I'm rarely a braggart. I toot my own horn, from time to time, especially if someone challenges my credentials, but I'm generally pretty low key....at least in that regard...
But I'm feeling a little like dancing a tiny bit of a jig, here...
In today's gosanangelo there's an article about the ongoing challenge to the validity of the warrants executed at the YfZ Ranch back in April...
The warrants that allowed every one's lives to be turned upside down and resulted in all the terrible things we are all too familiar with...
Anyway, here's the link to the article, http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2009/mar/05/arizona-the-center-of-flds-texas-warrant/
Now, the reason I want to do my little jig is that Charles P. Bubany, adjunct professor of law at Texas Tech University and an expert in state criminal procedure, says that ultimately, the deciding issue is whether the rangers and other law enforcement involved did due diligence in establishing the veracity of the complainant...of establishing that "Sarah" existed....
And that is exactly what I have been saying since last April!!!!
I'm feeling just a little bit vindicated since Blues and Ron and just about everyone else said my assessment was so wrong!!!
I kept saying that the linchpin was going to be that they had ample time to verify the caller and failed to produce even the most rudimentary effort. They did not trace the calls, they did not attempt to contact any of the leadership at the ranch....and they waited five days!
So, this old grandma is up here in Pa. dancing a little dance.....
7 years ago
23 comments:
Dancing with you R. Why have the FLDS attorneys not challenged the warrants months ago?
Regina,
I wouldn't start dancing just yet.
In the article Bubany stated:
"Although prosecutors are correct in asserting that the later discovery of the call to be a hoax is largely irrelevant..."
That is what Ron and I have both been saying. All along.
Also in the article was this passage:
Smith in his response says Jeffs must prove investigators acted with "reckless disregard for the truth" to win suppression of the Texas evidence.
That's one of the things that Bubany was agreeing with. The point is, as the article points out, that there is no proof that "Ranger Long had contradicting information" at the time that the warrant was signed.
It boils down to whether the court and the appellate court feels that there was sufficient corroboration of the call.
Ron and I feel like the corroboration will get through the appellate procedures (although I think that we have differing reasons). Bubany apparently (it is not clear from the article) thinks that it won't.
Until a Texas court rules on it, I wouldn't get very excited...
Carol, Attys for the FLDS did challenge the warrants, back in early April. However, it turned out that there was also a sealed Federal Warrant that would block having the items that had been seized returned and there was no way to force open the Federal warrant since it was part of an ongoing investigation. And they had to deal with getting 400+ children back home.
They then took a back door to challenging the warrants and brought their motions in Arizona where Warren Jeffs is about to go on trial. The purpose is to block the use of any "evidence" seized in Texas in the Az. case....
Obviously, no matter the ruling in Az., Texas is not bound by it, so it is likely that a new challenge will have to be raised in Texas when the first of the arrested men comes closer to trial.
But for right now, I'm just feeling a little bit vindicated at having my "call" validated by a Texas atty who is considered an "expert" in the field...*smile*
We all get to be a little vain, once i awhile....
Blues, You can spin it any way you want...Every time I offered my assesment of things, y'all pooh poohed me....
From the beginning I said they would have been better off going in quickly, without a warrant...exigent circumstances...
Waiting five days heightens requirement for having done a modicum of "due dilligence" in verifying "Sarah" as a real complainant.
Nya nya na nya nya......
Case law in this state doesn't support an exigent circumstances entry under the facts that they had at the time.
That would have violated their rights whereas with a warrant, their rights were protected...
I also wouldn't get overly enthusiastic about a lawyer in academia vs. practicing ones. Academics often lack the experience necessary to correctly evaluate the real-world. If you don't believe me, look it up on Google - there are plenty of examples of how those in academia misread what is going to happen...
Or you can ask Ron about academics...
But hey, if you want to celebrate, go for it.
LOL, you'll still likely be wrong in the end...
blues, I'm really sleepy...just came down to shut the 'puter down...so i don't want to take the time to look it up, right now...but I recall reading the CPS policies and procedures manual about what constitutes an emergent situation...and seems to me that based on what "Sarah" said, CPS along with LE did have exigent circumstances and were expected to go in..."Sarah" described "immnent danger"....
I'm just cheering the validation of my now 10 month old contention that y'all scoffed at....
Regina,
I wouldn't argue with you on what the CPS Manual said on that.
I base it on the law, and case law, based on the facts as I read them, would not support an entry under exigent circumstances.
Blues,
I know, and you know, if "Sarah" had been real, and the dangers real, and CPS and LE had waited five days and "Sarah" died or the baby died, everyone's tune would be quite different.
If CPS was aware of a pregnant young women with an infant who was being jailed and abused and they waited FIVE days to go in, that is, by itself, criminal!
And if LE knew a person was being held against their will, and put in physical jeopardy, and waited FIVE days to act....well, Texas is just a tad slow on the uptake....
NOw, let's give CPS and LE the 'benefit of doubt'. Say they thought the calls may very well be valid, based on everything they thought was true about the group living on the ranch, from information from thier 'CI', and their 'consultants'. They had FIVE days to notonly prepare for the assault, but one person, just one person in all of CPS and the Rangers body of personel could have been assigned to trace the calls....if nothing else...just trace the calls coming into the shelter..... Even if they couldn't get an exact location of origin, they would have the tower pings that would show they did not come from any towers near the ranch....
NOTHING WAS DONE FOR AN ENTIRE FIVE DAYS TO MEET THE LEGALLY REQUIRED EFFORT TO DETERMINE THE VERACITY OF THE CALLS!!!!!!!
And, further, it isn't like it was one small town PD involved, under manned, under trained...the entire body of Texas LE, including the Rangers were at the disposal of CPS. Even the Governor's office and those at his disposal were available to do a rudimentary check on the calls...NO ONE DID ANYTHING!!
And Texas spent millions of dollars, on the assault alone, without doing the most basic due dilligence to determine if the calls were valid.
Yeah Regina
In addition to what Blues pointed out, Doran also had an informant that corroborated information in the phone calls.
Besides, this is not what would be known as an "anonymous informant" case. Anonymous informant cases are just that, someone calls up doesn't give a name and says a crime is happening at some place.
This is a case of someone lying about who and where they were.
The fact it was a hoax will, of course, be an issue. The relevant standard is not "due diligence." Due diligence is only one factor in whether the appropriate standard of "reckless disregard for the truth" applies.
Besides, I'm willing to put a good bottle of scotch on my assessment of the situation.
Talisker?
Ron, I do understand the difference between a confidential informant case, and having a case where you have a confidential informant.
We'll all just have to hold on to our britches and wait and see...
But it sure felt good to have someone else postulate exactly what I had....*smile*
You're on for the scotch, by the way!
Blues, I've never liked Talisker. I'm old enough to not really care about the price tag....
It's way too 'peaaty' for me...
I've been a Glenlivet drinker for almost forty years...it's a 'softer' taste...familiar...
I've actually found a cheapy I like, too...Speyburn? Ever heard of it? They have several, and I like the 'low country' one.....I think that's what it's called...our State Stores don't always carry it...but when they do, I buy it...it's cheap and is very much akin to Glenlivet....
Glenlivet is is then....
Regina,
Yeah, Talisker is a mite peaty...
I can also see how you would like Speyburn since you like The Glenlivet. Both are from the same area and are classified as a Speyside whisky (which is the region they are from)... Both are good, smooth drinks...
I don't see why it would be hard to get - it is one of the better selling Scots Whisky to be sold in the U.S.... Oh well, the trials and tribulations of a Scotch drinker... LOL
How could Doran's informant have confirmed anything about that call, when that informant had, as Doran knew, never been inside the ranch, and probably had left the FLDS before the mythical Sarah was born?
First, how do you know that they weren't at the Ranch and had never been there?
Piccarreta tried to get the name of the confidential informant out of Doran during his interview, and proposed Musser as the CI, but that line of questioning was shut down. Doran refused (and properly so) to identify the CI.
We don't know who the CI is - so we don't know what information that they corroborated.
We do know the informant had never been on the ranch. Doran himself said so in an interview he gave shortly after the raid.
Oh, and since we also know Sarah was a complete fiction and Barlow had never been to the ranch, the CI certainly didn't 'confirm' anything significant along those lines.
Blues, There is 'knowing' and KNOWING...don't for a minute think the lawyers don't know who the CI is. They were going for official confirmation...doesn't hurt to ask...you never know who might slip, given the opportunity...
If Jeffs papers confirmed nothing else, there should be no doubt that the comings and goings of folks was known. Not stopped. But known. And who was on the ranch when is not something murky, or subject to maybes or might-have-beens.
Interesting little tidbit about the scotch's....All of our liquor sales, except bars, are through a state store system with centralized purchasing...so who knows why Speyburn isn't always available...but when it is, I buy several bottles....
My father was a liquor distributor and always owned a college bar...so even as a youngster, pinching from my parents supply, I drank Glenlivet... it was my dad's drink so it was far less noticible when a little extra was gone...*smile*
My sister liked the sweet cordials...and she ALWAYS got caught!
HM,
Do you have a link to that interview? I don't have a problem with admitting I don't know about something, but I would like to read it.
headmistress
Note I used "corroborate" rather than "confirm."
If an informant says that underage girls are being married out at the ranch, that corroborates a claim made by a caller to be an underage bride.
If an informant says that underage girls are having babies, that corroborates a claim to be an underage mother with a child.
They didn't have to "confirm" any facts, all they needed was probable cause to believe what was stated was true.
Ron, there was no one that gave information to LE prior to, or during, the raid that had anything other than third party, or hearsay, knowledge of what occurred at the ranch. No One!
What they said corroborated nothing. Ascertaining the reliability of the information from any confidental source would have been part of due dilligence.
Blues, it was an interview with Randy Mankin given shortly after the raid, the first interview Doran gave, when most people thought the state was going to get away with kidnapping all those children.
An exmormon site posted it, and I found it and quoted from it on my blog.
As it became obvious the state's case was not as ironclad as people thought, the interview was removed. I found it again through googles cache system and reposted the entire interview, along with discrepancies between what he said there and in another interview.
You can read it here.
And, um, you commented on that post. Four times.
Here's the pertinent part:
"Mankin: You mentioned information you and others have gathered. Would some of that information have come from the confidential informant that was mentioned in the affidavit.
Doran: That is correct.
Mankin: Okay, on the subject of the informant. There was a bit of controversy this week when ABC News and others reported that your informant was a person inside the YFZ Ranch. Was that actually the case.
Doran: Absolutely not! You saw the affidavit. You know it said the informant was a former member of the FLDS. You and I both know that they don’t allow former members at the YFZ.
Mankin: Let me get this straight then...when the warrant was issued, the informant had never been at the YFZ Ranch?
Doran: That’s correct! To get a warrant, it takes a complaint from a victim or first hand knowledge of a crime. The informant provided an abundance of good information, but none of it was based on first hand knowledge and therefore it wasn’t enough to go to a judge with and seek a warrant.
Mankin: So the call from the 16- year-old girl was essential?
Doran: The request from CPS was essential. I suppose her call was essential to them."
In a later interview the single informant morphed into several, and the information from those informants was downplayed considerably, he dismissed their importance to the raid and search warrents. Odd, since Brooks relied so heavily on that informant's information to get the search warrant in the first place.
HM,
I will freely admit to having forgotten about the interview and the post...
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