When Pamela B. arrived at court with her attorney to contest the order. This was a clear denial of due process. The juvenile court's backlog of cases was prompted by a flood of orders of temporary custody in which DCF, in the aftermath of several well publicized child abuse cases, took emergency custody of children believed to be endangered or neglected. In the case of Pamela B., the allegation of neglect came about because she appeared to be ignoring seizures her son had been suffering. There was no evidence of abuse, Chill says, nor was abuse ever alleged.
Nothing is more American than that.
Paul Chill Clinical Professor of Law of making sure no one else died on their watch. What people don't understand is it's not that simple. The Civil Rights Clinic sued for injunctive relief, in effect, asking the juvenile courts to clean up their act. Ment, who was represented by the state attorney general's office, argued that trial judges lacked the authority to rearrange the priorities of court administration, so that one group's access to the courts improved at the expense of any other group. The state Supreme Court ruled against the defendants on each issue and the Pamela B. case was remanded for trial last spring, Chill says.