Here Come Da Judge!

Copyright © 2008 Ben Sargent
The "deal" between the FLDS parents and the State of Texas broke down when District Judge Barbara Walther stipulated yesterday that the mothers had to sign the court order before she, the judge, would sign the order returning the children into effect. Problem: the children are scattered hither and yon in foster homes throughout the second-largest of the United States and many, if not most, of the mothers have scattered to be near their children. Finding those mothers and obtaining those signatures will take weeks? months? or forever? In the last case, some of the mothers may have disappeared or they may have returned to the main compounds of their sect on the Utah-Arizona border. So, the West Texas soap opera is back to square one. The hearing before Judge Walther did produce the lovely, family images of "Prophet" Warren Jeffs with his 13-year-old "spiritual wife" back in 2005:




If this is (fair & balanced disgust, so be it.

[x San Angelo Fishwrap]
Judge's Experience A Match For Massive FLDS Case
By Paul A. Anthony

Barbara Walther smiled when she asked Gerry Goldstein whether he needed a copy of the Texas Family Code during a court hearing last week.

The 51st District Court judge offered to give the high-profile San Antonio attorney her copy, and longtime observers were not surprised when Walther soon after began picking apart Goldstein's reading and interpretation of state law.

"She's a very caring person outside the courtroom," said a former local district attorney, Steve Smith, who prosecuted cases in Walther's court for 12 years. "Inside the courtroom, you better have your t's crossed and i's dotted — even your lower-case j's dotted."

Walther is a former court master who heard family law cases exclusively for five years. As such, she is well-versed in the statutes that will be used beginning today to question whether the state can retain custody of the 416 children it removed this month from a polygamist sect's ranch.

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' ranch is northeast of Eldorado in Schleicher County, at the southern end of a court district that also includes Tom Green County.

When the court bailiff commands hundreds of attorneys, reporters and observers to rise this morning, Barbara Lane Walther and her no-nonsense, sometimes-acerbic style will take center stage in what is likely the largest custody hearing ever seen in Texas.

Walther, 55, is known as an exacting jurist, impatient with attorneys who approach a case or enter an argument unprepared. State district court judges typically make between $125,000 and $140,000 a year. She declined to comment for this story, citing the workload of the case she is about to hear.

A reason for Walther's approach to court may be because Walther herself prepares so well, said 119th District Judge Ben Woodward.

"She's very qualified," Woodward said. "This is going to be a very challenging case, but she's got the qualifications and the background to meet the challenge."

Born and raised in San Angelo and a survivor of the polio epidemic that struck the city in the early 1950s, Walther earned a law degree from Southern Methodist University and practiced criminal law in Dallas for five years before returning to her hometown in 1983.

Four years later, she closed her practice to take an appointment as Title IV-D Family Law Master for a 12-county region that included San Angelo. The position, named for the law that created it and operated through the state Attorney General's Office, required Walther to hear family law cases involving children whose parents received state assistance.

"She knows (family law) very well," Woodward said.

By running for the seat of retiring 51st District Judge Royal Hart and winning it in 1992, Walther joined what at the time was a sea change in the Tom Green County district courts, a Republican replacing a Democrat. Her victory was the final blow for Democrats in the local judiciary after years of erosion in support.

Walther has yet to draw a challenger since her initial campaign, and is running unopposed for a fifth four-year term this November.

"She's a very warm person," Smith said. "She's very well-liked."

Unless court is in session, and an attorney is wasting her time.

Noting the exchanges last week between Walther and Goldstein, an observer remarked to one local attorney on the entertainment value often found for spectators in Walther's courtroom.

"That's because you're not a lawyer," he replied.
___________________________________________________________________
The Walther file

Name: Barbara Lane Walther.
Age: 55.
Hometown: San Angelo.
Family: Husband, Steven; two grown children.
Education: Bachelor of Arts, University of Texas, 1974; J.D., Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law, 1977.
Occupation: Judge, Texas' 51st District Court — Tom Green, Coke, Irion, Sterling and Schleicher Counties.

Copyright © 2008 The E. W. Scripps Company

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