(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-04-18 09:26

SAN ANGELO, Texas -- A court hearing to decide the fate of the 416 children swept up in a raid on a West Texas polygamist sect descended into farce Thursday, with hundreds of lawyers in two packed buildings shouting objections and the judge struggling to maintain order.

The case -- clearly one of the biggest, most convoluted child-custody hearings in US history -- presented an extraordinary spectacle: big-city lawyers in suits and mothers in 19th-century, pioneer-style dresses, all packed into a courtroom and a nearby auditorium connected by video.

Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints arrive at the Tom Green County Courthouse in San Angelo, Texas, April 17, 2008. [Agencies]

At issue was an attempt by the state of Texas to strip the parents of custody and place the children in foster homes because of evidence they were being physically and sexually abused by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a renegade Mormon splinter group suspected of forcing underage girls into marriage with older men.

As many feared, the proceedings turned into something of a circus -- and a painfully slow one.

Related readings:  Man marries 20 wives in Texas polygamist compound  Texas authorities defend polygamist sect raid  No easy checkout for members of polygamist cult  400+ kids taken from polygamist compound in US  Polygamist community faces genetic disorder

By midafternoon only two witnesses had testified, and both only to lay the foundation for documents to be admitted. One witness, a state trooper, was cross-examined by dozens of attorneys, each of them asking the same question on behalf of a child or parent.

As the afternoon dragged on, no decisions had been made on the fate of any of the youngsters.

Texas District Judge Barbara Walther struggled to keep order as she faced 100 lawyers in her 80-year-old Tom Green County courtroom and several hundred more participating over a grainy video feed from an ornate City Hall auditorium two blocks away.

The hearing disintegrated quickly into a barrage of shouted objections and attempts to file motions, with lawyers for the children objecting to objections made by the parents' attorneys. When the judge sustained an objection to the prolonged questioning the state trooper, the lawyers cheered.

Upon another objection about the proper admission of medical records of the children, the judge threw up her hands.

"I assume most of you want to make the same objection. Can I have a universal, `Yes, Judge'?" she said.

In both buildings, the hundreds of lawyers stood and responded in unison: "Yes, Judge."

But she added to the chaos as well.

Walther refused to put medical records and other evidence in electronic form, which could be e-mailed among the lawyers, because it contained personal information. A courier had to run from the courthouse to the auditorium delivering one document at a time.

"We're going to handle this the best we can, one client at a time," Walther said.

Little evidence had been admitted by midafternoon. The first attempt to admit evidence resulted in an hourlong recess while all the lawyers examined it. The rest of the morning was spent in arguments about whether to admit the medical records of three girls, two 17-year-olds and one 18-year-old.

Department of Public Safety Sgt. Danny Crawford testified to DPS's discovery of a church bishop's records taken from a safe at the ranch that listed about 38 families, some of them polygamous and some that included wives 16 or 17 years old. But under repeated cross-examination, Crawford acknowledged the records contained no evidence of sexual abuse.

State officials asked the judge for permission to conduct genetic testing on the children and adults because of difficulty sorting out the sect's tangled family relationships and matching youngsters with their parents. The judge did not immediately rule.

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