It was almost a quarter of a century ago when an overzealous (in retrospect) county attorney, Kathleen Morris, offered an arrested sex offender a deal if he started naming names, and ended up indicting dozens people in Jordan Minnesota – a small farm town that’s since become an exurb, southwest of Minneapolis – in what turned out to be a Crucible-like witchhunt on the basis of a jailhouse snitch and testimony from children that turned out to be conjured up from imagination.
Lives and reputations were destroyed. Lawyers made millions. Antonin Scalia cited the case in Maryland Vs. Craig as an example of how vital the sixth amendment right to question ones’ accuser is in protecting the innocent – in the Jordan case, protecting them from overzealous prosecutors and dubious investigative techniques.
You’d think the bureaucracy would learn.
Well, no. You would not, if you knew how government works. A state appeals court has overturned the seizure of the children from the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints compound:
The Third Court of Appeals in Austin said the state failed to show the youngsters were in any immediate danger, the only grounds in Texas law for taking children from their parents without court action.
It was not clear when the children — now scattered in foster homes across the state — might be returned to their parents. The ruling gave a lower-court judge 10 days to release the youngsters from custody, but the state could appeal to the Texas Supreme Court and block that.
The decision in one of the biggest child-custody cases in U.S. history was a humiliating defeat for the state Child Protective Services agency. It was hailed as vindication by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, who claimed they were being persecuted for their religious beliefs.
Now if the FCLS broke any laws – and some of the allegations look pretty seriously – then let’s look forward to some serious consequences.
Child-protection officials argued that five girls at the ranch had become pregnant at 15 and 16 and that the sect pushed underage girls into marriage and sex with older men and groomed boys to enter into such unions when they grew up.
But we have due process for a reason:
But the appeals court said the state acted too hastily in sweeping up all the children and taking them away on an emergency basis without going to court first.
“Even if one views the FLDS belief system as creating a danger of sexual abuse by grooming boys to be perpetrators of sexual abuse and raising girls to be victims of sexual abuse … there is no evidence that this danger is ‘immediate’ or ‘urgent’,” the court said.
“Evidence that children raised in this particular environment may someday have their physical health and safety threatened is not evidence that the danger is imminent enough to warrant invoking the extreme measure of immediate removal.”
The court said the state failed to show that any more than five of the teenage girls were being sexually abused, and offered no evidence of sexual or physical abuse against the other children. Half the youngsters taken from the ranch were 5 or younger. Only a few dozen are teenage girls
Of course, the stories of child protective services’ officers jumping into cases too zealously – and there are many – are balanced by the stories of CPS officials not working fast enough.
Too bad these kids are only held prisoner in a wacky, child-abusing religious cult in Texas. If they had parents in Cuba, you’d be making with the Marisleysis tears and demanding they be taken away.
kids are only held prisoner
So is that the criminal act that the appeals court said they found no evidence of?
Or is being a parent always the same as being a jailer?
Just wondering.
It was almost a quarter of a century ago when an overzealous (in retrospect) county attorney, Kathleen Morris, offered an arrested sex offender a deal if he started naming names, and ended up indicting dozens people in Jordan Minnesota – a small farm town that’s since become an exurb, southwest of Minneapolis – in what turned out to be a Crucible-like witchhunt on the basis of a jailhouse snitch and testimony from children that turned out to be conjured up from imagination
Mitch- your handwringing about the 6th amendment here , frankly, I agree with, but AC’s perfectly right, and you ducked the point.
We KNOW without ANY doubt that we’ve held hundreds of people for YEARS based on the word of warlords in Afghanistan. If you’re upset about the excesses of government, this act in Texas pales to insignificance next to GitMo, a story/episode which will doubtless go down as one of the blacker marks in our country’s history.
BTW, based on the word of warlords who NEVER had to prove the point, whom the accused NEVER got the chance to face. In fact, even those who probably deserve to be there have never faced their accusers.. Scalia repudiated Bush in Hamdi, and the SCOTUS has repeatedly repudiated Bush on Gitmo, on the rare chances he lets the case get to SCOTUS, because normally his tactic is to bluster, delay, and then run away with his tail between his legs BEFORE it gets to SCOTUS – pretending the years of obstruction never existed.
Your getting lazy, clown. Your snark is worse than usual. The Gonsalez matter is far, far removed from anything that happened in Texas.
On the other hand, what happened at the Zion Ranch is direrctly comparable to what occurred at Waco in 1993. In the current case the Texans overreacted and took at least some children in CPS custody when they probably should not have. In 1993 a Democrat USAG federalized the problem & ended up killing the children.
The same AG sent an armed swat team into a private home to return Elian Gonzales to a commie dictatorship.
You got a lot to be proud of there, fella. Hey! Maybe Obama can heal his rift with feminists by picking Janet Reno for the VP slot! I know you’d be happy to vote for her!
Peev,
Your thread-jacking is getting tiresome. I may have to change some thing about this blog.
BTW, based on the word of warlords who NEVER had to prove the point, whom the accused NEVER got the chance to face.
But wait, Peev! It’s not new!
During WWII, we held hundreds of thousands of German and Italian POWs. They never got to face their accusers, either! No trial! Many were seized in warrantless searches of bunkers and foxholes, and never read their Miranda rights! No lawyers, trials or habeas corpus!
Scalia repudiated Bush in Hamdi…
Hold on there, big shooter. If you’re not admitted to practice before the SCOTUS, you are committing legal malpractice! Back away from the keyboard!
What’s that? They were POWs? Their status didn’t require – in fact, didn’t allow – for trials?
Look – as I’ve noted countless times in the past, anyone who’s imprisoned falsely should be released – as, indeed, hundreds have. No argument there – indeed, after this many iterations, it’s a bit of a strawman.
The point, in addition to the one on your head, Terry, is that you wingnuts are all in favor of parental rights when it comes to some wacko righty cult raping teens. Not so much when the parent lives in Cuba. Another example of the wingnut lack of principles.
Whereas you commies hate ALL parents’ rights, and think all children should be raised by clowns in state parenting centers!
If you’re upset about the excesses of government, this act in Texas pales to insignificance next to GitMo
Ok, on the one side we have actions committed by a state government in a civilian matter against citizens of this country, and minors to boot.
On the other side we have actions committed in a military capacity by the federal government against non-citizen, adult, aggressors plotting murder and destruction against US soldiers, citizens and property.
You’re not comparing apples and oranges. You’re comparing apples and hockey skates.
a story/episode which will doubtless go down as one of the blacker marks in our country’s history.
Only in the minds of the BDS-addled moonbat fringe nuttery contingent
pronounced “bamf-nik
Mitch, those Germans and Italians were wearing uniforms. Those we caught with out uniforms were not sent to Gitmo. They were treated in the manner prescribed by the Geneva Convention. In other words they faced a military tribunal just before they were shot or hung. Peev you are in favor of following the Geneva Convention aren’t you?
Now you’re being ridiculous, AC. I’ve never known anyone, right or left, who was ‘all in favor of parental rights when it comes to some wacko righty cult raping teens.’ Never. Ever.
Besides, aren’t the more run of the mill molestors on your side? Public school teachers, liberal talk radio hosts, NY times writers, people like that?
But I guess you gotta believe crazy stuff to justify your acceptance of the Janet Reno approach to child care.
Geez…is there anything ac or peev won’t argue against each and every time?
I’m glad to see you bring this up Mitch. This whole thing has bugged me from the beginning, but I couldn’t seem to get anyone I know to think about it this way. At least they could have taken the men and left the women and children at their “home” til they had it all sorted out. But no…it’s all about the state whisking kids away and doing far more harm than good.
Comparing this story to Gitmo. Hey Peev, look up the word “nadir” and then look up. That’s what’s right above you.
I’m not surprised that Clownie would compare this to the Gonzales case.
Say a mother was trying to flee the circus and her clown of a husband, because the husband wanted to force her child into a life of humiliating performance. She dies in the process, but the child manages to find shelter with loving relatives in a clown-free zone. By all means call up the Clown Police and send that kid back to the Big Top!
There are elephant cages that need cleaning.
This moral relativism stuff is fun!
If you’ve done any research on the polygamous LDS groups (and I’ve done a lot), you know that the men who run it are dictatorial assholes who use any means to keep the women subservient. They brag about manipulating the welfare system to keep their families fed.
It’s a really, really tricky situation. The attorneys general of Arizona and Utah, who know these communities very well, are continually frustrated; they know the situation is very bad in some cases, and they want to do something, but legally their hands are mostly tied.
In the case of the Texas authorities, I suspect that once they tried investigating the original claim (which now seems false) they realized that they didn’t face trying to sort out one family. They had to sort out a whole small town with lines of consanguinity that look like spaghetti.
I understand why they wanted to get the kids away from there. They can’t even figure out whose kids are whose, and the evidence shows that the parents are deliberately trying to confuse the situation. I think they are trying to do the best they can, but they simply weren’t (what state would be?) prepared logistically to handle the situation.
Not quite, Gordon.
The Third Court of Appeals ruled that Texas overreached.
Aso, if being a dictatorial asshole was a crime, Peev would be languishing in jail. 🙂
Ah, & it landed Jordan, MN in the annals of pop culture, or sub-pop culture. Underground legend Steve Albini wrote the song Jordan, Minnesota, performed by Big Black. I Heard this tune long before I knew where Jordan is located.
Disgrace really, how many people want to assume that the world is such a crappy place, no questions asked.
Lyrics & interview with Albini here:
http://petdance.com/actionpark/bigblack/songs/jordan-minnesota.php
Paul,
I didn’t say that the CPS people acted perfectly. They may well have overreached, under the laws that exist.
Those laws were written to cover simple domestic situations; single households (or perhaps two households in case of divorce). The Eldorado compound (and its parent group in Colorado City AZ) is a world of its own.
I doubt Texas law covers situations where a church member is declared apostate by the prophet; in such situations the wives and children of the apostate are stripped from him and “awarded” to another man. The kids have been raised to believe that the prophet is speaking God’s revealed word. If they’re told that the prophet said that the second man is now their father, they believe it.
While the call that set off the intial raid may have been bogus, it’s been known for years that young girls are ordered by the prophet to marry older men. The marriages are not recorded with the state, of course, but if the prophet says you’re married, and everyone around you says you’re married, including your parents, well, you’re pretty much married.
If it weren’t for the child brides, and the numerous teen boys driven out of the community, then they’d pretty much be left alone–as are other polygamy groups who don’t sanction such marriages.
There were fewer pregnant teens among those captured in Texas than live in my old ‘hood in Frogtown.
I don’t see anybody swooping into the inner city to seize the babies of every pregnant teen at St. Paul Central.
From the comments, it looks as if some people agree this was a raid on a particular religious group but it was justified because we don’t like their sexual practices.
Glad to see that’s the new rule. When my buddies and I gain power, I think we’ll use the government to raid another religious group, one that I don’t like. Maybe yours, Peev? Or yours, AC? Shouldn’t be problem now that we’ve dumped the whole religious freedom thing, right?
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