SAN ANGELO, Texas -- A Texas judge struggled Thursday with the task of determining the fate of some 416 children taken from a polygamist sect amid allegations of widespread sexual and physical abuse.

Hundreds of lawyers for the children, their nearly 200 mothers and dozens of fathers crowded into the courtroom and a nearby auditorium and argued over the introduction of health records and whether the case violated religious freedom rights.

"The court is not in the position and certainly does not intend to rule about someone's religious practices and their freedom of religion," a clearly exasperated Judge Barbara Walther said after the hearing ground to a halt amid the objections.

"What I'm trying to get to is whether or not these children should be returned to their parents or whether there's enough information that they need to be retained in the custody of the (child welfare) department."

Child welfare officials have asked Walther to place all the sect's children in the custody of the state after finding evidence in a days-long raid beginning April 3 that they say shows girls as young as 13 were "spiritually married" to significantly older men at the YFZ (Yearn For Zion) Ranch.

The raid was sparked by a desperate call for help by a 16-year-old girl who said she was frequently beaten by her 50-year-old husband and was pregnant again eight months after giving birth to her first child.

While officials have not discovered the girl amid those taken from the ranch, they say they found a number of other young girls who were either pregnant or were already mothers.

Investigators also claim to have discovered a bed inside the sect's temple that was reserved for "husbands" -- often middle-aged men -- to have sex for the first time with their underage "wives" as soon as they were married.

The YFZ ranch is owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a sect that split from the mainstream Mormons when polygamy was banned.

The ranch was purchased in 2003 and built by Warren Jeffs, who considers himself the sect's prophet and was jailed for life for being an accomplice to rape.

Mainstream Mormons now excommunicate members who engage in polygamy and reject any connection with the FLDS.

About 350 lawyers have been called in from across the state to help manage what is considered the largest child-welfare case in US history.

Texas law requires a temporary order be issued within 14 days from the initial removal on the status of the children and another ruling must be issued within 60 days.

Some of the lawyers said they were trying to reach a compromise where the men would leave the compound and the children would be allowed to live there with their mothers under supervision by Child Protective Services.

Others complained they had not been given adequate time to prepare their case, with little access to case files and many not meeting the children they were representing until the day before the hearing.

Dallas attorney Susan Hays has not yet met the father of the two-year-old girl she is representing and has gathered spotty information from her mother.

"Passing a child (from a closed community) abruptly into the larger society can be very traumatic, so we're going to balance all these issues today as layers representing the best interest of the children," Hays said.

"It's getting facts and balancing out what's in the best interest for the child when we don't know the depth of any abuse that may be occurring."

The question of what to do with the boys, who prosecutors say were not sexually abused but were instead being groomed to become abusers as adults, is even more complex, lawyers said.