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San Angelo, Texas: A court hearing to decide the fate of the 416 children swept up in a raid on a West Texas polygamous sect descended into farce, 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 on Thursday: 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.
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 or in imminent danger of abuse 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.
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. Little evidence was admitted; the first attempt resulted in an hourlong recess to let lawyers examine it. Lengthy arguments about whether to admit the medical records of three girls followed.
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. The judge did not immediately rule.
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