MONTPELIER, Vt. -- State officials who said they raided a religious commune to rescue battered children from their abusive parents did not have 'a single piece of evidence' to support their charges, a judge says.
But Gov. Richard Snelling said the raid on the Northeast Kingdom Community Church near the Canadian border was warranted and vowed to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary.
The clash between Snelling and District Judge Frank Mahady came Tuesday, four days after 120 state police and social workers obtained search warrants andconverged on the church shortly after dawn Friday in the rural town of Island Pond.
A total of 112 children and their families were routed from 20 church-occupied homes, herded into buses and taken to nearby Newport while officials sought a court order to detain them for examination and questioning.
Mahady ordered the children released 16 hours after the raid.
In a strongly worded attack on the raid, Mahady accused state officials of trying to hold the children 'hostage' to get information about the secretive sect from their parents.
'There is not a single piece of evidence in the material submitted that documents a single act of abuse or neglect with regard to any of the 112 children,' he wrote.
'The theory is that there is some evidence of some abuse at some time in the past of some children in the past in the community. The same, of course, may be shown of Middlebury, Burlington, Rutland, Newport, or any other community. Such generalized assumptions do not warrant mass raids ...'
The judge told state police Tuesday to turn over to the court pictures of the youngsters, apparently taken to support claims of abuse.
The fundamentalist sect, which moved from Tennessee in 1978 and now numbers about 400 members, advocates what it considers Biblically mandated corporal punishment to discipline its children.
'One's right to the care, custody and control of one's children is a fundamental liberty,' the judge said. 'Had the court issued the detention order requested by the state, it would have made itself a party to this grossly unlawful scheme.'
Snelling, facing the harshest criticism of his eight years in office over the incident, said the raid was necessary to protect the children from alleged abuse.
'Clearly, there are rights here that appear to be in conflict,' the governor said. But he said, 'The action that we took made it possible to secure and protect the rights of the children. We did not deprive adults of any rights.
'I believe it is entirely possible that the action we have taken will contribute to the safety and protection of those children.'
