Bookmeister

Wow! Okay, what the newspapers say or report has nothing to do with what evidence CPS can produce. CPS isn't limited like that (and neither is anyone else). So if CPS has other evidence, they can produce it in the district court, not the appeals court. Any appeal of the appellate court's order will be limited to the evidence produced in the district court at the time of the original hearing. All an appeal of the appellate court order can do is argue that the appellate court's decision was somehow legally flawed. This doesn't mean that they can't file for another hearing in district court, supported with additional evidence they didn't have the first time. Another important thing to remember is that the appellate order only applies directly to the children of the 38 mothers involved. To overturn or reverse that order with regard to any one of those children, CPS will have to show, in individual hearings, that a particular child is in danger of immediate physical abuse. That is, the only children CPS can argue over in an appeal of the appellate court order are those 38 + children. So, unless CPS can successfully argue that the appellate court's decision was wrong, the only way to challenge the order would be to go back to court for each child and produce sufficient new evidence to show that each, or any, of these 38+ children is in immediate danger. Hopes this helps.

I imagine that the court will just review each of the individual 38 cases. Unless there's some evidence specific to a particular case, the court has ten days to sign orders returning the children to their parents. However, CPS will have ten days in which to file for a review of the appellate court's decision by a higher court, and they will no doubt seek a stay (a delay) from the reviewing court (if the court to which CPS appeals decides to actually have a hearing) of the appellate court's order to let the kids go. Since the appellate court decision was Per Curiam, which means that the entire appellate court panel agreed with the decision, I'd be surprised if a higher court would reverse the appellate court. In my mind, it would be proper for the higher court (and here my presumption is that the higher court would be the Texas supreme court) to deny any CPS appeal. The currently scheduled hearings have been postponed while the district court makes it's decision. Any decisions already made by the district court in individual cases will probably remain in effect until, most likely, the child's family asks the court to revise the decision based on the appellate court order. Finally, my job options were to be either a lawyer or a sax player in a house of ill repute. I got fired from the sax playing job, so....................

Moksha, two thoughts. First, my guess is that the bedsheets will be held while the Texas authorities have them tested for DNA and such. The purpose will be to see if criminal charges can be brought alleging sex with underage females. Second, why in the world would anyone want those sheets back in the first place? LOL

Perc...the appellate court is holding the enforcement of the writ to let the kids go home for 10 days to give the District court, which issued the original order, time to issue those orders itself. Sorry, sometimes I get carried away and start using lawyerspeak. What it means, though, is that the kids either have to go back to their parents in ten days (the ten day period generally will begin the day AFTER the order was issued, but not always) unless the district court finds (presumably after another hearing for each individual child) that each child was in immediate physical danger AND that no other lesser method of protecting the child was available to CPS ("lesser" meaning something other than taking the child away from his or her parents). Hope that helps.

I just got done reading the Appellate Court's opinion and believe that it is a proper reading of the law and facts in this case to date. The basics are these: 38 families filed the mandamus action with the appellate court arguing that CPS had failed to prove that the children of these families were in any "physical danger" of abuse so imminent that the only remedy was the immediate removal of the children from their parents. CPS also failed to look for any means of protecting the children short of removal from their families, as required by Texas state law. So it came down to this; CPS didn't show any evidence that the children of these 38 families were in any immediate danger of physical injury or abuse, or that CPS had made any effort to protect these children in any other manner except to take them away from their parents. CPS acted incorrectly and the District Court was wrong in allowing the children to remain in the custody of CPS. Sounds like a pretty straightforward decision. The Appellate Court granted the Writ of Mandamus (the request by the parents to return their children to them) but are holding it in abeyance so that the District Court has the chance to have individual hearings for each of these children to determine the facts in that particular child's case. This is not unusual, although my personal opinion is that the Order should have directed the children to be returned immediately, and at the same time required the parents to remain in the State of Texas and keep the Court informed as to their location (this keeps the parents from getting their kids and skipping out before final decisions could be reached). I would expect to see, eventually, that most of the parents and children are reunited. Of course, by then, the amount of emotional harm done to the children could be pretty significant, which will result in more suits against CPS and the State of Texas. On the other hand, all these legal actions are clearly designed to comply with the "Lawyer Full Employment Act".

I think it's all about the guilt. I say that because when someone finds out that I don't feel guilty about what happened before I was born (slavery, westward expansion at the expense of the indians, the Tuskeegee experiment, etc), I'm accused of being an insensitive racist (can you be a sensitive racist???) I can't fix other folks' issues, regardless of what they are. I can't eliminate racism, sexism, ageism, poverty, crime, violence, abuse, and on and on. All I can be is a person who tries not to be any of those things and who, instead, chooses to live the best life I can with the Lord as my shining example. I'm sad that those things exist, and I'm appalled at the amount of harm and loss we suffer because of those things, but being sad doesn't cut it for all those victims out there. But without that guilt, nothing else counts for all the apologists out there willing to take the blame for things they didn't do.

The only way all of this mess will be sorted out is with individual actions. By that, I mean that each child and his or her family will have to have their own individual case, separate from all of the other 400 plus children involved. This became very apparent when the Texas judge tried to have a group hearing at the beginning of the action. Thus, each case will have to make the following determinations: who the child's parents are, whether the child has been abused either physically or emotionally, if the child has been abused, the nature of the abuse and who the abuser(s) are, the nature of any treatment required for any abuse, and whether the child can receive effective treatment for any provable abuse while in the custody of his or her parents? This means that each case will require some sort of paternity/DNA determination regarding parentage (which is actually pretty expensive to do), evaluations by the state to determine whether a child has been abused, evaluations by the child's parents to determine if the child has been abused (which gets into the whole "dueling experts" question) and, if there's evidence of abuse based on the legal standard of either "preponderance of evidence" or "substantial evidence" (depending on which standard applies in Texas), then the various experts will argue again about the type of treatment appropriate for the child. My experiences with CPS in my own state suggest that CPS caseworkers cannot imagine that they may have over-reacted, rushed to judgment, or in any way have made an error. Each CPS caseworker will also think that his or her recommendations to the court should not be challenged in any way (after all, they're the experts and they, and only that, have the "best interests" of the child at heart). I have no doubt that among the many recommendations made by CPS workers to the court there will be a demand that the parents cease interacting with other FLDS church members and especially the leadership. I believe (although the court will make it's own decision) that the court can make this a requirement of returning children to their parents ONLY IF there is substantial evidence that the FLDS church invited and participated in the abuse of each individual child. This means that each case will take several months, at a minimum, to resolve. If the court takes any other route other than individual cases, the state of Texas will spend millions of dollars in various appellate courts and suffer millions more dollars worth of damages. CPS will the target of multiple lawsuits alleging violations of civil rights, abuse of process, and so forth. If I were the Texas Attorney General, I would expect to have to build a separate division with the AG's office just to deal with the fallout from this mess. As for the polygamy question, I just remember an old mountain man rule I heard once..."Never trade for anything that eats".

The only thing I can tell you is that it's gonna hurt, and hurt big, for what will seem like a long time...BUT (and this is important) you will get better, I promise. and for what it's worth, the Lord never closes a door without opening another one. You'll be in my prayers.

In principle, I'm not opposed to the death penalty, but because it IS so final, I think that the entire notion needs to be re-examined. The biggest problem I see with it is that different jurisdictions have different concepts of how and when the death penalty should be applied. In my line of work, the question of what "beyond a reasonable doubt" means comes up in every trial. What I tell juries, sometimes over the objections of the prosecutor, is that "beyond a reasonable doubt" means that each juror is so sure that the person is guilty that they would push the button or pull the lever on the defendant themselves. I guess where I really am is that I don't know for sure, but until I do, I think we really ought to consider all the options and possibilities before taking that final, irrevocable step.

For Heaven's Sake!!! Why are we worried about what the French think???

Well, I had it explained to me as a question of dependency. The substances included in the Word of Wisdom were all items that could produce a physical addiction or dependency by the user. Tobacco, alcohol, coffee and tea (and I'm not getting into the black v green tea debates, LOL) are all items that can cause the body to become addicted. I'm not sure what that says about my love affair with Hydrox cookies (which are wayyyyyy better than Oreos), but that certainly seems to make some sense.