Removal of FLDS Girl Is Not Justified

2008-08-22 14:37:11

By Donald Richter

Merrianne Jessop

Before she was taken into State Custody

The return of Merrianne Jessop, the14-year-old daughter of Merril and Barbara Jessop to foster care on August 19 is a clear overreaching of state authority. CPS attorneys claim that the girl cannot be protected in her home because her parents witnessed and condoned underage marriages and that the girl was spiritually married to Warren Jeffs in June of 2006. State attorney Jeff Schmidt is quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune of August 20 as stating: “The way that is going to prevent that [underage marriage] is to take the children out of the home.”

Whether or not the girl was involved in a sealing in 2006, she is in no present danger in her mother’s home. If there was no such sealing at that time, there is no evidence that there would be one today. No marriages have even taken place in the FLDS Church for the past two years, and the Church has pledged itself not to sanction underage marriages in the future.

If the girl actually was spiritually married in 2006, there is even less chance that she would be involved now in any activities that the state might deem abusive. Warren Jeffs remains in prison, and no one would pretend that if this girl had been sealed to him that she would be sealed to any other man while he remains incarcerated. Just what danger can the state claim that they are trying to protect her from—a belief system? Haven’t we been there before?

Judge Barbara Walther is quoted in the New York Times of August 19, 2008 as saying that it was necessary to take the girl into custody because her mother “was unable to provide assurances that she’d be able to protect the child in the future.” In reality Barbara Jessop is the only YFZ mother who was never presented with a safety plan or given an opportunity to comply with CPS requirements to keep her family together. All she was ever told was that the state wanted her children.

Just as the original removal of the YFZ children in April was done without evidence of child abuse, this latest removal also was done without evidence and only on the basis of unproven allegations against the girl’s father and her older brothers and because her father is a leader in the YFZ community.

Merrianne was originally scheduled to be handed over to state authorities at her home in Converse at 7:00 PM on August 19. The Deseret News of August 20 quotes FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop as saying that "Barbara was told that if the media was there and took photos, there would be consequences. The government threatened her with retaliation against her family if the media was there." This threat included taking into custody the 11-year-old son that Judge Walther had just ruled could remain with his mother.