Polygamy case poses ‘logistical nightmare’ for courts
SAN ANGELO, Texas (CNN) — A judge was set to determine Monday how to handle the custody battles of 416 children taken earlier this month from a polygamist sect in central Texas.
Dozens of lawyers — including those representing the sect — huddled with Judge Barbara Walther to determine how the children will be represented in upcoming court hearings.
The case, which was moved from an Eldorado courthouse to a larger facility in nearby San Angelo, likely represents the largest family law case in the history of Texas, said attorney Tom Vick, a director of the State Bar of Texas.
It’s probably the largest family law case in the country if you look at it as one big problem, said Vick, the former chairman of the Texas bar’s family law section.
Police raided the 1,900-acre Yearning for Zion, or YFZ, ranch in Eldorado after receiving a report of sexual abuse.
The authorities announced April 7 they had taken custody of more than 400 children in the raid, which lasted nearly a week. Watch a sect leader’s attorney say the tipster made false accusations
According to Texas law, all of the children must be represented by lawyers.
Monday’s pretrial hearing is procedural. Vick presently is trying to find volunteer lawyers to handle the cases, which are scheduled to begin Thursday.
Three-hundred and fifty is the estimate of what we need on Thursday, and probably we’ll need some more after that, he said.
Though there have been only 123 cases filed thus far by the state’s Child Protective Services Division, about 416 children — most of them girls — are included in the custody battles.
That number is fluid, however, Vick said. Since the raids earlier this month, another child has been born, one turned 18, and a woman from the compound reportedly was in labor Sunday, he said.
As of midnight Sunday, Vick had secured about 250 lawyers willing to work on the case pro bono. He was receiving two to three e-mails an hour from attorneys wanting to help, he said.
A judge will decide Monday which cases are heard first, how the children will be represented and logistical matters. The logistics of the cases are important, Vick said, because even simple introductions could take hours with a case this large.
But there are logistical concerns outside the courtroom, Vick said. See how events have unfolded since the raid
San Angelo, about 40 miles north of Eldorado, has a population of almost 90,000, but it will be pressed to accommodate the interested parties — attorneys, journalists, church members, activists — who are converging there.
Vick said he took the last hotel room at a popular chain last week. Volunteers have opened up their homes for other attorneys. A local Episcopal church is arranging dinner for the attorneys Wednesday night, he said.
It is a logistical nightmare, but it is working out well, he said.
On March 31, police received a call from a 16-year-old named Sarah, who said she had been choked and forced to have sex with her spiritual husband, Dale Barlow, 50. She said she had an 8-month-old child with Barlow.
Barlow, who met with authorities over the weekend and was not arrested, is a member of a rogue branch of the Mormon church that runs the Texas ranch. He is serving three years of probation after pleading no contest last year to charges of conspiracy to have sex with a minor.
Barlow’s attorney said he had not been to Texas in more than three decades.
The ranch was run by Warren Steed Jeffs, the imprisoned founder of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which bought the ranch four years ago. See a map of towns where Jeffs’ followers congregate
Church members began building dormitories and a temple. Hundreds of Jeffs’ followers moved from Arizona and Utah as authorities stepped up investigations into the church and its practices.
Jeffs was convicted last year in Utah on two counts of being an accomplice to rape, charges related to a marriage he performed in 2001. Jeffs also faces trial in Arizona on eight charges of sexual conduct with a minor, incest and conspiracy.
FLDS members practice polygamy. In 1890, the church split with the mainstream Mormon church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which denounced polygamy.
found here.
