An Unusual Prosecution of a Way of Life

Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints show strain after spending 11 days in a shelter. Here, they are at the Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado, Tex., which law enforcement raided April 3. (Photo: Tony Gutierrez/AP)

In 1953, for instance, a raid on a polygamist settlement on the Utah-Arizona border ended with wailing mothers, a public outcry and the return of dozens of seized children.

After that, observers say, the two states often tried their best to pretend that these groups didn't exist. The polygamists usually returned the favor. "It was sort of a mutual-consent abandonment," said Terry Goddard, the attorney general of Arizona.

But, in the past five years or so, Utah has made an unprecedented outreach to the groups, sending out bureaucrats to their settlements and making an implicit bargain with them about the law.

"We're not going to prosecute people solely for adult bigamy," said Paul Murphy of the Utah Attorney General's Office. But, he said, the state will look aggressively for other crimes, such as welfare fraud and sex with children. Arizona has made similar efforts, trying to target individual violations of the law, not entire communities.

"They definitely were trying to open lines of communication," said Sarah Barringer Gordon, a professor of history and law at the University of Pennsylvania. "And they would very much like to have these people become integrated into the society." Still, Gordon said, in many cases the groups have been wary.

The atmosphere of openness was reinforced by a 2003 Supreme Court decision invalidating laws against sodomy. At a distant point on the American social spectrum, polygamists saw another implication: The police would stay out of their bedrooms, as well.

But then, on April 3, there they were.

In the immediate sense, the raid may have happened because of a hoax. Telephone calls reporting abuse at the ranch have been linked to a woman in Colorado with an alleged history of false abuse complaints.

But both Texas and the polygamists had been courting a confrontation. Under "prophet" Warren Jeffs -- now in jail in Arizona -- the fundamentalist sect seemed to be ordering more underage marriages. And a West Texas representative sponsored a bill in 2005 that set new laws seemingly targeted at polygamists.

Here in Eldorado, the small town closest to the compound, residents still say they're glad the raid happened.

"It's not legal, and it's wrong, the way they were living," said Rosa Martinez, behind the counter at her Rosita's Casita restaurant.

But legal experts say the case could easily become a quagmire. They say Texas has an unusual burden: It has to prove not spankings or sexual abuse, but the dangers of an entire belief system.

"Can they say with a straight face that's in the best interest of these children, to be taken away from their parents?" asked Ken Driggs, a public defender in Georgia who has done extensive research on polygamy and the law. "Does government want to get in there and say, 'This is a good religion,' or 'This is not a good religion?' "

Kenneth Lanning, a retired FBI agent who worked on crimes against children, said courts are likely to order that at least some of the children be returned to their parents. But how should the state handle that, if it has said the parents are part of a poisonous culture?

"You don't want to put it back the way it was," Lanning said. "But how are you going to leave it?"

In Utah and Arizona, nonprofit groups and government officials say they've already heard from other polygamous groups, worried that the Texas case may signal an end to their own detente.

Here in West Texas, the remaining members of the Eldorado sect have a more immediate demand.

"We want our children to come home," said Dan, 24, after a hearing this past week at the courthouse in San Angelo, Tex. He declined to give his last name.