The Cult Dossier · No. 179 · Second Generation / Born In
Child Marriage as Doctrine
The FLDS second generation; the YFZ Ranch raid
1998 – 2011 · Utah, Arizona and Eldorado, Texas, USA
XVIII. THE SECOND GENERATION — THE ONES WHO NEVER CHOSE
Fundamentalist Mormon. THE MARRIAGES WERE NOT A DEVIATION FROM THE TEACHING; THEY WERE AN APPLICATION OF IT. See 079.
Who led it
WARREN JEFFS (L039), who assigned the marriages; RULON JEFFS (L140) before him.
What it worshipped and taught
PLACEMENT MARRIAGE. Girls raised inside the group were assigned husbands by the prophet, with the assignment presented as revelation and refusal presented as damnation. THE MECHANISM THAT MATTERS FOR THIS ERA IS THAT THE GIRLS WERE BORN IN. They had no outside relatives to appeal to, no independent schooling, no money and no name anyone outside would recognise. Consent in that setting is not a meaningful category, which is the same conclusion the law eventually reached by a different route.
Who was in it
Warren Jeffs (L039); ELISSA WALL (L197), married at fourteen; REBECCA MUSSER (L199), who testified at his trial; CAROLYN JESSOP (L198); the 439 children removed in 2008.
How it ended, or where it stands
THE PROPHET IS SERVING LIFE AND THE GROUP PERSISTS. THE RAID FAILED AS A RESCUE AND THE PROSECUTION SUCCEEDED AS A PROSECUTION.
The dead
None in the raid. THE HARM IN THIS ENTRY IS MEASURED IN MARRIAGES, NOT DEATHS.
Of note
THIS IS THE CLEAREST TEST IN THE DOSSIER OF WHETHER A STATE CAN RESCUE CHILDREN FROM A BELIEF SYSTEM WHOLESALE, AND THE ANSWER WAS NO.
Texas removed 439 children in a single operation and within about two months had returned every one of them, because the courts held that a generalised danger to some children on a ranch was not evidence about each particular child. THAT REASONING IS SOUND AND IT IS ALSO WHY THE APPROACH CANNOT WORK. Group membership is not individualised evidence, and child protection law is built almost entirely on individualised evidence.
WHAT DID WORK WAS THE ORDINARY THING. Jeffs was convicted in 2011 on specific proof about specific children, including recordings he made himself. Compare 150: the same pattern the whole dossier keeps producing. THE STATE REACHES THESE GROUPS THROUGH CONDUCT IT CAN PROVE ABOUT NAMED INDIVIDUALS, AND FAILS WHENEVER IT TRIES TO REACH THEM THROUGH WHAT THEY COLLECTIVELY BELIEVE.
ELISSA WALL AND REBECCA MUSSER ARE THE OTHER HALF OF THE ANSWER. Both were born in, both left, and both testified. The prosecutions that worked ran on evidence from the second generation itself, which is a slow remedy that only becomes available years after the harm and only if someone gets out.
Texas removed 439 children in a single operation and within about two months had returned every one of them, because the courts held that a generalised danger to some children on a ranch was not evidence about each particular child. THAT REASONING IS SOUND AND IT IS ALSO WHY THE APPROACH CANNOT WORK. Group membership is not individualised evidence, and child protection law is built almost entirely on individualised evidence.
WHAT DID WORK WAS THE ORDINARY THING. Jeffs was convicted in 2011 on specific proof about specific children, including recordings he made himself. Compare 150: the same pattern the whole dossier keeps producing. THE STATE REACHES THESE GROUPS THROUGH CONDUCT IT CAN PROVE ABOUT NAMED INDIVIDUALS, AND FAILS WHENEVER IT TRIES TO REACH THEM THROUGH WHAT THEY COLLECTIVELY BELIEVE.
ELISSA WALL AND REBECCA MUSSER ARE THE OTHER HALF OF THE ANSWER. Both were born in, both left, and both testified. The prosecutions that worked ran on evidence from the second generation itself, which is a slow remedy that only becomes available years after the harm and only if someone gets out.
Its timeline
- APRIL 2001 ELISSA WALL, aged fourteen, is married to her first cousin. Warren Jeffs is then counsellor to his father, the prophet.
- 2002 RULON JEFFS DIES AND WARREN SUCCEEDS HIM, and with the office takes the power to assign marriages across the church.
- 3 APRIL 2008 TEXAS AUTHORITIES RAID THE YEARNING FOR ZION RANCH AT ELDORADO AND REMOVE 439 CHILDREN. The raid was prompted by a hotline call from a girl who was never found and is believed to have been a hoax. It becomes the largest child-custody case in American history.
- 29 MAY 2008 THE SUPREME COURT OF TEXAS HOLDS THAT THE REMOVAL WAS NOT WARRANTED ON THE RECORD BEFORE IT, upholding the appeal court, and the children are returned to their parents over the following weeks.
- JUNE 2008 The last of the children are back. THE STATE HAD TAKEN 439 CHILDREN AND HAD TO GIVE THEM ALL BACK.
- DECEMBER 2008 THE STATE’S OWN FINAL REPORT confirms TWELVE GIRLS as victims of sexual abuse and neglect, married at ages from twelve to fifteen. The harm was real; the mass removal was still not the way to prove it.
- 4–9 AUGUST 2011 JEFFS IS CONVICTED IN TEXAS ON 4 AUGUST AND SENTENCED ON 9 AUGUST TO LIFE PLUS TWENTY YEARS — life for the aggravated sexual assault of a TWELVE-YEAR-OLD GIRL and twenty years for the sexual assault of a FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD. The jury took about thirty minutes to decide the sentence. By then SEVEN OTHER FLDS MEN had been convicted in Texas of sexually assaulting children, with sentences from six to seventy-five years. THE CASE WAS BUILT ON EVIDENCE ABOUT NAMED CHILDREN, INCLUDING HIS OWN RECORDINGS — NOT ON THE MASS REMOVAL.
- 2011 onward He continues to direct the group from prison. THE SECOND GENERATION INSIDE IT IS STILL BEING RAISED THERE.