battle misspend again as a civilian child abuse investigator who is employed by the arkansas state police who have legibly encouraged a county law enforcement officer to exercise a seventy two hour protective custody hold on minor children based on child victim interviews as well as other information that was developed during a short four day child maltreatment investigation that was authorized by arkansas law the district court denied ms finnegan claim of qualified immunity because there was no medical cooperation of the child victim reports of abuse and because a separate agency who was also involved in the investigation the arkansas department of human services did not believe that protective custody hold was warranted but on the other hand we had county law enforcement and it's been again who had interviewed the children and who believed that they did need to take immediate  a home and commence an investigation and the on scene investigation refutes the existence of reasonable suspicion or probable cause to see  through the investigation absolutely yes your honor i don't and here we have investigators on the scene the medical doctor who examined the kids and the kids themselves all of that denying disclaiming the existence of reason to see these not all of them your honor not all there but all of them what we have at the talking about whether we have it doesn't even have to be tribal it has to be in the the fact question a plan a parent from the twelve b six record that warrants this case to go to summary judgment and frankly to me that's a slam dunk for the reason i just stated well your honor i respectfully disagree this would be that we're we're told that this this investigator dead wrong on that can be proved that's correct this is that that is the procedural posture judge  wrote that particular distinction on twelve radical one there i was trying to find a case any case where this court had denied qualified immunity to a child abuse investigator who had taken a protective custody evidence whereas here we had one of the family's children he was a sixteen year old boy who the plaintiffs affirmatively allege repeatedly in their complaint that their child was being interviewed during the conduct of this scene and they were investigating and conducting interviews of all the children separately from their parent i'm just assuming your answer for her going on and on and on other directions is you don't have a case and i asked you absolutely not judge loken i asked you for  the lead case when you're bringing up that's a summary judgment case that may be true your honor him and thought money perhaps that involved a factual allegation in the complaint that the child victim reported may detailed allegations of years old and he made the initial reports through family friends so then reported it to the police who then in or i understand all that but the problem the question is what did they learn in the fire hours they were there miss finnigan interview according to complaint misspelling an interview jonathan herself previous to that there were no allegations that mrs finnegan my client had any direct involvement with jonathan family but jonathan stanley was innervation if she controlled the seizure the allegation  that she interviewed him and during the course of the interview he repeated all of his allegations of abuse within the allegation was that she and the county sheriff between the two of them control the seizure that's what they allege that it what they allege over and over again with that the garden county sheriff's deputy made the decision he made the decision to remove the children they repeat that they were out pages i think twelve to thirteen of the appendix showed there are allegations in the complaint that you nevertheless i do agree they are they allege that mrs finnegan encouraged the county sheriff's deputy chief the children and that she did that based on her during the five hours are gone  there during the five hours yes according to the complaint john jonathan stanley was to interview during that five hour period and repeated all of his stories i think they say of abuse and neglect and that they bought it hook line and sinker  they affirmatively allege in their complaint that child abuse investigators believe jonathan and under the circumstances where we have a child victim who is sitting face to face with an investigator who says my father was that same night you're on a within a matter of an hour or so was there any investigation as to the injury to jonathan i believe from the poison or from beatings or striking i believe that examined according to complaint again more on twelve the six but i believe that jonathan was was examined by a medical doctor but this case is very similar to the men's on a case where a child abuse investigator  did not have a reasonable suspicion of child there was there was a medical evaluation before the seizure in this case or in montana this case in this case i believe according the complaint contemporaneous with ongoing interviews with miss again there were doctors on the same who did not find in any immediate signs of renal failure for example but then the records show the attachments to the complaint show that even after that the children had to get emergency evaluations at arkansas children bruises not according to the complaint that there were no physical signs of abuse but just like in the months on ok where the court held that there was not even a constitutional violation under similar circumstances because incidental actions taken in pursuit of the child abuse investigation such as in that case there was an investigator who made a recommendation to a child's mother with a little toddler who herself could not make a reported abuse but based on the mother's suspicions of abuse the investigator inman's on zero told the mom go ahead and obtain a protective custody order an emergency order from the court the father later sued the investigator and said investigator you didn't have any reasonable suspicion that abusing my child you had no medical corroborate and in that case you didn't even have a child victim report or not the court still found that the investigator was entitled to qualified immunity because there was not even a constitutional is part of the record there was on the scene there we have the medical doctors and we have the and we have the d c s ass on the scene for the five hours all or part of the five hours at the end of that process saying there's no basis  suspicion or probable cause to seize had dissipated i submit that the allegations in the complaint show that there had been credible allegations that the investigators believe that garland county sheriff's department official believe jonathan stanley fourth amendment responsibilities is given what you came upon started investigating here there was an investigation your comments were deuced highly according to the allegations in the complaint i highly controversial disputed results we had three of the eldest children the families i believe the complaint alleges they have seven children their three eldest children over a course of a short three or four day investigation we have to remain within the four corners of the of the complaint and mr merrett is masterful in her use of the language book or else one thing she points out is that your allegations include facts to take action what's your response she continues to say that and that's why i say her her use of her command of the the english language is masterful because she says things that simply aren't there not that she's making up facts what she did about the oldest hold but that's the danger i submit to you that if anyone still believes jonathon's him today she still believes that she did the right thing an allegation is not evidence and that's what's dangerous when you have a state agency with unchecked child that has a bone to grind with his father for whatever reason picking up the phone and call in d c at the us to have an investigator come out and believe now jonathan wasn't the only child that was taken they have ten children the youngest was about two years old that child never spent a night away from home these children are home schooled they grow their own true this was a close knit family that has values that are different than the rest of society they didn't just take charge and they took all the children the children were terrified that shawn are still traumatized from within three days they replaced in public school this mother and father sacrificed their entire life for this way of life repeating jonathan's allegation it's not corroborating evidence there's nothing independent about it it's simply a repeat of jonathan's allegations and that's all they had in this case will be to rip your turn you in your breach you point out all the things that it from her argument but what did she know what was the basis of her belief that this action was necessary to protect us children what did she know and when did she know  happen before she ever laid eyes on the children that's admitted if you go to the appendix and were prompted again what prompted the seizure the phone calls from the neighbors and the acquaintances of jonathan who believed to jonathan also jonathan manufactured a chemical or whatever but the neighbors inform the investigators very same thing that jonathan did what he did as i believe that he pulled the statute twelve eighteen one of the three that lists all of the the elements or all the definitions of abuse poisoning burning striking ok then he picks seven or eight of them so he told them that the father was was burning one of the girls with chemical told him that his father was driving in the face  trained investigators in fact the state police she claims that she's a civilian well she's part of the arkansas state police a lot of those are in a civilian capacity but they still have active certification as law enforcement officers that was created by the governor and the language in the statute they created that said child abuse is a crime it's a serious crime and therefore it should be investigated by experience law enforcement and that's their swore that the state police came about requires that there was a search warrant in this case where there was but although the warrant authorized them to do is look for this chemical and if they find it sees it and take it back to the station that warrant did not you then the right to seize a child and  judge looking is correct if you've got thirty one people american doctor the coroner the chief undersheriff the guy arkansas state police crimes against children division there were three division of children and family services supervisors there they were there for five hours they found nothing there was no corroborating and so was no physical evidence that a lot of their men the question come back to what was the basis of their appearance on the screen the allegations that came from jonathan and jonathan's adult friends that had called i believe they called we haven't been able to discover yet i did cross examine all of these people in the appeal of the child maltreatment registry there were persuasive reports one child obese investigator pled guilty to fabricating evidence in forty three of her cases and that was a case of where she said she went out and checked on the kids but she didn't so you know there's two extremes there's either they don't do anything and they lie about it we're making law for the general run of cases not the extraordinary curious new right here's the danger in sanctioning her behavior if we sanction her behavior there's not a family in this state of arkansas that safe because if all it takes is a child making hyperbolic statements that sounds better than it really is but but but here's where the qualified immunity protects everyone except the clearly or plainly incompetent or those that are acting ultra varies and they know they're violating the law so what's your best case for the clear establishment here of along what case shows that someone functioning in the role of the defendant here would have been on notice that taking these children at this time would be impermissible under the constitution actually some of the defendants cases do now manzano was not even in the same universe i don't understand a word you just said i'm sorry  recent years and months that we can't use the general higher standard of oh we have to have a case that's on point that shows a person in the position rich is good ricin was a case where the the mother and her estranged husband the father of the baby were in a custody dispute she made allegations or she claimed that the child made allegations they called corroborating evidence when her boyfriend actually did make a recommendation the mother went hard a private attorney or went to a prosecuting attorney and got an order of protection the child never left the custody of the parent here we have a seizure where the were all of these children become wards of the state  n is a good one hartland is a good case partly in missouri there was a group home that had numerous children and there was an axe to grind with the child abuse investigation against this group home and i think it was probably contract  yes yes the complaint clearly states this was a this is a case that you shouldn't have had to have thirty one experienced investigators to pull up and go there's nothing here this is a case where i think barney fife alone would pull up and say something is wrong if we have these outlandish allegations in such quantity we've got burning striking poisoning there were twenty one true findings that miskin again now and every single one was overturned there wasn't sufficient  it's not pled the net there it was never returned with any type of chemical analysis whatsoever and that's one of the reasons that the poisoning true finally was overturned because one of the elements is you either have to have the pair admit or you found in a fifteen minute with a pedia search that's what they want off of and she also admitted that even water in sufficient quantity can be poisonous so there was nothing in the wrecker whatsoever that they had any chemical analysis of what this substance was that as the as they admit the police officer was handed that by somebody that said they think that it came from the house because that's what jonathan said i don't know what jonathan made but they never did any investigation none clearly says that it was never there was never a chemical analysis all right but that and now we're talking and i already want officers went out there and none of them ever did anything before they got there and blah blah i can admit i haven't read your complaint but unless it's two hundred twelve being six record on appeal and you folks have all lived this case forever and ever and you come up here and completely lose sight of the limited pleadings basis upon which we  her summary qualified immunity on at least three bases i think that we're going to see those again he they granted qualified immunity for perjury and fabrication of of evidence in order to remove these children not the  issue and judge trot said that he was dumbfounded but wait wait we're going to hear that again i hope so i hope i get to appeal that at some point and we have a different standard tuning we're looking at this under reasonable suspicion capacity but are they so extreme that they undercut any finding that she had reasonable special do think that those children were in need of protection under major stations he was a captain then under major statements command seven out of ten truth findings that were appealed in garland county where she worked were overturned on appeal we overturned all twenty one your state law is on the record on appeal no your honor it's not as i was i was simply i agree with judge woman in th not a slippery slope this is a this is a straight fall to a bottomless pit it's far as when you're talking about the right to direct and control the upbringing of your children there's no more fundamental liberty interest in the store room but again these children needed her intervention i don't think that's why she does it and i don't think it's an ill terremoto i think that is a policy that if they feel that in the end in the end both of them were quoted as saying this by different witnesses  and i'm not off the record now judge logan it's him a complaint if they think that you're guilty they're going to find true and then you can just appeal it ok and if that's the basis of the if not the record then you may very well provide that that it is in the record we had find it the supervisor that was in charge of this investigation the very next day the children received on january twelfth on january thirteenth she sent an e mail to the state police and all of the other supervisors the set up on scrapping with tom this case feels like the ultimate violation of a family's creed and to live their own culture this is the c f s say in this we are continually getting s t m classes and training and understanding how culture impacts those decisions it is apparent to me that this family has its own unique culture they homeschool indeed they don't like that because they can't well children so so yes this is their admission v c s that they they do not like people who don't have kids in school because they don't have access and they do not like people that don't practice modern medicine now this doctor looked at all of these kids and every one of them had nothing wrong with him they were happy they were healthy he said i don't find any of these symptoms and that's what makes th rebuttal i'd like to direct the court to pages forty eight forty nine on and fifty of the appendix that goes back to all of your questions about what did ms finnegan know at the time that she participated  appendix forty eight as well as the affidavit for the search warrant that was torn out by sergeant mike wright of the orange county sheriff's department provides in great detail the information that it's going to get new going on to the scene the allegations in the complaint repeatedly explain that during the search on january twelfth two thousand and fifteen on appendix a page twelve paragraph an during the five hours that the a c d though commandeered the family home jonathon family was telling his stories to defendants in a vehicle parked outside the residence he made all of the allegations as stated in the complaint again allegations about burning striking malnourishment educational allegations during the conduct of the search and these experienced investigators and law enforcement officers bought it in their words they believed him your honor they believed a sixteen year old child when we are talking about child protective service workers who are charged with a very delicate and difficult task of investigating child abuse and neglect allegations of talking to children talking to parents gathering all the information they w what they found during their investigation i explained in my brief and i've got very little time left i have time to offical on that but the arkansas state statute provides authority to not to mislead again and again but i don't know that that's particularly relevant i agree with him on that but to the law enforcement officers or to the department of human service workers to take the children to exercise a seventy two hour protective custody hold if they're in imminent danger and so based on the information that was during the interview on th scene on january tenth mrs finnegan investigators and again believe jonathan stanley she believed him and there is not one case that that the district court was able to buy that the stanleys have cited or that i've been able to find where th