Did Ranger mislead judge into issuing Eldorado warrant?

It was revealed Tuesday at the Texas House Human Services Committee hearing (see Grits coverage) that a court filing today would provide more detail about the still-murky backstory of what occurred in the five days between the initial hoax phone call to a San Angelo women's shelter and the legal and political catastrophe that became the Great Eldorado Polygamist Roundup at the YFZ Ranch. Here's the initial MSM coverage:

• San Angelo Standard Times: Attorneys: Walther misled into issuing FLDS warrant
• Salt Lake Tribune: FLDS motion challenges Texas' reasons for raiding polygamous ranch
• Deseret News: FLDS challenges Texas search warrants
• AP: Sect's lawyers accuse Ranger of misleading judge
  

Brooke Adams' account in the SL Tribune is typically excellent:

in a sworn affidavit used for the first search warrant, Texas Ranger Brooks Long said Barlow was at the ranch, the motion says. Brooks also failed to disclose he had confirmed with an Arizona deputy sheriff that Barlow needed permission to leave Arizona as a condition of his probation.

In addition, Schleicher County Sheriff David Doran spoke to Barlow by telephone and confirmed he was in Arizona, not Texas.

"Like the clock that strikes thirteen, this fact alone should have called everything they had heard before into question," the motion states.

Long also "failed to even make a single telephone call to corroborate or verify this caller's information" and, despite checking, was unable to verify her claim of recent treatment at the Schleicher County Medical Center, the motion says.

After being told no "Sarah Barlow" existed, officers asked to interview all females between the ages of seven and 17 and were granted access to the ranch. That showed their intent not to "seek evidence of a special crime" but to "check evidence of any crime against the children present," the motion states.

After three days of searching, there was still no sign of "Sarah Barlow, the motion states.

"It is clear that the authorities used a hoax phone call as an excuse for staging a massively intrusive raid upon a disfavored religious group," it says.

The search of the ranch, which is bigger than some Texas cities, based on one "general" warrant "far exceeds that of any reported case in this or any other jurisdiction," it says.

"This wholesale search of an entire village, pursuant to a single warrant, is by far the most sweeping and expansive invasion of our citizens' right to privacy since our founding fathers attempted to do away with King George's 'writs of assistance' more than two hundred years ago."

It contends that the state's "omissions, misstatements, and failure to exercise the requisite diligence, protocol and expertise expected of any reasonably well-trained law enforcement officer" led to "one of the most intrusive, invasive and wide-reaching raids of a religious community in our country's history."

That's quite a ringing critique! Looks like the legal wrangling over these cases may heat back up again while the Legislature is still in session.

I've been beefing about the breadth of that search warrant since right after it was filed, so it will be interesting to see it finally, formally disputed. The Third Court of Appeals has already held the whole ranch was not a single household, so the state begins its reaction to this motion very much on the defensive.

Says the San Angelo Standard Times, "The motion covers 10 of the 12 defendants, excepting sect leader Warren Jeffs, who is facing charges in Arizona, and ranch doctor Lloyd Barlow, who faces only misdemeanor counts."

Related Grits posts:

• Bill targeting FLDS larded with unintended consequences
• Why no prosecution of false child abuse report in Great Eldorado Polygamist Roundup?
• Search warrants for polygamist compound may be invalid