Updated Friday, May 23, 2008

Texas court rules against seizure of polygamist sect's children

Associated Baptist Press

SAN ANGELO, Texas - The state of Texas had no right to remove more than 460 children from their polygamist parents, a state appeals court ruled May 22.

It was unclear if or when the children -- some held in Baptist children's homes -- would be returned to their parents, who are members of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, church. The sect is led by controversial polygamist Warren Jeffs, who is himself in jail on unrelated charges.

A district judge in April ruled in favor of the state of Texas, which seized the children during an April 4 police raid on the church's 1,600-acre Yearning for Zion Ranch compound near Eldorado. Thirty-eight FLDS mothers filed suit against the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to have their children returned.

A three-judge panel of the Texas 3rd District Court of Appeals ruled May 22 that the state failed to prove the children are in immediate danger: "Evidence that children raised in this particular environment may some day have their physical health and safety threatened is not evidence that the danger is imminent enough to warrant invoking the extreme measure of immediate removal prior to full litigation of the issue," the court's majority wrote.

After the April 4 raid, several Baptist churches and agencies were among those asked by the state to help care for the children. Baptist Child and Family Services, an agency affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, was charged with coordinating care for hundreds of the children.

The appeals court instructed the lower court to vacate its ruling, but did give instructions for returning the children, according to several news reports. Attorneys for FLDS said they will seek the children's immediate return. The state could appeal the case to the Texas Supreme Court.