and would be the responsibility with the US Attorney in that federal district.

I'm not sure we want AG Malarkey to get involved, considering the religious fanatics that have taken over the Dept. of Justice.

Not to mention Texas law probably has harsher penalties.

------------------------------------------------
"Real ponies don't oink" - Patrick McManus

it always appalls me the extent to which these things get tolerated. It seems that this raid happened only because this Jeffs creep chose the wrong state to settle in.

Again, how can a democratic 21st century society tolerates such rape farms in its midst?

office would be the one right here in Lubbock.

AG Mukasey is not universally revered there, I've heard.

Best I can tell, this is the section of the Texas Penal Code that would apply to the polygamy charges:

§ 25.01. BIGAMY.
(a) An individual commits an offense if:
(1) he is legally married and he:
(A) purports to marry or does marry a person other than his spouse in this state, or any other state or foreign country, under circumstances that would, but for the actor's prior marriage, constitute a marriage; or
(B) lives with a person other than his spouse in this state under the appearance of being married; or
(2) he knows that a married person other than his spouse is married and he:
(A) purports to marry or does marry that person in this state, or any other state or foreign country, under circumstances that would, but for the person's prior marriage, constitute a marriage; or
(B) lives with that person in this state under the appearance of being married.
(b) For purposes of this section, "under the appearance of being married" means holding out that the parties are married with cohabitation and an intent to be married by either party.
(c) It is a defense to prosecution under Subsection (a)(1)
that the actor reasonably believed at the time of the commission of the offense that the actor and the person whom the actor married or purported to marry or with whom the actor lived under the appearance of being married were legally eligible to be married because the
actor's prior marriage was void or had been dissolved by death, divorce, or annulment. For purposes of this subsection, an actor's belief is reasonable if the belief is substantiated by a certified copy of a death certificate or other signed document issued by a
court.
(d) For the purposes of this section, the lawful wife or husband of the actor may testify both for or against the actor concerning proof of the original marriage.
(e) An offense under this section is a felony of the third degree, except that if at the time of the commission of the offense, the person whom the actor marries or purports to marry or with whom
the actor lives under the appearance of being married is:
(1) 16 years of age or older, the offense is a felony of the second degree; or
(2) younger than 16 years of age, the offense is a felony of the first degree.

Acts 1973, 63rd Leg., p. 883, ch. 399, § 1, eff. Jan. 1, 1974.
Amended by Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 900, § 1.01, eff. Sept. 1,
1994.

Amended by:
Acts 2005, 79th Leg., Ch. 268, § 4.03, eff. September 1,
2005.

§ 25.02. PROHIBITED SEXUAL CONDUCT. (a) A person commits an offense if the person engages in sexual intercourse or deviate sexual intercourse with another person the actor knows to be, without regard to legitimacy:
(1) the actor's ancestor or descendant by blood or adoption;
(2) the actor's current or former stepchild or stepparent;
(3) the actor's parent's brother or sister of the whole or half blood;
(4) the actor's brother or sister of the whole or half blood or by adoption;
(5) the children of the actor's brother or sister of the whole or half blood or by adoption; or
(6) the son or daughter of the actor's aunt or uncle of the whole or half blood or by adoption.
(b) For purposes of this section:
(1) "Deviate sexual intercourse" means any contact between the genitals of one person and the mouth or anus of another person with intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person.
(2) "Sexual intercourse" means any penetration of the female sex organ by the male sex organ.
(c) An offense under this section is a felony of the third degree, unless the offense is committed under Subsection (a)(6), in which event the offense is a felony of the second degree.

Acts 1973, 63rd Leg., p. 883, ch. 399, § 1, eff. Jan. 1, 1974.
Amended by Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 900, § 1.01, eff. Sept. 1, 1994.

I'm thinking multiple counts of first-degree felony bigamy are involved at the least, here. It's entirely possible, if the DNA testing comes out the way it seems likely to do, that there'll be some prohibited sexual conduct to resolve as well.

Not to mention the Indecency with a Child statutes:

§ 21.11. INDECENCY WITH A CHILD. (a) A person commits
an offense if, with a child younger than 17 years and not the
person's spouse, whether the child is of the same or opposite sex,
the person:
(1) engages in sexual contact with the child or causes
the child to engage in sexual contact; or
(2) with intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire
of any person:
(A) exposes the person's anus or any part of the
person's genitals, knowing the child is present; or
(B) causes the child to expose the child's anus
or any part of the child's genitals.
(b) It is an affirmative defense to prosecution under this
section that the actor:
(1) was not more than three years older than the victim
and of the opposite sex;
(2) did not use duress, force, or a threat against the
victim at the time of the offense; and
(3) at the time of the offense:
(A) was not required under Chapter 62, Code of
Criminal Procedure, to register for life as a sex offender; or
(B) was not a person who under Chapter 62 had a
reportable conviction or adjudication for an offense under this
section.
(c) In this section, "sexual contact" means the following
acts, if committed with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual
desire of any person:
(1) any touching by a person, including touching
through clothing, of the anus, breast, or any part of the genitals
of a child; or
(2) any touching of any part of the body of a child,
including touching through clothing, with the anus, breast, or any
part of the genitals of a person.
(d) An offense under Subsection (a)(1) is a felony of the
second degree and an offense under Subsection (a)(2) is a felony of
the third degree.

Acts 1973, 63rd Leg., p. 883, ch. 399, § 1, eff. Jan. 1, 1974.
Amended by Acts 1981, 67th Leg., p. 472, ch. 202, § 3, eff. Sept.
1, 1981; Acts 1987, 70th Leg., ch. 1028, § 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1987;
Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 900, § 1.01, eff. Sept. 1, 1994; Acts
1999, 76th Leg., ch. 1415, § 23, eff. Sept. 1, 1999; Acts 2001,
77th Leg., ch. 739, § 2, eff. Sept. 1, 2001.

Looks like Trafficking may apply too:
§ 20A.01. DEFINITIONS. In this chapter:
(1) "Forced labor or services" means labor or
services, including conduct that constitutes an offense under
Section 43.02, that are performed or provided by another person and
obtained through an actor's:
(A) causing or threatening to cause bodily injury
to the person or another person or otherwise causing the person
performing or providing labor or services to believe that the
person or another person will suffer bodily injury;
(B) restraining or threatening to restrain the
person or another person in a manner described by Section 20.01(1)
or causing the person performing or providing labor or services to
believe that the person or another person will be restrained;
(C) knowingly destroying, concealing, removing,
confiscating, or withholding from the person or another person, or
threatening to destroy, conceal, remove, confiscate, or withhold
from the person or another person, the person's actual or
purported:
(i) government records;
(ii) identifying information; or
(iii) personal property;
(D) threatening the person with abuse of the law
or the legal process in relation to the person or another person;
(E) threatening to report the person or another
person to immigration officials or other law enforcement officials
or otherwise blackmailing or extorting the person or another
person;
(F) exerting financial control over the person or
another person by placing the person or another person under the
actor's control as security for a debt to the extent that:
(i) the value of the services provided by
the person or another person as reasonably assessed is not applied
toward the liquidation of the debt;
(ii) the duration of the services provided
by the person or another person is not limited and the nature of the
services provided by the person or another person is not defined; or
(iii) the principal amount of the debt does
not reasonably reflect the value of the items or services for which
the debt was incurred; or
(G) using any scheme, plan, or pattern intended
to cause the person to believe that the person or another person
will be subjected to serious harm or restraint if the person does
not perform or provide the labor or services.
(2) "Traffic" means to transport, entice, recruit,
harbor, provide, or otherwise obtain another person by any means.

Added by Acts 2003, 78th Leg., ch. 641, § 2, eff. Sept. 1, 2003.

Amended by:
Acts 2007, 80th Leg., R.S., Ch. 258, § 16.01, eff.
September 1, 2007.
Acts 2007, 80th Leg., R.S., Ch. 849, § 4, eff. June 15,
2007.

§ 20A.02. TRAFFICKING OF PERSONS. (a) A person commits
an offense if the person:
(1) knowingly traffics another person with the intent
or knowledge that the trafficked person will engage in forced
labor or services; or
(2) intentionally or knowingly benefits from
participating in a venture that involves an activity described by
Subdivision (1), including by receiving labor or services the
person knows are forced labor or services.
(b) Except as otherwise provided by this subsection, an
offense under this section is a felony of the second degree. An
offense under this section is a felony of the first degree if:
(1) the applicable conduct constitutes an offense
under Section 43.02 and the person who is trafficked is younger than
18 years of age at the time of the offense; or
(2) the commission of the offense results in the death
of the person who is trafficked.
(c) If conduct constituting an offense under this section
also constitutes an offense under another section of this code, the
actor may be prosecuted under either section or under both
sections.

Added by Acts 2003, 78th Leg., ch. 641, § 2, eff. Sept. 1, 2003.

Amended by:
Acts 2007, 80th Leg., R.S., Ch. 258, § 16.02, eff.
September 1, 2007.
Acts 2007, 80th Leg., R.S., Ch. 849, § 5, eff. June 15,
2007.

and Texas law is about as draconian as it gets.

Assuming that the law is enforced. But they are still investigating.

------------------------------------------------
"Real ponies don't oink" - Patrick McManus

governorship.

The FLDS has had to spread out in the last decade or so, and as it has spread out (and particularly since Jeffs took power) the sect has been less and less able to hide its behavior in the secrecy of a friendly community (google "Short Creek raid" sometime). Factor in the relatively recent upswing in "lost boys," or excommunicated adolescent males, and you have another hard-to-ignore factor about the FLDS.

They came to Texas under the impression, I think, that if they bought land with few neighbors the Bush-legacy state government would ignore them.

Fortunately, they were wrong.

In a case like this, the best thing to do would be to look at all potential penalties under federal and state law and use the various authorities to inflict the most damage on the sect, e.g., dismantle it as you would any other criminal organization. For example, RICO statutes have been used to take on cults because the Mann Act is one of the specified unlawful activities covered (see http://federalism.typepad.com/crime_fede...). Even if Texas ends up having the better criminal penalties, the fed still might have better forfeiture statutes and other authorities for taking the sect's assets.

I'm sure there are international anti-trafficking treaties, not to mention Canadian laws to take into account.

And it wouldn't be surprising to find American girls up in BC in the same situation.

I know the mothers were most likely victims of child rape, but once they made the decision as adults not only to stay with their attackers, but to breed children who would also be attacked, they stopped being solely victims.

They let their children be harmed economically and emotionally, all to please a nest of pedophiles.

Only shit like this would make the Pope look penitent and sorrowful during his visit, instead of the leader of a national sex abuse coverup.

they had no free will in the meaningful sense of the term.

the patriarchs/gang leaders are the ones who need to pay.

and a massive effort must be made to provide for quality care for the children. No reunification with their moms unless society can be confident that the moms have separated themselves from this criminal gang acting under color of religion.

This is a local law enforcement concern for the past several years since Blackmore moved part of the FLDS group here. It seems to be well known that they "exchange young women for brides" with the Arizona and Utah groups. (This is on the Idaho/BC border --Bountiful is just over the line from here)--our then mayor and the sherriff's department were onto it, but I don't think anything really came of it. It sounds like the various law enforcement groups were unsure who had jurisdiction and sort of gratefully averted their eyes from a difficult situation--this being the most Mormon county in the state except for those bordering Utah. Estimates of the size of the FLDS group in this county vary, but it seems to be over 50 people.

I would assume that some of the people taken from the compound were from here, with the way they move everyone around to keep them under control.

I do hope they separate the children from mothers that would allow what happened to happen. In my book a parent forefeits any rights as a parent by doing such things.

When they went on national television and begged for their kids back, when they knew the only way those children could escape abuse from their patriarchs was to stay, yes, in possibly hurtful foster care, that's when they lost me.

It's one thing to be passive and complicit in someone abusing your child.

It's another to do everything in your power to allow the abuse to continue, even when the abusers are brought to light.

Given how the FLDS appears to have spread out geographically and now may even include Canada, if I were working in the Texas US Attorney's Office or the FBI, I would let the Texas DA clean up this particular sect, but work with them to flip people and use the info obtained (documents, financial) to try to make a broader case against other sects, possibly building a RICO case that could dismantle the entire network of illegal activity, not just this one location.

These poor people, all of them, caught up in their religion, their faith, their belief, wanting more than anything to be pure and good, have lost thier way. Deceived by those they trusted most, they have given up their very selves in pursuit of what they believed to be true. Such horrible perversion, so much pain and loss; enough to challenge anyone's faith in the existence of any kind of truth.

But some things are true, with a purity that transcends their source. These words offer a truth that, if we live it, sets us free. From the Thirteenth Chapter of Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians; in the King James Version, for the beauty of Elizabethan English:

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

Almost all of the people in this cult are victims. Most of them who have done terrible things have also had terrible things done to them. They have many needs, for guidance and correction and help to find some sort of normalcy in their lives. Above all, if they are to heal and survive, they need charity.

The patriarchs are not victims.

The women have certainly been socialized in the uber-sexist environment since the day they were born (just go read Sara at Orcinus)
And this one too while you're at it.

These are men drunk with their own power and self-righteousness. It is the dark underbelly of any religion (a feature, not a pathological abnormality).

I hope these people never see their children again.

I hope prosecutors offer protection to the women who wish to leave and testify against their abusers (all of the men in that rape farm).

I wrote that they will need correction. Those at the top of the pile, the patriarchs as you call them, deserve prison; they are the most damaged and least likely to be healed, so to keep everyone else safe they need to be imprisoned for life.

But even they are victims. Warren Jeffs, the current FLDS Prophet, was raised by his tyrannical, insane, malicious, manipulative father, the dead Prophet Rulon Jeffs, to be the person he is today. His own father raised him, trained him, and brutalized him to make him into a monster.

Warren Jeffs is not a Jim Jones or a David Koresh or a George W. Bush. He didn't wake up one morning with a messianic gleam in his eye and set out to capture and control and destroy innocent people. He was made to be who he is. I condemn all of his acts, and wish for him to be imprisoned for the rest of his life. At the same time, I cannot but feel sorrow for the harm that was done to him.

The greater value of a charitable heart is to the giver. I'm sorry that you can't partake.

I am amazed at how blah these women are. It's like they double dosed on their valium.

I heard an interview on CNN with a woman who was previously married to the current head of the Texas compound. She said her husband used water torture on her infant. "He would take the baby and spank them until they were screaming out of control and then he would hold the baby face up under a tap of running water for a minute maybe, as long as a minute, and then he would take the baby out and spank it again and then the process would just repeat. He would do this until the baby was just so exhausted it couldn't fight anymore. He called it breaking them. And what the method was behind it was to instill an extreme level of fear for their father..."

All these people need help as far as I am concerned.

Seventeen years old, freshly saved, and full enough of faith to pray for redemption for Lucifer himself, she was.

Thirty years gone, I miss her.

Warren Jeffs is not a Jim Jones or a David Koresh or a George W. Bush. He didn’t wake up one morning with a messianic gleam in his eye and set out to capture and control and destroy innocent people. He was made to be who he is. I condemn all of his acts, and wish for him to be imprisoned for the rest of his life. At the same time, I cannot but feel sorrow for the harm that was done to him.

I can't be sure Bush didn't have something done to him, as a child -- it's possible he's dyslexic or had HDD or both, and then there was that business with his sister's death.
Some of his behavior is classic psychopathy, but even psychopaths have a trigger. Maybe it's grief or shame or anger; maybe it's the aftermath of booze or dope or poorly-chosen party-mates (isn't dementia one of the things syphilis supposedly does in its later stages?) and too many senseless rounds of thrill-seeking. Hell, maybe he did crash a fighter jet, and he's been trying to run away from the memory ever since. (Irony, eh? Tom Cruise's brilliant but flawed Top Gun character, modeled on W?)
Quien sabe?

But aside from the utter lack of care about the consequences, he really is a different guy now than he was as Texas governor. He's less lucid; he's less in touch with reality; and he's definitely less an unknown quantity. But it's not Bush I consider completely and wholly to blame for all the evil on his watch; like Reagan, he's had nefarious cohorts and ill-considered advisers aplenty, and he's just not been man enough, in any given moment, to overcome them.

So yeah, I can see W as a victim too -- and particularly, as a victim whose first line of defensive response is, "Oh yeah? Watch this, you sum beach ..."