April 23, 2009
/24-7PressRelease/ -- Texas High Court Rules Yearning for Zion Children Must Be Returned
Article provided by the Law Offices of Bill Baskette. Please visit our Web site at
www.sanantonioattorney.net.
A May 29, 2008, ruling by the Texas Supreme Court required the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to return children seized in a raid on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Yearning for Zion Ranch to their parents, but allowed continued efforts to protect the sect's pubescent girls from sexual abuse.
The Department initiated the April 3 raid in response to a call purportedly made by a 16-year-old female resident, who claimed to have been physically and sexually abused by her adult husband. While the authenticity of the call is unknown, investigators found 5 minor females between the ages of 13 and 17 who had become pregnant, and an additional 15 adults who had become pregnant while they were minors.
Arguing that the sect's beliefs put girls in danger of underage marriage and sexual abuse -- and trained boys to be perpetrators of such acts -- Child Protective Services took emergency custody of over 450 children under Section 262 of the Texas Family Code, which provides for the removal of children whose "physical health or safety" is in "immediate danger."
Motions filed by mothers of removed children with the Texas Court of Appeals for the Third District Court focused on Section 262.201 of the Code, which requires that children be returned to their parents unless immediate threats to their physical welfare can be demonstrated. On May 22, the Third District Court granted the mothers' petition, ruling that officials had not shown that the seized children were in immediate physical danger.
The Texas Supreme Court ruling upheld the Third District Court, finding that the Department had options less drastic than removal available for protecting the children. Three Justices filed a partial dissent, arguing that the Department had demonstrated a need for protective custody of some pubescent girls.
In returning the children to their parents, Judge Barbara Walther provided additional protections for some girls, including a 16-year-old daughter of sect leader Warren S. Jeffs. By December 2008, all but 15 particularly difficult cases resulting from the raid had been closed, including that of a 14-year-old girl allegedly married to Jeffs when she was 12.
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