Meet Two Alpine Attorneys who Helped Win Back Custody of Hundreds of Children in TX Raid

Two Alpine attorneys help win back custody of hundreds of children taken by Texas’ Department of Family and Protective Services in the April raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch in West Texas.

By Marlys Hersey, Editor

“I am…an attorney with Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid…currently representing forty-eight mothers in the child custody proceedings that began as a result of the raid of the YFZ [Yearning for Zion] Ranch in early April.

Last month, TRLA filed a Writ of Mandamus with the Third Court of Appeals in Austin, Texas, on behalf of the mothers, where we argued the state did not follow Texas law when they took these children without providing any evidence that these households were creating abusive environments.

The Third Court ruled on this matter, and stated that Child Protective Services had no evidence that these children were in imminent danger and that CPS acted hastily in removing them from their families. According to the Court, the existence of the FLDS [Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints] belief system, as described by the department’s witnesses, by itself does not put children of FLDS parents in physical danger.

As you can imagine, both TRLA attorneys and the parents we represent are ecstatic about this news. In ruling this way, the Third Court of Appeals has stood up for the legal rights of these families and given the mothers hope that their families will be brought back together very soon.

It is a great day for families in the state of Texas.”

– Julie Balovich, attorney for Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, speaking at press conference on May 22 in front of the Tom Green County Courthouse in San Angelo, TX

While many of you have probably followed the drama of this intriguing story of national interest as it unfolded in the news, you may not know that two of the key players in the case are locals. In fact, Julie Balovich and Amanda Chisolm, lawyers for TRLA and residents of Alpine, are two of the ten attorneys responsible for the return of the children to their parents after six weeks in state custody.

To recap: In late March, a woman called a domestic violence shelter, claiming to be a 16-year-old who lived at the “Yearning for Zion” ranch, near the town of Eldorado, TX in Schleicher County (about a 225-mile drive northeast of Alpine), reporting that she was sexually and physically abused by her 50-year-old “husband.” The shelter contacted the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services’ Child Protective Services (CPS), and the investigation of this community of fundamentalist Mormons began, resulting in a raid, beginning on April 3, in which CPS and law enforcement officials “took possession of all 468 children at the Ranch without a court order,” as the Supreme Court of Texas decision reads, ostensibly to protect the children from an immediate threat to their physical health and safety.

In what CPS has called “the largest child protection case documented in the history of the United States,” the agency claimed to have ample evidence of a “pervasive pattern and practice” of abuse in the YFZ community.

Two weeks later, in a hearing in State District Court in San Angelo on April 17 and 18 – the courtroom so jam-packed with attorneys for both parties, attorneys ad litem (“for the suit,” appointed to protect underage clients), guardians, and others that an additional auditorium was filled with the overflow – Judge Barbara Walther ordered that the children remain in the department’s temporary custody, and mandated DNA testing of each child to determine maternity and paternity.

All of the children older than 12 months were then separated from their mothers and relocated to foster homes and other state-overseen facilities in various and sometimes far-flung parts of the Lone State.

Thirty-eight of the mothers petitioned the court of appeals seeking a return of their 126 children; on May 22, the Third District Court of Appeals ruled that CPS failed to meet its burden of proof under Texas law (as detailed in Balovich’s statement above) and “vacated the temporary orders” which granted CPS custody.

CPS then petitioned the Supreme Court of Texas for a review. On May 29, the Supreme Court of Texas, “In Re Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Realtor On Petition for Mandamus (No. 08-0391)” issued its opinion: “We are not inclined to disturb the court of appeals decision.” Included in the court’s relatively brief, 905-word decision was this unambiguous statement: “On the record before us, removal of the children was not warranted.” The argument put forth by ten TRLA public defense attorneys prevailed in the court of appeals and in the state’s highest court.

By June 3, all of the children were released back into the custody of their parents; some of the families have since returned to the YFZ Ranch, some remain in different homes rented during the time their children were in state custody.

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