Legal questions follow polygamist raid

Lawyers for the FLDS parents and civil rights groups complain that a chaotic mass custody hearing last week prevented state District Judge Barbara Walther from hearing any individual stories that might have led her to allow some parents to keep their children.

One FLDS member who did testify said she and her husband and their three children form a traditional family and live in a separate house from other sect members. An FLDS expert who testified at the hearing and a former member of the sect say only about half the marriages in the sect are polygamous.

Walther agreed to keep all the children in state custody after 21 hours of testimony in a hearing involving hundreds of lawyers.

"That's the hard thing about this. They want to paint everyone with the same brush," said Shelly Greco, an attorney who represents several children in the case.

Mothers to get individual hearings
An appellate court in Austin is scheduled to hold a hearing Tuesday on a motion filed by dozens of mothers to get their children back. Walther has said each mother will get an individual hearing by June 5.

If there was an underage mother in every home, the state might be able to make its case for removal of all the children, Dixon said, but it's likely that once individual hearings are held, some of the children may be headed back to their parents.

Another legal issue may emerge if investigators discover the call from the 16-year-old girl was a hoax.

Authorities are investigating whether the calls came from a woman in Colorado who has a history of making fake calls, but CPS officials and legal experts say the outcome of that investigation will likely have little bearing on the custody case, given that authorities went to the ranch believing the calls were legitimate and then found possible evidence of abuse.

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