In yet another blow to the Texas officials who ordered the mass removal of children from the Yearning for Zion Ranch, the Texas Supreme Court has agreed with an appellate court that they must be returned. Officials will now have to reunite as many as 450 children with their parents. It is not must a rebuke to Child Protective Services, which adopted the most extreme measures in the case without evidence of individual guilt, but to District Judge Barbara Walther who showed very little concern over the rights of the accused parents in the matter.
Walther can still impose conditions to protect the children. However, as discussed on this blog, her orders presented a horrific potentiality in future cases where mere association with a church made one presumptively abusive.
For the opinions and order, click here.
I don’t know Texas law (that strkes me an oxymoron on its face, however), but I have no sympathy whatsoever for the members of that cult and compaound or the wives. The “adults”, both male and female, have wrecklessly endangered those children by subjecting them to an unlawful lifestyle that practices polygamy, incest, statutory rape of boys and girls and they’ve jointly condemned them to thinking this perverted lifestyle is normal. Those children should never be returned to the mothers and the men of the compound should be arrested, prosecuted and jailed for very long stretches.
“The line between investigation and persecution is a fine one, and the Jr. Senator from Wisconsin has stepped over it repeatedly.”
– EDWARD R. MURROW
Mr. Murrow was, of course, referring to Sen. Joseph McCarthy and McCarthy’s rather irrational pursuit of “communists,” but I think that quote applies here also. Not to mention Mr. Murrow’s other reminder, that “…accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends on evidence and due process of law.” It is obvious, to me anyway, that TX law enforcement and Judge Walther blatantly disregarded both in this case. Thank goodness the TX Supreme Court had the courage to restore it.