Court Orders Over 400 Kids Returned To Parents In Texas Compound Case

After being overruled by the State Supreme Court, the judge in the Texas FLDS case has signed the order to reunite the children and their parents.

The order signed by Texas District Judge Barbara Walther, responding to a state Supreme Court ruling last week, allowed parents in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to pick up their children from foster care facilities around the state almost immediately.

In exchange for regaining custody, the parents are not allowed to leave Texas without court permission and must participate in parenting classes. They were also ordered not to interfere with any child abuse investigation and to allow the children to undergo psychiatric or medical exams if required.

However, it does not put restrictions on the children's fathers, or require parents to renounce polygamy or live away from the sect's Yearning For Zion Ranch in West Texas.

If there’s any abuse going on there, I truly do hope they find it and deal with the perpetrators. That said, both the court of appeals and the state Supreme Court were pretty clear that Child Protective Services didn’t present sufficient evidence for this action. Someone really needs to take a look at how CPS and the local authorities acted in this case.

Yeah, the compound thing is creepy but creepy isn’t a legal standard that justifies what was done here.

posted by DrewM. at 03:40 PM

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