Children and Parents Will Be Separated Once DNA Testing Is Complete
By Kristen Moulton and Brooke Adams
Salt Lake Tribune
April 20, 2008
http://origin.sltrib.com/news/ci_8989852
SAN ANGELO, Texas - FLDS sect mothers who have been staying with their small children in state shelters will have to leave them behind as early as Monday.
Shari Pulliam, a spokeswoman for Texas Child Protective Services, said Saturday that once DNA samples are taken from children under age 5, the adult mothers will be separated from the children.
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During the midday on Saturday, at least three empty... Photo by Scott Sommerdorf/The Salt Lake Tribune |
CPS will use genetic samples to figure out parentage of all of the children. Law enforcement took a handful of DNA swabs early in its investigation, but most remain to be done, she said.
Texas 51st District Judge Barbara Walther ordered the genetic tests because CPS investigators said the children and parents gave varying names, birth dates and family relationships after the state took the children during a raid two weeks ago.
The families are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who live on the YFZ Ranch, 45 miles south of San Angelo.
CPS persuaded the judge that the raid revealed enough evidence of child physical and sexual abuse - or the threat of abuse - to warrant keeping the children in state custody. Its key evidence is that five teenage girls in custody were pregnant before they were 17.
The Texas Attorney General's Office will oversee DNA swabs of children, set to begin Monday. Later this week, a mobile medical clinic will travel to Eldorado, near the
Pulliam said that CPS is preparing foster placements for the children across the state. The state plans to try to keep teenage mothers with their children and also keep siblings together, she said.
Of the 416 children CPS has said are in state custody, about 77 are under the age of 2.
It was also revealed in court that at least one, a 17-year-old girl, is a Canadian citizen who was visiting her grandmother at YFZ Ranch. British Columbia's attorney general, according to Canwest News Service, said Friday that several children may be Canadian. CPS does not yet know how many of the children are Canadian, Pulliam said.
The cost to Texas for the foster care will be staggering.
The care costs anywhere from $38.59 per child per day to $222.19 per day, depending on the facility and the child's needs, Pulliam said. If all the children are in foster care for a year, it would amount to between $6 million and $34 million for the state. And that doesn't include the costs of the past two weeks.
Pulliam said attorneys for the children and mothers were visiting Saturday with their clients at the San Angelo Coliseum.
Pulliam said that mothers and fathers of the children will likely be allowed to visit their children "in some fashion" while they are in foster care.
A number of people will be involved in crafting family plans for each set of parents and a child plan for each child: an attorney and a guardian for each child, CPS, and the parents and their attorneys.
The family plan lays out what's expected of the parents if they are to have any hope of getting their children back. It will key in on what the court considers the abuse in the FLDS sect - that it arranges for some girls to have sex with older men before they are 17. The FLDS considers them "spiritual marriages."
In court Friday, four FLDS mothers told the judge they will do whatever it takes - leaving the ranch and husbands, getting jobs - to get their children back.
By June 5, there will be a status hearing for each child to let the judge know how the child is doing.
Follow-up hearings for each child will occur every four months, and there are co-called "permanency" hearings after 180 days and 300 days.
Scott McCown, a retired judge and director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin, said that under Texas law, parents may request that a jury participate in the final hearing.
In two-thirds of child welfare cases, children are either reunited with their parents or permanently placed with relatives, he said.
Guy Choate, a San Angelo attorney who helped with the hearing's logistics, predicted Walther will appoint special masters and family law judges to help handle the hundreds of individual hearings. Walther, however, will likely do many herself, he said.
Parents have two opportunities for appeal, McCown said. They can appeal the judge's procedures or her ruling, he said.
It's likely some attorneys will appeal Walther's decision to allow the state to present its evidence en masse rather than child-by-child. However, the law sets a high bar for appeals; attorneys would have to show the judge abused her discretion, Choate said.
The appellate court for the 51st District is the Third District Court of Appeals in Austin.
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