*BREAKING NEWS*
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 22, 2008
Contact: Cynthia Martinez, Communications Director
512.374.2764
cmartinez@trla.org
COURT GRANTS APPEAL BY FLDS MOTHERS
AUSTIN, Texas – The Third Court of Appeals has ruled that Child Protective Services (CPS) did not have the right to remove children from the Yearning for Zion (YFZ) ranch in early April.
The ruling comes as a result of a writ of mandamus filed with the court last month. The writ of mandamus was filed by Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA), the largest provider of legal aid in Texas, on behalf of 48 FLDS mothers that TRLA is representing in their child custody cases.
“The way that the courts have ignored the legal rights of these mothers is ridiculous,” said TRLA attorney Julie Balovich. “It was about time a court stood up and said that was has been happening to these families is wrong.”
In the decision, the Court ruled that CPS failed to provide any evidence that the children were in imminent danger and acted hastily in removing them from their families. According to the Court, “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.”
TRLA will be holding a press conference in front of the courthouse in San Angelo today at 1:30 pm regarding this issue. TRLA attorney Julie Balovich will be available to answer questions from the media.
Established in 1970, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, Inc. (TRLA) is a nonprofit organization that provides free civil legal services to low-income and disadvantaged clients in a 68-county service area. TRLA’s mission is to promote the dignity, self-sufficiency, safety and stability of low-income Texas residents by providing high-quality legal assistance and related educational services.
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May 22, 2008 at 2:15 pm
I DO NOT AGREE WITH YOUR VIEWPOINT. MS BALOVICH HAS HELPED KEEP THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN OF THE FLDS UNDER THE CONTROL OF A MALE DOMINATED RELIGION THAT SIDE STEPS THE LAW ON POLYGAMY AND ABUSES WELFARE PAYMENTS. THE WOMEN LIED AND HID FACTS ABOUT TRUE CIRCUMSTANCES, EVEN ON TV INTERVIEWS. THEY APPEAR SO IGNORANT ABOUT THE COUNTRY AND THE LAWS THEY MUST BE BRAINWASHED FROM BIRTH.
May 22, 2008 at 2:31 pm
As a lawyer, I admire the professionalism of your legal work here. As a person, I admire the way you have stood up to the abuse of the legal system happening in Tom Green County. You’ve gone quite a ways to redeeming the state of Texas in my eyes.
May 22, 2008 at 4:39 pm
I totally agree with the decision by the Appeals Court at this time. Thanks for your help with the appeal.
Please let us know how we can donate money for your services.
We will post a link to your website.
Thanks again.
May 22, 2008 at 5:07 pm
This “law” about what age is “underage” for marriage and/or childbearing is made only by the U.S.A, and only in the past 50 years or less even. Me personally would not marry a girl that young, for I believe childhood should be enjoyed and not laborous. But marriage to a girl past puberty has been the norm since the beginning of time itself. How does any governing entity get away with making the “norm” a criminal act? Pornography is totally understandable, it is an act demoralizing proper conduct. Marriage at puberty is just an age-old belief and practice.
May 22, 2008 at 5:38 pm
It seems that certain people in Texas government have not read the Constitution and Bill Of Rights. How they ever thought that traumatizing the prepubescent children now to prevent the trauma of underage marriage in the undetermined future would be acceptable justification to the higher courts is beyond me. It isn’t even heresay, it’s, “back from the future”, heresay.
Thanks for reminding us all that observing human rights and presenting proper evidence is necessary for any kind of justice. DC(post above) is right, Texas needs some redeeming court decisions. Ben Stein stuck out his neck, referring to “Gestapo tactics” and personally questioning the Texas Governor. Ben called the raid and abduction of the children, criminal.
Keep up the good work – I’ll sleep better tonight knowing that what’s left of my post 9/11 Civil Rights are being protected.
May 22, 2008 at 8:18 pm
The day our family heard of this raid on these people’s children, we all wept. We have watched this unfold with great concern for these families.
We have seen how CPS conducts itself here in CA and know how difficult it is to get children back once taken. As foster parents, we have witnessed serious abuse of power by CPS workers here, which is rarely challenged, and we saw similar elements of that abuse in this unusually public and massive assault on a minority community by an unsympathetic system bent on denying these parents their right to raise their own chidren in their own culture.
If this were a Black Nationalist Community, and Islamic Community, or a hippie commune, this would not be tolerated.
We thank you so much for putting this issue back on a proper footing of law rather than public prejudice. Frankly, removing children from the culture of their parents for the sole purpose of preventing the parents from passing on their own beliefs to their children violates the civil rights of all families and everyone should feel threatened if the state is allowed to conduct itself in such a manner.
If the basis for removing a child is now to be the belief system of the parents, and the requirement to get their children back is to be “re-education” ,we have truly lost our way and become Russianized!
The fact that a group believes something that may be illegal is not, in itself, illegal, and is not grounds to take their children! You can believe what you want in America, you cannot act on that portion that violates the law. You can believe in human sacrifice, you just cannot do it. You can believe in marrying under age, but you cannot do it. You can believe in lynching, but you cannot do it.
We cannot start removing people’s children because we don’t like what the parents believe or what they teach them. If that is a valid basis to take their children, why are we not focusing on the children being raised in gang cultures where they are brought up to view criminal conduct as wholesome?
This is America. We all have our rights preserved in the unique notion that by preserving the rights of each individual, we preserve the rights of all individuals.
By protecting the rights of these mothers, you have acted to protect the rights of ALL mothers and their children to be free from state authorized “re-education” projects and social engineering attempts to “homogenize” American.
I personally like our differences and the many cultures that thrive here as no where else in the world. I have no interest in shutting down any of those many little fringe religions people often call “cults”. Neither should the state.
CPS should stop using broad non-legal definitions for “abuse” and focus their resources on those truly needy children out there.
I wonder how many children who are truly abused and in danger have been ignored just so CPS can focus on an entirely inappropriate use of their resources!
Well, this could be a book if someone wanted to write it!
Thanks so much, from our heart, and keep up the good work for these people.
Kate Lund and family
May 23, 2008 at 6:57 am
I wonder if there will now be discipline administered by the Courts and State against the individuals who so dishonestly and blatantly denied these families their constitutional rights. So often officials who abuse the system in this manner are not dealt with and are left in the system to illegally repeat their offenses in less visible ways.
These officials who broke all the rules, in a rush to judgment should at least be fired. If not they and others like them will continue to get away with similar atrocities in the future.
Thank God our legal system has worked in this particular case.
D. Earl
May 23, 2008 at 7:41 am
I can’t say that I care much for the FLDS beliefs or practices, which I regard as being rather cult-like, but being in a cult is not supposed to be punishable by losing your children, at least not here in the US. As more statements by the CPS & prosecutors came out, it became even clearer that these people were being punished for having religious beliefs that lay outside what the locals thought was moral. This always looked to me like a violation of freedom of religion.
If being in a cult violates the law, why isn’t someone seizing Tom Cruise’s children, who are being raised as Scientologists? If having a belief system that might lead to future abuse violates the laws, shouldn’t all Christian Scientists be charged for possible future harm to their children due to the possibility of lack of medical care in an emergency, not just those whose children are currently endangered by it?
Even if some children are coerced or convinced to marry while underage, why is that more of a crime than was committed by the priest who told my mother that my 15 yr old brother should marry the 15 yr old girl he had gotten pregnant and later performed the ceremony himself?
As Kate said earlier, large numbers of children live in situations where they are raised to believe in things that the majority of Americans believe are wrong. That is one reason why majority rule is not absolute, and why we have freedom of religion and of belief enshrined in our laws.
My compliments and sincere appreciation for their efforts go to the TRLA for protecting all of our rights by defending the FLDS mothers!
Sincerely.
Glo. Phillips (who believes most strongly in protecting our constitutional rights from attack, however unpopular the defendants may be)
May 23, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Glad to see there is much more common sense made by normal Americans that value their liberty that is had by the so called “Child Protective Services” I consider a criminal organization and ought to be prosecuted under RICO statutes for child abuse now occurring all over the country. FLDS was just the tip of the iceberg because they have gotten so blatantly self arrogant that they think they could escalate to this monstrous degree. They are the ones that need to be investigated in every bloody state.
May 24, 2008 at 8:39 am
So many insightful writings here. Thank God the true majority of we Americans still believe in civil and religious rights and we must speak up to those that control the laws of this country. And we must speak out and against the overpowering authority of the CPS.
It has been pointed out by others persons posting on the different blogs here that a huge majority of children placed into cps custody and foster care are abused. The system of paying people for foster care brings about abuse. Many will do this just for the money not because they care about the children.
Thank you so much attorneys with the TRLA. Keep working hard for the children and mothers. As you monitor the posts on these blogs the overwhelming majority of people support the religious and civil rights of the FLDS and all the people’s civil rights.
Let us also never forget Waco and Ruby Ridge. Thank goodness they didn’t show up at the FLDS with tanks, machine guns and fire bombs. But that could have happened had the FLDS resisted. But they cooperated to the full extent even though what was happening to them was about as illegal as it gets.
Bet