Polygamous Sect Fathers Demand Judge Return Seized Kids [View All]

[High Plains]

http://www.sltrib.com/polygamy/ci_9256669

Polygamous sect fathers demand judge return seized kids
By Brooke Adams
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 05/15/2008 06:16:04 AM MDT

Three FLDS fathers are demanding a judge in San Antonio return their children, saying Texas authorities acted in a "blunderbuss" fashion to remove them from a polygamous sect's ranch. The fathers - James Dockstader, Rulon Keate and LeLand Keate - say they all have monogamous marriages to women who were of legal age when they married. Each family lived in separate residences at the ranch and there is no evidence their children were physically or sexually abused, they say.

Their habeas corpus petition challenges the "illegal detention" of some of their children, who range in age from 1 to 9 and are in shelters in San Antonio. Texas, they say, has "ripped apart families and illegally continues to damage and harm hundreds of children and parents" by "running roughshod" over their constitutional rights to due process and equal protection.

Texas authorities have custody of 464 children taken in early April from the YFZ Ranch, whose residents are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The state argues the children were at risk because of the sect's polygamous, communal lifestyle and a "prevalent" practice of underage marriage.

At least three other actions are pending before different courts in Texas that make arguments similar to those of the three fathers, who are represented by attorneys Amy Hennington, Kent Schaffer and Gerald Goldstein and his law firm.

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