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In re Texas Dep't of Family and Protective Services

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ON PETITION FOR MANDAMUS

JUSTICE O’NEILL filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which JUSTICE JOHNSON and JUSTICE WILLETT joined.

The Yearning for Zion Ranch is a 1,700-acre complex near Eldorado, Texas, that is home to a large community associated with the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. On March 29, 2008, the Texas Department of Family Protective Services received a telephone call reporting that a sixteen-year-old girl named Sarah was being physically and sexually abused at the Ranch. On April 3, about 9:00 p.m., Department investigators and law enforcement officials entered the Ranch, and throughout the night they interviewed adults and children and searched for documents. Concerned that the community had a culture of polygamy and of directing girls younger than eighteen to enter spiritual unions with older men and have children, the Department took possession of all 468 children at the Ranch without a court order.*fn1 The Department calls this “the largest child protection case documented in the history of the United States.” It never located the girl Sarah who was the subject of the March 29 call.

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