Griefer, taken from the link you provided,
“Jessop’s attorney, Pat Matassarin, said the agreement was reached in a “collective effort.” She had filed a motion to continue the hearing when she learned the witnesses were going to testify and CPS lawyers had come to court with documents several inches thick — but she had no idea what they would be talking about.
“The only thing they’re supposed to be addressing is the physical well-being of the baby,” Matassarin said. “Not 13-year-olds, not 15-year-olds, none of that.”
Matassarin was referring to bombshell photographs introduced into evidence last week that showed Jeffs kissing a then-12-year-old girl in a manner that lawyers for CPS described as “how a husband kisses a wife.”
Apparently now CPS has the moral authority to judge how a man kisses a woman.
Anyway back to your link,
Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City attorney acting as a spokesman for the FLDS Church, accused Texas child welfare authorities of engaging in a “publicity stunt” with courtroom evidence.
“They have nothing to do with this family,” he said. “It’s just an effort by CPS to get publicity for their larger intent to paint everybody with this same brush. These photos have no tie to this particular family in a way that’s relevant to these proceedings.”
more importantly,
Jessop’s baby was born while his mother was in state custody. CPS workers considered Bradshaw a minor. After the baby’s birth, however, CPS declared her an adult (she is 22) and sought to have the child placed in state custody along with more than 450 other FLDS children caught up in the raid.
While he considers it a partial victory, Jessop said he isn’t sure when his children will actually be reunited with their mother.
Promises of a reunion before have not been kept, he said.
which brings up these two links if you care to read,
http://www.mysanantonio.com/salife/family/stories/MYSA.052108.FLDShearings.EN.39759c4.html
which shows this,
came after proceedings in which more “girls” taken into custody by Texas Child Protective Services convinced the agency they are really adults, bringing the total to 10.
More are expected to be similarly reclassified this week, weakening the agency’s claim that dozens of underage girls were forced by the sect to have sex with older men.
On Tuesday, six “girls” were deemed adults, including 27-year-old Leona Allred, whose lawyer insisted CPS knew from the beginning that her client was an adult.
“My client showed them the same documents they showed them from the beginning: a valid Arizona driver’s license and a birth certificate,” Andrea Sloan said.
Two others, Merilyn Jeffs Keate and Sarah Cathleen Jessop Nielsen, were reclassified as adults on Monday as five judges began sifting through the cases of all the children taken from the YFZ Ranch in West Texas. Last week, the agency acknowledged that two “girls” who were among the more than 460 removed from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints’ ranch were really 18 and 22.
When all the legal wrangling is finished the number of underage girls who were pregnant or had underage sex will drop to about 5 and then because of when Texas changed the law in 2005, that number may drop more, only time will tell.
This should concern people who believe in rule of law.
Sloan and other lawyers for these disputed girls said on Tuesday they believe CPS deliberately classified them as children so that their own investigators, together with Texas Department of Public Safety officers, could interview them without their attorney present.
But a bigger concern to me is this story,
http://www.sltrib.com/News/ci_9238520
Mental health professionals who helped care for FLDS women and children in the weeks after an April raid on the YFZ Ranch describe conditions and treatment they perceived as harsh and unnecessary.
“Never in all my life, and I am one of the older ladies, have I been so ashamed of being a Texan and seeing what and how our government agencies treat people,” wrote one employee of Hill Country Community Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center in an unsigned statement.
Staff members met with the center’s board of trustees last week, leaving them “spellbound.”
The board has gathered nine written statements critical of Child Protective Services.
Chairman John Kight said he wants state legislators and the governor to hear the employees’ stories. “You have damaged these children for their lives,” he said. “This is an agency that looks like it’s gone out of control.” A Texas CPS spokesman acknowledged the allegations were “very serious” and said they are being investigated.
also in fairness to CPS,
Not all Texas CPS employees were criticized by the Hill Country employees. One young man was described as sitting for two hours comforting a toddler separated from his mother. The Texas Rangers were “respectful and polite,” according to another statement.
Several of the employees stated they do not condone polygamy or the alleged abusive treatment of children. But, they added, the FLDS mothers were not silent or hostile, as CPS had warned they would be. Instead, they were polite, focused on caring for the children, and willing to establish relationships, the mental health workers said.
Several writers claimed CPS workers repeatedly lied to the mothers regarding where they were going to be moved to and other issues.
Crimmins said he disputed that. The state has asserted the FLDS mothers were uncooperative with authorities, such as providing inaccurate or changing information about names and ages.
On Yahoo alone, there are over 26.5 million hits on news stories related to the FLDS, meaning a person could spend every minute of every day reading and never be at the bottom of this story. Seeing as how I am not a member of the FLDS, I have not been to their “compound” I do not know what happened there, only what is being reported in the media and I am appalled at what appears to be the States attitude that just because “alleged” children are involved the rule of law doesn’t apply until after the fact. There was and still are legal methods the state of Texas could and should have used to determine if any laws were broken, then they could have filed charges, arrested, prosecuted and convicted the guilty party’s.
One of the reasons all of the children were removed was because the state considered the entire property to be one residence, that gives rise to the eventually that this case, if left unchallenged, would allow CPS to look at apartment buildings, Condos and other connected dwelling to be considered as one residence and that is a can of worms that doesn’t need to be opened. Something else to consider is if you start painting every religious group with a single brush, then logically you can attack the entire Catholic Church for the crimes of a few child molesters. Then the next step is to condemn all Moslem’s for believing in Islam because if Islam was started today in America it would most likely be considered a cult and would need to be dealt with accordingly. There I just offended over a billion people by comparing them to an evil cult, but the point is who am I to determine which religion is a cult and which isn’t??
That is why I am upset at HOW the state of Texas has handled this case and tried to share my reason for being concerned.
