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76–803 PDF 2003

S. Hrg. 107–209

PROMOTING THE BEST INTERESTS OF CHILDREN:

PROPOSALS TO ESTABLISH A FAMILY COURT

IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUPERIOR

COURT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,

RESTRUCTURING, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

SUBCOMMITTEE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL

AFFAIRS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

OCTOBER 25, 2001

Printed for the use of the Committee on Governmental Affairs

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut, Chairman

CARL LEVIN, Michigan

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois

ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey

MAX CLELAND, Georgia

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware

JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri

MARK DAYTON, Minnesota

FRED THOMPSON, Tennessee

TED STEVENS, Alaska

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico

THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah

JIM BUNNING, Kentucky

JOYCE A. RECHTSCHAFFEN, Staff Director and Counsel

CYNTHIA GOOEN LESSER, Counsel

HANNAH S. SISTARE, Minority Staff Director and Counsel

JOHANNA L. HARDY, Minority Counsel

DARLA D. CASSELL, Chief Clerk

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT,

RESTRUCTURING, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois, Chairman

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii

ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware

JEAN CARNAHAN, Missouri

MARK DAYTON, Minnesota

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio

TED STEVENS, Alaska

SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine

PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico

THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi

MARIANNE CLIFFORD UPTON, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

ANDREW RICHARDSON, Minority Staff Director

MASON C. ALINGER, Minority Professional Staff Member

JULIE L. VINCENT, Chief Clerk

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Opening statements: Page

Senator Durbin ................................................................................................. 1

Senator Akaka .................................................................................................. 3

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 20

WITNESSES

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2001

Hon. Mary L. Landrieu, a U.S. Senator from the State of Louisiana ................. 4

Hon. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Delegate in Congress from the District of

Columbia ............................................................................................................... 6

Hon. Tom DeLay, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas .......... 8

Hon. Mike DeWine, a U.S. Senator from the State of Ohio ................................. 10

Rufus King, III, Chief Judge, Superior Court of the District of Columbia,

acompanied by Lee Satterfield, Judge, Superior Court of the District of

Columbia ............................................................................................................... 25

Olivia Golden, Ph.D., Director, Child and Family Services Agency, District

of Columbia ........................................................................................................... 29

Deborah Luxenberg, Chair, Children in the Courts Committee, Council for

Court Excellence ................................................................................................... 31

Margaret J. McKinney, Co-Chair, Family Law Section, District of Columbia

Bar ......................................................................................................................... 33

ALPHABETICAL LIST OF WITNESSES

DeLay, Hon. Tom:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 8

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 51

DeWine, Hon. Mike:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 10

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 56

Golden, Olivia, Ph.D.:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 29

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 28

King, Rufus, III:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 25

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 69

Landrieu, Hon. Mary L.:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 4

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 45

Luxenberg, Deborah:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 31

Prepared statement with an attachment ....................................................... 81

McKinney, Margaret J.:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 33

Prepared statement with attachments ........................................................... 90

Norton, Hon. Eleanor Holmes:

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 6

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 48

Page

IV

APPENDIX

Congressional Research Service Memorandum, October 16, 2001, ‘‘Separation

of Powers Issues in re D.C. Family Court Bill,’’ submitted by Mr. DeLay ...... 106

State District Judge Scott McCown of Texas, prepared statement submitted

by Mr. DeLay ........................................................................................................ 111

Article from the Washington Post, dated October 25, 2001, ‘‘Steamrolling

the Superior Court,’’ submitted by Mr. DeLay .................................................. 127

Copy of H.R. 2657 .................................................................................................... 128

Questions and responses to questions for the record from:

Mr. DeLay ......................................................................................................... 165

Judge King ........................................................................................................ 166

Dr. Golden ......................................................................................................... 171

Ms. McKinney ................................................................................................... 174

(1)

PROMOTING THE BEST INTERESTS OF CHILDREN: PROPOSALS TO ESTABLISH A FAMILY COURT IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

SUPERIOR COURT

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2001

U.S. SENATE, OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, RESTRUCTURING, AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE, OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:27 a.m., in room

SC–6, United States Capitol, Hon. Richard J. Durbin, Chairman of

the Subcommittee, presiding.

Present: Senators Durbin, Akaka, and Carper.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DURBIN

Senator DURBIN. I am going to go ahead and start, and thank

you for joining us under these extraordinary circumstances.

I am pleased to welcome you to today’s hearing before the Senate

Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring, and the District of Columbia. Our hearing is going to focus

on promoting the best interests of children and proposals to establish a family court in the District of Columbia Superior Court.

There is legislation pending before this Subcommittee to restructure the D.C. Superior Court Family Division into a family court.

Proponents of the measure, a House-passed bill, H.R. 2657, and a

similar Senate bill, S. 1382, seek to address longstanding concerns

about how child abuse and neglect cases are handled within the

unique presidentially-appointed, federally-funded local judicial system and a social services system that only recently was returned

to the control of the Mayor after an extensive and often controversial period under Federal court receivership.

I commend the bills’ sponsors for their commitment to the District’s children. During the 106th Congress, I served as the ranking

Democrat on both the authorizing and appropriating committees

for the District of Columbia. In that capacity, far too many grim

and gripping statistics crossed my desk.

The annual Kids Count reports, produced by the Annie E. Casey

Foundation in recent years, chronicle a tale of woe. Time and

again, we find that children in the District of Columbia are faring

worse than kids in virtually every city in the United States or any

State in the Union. As beautiful as the District of Columbia may

2

be and as inspiring as our monuments may be, there are endemic

problems in this city relating to children which are horrible.

The percentage of low-birth-weight babies in the District of Columbia ranks worst in the Nation, worse than any other State. The

infant death rate in D.C. was the worst in the Nation, twice the

national average. The child death rate, the rate of teen death by

accident and homicide, the teen birth rate, the percent of teens not

attending school and not working, the percent of children living

with parents who do not have full-time, year-around employment,

are in last place in the District of Columbia. The percent of children in poverty and the percent of families headed by a single parent are the worst in the country.

Too frequently, these are the very children and parents who find

themselves clutching the strands of the safety net that forms the

child protection components of the social services system and the

D.C. Superior Court.

While Congress has an important responsibility when it comes to

the District of Columbia and the local courts under the Home Rule

Act, we need to make certain that we take prudent, measured steps

to respond to these needs.

Chief Judge King, joined by several of his associates, is here

today. I want to commend the judge for the administrative reforms

he has spearheaded and instituted already to address the challenges posed by dependent neglected and abused children who rely

upon your leadership and reasoned decisions.

Children removed from their biological parents because of abuse

and neglect enter a child welfare system that is broken and needs

to be fixed. Nationally, the number of children in foster care has

nearly doubled in 15 years. At the same time, the number of potential foster families has declined.

According to a September 2000 Brookings Institution Children’s

Roundtable paper, caseloads are large nationwide because of a

short supply of trained child welfare workers, who are given insufficient resources to work with children whose needs are increasingly complex.

In the District of Columbia, an estimated 4,500 child abuse and

neglect cases are presently spread among the Superior Court’s 59

trial judges. Concerns have been raised that many children remain

in foster care longer than Federal law dictating permanent placement requires.

The tragic story of Brianna Blackmond, the 2-year-old child who

was beaten to death in January 2000, 2 weeks after being returned

to her troubled home, prompted an outcry about the state of the

District’s delivery of child and family services. And, of course, this

morning’s Washington Post has another tragic story about a child

who did not have a visit from a social worker for some 7 months

and was malnourished and died as a result.

An eye-opening Washington Post investigative series early last

month revealed more distressing statistics: 229 children in the District died between 1993 and 2000, even though their family situation had been brought to the attention of the city’s child protective

services.

Sadly, innocent lives snuffed out like Brianna’s occur everywhere. These are urban tragedies and rural tragedies, and not just

3

in the District of Columbia. In my home State of Illinois, the horrific hanging death of 3-year-old Joseph Wallace in 1993, after the

system repeatedly returned him to his violent and mentally ill

mother, was the catalyst that spurred revolutionary reform in Cook

County’s troubled child protection and legal system. No child’s life

should have to be sacrificed because the system established to protect them has failed.

I have scheduled today’s hearing to examine the components of

the reform bills. These include, among other elements, placing all

cases involving one family before one judge, assigning a cadre of

magistrates to assist the judicial function, mandating minimum

terms of service for judges on the family court, and transferring all

child abuse and neglect cases now dispersed across the court back

under a family court helm. The hearing will be an opportunity to

hear from the witnesses and to understand their perspectives.

I understand some of the details in the reform bills evoke legitimate disagreement among those tasked with implementing change.

I also believe that everyone in this room is here for one purpose,

and that is to find the best way to protect more children in the District of Columbia. I am hopeful that we will be able to reach some

conclusions about that after hearing the testimony before us.

I am happy to introduce and to welcome the comments of my colleagues who are here. Is it OK for Delegate Norton to go first?

Ms. NORTON. I would be pleased to have the Senator go first.

Senator DEWINE. No. Go right ahead.

Senator DURBIN. Excuse me. We are glad to have Senator Akaka

here.

Would you like to make an opening statement?

Senator AKAKA. Mine will be brief.

Senator DURBIN. OK.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR AKAKA

Senator AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to

thank you for calling this hearing today. It is good to be here with

our colleagues and our other distinguished witnesses who will

share their views on establishing a family court within the D.C.

Superior Court.

The tragic death of young Brianna Blackmond, which prompted

these legislative proposals, raised many concerns about the ability

of the District’s court system to handle the numerous child abuse

and neglect matters that come before it everyday.

However, the court is only one part of the equation. We must

also improve the Child and Family Services Agency. CFSA was recently removed from Federal receivership, but the prognosis is

poor. The systemic problems facing the agency are still present and

without fundamental reform, the changes we discuss today will

have little impact.

How we protect neglected and abused children is a matter of concern to all jurisdictions. Hawaii, with one of the oldest unified family courts in the country, is looking into ways to streamline its

court system. Proposals in my State are raising questions about the

impact such changes may have on Hawaii’s children.

So you see, despite this morning’s focus on the District of Columbia, the issues that we discuss today are relevant to all jurisdicVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:06 Jan 13, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 76803.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
4

1The prepared statement of Senator Landrieu appears in the Appendix on page 45.

tions. My colleagues in both the Senate and the House are to be

commended for their efforts to ensure that all children are safe and

secure.

I am also pleased that Judge King, the Chief Judge of the D.C.

Superior Court, will have an opportunity to present the court’s concerns. I understand the court’s interest in having greater flexibility

for its judges and magistrates, and revising the length of service,

as proposed by the bills, is under discussion.

I regret that I am unable, Mr. Chairman, to stay much longer

at this morning’s hearing. However, I want our distinguished witnesses to know of my interest and my desire to work with Chairman Durbin and Senator Thompson, the Ranking Member of the

Governmental Affairs Committee, on these proposals. I commend

all of you on your commitment to improving Washington’s court

system so we may better protect the District’s children.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to submit written questions for the record.

Senator DURBIN. Without objection.

Senator AKAKA. Thank you.

Senator DURBIN. Thank you very much.

I want to thank my colleagues for being here and if there are any

time problems—I know Senator Landrieu has one, so if it is OK for

her to go first, then we will go through the others.

TESTIMONY OF HON. MARY L. LANDRIEU,1 A U.S. SENATOR

FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA

Senator LANDRIEU. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I do have a

formal statement for the record that I will submit in just a few

minutes.

Let me first thank you for calling this hearing and taking time,

which is not easily found today, and a room to hold it. But, Mr.

Chairman, you have managed to do both, to hold a hearing on this

important bill, because it is something that my colleagues and I

have worked on together very closely over the last several months,

and maybe even longer, and in a bipartisan way.

Let me thank you for your interest in children and your lifelong

work, Mr. Chairman, as a person who has advocated for children,

particularly children with special needs, not only in your own State

but nationally. I thank again all of my colleagues, and the Superior

Court for their excellent work in helping us negotiate some of the

more difficult aspects of this bill, because it is not simple. If it

were, we would have done it many years ago; every State in the

Nation and city in the Nation would have done it.

It is not rocket science, but it is complicated. There are many different agencies that have to be brought together to get to the end

we want, which is protecting children, their lives, their well-being,

and their right to a bright and successful future.

I have enjoyed working with my Senate colleague, Senator

DeWine, whom I always introduce, Mr. Chairman, as an expert on

this subject, since he has eight children himself. That qualifies

him, I think, above all of us.

5

This bill is based, as you know, on a compelling need, and that

compelling need is that there have been 200 children that have

died since 1987 in the District of Columbia, under the care of the

District Government that we help to fund, and we all have to take

responsibility, to some degree, for that failure.

But if you think about it, it is not just the 200 children that died;

it is the hundreds of children who have been injured, in some

places irreparably injured, physically, emotionally and mentally,

and families that have been destroyed, with little hope of getting

them back together and off on the right foot, because the system

that we have created is simply not good enough. This bill is not

going to be a magic solution, but it is a step toward laying a foundation for reforms that are essential, and so I am proud to work

on it.

The second point I want to make, is the answer what some critics

of this effort have said, is this effort is not the first. As far as I

know—and I think Representative DeLay and Delegate Norton,

Senator DeWine, and I have tried to research as much as we can

about what other jurisdictions are doing around the Nation, we are

not trying to force the District to do something that other jurisdictions, Mr. Chairman, are not doing.

This bill, as you know, is based on a lot of research about what

is happening in other regions and in other jurisdictions. And while

there is no magic or no set way that the court should operate, there

are some principles that have been established, the principles

about one family/one judge, one family/one caseworker, and judges

wanting to do this kind of work, being excited about doing this

kind of work, not being forced to do this kind of work because the

system forces them.

We want people who think it is a great privilege and honor to

serve as judges and social workers for children who are born into

the most difficult of circumstances and to help them get what

should be promised to every human being, a decent chance at life.

Too many of these children in the District, and in my State of Louisiana, may I say, do not have that chance. So that is what this

bill represents, our best efforts to fulfill that promise.

The final point is we have worked in a bipartisan, bicameral

way. I think this is a great spirit and example given what we are

all experiencing. It is this bipartisan way that we are going to work

through not only the challenges that face our Nation, but moving

an important bill for the District.

Again, I just thank you and don’t want to take any more time,

but I am chairing a subcommittee hearing at 10 o’clock on emerging threats for Armed Services, and so I thank you for the courtesy,

Mr. Chairman.

This is my statement I would like to submit for the record.

Senator DURBIN. Without objection, it will be entered in the

record.

Senator Landrieu, thank you, not only for being here but for your

commitment to children and families. In the time that you have

served in the Senate, I think you have become a national voice on

issues like adoption, and I think it tells all of us in this room where

your heart is on this issue. Thank you so much.

Senator DeWine, would you like to go ahead?

6

1Prepared statement of Ms. Norton appears in the Appendix on page 48.

Senator DEWINE. I will yield to my colleagues.

Senator DURBIN. All right, fine.

Delegate Norton, would you like to make a statement?

TESTIMONY OF HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON,1 A

DELEGATE IN CONGRESS FROM THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me

thank you for your long-time interest in the District of Columbia

and all you have done for the District of Columbia, always respecting home rule and our voting rights, but not hesitating to tell it

like it is. It still is a work in progress.

I particularly appreciate this hearing at this moment. Mr. DeLay

and I have been working in the House for months and our Senate

partners have been working, as well. Indeed, we struggled to get

this bill to the House floor before it was finished in order to take

advantage of an appropriation that will make the reforms in this

bill, will actualize the reforms in this bill. And I have to give the

credit for that where it is due because Mr. DeLay not only has

worked with me very collegially on this bill, but is totally responsible for the funds in this bill on the House side.

Mr. Chairman, the Family Division of the Superior Court for

years was criticized by the bar and the Council for Court Excellence for not incorporating the best practices. This process did not

begin in earnest until a child died, Brianna Blackmond, and that

got the attention not only of the court, finally, but it got the attention of the Congress as well.

I regret that it is the Congress that has had to move on this matter, but the fact is that only the Congress can make adjustments

in courts because that matter has not been committed to the District of Columbia Council and Mayor, who are, in fact, the experts

on these matters. Indeed, I have a bill that would turn the courts

over to the District of Columbia, just as most matters having to do

with the District of Columbia are now in their hands.

My testimony is going to be very brief. What our bill does is simply to incorporate the best practices from around the country and

inset them into our own family court and Family Division. Mr.

DeLay did his own investigation and I did mine. We got to the

table together and lined them up and on virtually every matter got

agreement.

To give you an example, our court had no ongoing training. They

got on the court and judges did the best they could, even though

we are in a big city and they need somehow that kind of ongoing

training. They had alternative dispute resolution everywhere but

the Family Division. They had alternative dispute resolution to do

corporate cases, but where you would most expect alternative dispute resolution is in family cases and there was hardly any effort

in that regard. We are making that a part of what the court must

do. Essential to us has been the notion of one family/one judge. A

family comes in and they shouldn’t have to go from one judge to

the other, and there are a number of other best practice reforms.

7

Finally, let me say that I believe that Judge King’s testimony has

a serious omission in it. It leaves the impression that there are outstanding matters that have not been resolved in the bill.

I carried this bill to the floor in the House because the D.C. appropriation was going through and there were a few details that

had not been worked out between the Senate and the House, such

as the language concerning the Domestic Violence Unit, and such

as keeping the court from being overwhelmed with a whole flurry

of the cases now being transferred from 59 judges to just a few

judges.

We agreed that in order to take advantage of the appropriation,

we would go forward, and particularly since we had been receiving

such good cooperation from the Senate that these and other details

could be worked out. So I do want to assure you that I think that

there are virtually no matters here that your staff and my staff

have not been amicably discussing and that Mr. DeLay has not

been discussing.

I see no differences in this bill among all of the major actors, and

I wish that Judge King’s testimony, as a member of the bar, had,

in fact, had the kind of candor that would have said these matters

are pending and we have been assured by the Congresswoman on

the floor of the House that they will be taken care of.

This Member wants to let you know that I think anybody that

submits testimony before Congress ought to be fully candid about

the situation and should not leave the impression that there are

outstanding issues that have not been resolved and have not been

committed to be resolved.

Finally, let me say there is a concern about funds. Mr. DeLay

was able to get, we thought, about $40 million in the House. In the

Senate, there might have been as much as $50 million. Apparently,

somebody from the Senate, a staffer, called the court and asked the

court what could the court do if they got only $23 million. The

court did not confer with me, with Mr. DeLay, or with anybody

else, but simply sent forward a scenario of how they might handle

$23 million.

Now, the court will be back to me next year, I am sure, saying

this is not enough money. All I can say to you is that money has

now been divided up. It has undercut what Mr. DeLay has done,

what the Senators had done, and there probably is not enough

money in this bill for this reason, despite the best efforts of all of

the principals concerned. Judge King, again, without consulting

with all of us, has to take responsibility for that.

I will say this finally to the Subcommittee, that we put a marker

in the D.C. appropriation for $5 million because by allowing this

money to go out of the bill, there is not even enough money to

allow the computers in the District to talk to the computers in the

court. So, minimally, we need $5 million more in order for the bill

to work, or else D.C. is on one computer system, the court is on

another, and all the work we have done will not matter.

Again, I think any outstanding issues here, Mr. Chairman, are

easily dealt with. I very much appreciate your taking the time to

deal with a District of Columbia matter which I wish could be committed to the Council in the first place, but which I thank you and

8

1The prepared statement of Mr. DeLay appears in the Appendix on page 51.

2The information from CRS appears in the Appendix on page 106.

3Prepared statement of State District Judge Scott McCown of Texas submitted by Mr. DeLay

appears in the Appendix on page 111. 4The article from the Washington Post appears in the Appendix on page 127.

your staff for working on so hard with the staff of Mr. DeLay and

with my staff in the House.

Senator DURBIN. Thank you very much, Delegate Norton.

Congressman DeLay, welcome to the Senate side.

TESTIMONY OF HON. TOM DeLAY,1 A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

Mr. DELAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you holding

this hearing, I really do, especially today after what has happened

yesterday, losing another child in the child welfare system yesterday in the District of Columbia. It once again reminds us of how

important it is to get this legislation out and start the work of putting together a child welfare system in the city that will keep children from being killed out there.

I can’t say enough about how I appreciate your work, Senator

DeWine’s work, Senator Landrieu’s work, and working with Congresswoman Norton. It has been really uplifting and we appreciate

all that has been put together.

I concur with everything Congresswoman Norton has said. I

would like it if you would allow me to put some testimony in the

record.

Senator DURBIN. Without objection.

Mr. DELAY. One is from CRS on separation of powers issues on

the D.C. family court.2 Another is testimony in the House by Judge

Scott McCown, of Texas, about burn-out.3

I also frankly would like, for full disclosure, to put in the editorial that just so happened to show up in the Washington Post

today.4 I find this really reflects a display of the arrogance in the

Superior Court and shows what we have had to deal with.

This editorial is written straight from Judge King’s testimony.

No one on the editorial board called Ms. Norton or me to talk about

these issues, undermining the effort that we have been doing,

working so hard in a very bipartisan, bicameral way of doing something for the children and what is in the best interest of the children, not the Superior Court.

That is what we have been dealing with now for months, trying

to come to some sort of agreement here, and I think it is really unfortunate that some would put the fate of children behind their

own interests.

Mr. DELAY. It is clear to me, Mr. Chairman, that the Subcommittee is especially interested in three provisions of both the

House and Senate bills: (1) one judge/one child; (2) a 5-year term;

and, (3) consolidation of all current cases within the family court

system.

Each provision is critical and indispensable to effective reform

and let me explain why, but before I do let me tell you what some

D.C. child advocates told me just last week when I brought them

in. They wanted to come and see me and we talked about this

9

issue. The people I met with work on the front lines, helping the

District’s abused and neglected children.

They said children are burned, slashed, battered, terrorized and

raped everyday in Washington, DC. They told me that they have

wasted valuable time in courtrooms waiting for hearings that are

ultimately canceled because a drug-addicted mother once again

failed to show up. They described crying children who begged not

to be returned ‘‘to my mother, who hates me and beats me.’’ The child advocates pleaded with me to stand up for the reforms

of the House bill. Without those reforms, they said the suffering

simply will not stop. The rationale underlying these provisions is

the main argument for the bill itself, to get someone to pay attention to the fear and suffering that young children endure in this

District.

As I listened to those advocates and read the series of articles

in the Washington Post, it struck me that the terror and panic and

feelings of helplessness that many Americans impacted by the September 11 terrorist attacks felt are similar to what abused children

suffer.

The war on terrorism may take years, but Congress can ease the

suffering of abused D.C. children now by passing the District of Columbia Family Court Act to focus judicial attention on these children and their families. Both the House and the Senate bills are

designed to make children’s safety, well-being and permanency the

paramount concerns of the family court.

Legal experts and organizations like the ABA support one judge/

one child, but judges here in the Superior Court resist it. I find

that amazing. The one judge/one child family concept requires that

all the hearings for a particular child and family be before the

same judge, and this reform will end the practice of shuttling a

child from courtroom to courtroom, hearing to hearing, and judge

to judge. This current practice scatters a child’s paperwork all over

the courthouse and forces judges and social workers to make decisions with only half the child’s story.

The deadly mistakes that killed Brianna Blackmond, Nicki

Colma Spriggs, Devonta Young, and many other District children

happened because the system only knew half their stories. We

must put together all the pieces of a child’s life before we determine whether it is safe for a child to go home, remain in a particular foster home or facility, or be placed for adoption. A child is

safer when a judge understands the whole story of his or her life.

Multiple judges increase the chances of error and vital information

not being considered.

The mandate that new judges sit on family court for a minimum

of 5 years is designed and was established to ensure that only committed judges would volunteer for the family court. The 5-year requirement for new judges and the 3-year mandate for current

judges overseeing abused and neglected children of the District is

a test. The terms will ensure judges volunteering for family court

service are dedicated to the children and families on their dockets.

The statement that there is burn-out is an insult to family court

judges all over this Nation. Five-year terms will sort judges who

are committed and those who are just marking time. The 5-year

commitment will weed out all those lawyers who want to be a SuVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:06 Jan 13, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00013 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 76803.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
10

1The prepared statement of Senator DeWine appears in the Appendix on page 56.

perior Court Judge and calculate that sitting on family court for 3

years is the price that they must pay for an appointment to the

bench.

Reform of the court system won’t happen without committed

judges to children. The Superior Court’s resistance to this provision

shows me in no uncertain terms that the provision is indeed a true

test of commitment. The fact that so many judges currently on the

bench are unwilling to make this commitment speaks volumes

about the willingness of the current bench to accept real reforms

in the Superior Court.

The current family system doesn’t comply with either the Federal

or District Adoption and Safe Families Act and those time lines

that require that permanency hearings be held within 12 months.

I just believe that dispersing 4,500 cases over 59 judges increases

the likelihood that deadlines will be missed as judges try to work

abused children onto other dockets. Judges outside the Family Division don’t have current knowledge about the availability and

quality of placement, or service options or new laws and new regulations impacting the children before them.

House testimony convinced us that children’s interests simply

are not served when judges take cases with them. This practice

only creates discontinuity and a lack of consistency for the child,

for the families, for social workers, and for the attorneys from the

Office of Corporation Counsel as well.

Mr. Chairman, I just believe that the best thing we could do for

abused children right now in the District is to return all the cases

to a family court, made up of committed judges who are all volunteers wanting to serve on those family courts. Only their specialized knowledge of relevant Federal and District laws will result in

better decisions for abused children.

So, Senators, it is time to move the D.C. Family Court Act. We

appreciate all the hard work that you are doing on this. We hope

you will move it quickly. The children are waiting. We must not

disappoint them. Thank you.

Senator DURBIN. Thank you, Congressman DeLay.

I am going to recognize Senator DeWine, but before I do, I don’t

know what your time situation is, but if it is possible for you to

wait a few moments, I would like to ask specific questions raised

by the Washington Post editorial, as well as one or two others on

my mind, of the sponsors of the bill.

Mr. DELAY. Sure.

Senator DURBIN. Senator DeWine.

TESTIMONY OF HON. MIKE DeWINE,1 A U.S. SENATOR FROM

THE STATE OF OHIO

Senator DEWINE. Mr. Chairman, let me just thank you for holding this hearing on this very, very important issue. It is a bipartisan bill we are talking about, and certainly a bipartisan issue.

I want to thank Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton. She has just

gone out of her way to work on this bill, and spent hours and hours

and hours on the bill. I deeply appreciate it, and the children of

the District do, as well. Congressman DeLay has been the driving

11

intellectual force behind this. Senator Landrieu has been steady all

the way through this, and so it truly is a bipartisan effort.

We have done a great deal of listening. We have had a number

of meetings with the judges. We have taken a lot of their concerns,

I believe, into consideration. But quite candidly, Mr. Chairman, the

time for listening is over. We need, as a Congress, to act, and we

need to act as a Congress for these children.

We have a crisis, and you have very ably pointed that out in your

reference to the original Washington Post article and the Washington Post article this morning. The tragedies go on and on and

on. Despite all the good intentions of all the good people who are

trying to help children in the District of Columbia, the sad truth

is that our Nation’s Capital has a child welfare system that is an

absolute mess. We have some responsibility, I believe, to act to try

to change that.

Under our current system, judges don’t get the training and they

don’t get the technical support nor the experience that they need

to properly handle these cases. As you have pointed out, the recent

Washington Post series on the District’s lost children made this all

too clear. These stories outline multiple mistakes that the District

Government has made by placing children in unsafe homes or institutions.

Since 1993, over 180 children have died in the D.C. foster care

system, and at least 40 of those deaths are the direct result of the

government worker’s failure to take preventative actions or by

placing children in unsafe homes or institutions.

I believe that our family court bill is a step in the right direction

and that it will help ensure that children who come into contact

with the District’s child welfare system are placed in a safe and

stable environment. At the heart of the bill is the one judge/one

family concept which is designed to create judicial continuity so

that families aren’t shuffled from one judge to another.

There is something to be said in both legislative bodies and in

the judiciary for institutional memory, and there is no time where

institutional memory is more important than memory having to do

with a family. To shift children and to shift families around is to

lose that institutional memory, and I think more mistakes are

made when that happens. The simple fact is that the judge who

knows the entire history of the family can better protect the interests of the children and the parents involved.

Second, our bill ensures that the judges in the family court get

specialized training in family law and have terms long enough to

allow them to get the experience they need to properly deal with

these cases. I will talk about that issue in a moment.

Third, our bill helps make sure that the courts in the District

comply with the permanency time lines outlined in our 1997 Federal law which I think all of us, from the Chairman to our colleagues, were very much involved in writing and getting passed.

This was the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA).

The reality, Mr. Chairman, is that family and juvenile courts

across the country have implemented this law. Yet, the District of

Columbia, our Nation’s Capital, still only has a plan to implement

it. The time for compliance with the regulations has long since

past. The District needs to act, and act now.

12

Let me address, if I could, Mr. Chairman, one of the concerns

that has been raised by the judges, and I will guarantee you that

this is an issue that we have discussed with the judges on numerous occasions.

I believe, as my colleagues believe, that it is essential for the

judges to have interest and experience in the practice of this type

of law. That is one of the reasons why jurisdictions across this

country—there are thousands and thousands of local jurisdictions

that have family courts.

The judges make the case that they have a hard time finding

anyone to take this position. I simply refuse to believe that. I

refuse to believe that in the District of Columbia, of all the lawyers

and all the well-trained people, there aren’t a few good people who

care deeply about children and who want to make this a career, or

at least a significant part of their career, or at least commit to 5

years to do this.

To say that this can’t be done says that the District of Columbia

is different than every other jurisdiction or thousands of jurisdictions across this country. In my home county, Greene County, a

small county, we have a judge who is elected. His primary responsibility is to do this type of case. We don’t seem to have any trouble

finding people in a county of 130,000 who want that job. I don’t

think we have found that is a problem across the country. To say

that we can only get people who can serve for 2 years and maybe

3 years just flies in the face, I think, of logic and it flies in the face

of experience.

Mr. Chairman, we need judges committed to children, and I

refuse to believe that we can’t find lawyers in the District of Columbia willing to sit on the family court for more than a year or

two. The family court should not be a stepping stone to anything

but a quality life for children. It is not a stepping stone to the Federal bench. It is not a stepping stone to a nice job in the U.S. Attorney’s office. This is about children and their lives, and what can

be more important than that?

Mr. Chairman, I do have a written statement and I will submit

that for the record, if I could.

Senator DURBIN. Without objection, it will be made part of the

record.

I thank the three of you for remaining for some questions to help

me understand better what you are seeking to achieve here.

Assuming for a second that we all agree on the concept of one

judge/one family/one child, your proposal to move the current caseload to new magistrates will take it away from some judges who

have had these cases for a period of time who are familiar with the

families and children, will it not?

Ms. NORTON. If I could answer that, the proposal is not to take

all of the family—the family court has divorce cases, it has juvenile

cases.

Senator DURBIN. Child support.

Ms. NORTON. Child support cases, and it is nonsense for this

Subcommittee to have before it testimony that would imply that we

would move all of those at one time and take a court that already

handles cases for abused and neglected children, who are our concern, too slowly and overwhelm it with cases of every kind. The

13

court did not even have a good fix on the number of cases in the

entire Family Division.

Senator DURBIN. Specifically, let me ask you this: If there are

4,600 estimated abuse and neglect cases pending before the D.C.

court, would your bill require that some of the abuse and neglect

cases currently assigned to other judges be removed to a new magistrate or judge?

Ms. NORTON. We anticipate a timetable of at least 18 months,

and we are still working with the Senate on a timetable for how

these cases will move out. That is one of the unresolved parts of

the bill because we have not had an opportunity to work this out

with people in the Senate.

You certainly have my assurance, and nothing Mr. DeLay has

ever said to me would imply that we are so foolish or stupid as to

simply say take the cases that you have now and plop them from

the inefficiency that you have now into an even smaller bank of

judges who would make them even more inefficient.

Senator DURBIN. So you would agree that there would be some

transition here, at least of the 4,600 cases that are involved?

Mr. DELAY. There has to be. Actually, even in the bill itself, Mr.

Chairman, it has a transition in terms of 3 years, 5 years. We are

asking those judges that are currently sitting on family court matters to serve 3 years. I think you know that the current system is

so broken down because it is the wrong system.

In order to advance in the Superior Court system, you are designated to serve in family court cases for 9 months. That is the

penalty that you have to pay to do anything else on the court. That

is a horrible system that is doomed to failure.

What we are saying is those that are there now transition

through. We are asking them to serve 3 years so there is some consistency and continuity, but any new judges that come in would

serve 5 years. Of course, there is going to be a transition.

Senator DEWINE. Mr. Chairman.

Senator DURBIN. Go ahead, Senator.

Senator DEWINE. I think you bring up a very good point, and

that is I think it is clear what we want to do in regard to where

we want to be 5 years or 10 years from now. The devil is in the

details, particularly in the transition. We provide for 18 months,

the way the bill is written now, for a systematic transition, but I

think most of us are open to work with you to work out whatever

transition works, along with the judges.

If I could make a comment about the magistrates, I had a lot of

questions about the issue of magistrates because one of my models

is a county in Ohio, Cincinnati’s county, Hamilton County, Ohio.

They have a system that is somewhat unique where they have one

or two judges and they have a large number of magistrates in the

whole family court area.

I believe after looking at this that the key, Mr. Chairman, is not

the ratio of magistrates to judges. I think the key is that the magistrates and the judges all within the division specialize in family

court issues. A magistrate, quite bluntly—I hope I don’t offend the

judges—can be just as well-trained and have just as much experience, and sometimes more, than the presiding judge. The key is

14

that we have an independent, impartial, well-trained, experienced

person who is looking at this child. I think that is the key.

Senator DURBIN. I mentioned in my opening statement that in

1993 there was an innocent little boy named Joseph Wallace, a 3-

year-old who was killed by hanging after being repeatedly returned

to a mentally ill parent in Chicago which sparked a reform movement there.

Just for the record, I want you to hear these statistics. Chicago

is roughly five times the size of D.C.’s population. At that time, in

1994, they had 41,000 pending cases of abuse and neglect, and

there were 16,500 new cases every year. So it was a huge caseload

they were dealing with.

They went into a reform mode after that and said we have got

to change this system, and it took them 6 years to make the ultimate transformation to what I am about to report today. They are

now down to 16,000 cases pending of abuse and neglect, after significant reform. Foster care has been reduced from 7 years to less

than 4 years. So they have really made a combined effort not only

in the courts, but also with assistance to the court, which is my

next question.

We are going to hear testimony later on from Judge King about

the number of cases per social worker in the District of Columbia,

which I understand from his testimony is about 100 cases per social worker. The recommended number is one-fourth that, some 25.

What does your bill do to provide the obvious need for support

services for the courts and for the families?

Ms. NORTON. The child services agency is not before this body.

The District of Columbia itself has just gotten jurisdiction over the

child services agency, which had been under the jurisdiction of the

Federal courts. It was when the agency was under the jurisdiction

of the Federal courts that Brianna Blackmond died. That made the

court look closely at the receivership, and it decided that the Mayor

of the District of Columbia was doing a better job with agency than

the receivership had been doing with the agency.

They have had the agency since only June, and the Council, in

response to the movement of the agency from the court back to the

Council, has appropriated significantly more money for the agency,

including social workers.

To be candid, the great problem with social workers is the turnover in social workers. This is a profession that is not drawing people any longer. They come and they see this very difficult caseload

and they leave. So the District of Columbia, you are absolutely

right, Mr. Chairman, has a huge problem here, but a problem that

is not the court’s problem, but the problem of the agency itself,

under the jurisdiction now of the District of Columbia

Senator DEWINE. Mr. Chairman, again, you point out very correctly there are two sides to this problem, fixing one doesn’t solve

the whole problem unless you fix the other problem.

Now, we have a division, I think, of responsibility. We have, according to the 1997 bill, a lot more responsibility in the area of

courts. What we try to do with this bill is to begin to fix the court

system. Senator Landrieu and I, through the appropriations process and the District of Columbia bill which we hope to get on the

floor shortly, as you know, have added an additional $35 million

15

basically, as my colleagues point out, to implement the reforms

contained in this bill. So I think the Congress is moving on the

court side.

The District has taken over, as my colleague has pointed out, the

other side, and I think frankly that in the future, as a matter of

public policy, we may have to help on the other side even more

than we are doing today.

Senator DURBIN. If I could just ask one question, and then, of

course, Congressman DeLay.

So with the D.C. appropriations bill that you and Senator

Landrieu are working on, what do you believe will be the caseload

that these caseworkers will be shouldering?

Senator DEWINE. Our bill and this bill are not directed at that

side of it as much as we are at trying to get the courts fixed.

Mr. DELAY. Mr. Chairman, my wife and I have been involved in

this for a very long time, many years, and have been foster parents. We are in the process of building a community to give kids

like these a safe, permanent home. We have traveled all over the

country looking at different models of how things are done in this

regard.

I truly think that some in this fight, in trying to shift the blame

or trying to avoid being blamed, are always pointing the finger at

somebody else here in the District. The leadership that the Mayor

and Ms. Norton have shown inside the District is astounding on

this issue.

The District needs to fix its own system. We have jurisdiction

over the court; we fix the court. But I have been working with Ms.

Norton and the Mayor and others, the whole community of child

welfare, to fix the system. It was terribly broken, it was terribly

designed. It was designed not with kids in mind, but turf in mind.

Let me give you one quick example. They split up abused and neglected; the police got the abused and the child welfare system got

the neglected. Most of these kids are both; if you are abused, you

are neglected. No system splits them apart, and nobody was talking to each other. This is an example of not falling through the little cracks as these kids were being thrown in the crevices that

were so big in the system.

The CASA program here is not what it should be. The child advocates program here is not what it should be. This community is not

supporting the child welfare system with donations and volunteers

like it should be. So we are all trying to work together to redesign

all of this system.

The Mayor has sent his people over the country to look at models

of what needs to be done, but in my mind it all starts with the

court. I am not a lawyer, but I do know where it starts. The responsibility of the court taking a child away from a family takes

on a huge responsibility. It doesn’t just stop at the bench. Most

family court judges don’t just rule and that is the end of that case.

They look into the cases, they follow the cases. They are really

tough on the social workers. They are involved in the community,

and that is what we are trying to change.

Senator DURBIN. Congressman DeLay, I think most of us have

made reference to this morning’s newspaper story, but this story

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relates to at least some nonfeasance, let’s say, by the social worker

who didn’t visit the family for 7 months.

Mr. DELAY. Right.

Senator DURBIN. So if we are talking about the interests of the

children and focusing on judges, the point I am raising is should

we not also be focusing on caseloads for social workers.

Mr. DELAY. Certainly.

Senator DURBIN. So if this is going to be truly oriented toward

the child’s best interest, we have to do both. Doing one without the

other still leaves a very serious problem in the system, and even

the best efforts of the best judge or magistrate could really result

in this dereliction of duty. That is why I am raising this to say that

if this is a true reform, then you cannot ignore those two elements,

at least those two, if not more.

Senator DEWINE. Mr. Chairman, could I just make a comment?

Senator DURBIN. Sure, go ahead.

Senator DEWINE. Ultimately, though, you have to get back to the

issue of who is responsible. There are two issues with the point

that you just made, it seems to me, with caseworkers. One is they

probably have to have more resources, more money. The second is

it is a question of who ultimately is responsible with the District

taking this back over.

That is why I said a minute ago this bill does not deal with that

side of it. Our appropriation of $35 million really doesn’t deal with

that side of it. It is one side of the problem that we have to fix.

We have the ultimate responsibility to fix this side.

I also believe that as a matter of public policy in the future, we

are probably going to have to look at trying to fix the other side

of that. To allow this to continue in our Nation’s Capital is wrong;

it is a crime. We should not allow it to happen. But based on the

1997 law, we have the responsibility, or a lot of the responsibility

on this side and we are not in any position to point fingers and say

that the case work isn’t being done, when the side that we have

some responsibility for as far as the judges is in such a mess. That

is all we are trying to do with this bill.

Senator DURBIN. Let me ask you about this burn-out question. I

want to put something on the record here. Congresswoman Norton

has made this point earlier about social workers that because of

the volume of work that they have and the nature of the work,

there is a high turnover.

It has been my experience as a practicing attorney many, many

years ago that there were people who were really committed to this

type of practice at all levels, from judges on down to advocates and

attorneys who really worked it hard, and some of them were just

extraordinary people.

I think that this is a very difficult part of legal practice because

it emotionally can tear you to pieces on a day-to-day basis when

you see the terrible things that are happening among people, and

certainly to children. And I guess the question I ask you on this

burn-out question is can we really find this supply, this inventory

of attorneys coming out of law school or those who have been in

practice for a while who are prepared to make a dedication to this

a major part of their lives, 5 years. In Cook County, the reform has

resulted in terms of service of 2 years in the family court.

17

Now, I am just asking you that in an open-ended way and I am

not sure any of us can really answer it. We would hope, for goodness sake, that there is an abundance of people who would want

to step in and do this. But I will tell you I found my family practice

as a lawyer to be the toughest practice I had, not in terms of hours

but in terms of bringing home my problems and worrying about

them at night and wondering if I was doing the right thing for the

families involved here.

I can understand that every attorney may not want to become a

judge in this practice, nor should they be, while others can make

a lifetime commitment to it and do a marvelous job. So tell me

about the 5-year commitment and your thoughts on the burn-out

question.

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Chairman, I would like to speak to that because I think this is the only point of real difference between my

two colleagues—you have heard them both talk about 5 years

here—and me. The rest of this is what we have really all agreed

upon, and even this I think we can come to some understanding

on.

We came to the conclusion that our court should remain an integrated court, a court part of a larger court, and we came to that

conclusion based on the evidence. We had a juvenile court here, we

had a family court here. It was a disaster. In fact, the court was

upgraded and made a part of our integrated court, and the court

itself improved vastly when it became an integrated part of the

court. It improved in its prestige, it improved in the way it was received by the bar.

The court doesn’t have a lot of credibility before the Subcommittee, and so when the court said it wanted 3 years, the Subcommittee was skeptical. They were skeptical because the court

had to be dragged kicking and screaming by the bar and by the

Council for Court Excellence to the point where it would make

these reforms itself. Had the court moved ahead in the way the bar

and the Council for Court Excellence had said years ago, we

wouldn’t have even needed to do this. So I came to this with absolutely no sense of whether it should be 3 years, 4 years, 5 years,

or 10 years.

Mr. DeLay is not a lawyer, but he feels strongly that if anything

is there for children, it ought to be there for children, and if you

are a judge, by golly, you ought to be there for children for as long

as it takes. Well, I am a member of the bar and have some familiarity, though not a lot, with family law. Recognizing that this was

part of an integrated court, I then sent my staff to find out the

state of the art.

I was satisfied that if we had 3 years—understand, I didn’t come

with the court’s imprimatur here because I have skepticism about

the court, too. But the court now has 1 year, so it seemed to me

that if you now have triple that, you are getting a genuine commitment and you are getting people who are saying, I feel deeply

about children; I may not want to spend the rest of my life dealing

with the hardest problems in the District of Columbia, which are

parents and children caught in the deepest social problems, but I

think I owe an obligation to spend 3 years of my life.

18

So I believe that that was an appropriate compromise. Our bill

has another kind of compromise in it because Mr. DeLay and I,

when we reached this disagreement, cut the baby in half and we

came to a compromise. But I want you to know this was a disagreement we had, but it is a disagreement based on our sense of what

would be best for the court. It is not a disagreement that is rooted

in any principle that any of us could say must be. I respect the difference we have here.

The one difference I would have with my good friend and partner, Tom DeLay, is I don’t think it is an insult for a judge to say

this is very difficult. This is what I would envision: I would envision that a judge would, in fact, want to do this. We do have volunteers in this, but they would say, if I could have a year in the Superior Court, to give some greater variety in my life I would come

back and do this because I think the most important thing to do

in the District of Columbia is to deal with these children.

So I would like that judge to be able at the end of 3 years to say,

OK, I am going to do something else, but I will be back because

this is where my commitment in life is. So I accept that because

there are so many integrated courts around the country that have

3 years or less that that was good. I was willing to reach a compromise, which is neither 3 nor 5 years, as you will see in our bill,

if that is all we can get. This is the honest-to-God truth of how we

got to where we are.

Mr. DELAY. Mr. Chairman, I have got to tell you, children in this

District remain an average 4 years in foster care. They don’t have

the luxury of burn-out, and I don’t think it is tough to ask a judge

to serve the length of time that the kids are in foster care.

For someone to claim that they don’t want a system that makes

a judge serve 5 years because of burn-out is an attitude that

doesn’t care about the kids. They care about their own careers and

their own judges. I refer to Judge McCown’s testimony on this very

subject, and he has 13 years as a family court judge in Austin,

Texas.

Burn-out happens for many reasons, but it usually happens with

‘‘I didn’t want to do this in the first place and now I wish I was

out of it.’’ Whether it is a judge or the social workers or the volunteers that hear these cases everyday and deal with these poor kids

everyday, do you know what keeps them going? It is success. That

is what keeps them going.

Senator DURBIN. Congressman DeLay, let me ask you this: Isn’t

it also possible that burn-out is not a reflection of not caring about

the kids, but in some cases caring too much about them? Getting

emotionally committed and feeling the pain of what is happening

in your courtroom has got to take an emotional and physical toll.

I once asked a young woman who worked in a hospice, I said this

must be a very sad job. No, she said, it is not, it is a very hopeful

and happy job. People know what is coming and they are making

plans. She said, I had a sad job. And I said what was that? She

said, I was on a hotline for child abuse and neglect. She said, I

couldn’t take it, after a while I just couldn’t take it. Now, here was

a loving, caring social worker who went into a hospice, but it just

tore her to pieces every single day to pick up that phone line and

to hear those cases, one after another.

19

So I am not going to argue that there aren’t some who would

look at this as an assignment with no future, but there are some

who would look at this as an assignment where they just frankly

cannot handle the burden that comes to them every single day. I

hope we can allow for both possibilities as we discuss this reform.

I don’t speak to it because I didn’t practice in this area but just

a little bit, but it struck me that there were people that had no

business being there in the first place and others who were really

carrying a heavy burden from this.

Senator DEWINE. Mr. Chairman, you make some very valid

points, and I think everyone brings to this their own experience.

In my home State of Ohio, we elect judges for 6 years and so there

are many, many judges who run, make the decision to run for a

position in family court or domestic relations, whatever it is called

locally, and they know they are going to be there 6 years. So I don’t

think it is extraordinary to think that we are going to find people

to serve this period of time.

I think the other message we are trying to send is that we don’t

want this looked at as a stepping stone to anything else. There are

some things that are unique about this court and where it sits, and

this court has been looked at sometimes as a stepping stone to

something else. You go and do your job here and you are going to

be in the U.S. Attorney’s office or you will be appointed to the Federal bench or something else.

I think the message we are trying to send is there is nothing

more important than our kids and we want people who want to do

this. Yes, maybe after they serve their term, they will do something

else, but we want them for the term to be focused on children.

There is, I think, a learning curve. I don’t know where that is,

and I think in every job it is probably different and maybe for

every individual it is different. Just as teachers tell us that it takes

about 5 years before the teacher really hits his or her stride—and

I think we can relate to that in the U.S. Senate or the House of

Representatives.

Senator DURBIN. There is a different learning curve, incidentally,

in the Senate and the House. [Laughter.]

Senator DEWINE. Well, I am sure it is different. It gets higher

or lower; I don’t know which.

I think that 5 years is not an unreasonable period of time. Is it

the magic time? I mean, 6 years, 7 years, 4 years—who knows? I

don’t think any of us knows for sure. I just think 5 years is a reasonable period of time.

Mr. DELAY. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to finish my statement with

reading from Judge McCown. I think he puts it very well in his testimony. ‘‘The cause of judicial burn-out is not the number or difficulty of the cases. The cause of judicial burn-out is failure at one’s

work, a feeling of hopelessness about the task. A committed judge

with training and experience who sits in a specialized family court

doing good work draws deep satisfaction from helping children and

families. While such a judge may eventually tire and seek a new

assignment, the judge is not likely to do so in a mere 5 years.’’

My point is that if you spend any time in this child welfare community at all, you will find people who deal with failure after failVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:06 Jan 13, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00023 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 76803.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
20

ure after failure, but they get that one kid that is a success and

that makes all the failures worthwhile.

I mean, these are kids that have terrible issues that they have

to deal with. I don’t know what it is in the District of Columbia,

but 93 percent of the violent criminals in Texas prisons were

abused and neglected children. But there are a lot of successes out

there that you could point to of wonderful foster kids that dealt

with their problems and moved on to be productive citizens.

Senator DURBIN. I will ask one last question and then I will go

to my colleague, Senator Carper, who I am glad has joined us here.

The other element that was raised in this Washington Post article and has been raised by others was the bill’s elimination of the

court’s Domestic Violence Unit. Can you tell me why you eliminated it?

Ms. NORTON. It is a non-issue. It wasn’t eliminated. It is a question of language. Domestic violence is one of the great all-time bipartisan issues in the House of Representatives and the Senate.

There was a good-faith effort on the part of the staff to put language in that preserved the Unit, while making sure that the cases

all came into the one family/one judge. It is a technical question

of language. It is not even worth your time.

Senator DURBIN. So you want the Domestic Violence Unit?

Ms. NORTON. Mr. DeLay and I are fully committed, and always

have been. It has never been an issue.

Mr. DELAY. It never was.

Senator DURBIN. Senator Carper.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER

Senator CARPER. Mr. Chairman, whenever I see Representative

Norton and Representative DeLay sitting together at a table and

favoring the same cause, I pause. [Laughter.]

Senator CARPER. This is a day to remember.

Mike DeWine and I came here together in 1982, so we are colleagues of long-standing. Thank you for coming.

As a former governor whose job included appointing judges to all

the State courts in Delaware for the last 8 years, I wouldn’t like

the idea of the Federal Government coming in and telling us how

to run our court system—and we don’t have elected judges; we

have judges appointed by the governor for 12-years terms, including for the family court. But my State would not have taken well

to the notion of the Federal Government coming in and attempting

to micromanage State courts.

I have actually heard from some folks in the legal community in

my State who have encouraged me to oppose this legislation. I have

not talked with the Chairman about the legislation.

But let me ask Representative Norton this: Would you like to be

called ‘‘Representative’’ or ‘‘Congresswoman’’ or ‘‘Delegate?’’

Ms. NORTON. I think that technically I could be called ‘‘Delegate’’

and ‘‘Congresswoman,’’ so obviously I would choose ‘‘Congresswoman.’’ [Laughter.]

Senator CARPER. Congresswoman Norton, just talk to us a little

bit about the notion of the Federal Government coming in and

micromanaging to this extent the nature and constitution of your

court.

21

Ms. NORTON. It is an interesting you raise this, Senator. I opened

my testimony by trying to make sure everybody understood they

weren’t having an out-of-body experience, because the Senate is, of

course, accustomed to our appropriations, and explained that while

the Council and the Mayor are by far the most competent people

to do anything about children and family and courts in the District

of Columbia, when the Home Rule Act was passed in 1973, for reasons that escaped me courts were left under the jurisdiction of the

Congress and not put under the jurisdiction of the D.C. Government. Almost everything else was.

Interestingly, the Council has just had a hearing in which it is

asking that the courts be returned to the District of Columbia. Mr.

DeLay, I must say, has respected home rule fully, but he and I had

to act, and you have had to act because the District of Columbia

is not empowered to act on its own courts.

Mr. DELAY. The court is totally paid for by the Federal Government and is under the jurisdiction of Congress.

Ms. NORTON. Interestingly, the Council said it was willing to pay

for its own courts, even though you don’t have a lot to say about

courts except to appoint the judges.

We are for an appointive system the way you had in Delaware,

so the Council wouldn’t even have a lot to do with it. The Mayor

would do the appointments. But they said, we know if we get them,

we are going to have to pay for them, and they thought they had

the money to pay for them.

Senator CARPER. Just so it is clear, currently the way the system

works is the President nominates and the Senate confirms judicial

appointments to the Superior Court?

Ms. NORTON. Yes.

Senator CARPER. And there are about five divisions in the Superior Court, is that correct?

Ms. NORTON. Yes.

Senator CARPER. Just help me understand the legislation. How

would that change under this legislation?

Ms. NORTON. The matter you have just raised is not touched by

this legislation. I will be introducing a bill in the next term that

would transfer the courts to the District of Columbia and then we

wouldn’t be bothered with this matter at all.

Mr. DELAY. I want to make sure you understand what we are

doing with this legislation, creating a different pool of judges dedicated to a family court in a different way than previously organized

in the court. So we have brought reforms to the table that the child

welfare community, as well as those of us who work in this area,

understand are needed by the Superior Court. And I have to say

that the Superior Court judges have resisted it every step of the

way.

Ms. NORTON. I ought to say for the record that I asked the Council to look at the bill, the Mayor to look at the bill. The Council

passed a resolution endorsing the bill. Now, some of those things

like the Domestic Violence Unit still have some technical problems

in language, but they have endorsed this bill. So this bill has the

home rule imprimatur of the District of Columbia.

22

Senator CARPER. When you hear people speak against the legislation, just share with us what you think may be the most valid

criticisms of the legislation.

Mr. DELAY. I didn’t go to law school. I wasn’t trained to do that.

Ms. NORTON. I think you will hear in Judge King’s testimony

some criticisms of the legislation. My point of difference with him

is he knows or should have known that virtually everything in his

testimony is now in negotiation with the Senate, because on the

floor of the House I indicated that and my staff has indicated that

to him.

Some have said he doesn’t want any legislation at all. Others

have said that the basic difference is that the judges want—‘‘we

now only have 1 year to serve, we would rather have 3 years,’’ which is what I initially have supported, and certainly not 5 years,

which is what Mr. DeLay supported. And now we have a kind of

hybrid in there to reflect this difference.

But beyond that, it would be hard to find a criticism of one family/one judge. More money for this court, money that the Senate

and the House were willing to give beyond what is now in the bill,

but the court came forward with the scenario that they got most

of the rest of the money redistributed in other ways.

So I am going to leave my staff here to hear what criticisms

there are of the bill, especially since the bill has been endorsed by

the Mayor and the City Council, although they did endorse three

judges and not the amalgam we now have in the bill.

Mr. DELAY. I can’t answer your question because I think their

criticisms are all bogus. It blows me away, the kind of criticisms

they are making to protect their own little turf, and that has been

the biggest problem we have had.

What this bill represents is best practices, from the ABA, from

all the organizations. This is what people do all around the country. This is what this reform is. We came together with 5 years as

a compromise, but I started with a new family court. I wanted a

new family court, separate from the practices of this Superior

Court, designed like those best practices around the country and

how they do it well.

Because of criticism from the judges, we have worked our way

down all the way to the 3- and 5-year solution. That is a compromised compromise. I have served with both of you in the House

and you know how difficult it is for me to compromise. [Laughter.]

Senator DEWINE. If I could just make one comment, you weren’t

here when I made it before, but I do want to repeat it, and that

is despite what may appear to be differences and what are differences, this bill is a product of a lot of compromise at this point.

This is not a bill that was thrown together by the three of us.

Each one of us has spent a lot of time talking with the judges, and

this is a bill that probably, if each one of us was drafting it—it is

very different than if I sat down and drafted the bill. It is a good

bill. It fundamentally improves an area where we have responsibility. Whether or not Congress loses that responsibility in a year

or 2 years, we have it now and I think we need to act on that responsibility.

Senator CARPER. Can I make a closing comment?

Senator DURBIN. Sure.

23

Senator CARPER. Our State of Delaware has about 750,000 residents. How many people live in the District these days?

Ms. NORTON. Almost 600,000.

Senator CARPER. We are just a little bit bigger. During my time

as governor, one of the toughest things that I dealt with was when

we would lose a child from child abuse, killed in many cases by a

member of the family, a parent. It didn’t happen often, maybe once

a year, but if it happened at all, it was too often. It was a painful

experience.

When it did happen. We would look at our courts to see if the

problem lied with our family court, and they came under a fair

amount of criticism. If we look at our Division of Child Protective

Services, the folks who worked there were oftentimes criticized by

one group or the other or by the media for not doing enough.

I concluded that the courts are clearly part of the solution. Clearly, the Division of Child Productive Services is part of the solution.

But the real solution is working with the parents and the families

and the folks who are raising the kids, to reduce the incidence of

teenage pregnancy, to make sure that the folks who are having

kids are prepared to bring those children into the world and to

raise them. So while the issues you raise here are important, I

would go back and say that we as a body need to keep that in

mind.

The last thing I would say is I and Dick Durbin, Mike DeWine,

and Tom DeLay used to work out in the House gym sometimes together. And we probably don’t look like it today, but I remember

Tom DeLay used to wear a T-shirt to work out in the gym that said

‘‘Don’t Mess With Texas.’’ And the idea of the two of you sitting

here—I almost thought that Congresswoman Norton might wear a

T-shirt that said ‘‘Don’t Mess With the District.’’ [Laughter.]

Senator CARPER. We want to do the right thing.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you. I would like to make one point that

may not be altogether clear about this bill. I am glad that Tom

DeLay raised where he started. Tom DeLay started with the notion

of a family court and you have a 15-year term. I started from essentially the situation we have now where you integrated.

I think that what you have done here today is to try to bring out

the differences so that we can see what is yet to be done on this

bill. But I think what has to be stressed here is how the Senate

and House have worked in a bipartisan and bicameral way on a

bill coming initially from very different parts of the family law

spectrum on that.

I think I should also be clear that we called in the court for

countless meetings. Mr. DeLay, a leader of the House, taking his

own time to sit down and hear in great detail about what the court

wanted, tried to incorporate as much of what the court wanted as

was possible.

And when all is said and done, while there are differences here

and there, there really are very few differences left in this bill. The

term is the one issue that has divided Democrat and Republican.

Other than that, it is pretty hard to tell, based on the fact that we

are from different parties, the difference between us on this bill.

I think what has most pleased me about this process is that although Tom is the toughest guy to negotiate with in the House, the

24

fact is that we were able to get to great agreement. Mr. DeWine

was Chair when we started this process, and I must say that I

think in a real sense, particularly affecting the District of Columbia

and particularly given the differences between Mr. DeLay and me

in the beginning, the way Mr. DeWine in the Senate conducted

himself and then Ms. Landrieu, this has been a real model of how

people who begin with very different points of view can come together so that there are almost no differences among them.

Senator DURBIN. I would like to ask one last question and then

make a comment, and the question is this: If we stick with the

principle of one judge/one family/one child and we know that there

is a finite limit to how long these judges will serve in this capacity

out of a 15-year term, is it your understanding or does the bill provide for the case to stay with the judge once the judge leaves this

Family Division?

Ms. NORTON. That is a good question. I am trying to find what

the words are. We have a limited exception.

Mr. DELAY. That is a detail I am not sure of. All the cases stay

with the Family Division. There is a limited exception.

Ms. NORTON. Yes, there is a limited exception so that we don’t

get the same situation we have now where 59 judges really have

all these cases.

Senator DEWINE. If a judge can finish it in 6 months, he keeps

it.

Ms. NORTON. That is it.

Mr. DELAY. Olivia Golden will answer in her testimony.

Senator DURBIN. Let me say this: First, I am on the D.C. Appropriations Subcommittee and I want to say to Senator DeWine, Senator Carper, and any staffers from Senator Landrieu, let’s look at

the social worker part of this. I don’t believe we are doing our duty

if we don’t address the social worker part.

Senator DEWINE. I agree.

Senator DURBIN. So, let’s do that. And, second, let me tell you I

don’t know how much we can get done in the remaining time we

will be here. Congressman DeLay probably knows better than most

in this room how long that time may be, and he may be uncertain.

I am.

I want to try to do this right. I just think there is entirely too

much at stake here for us to do it in a haphazard way, but there

is entirely too much at stake here for us to do nothing. We have

to find what our level of responsibility is here and devote the time

to get it done as well as we possibly can in the remaining time that

is given to us.

If it has to be held over to do it right, I am going to ask that

that happen. But to move it from the Subcommittee to the full

Committee to the floor and then to conference and to the President’s desk is a tall order in a short period of time.

Ms. NORTON. It is, although I would ask you to try.

Senator DURBIN. Well, I am certainly going to try.

Ms. NORTON. We have been working on this for a year. We have

got the money in the bill and the differences are curly-cue differences.

25

1The prepared statement of Judge King appears in the Appendix on page 59.

Senator DURBIN. This was referred to us September 20 or so, so

the fact that this hearing is taking place in this room at this time

is an indication of our commitment.

Ms. NORTON. It is.

Senator DEWINE. We appreciate it.

Senator DURBIN. And the commitment will continue.

Thank you to this panel. We appreciate you being here.

Ms. NORTON. Thank you.

Mr. DELAY. Thank you.

Senator DURBIN. The next panel includes the Hon. Rufus G.

King, Chief Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia; Dr. Olivia Golden, Director of D.C.’s Children and Family Services Agency; Deborah Luxenberg, Chair of the Children in the

Courts Subcommittee of the Council for Court Excellence; and Margaret J. McKinney, Chair of the Family Law Section of the D.C.

Bar.

If I could ask you all to please take your seats, I hope that what

just transpired will continue because it is rare on Capitol Hill. It

was an actual dialogue. Usually, we are given all of 1, 3, or 5 minutes to try to think of inspiring questions that might attract the

attention of the press. Instead, I think we had a conversation,

which at this point in time may be more beneficial than reading

a statement or strict time limits.

I would like to invite each of you to give an opening statement.

Your complete statements are part of the record. You have heard

the drift of our conversation. If you could address the issues raised

and those that you think should have been raised and weren’t in

your few minutes of opening testimony, then Senator Carper and

I will follow through with questions.

Judge King, would you like to start?

TESTIMONY OF RUFUS KING, III,1 CHIEF JUDGE, SUPERIOR

COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA; ACCOMPANIED BY

LEE SATTERFIELD, JUDGE, SUPERIOR COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Judge KING. Good morning, Chairman Durbin, Senator Carper.

I will proceed on the assumption that the full statement is inserted

the record.

Senator DURBIN. It will be.

Judge KING. I will try to chop this up pretty much so that we

can get to the conversation. I very much appreciate the way you

are doing that.

Let me begin by expressing gratitude that I am sure is shared

by all Americans, as you and your staff are pressing ahead with

business with courage and dignity, despite the threats to your personal safety. In these unprecedented times, your efforts make me

proud to be able to share in the spirit of America.

I want to skip some other parts to go right to the two things, I

want to outline in very brief form what we see are difficulties with

the bill, and I also want to point to some things that the court is

doing to undertake reform, since there has been some suggestion

26

that the court doesn’t want reform and has resisted any efforts to

change it.

Let me emphasize that we have worked very hard and very closely with staff. We have tried very hard to make our views known,

to understand their views, to compromise, to work out differences

where we had differences, and to clarify where we were in essential

agreement.

My understanding was the point of today’s hearing was to comment on the bills, as written, not as might be undergoing some negotiating process where things would be fixed that we didn’t know

about. So my testimony goes to what we have in black and white,

and as judges, of course, that is what we must be concerned with

because at the end of the day that is what we are going to be governed by.

Let me detail a couple of things. As I came in as Chief Judge,

I, along with all of the candidates for that position, had agreed that

family court was the primary issue that needed attention in the

Superior Court.

And, Senator Carper, you correctly point out the court has five

divisions—criminal, civil, probate, tax, and family.

When I came in, I appointed a new judge to take over the Family

Division, as is the Chief’s responsibility. We formed special task

forces to look at the issues, to consult with members of the bar, the

social service establishment, the agencies, the private, non-government organizations, to try to come up with recommendations as to

what should be done and what should be undertaken.

In addition, realizing the urgency of the issues, I took a number

of steps that were possible within existing resources and staff and

funding. I assigned an additional judge to expedite abuse and neglect cases, rearranged the calendar so that we could address those

cases and relieve an overcrowding problem that was occurring

there.

I directed remodeling of existing space so that we could have a

more family-friendly waiting area for the children and families appearing in court. I committed the court to a close working relationship with the Child and Family Services Agency, the CFSA, including biweekly meetings with Dr. Olivia Golden, its new Director,

and the presiding judge of the Family Division.

And I have made clear to her from the beginning that whatever

we may disagree on substantively on a particular provision, that effort will continue. The court will remain open to those discussions

and dialogues. When we had a recent unfortunate incident where

a social worker had not complied with a court order and a sanction

was imposed, I went over with the presiding judge and with Judge

Lee Satterfield, who is the new, incumbent presiding judge—and

forgive me; I do want to introduce him. Judge Satterfield has

agreed to respond to any questions.

We went over to talk to the social workers to see what the issues

were and to see if we could better understand the pressures they

were under and try to work with them and explain what we needed

to do in order to avoid that kind of unfortunate incident.

In consultation with CFSA on the need of social workers for more

time in the field, I ordered limits on when neglect and review hearings could be scheduled, and that will start in January 2002. I diVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:06 Jan 13, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 76803.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
27

rected the court’s information technology director to proceed with

the Family Division as the first phase of an integrated justice information system as rapidly as possible after congressional approval

and after funding is available.

I secured technical assistance from the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges’ Model Court Project for improving

case management techniques, training and strategic planning in

our Family Division.

Let me interrupt there to say that I think it was said that the

court has no training. We have, from the time that I came on the

court, beginning with 2 weeks of nothing but training for every incoming judge, with an emphasis on the area where that judge is

going to come in—so if it is a criminal judge, much of that 2 weeks

is spent in criminal matters. If it is a family court judge, much of

that training addresses the family assignment that that judge will

undertake, along with some general training about service as a

judge.

We have had extensive training on the ASFA since its passage

in 1997. We have had consistent training both at our annual preparation for assignment training in December and at our 2-day conference in May every year. In addition, I have both encouraged and

approved judges to travel all over the country to conferences, to

seminars, to meetings of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. Judge Satterfield was in California recently.

Judge Josey-Herring, the deputy presiding judge, was in Cincinnati

recently.

So we make every effort to see that our judges are fully informed

and have the opportunity to refresh their learning and to learn new

things and to make contacts throughout the United States. At my

direction, Superior Court judges and Family Division staff are continuing additional training in this field at this time.

The court initiated a pilot child mediation project which actually,

again, contrary to, I think, a statement that was made—we have

had some mediation in child cases on a very limited experimental

basis for 2 or 3 years now. It has not been lately, although we have

had mediation for divorce and other Family Division cases. But the

reason we didn’t do it in abuse and neglect cases is because the

thinking for the most part was that with the imbalance of power

and the terror that could prevail in a family situation, it was unwise to put people into a negotiation situation in those cases. That

thinking has changed. Safeguards have been worked out. People

are beginning to work with that, and we are very much in that

trend and working with it and intend to pursue it.

I have asked judges to volunteer for terms of 3 years in the Family Division beginning January 2002, regardless of the outcome of

any legislative changes that may be enacted by then. I extended

the related case rule within the Family Division to implement the

principle of one family/one judge as much as possible, pending additional staff and resources.

Again, let me just pause a moment. I think there is a suggestion

that these cases are kicked around from pillar to post. When a

child comes in, they basically have two judges. There is a trial

judge who makes the decision, did abuse occur. If there is a stipulation that that abuse occurred, then that case gets sent to one of

28

the 59 judges, who is that child’s judge and that family’s judge for

as long as that child may be in the system—one judge.

In fact, that is only slightly different from what Judge McCown

does in Texas. He is a civil court judge who has abuse and neglect

cases which he keeps from beginning to end. We do essentially the

same thing, except that because of our volume we cannot keep

them all in the family court. We just don’t have enough judges to

do that with our given resources.

The resources and the bills here may change that, and that will

be fine. That could work better. We don’t advocate spreading them

among 59 judges, but it is an adjustment to our resources. And the

number of cases that are coming in—I won’t spend a long time on

it, but the number of cases went up from 400 coming in a year back

in the late 1980’s to now around 1,600 coming in every year. So we

have to find some way of placing those cases before judges who

have the time and the ability to service them.

Senator DURBIN. We have a subtle little mechanism of lights that

is in the other committee room and——

Judge KING. You are telling me I am too long.

Senator DURBIN [continuing]. I am going to serve as the yellow

light, so please wrap up, if there are any other thoughts you would

like to share as you close.

Judge KING. We are not about opposing reform, but we are very

much against doing it wrong. This is critically important. These

children are too important.

I won’t dignify the comments that seemed to appear to cast aspersion on the dedication of the men and women who have chosen

service on the Superior Court, and in the Family Division in particular. That doesn’t mean discussion. You just come down and

watch us in the court house, if you wish.

But there are some important issues that I think need to be

fixed. I don’t think it takes a long time and I am not asking for

a delay in the process, but it is critically important to do it right.

One: Both bills transfer all family cases now pending before

judges outside the Family Division—that is section 3(b)(2)(B) in

both bills—transfer every case, whether it is a divorce case that is

under supervision by a judge. I have the Haft mediation that took

4 years to settle and they wanted me to retain jurisdiction, and

that case should not be transferred. So it says all bills go back in.

Two: As written—I don’t know whether this was intended or not.

I rather hope and believe it was not, but, as written, H.R. 2657

would impair the operation of the Domestic Violence Unit, and S.

1382 would require its dismantling.

Three: The bills would impose 5-year terms on judges new to the

bench, and I am going to ask that if that question comes up that

Judge Satterfield address it.

Four: The bills micromanage the court in a way that could tie

our hands, and particularly in ways that we may not be able to

foresee sitting here today.

So I thank you for your concern and interest. This is a critically

important issue to the District of Columbia, and your interest and

attention is very much appreciated.

29

1The prepared statement of Dr. Golden appears in the Appendix on page 69.

Senator DURBIN. Thank you, and when we get into our conversation here, I am going to ask Judge Satterfield for his comments as

well. Dr. Golden.

TESTIMONY OF OLIVIA GOLDEN, Ph.D.,1 DIRECTOR, CHILD

AND FAMILY SERVICES AGENCY, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Dr. GOLDEN. Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Durbin and

Senator Carper. I am Olivia Golden. I am the new, recently-appointed Director of the Child and Family Services Agency, and it

is an honor to be here to testify on behalf of Mayor Williams. In

my previous life as Assistant Secretary for Human Services I

worked with many of the bipartisan members on ASFA, Adoption

and Safe Families Act. So I especially appreciate the chance to be

here advancing the implementation of that law in the District of

Columbia.

I want to commend the Subcommittee, Senators Landrieu and

DeWine, Congressman DeLay and Delegate Norton for their commitment and leadership on the legislation, and Judge King, Judge

Satterfield, and Judge Walton for the time that they have dedicated to regular planning with us at CFSA.

As Congresswoman Norton said, the Mayor strongly supports the

proposals under discussion at this hearing because they represent

major steps forward toward his key goals of safety, permanence

and well-being for the District’s most vulnerable children.

Enacting court reform now would coincide with the major

changes that we are making within CFSA and other city agencies.

To respond to your question, Chairman Durbin, the changes we are

making within the agency in regard to how we do social work need

to be synchronized with the changes in the court. Delay in enacting

this important legislation would risk stalling our reform and failing

to seize this moment of opportunity. In addition, the Mayor believes that full funding for the Court and the District’s implementation of the legislation is critical to reaping the benefits of reform.

CFSA is responsible for addressing child abuse and neglect in the

District of Columbia. It came into existence as a cabinet-level agency just 4 months ago, June 16, 2001, at the close of the Federal

court receivership. Its enabling legislation, enacted in April 2001,

represents landmark reform in the District’s ability to serve children in a unified and accountable manner.

To serve abused and neglected children, as with any child welfare agency, we connect closely with many public and private agencies whose functions are inextricably interwined. The Superior

Court is an integral part of this system, conducting, for example,

more than 1,400 abuse and neglect hearings in September 2001.

Senator CARPER. In 1 month?

Dr. GOLDEN. In 1 month, absolutely. It is an enormous volume,

which is why this is so central to us.

As so many people have commented at this hearing, this complex

system of services in the District has a long history of failing to deliver successful outcomes for children. We have an extraordinary

opportunity today to change that history dramatically by strengthening all of the elements of the system together.

30

We have that opportunity because the work of Mayor Williams

and the City Council and the support of the Congress enabled us

to address a wide range of critical systemic deficits. For example:

We were able to successfully transition out of Federal court receivership.

CFSA’s budget increased by more than $30 million from fiscal

year 2000 to 2001, which will let us make investments to support

children, such as investments in social workers.

The District is currently implementing a major commitment to

expanding and reforming the legal support for our social workers

at CFSA.

CFSA’s enabling legislation fixed the issue that Congressman

DeLay referred to, needing to unify child abuse and neglect, which

had been fragmented. We achieved that on schedule October 1,

2001. So we have unified a fractured service delivery model.

The District has promulgated both foster and group home regulations for the first time ever, which will make it possible to support

and enforce standards of quality.

Without family court reform, we risk sharply reducing the impact

of all of these changes. With family court reform, we believe that

we can achieve the maximum impact.

Two aspects of the proposed legislation stand out as key. The

first, every single one of the Mayor’s reforms will be most effective

for children if implemented in conjunction with a core group of 12

to 15 highly-trained and well-supported judges, as in the proposed

legislation, rather than with the full 59 judges who now handle

abuse and neglect cases.

The second, both legislative proposals, House and Senate, envision key resources and supports that are critical to improving the

speed and quality of decisionmaking in abuse and neglect cases.

In addition to the Mayor’s strong support of prompt enactment,

my written testimony provides four specific comments on the proposed legislation. I will see if the red and yellow lights will allow

me to highlight two of them and I would love questions on the others.

First—and this goes, I think, Chairman Durbin, to some questions you asked—we believe that a key element of successful reform is ensuring that child abuse and neglect cases are concentrated with a core group of well-trained and well-supported

judges. We urge the Subcommittee to defer to the House provision

in regard to circumstances where judges can take cases with them

when they leave the family court, because we believe that it is appropriately narrow and limited to the most extraordinary cases.

We are concerned that the broader exception in the Senate proposal could lead to wider dispersal of cases, making it more difficult to reap the benefits of reform. In regard to the initial transfer

of cases, we believe that transfer of cases to the family court should

occur as expeditiously as possible to reap the benefits for children

and that core, well-supported group of judges.

Second, resources and staffing are critical to meeting the goals

of the reform. We strongly urge the Subcommittee to fully address

the Court’s needs, which include staffing, space, technology. In addition, the Mayor has identified approximately $6 million, as an additional Federal appropriation required in fiscal year 2002 to meet

31

1The prepared statement of Ms. Luxenberg with an attachment appears in the Appendix on

page 81.

the District’s responsibilities under the legislation, including $5 million to support integration across computer systems and $1 million for central liaison and agency on-site representatives.

In conclusion, we believe that a strong family court is the final

piece needed as we strive to improve the District’s child welfare

system. Many people here alluded to the very sad death reported

in the Washington Post today. For me, that redoubles my sense

that we need to reform now and that it is truly important to be

able to synchronize all of the reforms together.

Thank you.

Senator DURBIN. Thank you very much. Ms. Luxenberg.

TESTIMONY OF DEBORAH LUXENBERG,1 CHAIR, CHILDREN IN

THE COURTS COMMITTEE, COUNCIL FOR COURT EXCELLENCE

Ms. LUXENBERG. Good morning, Chairman Durbin and Senator

Carper. Thank you very much for permitting the Council for Court

Excellence to offer testimony here today. My name is Deborah

Luxenberg and I have been in practice for 26 years in the Superior

Court of the District of Columbia. Currently, I am serving as the

Chair of the Children in Courts Committee for the Council for

Court Excellence, and in that capacity I am here, but I hope I will

be able to share a little bit of my practical experience in the court

with you as we go along in this testimony.

The Council for Court Excellence is a District of Columbia-based,

non-partisan, non-profit civic organization that works to improve

the administration of justice in the local and Federal courts and related agencies in the Washington, DC, area.

For the past 20 years, the Council for Court Excellence has been

a unique resource for our community, bringing together members

of the civic, legal, business and judicial communities to work in

common purpose to improve the administration of justice.

We do have judicial members on the board of the Council for

Court Excellence, but I would like to stress that no judicial member

of the Council for Court Excellence board of directors participated

in or contributed to the formulation of our testimony here today.

At the outset, we really need to remember that one reason for

the problems perceived in the Family Division of the Superior

Court is that that division has long been underresourced in every

category. We applaud the congressional priority on family law matters, but we urge the Congress not to enact D.C. family court legislation unless there is an equal commitment to providing the Superior Court with the necessary funding to execute the goals of such

legislation.

Addressing the problems of the court’s Family Division is laudable, and we understand that the Family Division and the court

system of the Superior Court is under the jurisdiction of Congress

and the other elements of the system are not. However, it is very

important for Congress to keep in mind and for all of us to keep

in mind the point that Olivia Golden raised, and that is that the

court system is just one element of the process, that Child and

32

Family Services, the police, the attorneys who serve the children in

the system—everybody must work together.

It is very refreshing to have this momentum from Congress and

to have the Mayor and the whole city focusing on children. It is unfortunate that the deaths of a few children caused some of that

focus, but the momentum is fabulous, and we thank you for the

thoughtfulness and the kind of cross-pollenization of everybody’s

ideas that have gone into this process.

We also really have to commend Chief Judge Rufus King and his

colleagues for the diligence and quality of the Family Division reengineering project that they began in January 2001. Many new

judges joined the Family Division at that time. There was a new

presiding judge, and Judge King has implemented a lot of changes

that were long overdue in the system.

For all of my 26 years of practice, there have been problems in

that system. They come from all different places and reasons, but

a lot of things have been changing very rapidly and almost noticeably since Chief Judge King became the new Chief Judge.

Now, I want to turn to specific provisions of the bill, beginning

with those raised in your letter inviting us to testify today. We support the bill’s mandate of one judge/one family to the greatest extent practicable and feasible, but we believe that the effective date

of this provision should not be deferred for 18 months after enactment.

Rather, implementation should begin promptly for all newly-filed

child abuse and neglect cases in the system. As to the child abuse

and neglect cases already open, some cases are being handled by

judges throughout the Superior Court who have been the only constant a child will see. The social workers come and go. There have

been different attorneys for children. There have been different attorneys for families.

To remove all of those cases immediately just because we have

the goal to move everything into the new family court really doesn’t

take into account what we are all trying to do, which is serve children and give them the continuity that they need so that they are

not faced with strangers every time they come within the system.

One issue I didn’t have in my written testimony but one of the

Senators mentioned, and I think I should say something about it

now, is how the one judge/one family principle is handled when

judges rotate out of that family court.

The goal of this legislation and the way things are being planned

is that there will be a team of social workers and clerks and magistrates and other professionals all giving support to the judges. So

if the judge leaves the case, there will still be continuity on the

case and a team to brief the incoming judge.

Now, what we have had is no continuity in any place in the system. In one case I handled within the last couple of years, every

day I went down to the court system, I had no idea which attorneys

I would deal with, what social workers I would deal with, whether

the social worker would be from CFSA or from one of the vendors

serving that agency. So how do you imagine the parents and children feel?

Second, we support the bill’s creation of a new category of judicial officer, magistrate judge for the Superior Court, and its reVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:06 Jan 13, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 76803.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
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1The prepared statement of Ms. McKinney with attachments appears in the Appendix on page

90.

quirement of specific additional qualifications of training and family law experience. We further support section 6 of the bill which

authorizes the immediate appointment of a special task force of five

magistrate judges to handle child abuse and neglect cases which

have been open for more than 2 years.

However, we believe it is important, because there are thousands

of cases that have been open for over 2 years, that the five-person

magistrate task force devote its time to only a prioritized portion

of those cases. We believe some old cases will actually be closed out

of the system pretty quickly, but there needs to be some strategy

to get the oldest and most difficult cases moving.

Senator DURBIN. If you can wrap up?

Ms. LUXENBERG. All right.

We support the bill’s provisions extending judicial terms in the

family court. We support the goal of the bill’s requirements that all

pending family law cases be reassigned to the family court, well acknowledging that strict immediate implementation of the mandate

might cause more harm than good, so the 18-month transition period seems to be good policy.

On some other points, I am pleased to hear that the domestic violence court language in the bill has been fixed. The domestic violence court is working. It is a model for our country. It is one of

the finest parts of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia

and it should remain intact.

We also believe it is unwise for the statute to lock in particular

numbers of judges for one division of a unified court such as the

Superior Court because there may be fluctuations in the various

types of caseloads and the Chief Judge should have authority to

make adjustments.

I second what Olivia Golden said with respect to staffing and

space. The bill is silent on those requirements, and seeing people

in family cases where there is a lot of volatility sitting in darkened

hallways is not a good way to go. There needs to be sufficient funding of a decent place for these families to have their cases heard.

We also believe that it is crucial to the successful implementation

of this family court that the court’s plan be developed in full consultation and collaboration with the various agencies and other

participants in the process.

I would be happy to answer your questions, if you have any.

Senator DURBIN. Thank you very much. Ms. McKinney.

TESTIMONY OF MARGARET J. McKINNEY,1 CO-CHAIR, FAMILY

LAW SECTION, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BAR

Ms. MCKINNEY. Thank you, Chairman Durbin, and Senator Carper. My name is Meg McKinney. I am the Co-Chair of the Family

Law Section of the D.C. Bar and I am a resident of the District of

Columbia. I have been a family law practitioner practicing in D.C.

and Maryland for approximately 9 years.

The Family Law Section is comprised of attorneys who represent

the children and families who will be most affected by this legislation. As family lawyers, we have always worked to improve the

34

functioning of the Superior Court and the other agencies that affect

the lives of our clients. We appreciate the opportunity to testify.

Although I understand that many of the issues have been addressed in discussions between staff—and I have had many conversations with staffers—we were asked to testify on the bills as

they are currently written, and that is what our testimony addressed.

Getting to this point in the legislative process has, from our view,

been a long and arduous journey. On behalf of the Family Law Section, I would like to thank on the record the sponsors of the bill,

the Members of Congress, the Senators and their staffs, for listening to our concerns and attempting to address the issues in a

constructive fashion, and for continuing to give this issue careful

consideration. We are also grateful for the efforts to ensure the necessary funds that we will need to implement the reforms.

As the lawyers who represent the children and families, we know

that the Family Division has long been in need of attention and

better funding, and we are extremely glad that it appears we are

going to get both of those now.

To its credit, during the past 10 months the court has spent

many hours working with the bar and other stakeholders to improve the Family Division, even without legislation. The administration of the Family Division has already improved significantly.

I can say that as a practitioner down there. There have been major

changes.

My written testimony points out a number of very specific concerns about the two bills that are under consideration, but I

thought it would be helpful to summarize for the Subcommittee the

major areas of agreement amongst the court and the bar and CFSA

and the Council for Court Excellence.

We all agree that one judge/one family should be the goal of the

family court. We all agree that there must be sufficient funding of

the family court this year and in all years in the future. We all

agree that the new cases should stay in the family court, with some

latitude—and there is some disagreement on how much—to make

exceptions for the benefit of the children.

We agree that the reforms should be implemented when there is

a sufficient infrastructure to handle the cases. We agree that the

Domestic Violence Unit should not be dismantled or diminished by

the legislation. Finally, we agree that the length of service by

judges in the family court should be longer than it has been in the

past.

It is clear that we are down to a very few truly substantive

issues, and except for the length of service which I will turn to in

a moment, the remaining issues are what I think could fairly be

described as managerial or implementation issues. It is clear from

both the bills and the testimony today that there is broad support

for the general principles underlying the bill, and now we are down

to the details.

We are concerned about the micromanagement of the court and

the potential unintended consequences of over-legislating court reform. We urge Congress to do only what is absolutely necessary in

this legislation to effectuate the reforms and not to unduly restrict

the discretion of the chief judge.

35

Our specific comments on the bills raise several issues for the

Subcommittee’s consideration. It is our understanding that some of

the proposed changes are non-controversial, and we hope that those

will be included in the final bill.

But we must remember that whatever reforms are enacted will

affect all of the family cases, not just the abuse and neglect cases,

and the court as a whole. It is important to enact the best possible

legislation so the system can function well.

I would like to raise one issue that is not described in detail in

my testimony but was talked about by the previous panel. One of

the great frustrations of the family lawyers in the District has been

our inability to get family lawyers appointed to the bench.

The nomination system is a two-tiered system. First, there is the

nomination commission and then there is the President. Just this

spring, a panel of three names went over to the President. Two of

the three names had significant family law experience, which is extraordinary in and of itself. The person who was chosen to become

a member of the Superior Court was the one person who didn’t

have family law experience.

So one of the things that we hope will happen is that we will be

able to get some family lawyers appointed to the bench. Incidentally, 6 months later the person who was chosen still hasn’t made

it through the process of being confirmed and actually taking the

bench, which is another frustration, is how long it takes to get people appointed to the Superior Court. It causes problems, as you

might imagine, with court administration.

Turning to the length of judicial assignment, in June, before the

House Subcommittee, the City Council, the court, the Family Law

Section, and Dr. Golden on behalf of Mayor Williams testified that

3 years was the appropriate length of mandatory minimum assignment. The Council for Court Excellence agreed that 3 years was

long enough to meet the goals of the reform effort.

The Family Law Section speaks for the lawyers who represent

the residents of this jurisdiction and who actually function in the

Family Division. The Mayor and the City Council speak for the

residents of the jurisdiction, the actual consumers of the court.

As the stakeholders of this system, the consumers of this court

and the residents of this jurisdiction, I believe it is our vote that

should carry the day on the length of assignment in this jurisdiction. Other jurisdictions have chosen their own term lengths, some

of them longer than 3 years, some of them shorter.

Florida recently chose 3 years. Maryland has chosen 1 to 2 years.

Chicago uses 2 years. It is clear from comparing jurisdictions

across the country that there is no real right or wrong answer. The

point is that the other jurisdictions have been able to choose the

length of assignment that best fits the particular needs and limitations of their jurisdictions.

With all due respect, and with gratitude to the Members of Congress and the Senators who have worked so hard on this legislation

and who have followed through on their commitment to provide the

court with the funds it desperately needs, we, the residents, the

stakeholders, and, yes, the judges, should be able to choose the

length of assignment in our court.

36

So thank you for allowing me to express my views on behalf of

the Family Law Section, and I would be happy to answer questions.

Senator DURBIN. Ms. McKinney, what is the average waiting

time—yes, Senator Carper?

Senator CARPER. We all serve on a bunch of different committees

and one of my committees is meeting next door on insurance. So

I just want to say thank you to the witnesses for participating.

Senator DURBIN. Thank you.

Ms. McKinney, what is the average waiting time when you arrive

in court before there is a hearing?

Ms. MCKINNEY. I think that varies from calendar to calendar. I

mean, typically, in my experience, there is an initial calendar call.

Senator DURBIN. Is it a cattle call where everybody comes at the

same time?

Ms. MCKINNEY. It varies from calendar to calendar, but typically,

yes. I think it is not so much that way with the abuse and neglect

courtrooms, but, yes, it is substantially that way.

Senator DURBIN. Judge King or Judge Satterfield, have you ever

taken a look at what other jurisdictions have done to stagger the

call so that people don’t have to wait 2 or 3 hours for a hearing?

Judge KING. We are looking at that.

Judge SATTERFIELD. I think we have looked at that. We looked

at that for our Domestic Violence Unit over the years. I know when

I was the presiding judge of that unit, we looked at those issues

and tried to stagger it. I know in our abuse and neglect calendars,

the judges typically will set each one trial that day and maybe a

pre-trial or something to that effect, and other trials later on. So

judges are staggering. It does depend on the calendar.

That is something that we look at, but oftentimes when we did

not schedule cases at the 9:30 call, a significant number of them,

the judge sat in chambers or sat on the bench, depending on which

judge you were, with nothing to do because the lawyers were not

there or some parties did not show up. So we have to over-book so

we can be in business, so we can get the calendar done.

Senator DURBIN. How often is that the case where you have continuance because of the failure of one party to appear?

Judge SATTERFIELD. Well, it happens. It is not uncommon. I

mean, it is not an uncommon thing where it is not just a continuance, but a delay in the proceedings when people don’t appear,

whether they be social workers or the lawyers that we have to get

together when they show up. So that is a common occurrence.

Senator DURBIN. Let me tell you why I ask that because I have

tried to do a little calculation based on some of the things we have

heard this morning and Dr. Golden’s testimony. Let’s assume we

have these 15 judges in this court and they have a current caseload

of 4,600 or so, so they each have 300 cases assigned to them.

According to Judge King, they will need about four hearings a

year under the current circumstances. So that is approximately five

hearings a day. Is that realistic when you look at the—— Judge SATTERFIELD. That is on top of the other trial matters that

they might have in neglect and abuse cases. When we are talking

about the cases coming back in, those are cases trying to achieve

permanency that there has been a finding of neglect. So the numVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:06 Jan 13, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 76803.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
37

bers that you cite are on top of the additional numbers that the

judge is going to have to deal with.

Senator DURBIN. Well, the same question: Is this realistic?

Judge KING. It is realistic. What happens is you get 5 minutes

per hearing and the judges are basically neutralized as an effective

force in protecting children. This is what we had in the 1970’s and

the 1980’s. We had, we used to call it courtroom 2, and all the neglect and abuse review cases came on one calendar and you might

have 15 reviews in an afternoon, or 20 reviews. By the time you

got all the lawyers in place and opened the hearing and started

hearing it, it was 5 minutes.

Senator DURBIN. Dr. Golden, first, is my math right? It is close.

Go ahead.

Dr. GOLDEN. I would make two points. The first is that the volume is high, and that is why the resources, both the judicial staffing and the magistrates, are really important to make this work.

But the second point I would make is that, to us, when we look

at what could bring children to permanence, comply with ASFA,

the reason you saw Senator Carper’s response to that number of

hearings—it is very high even in relation to our caseload, and that

is partly for all kinds of reasons that lead to the hearings not being

as successful, not being able to make the decision at that moment.

It is partly about our ability, with our social workers and the

Corporation Counsel, to staff 59 courtrooms. It is partly about the

difficulties of scheduling effectively. If you have 12 to 15 judges and

you have a team, you can know how to work together and you can

know you will be in court on this day, you will be out in the field

seeing children this day. So it can be much more effective. Part of

my goal would be that we having fewer but more effective hearings

that would get children to permanence much faster and will be the

goal of the legislation.

Senator DURBIN. Here is the point I am getting to, and this is

an old saying, but they say it. If the only tool you own is hammer,

every problem looks like a nail. So right now we are talking about

judges, how many in the courtrooms, whereas the discussion here

leads us to conclude that this is a corporate effort involving a lot

of different people to make this work.

If we pronounce great success here in the passage of legislation

that establishes 15 magistrates—— Dr. GOLDEN. Plus the 15 judges.

Senator DURBIN [continuing]. In the situation and they have 5-

minute hearings with social workers, with 50 to 100 assigned to

them, how much success are we going to see in this system, how

many more cases like those that were——

Dr. GOLDEN. Well, I would turn it around. If we continue trying

to manage cases across 59 judges who don’t have the support in the

legislation, then I think it will be very hard for our reforms to take

effect. But if we match our reforms—for example, we are doubling

the number of attorneys to support our social workers. We now

have the resources to recruit social workers.

Senator DURBIN. What is your goal, incidentally, on the caseload

for social workers?

Dr. GOLDEN. The goals in the Federal court agreement—there is

a modified final order—depend on the type of case, so they differ

38

on different cases. An intake worker would be aiming for 12 investigations; an ongoing worker 20, or something like that, families in

some cases, children in others. We certainly have many social

workers over that now. We have resources to dramatically——

Senator DURBIN. Was Judge King’s number correct, 100 cases per

social worker?

Dr. GOLDEN. I haven’t ever heard anyone suggest that as an average. It is certainly true that——

Senator DURBIN. Judge, where did you come up with that?

Judge KING. It is not an average; it is as much as it can be, 60,

80, 100. It is far more than the 20 that I think we all agree is the

optimum level.

Dr. GOLDEN. The resources that the City Council and the Mayor

have put into our budget include a range of financial incentives.

Senator DURBIN. But the point I am trying to get to is this: Let’s

assume we do everything, the reforms we have all talked about,

and we have all the judges sitting downtown and we decide that

we are going to have these hearings and they are going to get 10

minutes, instead of 5. And I am worried about this family situation

and I see keep an eye on this family; the child is back with the

family, but I am not sure. In this morning’s paper, it tells us if the

social worker isn’t there doing the job, all the judges downtown

really aren’t going to make that big a difference.

Now, what I am trying to do is to suggest that if we are going

to do this, let’s do it in a holistic, complete way.

Dr. GOLDEN. Absolutely. That is exactly the reason we feel so

strongly.

Senator DURBIN. I am asking, from the District side of it as you

support this legislation, what are you going to do to support the

corporate entity that is necessary to make it work successfully?

Dr. GOLDEN. My testimony listed four or five steps, but let me

go beyond that. I completely agree with that perspective. It is a

corporate agenda. That is why we need it now.

To give an example, as we recruit dramatically more social workers and as we reform the structure of legal support for our social

workers, because that is a big issue in many of the past situations

with children—we have now doubled the number of attorneys supporting our social workers and we have restructured so they can

plan together. Now that we have that team, that makes it just the

right moment for us to be able to work with the core group at the

family court.

One of the things we hear from social workers, to go back to the

retention issue, is that one of the things that drives people away

is the sense that they can’t do a good job. They are working with

59 judges who have different levels of knowledge, experience, and

training. They are constantly trying to get to a courtroom. It conflicts with being out in the field.

Judge King has done everything he could do within the existing

structure, but what we need now is structural changes so that our

part of the corporate changes and the court’s part can go together.

Senator DURBIN. Ms. McKinney would take exception to this, but

we are being very specific and very finite when it comes to judges

and how many judges will be in the courtroom working.

39

What is your goal? Give me something specific in terms of the

caseworker load that is going to come out of the reforms you are

talking about, taking a look at the budget you have submitted to

Congress and what your plans are. Will we see a dramatic increase

in caseworkers to support the reforms that we are talking about in

the court? What is the number?

Dr. GOLDEN. The number that I have been working with is an

increase of about 80 or 90 caseworkers, beyond the 230 that we

have now. We don’t know for sure what the right number is for a

couple of reasons. One is we also believe that cases are in the system much too long, and so as we do this reform it reduces our caseload because as we speed up children’s movement out, we are able

to have fewer social workers.

Another reason that it is hard for us to know for sure is the dramatic nature of our reforms which brought abuse and neglect together. We made estimates of the impact that will have on caseloads, but to the extent that the system works better for families

and we hear about more situations, it is hard to know for sure. But

our initial estimate is about 80 to 90 additional social workers.

What we need to get that done is a system that we can recruit

people into because they find it satisfying and they can succeed.

When I talk with those of my social workers who had experience

other places, they actually talk about the teamwork aspects of a

family court kind of approach in other jurisdictions as one of the

things that makes the work feel as though you can make a difference, rather than be frustrated and leave.

Senator DURBIN. Ms. McKinney and Ms. Luxenberg, would you

comment on your practical experience? When we talk about all of

the elements that have to come together for the good of the child,

we have talked a lot about judges, but if this is going to work, I

think it involves a lot more.

Ms. McKinney.

Ms. MCKINNEY. Well, I think the problems you were alluding to

are precisely the reasons why we have to be careful with the legislation. The judges are the ones who are in the best position to determine how to keep the court system running, given the changes

that are hopefully going to happen with CFSA and the other limitations in the court system. That is why we think it is important

to let the judges control the phase-in of the reforms.

It is a difficult system. In some cases, you have four lawyers who

are due for the hearing, a social worker, sometimes two social

workers, a host of witnesses. It is difficult to coordinate under the

best of circumstances, and that is why from our perspective this is

a work in progress and we have to give the court the flexibility to

phase it in and to make adjustments and to make the modifications

that are necessary so they can handle all the cases and so that we

will have enough judges and staff.

Senator DURBIN. What is a realistic number of hearings that a

judge can have each day?

Ms. LUXENBERG. I guess the question is what kind of hearings

are you talking about.

Ms. MCKINNEY. Right.

Ms. LUXENBERG. As a practitioner, one of the things that I have

been concerned about is the reform effort has all come about beVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:06 Jan 13, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 76803.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
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cause of some children who have died, abused and neglected children. But the family court is made up of many kinds of cases, so

that there are divorce cases, custody cases, adoption cases, paternity and support cases, and abuse and neglect cases in the system.

When we talk about whether a staggered system works or

whether attorneys aren’t down there for the hearings, I think it

really depends on what kinds of cases we are talking about. Traditionally, in the abuse and neglect system there were many parties

and players required for each case, and some of the attorneys appointed to represent the children were supposed to be in three

courtrooms at the same time.

So I myself have gone up to drag somebody out of a courtroom

because a judge was ready to take us and we didn’t have this one

last lawyer and I had to look through every floor of the Superior

Court. I do not wear heels when I go to the Superior Court. I wear

flat shoes, OK?

So you have cases where there may be 10 people involved. Then

you have uncontested divorce cases where for a long time you

would go to court for a 5-minute hearing and the courtroom door

wouldn’t be unlocked. You would not know when somebody was

going to take the bench, and there was always an excuse that the

cases weren’t all ready.

These are some of the changes that I have seen happen recently.

I was in court 2 weeks ago, in front of one of the judges in the

Family Division. He was on the bench, he moved his cases, he had

all of the consent custody cases in a row. And then the most refreshing thing he said: Are there any attorneys here who have a

continuance or have a short matter that we can clear out of our calendar?

And I raised my hand and they couldn’t find the file, which has

always been a problem. So we hope with the computerization of the

system that one of the most frustrating parts of practicing in the

court system for all of us will disappear. But in the situation I just

referred to, I was gone in 2 minutes. So I think it is important to

remember as we focus on the abuse and neglect cases, that the

Family Division has a great variety of cases.

Those families involved in the abuse and neglect cases—may

have a range of related cases—custody actions, and adoption actions. They go across all parts of the system, and it is very complicated.

I am concerned about the resources and I do think it is important that when we fix one piece of the system—and I say the focus

on the abuse and neglect—that we don’t neglect the other types of

cases in the system as well.

Senator DURBIN. Judge Satterfield.

Judge SATTERFIELD. I want to comment on the return of the

cases to the ‘‘family court’’ that is being created. What we are

afraid of is that while we are going to have this great name, ‘‘family court,’’ within the Superior Court and we are going to return

these cases there and they are cloaked with that name, they are

going to be at greater risk, and they are going to be at greater risk

because of some of the things that we are talking about today.

Our goal, just like everybody else’s goal, is to achieve permanency for the children very fast, in their interests and serve them.

41

But the number of hearings are not going to change once they are

cloaked with the family court’s emblem because the social workers

are overloaded. They want to do a good job. They have too many

cases and they can’t do a good job. Because they have so many

cases, they attend a lot of different hearings. But when that caseload goes down, which I don’t think is any time in the future, especially given the demands of the bill for when these cases come back

in—when their caseload goes down, they don’t have an ability to

handle these cases.

The other problem is the resources for placement in this town.

I mean, the fact is these children come to Superior Court, a lot of

them badly damaged by their parents. They come to us at age beyond 8 years when we get them. The statistics show the probability

of them being adopted at that point is lower than the probability

of them waiting, and they wait and they wait and they wait. And

that is the healthy children.

I am an adoptive parent. My wife and I chose to adopt. We made

a very private decision to adopt, very personal. So I don’t make any

judgment calls on people’s decisions as to what they want to adopt,

what type of child, girl or boy. In fact, we got our boy because

somebody didn’t want a boy when they were lined up to get them

and they took the girl that was born. So we were fortunate and we

love our child.

But the fact is people will travel around the world to adopt a

child before coming to the District of Columbia and adopting one

of these children who are sitting and waiting. That is their judgment call and that is fine. I don’t judge them. That is their personal decision, but we have extended the resources that we have.

I mean, the resources in this town that have done most of the

adoptions have been to single black women in this town and we

have extended that resource and we need more help to take on

these children. Until those things are solved, we can put this on

in the family court, but the problems are still going to exist and

there are still going to be hearings.

As a person who has been a resident of this town, born and

raised here, worked in Superior Court as a lawyer and as a judge,

to hear words like ‘‘turf war’’ and fate of the children behind the

interests of the court and things of that nature—I know these

judges and I know from my own personal experience that that is

not the case; that we are here to serve those children, and no one

wants a cranky old judge, burned out, serving these children.

Senator DURBIN. Talk to me a second about that, the two judges

who are here, about this burn-out factor. I am trying to get my

hands on this because I have not faced this and I want to understand what you all think.

Is 3 years unreasonable to ask someone to sit in this particular

call and to deal with these cases? Is 5 years too much? Give me

your own feeling, Judge Satterfield, and then Judge King.

Judge SATTERFIELD. Well, we think 5 years definitely is too

much. We think that puts the children at greater risk, as well as

the cases coming back into the system. The Chief Judge has committed to 3 years and, in fact, has asked the judges who are coming

on in January or the ones staying that they will serve a consecuVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:06 Jan 13, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 76803.TXT SAFFAIRS PsN: SAFFAIRS
42

tive 3 years. The ones that have been in the division will continue

to serve their tour. So he has committed to doing that.

And we are not alone out here with this whole issue. I mean, if

you examine even some of the select States that the Council for

Court Excellence has indicated with newly-created statutory family

courts, if you look at some of the courts that are similar to ours,

they have been addressing this same problem.

Michigan gives the chief judge the flexibility to determine the

terms because of issues like this. In Missouri, while they have indicated 4 years on their chart, if you look at the statute closer, the

chief judge has the ability, or the presiding judge has the ability

to shorten or lengthen that term, depending upon the circumstances of the individual family court judge. In Vermont, the magistrate judges who are listed here for 6 years don’t handle abuse

and neglect cases. If you look at the statute, their judges rotate.

These are courts that are similar to ours. You can’t hold out Nevada because they are suffering out there. In 1998, their panel instituted legislation trying to have the general jurisdiction court

switch with the family court judges for some period of time to avoid

burn-out. So we are not alone in this.

We are not doing this because we want our confidence level up.

We are doing this for the children. We are not alone out there in

understanding that there is a burn-out factor. You have social

workers that can’t be retained. You have the very lawyers that you

want us to select from who are saying that they know there can

be a burn-out factor, and that is why we think a maximum of 3

years is important.

So it is very heartening to hear that we are talking about turf

wars or confidence level of judges when we are talking about the

children in this case when we say that there is burn-out.

Senator DURBIN. I would like to just posit this as one of the

thoughts for those who are for the reform. Would you agree that

we would want to give to the Chief Judge or someone the ability

to keep a case with a judge?

I assume that of 59 judges with cases now, some have been on

the same family situation for years and have a level of understanding or expertise that we would not want to lose, maybe a connection with that family we would not want to automatically lose

by transferring that case away.

On the other side of it, wouldn’t we also want to create some

flexibility, if a judge leaves the family law court, that the case

could go with that judge, for the same reason, that there is a good

bond here, a good relationship and it is in the best interests of the

child to stick with that one judge?

Dr. Golden.

Dr. GOLDEN. Let me speak both from my experience at the Federal level working on the design of ASFA and looking at other jurisdictions, and then the District. What we are trying to accomplish

for children is permanence and safety. On a child’s time frame, a

child of 5 years old, 2 or 3 years in foster care is a long time. The

4 or 5 years that you describe in Chicago, and that has happened

here sometimes, is a terrifying thing that truly damages a child’s

development. So our goal is a permanent family for that child.

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I think we have to assess all the strategies for dealing with that,

not on whether a member of the team—the judge, the social worker, the lawyer—their length of time with the child. What we are

trying to assess is what overall structure enables that child to get

to a permanent family quickest.

I think the national experience, as well as our experience in the

District, says that we can’t get to that when we have cases dispersed so broadly. We don’t have the supports for the judges when

there are 59. We don’t have the ability to work in—— Senator DURBIN. I am talking about the transition.

Dr. GOLDEN. Right.

Senator DURBIN. I am talking about a transition in and out from

the current system to the reform system or the changed system,

and then once that is in place there is going to be a turnover of

judges. I am asking whether or not you believe, in the best interests of the child, there should be at least an option so that someone

can stand back and say this judge understands this family. He has

been through 3 years of hearings in family law court, and to just

yank this judge away is to lose this knowledge they have, and relationship.

Dr. GOLDEN. What we propose—and, again, it comes a lot from

the national experience and the changes that people have had to

make to achieve the best interests of the child—is that when a

judge leaves, the exception in the House bill, which is also our proposal, is a narrow one.

Senator DURBIN. Six months.

Dr. GOLDEN. Well, I think it is not in months. It says only if you

are about to achieve a placement under ASFA and the move would

disrupt it. The reason for that is that the cases that have been

around a long time to us seem likely to be the most fragile children

and the ones that most need the support that the family court and

the team in the family court can offer. There will be a judge-magistrate team. There will be the array of other supports that will

give that case the best service possible.

So I know it is a judgment call, but I think for us the weight of

the evidence says that having those children served by the best

possible services is going to be the way to go in most of the cases.

Senator DURBIN. Well, I thank you.

Judge did you want to comment?

Judge KING. Only that I think there seems a premise that the

judges are the hold-up, the reason these cases are not reaching permanency. I am sure there are some judges who are better at this

than others. I doubt it, but judges work very hard. We, believe it

or not, do not go out looking for extra work. We don’t want to retain cases that can safely be closed in a permanent resolution.

Chicago dropped the dramatic 60,000 down to 20,000 because

they have a strong guardianship law. We have a new guardianship

law which the lawyers are just getting used to and deciding how

to recommend to their clients. So it hasn’t been used very much,

but this may enable us to close a lot more cases.

But I think if you premise legislation that says absolutely no exceptions to the rule that they have to, except for a time if it is

going to close, there is going to be inevitably that child for whom

it is decidedly an increase in danger or an increase in harm to say,

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I am sorry, I would like to help you, I would like to stay with you,

but the law says I can’t.

Senator DURBIN. Thank you all very much for coming.

Dr. GOLDEN. Thank you very much.

Senator DURBIN. I hope that we can move this toward passage

soon.

We are adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 11:50 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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