Judge Walthers vs FLDS: Courtroom chaos & cruelty continue in San Angelo

This evening, in a small, otherwise unremarkable West Texas town, Judge Barbara Walthers ruled — for all the world to see — that all 416 FLDS children now held by her and the State of Texas will remain separated from their parents until at least June 5, more than a month away. This despite abundant testimony in her courtroom over the past two days that the damage inflicted on the children (odd, isn’t that the law gives no regard to harm to the parents) by the separation will likely or certainly be greater than any damage suffered in the care of their parents back at home on the Ranch.

As I have written in previous blog entries, this is typical behavior on the part of CPS agents and their enabler judges across the United States. I hope that Americans are watching carefully this all-too-vivid tutorial on how states go about taking children from parents. Whatever crimes, if any, have been committed by individual YFZ Ranch residents, the handling of this case by the State of Texas will be a constitutional disaster for America if it is not corrected by an appellate court. (Update: Fortunately, both the Texas Third Court of Appeals and the Texas Supreme Court later held that Judge Walther and CPS violated Texas law in removing the children.)

“Live” blogging by Trish Choate and Matt Phinney of the San Angelo Standard-Times provides a wealth of information about the attitudes of attorneys, FLDS mothers, Texas CPS agents and, most importantly, Judge Walthers herself. American citizens who care about religious liberty or due process should take time to carefully read the Choate-Phinney blog. (7-1-08 update: full transcripts of the two days of hearings is posted here.)

Walthers is the only judge in Texas’ 51st District. She happens to be an active member of the local First Methodist Church and issued the warrant that started the controversy. My reading of the entire Choate-Phinney blog over the past two days reinforces my impression that Judge Walthers and the State of Texas are persecuting the FLDS for their religious beliefs, not prosecuting them for child abuse. It is astounding the extent to which Judge Walthers is allowing the examination in her courtroom of the religious doctrines, attitudes and inner-most thoughts of the FLDS people — as a stereotyped religious group, not as individuals — in a case that was supposed to focus merely on whether one man had raped one girl.

The Blog reveals a mystified, frustrated army of attorneys trying desperately yet professionally to represent their parent and child clients in a chaotic virtual “courtroom” (really a collection of separate facilities linked by a “grainy” video feed) wholly incapable of delivering constitutionally guaranteed due process or careful consideration to the poor souls now under its jurisdictional thumb. The thought process of the judge — at least as revealed by her pattern of courtroom communication and the general disorganization of the entire proceedings — appears meandering and muddled. Constitutionally, the court seems to have taken leave of its senses.

Child and parent attorneys rise repeatedly to object to the States’ complete failure to qualify its expert witnesses, authenticate or admit documents into evidence or even serve process on their clients. Their objections are routinely overruled. When a prosecutor objects, the judge helps her out:

An objection arises from a prosecutor, and the judge shapes it for her to move things along.

“That’s exactly what I was going to say, judge,” the attorney says.

“Next question please,” the judge instructs the parents’ attorney.

“Judge, I’m at a loss,” the parents’ attorney said. “I’ll sit down.”

The FLDS members are watching the proceedings solemnly in the auditorium.

The judge asks about children’s attorneys being grouped “by some sort of color-coding system.”

An attorney says, yes, they have done that, there has been such a grouping according to common interests.

The judge wants them to organize as groups and choose spokesmen or spokeswomen.

“We started this process with over 400 attorneys. Unfortunately, we have a number of attorneys who have had to leave town and have appointed co-counsel,” the attorney says. She inquires about perhaps taking lunch so they can get organized.

No, lunch “would only embolden you all,” the judge says.

Color-coding 400 attorneys according to “common interests”. All part of due process in San Angelo. Lest anyone have feelings of sympathy for Judge Walthers, she brought this all on herself by ordering the raid in the first place. She could easily have limited the scope of the warrant to minimize the disruption to innocent parents and children. She pointedly chose not to, choosing instead to stereotype the entire group, painting all of them with the same biased brush. Here’s an illustrative examination of the prosecution’s child psychiatry expert:

A child psychiatrist from the Department of Family and Protective Services takes the stand.

A prosecutor questions him to establish his expertise in working with children, as well as children such as those at the YFZ Ranch near El Dorado.

A parents’ attorney objects that the psychiatrist’s testimony is not appropriate and needlessly goes over old ground.

The judge says his objection is premature.

The psychiatrist nearly gets a sentence or two out — including a reference to the Branch Davidian Compound — when an attorney objects.

The judge asks the objector whether he’s now the lead attorney for his firm.

“No, your honor,” he says.

She tells him to huddle with his colleagues about the lead attorney.

The psychiatrist went to Waco and led a clinical team to work with the Branch Davidian families.

A raid by federal authorities on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco ended in tragedy and loss of life several years ago.

The psychiatrist outlines his experience working with “a number of smaller, separatist, fundamentalist” groups.

Each group is different, but several have authoritarian leaders who govern the details of their daily life — what they eat, when they sleep and more.

The leader basically “defines how they live and how these children grow up.” His understanding of the YFZ Ranch community is that it has an authoritarian setup.

Under questioning from the parents’ attorney who’s pursuing his objection, the psychiatrist says he has gotten much of his information from the media.

Guffaws break out.

He has met with two members who grew up in the community and three young women to talk to them about their beliefs and their life in the community.

“I’d love to be able to speak with the elders of the community and learn more about how they think and how they raise their kids,” the psychiatrist says. . .

He admits he knows little about FLDS doctrine and other matters related to the sect.

This is just mind blowing. Here’s a “professional” child psychiatrist pretending to knowledge necessary to determine whether parents should get their kids back and he “would love” to “learn more about how they think and raise their kids.” Wouldn’t it make more sense to learn about them before you take away their kids in the first place??!! Was that was this raid was all about? You wanted to learn more about them? Wanted to see for yourself what was in that temple?

11:38 a.m. — A parents’ attorney says to the psychiatrist: How can a 6-month-old child be influenced in any way by the fact that someone a few hundred yards from them is a pregnant 16-year-old?

The psychiatrist says he didn’t say that, but he offers the opinion that the children should stay with the state until officials figure out what’s best for them.

“Doctor, haven’t you said in writing and in your research determined that a child develops 90 percent of his brain … in his first three years?” the parents’ attorney says.

The psychiatrist says he probably wrote that the brain grows to 90 percent of its size by age 3.

The attorney reads off a few sentences a bit dramatically and almost angrily. Then he asks the doctor whether he wrote it.

“Maybe, but not in that tone of voice,” the psychiatrist says.

Observers laugh.

The court has indicated it wants to hear from parents, and those parents need some guidance about what they could say to get their children back, the parents’ attorney says.

“What can a parent say to a judge that could be helpful in getting that child returned?” the parents’ attorney says.

The witness replies, “What would make me feel comfortable is if a parent came forward and said, ‘I don’t think a girl should get married as a young teen. We need to know more about the outside world and be more transparent about their beliefs.’” It also would be a good sign if the parent asked for some advice about creating a healthy environment for their children, the psychiatrist adds.

Why any wise parent would ask Texas CPS for advice on “creating a healthy environment for children” is a complete mystery. In fact, given the agency’s recent track record — quite apart from this particular humanitarian catastrophe — the very suggestion is ludicrous. But the comment is a telling indicator of what drives these CPS do-gooder types everywhere. They’re starved for attention and desperate to be recognized as experts on how to raise your children. If you don’t ask their advice, by golly, it’s a sign of child abuse.

Dedicated FLDS parents are now threatened with the forever loss of what is to them — perhaps more than any other living Americans — their most sacred trust and relationship, the relationship they have with their children. The State of Texas is perpetrating an atrocity of a kind not witnessed in this country since the Cherokee Trail of Tears. It is ethnic cleansing gussied up as “child protection.” This travesty will haunt the State of Texas for decades if Texans do not come quickly to their senses.

The great tragedy in this case is that the American judicial and law enforcement system is designed to rip apart any family — no matter what religion or race, no matter how good the parents — unfortunate enough to get in its way. When a judge tears a little five-year-old child away from her loving, dedicated mother, the emotional and psychological pain for both is excruciating.

Irreparable harm is done with each passing day to the children and their parents. Yet Judge Walthers won’t allow some of these kids to even see their parents for two months! Think about what two months means to a five-year boy who desperately missed his mother. What social worker or even temporary foster parent can assuage that pain? Months or years down the road assuming success in the appellate judicial process, what expert can return to these mothers the joy of raising their sons or daughters who, in the interim have lost their childhood and their emotional attachment to mothers who cannot comfort them?

Here’s another excerpt from Friday’s blog:

2:35 p.m. — An attorney speaking for lawyers representing the youngest children asks: Would it be worse for the well-being of the younger children to be returned to the FLDS sect home, or to be separated from their familiar environment?

To be taken from their environment would be worse, the psychiatrist says.

Next, a children’s attorney asks questions about genetic testing for diseases and disorders.

The psychiatrist doesn’t think that’s high on the scale of things to be concerned about now.

The next children’s lawyer wants to know whether the mothers not on the ranch during the raid could be with their children.

The psychiatrist says he would like to see authorities be as flexible as possible.

“I personally would say, if you let these other mothers do it, just let them in,” the psychiatrist says.

The attorney asks: Should we try to get the process started of reuniting those mothers with their children at the coliseum?

“I think that good things that happen early on are better than good things that happen later,” the psychiatrist says.

This psychiatrist is not the only one to so testify. In the face of uncontroverted testimony that there has been no physical abuse at the Ranch, this Judge — her impartiality thoroughly impaired by the fact that she ordered the raid to begin with — rules:

7:29 p.m. — Court reconvenes.

The judge thanks all members of the bar for their work and cooperation.

She announces her decision that the children should not return to the ranch.

She says this is the beginning. Hearings will begin June 5, but they will not be en mass. The court orders maternity and paternity testing for each child.

On Monday, a mobile lab at the fairgrounds will test the DNA of all the children and mothers there.

When a State decides to invade a home and disrupt sacred parent-child relationships, shouldn’t it do so only after a showing abundant evidence of serious wrongdoing by the parents? Yet in this case, no such evidence was adduced — as far as I can tell from this distance — by any witness over the past two days. Certainly, no evidence was presented by the grand total of four prosecution witnesses that could reasonably justify Judge Walthers in continuing to prevent all 416 of these children from enjoying the company of their parents.

“This is the beginning,” says the judge as — before the evidence is in — she sentences hundreds of parents and children to months, years or life without each other. They call it the parental death penalty. The terror is that no mother or child knows if the one will ever see the other again. And with the Queen of Hearts on the throne of this West Texas legal Wonderland, their chances are painfully slim. “Sentence first–verdict afterwards.”

What occurred Thursday and Friday in San Angelo, Texas will go down in history as shameless show-trial, the outcome of which was predetermined by a judge blinded by hippopotamic hubris, religious bigotry and determination to be re-elected to the only judicial bench in District 51 by an electorate poisoned by years of lurid sensationalism served up by the media out to make a buck.