A phone tip of abuse would be grounds for an investigation as to that family and that individual, not a wholesale invasion of the compound and extending that one phone tip to the entire group. That’s a constitutional issue of such magnitude that if you missed it on a bar exam, you shouldn’t be passed.

It appears Texas is trying to get the horse back before the cart when it started otherwise. Texas had no evidence before the raid as to widespread abuse of the children and yet, is now trying to backdoor the appropriateness of its actions by dropping tidbits about its findings regarding a) alleged physical evidence of broken bones among the younger children (although they have given nothing more than that statement) and b) a high pregnancy rate among the younger women. Given what has already been noted as to the age of consent for Texas and other states, item b just doesn’t cut it. Item A would be justification but again, not for the wholesale invasion Texas undertook as to this group.

Are you serious? Really? Sorry–I’m not in a mince words mood–your comment sounds completely crazy to me.

For the record, I agree with you that Texas only changed their laws because the FLDS came to town, and I think that was a good move on their part. It’s not really an issue most people think about in their daily lives (“hmm…I wonder if I can marry Susie yet or not?”) so probably everybody had lost sight of how young their ancient laws had set the limit. FLDS brought the issue to the fore, and they corrected the problem. “Yay for a functioning legislative process!” sez I.

The law was changed for the express purpose for prosecuting Mormons being that nobody else seems to be responsible enough to be married to the teenage girls they impregnate.

Punishing people for being responsible seems to be a really stupid way to do things. This reminds me of the anti Chinese laws that prohibited men from wearing pigtails. What it the point of it all ? Persecution under colour of law.

First of all, the cases of young teenagers being wed to men 30+ years their senior seems to be an extremely rare case and still far from being proven.

Second, many of these teens seem to be joined with men who are less than 10 years older than them, (such as the one woman in state custody who recently gave birth at age 18 and her husband, 22). Why is this important? Because that is perfectly legal under Utah law, and the laws of age of consent for Arizona, Colorado, British Columbia apply.

It is the burden of the Great State of Texas to prove that these women conceived children/ had sex while stationed on Texas soil while of unlawful age, because few, if any women were on the YFZ ranch prior to 2007.

It is not right that these families are broken-up and destroyed at the hands of government because mainstream America in 2008 finds their religious views icky. If it is to be justified on the grounds that actual law-breaking abuse was being perpetrated, then the applicable laws should be considered, not what CPS wishes its case to be.

Even so, CPS can never be justified for this blunt, overly-broad and unconsitutional mishandling.

“with their blissful community”

We really do have a lot of work to do on both sides of this issue.

I am starting to doubt that anyone would be stupid enough to kill or abuse their child. Child abuse is like suicide, it is illegal but there is no way to stop someone who is really determined to do it. Hopefully all child abusers will someday be extinct.
It is all a bunch of hysteria to get people to accept the gestapo storming into homes.
These poor Mormons with their blissful community probably never knew what was coming. How were they to know that their peaceful life at the farm raising children was illegal and immoral.

More children are probably killed in car accidents than by their parents and I don’t see anyone wanting to get rid of cars to save the children …
More children are being hurt than helped In this child warehousing taxpayer funded scam.

There is NOTHING that can justify giving up Constitutional rights. Those who would trade their freedom for security deserve neither.
Ben Franklin

I’m nearly persuaded. Fundamental constitutional right to raise one’s children. No evidence that the small children were neglected, abused, abandoned, etc. Absent evidence, state can’t intrude on that parent child relationship.

Do you give any weight to the sibling-of-the-abused argument? That is, by living in a “household” where teenage girls are sexually abused, the small children are exposed to the abuse. Maybe the exposure is a harm that warrants removal from the parents? Of course, these usually play out in monogamous situations. Here, the water is muddied because it is unclear what the “household” is, or even who the parents are. Do you think there is anything to say for the argument that the FLDS practices create a dangerous environment per se?

Again, I agree there is no evidence of physical harm.

Atticus,

Your points are well taken.

Comment #66 stated pretty well what I was trying to articulate. It seems to me to be at odds with “protecting the children” to take them away from their homes and parents and maybe even siblings, and introduce them into a society which views them as either “backwards” or “victims” and makes it clear that they are being given special treatment.

It’s a wonder you graduated from law school at all.

But it doesn’t amount to a constitutional problem. It is a logistics problem. — Josh Smith

As jonh f. has ably put it, separating that many children from their parents, based on one phone call, should raise all kinds of constitutional issues for you. There is no evidence of abuse of young boys or pre-pubescent girls. The alleged abuse occurred against one girl. There was only one phone call, only one perp. Limiting the investigation to the evidence at hand is not merely a logistics problem. It goes to the fundamental rights of the children and mothers who have been separated with absolutely no evidence of wrong doing.

At the most, post-pubescent teenaged girls could have been removed en masse citing concerns of the group’s alleged history of underaged marriages provided by former members coupled with the isolation in which the group lives. It appears that means that at the most 53 teenaged girls or girls who could be shown to have been married/given birth before the age of 18, and of course also the children of those underaged mothers (who would then stay with their mothers while in state custody during the investigation against those girls’ “spiritual” husbands).

There doesn’t seem to be a justification for removing the boys (absent specific evidence that they were in imminent danger of physical harm) or any pre-pubescent girls, especially not infants through 10 year olds.

Both Voss, the CPS worker who made the decision to remove all of the children, and the psychologist the state called as their expert witness conceded under cross-examination that the young children were not in imminent danger of physical harm and that there were no signs of neglect for the children. Instead, the concern that justified removal for Voss and apparently the continued separation for the court was that the FLDS belief system creates an environment in which boys are raised to be perpetrators at some time in the future and girls are raised to be victims of underaged marriages at some time in the future. This doesn’t hold up under the standards required by the Texas statutes at issue (cited at Guy’s blog) or under the due process requirements of the US Constitution.