Retrospective on 1984: the Island Pond Raid - What We Know Now That We Didn't Know Then
| Publication year | 2005 |
| Citation | Vol. 2005 No. 12 |
December 2005b - #3. RETROSPECTIVE ON 1984: THE ISLAND POND RAID - WHAT WE KNOW NOW THAT WE DIDN'T KNOW THEN
Twenty-one years ago I was a public defender in our Northeast Kingdom. Assigned to represent a member of the so-called "Northeast Kingdom Community Church" in August, 1983, meant that I was involved in a "church case." There were numerous such cases back then: custody cases, truancy cases, divorce cases, simple assault cases, but none so monumental as the day the State of Vermont came to take the children from the Church in Island Pond - all of them. It was June 22, 1984.
While in the eye of a hurricane as a young lawyer, I saw enough to realize that something was seriously amiss with the state's response to the small, close-knit, and unfamiliar religious group residing in communal households in Island Pond. Assigned to represent one of them nearly a year before the raid, I had a unique vantage point to see what these people were really like. I was welcomed into their homes and into their lives. What I discovered for myself was very different than what I had read in the newspapers. I wanted to know why.
What a long, strange trip it has been since then. In the twenty years since the infamous raid, significant pieces of the puzzle have come to light. Most especially, in 1999 I found the six-page written plan to "destroy the Church in Island Pond," a plan meticulously executed by Vermont state officials. Last year I was moved to make a documentary, called The Children of the Island Pond Raid: An Emerging Culture, to tell the story of what really happened in 1984 so that the citizens of Vermont - and of the world - could know how such a "grossly illegal and unconstitutional scheme" came to be part of Vermont's history. I guess you could say "if it could happen in Vermont, it could happen anywhere."
You might wonder about the current relevance of understanding the truth about the Island Pond Raid. But the facts surrounding the raid raise a number of vital current issues. How important is the reliability of the information that our government uses? How much of that information should the public be entitled to know? Just how honest does government need to be about its mistakes? These issues are timely and the lessons that can be learned from knowing the truth about how the raid happened can be an invaluable teaching tool for legal practitioners, public servants, and vigilant citizens around the world, especially in the present climate of tensions between government and religion. It may have been "1984" when the raid happened, but we have since been catapulted into a "Brave New World" - the new millennium and the post-9/11 shrinking globe. Who would dare say that issues such as freedom of religion, freedom from religion, and the government's role in regulating religion are not of current interest? Whom shall we trust? Is it not said that we must learn from history so as not to repeat its mistakes?
The Pivotal Event,
____June 22, 1984: In Re: C.C.____
On Friday morning, June 22, 1984, in the sleepy rural village of Island Pond, Vermont, nestled in the Green Mountains just south of the Canadian border, the power of state government descended on 350 believers. In an effort to satisfy itself that the children who resided within that church community were not being severely abused, the state invaded. Ninety Vermont state troopers in bulletproof vests and fifty social workers armed with virtually unlimited police power raided nineteen homes in the predawn hours, demanding not only the names of the children, but the children themselves. A local judge had signed a search warrant to legitimize the round-up of the unsuspecting children. The zeal of the social workers allowed them to intrude confidently into the lives of these little ones as if they were doing them a great favor, rescuing them from the abusive clutches of their fanatical parents. One hundred twelve children were unlawfully seized that morning because of the common religious beliefs of their parents.1 The warrant read "In Re: C.C." to stand for "certain children," because the warrant was so general that it had no names. It gave the addresses and descriptions of nineteen residences and buildings that a citizen activist had identified for the state as belonging to the Community. It authorized seizure of "any and all children under the age of 18 found herein." Later that day, an Assistant Attorney General responded to the judge's question "What is the danger of harm to these children?" He answered that "it's as if the child is living amongst bacteria and the bacteria in this case that jeopardizes this child's health is the teachings and doctrines of the church."2
After being transported in police custody to the courthouse in Newport, Vermont, some twenty miles away, each family waited their turn to appear before a judge who would decide if they would be separated. Happily for the parents, Judge Frank Mahady did not judge by the barometer of public opinion as he conducted some forty individual detention hearings that day. When he called the lawyers from the Attorney General's Office to provide evidence of abuse to justify the seizure of each child, the State had little to say, except to speak against the beliefs and lifestyle of those brought to court. Court continued late into the night, calling each child by name. Each one was sent home with his parents because there was no basis to keep even one for examination by the state's battery of doctors, social workers, and psychiatrists who sat to no avail nearly an hour away at a ski resort, waiting to perform their scrutinizing evaluations. At around 9 p.m., Judge Mahady, after handling forty individual children's cases, had to decide what to do with the large group of children (approximately sixty) who remained. After hearing the arguments, he released them all to return home with their parents. He offered an opportunity to speak to any parent who had something to say. Many passionately told the story of their day and spoke of their deep gratitude for a judge who ruled justly. By 11 p.m., a bus of tired but rejoicing families headed home to Island Pond, singing the praises of their God and giving thanks for the judge whose humble response was, "I'm only doing my job."3
Judge Mahady's Opinion:
The Raid Was a Gross
_______Violation of Rights________
Scott Skinner, Director of the Vermont ACLU at the time, noted that Judge Frank Mahady used "the history of the world as a backdrop to educate the public about search and seizure"4 in his five-part, sixty-four page opinion denouncing the raid.5 Andrew Crane, the Defender General of Vermont who represented the parents before Judge Mahady in 1984, called the raid "the best case of my life" because of the degree of injustice that was defeated that day. In a May 2000 interview, Crane called the language used by Mahady "important" because people in Vermont "needed to see how outrageous it [what the State did] was. He [Mahady] wrote [his opinion] that way to educate the citizenry that the State was completely out-of-line."6
Skinner recalled "the unprecedented way in which the raid happened and how it was treated by the press, the absolute magnitude of it." Judge Mahady's ruling "turned the tide against the State's plan. There was an explosion of public interest and national camera crews helicoptered to the scene" in the Northeastern corner of Vermont. Administrative Judge Thomas Hayes
appointed the most brilliant judge he could and this combined to make a powerful lesson that won't be repeated at least for fifty years. The way it happened was a disaster for the State of Vermont. The outcome was fortuitous, with the system of checks and balances not necessarily succeeding. The executive was intent on abusing its power. The judge who signed the warrant, a decent man, found himself on a railroad train being swept along by forces larger than he was.7
That judge later acknowledged he had been "pressured by bad information" and that the "Raid was a tragedy for the State of Vermont."8 Because his actions were reviewed and overruled by Judge Mahady, in the end the judiciary was able to prevail over an overreaching executive.
Rejecting the State's theory...
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