Texas can't hold 'em: Supreme court says state erred in taking children

"This evidence supports the trial court's finding that there was a danger to the physical health or safety of pubescent girls on the ranch," the dissenting opinion stated.

In addition, the dissenting justices wrote that child welfare investigators were hampered in getting birth dates and identifying information, and officials discovered a shredder that had been used to destroy documents just before CPS officials arrived.

"Thwarted by the resistant behavior of both children and parents on the ranch, the department had limited options," Justice Harriett O'Neill wrote.

Just hours before the ruling, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a friend-of-the-court brief siding with the FLDS mothers, expressing concern that Texas was targeting a religious culture. A Dallas child-abuse lawyer filed her own brief supporting Texas.

Investigation

The decision does not mean that the CPS investigation goes away, but it gets the children out of foster-care facilities as soon as it can be coordinated.

FLDS member Willie Jessop said church members are willing to cooperate — within reason — with any child welfare investigation. Contrary to claims by CPS, Jessop said they tried to cooperate early on, to no avail.

It was a phone call by someone claiming to be a 16-year-old girl named "Sarah" that sparked the April 3 raid. She claimed to be pregnant and in an abusive relationship to an older man. That led Texas CPS workers to respond to the FLDS compound with law enforcement. What they saw at the ranch prompted Judge Barbara Walther to order all of the children to be placed in state protective custody. It was a hearing en masse that led to the children being scattered in foster-care facilities all over the Lone Star State.

Lawyers for dozens of FLDS mothers challenged the court's decision. The 3rd Court of Appeals sided with the mothers, saying that the state failed to show the children were in immediate danger and ordered them to be returned to their mothers immediately. Texas child welfare officials appealed, saying the children were in danger of abuse in a culture that groomed little girls to become child brides and boys would grow up to become sexual perpetrators.

The appellate court said Texas child welfare authorities had only identified five pregnant teenage girls as victims of sexual abuse but had no evidence of anyone else. Texas had claimed there were as many as 31 girls but later reclassified many of them in court hearings as adults.

"There have been many many allegations and insinuations. The FLDS people I am acquainted with do not allow their children to be married without at least a legal age. We do not understand where this is coming from," Jessop told reporters outside the courthouse here.