FLDS update: Court of Appeals finds the State’s “evidence” to be no evidence at all
by RickG · 05/22/2008 2:55 pmThe opinion by the Third Court of Appeals in the FLDS child custody cases is a repudiation of the weak justifications of the State agencies for their sweeping action against all children in the community, and boils down to a conclusion by the appeals court that the State acted without any legally recognizable evidence to support it.
The more conservative Texas Supreme Court may yet reverse the Austin decision (a 3-0 ruling by a panel including the Court’s Chief Justice). But for now, this opinion is the first court of appeals ruling which sets forth the background and the facts which the State (specifically, the Department of Family and Protective Services) claimed supported the action - ”facts” which, in many instances, consisted of nothing more than suspicions and prejudice of state officers.
The Court recognized there are times when the State can remove children from homes without petitioning a court first, but only in extreme circumstances:
Removing children from their homes and parents on an emergency basis before fully litigating the issue of whether the parents should continue to have custody of the children is an extreme measure. It is, unfortunately, sometimes necessary for the protection of the children involved. However, it is a step that the legislature has provided may be taken only when the circumstances indicate a danger to the physical health and welfare of the children and the need for protection of the children is so urgent that immediate removal of the children from the home is necessary.
The Court then noted the following evidence was relied on by the State:
•Interviews with investigators revealed a pattern of girls reporting that “there was no age too young for girls to be married”;
•Twenty females living at the ranch had become pregnant between the ages of thirteen and seventeen;
•Five of the twenty females identified as having become pregnant between the ages of thirteen and seventeen are alleged to be minors, the other fifteen are now adults;
•Of the five minors who became pregnant, four are seventeen and one is sixteen, and all five are alleged to have become pregnant at the age of fifteen or sixteen;
•The Department’s lead investigator was of the opinion that due to the “pervasive belief system” of the FLDS, the male children are groomed to be perpetrators of sexual abuse and the girls are raised to be victims of sexual abuse;
•All 468 children were removed from the ranch under the theory that the ranch community was “essentially one household comprised of extended family subgroups” with a single, common belief system and there was reason to believe that a child had been sexually abused in the ranch “household”; and
•Department witnesses expressed the opinion that there is a “pervasive belief system” among the residents of the ranch that it is acceptable for girls to marry, engage in sex, and bear children as soon as they reach puberty, and that this “pervasive belief system” poses a danger to the children.
In addition, the Court noted the following facts were undisputed by the State:
•The only danger to the male children or the female children who had not reached puberty identified by the Department was the Department’s assertion that the “pervasive belief system” of the FLDS community groomed the males to be perpetrators of sexual abuse later in life and taught the girls to submit to sexual abuse after reaching puberty;
•There was no evidence that the male children, or the female children who had not reached puberty, were victims of sexual or other physical abuse or in danger of being victims of sexual or other physical abuse;
•While there was evidence that twenty females had become pregnant between the ages of thirteen and seventeen, there was no evidence regarding the marital status of these girls when they became pregnant or the circumstances under which they became pregnant other than the general allegation that the girls were living in an FLDS community with a belief system that condoned underage marriage and sex;
•There was no evidence that any of the female children other than the five identified as having become pregnant between the ages of fifteen and seventeen were victims or potential victims of sexual or other physical abuse;
•With the exception of the five female children identified as having become pregnant between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, there was no evidence of any physical abuse or harm to any other child;
•The Relators have identified their children among the 468 taken into custody by the Department, and none of the Relators’ children are among the five the Department has identified as being pregnant minors; and
•The Department conceded at the hearing that teenage pregnancy, by itself, is not a reason to remove children from their home and parents, but took the position that immediate removal was necessary in this case because “there is a mindset that even the young girls report that they will marry at whatever age, and that it’s the highest blessing they can have to have children.
The Department’s position was summarized by the Court:
The Department argues that the fact that there are five minor females living in the ranch community who became pregnant at ages fifteen and sixteen together with the FLDS belief system condoning underage marriage and pregnancy indicates that there is a danger to all of the children that warrants their immediate removal from their homes and parents, and that the need for protection of the children is urgent. The Department also argues that the “household” to which the children would be returned includes persons who have sexually abused another child, because the entire Yearning For Zion ranch community is a “household.” See id. § 262.201(d)(2).
(Emphasis added.) By this summary, it is clear that the State’s case was based on the fact that five teenagers were pregnant (while the State admitted that teenage pregnancy is not grounds for removal), and, combined with a belief system that the State clearly abhors, justified seizing all children in the compound.
Based on the State’s so-called “case,” it is no wonder the Court found the Department did not carry its burden:
The Department failed to carry its burden with respect to the requirements of section 262.201(b). Pursuant to section 262.201(b)(1), the danger must be to the physical health or safety of the child. The Department did not present any evidence of danger to the physical health or safety of any male children or any female children who had not reached puberty. Nor did the Department offer any evidence that any of Relators’ pubescent female children were in physical danger other than that those children live at the ranch among a group of people who have a “pervasive system of belief” that condones polygamous marriage and underage females having children. The existence of the FLDS belief system as described by the Department’s witnesses, by itself, does not put children of FLDS parents in physical danger.
(Emphasis added.) Again, the bold passages suggest this action by the State was intended to punish a belief system as much as any actual conduct.
The Department failed to offer any evidence that any of the pubescent female children of the Relators were in such physical danger. The record is silent as to whether the Relators or anyone in their households are likely to subject their pubescent female children to underage marriage or sex. The record is also silent as to how many of Relators’ children are pubescent females and whether there is any risk to them other than that they live in a community where there is a “pervasive belief system” that condones marriage and child-rearing as soon as females reach puberty.
(Emphasis added.) In other words, we have a runaway state agency, acting on its suspicions and prejudices, and not on the basis of evidence regarding specific children, as required by the law.
The Department also failed to establish that the need for protection of the Relators’ children was urgent and required immediate removal of the children. As previously noted, none of the identified minors who are or have been pregnant are children of Relators. There is no evidence that any of the five pregnant minors live in the same household as the Relators’ children. There is no evidence that Relators have allowed or are going to allow any of their minor female children to be subjected to any sexual or physical abuse. There is simply no evidence specific to Relators’ children at all except that they exist, they were taken into custody at the Yearning For Zion ranch, and they are living with people who share a “pervasive belief system” that condones underage marriage and underage pregnancy. Even if one views the FLDS belief system as creating a danger of sexual abuse by grooming boys to be perpetrators of sexual abuse and raising girls to be victims of sexual abuse as the Department contends, there is no evidence that this danger is “immediate” or “urgent” as contemplated by section 262.201 with respect to every child in the community.
(Emphasis added.) Here, the Court makes the point many of us have been asserting since early on in this episode. The State painted with too broad a brush, imposing its considerble force on every member of the community based on facts involving only a few, along with the State’s determination to proceed on the concept of guilt by association, which is not condoned in the law. The Court rightly rejected the implicit notion that because there may have been wrongdoing by a few, the State could, through clairvoyance or otherwise, justify action against everyone.
The Court added that the State did not even make “reasonable” efforts to prevent unjustified removals. Instead, based upon five pregnant minors and a belief system that allowed minors to marry and become pregnant, the State removed all children - including infants - from their homes and separated them from their parents.
This record does not reflect any reasonable effort on the part of the Department to ascertain if some measure short of removal and/or separation from parents would have eliminated the risk the Department perceived with respect to any of the children of Relators.
The Court held that the evidence produced at the lower court hearings was “legally and factually insufficient” to support allowing the State to maintain custody and the lower court “abused its discretion” in finding for the State and in failing to return the children to their parents. The trial court was directed to vacate its order which had granted custody to the State.
As is obvious from the quoted passages - which repeatedly referred to “no evidence” or the “silent” record - the Court made it clear that there was an abysmal lack of justification to support the conduct of CPS. In this context, legal insufficiency means a complete absence of evidence of a vital fact, or that the evidence offered to prove a vital fact is no more than a mere scintilla, or that the evidence conclusively established the opposite of the vital fact.
Factual insufficiency, in essence, means that, based on the evidence, no reasonable person could have formed a firm belief in support of the State’s case.
All in all, a stinging defeat for the State and a win for the rule of law.
(Note: The footnotes have been omitted from the quoted portions of the Court’s opinion. The link leads to the complete opinion, including footnotes.)
UPDATE:
Speaking of footnotes, this excellent observation by Grits for Breakfast:
Footnote 11 to the opinion rocks! “The simple fact, conceded by the Department, that not all FLDS families are polygamous or allow their female children to marry as minors demonstrates the danger of removing children from their homes based on the broad-brush ascription of every aspect of a belief system to every person living among followers of the belief system or professing to follow the belief system.”
Grits is right; this is a critical point. The State admits that it knew not all families practiced these acts, yet the State seized children indiscriminately. I want to see how they get around this.
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Thanks Rick. Excellent.
I was fortunate to see Greg Abbott this weekend, sitting in front of a flag, with his dark suit and tie, telling us the State would prosecute to the fullest, and protect these children.
ST you haven’t found any dead crow road kill have you? It’s time to make a pie and send to Mr.Abbott.
Well, the kangaroo still has 10 days to decided whether to comply with this decision. Are they still going through with all the action plans and stuff they stamped out in San Angelo? Let’s hear it for the rule of law, at least when it is occasionally applied.
3. aw
I guess General Abbott has already found them guilty, eh?
Watch the personal injury buzzards circle over this one boy o boy, theres goes our tax surplus!
Great… now I get to add “protect minor children from child-raping cultists” to the list of things I can’t count on my government to do right…
Well, to answer part of my own question, somehow, for some unknown reason, court adjourned in San Angelo for a couple of days.
Actually, you might be able to do that now. Now that they know that they must follow the law, perhaps they will do the work necessary to protect children instead of just trampling on the rights of anyone that they don’t like.
#6 - Was there anything you did count on for government to do right? Deliver mail, patch potholes, deliver drinking water, …?
That would make a great topic. Name one thing government does well.
Providing the above information is not leaving anything important out of CPS’ case I agree with the ruling. (That is not to say the author of this post purposefully omitted anything.) If there was more than CPS may have screwed up with making their case.
So is it not reasonable that had the state focused on their 5 suspected young pregnant girls, those that they insist that they have evidence of abuse, that this entire case would have proceeded better, more efficiently, and thus resulting in building the very case the state intends to build?
8. bj
Exactly. There is nothing preventing the State from going back to court to prove their case with REAL evidence. This opinion only says that what they’ve come up with so far is legally squat.
#8 Biggie
We can hope.
[begin holding breath]
11. Meglet
I know you are not accusing, but this is a good time to remind that I did link to the opinion, so anyone can decide for themselves if I left anything critical out - it certainly was not my intent. I quoted at length to try to avoid that.
I express plenty of my own opinions, but the block quotes are verbatim excerpts.
#10;
1) Protect our children
2) Secure our borders
3) Lower or erase taxes
4) Avoid manipulating currency over the fear of a recession
5) Destroy Hama and Hezbollah once and for all
6) Secure the right to property and not move in a direction that the government can take private property and give it to aa private developer
So don’t worry, our government s helping us all for a free, prosperous future.
14. DB
I presume the State put its best foot forward at the hearing and presented all its evidence. If so, one wonders what they can collect now to change the outcome. I guess they can suddenly fall into a bunch of confessions and “new” testimony, but, like you, I won’t hold my breath.
Maybe if they threatened to sic Gov Perry on them, that might shake the trees a little.
Is Johnny Sutton involved in any of this?
18 Ken
If not, I’m sure we can figure out a way to make him responsible.
Let’s make him responsible…. I like that idea. He breaths the same air as those who represent the state… does that count? Maybe the state attended the Johnny Sutton night school of “lie and try” justice. hehe
#19 Yeah, but can you implicate Halliburton?
Not at all surprised by this ruling. Big brother at its best. How tramatic for those kids to be ripped from their homes.
Well, the only saving grace of this whole blundering onslaught by the state authorities is that no one was killed. At least they didn’t drag the federal LEOs into the mess. It could have been uglier.
I still don’t like the idea of them receiving welfare money. One way or another taxpayers are supporting their lifestyle and now the state will probably be sued. Pathetic.
21. hamous
I dunno, but we can surely nail Cheney, which is the same thing.
20. aw
They are both sorta west of heere. Does that help?
Yep Rick that nails it. He breaths the same air, they are both West of here, and I bet they attended the Johnny Sutton night school of ” Lie and try”
Rick
Thanks for taking time out of your busy day to write this. I know protecting rapacious insurance companies, greedy capitalists, the Ebeneezer Scrooges and Simon Legrees of the world from the clutching, grabbing hands of widows and orphans is very time consuming.
#10
Scares the crap out of me and that’s bad because there’s no paper left on the roll.
27. texpat
Ha, ha. Very funny. Well, let me tell you this, Bub: Some of those orphans can be pretty damn tenacious when they chomp onto my ankle.
Sigh.
The one thing we can at least say, the state can not randomly take 400 children from a community and get away with it.
The whole thing is just so sad.
#18;
Nope, no illegal alien’s “rights violated”, just US citizens. Johnny Sutton should be nowhere to be found.
Excellent question though.
I’m waiting for the court to request a stay of the Appellate Court ruling (hence, hanging on to the children) pending an appeal to the Supreme Court of Texas.
My prediction is that no LEOs anywhere will want to be a part of the prosecution of this group any further and the FLDS, whatever the heck it is that they do in San Angelo, will be free of the hot breath down their backs.
Oh - and much, much richer after their already-appointed lawyers get done with it.
While the libertarian side of me celebrates this ruling as a victory for our rights, the human side of me really hopes the state can find some more evidence to keep from having to hand a bunch of little girls back over to a bunch of child rapists cloaking themselves in the bible.
#33 Bill F
Well said.
The state has had 6 weeks to find something. They have records, and they have the children.
33. Bill
And if the State will focus on actual wrongdoers rather than mass roundups of allegedly like-minded individuals (the whole concept of which is put in doubt by footnote 11 of the opinion) then it might yet do an extremely important service to the victims and the state.
But they keep admitting that females they claimed were minors were, in fact, adults.
One thing is for sure, CPS isn’t going away. It can’t afford to now.
I cannot understand why people will not accept that the state lied. Wasn’t it Grits for Breakfast who said the state had found 5 underage girls, from the very beginning? Weren’t we being told there were 30? Texas changed the law in 05, in 04 thelegal age to marry was 14. There are no 13, 12, 11, 10 year old girls married. Nor are they having children.
Clean up time… and it looks like the RINOS will be swept from office this November, not by a broom but by a worse fate…….OBAMA!
You gotta love it….. and then you can cry for 4-8 maybe 16 years because we did not clean our own house.
I am so confused by people. This religion believes at a young age, girls should marry, start the family. They are cared for. Their children are not abused. They work together for the good of their beliefs and their community. From what I understand, we should put all of these people in jail. On the other hand, a 14 year old girl can go find a sperm donor who says he lovers her…. or even omits that part, go live with mom and dad. I pay for her schooling, her baby, her new parenting classes just started by HISD, and then after she graduates, I continue to pay for her child. There is no anger about the second situation. It’s perfectly acceptable. The baby has no daddy in the picture. The girl is not in the best of circumstances and the baby… well who knows.
I would like to offer this regularly and spirited defense of Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints practice of polygamy and the impregnation of post-pubescent little girls wherein they maintain once a little girl has menstruated it is their sworn duty before God as follows:
The writer is a member of the FLDS and is prominent member with special privileges at Texas Polygamy blog. His nom de plume is “on the street” and he has been linked quite a bit and is well known around the internet.
Would you submit your daughter to this ?
Here is the link for the comment I mentioned above:
http://texaspolygamy.blogspot.com/2008/04/another-thread-for-street.html?showComment=1207987560000#c3324340162344443103
The blog is: texaspolygamy.blogspot dot com
40. texpat
I certainly would not.
Of course we wouldn’t - but (for the umpteenth time) that doesn’t mean they don’t have rights!
If believing (apart from evidence of law-breaking action) something that I consider to be “freaky” is a reason to take away rights, I’m probably going to send SWAT for most of you!
Do I want to live with them? No.
Do I want my daughter to join them? No.
Do I think that they’re misguided (at best)? Yes.
Do I think we should throw them (or their children) all in jail because of it? NO!
43.
Plus, CPS failed to establish that the vast majority of the kids they seized were subjected to this either. From what we know now, the State’s action was predicated on a handful of underage pregnancies.
Court needs to order the state to terminate those employees who acted illegally. Court then needs to order said terminated employees to work on the ranch doing hard physical labor for about a year. No jail….just a message.
Keep in mind the state always knows what’s best for you and your kids. That’s why they’ve essentially outlawed home schooling in California.
Howdy,
maybe someone smarter then myself can help me with this.
“The Department’s lead investigator was of the opinion that due to the “pervasive belief system” of the FLDS, the male children are groomed to be perpetrators of sexual abuse and the girls are raised to be victims of sexual abuse;”
Am I wrong in interpreting this as:
//We are removing these kids because of the beliefs of their parents they MIGHT commit crimes in the future//
Does this mean the state now thinks it can take the children of convicted criminals because their children are more likely to commit crimes???
Or the children of families who believe in “RACIST” philosophies because they might commit hate crimes when they grow up???
Is this just nuts or what?
Genxyy
#43 myheadhurts
There is nothing in my comment implying the slightest defense of the appalling incompetence of the LEOs or CPS officials involved in the El Dorado fiasco. Their unexcusable actions do not, however, also mean that A) the FLDS is an organization innocent of wrongdoing, or B) crimes have not been committed.
I do not expect anyone here to find it acceptable to expose their daughters to this kind of behavior. I would also hope those same people would have some compassion and outrage for the young girls who are, regardless of whether their FLDS mothers and fathers condoned and encouraged this way of life. Just because the adults find these practices to be normative doesn’t mean our society should and simply look the other way.
I find it particularly heinous these young girls are knocked up and saddled with little children before they have the slightest clue about the real world. But that is a brilliant and very effective form of total control. They are first protective of their offspring and, like all good mothers, will sacrifice anything to see their young ones have food and shelter. When you put little girls, with no knowledge of the outside world, into that sort of brainwashed state of mind with no means of independence or education useful in the outside world, they will almost always choose safety.
I think the men and the leaders of the FLDS are reprehensible and despiscable creeps. I have no repect for them whatsoever. I will defend their right to all the legal and constitutional protections due all other Americans. That does not also require me to ignore their obvious repugnant attitude towards women and children.
My daughter was 10 years, 4 months and 17 days old when she had her first period. I know well because it was Easter Sunday and my mother’s birthday. My daughter, who had gone on an Easter egg that morning, was physically precocious and had started to develop earlier than her peers. I was a little concerned and I did not take her first menses very calmly.
The idea a little girl like her would be deemed ready or nearly ready to engage in sexual relations with some man is incomprehensible to me. But this is what we face with the FLDS. Do not throw up to me any statistics there have been no little girls in El Dorado found to be impregnated so far. I know this. I also know what they believe and consider not only permissable, but compelling duty in their doctrine.
No, I don’t have sympathy for these people beyond the mistreatment they have received at the hands of foolish and power-drunk CPS bureacrats. I think the FLDS is a rank, totalitarian thugocracy that believes it perfectly acceptable to flaunt the laws of the United States as long as they can get away with it.
Maybe I am looking at this all wrong but, to me this is not all about the FLDS and whether or not you believe in their religious belief. That argument could go on forever. One mans trash is anothers……..
IMHO, this is more about a vast government agency, run amuck and rampant, setting itself up as the purveyor of morality….not upholding law and following strict guidelines as set out in same.
Tends to cause me to reflect on just how many hundreds, ney, thousands of cases that they have exercised their same powers and made the same mistakes with others, that have gone unnoticed because the downtrodden , which they have so blatently disregarded the civil rights of, could not get fair and impartial address of their grievances because they did not have the advantage of nationwide media coverage, thereby loosing their parental rights in the wake.
Just one mans opinion and perusings.
Don’t continue to act like FLDS was totally innocent in all of this. Part of the reason they took all of the kids and eventually separated them from their parents was that they were unable to get straight answers about whose kids belonged to who and how old the kids were. FLDS members were actively trying to hide kids from CPS and make the job of interviewing the kids difficult for CPS. If FLDS had cooperated and encouraged the kids to tell the truth when interviewed, then it would have been very easy to determine which ones had been abused and who had abused them. Since FLDS chose to try to prevent CPS from finding that out by playing all kinds of hide and seek games with the kids, CPS had no choice but to take them off the ranch, separate them from their parents and then try to get to the bottom of who was a minor, who was pregnant, and who had been abused by adult males. FLDS could have prevented all of that by cooperating with the authorities trying to investigate what they thought was a legit abuse complaint at the time. In my eyes, the lack of cooperation and active attempts to hinder the investigators are indication that there is an organized effort to cover for criminal activity, which makes anybody who participated an accessory to the crime.
Just another view. Filed with the 3rd yesterday. Not everything is as it seems.
http://3033920633817195966-a-trla-org-s-sites.googlegroups.com/a/trla.org/eldorado-media-updates/legal-documents/support_letter.PDF?attredirects=0
Yeah, yeah, before you even bring it up:
So much for stereotypes.
#51 Bill F
I agree. FLDS has been through these things before, unlike the local CPS. They played them like a violin and knew how to embarass the locals. It’s a game for them and they won. The CPS folks ignored proper procedure and were clueless. The FLDS are laughing their asses off right now.
Rick let me clarify again as I was having a hard time trying to figure out what I wanted to say and was in too much of a hurry to reread what I did end up writing. I did NOT mean to say that YOU were leaving anything out, but I was questioning whether or not CPS did a good job of making their case and putting out the right evidence. Like someone mentioned before, one of the CPS workers indicated the reason they took the kids was because they were homeschoolers. Ummm…that was NOT the reason that they did it IMHO (and I am a former homeschooler so I feel I can say that). So yeah, really sorry that sounded like I was dissing you.
Texpat - I think we’re (mostly) agreed. While I don’t fault the FLDS for wanting to stay away from (and keep their kids away from) society, the focus on breeding girls as soon as they hit menses is odious.
At the same time, we can’t do anything about it until there is evidence a law has been broken. There is no “good guy” in this scenario.
Bill F - Plenty of folks (including some of the FLDS) have been very straightforward with CPS and had their children taken away anyway. FLDS ain’t angels, but CPS don’t wear a halo, either.
Meglet - As you’re probably aware as a former homeschooler, CPS considers homeschooling a “danger sign” and makes the assumption that those who are homeschooling are probably “abusing” their children (by keeping them uneducated or making them religious freaks).
So I think it only convinced CPS that they were right when they found out the FLDS kids don’t go to the local public school, but I agree that it probably wasn’t the primary reason they went in.
I explored home schooling a few years ago and found that Texas is more tolerant of it than other states, where school districts engage the help of CPS in discouraging it. (I’m not saying it’s as easy as it should be in Texas!)
In one case I read about, the state laws granted undue power to school districts in “ensuring” home schooled were receiving a quality education. The parents jumped through all the usual hoops of using approved curricula, documenting, and testing but the district decided that wasn’t enough, and demanded the children take some standardized tests. At the time, the tests were not mandated by state law.
The parents refused to comply. The district involved the courts and CPS and the kids were seized. They were brought to school, sat down, and instructed to submit to the examination.
Both children sat silently with arms folded until the nanny staters finally gave up. Perhaps that is one reason the state frowns on homeschooling. Can’t be teaching kids that government power is and should be limited, can we…
I meant to add that this case did not occur in Texas, and happened prior to the federal government’s additional intrusions, known as “no child left behind.”
That is really a function of choosing better company to hang out with. If I am standing on a street corner with a bunch of my friends who are selling drugs, and the cops roll up to take them down, naturally they are all going to run. If I run too, I should expect to make a visit to jail and will need my lawyer persuades the cops that I wasn’t selling drugs. If instead, when the cops roll up I stick my hands up and give them the names of the guys dealing drugs, then I am unlikely to go to jail.
The FLDS folks who are monogamous and aren’t allowing their daughters to be raped by the sect leaders should be first in line to help the CPS figure out who is advocating or allowing that practice to happen, but from the sounds of it, a significant number of them were active participants in helping the others try to impede the CPS investigation.
Yes Bob I’ve had friends from other states who told me how they had to take tests from the state every year to be allowed to homeschool. Back in the day even in Texas it was a big deal to homeschool (when my grandparents were raising my aunts who are 7 and 10 years older than me) and you didn’t necessarily broadcast to everyone that you were doing that. In fact my aunt used to show me that she always ran to the backyard when the school bus came by to pick up kids/drop them off because she didn’t want to be taken with them. (She was more like an older sister to me) I am well aware of the challenges homeschoolers have faced through the years but I think now we have a freer ability to do so than ever before at least in Texas and IF that dolt of a CPS agent THOUGHT that homeschooling was the reason they were removing the kids than they DESERVED to lose their case. However I have a feeling that all CPS agents have personal opinions that sometimes interfere with their work which is sometimes where we get in trouble. I have a coworker who is one of the sweetest girls you’ll ever meet and she used to work for CPS. She would not be taking anybody’s kids because they were being homeschooled. I don’t know what I’m babbling about except maybe to say yeah I agree that CPS is probably gun shy over the homeschool issue but it seems to me that a group whose leader has been put in jail for a crime that seems to have been perpetuated (even if only evidence supports 5 girls) I am inclined to think–where there is smoke there is a fire. And if you find a little fire here, it’s possible there is a bigger fire somewhere a little further back. You just have to investigate, and if there is no bigger fire than that’s great but if there IS a bigger fire than you need to make your case the RIGHT way and not focus on stupid little incidentals like homeschooling and wearing funny dresses.
#58,
Agreed that bad company can be a sign of corrupted good character.
That being said, if you don’t run and provide the police with the evidence that you have done nothing wrong, that is it.
Many of the people at the ranch did just that and were told (when presented with state-issued evidence of adulthood), “We don’t believe you. You’re coming with us.”
Oh! And becoming an informant is not required in this country (at least, it didn’t used to be) for your rights to liberty remaining unmolested.
No mhh that doesn’t mean your rights can be molested but you can be held as what is it an accomplice? in a crime if you know the details of one and don’t tell anyone what you know.
No, you are not an accomplice if you are aware of a crime and don’t speak up. From the law encyclopedia:
(emphasis mine)
Oh an ACCESSORY that’s the word I was looking for. You can be an accessory to the crime. Thanks for clearing that up.