This week's raid of a Fundamentalist Mormon compound seems to have solved one possible problem and created a whole bunch of others.
Over four hundred kids were seized during the raid amid accusations of child molestation, forced marriages and other highly taboo subjects that I don't want to get into now. But as news of the raid broke and the story began to evolve in the media, the search warrant that was used to enter the compound and seize the kids seems like it will not hold up in court.
A search warrant has to have the following: the name of the property owner, the specific address of where the search warrant is to be executed, and the type of evidence that the authorities are there to find that are related to suspicion of the type of crime that is being investigated.
Also, if a person is living in an apartment, the landlord cannot give permission to authorities to enter; the warrant must be sworn out as to treat the rented property as the home of the tenant.
In this case, the warrant had one address, which was for the office of the complex. The warrant did not specify whose apartments were to be searched, their respective addresses, or the specific apartment numbers.
While I am totally against plural marriages, the Constitution may have been violated, and potential child sex offenders may get off the hook as a result. UNACCEPTABLE!
Texas officials MUST get this right. Taking shortcuts on something like this not only endangers Constitutional protections, but also the successful prosecutions of people like this colony's "prophet" (aka child rapist-in-chief). I hope the authorities had all their ducks in a row.
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