Marci Hamilton aids Texas CPS disinformation campaign, spins Texas Supreme Court defeat

Like a CPS Rasputin, Professor Marci Hamilton is back, crusading against common sense, facts, law and those dreaded ladies in 19th century pastel, the mothers of the FLDS. A big thank you to Professor Hamilton for making such an easy target for a Saturday-night special. (No, not that kind of special.)

When we last heard from Hamilton, she was waving the Texas CPS banner, decrying what she termed the “wrongheaded,” “indefensible” and “premature” decision of the Texas Third Court of Appeals ordering the return of the FLDS children to their parents. In her world — apparently uninformed by common notions of family unity or bonding — those kids had been “rescued” by CPS.

Hamilton’s world was jolted, however, by a strong Texas Supreme Court ruling affirming the Third Court’s decision, rejecting along the way Hamilton’s (and CPS’s) arguments. The children were returned to their parents, albeit with more government-induced duress, intrusiveness and generalized bad manners than anyone should be forced to endure.

After that, I thought Hamilton might just fade away. Obviously, she didn’t. Apparently, she has to keep up appearances to sell her recent books, neither of which will get air time here. My response to Hamilton’s commentary follows. As before, Hamilton’s material — which she claims is in the best interests of the “endangered children” — is indented and enjoys my emphasis in some places. My commentary is not indented. Hamilton begins innocently enough:

Recently, the Texas Supreme Court affirmed the state’s Third Circuit appellate court’s ruling that Child Protective Services (CPS) lacked adequate evidence to justify taking all of the children . . .

[T]hat decision was misread by some as a complete vindication of the parents and as an order to return the children to the compound as soon as possible. . . .

So far, so boring. But with this next heading, Hamilton really goes off the rails.

The Texas Supreme Court Did Not Clear the Adults at the FLDS Compound of Abuse Claims, Nor Did It Vindicate Any “Rights” on Their Part

It is extremely important for people to understand this point: The Texas Supreme Court did not say that there was no abuse and did not place its imprimatur on the notion that the FLDS to could return to abuse as usual.

Excuse me? The Texas Supreme Court affirmed the Third Court’s ruling that — on the record before the Court, the only record that mattered for this ruling — Texas CPS had produced no evidence of abuse but only rumor and innuendo about FLDS religious teachings. Therefore, Hamilton’s misleading reference to “abuse as usual” is without justification.

Simultaneously, the Court forcefully affirmed the FLDS parents’ rights to (a) enjoy the association of their children free from threats of “emergency removal” by CPS and (b) the individualized adversarial hearing so far denied them by Judge Walther before CPS can take their children away. If this is not a vindication of rights, what is? I cannot imagine what would possess Hamilton to deny it. Her refusal to gracefully and honestly acknowledge this as a vindication of rights is inexplicable.

The week before, FLDS members had turned investigators away from the gates of the compound. The court made clear that should not happen again and, by implication, that if investigators during this investigation uncover further evidence of abuse, the state will not be barred from further actions taken to protect each child.

The FLDS parents agreed, under the most the dire imaginable duress (the continuing denial of association with their children) to allow CPS in only because they saw no immediate alternative to get their kids back. Hamilton’s suggestion that this extortionary “agreement” somehow vindicates prior gross misconduct by Judge Walther or CPS is absurd on its face.

Moreover, neither the Texas Supreme Court nor the lower appellate court ruled on whether the parents have any “rights,” constitutional or otherwise – a point the Texas Supreme Court stated explicitly. To the contrary, both decisions were state law rulings on the sufficiency of the evidence to date to take all of the children at once.

This, again, is nonsense. Both courts unitedly proclaimed the FLDS parents’ rights to get their kids back and ordered Judge Walther to see to it, or else. In fact, both courts vindicated the parents’ rights never to have had the children removed in the first place. Furthermore, the “state law” on which the rulings were based is procedural law put there by the Texas legislature to ensure that trial judges with no constitutional understanding (apparently prevalent in west Texas) follow constitutional due process anyway.

An Admirable Dissent Penned By the Court’s Only Female Justice

A three-judge dissent to the Texas Supreme Court’s opinion was written by Justice O’Neill. The only woman on the court, Justice O’Neill made the compelling argument that at least the class of pubescent girls should have remained in state custody.

Here, again, Hamilton misleads. O’Neill never used the term “at least.” Quite the opposite: Justice O’Neill explicitly agreed with the majority that CPS was wrong to remove the boys and non-pubescent girls. Why does Hamilton falsify the essential meaning of O’Neill’s dissent? I think it is because people like Hamilton can’t bear the thought of anything less than full control over other human beings. They will do whatever it takes — even if it means lying, cheating and stealing — to obtain it. The power is addictive.

O’Neill’s dissent, by the way, is neither compelling nor especially credible in light of its reliance on a factual record produced during Judge Walther’s totally deficient “adversary” hearing. That record is devoid of any evidence of any immediate threat to anyone in particular, notwithstanding O’Neill’s tepid dissent. Her dissent should be seen as nothing more than a toothless effort to help a corrupt, incompetent government agency salvage a slice of dignity in the face of complete legal humiliation. (As an aside, Hamilton’s reference to Justice O’Neill’s sex — apparently suggesting that all women would side with CPS — says more about Hamilton herself than about the case.)

Hamilton continues:

It is a sad commentary on the plight of children in our society that her view did not obtain a majority. We have left behind the era when rape was deemed the woman’s fault, but we remain in the dark ages when the certain sexual abuse of girls is still insufficiently moving for courts to take action in their favor.

Hamilton again distorts the record which, contrary to her lurid claims, offers no “certain” evidence of any crime or abuse. In the following paragraph, Hamilton sounds shrill and emotional, but I think it’s all a ploy to sell books:

No one wants to think about the sex abuse of children, but this court had an obligation to examine the facts without flinching and, if it had done so, the pubescent girls would have remained in state custody. The majority’s decision trivializes their plight, or the law of sexual assault, or both. One can only wonder what the result would have been if one of the girls being abused had been one of their own children.

The Court did examine the factual record and, without flinching, did what the Constitution required. It’s possible that some sexual abuse did occur. But the record before the Court was devoid of evidence of sex abuse by any identifiable perpetrator against any identifiable victim.

I stand by my earlier analysis that CPS operated well within reasonable boundaries when it took all of the children, given the obvious evidence of the alarming number of pubescent girls who were pregnant or already mothers.

Here she goes, again: “Obvious evidence”. “Alarming numbers of pubescent girls . . .” What numbers? What evidence? We don’t yet know what those numbers are because no one can believe CPS because CPS has proven to be an unreliable witness on this issue.

It takes no leap of logic to conclude that, at the same time the boys were being groomed to be rapists, the younger girls were being groomed to be victims, and the adolescents were being sexually assaulted on a regular basis.

This is defamatory, inflammatory nonsense. Without any evidence on the record of any single act of abuse, Hamilton leaps to “boys being groomed to be rapists” and “adolescents being sexually assaulted on a regular basis.” Irresponsible hogwash. If you want to find boys being groomed to be rapists all you need is a registry of families that have copies of Grand Theft Auto. None of them lives at the FLDS ranch.

Moreover, there was truly a mountain of evidence that many of the men were engaging in polygamous marriage with underage girls, a first-degree felony in Texas.

Hamilton has apparently lost it. There was no “mountain of evidence” on the record in support of any allegation of any abuse or other wrongdoing against any single man. If CPS had such evidence, they failed to share it, apparently thinking that they could get by with their “business as usual,” half-****d approach to tearing families apart.

If there were evidence on the record, I would support punishment of the perpetrators but not removal of children from mothers unless the mothers voluntarily participated in the abuse. But the record before the Supreme Court showed no evidence that “many men” or even any men were doing anything like what Professor Hamilton alleges.

A return of these children with no conditions for their protection — as the FLDS leaders claim is their right — would have been an invitation to continue the community practice of sex and marriage to 12-year-olds.

More defamation. Who ever said anything about 12-year-olds? Where in the record is that?

As the Texas Supreme Court’s holding indicates, the facts may be insufficient to put all of the children in state custody at this time, but that does not mean that children are safe in the FLDS compound or the investigation is over.

But evidence on the record shows conclusively the high risks of living in Texas foster care.

The media seems intent on focusing on the disruption to these children’s lives following the rescue and now the return, as though that is the major issue before us, and as though the abuse allegations are now irrelevant history. While there is no question that the children must feel stress resulting from the process, there would have been no disruption if the sect’s men had not had sex with underage girls and married them into polygamous unions.

More defamation. First, there is no evidence on the record that any individual male member of the FLDS church — except perhaps Warren Jeffs who is now in prison — ever “had sex with underaged girls” or “married them into polygamous unions”. Hamilton here is either lying or seriously misreading the factual record. I wonder how many of the case-related briefs and motions she has even read.

Felonious behavior by FLDS adults caused the misery here, not the state.

More defamation. No one has produced evidence of any felony that would justify the removal of the children. Despite Hamilton’s protestations to the contrary, there is nothing inherently abusive or dangerous about a polygamous mother or father. Some of them are oddballs. Some are dangerous. But so are plenty of monogamous or non-marrying men and women. As to the State’s role in the misery, Hamilton’s assertion is patently ridiculous to anyone who has actually taken time to read eye witness accounts of the malicious and negligent horrors perpetrated by Texas government agents against the FLDS during this process.

The FLDS families are not different from any other families facing credible allegations of abuse, despite the religious source of their illegal behavior.

Here the professor conflates “abuse” with “illegal behavior” of a “religious source.” But the two do not necessarily go together. I understand that Hamilton has a personal beef with polygamy. But her personal “belief system” isn’t universally shared and is not the law.

One can only hope that the Texas Attorney General’s Office soon files criminal charges against the obvious felons within the group, and holds very public trials that further educate the American public on the sexual abuse of American children. Ignorance and denial are the enemies of these children.

“Obvious felons”? As the Professor should be aware, in the United States of America — unlike Russia or China — no one is a “felon” until proven so through due process in a court of law. But calling someone a felon when he is not is defamation. Is the Professor sure that a resident of the FLDS ranch — one who she thinks doesn’t deserve to have children — is a “felon”? Maybe those books have made Hamilton’s pockets so deep that a defamation claim just doesn’t frighten her. Or, maybe, she doesn’t know the meaning of the term.

Given Hamilton’s demonstrated tendency toward distortion and hyperbole, what sort of weight should we attach to her opinions about this or any other case involving religion and family law?