FLDS May 22nd

From a report by Michelle Roberts:

"The custody case, one of the largest in U.S. history, has been marked by chaos from the beginning. So far, at least eight mothers initially put into foster care as underage girls have been reclassified as adults, eroding the state's initial count of 31 underage mothers. Others were expected to be reclassified as adults in coming days.
In one sign that sect members may be thinking of flexing their political muscle, members on Wednesday requested up to 600 voter registration cards from Schleicher County.
That is something they have not done in the five years since the 1,700-acre ranch was transformed from a small game ranch to a $20.5 million self-contained community.
Schleicher County has an estimated 2,800 residents, and the sect property is the third-biggest taxpayer in the rural ranching county, accounting for roughly 18 percent of its tax base. County officials had no role in the raid, aside from sheriff's deputies assisting state law enforcement.
'As residents of the state, we have to take responsibility for part of this,' said Jessop. 'We were naive enough to believe there was good people in government to protect our rights.'"

I don't know how that will work, since CPS is determined that these women and children cannot go home, but must be spread out all over the state.

A reporter at Dallas news is catching on:

... law enforcement has uncovered more evidence—including confidential clergy records....While the records do show a pervasive practice of polygamy among sect members, they do not reveal a pattern of large-scale systematic abuse of minors that the state has alleged occurred at the YFZ Ranch before the raid.

Almost all plural wives listed, for example, are older than 18. The youngest wife listed on the records is 16. There were also several monogamous couples living on the ranch.

Case-worker admits she has no concerns about a parent's parenting skills, but classes on parenting skills are still required:

"This is a cookie-cutter plan, a generic plan," said Dallas attorney Mark Ticer, who is representing three of Sarah Steed's children. "We would rather see something specific and realistic."

Ticer asked Alison Albrecht, a CPS caseworker assigned to the Steed case, if she had seen Steed interact with her children. Albrecht said she had and that neither she nor any of the other caseworkers assigned to the family had any concerns about Steed's parenting skills.

"Then why do you have parenting skills in this plan when there's no concern about parenting skills?" Ticer asked.

Albrecht said that one plan had been drafted for every family living on the YFZ Ranch and that neither Steed nor her children had been consulted prior to formulating the plan.

"Tell the court what evidence there is for this family that abuse or neglect occurred," Ticer asked Albrecht.

Albrecht said she had none and agreed that typical CPS protocol calls for gathering evidence first and then tailoring service plans to specific allegations of abuse and neglect.

"These children don't show any signs of neglect or abuse," Ticer said. "What it amounts to, judge, is they live at the wrong address."

More on the status of that 14 year old girl who is not pregnant, contrary to the lies CPS has been telling about her:

Texas child welfare officials originally claimed 31 girls from the YFZ Ranch between the ages 14 to 17 were either pregnant, have children or both.
So far, however, they have acknowledged that 11 girls are actually adults. At least six more are likely to get that designation today, when status hearings resume at the Tom Green County Courthouse.
Sloan said her client is the youngest girl included on the list. While a judge told her the girl's status was not relevant to Wednesday's hearing, Sloan said the record should be corrected because Texas Child Protective Services has used the girl to mislead the public. Doing so would improve the mother's chances of regaining custody of the girl, Sloan added.
District Judge John Specia told Sloan to work with CPS to get the girl's status clarified.
In afternoon hearings, state attorneys acknowledged another three mothers are adults: Barbara Joy Jessop, Lenora Jeffs and Janet Jeffs Jessop.
Judge Jay Weatherby ordered CPS to quickly move Barbara Joy Jessop and her 8-month-old daughter quickly to a family shelter where she will be allowed more freedom than the facility where they are currently housed.

I'd like to know what this change in shelter activities is all about:

Sarah Draper, 37, has moved to Abilene, Texas, and taken a job as a registered nurse to be near her four children, who are in Henderson Home.
"I feel very blessed," she said, praising the facility and its activities, which have included trips to the zoo and a local fire department.
Inexplicably, caregivers there told Draper on Monday her children would no longer be allowed to participate in off-campus excursions. No one could explain why or who ordered the change.
"And frankly, I would rather have my children going to the fire department than sitting in front of television all day," she said.

Grits for Breakfast notes the incredible shrinking coverage of this story as the news looks worse and worse for CPS.
At the 14 day hearins, the Gosangeles website had a reporter's blow by blow summary of the two day long preceedings.
At the first day of this group of hearings, they did the same thing- this time assigning several reporters to the beat.
On the second day, that summary was about three paragraphs long.
Yesterday it was two.
And today, they aren't even bothering. They have a story about one family.

16 year old Teresa Jeffs is one of the children in that family. She's a minor child without children, btw, and she wants to list to her CDs and mp3 of her father's sermons. Her father is Warren Jeffs. The foster shelter she's in had taken them away and she wants them back. Her caseworker agrees:

As Warren Jeffs' daughter, she has been exempted from requirements that children not have pictures of the sect's self-styled prophet. She also has grown upset, CPS case worker Adriana Pineira told the court, because she has been unable to obtain CDs or an iPod with recordings of her father's sermons.

"We are aware of the problem with regard to the specific children of Mr. Jeffs," said CPS attorney Ellen Griffith, adding that the agency is awaiting the results of DNA testing to determine definitively who those children are. "As to his children, yes, there would be different rights."

Pineira, Teresa's case worker, agreed.

"I'm not going to force those things," she said, referring to a photo album containing pictures of Jeffs, "or pry those things away from her."

Yesterday, much was made of one of Jeff's wives who made a written promise not to permit any of her children to marry before 18, even though every other parent in the state of Texas has that right, and even though I'm not sure she can stop a 17 year old. She's moving away from the ranch to get back her children- and the children of her late sister Barbara, whom she also cares for. And in spite of all that, her lawyer points out to the court that she is not abandoning her religion.

How can CPS command families not to live in their homes?

"With the investigation continuing, everyone is leery to say whether they can return to the ranch," said Irene Schwaninger, a CPS case worker who testified this week.

When asked whether adult sect sisters can live together with each other and their families, Schwaninger said CPS would have to look into it on a case-by-case basis.

Willie Jessop said FLDS families are being forced to either be homeless, depend on society to support them or rely on friends for help. The economic responsibilities being put on them are impossible, he said, considering the traveling they are doing to visit all their children spread around the state in shelters.

A sect woman who identified herself only as Esther on Wednesday morning at the courthouse said the last time she was at the ranch was when she left with her five children during the CPS raid.

When asked whether she would like to return to the ranch, she said, "It's the best place in the whole world to be."

Even the hostile reporters note that keeping the children together was the exception, not the norm:

In contrast to most cases, the four children of Sarah Draper and Daniel Barlow are staying in the same place, Hendrick Home for Children in Abilene. Draper, who lives and works in Abilene, visits them once a week for one to two hours. Barlow said he would have his first visit with the children later in the day.

Barlow said he is from Utah and has never been to the sect's YFZ Ranch, nor has he been affiliated with the sect for 4.5 years. He and Draper also have an 11-year-old son in Utah.

More on CPS repeated attempts to get back on the ranch yesterday:

Willie Jessop said he met with CPS workers and Schleicher County sheriff's deputies in Eldorado, who told him they were looking for as many as five children, ages 15 and younger. An eyewitness, CPS workers claimed, put them on the ranch.

"I asked them if they got their information from the same source as the last one," Jessop said, referring to the call that sparked the April 3 raid, now under investigation by Texas authorities as a possible hoax. "They assured me that was not their source. Our skepticism is, it probably was."

CPS officials claim Jessop invited them to the ranch later in the afternoon, but when they arrived about 6 p.m., they were denied entry again. Two CPS workers and a law enforcement officer stood at the gate and spoke with Jessop. The police officer was seen wagging her finger emphatically at Jessop, who appeared visibly upset.

Marleigh Meisner specifically told news reporters that Willie Jessop had told her CPS could come back and they'd be let in. That doesn't even begin to pass the smell test. It doesn't even make sense.
What does make sense is that yesterday CPS wants to distract the media's attention from the embarrassing admission that when they'd told the world they had a large number of mothers between the ages of 14 and 17, they actually had only one 14 year old on that list, and it turns out she isn't even pregnant- nor is she 'married.' Her mother is seeking to regain custody of her and her 10 year old sister.
Faced with this new turn in court, as well as the other 11 girls who turned out to be adults after all (including one who is 27 years old), they gave the media something shiny to look at, and the media averted its collective eyes from the revelation that CPS has NO 14 year olds in that list of teen mothers 14-17. Whose going to recalibrate the math when comparing stats on teen pregnancy in the FLDS to that in the outside world.

Texas child welfare authorities were huddling late Wednesday to decide what avenues to pursue. Because they are a civil agency, officials noted they may not need a warrant to conduct a civil investigation. Asked if they plan to return and force their way onto the property, CPS couldn't say.

They do indeed believe they are above the law. I am pretty certain they do need a court order. They do not have the right to come and go at will through private homes.
Heh:

Meisner would not comment on the new information the agency has received. She said CPS, which does not conduct criminal investigations, never uses search warrants.
"These attempts are part of our ongoing investigation," she said.
A search warrant was used when Texas Rangers and CPS workers raided the ranch in April.

Note to all families: NEVER let CPS enter your home without a court order or a search warrant. They are not there to help you. They are there to seek and find reason to add you to their caseload.
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Other news: Of course we all know the third court of appeals has overturned Judge Walther's decision to remove the children. Whether that means the children will be going home, I do not know. Let's not turn the searchlights off of CPS' malfeasance just yet.

Meanwhile, the case for the three fathers is still pending. Here is an eye opening and heart-rending letter from the Attorney Ad Litem for the three youngest children of the Rulon Keate family, pleading with the court to send them home. It is well worth reading.
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Oh, and hearings for the other parents have all been canceled for today while everybody figures out what to do next. CPS will probably appeal. I would love to be a fly on the wall in any conference among the five judges who have been 'helping' Judge Walthers out. Surely at least one of them has noticed what's being said in their courtrooms does not match what she and CPS have been saying, and surely at least one of them resents the way she's dragged them into this unholy and unconstitutional mess.
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Meanwhile:

As of noon Thursday, just eight mothers remained in the disputed category.....The women declared adults on Thursday range in age from 20 to 24; a coming hearing would have shown one remaining disputed minor is 27.
Attorney Kim Bridges, who represents Priscilla Zitting's daughters, told Judge Barbara Walther Thursday she has never been able to get information on why the state deemed the mother a minor or why it had now changed its position about her status.
The state listed Priscilla Zitting as "approximately 16" on one court filing for the status hearing, though it showed her correct 1988 birth year on a chart offered as evidence during a hearing before Walther in April.

Four were declared adults today, three or four more were supposed to be declared adults today or tomorrow, but the hearings were canceled while Judges tried to figure out how to respond to the fact that they were holding cookie cutter, rubber stamp, kangamaroo hearings on CPS plans for children in their custody that the Third Appeals Court ruled CPS wrongfully seized, and Judge Walthers wrongfully approved that seizure.

One of them asked the judge why CPS didn't believe her in the first place. The report does not tell us whether or not the judge had an answer, or even had the grace to blush, since she's the one who told CPS they did not need to worry about pesky little details like driver's licenses, certified birth certificates, or any other identification accept CPS' own 'look-see' test.

The hearings were hobbled by mix ups like this one:
David Barlow Steed came to Texas to help support his sister, Lori,whose child is now in state custody. When he arrived at the courthouse, a baliff wrote his name on charging papers identifying him as the father of his sister's child.
Just like that, Steed, who has never lived in Texas or been to the YFZ Ranch, found himself embroiled in the case. Weatherby planned to sign a document releasing Steed from the case Thursday afternoon.

On that note, you've just go to read Brooke Adams four step hearing outline- it's, well, not funny because it's so real. But it's mind boggling that it's not a parody. IT's like a Monty Python sketch.

And then you should read this one:

Caseworkers, prompted by state attorneys, also increasingly describe the plans as a ''starting point,'' language that helps counter any arguments that parents have had no say in the plans.

They started the week saying professionals back at the state office crafted the service plans, admitting they played no role whatsoever in the matter.

Parents attorneys are now pushing for more explanation about who helped craft the service plans. That got caseworkers to elaborate about ''culturally sensitive'' professionals familiar with the sect helping to put it together. Pushed some more they admitted that includes ex-members of the sect; one caseworker said psychologists and psychiatrists contributed.

This is a seriously failed, broken, bankrupt system:

The judges all listen, nod and stamp ''approved'' on the plans with no revisions -- even, for example, when a plan calls for an educational assessment of a 9-month-old infant. The system is working as it is supposed to, they say, just give it time.

As Weatherby explained today: ''The court has the authority to amend the plan but is choosing not to.''

And this, from the same judge: ''This judge and every other judge sitting for the 51st District Court expects the department to meet as quickly as possible [with the family] and make the plan specific,''

Lowly caseworkers have no authority, apparently, even if they wanted to exercise some. One caseworker admitted Wednesday she did not even have the discretion to change a mother's name on a service plan so it would be correct.

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The parents are required to provide 'safe' living quarters for the children, but CPS...?

In the hearing before 119th District Judge Ben Woodward, attorneys suggested some state-selected shelters where the nine children of Marie and Joseph Steed are living may not constitute safe environments.

The couple's 8-year-old son, Rulon, suffered a spider bite while in one shelter, a lawyer said, and their 10-year-old daughter, Martha, broke her foot while on the shelter's playground.

Other shelter-related concerns mentioned in the hearing ranged from problems with replacing one child's shoes and eyeglasses to questions about whether the children can participate in organized religious services while in the shelters.

Woodward urged attorneys and the state's Child Protective Service workers in the courtroom to meet and work out solutions to the problems.

Do Judges not know or not care that telling CPS to 'work things out' is giving CPS cart blanche to run roughshod over the parents?