Further Evidence that IT IS OVER.

A lawyer involved with the State's side in the Merrianne Jessop custody case, wants out. They saw what happened to Malonis, they know things we do not, and Carmen Dusek wants no part of this anymore.

No sooner than I decided to declare the fight over, I come across this article.

"Court clerks in San Angelo, Texas, confirmed to the Deseret News on Tuesday that Carmen Dusek filed a motion to withdraw as the girl's attorney. The reasons why were not immediately clear as the filing had not been made public."

They're on the run, and they're throwing down their swords and tossing off their armor. They want to be as far away from this mess as possible.

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Calling out the FLDS

I am not asking you to "Get Revenge" against those that hurt you, but I KNOW you wanted moral outrage when your children were taken from you. We were there. Our help cost us. It did not cost as much as your travail but we gave of our time, our reputations, some gave their substance to you. Many of us gave our trust to you when the facts were not all in, choosing to believe YOU as the more believable. Some of us did it in spite of our clear reservations about your practices and beliefs.

Your enemies are OUR enemies. I too do not seek REVENGE against them, vengeance is mine saith the LORD.

But we DO live in a participatory democratic republic. Free Press, Freedom of Religion. Those that helped by publicizing your case want the same Religious Freedom and took advantage of our clearly STILL FREE press to aid you in your cause.

Now there is a need for Justice. Justice will not be served unless YOU, the damaged, get to the bottom of why this happened. Those that harmed you are outside the Church (1st Corinthians 6). You may contend with them before the unrighteous in court, I urge you to do so.

Again, not for REVENGE, but for the rule of law. We all need it strengthened. Don't let them sweep the conspirators who sought your harm under the rug. They will come for us tomorrow.

One of the things that could be done is to sue Rozita Swinton and others for Damages. You can do this. In suing her, you can force testimony. You can prevent the gain that may come from her selling her story one day. You can get to the bottom of what Texas clearly does not want to know.

Expose them. Protect us. We protected you. We need your help also. Willie Jessop took the first step with his restraining order. Go the distance, do what it takes, help us all. More →

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More Evidence of the Turning Tide.

Now the press is starting to see who is on the winning side, and the admiration begins to show;

The Austin American-Stateman - SALT LAKE CITY — "The lawyer who regularly stands before TV cameras to defend a polygamous sect gets some praise for speaking up for what many consider an unpopular cause.

Rod Parker's critics, however, wonder how he sleeps at night."

During the crisis? I know I would have gotten very little sleep. Now? I'd sleep long and hard and smile. I'm sure he sleeps very well. Protecting over 400 children does that for you.

"'They really needed help,' Parker said of the Texas members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. 'It was the kind of call you cannot say "no" to.'

Authorities suspecting abuse at the sect's ranch in Eldorado took charge of more than 400 children in April. But they were returned to their parents after Texas courts said the state's child-welfare agency went too far."

Sometimes reporting is like bad play by play. They just follow the story around, without trying to tell it. More →

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My favorite reunion picture

I've tried to keep emotion out of this, at least in terms of tear jerking. Parental rights are protected for just the reasons shown here. This one got to me. It was the little hand grabbing at mom's skirt.

Solomon's solution was available all along. See who loves the kids. See who the kids love. It was never hard to figure out who the parents and children were that belonged to one another. The photo appears in the Houston Chronicle. More →

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I guess nothing stops it now.

FLDS parents can start picking up their kids in 5 minutes. FoxNews. More →

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FLDS Children Free at Last

Thank the Lord.

Fox News.

"The high court on Thursday affirmed a decision by the appellate court last week, saying Child Protective Services failed to show an immediate danger to the children.

The ruling directs a lower-court judge to reverse her decision putting the children into foster case. The appeals court ordered the judge to return the children to the parents soon but it is unclear exactly when that will happen."

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Press Corp Natives get Restless over FLDS Case

It's like the light went off when the appeals court said "Whoa!" Now the flock that is the press is seeking new direction;

The San Antonio Express-News - "'They have created chaos. They don't know what to do. This case has holes in it the size of the Grand Canyon,' said Laura Shockley, a Dallas family law specialist with six clients in the case. 'There is no way to fix this.'"

Suddenly the paradigm shifts and it's the FLDS side of the story that has weight. We get reports of what the problems have been all along;

"In court documents and in interviews, lawyers for the children and parents have complained the state has made a number of legal errors primarily through CPS, but also through law enforcement and judges, including:

•Insufficient investigation of the initial tip and tipster;

•Insufficient investigation at the ranch about who was in immediate danger;

•Treating the entire compound as one household, though there were 19 separate residences;

•Taking all children instead of just the post-pubescent girls who could have been subjected to the feared sexual abuse by older men;

•Presenting insufficient evidence at the first hearing for the children;

•Holding that hearing for the mass of children, rather than holding individual hearings;

•Shifting burden of proof to parents to prove innocence, rather than having CPS prove guilt."

It's hard to argue with the obvious, haven't we been saying this?

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12 Children Given Back

Per Fox News, just heard it.

Update:  I thought I was hearing things there for a bit, but no, MSNBC confirms, so does the AP and the Washington Post.  It's also in the Austin American-Statesman;

MSNBC - SAN ANGELO, Texas - "Texas child welfare authorities agreed Friday to reunite 12 children from a West Texas polygamist sect with their parents until the state Supreme Court rules on the custody case.

Teresa Kelly, a spokeswoman for the parents' lawyer, said Child Protective Services agreed to allow the parents to live with their children in the San Antonio area under state supervision.

An appeals court ruled Thursday that the child welfare agency was wrong to seize more than 440 children from a ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The state appealed that ruling to the Texas Supreme Court on Friday."

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Friday FLDS News Roundup.

Now comes the saber rattling to save face;

The Deseret News - "(Allison Palmer) The San Angelo, Texas, prosecutor said her office and the Texas Attorney General's Office continue to sort through the evidence that was taken last month from the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch. They are mostly looking for evidence of crimes against children, but Palmer said bigamy prosecutions are also on the table.

'It is a statute. It is against the law,' she told the Deseret News Thursday. 'If we uncover evidence of bigamy, we will prosecute it.'"

Be sure to bring Harry Reid with you. Pack a big lunch.

"Salt Lake attorney Rod Parker, acting as a spokesman for the FLDS Church, said there will be a legal battle if Texas prosecutors pursue such charges.

'If they bring a prosecution like that, they will find that the statutes they will rely on are unconstitutional,' Parker said. 'If gay sex in a motel room is protected by the Constitution in Texas, then polygamous marriage among consenting adults must be protected.'

The attorney was referring to the controversial Lawrence v. Texas case, which decriminalized gay sex among consenting adults."

Also, "Hearings halt as state regroups."

A refresher course for the info challenged.

Delaying tactics aren't working for the state;

"The 4th Court of Appeals denied a request by the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to delay a hearing scheduled this morning over the planned separation of Lori Jessop and her 1-year-old son, Joseph Steed Jessop Jr."

FLDS families wrote a letter to Gov. Rick Perry who has "not seen it yet."

The AP via The Dallas Morning News - "Perry's spokesman Robert Black said Sunday that he has not seen the letter and couldn't comment."

In the meantime;

"'You would be appalled,' the letter said. 'Many of our children have become sick as a result of the conditions they have been placed in. Some have even had to be taken to the hospital. Our innocent children are continually being questioned on things they know nothing about. The physical examinations were horrifying to the children. The exposure to these conditions is traumatizing them.'

Asked about claims that children were hospitalized, state Child Protective Services spokeswoman Marissa Gonzalez said she had not seen the letter and would have to review it before commenting."

Riiiiiiiiiight. And this disgusting lie keeps being advanced by what has to be an informed press;

"Authorities said they have not yet located the teenage mother who's call for help triggered the raid at the ranch."

Try checking in Colorado Springs and asking for 33 year old Rozita Swinton MORONS. If she's not there I have an address or two in California for you to check out and a list of questions for you to ask.

Dawn Knobloch writes the first sensible thing I have seen over at the Amarillo Globe-News, so I'll point to it;

"Still, setting drama and good sense aside, the state of Texas, buoyed by media support and the public's overripe mistrust of religious 'cults,' continues to pursue its investigation of a case that was flawed from the outset."

Read it all, the media is waking up. Be sure to stop in at the always excellent "Plural Life" by Brooke Adams.

This article also at the Salt Lake Tribune;

SAN ANGELO, Texas - "Tina Louise Steed had just one question for a judge who declared her an adult Thursday morning.

'I'm wondering how come they wouldn't believe my ID in the first place?' she asked Judge Jay Weatherby."

Proving that the facts weren't important to Texas CPS.

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Unfinished FLDS business

It's not over for the FLDS, it ought to be, but it's not. The exchange between Judge Andrew Napolitano and E. D. "Rip 'n Read" Tarbox Hill over at Fox News shows how much ignorance on the issue there still is.

Perhaps the Judge didn't get the word in edgewise while E. D. was popping her cork but he neglected to mention to Ms. Rip 'n' Read that there had been no documented harm of a sexual or violent nature to FLDS kids at YFZ. CPS had an imploding list of "underage pregnant/had been pregnant" girls that was being eroded from both ends. It seems evident now that my analysis of the reasons CPS went back to the ranch is fairly accurate, I had the view that it was mostly desperation on the part of CPS and that they were running low on potential victims so they went back to get more. They were trying to save their case.

Ms. Rip 'n' Read was still spewing the unsubstantiated and relying on the notion that real harm was occurring as a result of FLDS teachings. Our "Dirty Laundry" award winner seems to not realize that no matter how counter intuitive it may appear to her inflamed sensibilities, the acts she fears would result from such teachings, weren't happening. There are many still reading Ellen Goodman's stupid (no other good word for it folks) column and believing her abbreviated fact set and listening "Bleached Blond" tell us what she fears is going on, that in fact, is not going on at all. It will take a long time to clear up the public perception that those things the FLDS were alleged to have done, simply had not been done.

Something might still be discovered but I pray Texas now has good enough sense to let it just drop. Whatever they might discover wasn't what they had a warrant for and wasn't what they thought they saw upon entry into YFZ and they should just let it drop. That will be hard to do for people trying to hang on to their cash, their jobs and possibly their freedom.

There is also the matter of Rozita Swinton. Up until this point my ongoing search for the truth about her background and friends has led me to the doorstep of her apparent foster parent and there I've run into stonewalling and roadblocks.

Paula Underwood Winters, the publisher for that apparent foster parent's books wrote a fluff piece on Rozita that among other things said that Rozita went on a mission to El Salvador and said she was Mormon. Well, she wasn't a LDS missionary, that I have confirmed in my own research.

Chasing down the elusive "Kate Rosemary" aka "Merry Cate Noel" (now know to be Mary Catharine Nelson) has led me to the bay area of California. I have found her blurb writers out there, Martha Whitmore Hickman and Peggy Ann Way. I have phone numbers on Martha and Peggy. Peggy's answering machine is full. Martha doesn't return calls, but does return emails.

I've asked Merry Kate Rosemary Noel via email the point blank question; "Are you Rozita Swinton?" Her answer was to refer me to Rozita's lawyer David W. Foley of Colorado Springs and told me per agreement with him, she would not talk about Rozita. Mr. Foley would not return my calls. Remember, this is from a woman that already has tried to promote her two books using excerpts about Rozita shortly after Rozita was arrested. I'm hardly invading her privacy.

Why would a woman who is Rozita's foster parent have trouble answering if she was a seperate entity from Rozita? We know Rozita makes up fantastic stories some of which are repeated as fact by Paula Underwood Winters in the Westview. We know she has claimed many personalities. We know she pretends to be many different people. Is she her own apologist in the form the author of books that show her in a one dimensional warm fuzzy way? I've read the excerpts, they amount to "Rozita is just the nicest person, ever." Two books that say "Oh what a really really nice person Rozita is." They start getting published about the time that Rozita starts going on her calling spree.

Martha for her part was asked if she knew "Merry Kate Rosemary Noel" and she acknowledged that she did. She was also asked if MKRN was white and if she had met our apparent foster parent. She answered that MKRN was white. I repeated the question to her about having MET MKRN in person. She refused to answer.

This is a story. Maybe not a big one but it is a story. It should not slip between the cracks. Rozita is being treated with extreme deference. Apparently, she still has her job, but her employer says she's not around. Her apparent foster parent protects her. Her apparent foster parent's publisher writes gushy but false articles about her past, supplied with "facts" from whom? She has a support group that seems to be living in and around the bay area of San Francisco. Shortly after I published the story that Mary Kate Rosemary Noel was talking albeit sparingly, to me, I got an explosion of web hits from the same area the emails came from, all searching for "Rozita Swinton" and winding up with my blog as a result.

Rozita Swinton has done great damage. She is not a Tragic and Sympathetic figure. She has set in motion events on an ever larger scale throughout her recent life that have cost tens of millions of dollars and disrupted lives and could very well have caused loss of life. Her court records are sealed. Her all female support group won't talk and that stinks. More →

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State Court Rules CPS HAD NO RIGHT - CPS Case Collapse on in earnest.

UPDATE: Rush mentions it at top of last hour.

I think we can now confidently say that my assertion that the return to YFZ was an attempt to refill the tank is the truth. In addition it showed CPS desperation.

EARTHQUAKE!!!!!!!!!!

The Salt Lake Tribune - SAN ANGELO, Texas - "A state appellate court has ruled that child welfare officials had no right to seize more than 400 children living at a polygamist sect's ranch.
The Third Court of Appeals in Austin ruled that the grounds for removing the children were 'legally and factually insufficient' under Texas law."

SEE THE RULING!

CONFIRMED CNN!

CONFIRMED FoxNews!

Further updates;

The Salt Lake Tribune - "Meanwhile, status hearings scheduled for some children in San Angelo courtrooms this afternoon have been cancelled, as district judges confer about what to do next."

"However, the district judge who granted custody of the children to Texas child welfare officials has 10 days to comply, said an attorney with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, which represents 48 mothers from the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."

Since the Judge's ruling was that Texas law did not place this raid within CPS Scope, I can't see how an appeal works.

CPS, you got some 'splainin' to do....
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