Source: http://kidjacked.com/legal/handbook.asp?s=Print
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 04:53:28+00:00

Document:
In Re Adoption of A.M.H.
Channel 17 News in Kansas - CPS says, "Trust us"
"Know your rights before you talk to anyone from CPS, they won't tell you your rights. CPS can't do anything without your consent, demand a warrant and speak with an attorney first before speaking with anyone from CPS, neglecting to do so could cost you your children."
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said it best, "The government's interest in the welfare of children embraces not only protecting children from physical abuse, but also protecting children's interest in the privacy and dignity of their homes and in the lawfully exercised authority of their parents." Calabretta v. Floyd, 189 F.3d 808 (1999).
It is unconstitutional for CPS workers to conduct an investigation and interview a child on private property without exigent circumstances or probable cause.
The decision in the case of Doe et al, v. Heck et al (No. 01-3648, 2003 US App. Lexis 7144) will affect the manner in which law enforcement and child protective services investigations of alleged child abuse or neglect are conducted.
The decision of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals found that this practice, i.e. the "no prior consent" interview of a child, will ordinarily constitute a "clear violation" of the constitutional rights of parents under the 4th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. According to the Court, the investigative interview of a child constitutes a "search and seizure" and, when conducted on private property without "consent, a warrant, probable cause, or exigent circumstances," such an interview is an unreasonable search and seizure in violation of the rights of the parent, child, and, possibly the owner of the private property.
The mere possibility of danger does not constitute an emergency or exigent circumstance that would justify a forced warrant-less entry and a warrant-less seizure of a child.
This is only a guide to your constitutional protections in the context of an investigation of alleged child abuse and neglect by Child Protective Services ("CPS"). Every state has variances of CPS in one form or another. Some are called DCF, DHS, DSS, DCYS, DCFS, HRS, CYS and FIA, collectively known as "CPS" for the purposes of this handbook. The material in this handbook should be supplemented by your own careful study of the 4th and 14th Amendment and other Constitutional protections that are guaranteed even in the context dealing with CPS.
The intent of this handbook is to inform parents, caregivers and their attorneys that they can stand up against CPS and Juvenile Judges when they infringe upon the rights of both parents and children. As you read this handbook, you will be amazed what your rights are and how CPS conspires with the Assistant Attorney General ("AAG"), who then in turn has the Judge issue warrant/orders that are unlawful and unconstitutional under the law.
Contrary what any CPS officials, the AAG, Juvenile Judge or any social workers may say, they are all subject to and must yield to the 4th and 14th Amendment just like police officers according to both the Circuit and District Courts of the United States as well as the U.S. Supreme Court. CPS workers can be sued for violation of your 4th and 14th Amendment rights. They lose their "immunity" under "Deprivation of Rights Under the Color of Law" and must be sued in their "Official and Individual" capacity in order to succeed in a §§ 1983 and 1985 civil rights lawsuit. If police officers assisted CPS in that deprivation of rights, they also lose immunity. The police officer(s) may also then be sued for assisting CPS in the violation of both yours and your child's rights when they illegally abduct your children or enter your home, without probable cause or exigent circumstances, which are required under the warrant clause of the 14th Amendment.
The authors of this book are not attorneys and do not pretend to be attorneys. The authors were victims of a false report and were falsely accused by DCF in Connecticut without conducting a proper investigation. The authors fought back for 8-months against this corrupt organization whose order of the day was to deny them their 4th, 6th and 14th Amendment rights and to fabricate false charges without evidence. DCF's charges and petition to the court were nothing more than baseless allegations, never evidence. DCF withdrew the fraudulent petition on December 18, 2002 admitting they had no evidence. The fact of the matter is that they never had any evidence but abused the authors and their children for an 8-month period.
As a direct result of the false charges, manufacturing of evidence and violating the authors 1st, 4th, 6th, 9th and 14th Amendment rights, the authors filed a lawsuit in January 2003 in Federal Court in the District of Connecticut (3:03-cv-109AVC). There are 28 Defendants in this civil action and the authors are representing them selves Pro se. The authors have never been convicted of any child abuse or neglect nor are there any investigations on going. The authors have three children, a 15-year-old and 10-year-old twins.
CPS must by law comply with the "Warrant Clause" as required by the Constitution and the Federal Courts whereas they are "governmental officials" and are subject to the Constitution as are the police.
There are No Exceptions in the U.S. Constitution for CPS.
You, as a parent or care-giver, must be totally informed of what your legal rights are, whether you are a parent caught up in an oppressive, abusive or often unlawful action of CPS, or if you have never been investigated by CPS. Many individuals come to the wrongful conclusion that the parents must have been abusive or neglectful in order for CPS to investigate. This is a myth. The fact of the matter is that over 80% of all abuse calls received by CPS workers are false.
Another myth is that CPS can, without your consent, conduct an investigation in your home, or speak to your child without your explicit consent. CPS employees will lie to you and tell you they do not need your consent. This is patently untrue. They absolutely need your consent to come into your home or speak with your children. If there is no "exigent circumstances" (imminent danger) to your children with "probable cause" (credible witness) to support a warrant. CPS (everywhere in the United States) cannot lawfully enter your home and speak with you and your children. In fact, it is illegal, and you can sue the social worker and the police who assist them and they both lose immunity when personally sued.
If CPS lies to the AAG and the Judge in order to get a warrant/order and you can prove it, that also is a 4th and 14th Amendment rights violation, which is a civil rights violation under § 1983 and conspiracy against rights covered under § 1985. If a CPS worker threatens to call the police after you refuse them entry, and they have no warrant, they are violating the law and lose their immunity. Even if the police only open the door to provide entry to the CPS official, this is coercion, threatening and intimidation tactics, and both may be sued.
Remember, CPS officials will not tell you your rights; in fact they are going to do everything in their power including lying to you, threatening you with police presence telling you that you must let them in. The police may even threaten you into allowing CPS in because you are obstructing an investigation. Many police officers do not realize that CPS must comply with the warrant clause of the 14th Amendment or be sued for violating it.
CPS does not have a legal right to conduct an investigation of alleged child abuse or neglect in a private home without your consent. In fact, removing a child from your home without your consent even for several hours is a "seizure" under federal law. Speaking to your children without your consent is also a "seizure" under the law. If CPS cannot support a warrant and show that the child is in imminent danger along with probable cause, they cannot enter your home and speak with your children.
Remember, anonymous calls to CPS are never considered probable cause under the Warrant Clause. Even if they have the name and number from the reporter on the end of the phone, that also does not support probable cause under the law.
CPS must by law, investigate the caller to determine if he or she is the person they say they are and that the accusations are credible. The call alone, standing by itself, is insufficient to support probable cause under the law. Many fabricated allegations are made by disgruntle neighbors, ex-spouses or someone wanting to gain revenge. As such CPS is required to show due diligence, just as police are required to obtain sworn statements.
CPS agencies across the country have an exaggerated view of their power. No matter what you consider constitutes actual abuse or neglect, CPS has it's own definition. That definition is whatever they decide it to be. CPS will lie to you, they will tell you that they can do anything they like with total immunity. Tell that to the half dozen social workers sitting in jail in California, who lied to a judge. We will discuss this in further detail, in Section 2: Are All CPS Workers In The United States Subject To The 4th and 14th Amendment?
You have to understand that CPS will not give you or your spouse a Miranda warning nor are they required to do so. If CPS shows up at your door and tells you they need to speak with you and your children, you have the legal right to deny them entry. However, before they leave, you should bring your children to the door but never open it, instead allow them to see that the children are not in imminent danger and that they are fine. If you do not at least show them your children, they could come back with an unlawful and unconstitutional warrant even though your children are not in imminent danger.
Everything CPS sees and hears is written down and eventually given to the AAG for your possible prosecution. If the focus of the investigation is on your spouse or significant other, you also need to know that though you are the non-offending spouse, you may think you are in the clear, wrong. If your spouse is charged with anything, you are likely to be charged with allowing the (alleged) offence to take place. So if a spouse gets the bright idea to lie or makes things up, he/she is also confessing that he allowed whatever is being alleged.
What you say will more than likely not be written down the way you said it or intended.
"Does your husband yell at the children?"
Your response could be, "Once in a while."
Then they ask, "Does he yell at you and argue with you?"
Your response could be, "Yes, we argue sometimes and he may raise his voice."
The next question is, "Does your husband drink alcohol?"
Your response could be, "Yes, he has several drinks a week."
Now let's translate those benign responses and see what the CPS worker may write in his/her report.
"When the father drinks, he yells at children and wife. The wife is a victim of domestic violence." This is a far cry from what actually took place in that conversation. Case-workers routinely take what you say out of context, actually fabricating their report, in order to successfully prosecute the case. They have an end game in mind and will misrepresent facts and circumstances surrounding the alleged incident.
Something similar happened to the authors where DCF employees lied in front of the judge, testifing that the husband was a victim of domestic violence, even though all 5 family members clearly stated that domestic violence never took place. The husband would like to know when this occurred because he wasn't there.
They will also misrepresent the condition of your home, as DCF did in our case. Even if you were sick or injured and had no opportunity to tidy up. CPS will not put anything exculpatory on the record. Anyone reading her reports will be lead to believe that the house was unkempt and cluttered. Never give CPS a chance to falsify the record or twist your words. Before allowing any CPS official into your home, if you choose to do so, inform them that you want your attorney present and schedule an interview. Better still schedule the interview to be held in their office instead of in your home.
Remember, CPS could care less about your rights or your children's constitutional rights. Removing a child from a safe home is more harmful than most alleged allegation, as stated by many judges. CPS workers will lie and say that they have to come in or that you are required to comply. Remember, CPS has no statutory authority to enter your home, when no crime has been committed. They are trained to use deceptive means, in order to gain access to your home, by any means possible. (This information was gained from DCF employee interviews.) Do not sign anything or agree to anything. Even if you are not guilty and you agree to go through some horse and pony show. This will be used against you, as if you admitted to the false allegation(s).
Are All CPS Workers In The United States Subject To The 4th and 14th Amendment?
Yes they are, the 4th Amendment is applicable to CPS investigators in the context of an investigation of alleged abuse or neglect as are all "government officials." This issue is brought out best in Walsh v. Erie County Dept. of Job and Family Services, 3:01-cv-7588.
The social workers argued, "the Fourth Amendment was not applicable to the activities of their social worker employees." The social workers claimed, "entries into private homes by child welfare workers involve neither searches nor seizures under the Fourth Amendment, and thus can be conducted without either a warrant or probable cause to believe that a child is at risk of imminent harm."
The social worker's first argument, shot down by the court. The social workers then argued that there are exceptions to the Fourth Amendment, and that the situation was an "emergency." They state, the "Defendants argue their entry into the home, even absent voluntary consent, was reasonable under the circumstances. They point to: the anonymous complaint about clutter on the front porch; and the plaintiff's attempt to leave.
These circumstances, the defendants argue, created an 'emergency situation' that led Darnold and Brown reasonably to believe the Walsh children were in danger of imminent harm. (Thus is the old "emergency" excuse that has been used for years by social workers.) The Court again disagreed and ruled: "There is nothing inherently unusual or dangerous about cluttered premises, much less anything about such vaguely described conditions that could manifest imminent or even possible danger or harm to young children. If household 'clutter' justifies warrantless entry and threats of removal of children and arrest or citation of their parents, few families are secure and few homes are safe from unwelcome and unjustified intrusion by state officials and officers."
The Court went on to rule, "They have failed to show that any exigency that justifies warrantless entry was necessary to protect the welfare of the plaintiff's children. In this case, a rational jury could find that 'the evidence points to the opposite conclusion' and a lack of 'sufficient exigent circumstances to relieve the state actors here of the burden of obtaining a warrant." The social worker's second argument, shot down by the court.
The social workers then argued that they are obligated under law to investigate any reported case of child abuse, and that supersedes the Fourth Amendment. They argued, "Against these fundamental rights, the defendants contend that Ohio's statutory framework for learning about and investigation of all allegations of child abuse and neglect supersede their obligations under the Fourth Amendment. They point principally to § 2151.421 of the Ohio Revised code as authority for their warrantless entry into and search of the plaintiff's home. That statute imposes a duty on certain designated professionals and persons who work with children or provide child care to report instances of apparent child abuse or neglect." This is the old "mandatory reporter" excuse.
The Court disagreed and ruled: "The defendant's argument that the duty to investigate created by § 2151.421(F)(1) exempts them from the Fourth Amendment misses the mark because, not having received a report described in § 2151.421(A)(1)(b), they were not, and could not have been, conducting an investigation pursuant to § 2151.421(F)(1)." The social worker's third argument, shot down by the court.
The Court continues with their chastisement of the social workers: "There can be no doubt that the state can and should protect the welfare of children who are at risk from acts of abuse and neglect. There likewise can be no doubt that occasions arise calling for immediate response, even without prior judicial approval. But those instances are the exception. Otherwise child welfare workers would have a free pass into any home in which they have an anonymous report of poor housekeeping, overcrowding, or insufficient medical care and, thus a perception that children may be at some risk."
The Court continues: "The anonymous phone call in this case did not constitute a 'report' of child abuse or neglect." The social workers, Darnold and Brown, claimed that they were immune from liability, claiming qualified immunity because "they had not had training in Fourth Amendment law." In other words, because they thought the Fourth Amendment did not bind them, they couldn't be sued for their "mistake."
The police officers, Chandler and Kish, claimed that they couldn't be sued because they thought the social workers were not subject to the Fourth Amendment, and they were just assisting the social workers. The Court disagreed and ruled: "That subjective basis for their ignorance about and actions in violation of the fourth Amendment does not relieve them of the consequences of that ignorance and those actions." The Court then lowers the boom by stating: "The claims of defendants Darnold, Brown, Chandler and Kish of qualified immunity are therefore denied."
The 9th Circuit Court Said, Parents Have The Constitutional Right To Be Left Alone By CPS And The Police.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals case, Calabretta v. Floyd, 9th Cir. (1999) "involves whether a social worker and a police officer were entitled to qualified immunity, for a coerced entry into a home to investigate suspected child abuse, interrogation of a child, and strip search of a child, conducted without a search warrant and without a special exigency."
The court did not agree that the social worker and the police officer had "qualified immunity" and said, "the facts in this case are noteworthy for the absence of emergency." No one was in distress. "The police officer was there to back up the social worker's insistence on entry against the mother's will, not because he perceived any imminent danger of harm." And he should have known better. Furthermore, "had the information been more alarming, had the social worker or police officer been alarmed, had there been reason to fear imminent harm to a child, this would be a different case, one to which we have no occasion to speak. A reasonable official would understand that they could not enter the home without consent or a search warrant."
The principle that government officials cannot coerce entry into people's houses without a search warrant or applicability of an established exception to the requirement of a search warrant is so well established that any reasonable officer would know it."
And there we have it: "Any government official can be held to know that their office does not give them an unrestricted right to enter peoples' homes at will. ... The fourth Amendment preserves the 'right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses ... 'without limiting that right to one kind of government official."
The Court's reasoning for this ruling was simple and straight forward: "The reasonable expectation of privacy of individuals in their homes includes the interests of both parents and children in not having government officials coerce entry in violation of the fourth Amendment and humiliate the parents in front of the children. An essential aspect of the privacy of the home is the parent's and the child's interest in the privacy of the relationship with each other."
Parroting Of The Phrase "Best Interest Of The Child" Without Supporting Facts Or A Legal Basis Is Insufficient To Support A Warrant Or Court Order To Enter A Home.
In North Hudson DYFS v. Koehler Family, filed December 18, 2000, the Appellate court granted the emergency application on February 6, 2001, to stay DYFS illegal entry that was granted by the lower court because DYFS in their infinite wisdom thought it was their right to go into the Koehler home because the children were not wearing socks in the winter or sleep in beds.
After reviewing the briefs of all the parties, the appellate court ruled that the order to investigate the Koehler home was in violation of the law and must be reversed. The Court explained, "[a]absent some tangible evidence of abuse or neglect, the Courts do not authorize fishing expeditions into citizens' houses." The Court went on to say, "[m]ere parroting of the phrase 'best interest of the child' without supporting facts and a legal basis is insufficient to support a Court order based on reasonableness or any other ground." February 14, 2001.
In other words, a juvenile judges decision on whether or not to issue a warrant is a legal one, it is not based on "best interest of the child" or personal feeling. The United States Supreme Court has held that courts may not use a different standard other than probable cause for the issuance of such orders. Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868 (1987). If a court issues a warrant based on an uncorroborated anonymous tip, the warrant will not survive a judicial challenge in the higher courts. Anonymous tips are never probable cause. "[I]n context of a seizure of a child by the State during an abuse investigation ... a court order is the equivalent of a warrant.
" Tenenbaum v. Williams, 193 F.3d 581, 602 (2nd Cir. 1999).
F.K. v. Iowa district Court for Polk County, Id."
The U.S Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit Court recently ruled that child abuse investigations held on private property are unconstitutional.
Considering that one critical purpose of the early stages of an investigation is to determine whether or not the child is in danger, and if so, from who seems to require a high threshold level of evidence to commence the interview of a child, whether the child is on private or public property.
"In our circuit, a reasonable official would have known that the law barred this entry. Any government official can be held to know that their office does not give them an unrestricted right to enter peoples' homes at will. We held in White v. Pierce County a child welfare investigation case, that 'it was settled constitutional law that, absent exigent circumstances, police could not enter a dwelling without a warrant even under statutory authority where probable cause existed.' The principle that government officials cannot coerce entry into peoples' houses without a search warrant or applicability of an established exception to the requirement of a search warrant is so well established that any reasonable officer would know it."
Tenenbaum v. Williams, 193 F.3d 581, 602 (2nd Cir. 1999).
"Another recent 9th Circuit case also held that there is no exception to the warrant requirement for social workers in the context of a child abuse investigation. 'The [California] regulations they cite require social workers to respond to various contacts in various ways. But none of the regulations cited say that the social worker may force her way into a home without a search warrant in the absence of any emergency.' Calabretta v. Floyd, 189 F.3d 808 (1999). Calabretta also cites various cases form other jurisdictions for its conclusion.
Good v. Dauphin County Social Servs., 891 F.2d 1087 (3rd Cir. 1989) held that a social worker and police officer were not entitled to qualified immunity for insisting on entering her house against the mother's will to examine her child for bruises. Good holds that a search warrant or exigent circumstances, such as a need to protect a child against imminent danger of serious bodily injury, was necessary for an entry without consent, and the anonymous tip claiming bruises was in the case insufficient to establish special exigency.
The 9th Circuit further opined in Wallis v. Spencer, 202 F.3d 1126 (9th Cir. 2000), that '[b]ecause the swing of every pendulum brings with it potential adverse consequences, it is important to emphasize that in the area of child abuse, as with the investigation and prosecution of all crimes, the state is constrained by the substantive and procedural guarantees of the Constitution. The fact that the suspected crime may be heinous - whether it involves children or adults - does not provide cause for the state to ignore the rights of the accused or any other parties. Otherwise, serious injustices may result. In cases of alleged child abuse, governmental failure to abide by constitutional constraints may have deleterious long-term consequences for the child and, indeed, for the entire family. Ill-considered and imprope	r governmental action may create significant injury where no problem of any kind previously existed...' Id. at 1130-1131."
This is the case involving DCF in Connecticut. Many of their policies are unlawful and contradictory to the Constitution. DCF has unlawful polices giving workers permission to coerce, intimidate and to threatened innocent families with governmental intrusion and oppression. They use police presences to squelch and put down any citizen who asserts their 4th Amendment rights by not allowing an unlawful investigation to take place in their private home when no imminent danger is present.
DCF is the "moving force" behind the unceasing violations of federal law and violations of the Constitution. The idea of noncompliance with the 4th and 14th Amendment is so impregnated in their statutes, policies, practices and customs, it affects everything they do. They subsequently take on the persona of exaggerated power over parents and believe they are totally immune and can do basically anything they want including engaging in deception, misrepresentation of the facts and perjury under oath. This happens thousands of times daily in the United States where the ends seemingly justifies the means even if it is unlawful, illegal and unconstitutional.
We can tell you stories for hours, where CPS employees committed criminal acts and were prosecuted and either went to jail and/or were sued for civil rights violations. CPS workers have lied in reports, court documents and coerced others to lie. They have kidnapped children without court order, crossed state lines impersonating police and were later prosecuted. In a number of cases the worker has even killed the child in question.
It is sickening the number of children who have been subjected to abuse, neglect or even killed at the hands of Child Protective Service workers. The numbers below include DCF in Connecticut.
Number of Cases per 100,000 children in the United States. Provided by The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN) in Washington.
Imagine that, 6.4 children die at the hands of the agencies that are supposed to protect them, and only 1.5 at the hands of parents per 100,000 children. CPS perpetrates more abuse, neglect, sexual abuse and has killed more children than parents in the United States. If the citizens of this country held CPS to the same standards that they hold parents to, no judge should ever put another child in the hands of any government agency. Nationwide CPS is guilty of more human rights violations and death of children then the homes they were removed from. When are judges going to wake up to see that they are sending children to their death and a life of abuse when children are removed from safe homes on the mere opinion of social workers?
The Fourth Amendment's Impact On Child Abuse Investigations.
This statement came in a case, which held that social workers who, in pursuit of a child abuse investigation, invaded a family home without a warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment rights of both children and parents. Upon remand for the damages phase of the trial, the social workers, the police officers, and the governments that employed them settled this civil rights case for $150,000.00.
Contrary to the assumption of hundreds of social workers, the Ninth Circuit held that the Fourth Amendment applies just as much to a child abuse investigation as it does to any criminal or other governmental investigation. Social workers are not exempt from the requirements of the Fourth Amendment when they act alone. They are not exempt from its rules if they are accompanied by a police officer. And police officers are not exempt from the requirement even if all they do is get the front door open for the social worker; this would include intimidation, coercion and threatening. The general rule is that unreasonable searches and seizures are banned. But the second part of the rule is the most important in this context. All warrantless searches are presumptively unreasonable.
When Is Consent Not Consent?
If a police officer says, "If you don't let us in your home we will break down your door."
A parent who then opens the door has not given free and voluntary consent.
If a social worker says, "If you don't let me in the home I will take your children away."
If a social worker says, "I will get a warrant from the judge or I will call the police if you do not let me in."
Negate consent. Any type of communication, which conveys the idea to the parent that they have no realistic alternative, but to allow entry negates any claim that the entry was lawfully gained through the channel of consent. DCF's policy clearly tells the social worker that they can threaten parents even if the parents assert their 4th Amendment rights.
The Fourth Amendment does not put a barrier in the way of a social worker who has reliable evidence that a child is in imminent danger. For example, if a hot line call comes in and says, "My name is Mildred Smith, here is my address and phone number. I was visiting my grandchildren this morning and I discovered that one of my grandchildren, Johnny, age 5, is being locked in his bedroom without food for days at a time, and he looked pale and weak to me." The social worker certainly has evidence of exigent circumstances and is only one step away from having probable cause.
Since the report has been received over the telephone, it is possible that the tipster is an imposter and not the child's grandmother. A quick verification of the relationship can be made in a variety of ways and once verified, the informant, would satisfy the legal test of reliability, which is necessary to establish probable cause.
Anonymous phone calls fail the second part of the two-prong requirement of "exigent circumstances" and "probable cause" for a warrant or order. Anonymous phone calls cannot stand the test of probable cause as defined within the 14th Amendments and would fail in court on appeal. The social worker(s) would lose their qualified immunity for their deprivation of rights and can be sued. Many social workers and Child Protection Services (CPS) lose their cases in court because their entry into homes was in violation of the parent's civil rights because the evidence in their possession did not satisfy the standard of probable cause.
It is not enough to have information that the children are in some form of serious danger. The evidence must also pass a test of reliability that our justice system calls probable cause. In H.R. v. State Department of Human Resources, 612 So.2d 477 (Ala. Ct. App. 1992); the court held that an anonymous tip standing alone never amounts to probable cause. The Calabretta court held the same thing, as have numerous other decisions, which have faced the issue directly. The Fourth Amendment itself spells out the evidence required for a warrant or entry order. No warrant shall issue but on probable cause. The United States Supreme Court has held that courts may not use a different standard other than probable cause for the issuance of such orders. Griffin v. Wisconsin, 483 U.S. 868 (1987). If a court issues a warrant based on an uncorroborated anonymous tip, the warrant will not survive a judicial challenge in the higher courts. Anonymous tips are never probable cause.
Children are not well served if they are subjected to investigations base on false allegations. Little children can be traumatized by investigations in ways that are unintended by the social worker. However, to a small child all they know is that a strange adult is taking off their clothing while their mother is sobbing in the next room in the presence of an armed police officer.
This does not seem to a child to be a proper invasion of their person - quite different, for example, from an examination by a doctor when their mother is present and cooperating. The misuse of anonymous tips is well known. Personal vendettas, neighborhood squabbles, disputes on the Little League field, child custody battles, revenge, nosey individuals who are attempting to impose their views on others are turned into maliciously false allegations breathed into a hotline.
"Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subject to the rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for the law. It invites every man to become a law unto himself. It invites anarchy."
We the people of the United States are ruled by law, not by feelings. If the courts allow states and their agencies to rule by feelings and not law, we become a lawless nation making decisions based on subjectivity and objectivity. CPS has been allowed to bastardize and emasculate the Constitution and the rights of its citizens to be governed by the rule of men rather than the rule of law. Citizens should find it alarming when governmental officials are allowed to have unfettered access to their homes. It is also very dangerous to allow CPS to violate the confrontation clause in the 6th Amendment where CPS hides and conceals an accuser/witness making anonymous reports. It allows those individuals to file fraudulent reports with CPS aiding and abetting in this violation of a fundamental right. All citizens have the right to know their accuser/witness in order to preserve the sanctity of the rule of law and the Constitution as the supreme law of the land.
Is It Illegal And An Unconstitutional Practice For CPS To Remove Children Solely Because They Witnessed A Parent As A Victim Of Domestic Violence?
Yes it is illegal and an unconstitutional practice to remove children which results in punishing the children and the non-offending parent. In a landmark class action suit in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York, U.S. District Judge Jack Weinsein ruled on Nicholson v. Williams, Case No.: 00-cv-2229.
This suit challenged the practice of New York's City's Administration for Children's Services of removing the children of battered mothers solely because the children saw their mothers being beaten by husbands or boyfriends. Judge Weistein ruled that the practice is unconstitutional and he ordered it stopped.
Are Parents Guilty Of Maltreatment Or Emotional Neglect If The Child Witnesses Domestic Violence?
Not according to Judge Weistein's ruling and to the leading national experts.
During the trial several leading national experts testified regarding the impact on children of witnessing domestic violence, and the impact on children of being removed from the non-offending parent. The views of experts on the effects of domestic violence on children, and defining witnessing domestic violence by children as maltreatment or emotional neglect is a mistake.
"Great concern [regarding] how increased awareness of children's exposure [to domestic violence] and associated problems is being used.
Concerned about the risk adult domestic violence poses for children, some child protection agencies in the United States appear to be defining exposure to domestic violence as a form of child...Defining witnessing as maltreatment is a mistake. Doing so ignores the fact that large numbers of children in these studies showed no negative development problems and some showed evidence of strong coping abilities. Automatically defining witnessing as maltreatment may also ignore the battered mother's efforts to develop safe environments for their children and themselves." Ex. 163 at 866.
Dr. Wolf testified that disruptions in the parent-child relationship might provoke fear and anxiety in a child and diminish his or her sense of stability and self. Tr. 565-67. He described the typical response of a child separated from his parent: "When a young child is separated from a parent unwillingly, he or she shows distress ... At first, the child is very anxious and protests vigorously and angrily. Then he falls into a sense of despair, though still hyper vigilant, looking, waiting, and hoping for her return ..." A child's sense of time factors into the extent to which a separation impacts his or her emotional well-being. Thus, for younger children whose sense of time is less keenly developed, short periods of parental absence may seem longer than for older children. Tr 565-65. See also Ex. 141b.
For those children who are in homes where there is domestic violence, disruption of that bond can be even more traumatic than situations where this is no domestic violence. Dr. Stark (Yale New Haven Hospital researcher) asserted that if a child is placed in foster care as a result of domestic violence in the home, then he or she may view such removal as "a traumatic act of punishment ... and [think] that something that [he] or she has done or failed to do has caused this separation." Tr. 1562-63.
Dr. Pelcovitz stated that "taking a child whose greatest fear is separation from his or her mother and in the name of 'protecting' that child [by] forcing on them, what is in effect, their worst nightmare, ... is tantamount to pouring salt on an open wound." Ex. 139 at 5.
Another serious implication of removal is that it introduces children to the foster care system, which can be much more dangerous and debilitating than the home situation. Dr. Stark testified that foster homes are rarely screened for the presence of violence, and that the incidence of abuse and child fatality in foster homes is double that in the general population. Tr 1596; Ex. 122 at 3-4. Children in foster care often fail to receive adequate medical care. Ex. 122 at 6. Foster care placements can disrupt the child's contact with community, school and siblings. Ex. 122 at 8.
Do Children Have Legal Standing To Sue CPS For Their Illegal Abduction From Their Home And Violating Their 4th And 14th Amendment Rights?
You must protect you and your child's rights. CPS has no legal right to enter your home or speak to you and your child when there in no imminent danger present. Know your choices; you can refuse to speak any government official whether it is the police or CPS as long as there is an open criminal investigation. They will tell you that what they are involved with is a civil matter not a criminal matter. Don't you believe it. There is nothing civil about allegations of child abuse or neglect. It is a criminal matter disguised as a civil matter. Police do not get involved in civil matters if it truly was one.
You will regret letting them in your home and speaking with them like the thousands of other parents who have gone through this. Ask a friend, family member or some one at work. They will tell you if you agree to services, they will leave you alone or you can get your kids back.
Refusing them entry is NOT hindering an investigation, it's a Fourth Amendment protection and CPS or the juvenile judge can not abrogate that right as long as your children are not in imminent danger. Tell them to go packing.
Do Not sign anything, it will come back to be used against you in any possible trial. You are protected by FERPA and HIPAA regarding your children's educational and medical records. They need a warrant. Tell them they need a lawful warrant to make you do anything. CPS has no power; do not agree to a drug screen or a psychological evaluation.
The state may not interfere in child rearing decisions when a fit parent is available. Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000).
Police officers or social workers may not "pick up" a child without an investigation or court order, absent an emergency.
Decisions Of The United States Supreme Court Upholding Parental Rights As "Fundamental"
In this case, the Court includes the right of parents to rear children among rights "deemed fundamental."
Although the Maher decision unquestionably recognizes parents' rights as fundamental rights, the Court has clearly indicated that private schools do not have a fundamental right to state aid, nor must a state satisfy the compelling interest test if it chooses not to give private schools state aid. The Parental Rights and Responsibilities Act simply reaffirms the right of parents to choose private education as fundamental, but it does not make the right to receive public funds a fundamental right. The PRRA, therefore, does not in any way promote or strengthen the concept of educational vouchers.
Parham v. J.R., 442 US 584, 602-606 (1979).
Nonetheless, we have recognized that a state is not without constitutional control over parental discretion in dealing with children when their physical or mental health is jeopardized (See Wisconsin v. Yoder; Prince v. Massachusetts). Moreover, the Court recently declared unconstitutional a state statute that granted parents an absolute veto over a minor child's decisions to have an abortion, Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 US 52 (1976), Appellees urged that these precedents limiting the traditional rights of parents, if viewed in the context of a liberty interest of the child and the likelihood of parental abuse, require us to hold that parent's decision to have a child admitted to a mental hospital must be subjected to an exacting constitutional scrutiny, including a formal, adversary, pre-admission hearing.
Therefore, it is clear that the Court is recognizing parents as having the right to make judgments concerning their children who are not able to make sound decisions, including their need for medical care. A parent's authority to decide what is best for the child in the areas of medical treatment cannot be diminished simply because a child disagrees. A parent's right must be protected and not simply transferred to some state agency.
This case involved the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court affirming the application of the preponderance of the evidence standard as proper and constitutional in ruling that the parent's rights are permanently terminated. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, vacated the lower Court decision, holding that due process as required under the 14th Amendment in this case required proof by clear and convincing evidence rather than merely a preponderance of the evidence.
In Lassiter [Lassiter v. Department of Social Services, 452 US 18, 37 (1981)], it was "not disputed that state intervention to terminate the relationship between a parent and a child must be accomplished by procedures meeting the requisites of the Due Process Clause". . . The absence of dispute reflected this Court's historical recognition that freedom of personal choice in matters of family life is a fundamental liberty interest protected by the 14th Amendment ... Pierce v. Society of Sisters ... Meyer v. Nebraska.
It is clear by the above case that parental rights are to be treated as fundamental and cannot be taken away without meeting the constitutional requirement of due process.
In this case, a Californian civil rights statute was held not to violate the First Amendment by requiring an all male non-profit club to admit women to membership. The Court concluded that parents' rights in child rearing and education are included as fundamental elements of liberty protected by the Bill of Rights.
The Court explicitly included the parental rights under Pierce and Meyer as "fundamental" and interests "traditionally protected by our society."
One of the more recent decisions which upholds the right of parents is Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith, which involved two Indians who were fired from a private drug rehabilitation organization because they ingested "peyote," a hallucinogenic drug as part of their religious beliefs. When they sought unemployment compensation, they were denied because they were discharged for "misconduct."
The Indians appealed to the Oregon Court of Appeals who reversed on the grounds that they had the right to freely exercise their religious beliefs by taking drugs. Of course, as expected, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the case and found that the First Amendment did not protect drug use. So what does the case have to do with parental rights?
Instead of merely showing that a regulation conflicting with parents' rights is reasonable, the state must, therefore, reach the higher standard of the "compelling interest test," which requires the state to prove its regulation to be the least restrictive means.
In Hodgson the Court found that parental rights not only are protected under the First and Fourteenth Amendments as fundamental and more important than property rights, but that they are "deemed essential."
The family has a privacy interest in the upbringing and education of children and the intimacies of the marital relationship, which is protected by the Constitution against undue state interference. See Wisconsin v Yoder, 7 406 US 205 ... The statist notion that governmental power should supersede parental authority in all cases because some parents abuse and neglect children is repugnant to American tradition."
The Court leaves no room for doubt as to the importance and protection of the rights of parents.
In this case, the Supreme Court recognized the parents' right to know about their child seeking an abortion. The Court stated: In addition, constitutional interpretation has consistently recognized that the parents' claim to authority in their own household to direct the rearing of their children is basic in the structure of our society.
Ginsberg v. New York, 390 US 629 (1968) ... We have recognized on numerous occasions that the relationship between the parent and the child is Constitutionally protected (Wisconsin v. Yoder, Stanley v. Illinois, Meyer v. Nebraska) ... "It is cardinal with us that the custody, care, and nurture of the child reside first in the parents, whose primary function and freedom includes preparation for obligations the state can neither supply, nor hinder." [Quoting Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 US 158, 166, (1944)]. See also Parham v. J.R.; Pierce v. Society of Sisters ... We have recognized that parents have an important "guiding role" to play in the upbringing of their children, Bellotti II, 443 US 633-639 ... which presumptively includes counseling them on important decisions.
This Court clearly upholds the parent's right to know in the area of minor children making medical decisions.
Traditionally at common law, and still today, unemancipated minors lack some of the most fundamental rights of self-determinationincluding even the right of liberty in its narrow sense, i.e., the right to come and go at will. They are subject, even as to their physical freedom, to the control of their parents or guardians. See Am Jur 2d, Parent and Child § 10 (1987).
In subsequent cases also, we have recognized the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children...Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 232, 32 L. Ed. 2d 15, 92 S. Ct. 1526 (1972) ("The history and culture of Western civilization reflect a strong tradition of parental concern for the nurture and This case clearly upholds parental rights. In essence, this decision means that the government may not infringe parents' right to direct the education and upbringing of their children unless it can show that it is using the least restrictive means to achieve a compelling governmental interest.
The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently protected parental rights, including it among those rights deemed fundamental. As a fundamental right, parental liberty is to be protected by the highest standard of review: the compelling interest test.
As can be seen from the cases described above, parental rights have reached their highest level of protection in over 75 years. The Court decisively confirmed these rights in the recent case of Troxel v. Granville, which should serve to maintain and protect parental rights for many years to come.

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