Brief defends raid on polygamist ranch

AUSTIN, Texas, July 14 (UPI) -- The Texas attorney general's office says evidence seized in a raid on a polygamist ranch can be used in court.

In a brief released to the news media Monday, prosecutors argue the defendants cannot show that anything at the Yearning for Zion Ranch belonged to them individually, and they thus have no privacy rights, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.

Texas Rangers raided the ranch, operated by a dissident Mormon group, last year after Child Protective Services received calls from someone saying she was a 16-year-old forced into a polygamous relationship with a much older man. The calls proved to be a hoax, but evidence was found of underage girls in sexual relationships and bearing children.

The brief describes evidence as being "in plain view."

A judge must decide whether the evidence from the ranch can be used at trials for statutory rape.

The raid set off a number of legal battles involving the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints. More than 400 children were placed in state custody but an appellate court ruled this year in a decision upheld by the state Supreme Court that there was not enough evidence the children were in imminent danger.