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…)
