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Posted: 6:49 AM- SAN ANGELO, Texas -- The e-mail sent by a legal aid firm moments after a Texas Supreme Court ruling Thursday said it all - Supreme Court to CPS: Send these children home.
By a 6-3 majority, the justices agreed an appeals court was correct in deciding a district court judge erred in keeping about 450 children from a polygamous sect in state custody.
It said 51st District Judge Barbara Walther must vacate her April 18 order, made two weeks after a raid on the sect's west Texas ranch.
But key questions - when, how and under what conditions - still must be resolved, which could happen as soon as today.
On Thursday, the FLDS sent a message of gratitude for the public's support and lawyers who had stood up for their rights.
"We made a plea to every politician there is, and it ends up being some kind-hearted attorneys that were willing to take up this fight," said Willie Jessop, an FLDS member and spokesman.
The petition was brought by Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA) on behalf of 38 mothers and about 130 children, but will likely affect other children from the ranch now living in foster homes and shelters, attorneys said.
The children, like their parents, are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
The ruling was met with jubilation by parents and attorneys representing the families.
"I just feel very thankful that the Supreme Court would give such a righteous decision," said Maggie Jessop, whose four children are in two cities 500 miles apart. "It was a huge concern to realize your government would be so blind as to rule against innocent people."
Marleigh Meisner, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, said the agency was "disappointed, but we understand and respect the court's decision and will take immediate steps to comply. Child Protective Services has one purpose in this case - to protect the children."
Now, it will "continue to prepare for the prompt and orderly reunification of these children with their families," she said.
The ruling specifically pertains to the women and children represented in the appeals court's May 22 decision.
But attorney Deborah Keenum, who represents 11 of the children, said the decision's language is broad enough to encourage Walther to apply it to all the FLDS children in state custody.
"The same evidence was presented for every single child and the Supreme Court has found there was not enough evidence," Keenum said.
She said she didn't know if foster care facilities will be able to release children to parents or if the state will set up a release process - something Meisner could not answer either.
Although the news - delivered through phone calls from lawyers and parents - brought smiles to the 21 children at the Ark Assessment Center and Emergency Shelter for Youth in Corpus Christi, leaving wasn't an option Thursday.
"It's another waiting game again to decide when they'll be going," said Delma Trejo, executive director.
With so much uncertainty, the Hendrick Home for Children in Abilene decided to keep the Supreme Court decision from the children - for now.
"We're going to wait for an exit plan so the children don't get too hyped up and become unmanageable," said facility President David Miller.
TRLA attorney Kevin Dietz said he would work with the courts and Child Protective Services, a division of DFPS, to do what's best for the children.
"Right now, that means reuniting these families," he said in a statement. "These mothers have never given up their fight to bring their families back together."
Joseph Jessop received a phone call about the news moments before his wife, Lori, got a call from her lawyer. Last week, a San Antonio judge allowed the Jessops to join with their three children to await the decision.
"She said it looks like we might be going home," Lori Jessop said. "I was ready to go right now."
As word spread to other mothers, some were so overjoyed they wanted to stand outside shelters where their children are, arms spread open, and wait for them to be filled.
DFPS had argued the appellate decision left it unable to guard the children's safety from what it deemed imminent danger of sexual and physical abuse due to FLDS practices.
The state contended that the sect condones marriages between underage girls to men and grooms boys to continue the practice.
In early April, Walther authorized the raid, triggered by a call now believed to be a hoax, and subsequently ruled the children would remain in state custody.
The Texas Supreme Court, like the appeals court, found that Texas' Family Code gives the district court broad authority to protect children short of taking them from their parents and placing them in custody.
Walther could have issued a restraining order barring the children from being taken out of state or ordered any perpetrators to leave from their homes at the ranch, the justices said.
Those remain options, the high court said, as CPS continues its work to ensure the safety of children returned to their parents.
In the dissent, Justice Harriet O'Neill, joined by Justices Phil Johnson and Don Willett, held the state had met its burden with regard to one population at the ranch: girls.
In April, the state offered evidence of five girls who were 15 or 16 when they conceived children. Nearly all the 26 women it deemed minor mothers had been declared adults before progress hearings were suspended last week.
Based on that, the state's action was too over-reaching, one attorney said.
"Sadly, I think there may be some children that needed to be protected within that community," said Polly Rea O'Toole, a Dallas attorney representing an 8-year-old child. "But because of the way the department went about it by sweeping up 460-odd children at one time they may have deprived themselves of the opportunity to protect children."
Willie Jessop said the "FLDS I'm acquainted with do not allow children to be married until they are of legal age."
For now, the focus for the FLDS will be getting the children home and helping them heal, he said. "These people and little children will spend their entire life trying to understand what they've been through."
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