1984 Vermont sect raid had similar judicial

conclusion as Texas case

AP, via the Times Argus, USA
June 5, 2008
Wilson Ring
Friday June 6, 2008

MONTPELIER — Before dawn on June 22, 1984, 90 Vermont State Police troopers
and 50 social workers descended on the Island Pond homes of about 400 people
belonging to the Northeast Kingdom Community Church to investigate allegations
of child abuse.

Authorities had received reports children were being beaten, sometimes with sticks, as
part of the strict discipline imposed by church parents. The 112 children taken into
custody were to be examined for abuse and if none were found they were to be returned
to their parents — if the parents agreed to cooperate with the state.

But within hours a judge returned the children to their parents, calling the state’s effort a
“grossly unlawful scheme.”

While there are many differences between the Vermont raid on Island Pond and the
decision by Texas officials to take into custody 430 children amid allegations underage
girls were being forced to marry older men, there are many similarities, said one of the
former officials involved in the Vermont case. “It’s very apparent from these two cases
that at least two courts are looking for specific, direct information regarding each family
unit,” said Washington attorney John Easton, who in 1984 was the Vermont attorney
general and involved in the decision to launch the Island Pond raid. “To remove a child
from a family is a high burden. The courts are going to be looking for a substantial
amount of proof” of abuse.

On April 3, Texas Child Protective Services removed all the children from the Yearning
For Zion Ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
after a 16-year-old mother claimed she was being abused by her middle-age husband. The
state charged all the children were at risk because church teachings pushed underage girls
into marriage and sex.

Last month, The Texas Third Court of Appeals said the state went too far. The Texas
Supreme Court has since upheld the decision and almost all the children have been
returned to their parents. Church leaders are promising not to sanction underage
marriages.
Vermont law school Professor Peter Teachout said he’d read the Texas court decisions
and the 1984 Vermont rulings, which reached the same conclusions:

“Lawyers who practice family law will know to say the burden is on the state in these
cases,” Teachout said. “The underlying principle is whenever you take a child away from
his parents, that you do so when there is serious risk of abuse.”

The Northeast Kingdom Community Church took root in Island Pond, a small, rural
community in northern Vermont, in the summer of 1978 after a resident invited a church
leader to town. Almost immediately, the Island Pond group tripled in size from its 20
original members to 60. The church is now known as the Twelve Tribes, which has 50
communities in nine countries and about 3,500 members.

From the beginning the relationship between Island Pond in a part of Vermont called the
Northeast Kingdom and the bearded men and their women in kerchiefs was uneasy. In
some circles the word “cult” was used to describe it and state officials began to hear
reports of physical abuse of children.

So the state decided to act, got an order from a judge to seize the children and secretly
assembled the police and social workers, said Easton, the former attorney general.

After they were taken, Judge Frank Mahady, who has since died, interviewed them and
sent them home. His scathing opinion is still available on the church’s Web site.

James Richardson, a sociologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, who has studied
efforts by governments to control minority faiths, said the Texas and Vermont cases were
among almost two dozen similar cases scholars have identified around the world.

He said in many cases organizations get caught up in investigating allegations of child

abuse and they overreach. In Vermont and Texas the efforts were stopped by the judge.

“Concern about children trumps all other considerations in most western nations, and
usually overcomes even religious freedom concerns,” Richardson said in an e-mail.

Even from the perspective of 24 years, Easton said there wasn’t much he would have
done differently.

“We were put in a difficult position. We had rather serious allegations from people who
had directly observed activities inside the church,” Easton said. “To not act would have
been irresponsible.”

In 1984, Jean Swantko was a public defender assigned to represent the people of the
Island Pond church. Now she’s a member.
“Maybe a lot of people don’t realize the 1st Amendment protects freedom of association.
You don’t find groups guilty, you find people guilty,” said Swantko, who splits her time
between Twelve Tribes communities in Vermont and Tennessee.

She said many of the children seized in 1984 are now adults raising their own children in
the church.

“Now, 24 years after the raid they are between 24 and 32. Most of them are still in the
community. They are taking on the faith of their parents,” Swantko said. “You can judge
a tree by its fruit.”