Sarah Holland vs FLDS in San Angelo

A British author, Sarah Holland, sparked a news debate in the San Angelo Standard Times, by writing the following article; CPS deserves praise for raid on YFZ ranch. The astonishingly insulting reply was written the following week by a Georgia attorney, Karl S. Schulzke, and can be found immediately below Sarah's article on this page.


CPS DESERVES PRAISE FOR RAID ON YFZ RANCH
by SARAH HOLLAND

It was with interest that I read about Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran's determination that people should now hear both sides of the story concerning the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.Like everyone else, I've watched the FLDS sect case shoot to international prominence complete with propaganda and shocking allegations on both sides while wondering, with every roller coaster twist and turn of the story, what, precisely, I thought about it.So here it is: Child Protective Services was right to remove those children from the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado in April. They were right to sweep them all into state custody, right to separate them from their parents and right to demand full DNA testing.Yes, I also agree with the Third Court of Appeals ruling that they should now be returned to their parents and carefully monitored in a home environment. And I'm glad the Texas Supreme Court not only upheld that ruling but allowed for a list of restrictions for the next year, along with full powers granted to the CPS to intervene again if necessary.But none of that would have been possible had CPS not swooped down on the YFZ ranch with such ear-splitting sound and fury in the first place. It is precisely because of their actions in April that these children are now probably safe.In England, a story about horrific child abuse emerges at least once a year, and you always find the social services knew "something was going on," but either felt unable to intervene or couldn't find enough evidence to take the child into custody.By the time the story hits the papers, it's too late: The child is either damaged, disfigured or dead. Nevertheless, the nation still beats its breast over the latest child abuse tragedy and cries: "Why was nothing done?"Well, this is why. Here it is, we're looking at it, exploding on our doorstep here in San Angelo. How do we expect CPS to operate successfully in a case like this except by making a sudden controversial move?They were going on circumstantial evidence because what else can they base their suspicions on? And, in the case of the YFZ Ranch, that evidence was not only compelling but practically overwhelming.I realize this might bring the wrath of FLDS supporters down on my head, but it seems to me that there is something rotten in the state of Denmark, as Shakespeare put it, and in this case, Denmark is the YFZ Ranch.Yes, it is something of a state, isn't it? Gerry Goldstein put his finger on it when he likened the raid on the FLDS compound to a raid on the Vatican. His assertion at the preliminary hearings in early April in the Tom Green County Courthouse was not, perhaps, as preposterous and self-important as it first appeared.The YFZ Ranch does appear to have, in a manner of speaking, its own laws; financial and food regulations; sexual code; peculiar version of world history; perception of wicked, if not demonized, outsiders and, by definition, its own borders, for which no passport or visa save obedience to the FLDS is deemed good enough to allow entry.On their own testimony and according to their faith, the people of the YFZ Ranch are a group of reclusive devotees who built a gated community to emulate a city so righteous that its residents ascended to heaven, or to quote Ken Driggs, attorney and expert on the FLDS; " taken to Heaven to meet Christ and be rescued from the wicked Earth." Presumably, the rest of us will be stuck down here forever on our "wicked Earth," which is hardly a belief system that endears this sect to me or, indeed, the rest of my fellow "wicked Earth" dwellers.Furthermore and also on their own testimony, the FLDS are trained, apparently from birth, to be afraid of us - our food, our lifestyles and our technology. Like paranoid loners, they hide behind high walls and, when questioned, destroy legal documents to ensure that "we" never find out what they're doing.Finally, they appear, once again on their own testimony, to be teaching their children that underage sex is acceptable, and multiple sexual partners within "spiritual marriage" is the norm.Outside the high walls of the YFZ compound, we call that list of practices and behaviors: brainwashing, conspiracy, child abuse, statutory rape, fraud and adultery. Yet the YFZ folk seem to have reclassified it along with a number of other trifling laws from "wicked Earth" such as being legally married and registering the birth of a child with the names of both parents.In fact, the more one hears of this situation, the more one wonders whether their brains have been completely reversed. It reminds me of that scene in Oliver Stone's movie, "JFK," where Kevin Costner says: "We're through the looking glass, people. Black is white and white is black. "But this astonishing ability for denying reality pales into insignificance beside the alleged worship of their great spiritual leader, Warren Jeffs, the man who is serving five years to life in a Utah jail for "rape by accomplice."Here is another thing for which we must thank CPS: The weeklong raid begun April 3 is precisely what finally destroyed Warren Jeffs' reputation at the YFZ Ranch. Clearly, up until the raid, his people had been able to turn a blind eye to his illegal practices along with his arrest, conviction and imprisonment.But thanks to the CPS, Jeffs was suddenly on every news channel in America, paraded every 15 minutes like the Demon King at the pantomime in his orange suit and chains, and no matter what else can be said for television news, it is regulated, monitored and simply not allowed to tell lies.It must have been quite a shock to his followers to see him so completely exposed as a con man and a criminal, but it would be a much nastier and infinitely more damaging shock if one of their 12-year-old daughters lost her innocence to him or one of his sinister accomplices.I'm sure every woman who saw that photograph of Jeffs kissing a 12-year-old girl remembered being 12 and felt a pang of sadness for what looked like her shining-eyed adoration of this monster. Most 12-year-old girls assume all romantic attention from men is just that: romantic.In the case of Jeffs, it was rather more sinister. And if just one mother at the YFZ compound has recognized this and taken steps to protect her children, then she really ought to thank the CPS along with the rest of us.

Sarah Holland is a British author visiting San Angelo.






CPS, JUDGE THREATENED AMERICAN FOUNDATIONS
by KARL S. SCHULZKE

Like Sarah Holland in her June 12 Viewpoints column ("CPS deserves praise for raid on YFZ Ranch"), I have watched the tragic unfolding of Child Protective Services' attack against the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints near Eldorado. My perspective, however, differs from hers. There is more at stake in San Angelo than just child safety. The misconduct of CPS and Judge Barbara Walther threaten the rule of law and due process - foundations of our American way of life.
What did due process require in this case? CPS must prove three specific things about you and your children before they can carry them away from you. The Texas Supreme Court found that CPS had proven none of the three about any of the FLDS families whose children they removed. Three strikes, you're out.
The most important of the three strikes is that CPS must prove that some danger to the physical health or safety of your child was caused by your act or failure and that remaining in your home is contrary to that child's welfare. CPS can't just say it's so. They must prove it in an individualized adversary hearing in which you can rebut CPS's individualized accusations against you. It doesn't work to hold a trial for the whole neighborhood.
The venomous vacuity of Holland's article is astonishing. She reprises so much empty propaganda with such faux indignation - "brainwashing, conspiracy, child abuse, statutory rape, fraud and adultery" - it's hard to know where to begin a response.
Six years before the American Revolution, William Pitt proclaimed in Parliament, "Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it." As a subject of King George, how well he knew. Governments can inflict fearful damage on innocent people when officials are not required to follow the rules. That is what occurred in this case with horrific consequences that will reverberate for decades.
John Adams, defending the British soldiers accused of murder in the Boston Massacre, told the jury, "Facts are stubborn things and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictums of our passions, they cannot alter the state of the facts and evidence." So many want to believe awful things about the FLDS, we must be careful.
The Texas Legislature has given clear instructions as to when CPS may remove children from their homes. The Texas Supreme Court and Third Court of Appeals both declared that CPS violated those instructions and that none of the FLDS children should ever have been removed. Neither court granted any more authority over the FLDS to Walther or CPS than what they had already in the Texas statutes. They said simply, CPS and Judge Walther, you screwed up. Send the children home. If any CPS intervention later becomes warranted, the law gives the judge the power to order it. Follow the law.
Abuse of power often begins when sensational rumors are spun into a "noble cause" that appears to justify authorities in violating the rule of law. Authorities are rarely prosecuted for these violations, so they tend to move aggressively. Later, they insist their motives are good and, therefore, their violations should be overlooked. Former North Carolina prosecutor Mike Nifong - who lied to the court in a trumped-up rape prosecution of Duke University lacrosse players - followed this pattern and ended up in jail.
But the harm inflicted by Nifong on his victims was minor compared with independent eyewitness accounts of the distress, humiliation and physical abuse inflicted by CPS on the men, women and children of the YFZ Ranch. It should shock the conscience of the people of Texas. One witness described it as a Nazi concentration camp. Another, who saw the floor of the building "slick with tears," said it made her "ashamed to be a Texan." This was not Texas' finest hour.
Yet, CPS investigator Angie Voss and Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran have both been quoted - even after the Supreme Court condemned their actions - as saying they still believe they did the right thing in removing the children. In fact, they violated the laws of Texas while trampling underfoot highly valued relationships between parents and children. (No, I am not referring to alleged spiritual marriages.) This was a breakdown in the rule of law. Due process - that which most differentiates the United States from Mexico, Cuba, China and Russia - will be a casualty if Texans fail to demand accountability from those involved in this atrocity.
Texas law narrowly restricts CPS because parent-child relationships are a higher good than almost any other, save life itself. The Texas Supreme Court has said that "a parent's right to uninterrupted access to and care of her child ranks as far more precious than property rights" and, therefore, the law provides "heightened protection" to that "most essential and basic aspect of familial privacy - the right of the family to remain together without the coercive interference of the awesome power of the state." Family relationships are vastly more important than property. The agony that separation inflicts on parents and children is similar to - but longer lasting - than the pain of death. Thus, removal should be a last resort to be used only in the most extreme cases by an impartial judge, who considering all relevant evidence, approaches the task with reverence for the godlike power she wields.
No matter how much we might disagree with what we understand of the religious teachings of the FLDS, our American respect for due process of law should moderate our response to accusations against any of them. The facts - found by an impartial court - must fit the law and must relate to specific individuals, not to an entire group.
For example, Holland in her article points to a photograph that purports to show Warren Jeffs kissing a teenager as evidence of a crime. But Holland knows nothing about this photo or what it says about anyone connected with the controversy. It can be fairly understood, if at all, through forensic testing and courtroom examination. Yet Holland relies on this photo - and other even less reliable rumors - to stridently condemn every family who lived in the community.
Beyond un-American, such blanket denunciations are dangerous. It is easy for the majority to point at today's oddball minority and jeer. But today's majority can quickly become tomorrow's minority through natural disaster, demographic anomalies or immigration. What do today's West Texans want to teach newcomers about the rule of law? Whatever you teach, they will use on you or your descendants tomorrow.
Let the government violate the law today to "protect children" and you empower it, tomorrow, to violate your rights in pursuit of other objectives. How will you redraw the line once you have crossed it "just this once"?
This isn't just a case about child endangerment; It's about the rule of law and the American system of government. Those who commit such crimes against the rule of law - whatever their office - should pay a price in court or at the ballot box. If they don't, the rest of us someday will.


Kurt S. Schulzke is an attorney in Woodstock, Ga.