In its brief opinion, the court said "we are not inclined to disturb the Court of Appeals' decision. On the record before us, removal of the children was not warranted."
Kevin Dietz of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid said he would work with the courts and Child Protective Services, a division of DFPS, to do what's in the best interest of the children.
"Right now, that means reuniting these families," he said.
DFPS had argued the appellate decision left it unable to guard the children's safety from what it had deemed imminent danger of sexual and physical abuse due to the FLDS practice of polygamy. The state contended that the FLDS condoned marriages of underage girls to men and groomed its boys to continue the practice.
The State Supreme Court of the State of Texas is perfectly okay with this:
Let me just point out that the State of Texas elects its Supreme Court justices. If you live in this state, and you don't believe pedophilia is a religious sacrament, these are the people you want to vote against in November. From now until the world looks level, if that's what it takes.
Shame on the "justices".
From an AP story carried in the NYT:
The Supreme Court, in a terse ruling, said, “We are not inclined to disturb the Court of Appeals’ decision.” It added, “On the record before us, removal of the children was not warranted.”
(WARNING: PDF at link)
In the partial dissent, Justice Harriet O’Neill said the state had acted reasonably in seeking to remove “demonstrably endangered” pubescent girls but abused its discretion by removing younger girls and boys, too.
In its petition to overturn the appeals court ruling, the Department of Family and Protective Services said girls in the compound had reported being consigned to marriages by a church elder, “Uncle Merrill,” and “no age was too young to marry, and they wanted to have as many babies as they could.” Boys, the agency said, “were groomed to be perpetrators.”
But the Supreme Court ruled that the agency had means short of wholesale removal to protect children in danger.
Some expressed disappointment at the turn of events. Benjamin G. Bistline, a former sect member and a historian in Colorado City, Ariz., said the ruling would encourage the church’s leaders to continue their practice of polygamy and under-age marriages.
“This will embolden them,” said Mr. Bistline, who has written a history of the polygamist community and who is now a member of the mainstream Mormon Church. “It’s definitely a big win for the polygamists.”
"On the record before us" included the photographs of Warren Jeffs sexually assaulting not one but two underage female children.
Dissenting justices aside, the court today anointed the rules of the FLDS -- and theocracies, patriarchic and otherwise -- supreme above the laws of the State of Texas, and put the interests of "prophets" before the interests of innocents.
Shame on you, Justices -- you could
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