FLDS ruling upheld by Texas Supreme Court

HOUSTON — The Texas Supreme Court on Thursday said the state had no right to take more than 400 children from a polygamist compound last month, opening the door for most of the youths to be reunited with their parents.

The decision was a major defeat for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, which had argued that all the children at the Yearning for Zion Ranch in western Texas were in immediate danger because they lived communally under a religion that sanctioned marriage between underage girls and older men.

"The parents are looking forward to being reunited with their children as soon as possible," said Rod Parker, a spokesman for the polygamist sect, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. "At this point there is no legal basis to hold anyone."

Texas Rangers and child welfare officials raided the group's fenced-off compound April 3 and reported finding scores of pregnant girls and other evidence of systemic sexual abuse. Built around a towering limestone temple, the compound is home to members of the FLDS, a sect that long ago broke away from the mainstream Mormon Church, which banned polygamy in 1890.

FLDS leaders acknowledged that some girls were pregnant but denied that any children were being harmed. They have been fighting to get the children back in what is believed to be the largest custody battle in U.S. history.

Last week, the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin found that the state had failed to provide any evidence that all of the children were in immediate danger of sexual or physical abuse, the condition necessary under Texas law to justify seizing them on an emergency basis.

Child welfare officials appealed to the high court, arguing that if the children were returned to their parents, FLDS leaders probably would move them out of Texas. The state also argued that it was not clear who the parents were, because many sect members, men in particular, had not submitted to DNA testing nor provided other proof of paternity.

The Texas Supreme Court shot down those claims. "On the record before us, removal of the children was not warranted," it said in its five-page ruling. However, the justices said that the trial court that granted Texas emergency custody of the children -- and was still debating their fate -- could take other measures to protect them while it deliberated.