Texas Legislature Joins the Hunt
By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair.
Besides March winds, April showers, and June humid heat, the one thing you can go to bank on: when state lawmakers, either in Texas or any other state, get involved is trying to legislate religion and morality, you will have a witch-hunt. Lawmakers are generally panderers to public opinion, not servants of public interest. If they believe one vote can be had by manipulating public fears or social outrage, they will get involved in any issue that generates media attention. The Eldorado, Texas-based FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), therefore, became an ideal target for legislative scrutiny during this past session.
In April 2008 the Texas Rangers, in cooperation with local law enforcement officials and the state’s Child Protective Services (“CPS”), raided the church’s compound (known as the YFZ Ranch) on the basis of false information received about child sexual abuse occurring at the compound. Specifically, the information reinforced a popular perception that older FLDS men marry teenage girls in arranged “spiritual marriages” and practice polygamy. The raid resulted in 468 FLDS children being forcefully separated from their parents by CPS before being ordered returned to their families by two state appeal courts. Altogether, ten FLDS men were indicted on a litany of charges ranging from sexual assault to bigamy and failure to report child abuse. None of the men have yet to face trial in the wake of the nearly $20 million law enforcement fiasco.
Determined to get something out of the exorbitant expenditures of tax dollars associated with that 2008 raid, the Texas Legislature this past April conducted hearings on a bill introduced by state Rep. Harvey Hilderbran, R-Kerrville that would make child abuse a Class A misdemeanor and send repeat offenders to jail. Hilderman’s bill would also require CPS to remove perpetrators of child abuse, not the child victims of such abuse, from a home.
“The safety of the children is paramount, and that is our first priority,” Hilderbran stated before the House Human Service Committee which conducted those hearings. (more…)
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