We are doing liveshots on a ranch outside of Guymon, Oklahoma. The panhandle is suffering through the worst drought since the Dustbowl in the 30s. As we sit out here waiting for the next liveshot, we occasionally see dirt devils whip up and roll across the plains.

There’s not a whole lot out here. As far as the eye can see, it’s flat land, dotted by a house or two and the occasional gas pump. Even the cattle have deserted us. They were out here yesterday when we were doing interviews with the man who owns the ranch we are on. Travis Baker says times are tough for ranches. Some of his friends and neighbors have had to sell their cattle to make ends meet. Where they usually start feeding cattle when the grass is gone and winter sets in, with the drought starting more than a year ago, the ranchers have been feeding their cattle since last July. That’s expensive to begin with- but Baker says feed has doubled in price.

It’s hard to give a sense of how vast and desolate this place is. It reminds me of the desert in how silent it is- except for the wind, which is constant. Walking across to the liveshot, you can hear the ground crunching underneath. The buffalo grass should be about six to eight inches by now. There are wisps of green here and there, from a little rain they got last week. But that won’t be enough to change the drought.

As farmers in the Midwest pray for the rain to end, farmers hear wish it would come. If a crop isn’t watered by irrigation, it doesn’t have much of a chance. The Oklahoma Climatological Survey says since October of last year, the western two-thirds of the Panhandle has received between just one and five inches of rain.

Pray for rain. That’s what they’re doing here. There’s not much else they can do except wait for things to change.

I walked into a city municipal garage and saw a sea of people, some shirtless, all sweaty, working in unison in the hot, muggy Iowa summer. It looked like a desperate factory, with some people shoveling dirt into bags, and others tying them off, still others part of a chain link of people, each passing a bag down the line and into a waiting bulldozer. At other times, a pick-up truck would pull in and instantly dozens of bags would be flying in the air and into the back of the truck.

These people might make the difference between their town being flooded or saved. Over in nearby Cedar Falls, volunteers are being credited with helping save the town. Water came within inches of topping the levee. Here in Waterloo, we are near a floodgate on a tributary of the Cedar River. The floodgate has been topped and water has spilled out into neaby streets, edging up dangerously close to homes. Those sandbags we just saw at the municipal building are being brought by the dozer-load here, in a frantic effort to save this town. The volunteers say they will work as long as they need to.  More raing is expected.

After two months, several hundred FLDS children are heading home. Last week the Texas Supreme Court ruled that Texas Child Protective Services did not have the evidence it needed to prove that more than 400 children on YFZ Ranch were in immediate danger

After a couple days of back and forth between attorneys and the original judge in the case, the judge signed off on the order to send the children home.

The children are scattered across the state in facilities from Amarillo to Corpus Christi. So far, more than 200 children have been reunited with their parents.

A spokesman for the FLDS called a late day press conference yesterday.

Willie Jessop said some of the parents and children will be returning to the ranch but others will not– that some children were too traumatized by their last experience there.

But some attorneys offer up a different story, suggesting the parents are staying away from the ranch in an effort to strengthen their case to keep their children.

Whatever the reason, it seems for now, the ranch will not return immediately to the community that was there prior to the raid.

The children are returning not without some conditions. They must stay in the state. Parents must attend parenting classes. And CPS must be able to visit and check their welfare.

Five of the children will not be returning home because of allegations that they’ve been sexually abused. One of them is a daughter of jailed FLDS leader Warren Jeffs.

When I heard about the Transportation Security Administration’s new system to speed up airport security lines, I was skeptical. The system is called the “Diamond Lane Self-Select Program.”

Essentially it’s modeled after the signs you see on ski slopes, like … Black Diamond (you must have prior Olympic Ski Team experience to attempt this run) or Green Circle (your Grandmother could ski this run.

Backwards. With her eyes closed). It lets passengers select which security lane they think is most appropriate. Currently, it’s up and running in several airports across the country, including Denver, Salt Lake City and Dallas Love Field.

There are three signs in Diamond Lane Self-Select. As the TSA Web site explains:

Expert, for the business traveler who flies several times a month (Or in my case, two or three times a week.) Casual, (read: pokey) for passengers who travel less frequently, but are familiar with the security process Family/Special Assistance, for passengers traveling with small children or strollers, elderly passengers and passengers who may need special assistance (Translation: Sherpas carrying 40 pound packs will climb Mt. Everest before you make it through security in this lane. But to be fair, I did hear an interview with a young mother who said she really appreciated the extra help.)

I just experienced the Diamond system myself at Houston Hobby. As I approached the Expert line, I saw a bunch of guys in suits. For those of you who don’t fly a lot, that’s a good sign. I always try to get behind a guy in a suit. It mean’s he’s probably a business traveller and has done this once or twice before. But as I got closer, I noticed it was a LONG line of guys in suits. I glanced over at the casual line. It looked about the same. Family and Special Assistance Lane? No waiting. Maybe I could feign a limp.

I stayed put and began to get annoyed. The alleged business travellers at the head of the line looked like they were sure taking a lot of time to get their items in the bins. Slip on shoes people! They save precious seconds! And a belt buckle the size of Miami WILL in fact set off the metal screener, so why not just take off the belt in the ten minutes you’re waiting? Ditto that with your car keys, coins and watch.

To show my disgust and perhaps encourage others to follow my lead, I pulled out my laptop and ziplock baggie with 3 oz toiletries. See? I’m ready for the head of the line. And then, it was as if the gods of airport security had heard me and intervened. A TSA agent whisked me from my spot in line across to the Family/Special Assistance lane where there was no waiting. Hurrah! I glanced back at the so-called expert travelers and felt smug.

When I caught up with correspondent Kris Gutierrez at the gate, I asked, “How’d you like the new Diamond system?” He shrugged and said he hadn’t noticed.

“Well then how did you pick a lane?” I asked.

He said, “I just went to the shortest.”

Amen, brother.

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services has created a “cultural guide” aimed at helping the workers who are taking care of the 464 FLDS children now in state custody.

The guide makes for interesting reading. It covers all kinds of topics from what the children ate at the ranch (no pork or processed foods and snacks) to recreation (the kids are used to having simple toys like balls or jump ropes and no red toys are allowed.)

The guide also contains a glossary of terms that the children might use. Here are three examples that stuck out most to me…

Corrected or Handled: When an FLDS member is disciplined by being forced to leave his home or having his wives and children “reassigned” to another man.

Curse of Cain: Some fundamentalists believe African Americans are an inferior race. They also believe that black people are descendants of Cain and have been cursed by God and therefore ineligible to hold the priesthood.

Poofers: A slang term for girls who suddenly disappear from their community in order to take part in an arranged marriage. The girls are either kept hidden or moved to another state or country.

For James Lee Woodard, the title of this blog is not a theoretical question.

He sat behind bars for more than 27 years for a murder he didn’t commit. At one point, he was offered parole if he would just admit his guilt. But he didn’t. Woodard chose to remain behind bars because he knew he didn’t commit the crime of which he was accused and convicted.

Beverly Ann Jones was found raped and murdered in a Dallas river bottom on Dec 31st, 1980. James Lee Woodard was her boyfriend. Police arrested him a few days after the murder. He was tried and convicted and sentenced to life in prison. From the beginning, he proclaimed his innocence and offered witnesses who could back up his story that he wasn’t with the victim the night of the crime. Year after year, he had appeals and filed court papers in hopes of getting someone, anyone, to listen. Each attempt failed. But Woodard said, “I knew in my heart that one day something would happen.”

That day came today. Twenty-seven years and four months after walking into prison, Woodard is finally a free man. A hearing today in a Dallas District Court allowed Woodard to be released. It came through an extraordinary set of circumstances. A group called the Innocence Project of Texas worked with the Dallas County District Attorney’s office to review his case. It’s part of a controversial pilot program District Attorney Craig Watkins got approved last year. The program started a“Conviction Integrity Unit” within the D.A.’s office to investigate claims of innocence. The Innocence Project says if it weren’t for this new unit, James Lee Woodard would still be sitting in a prison cell.

Instead, a semen sample found on the victim was located in storage and put through new DNA testing late last year. A forensic pathologist concluded the person who committed the rape was also most likely the person to have committed the murder. James Lee Woodard’s DNA didn’t match the sample. Both Woodard’s attorneys and the D.A. agreed Woodard should be freed. In court, Watkins offered Woodard an apology. Even District Judge Mark Stoltz seemed moved by the case, telling Woodard today he wasn’t receiving justice, rather, “You’re just getting the end of injustice.”

In court when asked about the first thing he wanted to do when he was released, Woodard said, “Breathe the fresh free air.” He faces an uncertain future. His mother died while he was still behind bars. A niece was there to meet him after he was freed. For now, Woodard says he’ll take a couple days, “…just to look at things, let it sink in.” Then he’ll start trying to help men like him who are still behind bars.

How pervasive these cases are is open to debate. But what’s certain is that whoever really did kill Beverly Ann Jones — never had to pay for it.

Photo courtesy of AP

You never know what you’ll see when you’re out doing live shots. When we arrived at the Coliseum in San Angelo this morning to do live shots on the children from the YFZ Ranch, we spotted an unusual site. A man and woman were taking their Texas Longhorns out for a spin around the neighborhood

The Texas Longhorn Breeders Association of America says around the time of the Civil War, there were millions of Texas Longhorns in Texas. But by the 1920s, the animals were close to extinction.

Now, the population has been built back up, enough so that a couple were able to cruise by our sat truck.

The children taken from the YFZ ranch will stay in state custody, at least for now. The decision came at the end of Friday. The timing suprised me.

Rumors had been circulating that the hearing could go into Saturday and possibly beyond. But by late afternoon, it was clear that the hearing was wrapping up. We heard fascinating testimony from the mothers of the children. They were asked about their spiritual husbands and their sister wives. There was particular emphasis placed on the ages of the wives and their children. At one point a mother was asked, “What do you consider abuse or neglect?” The young mother said, “I don’t know.”

After the mothers’ relatively brief testimony, court took a break and then a representative from CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) gave her recommendation that the state keep the children because the group was still awaiting pregnancy test results on some of the teen girls — and because, the representative said, there was a multigenerational history of teen girls being “married off.” The CASA rep said the group couldn’t determine biological parentage of the children.

The judge practically barred closing statements. A few attorneys got up to speak, but with that, she said something to the effect of “We’re going to call a recess and then I’ll be back.” We thought, does this mean she’s going to have a decision?

It did. I was standing out in the hallway with the court door cracked open to hear.  The judge decided the children would stay with the state until a 60 day hearing. She also ordered that the YFZ parents and children get DNA tests. Those are set to take place Monday and Tuesday in San Angelo, where the children are, and in Eldorado, which is near the YFZ Ranch.

People began streaming out of the courtroom. What suprised me most was the reaction of many of the attorneys coming out of the court room. Many of them were visibily upset and some were crying. The FLDS members were clearly not happy, but did not betray their emotions. I approached some of them but they did not want to talk about the decision.

7:29 Court continues and the pace is glacial. Using the analogy of an iceberg, the tip would be the actual witnesses and evidence- the part underwater represents the objections, arguments about objections, and general obfuscation. Eight hours into it and the state is only on its third witness. And this is supposed to be the easy part. Imagine what will happen when the respondents (parents) get their turn. We’re not sure when court will end tonight much less how many days this will continue.

The details that have eventually come out in the hearing are disturbing.

A DPS witness talked about documents found in an office safe called “Father’s family info sheet, Bishop Record.” Each one was dated and listed a man with his wives and children plus ages on each. The Sergeant said one of the men had 14 wives, another had 22.

The third witness, a CPS supervisor, said girls on the ranch told her that no age is too young to be married and that “the prophet” decides when and who a girl will marry.

___

6:44 Pity the poor judge in the polygamist case. Today we have a hearing for the more than 400 children in state custody. This the the parents first chance to ask for their children back. The parents have attorneys. Each child has an attorney. There are so many that there’s a huge city auditorium to handle them all.

The judge decided to consolidate the cases. No sooner had the judge started the proceedings did the attorneys start popping up with objections. The judge dispensed with them a la a “Whack-a-mole” game with an “overruled and please be seated.” She asked that the attorneys at least try it this way before objecting. By law this hearing, for all the children, must be held now. The attorneys are trying to do what’s right for their clients, but with so many of them, I suspect for the judge, it’s a bit akin to herding cats.

The state called its first witness and there was a first exhibit and our first break. This was an hour into the hearing. The exhibit has to be distributed to the attorneys in both locations. This hearing is going to take a long long time.

The state is also asking the parents to provide DNA to be compared to their children.