Yesterday we found out Judge Walther, stung by both the Texas appeals court and the Texas supreme court direction to vacate her order and set reasonable conditions under which an ongoing investigation take place, walked out of the courtroom without vacating her order or setting a new hearing.
Now we find out the details of Barbara’s pique.
Attorneys came to court with a workable plan. The mothers’ lawyers agreed. The state attorneys agreed. Other attorneys seemed to find it workable.Some 450 FLDS children would begin the journey home on Monday as long as their parents agreed to:
Sign affidavits affirming parentage
Be photographed with their children
Not let their children travel out of Texas for 90 days
Take parenting classes, with latitude to take up concerns about providers with the state
Cooperate in the state’s ongoing abuse investigation
Allow child welfare workers to make unannounced home visits between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.
Provide home addresses and names of everyone living there
That was it. Simple. Workable. Agreed upon, even more than called for, an attorney with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid told me.
Then things fell apart.
[T]he judge with back with her own ”tweaked” version of the plan.
Parents, the judge said, would have to agree to:
Let CPS have 24/7 access to their homes if they lived at the YFZ Ranch
Keep their children in Texas indefinitely
Take parenting classes but removed language allowing them to negotiate with the state about providers
Give written notice to the state seven days before changing addresses
Notify the state 48 hours before traveling more than 60 miles from home
Allow their children, themselves or any other adults in the home to be given medical and psychological evaluations if requested by the state. [...]
Attorneys for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid objected one after another. Their clients had not signed off on this plan, they said. It went beyond setting reasonable conditions that would allow the state to continue its abuse investigation.
Worse, it again made a presumption the mothers were guilty of wrongdoing  which the two higher courts had agreed was unproven.
Why should a mother who has not committed any abuse have to let state agents into her home at any hour of the day or night? Or take a psychological test?, they asked.
Send the children home and let the state’s investigation continue, they said. If evidence surfaces against specific parents, the state can haul them back to court.
Presumption of innocence kind of stuff.
But these are people who dress funny! And they are white, so they don’t get the luxury of such silly stuff like “presumption of innocence.”
And neither do children, now in the CPS prison camp system, many of whom were not even residents of Texas in the first place.
John Kennedy said some of the children in state custody are not even residents of Texas but happened to be visiting the YFZ Ranch when the raid occurred. A 90-day travel ban was OK, he said, but an open-ended restriction was a problem.The changes, they said, made it appear the mothers had been abusive when there was no such evidence — the problem the Texas Supreme Court and Third Court of Appeals tried to cure by overturning Walther.
Let the children go home, they said. Let the investigation continue, they said. And if specific evidence surfaces against any individual, the state can haul them back to court.
Nah, said the judge.
This would be the order, she said, and if the attorneys did not like it, they had legal remedies.
Julie Balovich of TRLA, listening in on the telephone, tried again.
With all due respect, she told Walther, the higher court rulings were specific: Vacate the order. Set reasonable conditions for an ongoing investigation. That’s it. Period.
Walther took another recess to think it over. It was short. She did not agree with Balovich. And she was apparently tired of the wrangling.
Get an agreement, get every mother to sign it, bring it back and she’d sign it, the judge said.
But which plan? Hers? Theirs? A new one somewhere in the middle?
Walther did not take time to explain. She got up and left so swiftly attorneys listening on the telephone did not realize it was over, that she was gone, as they carried on a one-sided conversation.
Stone-cold bitch.
In addition, via Kurt Schuzlke are links to letters written by Hill Country Community Mental Health-Mental Retardation Center staff, in San Angelo, Texas. Those are the mental health professionals that went to the shelters in April. These third party eye-witnesses write of conditions and treatment of the FLDS women and their children that should shock even the most ardent anti-FLDS advocate.
The heartlessness of the CPS that housed women and children in such deplorable conditions and treated them with such ruthlessness, disrespect and abuse permeates all the accounts. These women and children were housed in barracks built in 1880 with no air conditioning, no indoor plumbing. Children 12 and older were housed in different buildings and CPS workers would scream at women and children and threaten them for the crime of waving to family members and friends across the prison. The children, healthy from the FLDS diet of organic foods, were fed only junk food by CPS and rapidly became sick. There were snipers stationed around the barracks. Women were denied to talk to anyone outside of the prison, were denied access to their attorneys and were threatened with permanent loss of their children over and over again. One mental health worker writes “Never in all my life, and I am one of the older ladies, have I been so ashamed to be a Texan and seeing what and how out (sic) our government agencies treat people.” Another mental health worker seeing how much CPS was deliberately lying to the women questioned a CPS directly and was subsequently ordered to leave the prison or be arrested. One worker relates watching as women and children were being separated, and as the children came to realize their mothers were being taken away, one nine y/o boy bolted from the group and went straight to one of the uniformed police officers and begged him “You’re a police officer. Please help me get my mommy back. She hasn’t done anything wrong.” The Officer says “I can’t do that.”
Another constant refrain in all the MH workers’ accounts is that they were all surprised to find happy, healthy, gracious, polite women who are exemplary parents and who remained polite and respectful towards the CPS workers even as they were being treated as less-than-human.
I dare anyone to read those accounts and not cry or become angry at such a travesty done in the name of “best interests of the children.”
Comment by Karl on 5/31 @ 4:38 pm #
If I was with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid , I would be making the call to the gov’t attorneys pointing out that they had just been smacked down by the TX Supreme Court.
Then I would read them Mike Nifong’s phone number and suggest they call him to see what happens when you double down on a losing hand.
Pingback by a-foton » Blog Archive » Bad Faith [Darleen Click] on 5/31 @ 4:48 pm #
[...] Ed Brill wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptYesterday we found out Judge Walther, stung by both the Texas appeals court and the Texas supreme court direction to vacate her order and set reasonable conditions under which an ongoing investigation take place, walked out of the courtroom without vacating her order or setting a new hearing. Now we find out the details of Barbara’s pique. Attorneys came to court with a workable plan. The mothers’ lawyers agreed. The state attorneys agreed. Other attorneys seemed to find it workable. Some 450 FLDS children would begin the journey home on Monday as long as their parents agreed to: Sign affidavits affirming parentage Be photographed with their children Not let their children travel out of Texas for 90 days Take parenting classes, with latitude to take up concerns about providers with the state Cooperate in the state’s ongoing abuse investigation Allow child welfare workers to make unannounced home visits between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Provide home addresses and names […] [...]
Comment by thor on 5/31 @ 4:49 pm #
This is an injustice for which the Nifongs and Nishfongs must be held accountable.
Thank you Darleen for continuing to follow this story and bringing even more of this awfulness to light.
Comment by Great Mencken's Ghost on 5/31 @ 4:55 pm #
You can’t tell her what to do! She’s a JUDGE, dammit! She tells YOU what to do!
Comment by Pablo on 5/31 @ 4:55 pm #
Stupidity and hubris are a dangerous mix. These people are going to be quite wealthy when all is said and done.
Comment by JHoward on 5/31 @ 5:02 pm #
At some point the topic should turn to the entire gamut of Orwellian American social government, yet this particular, localized saga is itself almost too offensive and convoluted to know where to begin to deconstruct how such things work and why.
Underneath these workings are typically zealots; these TX agents are zealots drunk on the sheer, largely unaccountable power of the family law bench, even as thousands of their contemporaries are spread across all other states. And under them are still more zealots, those that are consumed with oppressing by policy and legislation anything not secular, politically correct, and in the end, even sexist and racist.
Somewhere back in the reeking swamps of social government you’ll find massive federal programs, a million conflicts of state’s and personal civil rights, a nearly ten trillion dollar federal social agency, an entire federalized judicial system replete with billions of dollars in legal fees and federal kickbacks for breaking down homes and creating dependents at the state’s level, and legions of social workers. They are this unaccountable herd of the bigoted, blind, and dumb, looking for anything whatsoever that’ll perpetuate their jobs, serve the statist ideology, and create the criminals that keep this monster lurching along.
The eve of dependency.
Except…Obama!
Comment by thor on 5/31 @ 5:14 pm #
It’s sad that you can’t leave your silly Obama projection out of this.
Comment by JHoward on 5/31 @ 5:15 pm #
Yeah, it’s damn tragedy.
Comment by JHoward on 5/31 @ 5:16 pm #
Which is to say, thor, that things can only get better with the right people in charge. Of what needs being in charge of.
Comment by Roboc on 5/31 @ 5:30 pm #
What happened to calling Texas CPS “grass fuckers”?
Comment by Rob Crawford on 5/31 @ 5:51 pm #
Now, why does that scene seem familiar?
Comment by Rob Crawford on 5/31 @ 5:53 pm #
It’s unfair to grass fuckers.
Comment by Jeffersonian on 5/31 @ 5:58 pm #
Because it is all too familiar.
Comment by Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) on 5/31 @ 5:58 pm #
- Theres no proof that they know what grass is.
Comment by Jeffersonian on 5/31 @ 6:12 pm #
Too bad these women aren’t in Al Qaeda…they’d have editorial boards the land over springing the lengths of their chains in their defense. But because they dress like they’re extras on “Blazing Saddles,” well, they’re just Not In Our Class, Dahling. We can’t be seen defending moms who don’t have their little ones up to speed on Lindsay, Britney and Miley.
For me, this is what tar and feathers were made for.
Comment by geoffb on 5/31 @ 7:03 pm #
Just hope the next one doesn’t evoke this as familiar
Comment by JimK on 5/31 @ 7:14 pm #
All I can say is it’s a good thing GWB is no longer governor of Texas, they’d be all over his ass….. ‘course it’s still his fault.
Comment by datadave on 5/31 @ 7:26 pm #
Ah, it’s the Branch Dividians and WACO saga all over again. The Right endorses child molesters, gun nuts killing ATF agents and on and on…..and this time lets go after those social workers!!
what the Texans did wrong according to a child social welfare expert on NPR was this: They should have arrested the men and kept the women and children together. I’ll agree that was a mistake…but the “Law” is the “Law” which often like a bully goes after the weaker but more solid case. (like Al Capone got nailed for a mere tax evasion charge)
now we got serial child and women molesters making millions off their chattel slavery…and they have to use Govt. paid–for lawyers??? By most accounts this sect is very rich from their hard work and herd-instinctual behavior. And have used laws meant to protect nuclear families to enrich themselves for single parents…while so-called single parents gave welfare monies to the clan. The leaders of this sect are millionaires. And yet their ‘brides’ often collect welfare and their ’son’s’ work for free and later are forced out of the clan w/o unemployment being paid. Some of the press have visited the compound and were amazed at the opulence there. Several large corporations are based there…doing largely commercial construction with their non-wage boys that usually are thrown to the dogs so that the leaders can have their pick of the child brides.
yeah, Darleen, you picked some sickos to defend didn’t you? Just do away with social workers in general. I am not fond of them either…but ????
It’s Texas, they often execute innocent men there as the prosecutors don’t want to admit mistakes. There was a case of one crook of a cop who fabricated evidence and arrested hundreds of black men….and got away with it and ruined hundreds of families in Texas…and as usual the prosecutors got off scot-free (whatever that means.)
Read Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer for understanding the crazies. I lived in Utah too.
Okay, the social workers might have overdone it….but don’t excuse the male-dominated structure of the fundi-Joseph Smith clan, it’s all about exploitation of the fairer sex and repression of the creative males. It’s Power, mama, that seems to excite you. Darleen, you’re like Ayn Rand having fetishes over rape (ala Fountainhead)
need I remind you? Polygamy is a crime. Except in strictly Muslim countries. Thank you for defending the Male Chauvinists of the world. And Terrorists.
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates - UMBA on 5/31 @ 7:30 pm #
The Right endorses child molesters, gun nuts killing ATF agents and on and on
Nobody here is “endorsing” any of that stuff, illit.
By most accounts this sect is very rich from their hard work and herd-instinctual behavior.
I guess they should get rich from cheating on their taxes. Like you.
Right, thief?
Comment by Jeffersonian on 5/31 @ 7:36 pm #
They should have arrested the men and kept the women and children together. I’ll agree that was a mistake…but the “Law†is the “Law†which often like a bully goes after the weaker but more solid case.
Only one problem with that, Dave: They don’t have a case against the kids or the moms. That’s the reason the TXSC said to give the kids back to the moms. The CPS goons were trying to use the kids to get the moms to testify against the men, and it blew up in their thug faces.
Got evidence of polygamy? Charge the polygamists. I don’t suspect the kids are polygamists, however.
Comment by Rob Thompson on 5/31 @ 7:38 pm #
FWIW… I have had experience with both California and Maine CPS. The organizations are quite different in structure, but use the same tactics. The judge’s demands, in the Texas case, are standard – designed to put children into the state system, prevent the parents from moving to a different jurisdiction, and to create economic opportunities for various non-profits. In Maine, the abuse is blatant; the courts rely on intimidation and gag orders to prevent the parents from defending themselves, and local politicians and DHS staffers often have financial interests in the ‘counselors’ recommended by the courts. In California, it is a bit less over the top, but I did hear a Sacramento judge tell a closed courtroom that he didn’t give a damn about the Constitution, a comment which will never see the light of day – kept secret to “protect the children”.
The fact is that it’s all about the state selling your kids for a share of the public trough. Note, too, that the various CPS organizations will often ignore abuse of minority and older children – because they’re more difficult to adopt out. The case worker, thanks to “it takes a village”, has a personal financial incentive to see children placed in the system and adopted out.
Comment by JHoward on 5/31 @ 7:39 pm #
Do you have a point, datadave?
Comment by Jeffersonian on 5/31 @ 7:40 pm #
Yes, JHoward, it’s on top of his head.
Comment by Darleen on 5/31 @ 7:42 pm #
JH
Datadave is just being a good German.
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates - UMBA on 5/31 @ 7:45 pm #
Datadave is just being a good German.
Except when it comes to paying his taxes, of course.
That’s why he likes the idea of “socialized” everything — he’s not planning on being the one who has to pay for it all.
Comment by Pablo on 5/31 @ 7:51 pm #
I know this cunt. I’ve seen her on a hundred benches, and sometimes she’s a dude. Law, schmaw. She knows best and fuck you if you don’t like it.
Gentlemen, whatever you do, don’t get divorced in Eldorado, Texas. These aren’t the first kids she’s deprived of their parents and they won’t be the last. But then, don’t get divorced anywhere, because this bitch is everywhere. She is the law. She knows best. You will shut up and deal with it.
Comment by Smarty on 5/31 @ 8:17 pm #
Just think, all those CPS workers are social “scientists”. A majority of them are probably affirmative action hires, and as a group, they clustered around the bottom of the mental barrel in college.
But they get to kidnap kids. The cops are standing around like dumbasses assisting in the kidnapping of the kids. And any adult in the vicinity has the legal right to use deadly force to stop the kidnapping of the kids. But with judges like her, we have tyranny instead.
And no one in elected office has the balls to impeach tyrannical judges.
What a freaken’ country.
Comment by Rob Crawford on 5/31 @ 8:28 pm #
Dunno about affirmative action hires, but I bet they’re all public-sector union members and vote straight Democrat.
Anyone remember what dave’s position on Gitmo is? I bet he’s like a lot of idiots — incensed that we’re keeping unlawful combatants locked up, but full of approval for the CPS ignoring the Constitution.
I saw a documentary where they interviewed a guy who was held in one of the enemy alien camps during WWII. Between his statements and the pictures they showed, those camps were better conditions than the FLDS people were held in.
Comment by B Moe on 5/31 @ 8:33 pm #
Nishfong has another ally, ain’t that sweet.
Comment by David R. Block on 5/31 @ 9:16 pm #
District court judge?? They’re elected down here. This was either a very brilliant move or a very stupid move, depending on the county (or counties) served by that district court. Dallas, Denton, Tarrant, and Collin counties would toss her out. San Angelo (Tom Green county, I believe)? Not that familiar with that part of the state.
She may have just given a future opponent a lot of fodder for ads, and she may even have an opponent this year.
Comment by thor on 6/1 @ 4:52 am #
Money shot, smarty.
Datadave, I don’t see this affair in a right-wing/left-wing good/bad binary. It’s a State system gone mad, period. These FDLS don’t have to agree with my politics or live the way I live for me to stand up for their rights. Certainly Darleen and I are not politically aligned and I don’t take Jeff Goldstein’s political opinions as gospel, that’s Karl’s job. There was no hesitation in my step when I defended Michael Vick against the mobs of slobbering projectors. It’s all the same to me, dude, when it doesn’t smell right I hold my nose and throw my tomatoes.
Comment by datadave on 6/1 @ 5:56 am #
good one, thor.
I do like pulling Darleen’s chain. Apparently the INS is holding detainees in similar circumstances and not a peep from her. Millions compared to the handfull in Texas. And they’ll be freed soon enough.
I have to applaud her maternal instincts though.
wish someone explain why the men aren’t being prosecuted for their bigamy and polygamy and child molestation. A weaker case I guess….or all the cash being put out in the men’s defense…while the children and women get the shaft from their menfolk.
Comment by datadave on 6/1 @ 5:58 am #
She is the law. She knows best. You will shut up and deal with it.
Pablo, I am much nicer to Darleen than that.
Comment by Pablo on 6/1 @ 6:15 am #
David R. Block,
She also has a very large community in a county of 1800 that just decided they’d like to vote.
Comment by Darleen on 6/1 @ 9:46 am #
Apparently the INS is holding detainees in similar circumstances
Link?
Comment by Jeffersonian on 6/1 @ 10:10 am #
All the cash in the world isn’t going to keep the sheriff from your door if there’s enough evidence of your guilt, Dave. Just ask Bernie Ebbers or Martha Stewart. Then ask yourself why the men aren’t being perp-walked out of their community.
Comment by Jeff Y. on 6/1 @ 10:25 am #
Three cheers for Darleen! Thanks for keeping us current on this massacre of the Bill of Rights.
Comment by David R. Block on 6/1 @ 4:10 pm #
A county of 1800 would not have its own judge. The district would include other counties. Heck, I lived in a county of 60,000 and we shared our district judges with surrounding counties. Granted, we were the largest county in about a 60 mile radius.
That’s not true of the larger metropolitan counties near Houston, DFW, San Antonio, or El Paso.
Comment by The Lost Dog on 6/2 @ 7:05 am #
As I’ve said before, no who has ever dealt with these Gestapo asshats is even a little bit surprised. They are unaccountable fuckwads, through and through.
And it isn’t just Texas I’m talking about.
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