investigations have already cost Texas taxpayers at least $12 million.

The Houston Chronicle reported on September 4, 2008 that the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, the parent agency of Child Protective Services, has mismanaged millions of taxpayers’ dollars. Five years ago the Texas Legislature mandated that the Commission hire private contractors to assume duties of state employees in agencies such as CPS. The Chronicle reported this effort “has been a slow-motion disaster.”

The newspaper reported that the Commission terminated its contract last year with one company, Accenture, “after [an] attempt to privatize eligibility screening for social service programs caused chaos and erroneously denied services to thousands of qualified Texans.”
A 2006 state audit was highly critical of a five-year $85 million deal the Commission made in 2004 with another company, Convergys, to provide human resources and payroll services for the more than 46,000 employees in the state agencies supervised by the Commission. The audit warned that the Commission’s supervision of the Convergys contract was lax and that this had resulted in late or incorrect paychecks being issued to employees and produced inadequate spending on technology and training programs.

The Chronicle also reported that “a return visit by the auditors this year found that payroll and management problems at the state agencies continue. Texas State Auditor John Keel reported that more than $738,192 had been mistakenly paid out to more than 1,200 former state employees after they had been terminated. Only half of those taxpayer dollars have been recovered. In addition, 43 employees were allowed to take paid emergency leave because of criminal charges, with an average length of 70 days. Nine out of 10 agency supervisors had not received required training, while nearly three-fourths of employees sampled had no performance evaluations in their files.” (more…)

By: Houston Criminal Defense Lawyer John Floyd and Senior Paralegal Billy Sinclair

In July 2008 a Schleicher County grand jury indicted five members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, including FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, on sexual assault of children charges and a sixth member for failure to report a child abuse charge.

On August 20, 2008 the same grand jury indicted two additional FLDS members on sexual assault of children charges and added an additional charge of bigamy against Warren Jeffs.

This litany of criminal charges stem from allegations that some male FLDS members engaged in “spiritual marriages” with underage teenage girls. Records from Texas’ Child Protective Services indicate the agency is investigating 10 cases involving marriages of girls ranging in ages from 12 to 16 while the Texas Rangers are investigating as many as 20 cases of sexual assault and 50 cases of bigamy. The Texas Attorney General’s Office, which is presenting the FLDS case to the grand jury, will only say that the case remains under investigation.

The Texas Ranger investigation is being led by Captain L.C. Wilson. He replaced Ranger Captain Barry Caver who supposedly retired in June to take a job in the oil industry. Caver was in charge of the military-style raid on the FLDS compound in Eldorado last April that triggered “the FLDS case.” Five of the 17 Rangers now under Wilson’s supervision are working full-time on the case. Attorney General Greg Abbott has not disclosed how many of his staff are involved in the investigation and prosecution of the case. As we reported in a previous column, the case has already cost Texas taxpayers at least $12 million dollars. (more…)

By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd
and Mr. Billy Sinclair

The grand jury is a powerful weapon in the hands of state and federal prosecutors. An old legal adage says that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich if it the “target” of a criminal investigation.

Since state and local law enforcement authorities stormed Yearning for Zion Ranch owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Eldorado, Texas, last April and unlawfully seized more than 450 children from their parents, the leaders and members of the church have been “targets” for grand jury indictment.

The grand jury hammer finally fell on July 22, 2008 on five members of what the Houston Chronicle called “a West Texas polygamist sect” who were indicted on sexual assault of a child charges and a sixth member for failing to report child abuse. The “polygamist sect” designation in the mainstream media, fueled by the arrest and conviction last year of FLDS leader Warren Jeffs in Nevada on two counts of being an accomplice to rape, has lent unwarranted credence to the efforts of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to indict and prosecute adult FLDS male members for what has been described as imposing “forced spiritual marriage” on underage FLDS girls.

“There will be an aggressive effort to apprehend them,” Abbott was quoted by the Chronicle as saying shortly after the grand jury indictments were announced.

The only named person indicted was Warren Jeffs because, as Abbott said, he is already in custody. The Attorney General said the names of the other indicted five FLDS members would not be released until they were arrested. The only information released was that one of the five was charged with bigamy while another was charged with a misdemeanor offense of failure to report child abuse. (more…)

Swift Justice?  Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd Opines on the FLDS Debacle

This column has examined the FLDS case extensively since the military-style raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas on April 3, 2008. There are two things that stand out about this tragic case: First, the raid was totally unnecessary and most certainly unlawful; and, second, the financial cost to the state of Texas is a staggering $7 million and the emotional cost to the FLDS parents and children is immeasurable.

Texas residents were from the very beginning outraged at the sight of grieving mothers having their children – a total of 468, two-thirds of whom were 5 years of age or younger – snatched from their bosom. Equally outrageous was the fact that the state’s Child Protective Services on April 17 and 18 waltz into a court of law amidst national media attention and presented its “evidence” to justify the decision to remove these children from their parents and place them in foster care. It was a pathetic spectacle. A state district court endorsed the spectacle by approving CPS’s actions.

But on May 22, 2008 the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Austin overturned the decision by San Angelo County District Judge Barbara Walters who had ruled that CPS had presented adequate evidence that the FLDS children were in “immediate danger” of physical and sexual abuse at the YFZ ranch which warranted their removal from the custody of their parents and their placement in foster care. The Texas Supreme Court upheld the appeals court decision on May 29, 2008.

And what was this “evidence” of “immediate danger”? Nothing except that CPS believed the children were in such danger of abuse because of a “pervasive belief system” by FLDS church members that girls can, and should, get married at the age of puberty. CPS did not present an iota of evidence that FLDS members at the YFZ ranch practiced this religious tenet. CPS did not present an iota of evidence that any underage child had been forced into “spiritual marriage” as it had indicated through leaks to the media. CPS did offer evidence that five teenage girls had been impregnated – presumably at the YFZ ranch. It was conceded by CPS that these pregnancies had occurred when the girls were 15 or 16 years of age. Until 2005, it was lawful for a teenage girl with parental consent to marry at 14 and the current age for parent consent marriage is 16. The five marriages that produced these pregnancies, therefore, could have been legal under Texas law. CPS did not offer any evidence that the pregnancies occurred as a result of some unlawful “sexual assault” by an older FLDS members, as had been repeatedly suggested through media leaks. (more…)