San Angelo, USA - Texas authorities relied on hundreds of documents and photographs seized from a polygamous sect's ranch last spring to craft criminal allegations related to underage marriages against a dozen men.
The state's prosecutions, set to begin this fall, now hinge on whether the search that led to the seizure of those items was legal.
In a hearing late this morning before 51st District Judge Barbara Walther, state attorneys will argue that the men challenging the search and seizure do not have standing and failed to prove officers acted in bad faith when they sought warrants to enter the ranch.
The seized evidence may be crucial because Texas faces the same obstacle that Arizona did when it prosecuted eight FLDS men in 2007 on charges related to underage marriages: It has no victims willing to testify in court and will rely largely on documents to make its case against the men.
Authorities removed 439 children from the sect's Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado last spring after receiving allegations of abuse and kept them in state custody for two months. The ranch is home to members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which has historical roots in Utah and Arizona.
The children were returned to their parents by a state Supreme Court ruling that found insufficient evidence to support an allegation that all were abused. The state regained custody of a teenage girl last summer after her mother balked at cooperating with caseworkers. On Tuesday, after nine months living with strangers, the 14-year-old was moved to the home of a distant relative; she remains under state supervision.
Merril Jessop, the girl's father, is among the 12 men indicted by the Schleicher County grand jury on charges related to underage marriages.
The men argue Texas Ranger Brooks Long omitted facts that cast doubt on abuse allegations when he sought a warrant to search the ranch in April 2008.
They say Long knew the alleged abuser was not at the ranch and had been told no one matching the description of his purported teen bride lived there. They also say a crisis hotline employee supplied the husband's name to the caller, now believed to have been a Colorado women with a history of making hoax abuse calls.
In a court filing, Eric Nichols, deputy attorney general, says the men failed to show they had an expectation of privacy at the ranch, which calls into question their standing -- or legal right -- to challenge the two search warrants used there last spring.
Nichols also says the mens' "scatter-shot allegations" do not provide any evidence that Long acted fraudulently or recklessly in seeking those warrants.
He argues the FLDS motion mischaracterizes what happened in the calls between a domestic violence worker and a caller who claimed to be an abuse victim being held captive at the ranch.
After the caller refused to give her husband's name, the "outcry caller alerted to the name 'Dale' when the family shelter worker read a list of common first names," the state's motion says. "Later, the outcry caller volunteered the allege perpetrator's full name."
Other comments made by the caller fit with what the ranger knew about the community, Nichols says in the filing.
"The multiple outcry calls to the crisis hotline by the claimed child victim, combined with the details provided -- as well as information law enforcement already had concerning the YFZ Ranch compound -- presented a substantial basis on which to believe that physical and sexual assault of a child had occurred and was occurring at the YFZ Ranch compound," the filing states.
It was reasonable to search the entire ranch since the caller did not give specific information about her whereabouts and the ranch operates "under a single chain of command."
"Hypertechnical nit-picking" of an affidavit is not allowed by previous court rulings, Nichols argues.
"A warrant must be upheld as long as the attesting officer, and the reviewing magistrate, had a substantial basis for concluding that a search would uncover evidence of wrongdoing."