MARCI HAMILTON Why a Texas Appellate Court Seriously Erred In Concluding that Texas Child Protective Services Should Not Have Rescued All of the Children at the FLDS Compound FindLaw columnist and visiting Princeton law and public affairs professor Marci Hamilton argues that a Texas intermediate appellate court was very wrong to hold that the recent raid on a Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints compound within the state was illegal -- in a decision authorities are appealing to the Texas Supreme Court. Hamilton contends that evidence of felonies committed within the compound, including polygamy and child rape, provided a solid legal basis for the authorities to act.

Of course, the Texas Supreme Court upheld this ruling today. Hardly surprising. The TSC is a political, right-wing court that rarely gets a decision correct. So now these children get to go back to camp, where they will likely be immediately hauled off to Utah or Arizona.

I think the operative words here are "evidence of felonies committed within the compound, including polygamy and child rape, provided a solid legal basis for the authorities to act".

If they had such evidence, surely they would have presented it to someone by now.

I think the evidence of child rape and polygamy is solid enough, but perhaps not in large enough numbers to satisfy the court.

Remember, too, that this is a VERY conservative, elected Republican court. Religious and government intrusion issues may well have weighed heavier on their minds than child welfare. The bar they set may well be too high for CPS to possibly reach.