Posted by
flagwaver on Thursday, May 29, 2008 11:49:44 PM
A few weeks ago I posted about my misgivings with the raid on the FLDS Yearning For Zion Ranch in San Angelo, Texas by the Texas Rangers and the removal of every child on the ranch by the Texas Child Protective Services agency. In a nutshell I expressed my feelings that the state of Texas had overstepped its boundaries by launching the raid on the basis of on phone allegation, which is strongly suspected of being a hoax. I also felt that there was something fishy about the close collaboration between law enforcement and the media in their combined efforts to put the FLDS in as negative a light as possible; I made the argument that this was being done in order to later justify the actions taken by the Rangers and CPS if they ran into any legal trouble.
I had quite the spirited debate with BrianR about this in the comments section of my blog, with him taking the position that the state was within its rights to remove those children, while I argued that the suspicion of abuse was not justification for taking every child in the compound into state custody. Since we had our little debate here a few things have happened that I would like to make note of in regards to this case. First, following the initial rush of stories about the weird sex cult opeating in small town Texas media covereage has dwindled to almost nothing. The media were there to report and publish any negative characterizations of the FLDS; they were there to document the raid of the FLDS temple, and they were there to prop up the claims made by Texas CPS and the Rangers. Yet they have fallen silent as the Rangers had the details of the arrest of the alleged hoax caller sealed, and they have not given nearly as much coverage to the legal triumphs of the FLDS lately.
Also there have been two separate rulings in favor of the FLDS that have basically slapped the Rangers and CPS down in their handling of the case. There was a ruling last week from the Texas Appeals Court in Austin that stated that CPS was beyond the scope of their authority in the actions they took. This is how it was explained in an AOL News story: "
The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled last week that the state failed to show that any more than five of the teenage girls were being sexually abused, and had offered no evidence of sexual or physical abuse against the other children." And finally, there was a ruling today from the Texas Supreme Court that upheld the ruling of the Appeals Court, and stated that
"On the record before us, removal of the children was not warranted". You can read the entire article by following this link:
http://news.aol.com/story/_a/court-says-sect-kids-must-be-returned/20080529172809990001.