Texas case against sect is not over, experts say
SAN ANGELO, Texas - The state of Texas's case against members of a polygamist sect is damaged but not dead, legal experts said - even after a series of court defeats that ended with the return of hundreds of children seized at the group's compound.
Yesterday, as members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints continued to pick up their children from foster homes, some in Texas said the court rulings proved the state had overreacted when it removed more than 400 children from their parents.
But child-protection authorities said their investigation will carry on. And legal experts said they might still have a good chance at proving abuse at the Yearning for Zion Ranch, using DNA tests and seized records to show that underage girls were married to and impregnated by older men.
"Simply returning the kids to the ranch . . . doesn't say there can never be any individual prosecutions," said Adam Gershowitz, a professor who teaches Texas criminal procedure at South Texas College of Law in Houston. "If the evidence indicates that men have been having sexual relations with underage girls, that's still a crime."
The state's case began April 3, when state authorities raided the group's compound near Eldorado. The state alleged that the group's beliefs, which allowed girls to become wives and mothers just after puberty, created a physical threat to some children and a threat of psychological corrosion for all.
But last week, the state Supreme Court rejected that logic and pressed the state to provide evidence of abuse or threats against individual children. On Monday a lower court judge ordered all the children released.
