Polygamy Case Begins to Collapse: Texas Officials Took Legal Shortcuts and Short-Circuited the Process

As was widely feared, the case against a polygamist colony in Texas began to buckle as the courts took an intense look at how this entire mess came to be and found severe problems with how the case has been handled. The seizure of 465 children from the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) compound was found to be without merit; the accusations were not supported by the evidence, and legal procedures were violated.

And now there's an even larger mess than there was before.

A dozen children have been ordered returned to their families immediately; more will probably follow.

There's some ugly undertones in this case, both within the FLDS, and within the legal system, and both are in the forefront of the case. It's already an established fact that the FLDS practices polygamy, which is illegal, and may be forcing underage girls to marry much older men. That's a very good reason for the Texas legal system to be concerned.

But Texas has very specific laws on child welfare, which are designed to keep families together and help them work through problems. In this case, those laws are not being observed; the parents have been effectively shut out of the case while the future of their children is decided.

And the authorities are not even taking the time to determine which families are practicing polygamy, and which ones have legal marriages under Texas law (meaning ONE husband and ONE wife with a marriage license).

Shouldn't the authorities take the time to separate the innocent from the guilty, rather than painting them all with a VERY broad brush? This is part of the reason why the court ruled the way it did. Other problems with the case cited by the judge:

• The phone call that started this entire affair was a hoax. A woman claiming to be 16 and a victim of the sect was actually a pathological liar living in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and has a history of making false police reports.
  
  
• Texas officials wanted to arrest one man and ignored good information that they received that he was living in Arizona. They staged the raid on the Texas facility anyways.
  
  
• Of the 31 "children" who were suspected of being underaged mothers, half were adults, including one 27 year old. Another 18-year-old has accused the police of ignoring her birth certificate and driver's license. Hardly the kind of "evidence" that can stand on it's own merits in court and prove what the state is saying.

Polygamy is an abomination. But so is raping the Constitution. FLDS members are no different from other faiths when it comes to the cafeteria-style beliefs of members of those faiths. "Oh, I'll practice this belief, but not that one over there." Yaadaa yaadaa.

But in the Texas case, the authorities have accused ALL their members of polygamy and taken their children (by force) without a chance to prove the accusations wrong, and with NO charges being filed against the parents.

I don't like the FLDS, but to deny them their Constitutional rights sets up a precedence that is EXTREMELY bad. The authorities in this case need to get with the program and follow established legal procedures.

Like I said, this is ugly. And it's going to get a lot uglier.