Source: http://cpsracket.blogspot.ca/2011_08_07_archive.html
Timestamp: 2017-11-22 20:00:52
Document Index: 780886116

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 614', '§ 622', '§ 102', '§ 1912', '§ 622', '§ 614', '§ 631', '§ 384', '§ 384', '§ 227', '§ 13', '§ 384', '§ 614', '§ 1021', '§ 1051', '§ 1035', '§ 1048', '§ 1041', '§ 384', '§ 384', '§ 384']

The CPS Racket: 8/7/11 - 8/14/11
Child Protective Services Had Investigated Hospitalized 6-year-old’s Parents
by JJ Hensley on Aug. 12, 2011
State officials were already in the process of investigating an allegation of child abuse on a 6-year-old Phoenix boy when the child’s parents took him to the hospital earlier this week with injuries that Phoenix police allege the child received when one of his parents slammed the boy’s head into a bedroom wall.
Phoenix police arrested Jacob Gibson’s parents, Jennifer Paul, 37, and Benny Gibson, 49, at Phoenix Children’s Hospital earlier this week on suspicion of child abuse.
Child Protective Services officials have been a consistent presence in Jacob’s life, according to a preliminary report released Friday morning, investigating at least five allegations of child abuse during the past four years.
The most recent CPS investigation into allegations that Jacob had golf-ball sized knot on the side of his head and two black eyes was launched last month and is still ongoing, according to the brief CPS report on the state’s involvement with Jacob.
Another investigation -into allegations that Benny Gibson “put his hands around Jacob’s neck in a choking motion” after he picked the boy up from school in May- is also ongoing, according to the report.
CPS officials had also launched three prior investigations into allegations of abuse against Jacob in 2007, 2009 and 2010, but investigators determined each of those allegations were unsubstantiated and offered the family “community services.”
- A 2007 claim that Jacob was seen with bruises on his legs.
- A report in 2009 that Benny Gibson was yelling at Jacob and hitting him on the head in addition to forcing the boy to sit outside the family’s apartment naked because Jacob wet his pants.
- A 2010 claim that the left side of Jacob’s face was swollen as a result of abuse and that “Benny Gibson rants and yells at Jacob and requires Jacob to stand on a box at attention for punishment.”
A Phoenix police spokesman said officers also went to the family’s apartment near 19th and Glendale avenues during the past two months to investigate a report that Jacob was abused, but no one was home at the time and officers left unable to follow up on the anonymous tip.
Source http://tucsoncitizen.com/arizona-news/2011/08/12/child-protective-services-had-investigated-hospitalized-6-year-olds-parents/
Posted by The CPS Racket at 9:37 PM 0 comments
Labels: arizona, child abuse, cps, investigation, jacob gibson
TV News, Other Reports On CPS Corruption and Other CPS Issues
This is a nationwide problem but you will not find many local news organizations that will do investigative reports like this. Why? Because CPS is corrupt enough in some areas to be able to control what the news is allowed to reveal and/or reporters are afraid that they could lose their own children due CPS' abuse of power.
Posted by The CPS Racket at 9:22 PM 2 comments
BOULDER, Colo. (AP) - A Lafayette man accused of killing his infant son by shaking and throwing him has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Twenty-1-year-old Joaquin Campos had pleaded guilty in May to felony child abuse resulting in the death of 10-week-old Lyon Campos in October.
Boulder District Judge Gwyneth Whalen said at his sentencing hearing Thursday that it was a significant understatement to say Campos was ill-prepared to take care of an infant. The Daily Camera reports (http://bit.ly/pmsRRo) Campos was born to a mentally ill 17-year-old girl, was placed into foster care at age 2, and suffered physical and sexual abuse with foster families. The newspaper reports he dropped out of high school and qualified for Social Security disability due to his mental impairments before Lyon was born.
Source Article http://www.noco5.com/story/15254071/lafayette-man-sentenced-in-infant-sons-death
Posted by The CPS Racket at 2:54 PM 0 comments
Labels: child abuse, death, foster care, lyon campos, physical abuse, sexual abuse
August 12, 2011 5:45 a.m. EDT
Source Article http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/08/11/florida.casey.anthony/index.html?iref=allsearch
Posted by The CPS Racket at 2:33 PM 0 comments
Labels: caylee anthony, child abuse, cps, dcf, failure to act, first degree murder, inadequate supervision, threatened harm
An autopsy today attributed the death of a 3-month-old Far South Side girl to blunt head trauma due to child abuse.
Ianah Sherrod's father, Ivory Harmon, was charged with aggravated battery of a child. That charge remains and the case is still under investigation, said a spokesman for the Cook County state's attorney's office.
Ianah was brought to University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center by her father last Thursday afternoon, police said. He told officers who were called there that he had found her unresponsive in her crib.
The child, who showed signs of having been beaten, was resuscitated and placed on a ventilator, police said. She died Tuesday afternoon, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services said it has opened an investigation into the girl's death.
Harmon, of the 11300 block of South Forest Avenue, is being held at Cook County Jail without bail.
Source Article http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-autopsy-finds-infant-died-of-child-abuse-20110811,0,1156217.story
Posted by The CPS Racket at 2:26 PM 0 comments
Labels: autopsy, blunt head trauma, chicago, child abuse, death
Wally and Dawne Busch of Petersburg eagerly adopted their son Alan at the age of two in 2000, knowing that they would be in for some challenging times. They knew that Alan, now 13, had been abused by his biological mother, and they weren’t surprised when, around the time he hit puberty, he began to develop severe emotional and behavioral issues, which often manifest in violent outbursts, threatening Alan’s safety and that of everyone around him.
He threatened to kill other children at school, threatened to hurt the couple’s other children, mutilated his own body and talked often about killing himself. But the Buschs say their most troubling challenge hasn’t been Alan’s behavior. It has been trying to help their son in an environment that they say pushes families to give up custody of children to the state in return for mental health services.
The Buschs adopted Alan and his sister, Stephanie, with assurances from DCFS that the state would pay for the children’s medical needs, including mental health care. Despite counseling and therapy, Alan’s behavior became too dangerous for the family to keep him in their home, according to Wally Busch, so in October 2010 the family had Alan committed to a short-term psychiatric hospital with plans to send him to a long-term residential care facility at his psychiatrist’s recommendation. Lacking the hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to pay for Alan’s treatment, the Buschs approached DCFS about paying for long-term care, but the agency declined.
After Alan spent a week in the psychiatric hospital, the Buschs received a call saying he was ready to come home – that he was no longer a danger to himself or others. Fearing for the safety of their family and of Alan himself, the Buschs took their attorney’s advice and decided not to pick Alan up from the psychiatric hospital. DCFS charged them with neglect, classifying the Buschs’ choice as a “psychiatric lockout.”
The neglect charge against the Buschs was dismissed in court, but their choice to not bring Alan back home essentially meant they had given up custody of Alan to the state. He remains in state custody at a residential treatment facility, though the Buschs retain parental rights such as visitation.
The Buschs’ story is typical of a situation called custody relinquishment. It involves an adoptive family becoming overwhelmed by the challenges of a mentally ill or emotionally disturbed child. Usually after trying several methods of counseling and therapy that don’t seem to work, the family decides that expensive long-term residential care is the only option left, but securing funding from the state proves difficult or impossible. The family then decides the only option to secure treatment for the child is leaving him or her in the hands of the state. The decision to “lock out” a child usually comes at the suggestion of a family’s attorney, psychiatrist, or even a state agency, but it often results in the family losing custody of the child.
It’s difficult to tell how many custody relinquishments happen each year, but statistics on psychiatric lockout seem to indicate a worsening problem. Screening, Assessment and Support Services (SASS), a division of the Illinois Department of Human Services, says in an internal report that the number of psychiatric lockouts statewide more than tripled from 30 in 2003 to 104 in 2010. The Community and Residential Services Authority (CRSA), a state agency which guides parents through the maze of child welfare services when they have trouble, indicates in its 2009 and 2010 annual reports that custody relinquishment happens frequently enough to be a significant concern.
“Parents who attempt to access services through lockout in many instances end up relinquishing guardianship to the state and are often treated systemically as abusive or neglectful parents,” CRSA notes in its 2009 report. “CRSA staff do not believe that lockout is an effective mechanism for service planning and the CRSA board has long believed that parents should not be forced to give up guardianship and parental rights to their children simply to get their service needs met.”
The reports note that “referral to CRSA often implies a breakdown or a gap somewhere in the state service system.” CRSA cases increased from 355 in 2009 to 374 in 2010, with about half of cases from both years coming from families seeking residential care for a child with severe emotional disturbances or behavioral disorders. Of CRSA’s 355 cases in 2009, 32 came from Sangamon County.
John Schornagel, executive director of CRSA, which is based in Springfield, says custody relinquishment cases are the ones that “fall through the cracks” between the services offered by the half-dozen child-serving state agencies, including those that provide post-adoption services.
“I wish lockouts didn’t happen,” Schornagel says. “As a group of agencies and as a state, we need to find a solution to custody relinquishment. Certainly, DCFS has a good clinical division, and they’re capable of handling adopted kids who are at risk for adoption disruption. But for parents to have to go through the living hell of abandoning their kids to the system simply to get their mental health needs met is just the wrong way to go. There must be a better way.”
Schornagel says that of the more than 10,000 cases CRSA has handled in its 26-year existence, only 44 have required the CRSA board to step in and issue non-binding recommendations to resolve a conflict between state agencies and adoptive parents seeking services. Most cases get resolved before they get to the psychiatric lockout stage, Schornagel says, adding that many conflicts can be resolved if parents contact his agency for help securing services before a psychiatric lockout ever becomes an option.
CRSA reports identify other issues that hinder families’ efforts to obtain state services for mentally ill or emotionally disturbed children, including a lack of services available in a geographic area, state agencies deflecting clients to other agencies, ever-changing diagnostic criteria that require constant changes to services and programs, and the inability of schools to pay for appropriate educational plans for children with special needs.
Schornagel says the custody relinquishment problem is largely the result of changes made to DCFS in the 1990s because of a federal court order that required DCFS to put foster children into permanent homes within two years of entering the foster care system. He says “disrupting adoptions” will continue as long as there is such a short time frame for getting kids into permanent homes, combined with parents who “aren’t fully prepared and trained for the clinical kinds of challenges they’re going to face” when adopting.
Kendall Marlowe, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, says the majority of adoptions do not result in custody relinquishment. He notes that Illinois had nearly 52,000 children in its foster care system in 1997, but that number has been reduced to fewer than 17,000 currently, mainly due to increased efforts to place foster children into permanent adoptive homes. About 26,800 children in Illinois receive a monthly adoption subsidy from the state, which Marlowe says is probably the best available estimate of currently adopted kids in Illinois – excluding adoptions done through private agencies.
About 99 percent of adoptions remain stable after two years, with 95 percent remaining stable after five years, according to a DCFS report.
Speaking generally and not about any specific case, Marlowe says long-term residential treatment like that sought by the Buschs is usually reserved for only the most mentally ill children. DCFS received 75 requests for residential placements in 2009, he says, and only seven of those cases received approval from DCFS director Erwin McEwen.
Many of the problems exhibited by adopted kids are common to all kids, Marlowe notes.
“Adoptive families are not the only families that struggle when kids move into adolescence, and many of the behaviors we associate with mental health conditions are very common among adolescents, including issues of sexuality, identity and attachment,” Marlowe says. “It can be too easy at times to perceive an adolescent’s struggle with maturity to be indicative of mental health conditions. Often, even when elements of mental health conditions are present, the more effective solution is therapy and intervention which involves the entire family. … Families often don’t want to hear that the entire family needs to be a part of the solution.”
Addressing the charge of neglect that often follows a psychiatric lockout, Marlowe says DCFS procedures call for an automatic neglect charge after any lockout, but the charge is usually only upheld if “the family is not engaged in coming up with a solution” for the child to return.
Schornagel says the proactive solution to custody relinquishment would be better community-based support services like intensive therapy and counseling in a child’s own community. Community-based services keep children in a familiar environment – usually their own home – while costing the state less money than residential treatment and pre-empting many of the problems that lead to psychiatric lockouts.
While many state agencies are working to establish more community-based services, Schornagel says that process requires diverting money away from things like residential care, which deals with kids who are already in crisis.
“My perception, from where I sit, is that community-based services aren’t available in the quantity or the quality that are necessary to maintain a lot of these kids, and that’s why it all breaks down,” Schornagel says. “All of the agencies that I’ve worked with have been, over the years, trying to back away from residential placement and take some of the money they were spending on residential care and redirect that to community-based programs. It’s a slow process of moving the money from the back end to the front end, and I think we’re in the middle of that.”
Marlowe says more community-based services are a big part of the solution, but families must also be prepared for the challenges they will face when adopting.
“All of us in the field believe that if we build a stronger safety net, we will be seeing fewer family crises,” Marlowe says. “The system as a whole is trying to move from a mode of reacting to crisis to a more preventative approach. But not every family’s problems can be solved by Dr. Phil in 60 minutes like on Oprah. Growing into a mature, healthy adult is a process that requires support from family at every turn.”
But for families already in crisis, it’s too late to build a stronger safety net. In 1998, James and Toni Hoy of Ingleside, Ill., adopted a two-year-old son named Daniel. He displayed developmental delays, had been abused by his biological parents, and had been born under the influence of drugs and alcohol. As Daniel grew older, he began to display violent and aggressive behavior, which became dangerous enough that Toni Hoy says she didn’t feel safe in her own home.
The Hoys tried several methods of therapy and counseling for Daniel, but nothing seemed to work. The final straw was when Daniel, then 13, pulled a knife on one of the Hoys’ other children and threw another child down some stairs.
In 2007, they approached the Department of Human Services (DHS) and the Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS) about paying for $180,000-per-year residential treatment the family could not afford. The state declined to pay.
Denied funding for treatment they felt Daniel truly needed, the Hoys chose not to pick him up from the psychiatric hospital. Like the Buschs, they faced a charge of neglect for their psychiatric lockout, and their son became a ward of the state, which eventually placed him in a residential treatment facility.
The Hoys eventually got the neglect charge dropped, but it remained in the State Central Registry of abuse and neglect findings. They sued DHS and HFS to obtain funding for Daniel’s residential care, settling their case in July 2011 with an agreement that the agencies would pay for Daniel’s treatment while not admitting any fault. The Hoys also regained custody of Daniel, who is now 16 and was recently transferred from residential care to a juvenile detention center for assaulting a teacher and damaging a car.
While the Hoy case doesn’t set a precedent for other cases because it was settled before a court ruling, Toni Hoy says she has advised several other families in similar situations, and their case may serve as a catalyst for an upcoming class-action lawsuit.
The Collins Law Firm in Naperville, which represented the Hoys in their case, is examining similar cases to construct a class-action suit that could force changes in how the state handles psychiatric lockouts, custody relinquishment and residential care. Attorney Aaron Rapier at Collins says that suit is still in the planning stages and will not be pursued until later, to avoid jeopardizing the Hoys’ settlement.
In the meantime, John Schornagel at CRSA says the state’s financial woes limit the speed at which agencies can move from reacting to crises toward preventing them.
“State agencies have all been cut back on a variety of services – administration and direct services – and a lot of the nonprofits that do the heavy lifting are in trouble because the state isn’t paying their bills in some instances and they’re cutting back on services they provide to the community,” he says. “It makes being proactive more and more difficult. … I don’t think there’s any bad guys here. The agencies are doing what they can to do a better job with a very, very challenging population. I think they’re beginning to win the war, but there’s always casualties.”
Source article http://www.illinoistimes.com/Springfield/article-8964-when-adoption-goes-wrong.html
Posted by The CPS Racket at 2:14 PM 1 comments
Labels: adoption, central registry, children, cps, dcfs, lockout, mental health, money, psychiatrist, relinquishment, throw away kids, treatment
Posted: Aug 10, 2011 3:16 PM CDT
Updated: Aug 11, 2011 9:24 AM CDT
By Colleen McCarty, Investigative Reporter
By Kyle Zuelke, Photojournalist
Click here to watch a video that goes with this article.
Despite assurances from both state and local officials progress has been painfully and perhaps dangerously slow. The data the I-Team received from both the state and the county is such a mess it's hard to say exactly how much the use of psychotropic medications among kids in care has increased.
Numbers from the state and the county -- regarding the same children -- doesn't match. In addition, figures provided to the I-Team in 2009 are somehow different today.
What is clear is that nearly 30 percent of kids in the system are taking at least one of these medications and the state confirms an increase last year. At the same time both agencies were supposed to be fixing the problem.
"These are the very first kids that were place were placed with us," said Jill Fox, a former foster mom who has taken in some 50 children. While most returned to their birth parents, five did not. Eleven-year-old Brooklyn, 9-year-old Sondra, 6–year-old Jenna, 3-year-old Jackson, and 2-year-old Cooper stayed with Fox.
"With children who've been through the trauma, whether it's neglect or abuse or the trauma of instability in their lives, or the drug and alcohol exposure in utero, things go well for a while and then it goes downhill for a while but we always seem to make it back up the hill," said Fox.
It's a climb that -- for some children in foster care -- involves the use of psychotropic medications. These are powerful mood-altering drugs that can come with severe side effects. The drugs are prescribed to kids as young as three-years old.
"Legitimately there are children whose behaviors are such that we need to medicate to get control of the behaviors, to get some stability, so that they can digest the counseling, they can digest the love and the support, but at what point is somebody going to start taking them off?" Fox said.
According to state Medicaid statistics, nearly 30 percent of kids in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems are on at least one psychotropic medication. That's up from two years ago. Despite both Clark County policy and state law drafted at the same time to reduce the numbers.
"Am I disappointed by the slow roll out on this policy? Yes," said Mike Willden who is the head of the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services which oversees the state's child welfare system.
"What is the real issue is that children are being overmedicated. Their health is at risk, those kinds of issues. That's the real issue, not whether or not we have the right form or we don't have the right form or something like that. You want to ensure that prescribers are accurately addressing a child's welfare needs," said Willden.
Willden tells the I-Team, despite the two-year delay, both Reno and the rurals have implemented state policy requiring a child's parent or legal guardian, or in their absence, a court consent, to the use of psychotropic medications.
Clark County however -- to Willden's frustration -- has yet to comply.
"I could make excuses for them, I'm not going to. It should've been straightened out a long time ago, even at the state level, we should've moved quicker," he said.
The county declined the I-Team's request for an interview yet earlier this year Tom Morton, the former Director of Clark County Family Services offered this explanation to lawmakers.
"We have been unable to implement our version of the policy because we don't have funds for a psychiatric consultant who can review the medication prescribed by the prescribing psychiatrist or physician."
In a written statement, the county insists it is now working to meet the requirements mandated by both the 2009 and 2011 legislatures to improve the management of psychotropic medications.
Read Clark County's Statement
Until then, moms like Fox, will worry about the little kids on big drugs who depend on the system to keep them safe.
"It needs to be a front burner issue," said Fox.
Clark County has submitted an implementation plan. Director Willden tells the I-Team he's given the county 90 days to come into compliance.
If there is a silver lining, psychotropic drug use among kids age 5 and under is on the decline due in part to additional oversight from Medicaid. Willden says that same oversight will apply to all age groups in the near future.
Source Article http://www.8newsnow.com/story/15245079/i-team
Posted by The CPS Racket at 1:58 PM 0 comments
Labels: children, clark county, foster care, medicaid, medications, mood altering drugs, overmedicated, policy, psychotropic drugs, tom morton
Sean Brooks sits in jail charged with first-degree murder.
He has pleaded "not guilty."
Oklahoma House Speaker Kris Steele (R- Shawnee), says the Oklahoma Department of Human Services failed the little girl by leaving her in a risky environment.
DHS also admits procedures were not followed.
In a report released by DHS Wednesday, we learned DHS was called in to investigate on four different occasions, dating back to June 2009.
The first two investigations centered around Serenity's mom, Samantha Deal, who went to prison last month after being convicted of lewd or indecent acts with a child.
Investigations three and four charged Serenity's father, Sean Brooks, with child abuse.
Checks and balances that failed a little girl.
May 11, 2011, three weeks before her death, Serenity was placed with her father in a trial reunification.
"Our agency takes any threat of harm to children seriously," Powell said. "We have policies, training and procedures in place to keep children safe. Those were not followed and employees will be held accountable for not following policy."
Following Serenity's death in June, DHS suspended with pay four case workers.
Weeks later, one committed suicide.
After that another resigned.
Two remain on paid suspesion.
Sean Brooks is scheduled to go to court in October for a preliminary hearing.
Posted by The CPS Racket at 9:08 PM 0 comments
Labels: child abuse, cps, death, dhs, samantha deal, sean brooks, Serenity Deal
Little to No Trust for Guardian Ad Litems and Attorneys For the Children
We have come to the conclusion through our own experiences, case histories of other people going through the corrupt CPS circus and other reports that anyone who is going through a CPS A&N case should be cautious in regards to any guadian ad litem or child's attorney who has been appointed by the judge in your case.
On the surface, the idea of someone representing your child in a CPS case sounds good. You may even get a false sense of security that they will do the right thing by your child. Don't be fooled, in most every instance, they are in collusion with CPS.
They are a part of the scheme to take children. We have seen time and time again where the guardian ad litem or child's attorney is not only friends with the judge and some of the CPS workers but they also belong to the same "community" organizations and sometimes, they even donate money, services or their time to foster and adoption agencies. That should never be and it is a direct conflict of interest but that is how it often works.
These guardian ad litems or child's attorney spends very little time with the child to even know what would be in the child's best interest. They don't know the child at all. They know very little about anything except what they read in the reports they get from CPS. Can you say - biased reports?
The definition of a guardian ad litem - might be call the child's attorney because they are lawyers in some cases:
A few things about immunity for guradian ad litems and attorneys for children (borrowed from https://protectingourchildrenfrombeingsold.wordpress.com/tag/guardian-ad-litems-can-be-sued/) :
Guardian ad litems and Appointed Counsel are not protected by immunity. In Wiederholt v Fisher, 485 N.W. 2d 442, 169 Wis. 2d 524 (1992) “In child custody matter, guardian ad litem does not represent child per se; rather, guardian ad litem’s statutory duty is to represent concept of child’s best interest.” When those guardian ad litems don’t bother to meet the minium standards – they become subject to liabilty. (Collins v Tabet, 111 N.M. 391,806 P 2nd 40 (N.M. 1990)
In other words when a Guardian ad litem just goes through the motions and does not really work the case they can and should be held liable. Most Guardians don’t work for the child, they work for Child Protection Services.
According to Bonds, 64, N.M. at 345,328 P. 2nd at 599 the appointment as guardian ad litem of a minor child is in the postion for the highest trust and no attorney should ever blindly enter in an appearance as guardian ad litem and allow a matter to proceed without a full and complete investigation into the facts and law so that his clinets will be fairly and competently represented and their rights fully and adequately protected and preserved….
Bonds proposed that a guardian ad litem holds a position of the highest trust and suggest that he or she is a fiduciary. Judge Donnelly compares the position of Guardian ad litem to that of a general guardian or conservator and is subject to liability to their wards for the harm resulting from ordinary negligence in the discharge of their duties. They are actually charged with a higher standard of care than are other people involved.
In Downs v Sawtelle, 574,F 2d 1 ( 1st Cir.1978) a federal judge in the Court of Appeals ruled that immunity was inappropriate for guardians because they are considered private parties and they are not confronted with the pressures of office, the decision making of the threat of liability facing governors or high level public officials.
According to J.W.F. v Schoolcraft, 763 P.2nd 1217 (Utah, 1987) A guardian ad litems job is to put themselves in the shoes of the child and look at the factors as the child would if he or she were old enough and their judgment was mature enough to make a decision.
Posted by The CPS Racket at 6:05 AM 2 comments
Labels: appointment, childs attorney, collusion, cps, cps corrupt, guardian ad litem, judge
Maine Couple Seeks Answers from DHHS After Losing Custody of Son
From MPN 08/08/2011 Reported By: Jay Field
Two Bangor lawyers are calling for more openness in the child protective proceedings run by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services. The push for more transparency stems from a case in which a client of theirs---a woman struggling with severe mental illness---lost custody of her son.
In 2002, Eleanor Handler's life took a dark turn. She became severely depressed and entered a clinic in Boston to get treatment. Two years later, her illness flared again and she went back into the hospital. After one more hospitalization, in 2005, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services moved to take away her son on grounds that Handler was unwell and incompetent.
She got notice of what's called a jeporady hearing, where the state gathers information about whether a child is at risk in their parents custody. Handler, who was still in throes of mental illness, was told by state officials that she could waive her right to the hearing.
"By agreeing to a jeopardy order, you're agreeing that your child is in jeopardy if the child is with you or your husband," says Joseph Baldacci, one of Handler's lawyers. "She consented to it, despite the fact that it's our opinion that she lacked the mental capacity to provide a knowing, intelligent and voluntary waiver."
Waiving the right to this kind of hearing has serious consequences. The information that's gathered can be used against you down the line when a final decision is made. Handler eventually lost custody of her son David.
Then, the family's ordeal got even worse, prompting the Handlers to post a video on the internet.
"David, I'm your mom Ellie. David, I'm your dad Russ. David is, David is, David is, David is the very best. Yes, yes, yes. We love you, we miss you, we're looking for you every day," Eleanor and Russ Handler say in the video, sitting on a piano bench holding photos of their now 11-year-old son. finddavidstuarthandler.com
State and federal rules require that kids first be placed with relatives, if reunification with a parent isn't possible. David Handler's grandmother and some first cousins all tried, unsuccessfully, to get custody of the boy. Instead, David Handler was placed in foster care.
"We sought an ombudsmen's report that the Handler's themselves had requested in 2009, about whether the Department had violated federal and state policies concerning placing their child with kin," Baldacci says.
Baldacci says Eleanor Handler is doing better now. She and her husband want to find their son. But recently, the Handler's got some disturbing news: The U.S. Social Security Administration was trying to locate David Handler to pay out some money the boy was owed by the federal government. But the state of Maine told federal officials it had no record of the boy being in the foster care system.
"There are studies, empirical studies, that show, that the mental and emotional well being of a child is improved, when he is preserved some family connections, has some ties to the family that raised him," Baldacci says.
The state has refused to provide a copy of the ombudsmen's report to Baldacci. But the Handler's lawyer has submitted a Freedom of Access request to try to get a copy of the records.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services would not agree to an interview about the Handler case, citing client confidentiality rules.
Source: http://www.mpbn.net/Home/tabid/36/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3478/ItemId/17532/Default.aspx
Posted by The CPS Racket at 2:11 AM 0 comments
Labels: custody, dhhs, foster care, handler, jeopardy order, maine, ombudsmen, reunification, son, waiver
Beware the Child Protectors by William Norman Grigg
When Salt Lake City police and caseworkers from the state Division of Child and Family Services (DCFS) surrounded the home of Janet Adolf on June 4th, they were not responding to an accusation of child abuse or neglect. The armed raid had been staged to seize Mrs. Adolf’s eight-year-old daughter, who wasn’t at home — although her three terrified siblings were. According to Mrs. Adolf’s attorney Michael Humiston, the order had been issued because he had advised caseworkers of his intention to monitor their visits to Mrs. Adolf’s home in order "to protect Janet’s rights."
As the case is described by Humiston, Mrs. Adolf’s problems began when her eight-year-old daughter was "intimidated" into making allegations of sexual abuse. Although the family’s original caseworker, Kirk Soderquist, "tried to tell the court that there was no basis to the allegations," the youngster was removed from her home and temporarily placed in foster care; Soderquist was removed from the case and replaced with another caseworker.
After a month in a foster home, the child was returned to Mrs. Adolf and a second caseworker was assigned to make regular home visits. Humiston left a message with DCFS announcing his intention to "coordinate" the visits, so that he could be present to protect "the family’s Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights." According to Humiston, when this was explained to Judge Sharon McCully of Utah’s Third District Juvenile Court — who issued the order that led to the June 4th raid — she exclaimed, "What rights?"
Humiston, an attorney from Heber City, Utah, contends that the State of Utah has conducted "a systematic reign of terror." "By law, parents can be anonymously accused, and never get to face their accusers," observes Humiston. "There’s no right to a jury, no right to remain silent, and no that the parents are unfit."
In early March, Humiston filed a $500 million class-action suit against Utah Attorney General Janet Graham and several other state officials on behalf of five families whose children had been seized by the DCFS.
According to Humiston, the amount of damages sought in the lawsuit is equivalent to the amount of child welfare subsidies received by the state of Utah since 1994.
The situation described by Humiston is by no means unique to Utah. Across the United States, thousands of families have been ripped apart by citizen, teacher, or acquaintance — they enjoy none of the rights and immunities associated with due process. Acting in the "best interests of the child," social workers can terminate parental rights on a whim, and order police agencies to enforce those whimsical decisions at gunpoint. create a compulsory "home visitation" system, through which agents of the state will be able to subject parents to regular scrutiny — and determine for nearly a quarter of a century to create a national home visitation network. Should they succeed, armed raids similar to the one mounted against the home of Janet Adolf may become quite common.
"Village" Takeover
The "early childhood intervention program" — the Pre-natal and Early Infancy Project (PEIP). Christopher Caldwell of the neo-conservative Weekly Standard, who covered the First Lady’s Senate campaign swing, explained that PEIP is a child abuse program that "involves sending social workers on regularly scheduled pre-emptive visits into the homes of children whose parents are deemed to put them ‘at risk’ of wrong parenting."
In her ghostwritten manifesto It Takes a Village, Mrs. Clinton gushes, "I cannot say enough in support of home visits" by government social workers. After all, she declares, "Keeping children healthy in body and mind is the family’s and the village’s first obligation," and in those "terrible times when authority we vest in government...." allowed abuse to occur," Mrs. Clinton contends that "social workers and courts should make decisions about terminating parental rights of abusive parents more quickly, rather than removing and returning abused children time and again." Government-authorized "home visitors" of the type extolled by the First Lady are authorized to pass judgment on the "adequacy" of parents, and to summon child protection workers should it be decided that the "village" must now "act in place" of inadequate parents.
Like most advocates of home visitation programs, Mrs. Clinton invokes the tragedy of child abuse to justify state intervention within the home. However, as the Physicians Resource Council (PRC), an affiliate of the Alabama Family Alliance, documents in a new study entitled The Parent Trainers, "most advocates of home visitation … clearly state that their goal is to institutionalize home visitation services for all new parents."
Deborah Daro, a former research director for Prevent Child Abuse America (PCAA), candidly explained that the objective "is to bring home visitation services to all new parents." The U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, which was empanelled by George Bush in 1991, reached the same conclusion, calling for "the sequential implementation of a universal voluntary neo-natal home visitation system" (which by strict definition could not be at once "universal" and "voluntary").
Home visitors — who are also called Family Support Workers (FSW) — serve three missions, according to the PCAA. First, "being a teacher is central" to the FSW’s mission. Second, "the home visitor is also a friend, adviser, and advocate for parents," and is responsible for helping forge links between the family and local "community service" gencies. "Finally," states the PCAA, "the home visitor is a monitor" who is expected to consultation sessions with CPS to review ‘high risk’ cases" and to take "appropriate actions … when abuse or neglect or imminent harm are suspected." One FSW explains that "because so many of our families are at risk of child abuse and neglect, our watchful eye can see the potential for danger before it becomes a real problem and do something about it."
In other words, home visitors/FSWs are the designated "watchful eyes" of the state within the home, empowered to "teach" parents, shepherd them into the suffocating embrace of the welfare state, and arrange for the seizure of children from parents deemed unsuitable. Furthermore, since enrollment in most home visitation programs begins with the birth of the child (and in some, enrollment begins before birth), the clear purpose is to make the state, by way of the home visitor, the custodian of first resort for the children involved. "We must remove the children from the crude influence of families," Soviet Communist Party educators were instructed at a conference in 1918.
"We must take them over and, to speak frankly, nationalize them." Dr. C. Henry Kempe, the most influential American advocate of home visitation programs, subscribed wholeheartedly to that concept.
Dr. Kempe was co-author of the ground-breaking 1968 book The Battered Child, which inaugurated the contemporary "war on child abuse."
Kempe’s work was cited as authoritative by the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, and by the American Academy of Pediatrics when it recommended in 1998 that pediatricians should "advocate at the local, state, and national levels for the funding … of quality home-visitation programs." Not surprisingly, Kempe also earned favorable mention in Hillary Clinton’s It Takes a Village. What makes Kempe’s influence troubling is the fact that he was an unabashed proponent of the totalitarian view that children are "state property," and that home visitation should be "a compulsory, universal service" imposed on American families. In a June 9, 1975 lecture to the Ambulatory Pediatric Association in Toronto, Dr. Hillary Clinton in her law journal writings and in It Takes a Village.
The the common-law maxim, "A man’s home is his castle," Kempe insisted that "all too often the child is a prisoner in its dungeon. It is a dungeon of constant anger, dislike, aggression, or even hatred."
While most people would acknowledge that such dismal, tragic circumstances do characterize the plight of a relatively small number of children in our country, Kempe insisted that the conditions he described were normative rather than exceptional, and thus justified a "limited intrusion into family privacy by society" in the form of "health visitors." Such visitors would be regarded as "fully capable of determining which children are at risk, whether they are thriving adequately or not doing well," and help to "form a bridge between these families and the health care system."
Regular the teacher, the school nurse, or the school nurse practitioner.
Kempe emphasized that the regime he described would not be limited to troubled families; rather, participation in the home "health visitor" program would be compulsory for all, "similar to the concept of compulsory, universal schooling": "It seems incomprehensible that we have compulsory education, with truancy laws to enforce attendance and, I might add, imprisonment of parents who deny their child an education, and yet we do not establish similar safeguards for the child’s very survival between birth and age 6."
Lethal Guardians acting as officers of the state, which is, after all, the most powerful instrument of organized coercion and lethal violence. Once again, Kempe’s priorities are in harmony with instructions given in 1918 to Soviet educators, who were told: "From the first days of their lives [Soviet children] will be under the healthy influence of Communist children’s nurseries and schools. There they will grow up to be real Communists."
Kempe also emphasized that a stealthy, incremental approach would be necessary in order to construct a nationwide home visitation system. The program could begin in "any state, or any of our 3,362 counties," he told his audience in Toronto. Furthermore, he admonished advocates to be flexible enough to adjust their proposals to meet local conditions. "If it should turn out that local or state health departments are not very interested or are unwilling to undertake the health visitor program, there may be other approaches for its implementation," he observed. Pointing out that the state of Michigan had "placed the charge on the [state] Department of Education to assure that everyone is ‘educable,’" Kempe explained that this mandate "gives the Department the right to provide screening procedures and comprehensive health care to make every child school-ready."
The Clinton Administration’s Goals 2000 — which was an outgrowth of a national education agenda created by the Bush Administration in 1989 — provides millions of dollars in federal subsidies for state early-intervention programs, all of which are justified by the supposed need to ensure that children arrive at the doorstep of government schools "ready to learn."
According to Kempe, "those of us who are qualified to assess and correct the problems that produce child abuse and ‘failure to thrive’ should have explicitly described the child as the property of the state.
During the 1992 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton provoked widespread criticism for her suggestion that children should have the right to "divorce" their parents — but, once again, she was merely building upon Dr. Kempe’s work. "When marriages fail, we have an institution called divorce, but between parent and child, divorce is not yet socially sanctioned," Kempe commented during his 1975 lecture. For parents deemed these families," Kempe declared. "When that fails, legal termination of parental rights should be attempted."
From Kempe’s perspective, parents exercise authority over their children only by the grace of the state, and the state has the right to revoke parental authority at any time: "Where the state is supreme, the particular problem is easily managed; in a dictatorship each child belongs to the whether one of our cherished democratic freedoms is the right to maim our own children."
Kempe offered this paean to totalitarianism, the world had not yet beheld the horrifying spectacle of the state-run orphanages in Communist Romania, in which thousands of children lived and died in unimaginable filth and squalor. Nicolae Ceausescu, the Transylvanian despot who ruled that the individual Romanian child "is the socialist property of the whole society."
Communist China’s child care policies are also in harmony with Kempe’s vision of the child as "state property." A Chinese population control womb, murdered through infanticide, or confined in state-run orphanages.
Steven W. Mosher, one of the world’s leading experts on Red China’s "one-child" policy, describes that nation’s government-run orphanages as "killing fields." Human Rights Watch-Asia reported in 1989 that Chinese orphanages have a mortality rate of at least 72 percent, with medical neglect and malnutrition the leading causes of death. Most of the children consigned to this hell are girls; an account recently smuggled out of China described a case in which a starving girl child, desperately seeking surcease from starvation, attempted to eat the flesh from her own arm. child care regime.
Dr. Kempe was the founding director of the Kempe National Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect at the University of Colorado. Kempe’s successor, Dr. Richard Krugman, served as chairman of President Bush’s U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, which recommended "the sequential implementation of a universal voluntary" home visitation system.
In 1985, the state of Hawaii enacted the "Healthy Start" program, a home visitation program that identifies "at risk" families through screening at birth. Healthy Start literature acknowledges that the program "evolved from the work of the Kempe program in Denver."
maltreatment … or maternal life skills, mental health, social support, or substance abuse."
Healthy Start officials, according to the PRC report The Parent Trainers, are now "screening over 52 percent of all new births in the state and provid[ing] services to roughly 20 percent of all newborns and their families."
In 1992, Hawaii’s Kempe-inspired Healthy Start program was used as the template for the Healthy Families America (HFA) initiative, which was created by Prevent Child Abuse America (PCAA) in conjunction with the Freddie Mac Corporation and Ronald McDonald Charities. PCAA, it will be task force" promoting home visitation services under various program names. "In California," notes the PRC, "programs are called ‘Welcome Home Baby,’ Georgia’s program is known as ‘First Steps,’ Colorado’s ‘Bright Beginnings,’ Illinois’ ‘Good Beginnings,’ Massachusetts’ ‘Good Start,’ and Arkansas’ ‘New Beginnings’...."
To those state-level examples, a recent report published by the David and Lucille Packard Foundation (a major corporate supporter of home visitation programs) adds Missouri’s "Parents as Teachers" program; the "Nurse Home Visitation Program" — based on Elmira, New York’s PEIP program — which has been put in place in Memphis, Tennessee and Denver, Colorado, "and [is] now being replicated nationally"; Arkansas’ Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY), "which seeks to prepare 3-year to 5-year-olds for kindergarten and first grade"; and the Comprehensive Child Development Program, "a five-year federal demonstration program that worked with poor families in 24 sites to promote malignant design of using home visitation programs as an incremental means of nationalizing children as "state property."
The PCAA reports that "Healthy Family" sites, under various names, are operating in 42 states and the District of Columbia. A recent survey by the organization found that one in five parents with children under the age of one received some type of home visitation service in 1997.
Furthermore, the organization’s effort to make home visitation universal received a tremendous boost in the federal budget for fiscal year 1999: The PCAA received $33 million through the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, and an additional $14 million for "research and data collection." The organization’s 42 state chapters also have access to Children’s Trust Funds, which are financed through surcharges on marriage licenses and birth certificates, fees for vanity license plates, and check-offs on individual state income tax returns.
In addition, the PCAA "was instrumental in the reauthorization of the Family Preservation and Support Services Program (renamed the Safe and Stable Families Program)," points out The Parent Trainers. Federal funding for that program, which totaled $275 million in fiscal year 1999, is projected to increase to $305 million by 2001 — and a large portion of that amount will be devoted to cultivating and expanding government home visitation efforts.
Testing for Child Abuse
In order to determine which newborn children are "at-risk" and thus qualify for home visitations, observes The Parent Trainers, state-based "Healthy Family" groups must "gain access to medical records of women who are pregnant or have just given birth. To complete this phase, HFA programs employ ‘Family Assessment Workers’ (FAWs) who will screen and assess mothers to determine their risk status." In some cases, an FAW "is designated as a temporary, volunteer employee of the hospital (when she is on hospital grounds) to allow her access to medical records. In other cases, a member of the hospital staff may agree to do the initial record screen and then make referrals to the FAW. Or, the FAW may not have access to medical records, but may be allowed to enter hospital rooms and administer ‘verbal screens’ by asking postpartum mothers directly to answer the questions on the 15-point initial screen."
The questions in the initial screening deal with the mother’s marital status and history, education, socio-economic status, family background, and Family Stress Checklist" (FSC) — ten open-ended, invasive questions presented to both parents. The FSC is supposedly designed to determine a parent’s propensity toward child abuse. On each question the parent receives a score from 0 (no risk) to 10 (highest risk). According to Hawaii’s high risk category, eligible for Healthy Start home visitor services." However, as The Parent Trainers points out, "A score of 25 … is fairly standard risk and in need of home visitation services."
Among typical FSC questions can be found inquiries regarding "harsh punishment"; PCAA literature emphasizes that spanking is considered a form of abuse. Having been "suspected of abuse" is another risk factor for a parent, as is being "in the midst of multiple crises or stresses," having "unrealistic expectations of the child’s behavior," or perceiving a child’s behavior as "difficult or provocative." Clearly the FSC is designed to define most — if not all — parents as placing their children "at risk." This is to be expected, given that the objective of "Healthy Start" and its offspring is a universal system — based on voluntary enrollment if possible, but employing coercion if necessary.
The FAWs charged with conducting "screenings" and arranging for home visitations are generally volunteers who may have had only a few days of training. No specialized academic background is required to become a FAW; a high school diploma or its equivalent is sufficient. (One PCAA survey found that one-quarter of all FAWs had no college training.) FAWs are encouraged to lure parents into visitation programs by offering bottles, breast pumps, or other helpful gifts to parents as a pretext for a post-hospital visit. "Comments made at a recent HFA national conference indicate ‘creative outreach’ may also include sending flowers to the reluctant mother on Mother’s Day, or even sending flowers to the mother of the mother, if it appears she is the source of resistance," observes The Parent Trainers. "It may also include taking the reluctant mother out to the beauty parlor if this may gain her confidence and make her feel obligated to participate in the program."
To illustrate the success of such tactics, an Arizona program reported that "90 percent of mothers offered the program accept HFA services." Furthermore, PCAA urges FAWs to make "persistent outreach efforts" for several months, if necessary, until reluctant families "have explicitly of the service." Should Kempe’s vision of compulsory home visitation to protect children be consummated, it stands to reason that rebellious parents would be the first to have their children taken from them — as the case of Janet Adolf’s family in Salt Lake City would seem to illustrate.
As is almost always the case with any grand, malevolent scheme, the Kempe-inspired home visitation campaign makes malicious use of the worthy motives of otherwise decent people. Diana Lightfoot, director of the Physician’s Research Council and co-author of The Parent Trainers, explained to The New American: "There are three levels at which the home visitation scheme is working. At the first, most immediate level, we have the social workers or FAWs themselves, who usually have no agenda beyond doing what they consider to be the right thing — fighting child abuse, helping children get a good start, helping parents who may be overwhelmed. And of course, these are all very commendable motives."
At the second, intermediate level, continued Lightfoot, "we have the state departments of social services and other government officials who know means they employ. For a lot of state officials, the chief motivation is money; there is a lot of taxpayer money being thrown at the states by the federal government for these programs. At the top level we have the ideologues — the Hillary Clinton, Janet Reno, and Donna Shalala types — who family."
Dr. Sam Watson, Lightfoot’s co-author, remarked to The New American that "Kempe, despite his reputation as a great humanitarian, praised country are the product of that same mindset as well. In some states, money from the state lottery is underwriting home visitation programs; in others it is money from the tobacco settlement. These sources of revenue have been a real windfall for advocates of home visitation."
"The seed of Kempe’s vision has been planted, it has been watered with taxpayer money," Lightfoot stated. "Whether it will grow to fruition depends upon the American public. It is vitally important that we educate families and parents about the dangers of home visitation programs, and the totalitarian nature of the vision behind those programs."
© Copyright 1999 American Opinion Publishing Incorporated
Source: http://jimcooper.biz/ptfw/resources/BewareTheChildProtectors.pdf
Posted by The CPS Racket at 1:23 AM 0 comments
Labels: Beware the Child Protectors by William Norman Grigg, child abuse, children, clinton, cps, department of social services, guardianship, kempe
'Grammy' Tried To Save Child Who Died At Eight Weeks Old - Kaiden James Light
She begged and pleaded and called. She held the baby in her arms and told him he'd be safe. She did what she was supposed to do. But Kaiden died, just eight weeks after his birth.
Deborah Conklin was a member of Kaiden's extended family and saw him nearly every day of his life. She called herself his "grammy" and is described as a family member in a state file of Kaiden's case.
Despite her concerns, as well as caseworkers' questions about a psychologist's report and a parent's troubled past, Kaiden was returned to the home where authorities say he was deliberately killed.
"Grammy loves you," she used to coo affectionately.
Now she visits a cold grave and promises that someone will be held accountable.
"Someone dropped the ball," she said.
When Kaiden was alive, Deborah would put him to sleep at night, calling him her little prince.
Now she says "night, night" to a Facebook account she set up for the infant. He has 184 followers who view photos of him, leave encouraging notes to Deborah and inquire about updates in the murder case against the woman who gave Kaiden life and then, police say, took it away.
Kaiden's heart stopped Oct. 5.
"They should've listened to me more," Deborah said of Children's Division caseworkers.
Deborah said -- and state documents support -- that she repeatedly asked caseworkers to step in.
Shocking in hindsight, her concerns are documented in caseworkers' reports filed a few weeks before the baby's death.
Social worker Isabella Escudero was investigating a report of abuse to Kaiden when Deborah spoke with her.
"Mrs. Conklin stopped me as I began to walk away and asked, 'Promise me you will not let this baby die.' "
Escudero responded: "(I) told her that it is the job of Children's Division to keep children safe to the best of our ability and to work with the parents to help provide for their children," a report of the encounter said.
Kaiden stayed with Deborah that night, Sept. 22, so caseworkers could continue to investigate the allegations. He remained in Deborah's care for 12 days while his mother, Tatianna Light, underwent a drug test and psychological evaluation.
There was no physical evidence of abuse. The drug test came back negative and the psychologist gave the verbal OK for Kaiden to be returned home.
He left Deborah's house that night, never to return. It was the last time Deborah saw him alive.
"I hear all the time that I have to let go of my anger. I can't, I tried very hard to protect him. I just wasn't loud enough," Deborah writes on Kaiden's Facebook page.
A spokeswoman with the Children's Division said the agency did all it could under the rules it is governed by.
"We must follow the law. The law requires that there must be evidence of abuse or neglect, or the child must be in imminent danger. Other than that, when we have concerns, all we can do is offer voluntary services," said Arleasha Mays, assistant communications director for the Department of Social Services.
She said Children's Division staff never found any evidence that would be enough to get Kaiden taken.
After a few weeks of investigation and despite documented concerns, Kaiden was returned to Tatianna Light the night of Oct. 4.
He would be dead before the next sunset.
Posted by The CPS Racket at 12:39 AM 0 comments
Labels: caseworkeras, children's division, cps, deborah conklin, Kaiden James Light, missouri, Tatianna Light
In case of Santosky v. Kramer, 455 US 745, Supreme Court reviewed a case when Department of Social Services removed two younger children from their natural parents only because the parents had been previously found negligent toward their oldest daughter. When the third child was only three days old, DSS transferred him to a foster home on the ground that immediate removal was necessary to avoid imminent danger to his life or health. The Supreme Court vacated previous judgment and stated: "Before a State may sever completely and irrevocably the rights of parents in their natural child, due process requires that the State support its allegations by at least clear and convincing evidence. But until the State proves parental unfitness, the child and his parents share a vital interest in preventing erroneous termination of their natural relationship".
Also District of Columbia Court of Appeals conclude that the lower trial court erred in rejecting the relative custodial arrangement selected by the natural mother who tried to preserve her relationship with the child. The previous judgment granting the foster mother's adoption petition was reversed, and the case remanded to the trial court to vacate the orders granting adoption and denying custody, and to enter an order granting custody to the child's relative.
(b) The nature of the process due in parental rights termination proceedings turns on a balancing of three factors: the private interests affected by the proceedings; the risk of error created by the State's chosen procedure; and the countervailing governmental interest supporting use of the challenged procedure. Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U. S. 319, 424 U. S. 335. In any given proceeding, the minimum standard of proof tolerated by the due process requirement reflects not only the weight of the public and
BLACKMUN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BRENNAN, MARSHALL, POWELL, and STEVENS, JJ., joined. REHNQUIST, J., filed a
dissenting opinion, in which BURGER, C.J., and WHITE and O'CONNOR, JJ., joined, post, p. 455 U. S. 770.
Today we hold that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment demands more than this. Before a State may sever completely and irrevocably the rights of parents in
§ 614.1.(d). Should the State support its allegations by "a fair preponderance of the evidence," § 622, the child may be declared permanently neglected.
New York's permanent neglect statute provides natural parents with certain procedural protections. [Footnote 2] But New York permits its officials to establish "permanent neglect" with less proof than most States require. Thirty-five States, the District of Columbia, and the Virgin Islands currently specify a higher standard of proof, in parental rights termination proceedings, than a "fair preponderance of the evidence." [Footnote 3] The only analogous federal statute of which we are aware
permits termination of parental rights solely upon "evidence beyond a reasonable doubt." Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, Pub.L. 95-608, § 102(f), 92 Stat. 3072, 25 U.S.C. § 1912(f) (1976 ed., Supp. IV). The question here is whether
In October, 1978, respondent petitioned the Ulster County Family Court to terminate petitioners' parental rights in the three children. [Footnote 4] Petitioners challenged the constitutionality of the "fair preponderance of the evidence" standard specified in Fam.Ct.Act § 622. The Family Court Judge rejected this constitutional challenge, App. 29 30, and weighed the evidence under the statutory standard. While acknowledging that the Santoskys had maintained contact with their children, the judge found those visits, "at best, superficial and devoid of any real emotional content." Id. at 21. After
Last Term, in Lassiter v. Department of Social Services, 452 U. S. 18 (1981), this Court, by a 5-4 vote, held that the
The fundamental liberty interest of natural parents in the care, custody, and management of their child does not evaporate simply because they have not been model parents or have lost temporary custody of their child to the State. Even when blood relationships are strained, parents retain a vital interest in preventing the irretrievable destruction of their family life. If anything, persons faced with forced dissolution of their parental rights have a more critical need for procedural protections than do those resisting state intervention into ongoing family affairs. When the State moves to
The "minimum requirements [of procedural due process] being a matter of federal law, they are not diminished by the fact that the State may have specified its own procedures that it may deem adequate for determining the preconditions to adverse official action."
Vitek v. Jones, 445 U. S. 480, 445 U. S. 491 (1980). See also Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., ante at 455 U. S. 432. Moreover, the degree of proof required in a particular type of proceeding "is the kind of question which has
This Court has mandated an intermediate standard of proof -- "clear and convincing evidence" -- when the individual interests at stake in a state proceeding are both "particularly important" and "more substantial than mere loss of money." Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. at 441 U. S. 424. Notwithstanding "the state's civil labels and good intentions,'" id. at 441 U. S. 427, quoting In re Winship, 397 U.S. at 397 U. S. 365-366, the Court has deemed this level of certainty necessary to preserve fundamental fairness in a variety of government-initiated proceedings that threaten the individual involved with "a significant deprivation of liberty" or "stigma." 441 U.S. at 441 U. S. 425, 426. See, e.g., Addington v. Texas, supra, (civil commitment); Woodby v. INS, 385 U.S. at 385 U. S. 285 (deportation); Chaunt v. United States, 364 U. S. 350, 364 U. S. 353 (1960) (denaturalization);
Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. at 424 U. S. 344 (emphasis added). Since the litigants and the factfinder must know at the outset of a given proceeding how the risk of error will be allocated, the standard of proof necessarily must be calibrated in advance. Retrospective case-by-case review cannot preserve fundamental fairness when a class of proceedings is governed by a constitutionally defective evidentiary standard. [Footnote 9]
Lassiter declared it "plain beyond the need for multiple citation" that a natural parent's "desire for, and right to, the companionship, care, custody, and management of his or her children'" is an interest far more precious than any property
The factfinding does not purport -- and is not intended -- to balance the child's interest in a normal family home against the parents' interest in raising the child. Nor does it purport to determine whether the natural parents or the foster parents would provide the better home. Rather, the factfinding hearing pits the State directly against the parents. The State alleges that the natural parents are at fault. Fam.Ct.Act § 614.1.(d). The questions disputed and decided are
At the factfinding, the State cannot presume that a child and his parents are adversaries. After the State has established parental unfitness at that initial proceeding, the court may assume at the dispositional stage that the interests of the child and the natural parents do diverge. See Fam.Ct.Act § 631 (judge shall make his order "solely on the basis of the best interests of the child," and thus has no obligation to consider the natural parents' rights in selecting dispositional alternatives). But until the State proves parental unfitness, the child and his parents share a vital interest in preventing erroneous termination of their natural relationship. [Footnote 11] Thus,
Under Mathews v. Eldridge, we next must consider both the risk of erroneous deprivation of private interests resulting from use of a "fair preponderance" standard and the likelihood that a higher evidentiary standard would reduce that risk. See 424 U.S. at 424 U. S. 335. Since the factfinding phase of a permanent neglect proceeding is an adversary contest between the State and the natural parents, the relevant question is whether a preponderance standard fairly allocates the risk of an erroneous factfinding between these two parties.
At such a proceeding, numerous factors combine to magnify the risk of erroneous factfinding. Permanent neglect proceedings employ imprecise substantive standards that leave determinations unusually open to the subjective values of the judge. See Smith v. Organization of Foster Families, 431 U.S. at 431 U. S. 835, n. 36. In appraising the nature and quality of a complex series of encounters among the agency, the parents, and the child, the court possesses unusual discretion to underweigh probative facts that might favor the parent. [Footnote 12]
The State's ability to assemble its case almost inevitably dwarfs the parents' ability to mount a defense. No predetermined limits restrict the sums an agency may spend in prosecuting a given termination proceeding. The State's attorney usually will be expert on the issues contested and the procedures employed at the factfinding hearing, and enjoys full access to all public records concerning the family. The State may call on experts in family relations, psychology, and medicine to bolster its case. Furthermore, the primary witnesses at the hearing will be the agency's own professional caseworkers, whom the State has empowered both to investigate the family situation and to testify against the parents. Indeed, because the child is already in agency custody, the State even has the power to shape the historical events that form the basis for termination. [Footnote 13]
The court's theory assumes that termination of the natural parents' rights invariably will benefit the child. [Footnote 15] Yet we have noted above that the parents and the child share an interest in avoiding erroneous termination. Even accepting the court's assumption, we cannot agree with its conclusion that a preponderance standard fairly distributes the risk of error between parent and child. Use of that standard reflects the judgment that society is nearly neutral between erroneous termination of parental rights and erroneous failure to terminate those rights. Cf. In re Winship, 397 U.S. at 397 U. S. 371 (Harlan, J., concurring). For the child, the likely consequence of an erroneous failure to terminate is preservation of
"Since the State has an urgent interest in the welfare of the child, it shares the parent's interest in an accurate and just decision" at the factfinding proceeding. Lassiter v. Department of Social Services, 452 U.S. at 452 U. S. 27. As parens patriae, the State's goal is to provide the child with a permanent home. See Soc.Serv.Law § 384-b.1.(a)(i) (statement of legislative findings and intent). Yet while there is still reason to believe that positive, nurturing parent-child relationships exist, the parens patriae interest favors preservation, not
Nor would an elevated standard of proof create any real administrative burdens for the State's factfinders. New York Family Court judges already are familiar with a higher evidentiary standard in other parental rights termination proceedings not involving permanent neglect. See Soc.Serv.Law §§ 384-b.3.(g), 384-b.4.(c), and 384-b.4.(e) (requiring "clear and convincing proof" before parental rights may be terminated for reasons of mental illness and mental retardation or severe and repeated child abuse). New York also demands at least clear and convincing evidence in proceedings of far less moment than parental rights termination proceedings. See, e.g., N.Y.Veh. & Traf.Law § 227.1 (McKinney Supp.1981) (requiring the State to prove traffic
In Addington, the Court concluded that application of a reasonable doubt standard is inappropriate in civil commitment proceedings for two reasons -- because of our hesitation to apply that unique standard "too broadly or casually in noncriminal cases," id. at 441 U. S. 428, and because the psychiatric evidence ordinarily adduced at commitment proceedings is
A majority of the States have concluded that a "clear and convincing evidence" standard of proof strikes a fair balance between the rights of the natural parents and the State's legitimate concerns. See n 3, supra. We hold that such a standard adequately conveys to the factfinder the level of subjective certainty about his factual conclusions necessary to satisfy due process. We further hold that determination of the precise burden equal to or greater than that standard
South Dakota's Supreme Court has required a "clear preponderance" of the evidence in a dependency proceeding. See In re B.E., 287 N.W.2d 91, 96 (1979). Two States, New Hampshire and Louisiana, have barred parental rights terminations unless the key allegations have been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. See State v. Robert H., 118 N.H. 713, 716, 393 A.2d 1387, 1389 (1978); La.Rev.Stat.Ann. § 13:1603.A (West Supp.1982). Two States, Illinois and New York, have required clear and convincing evidence, but only in certain types of parental rights termination proceedings. See Ill.Rev.Stat., ch. 37, �� 705-9(2), (3) (1979), amended by Act of Sept. 11, 1981, 1982 Ill. Laws, P.A. 82-437 (generally requiring a preponderance of the evidence, but requiring clear and convincing evidence to terminate the rights of minor parents and mentally ill or mentally deficient parents); N.Y.Soc.Serv.Law §§ 384-b.3(g), 384-b.4(c), and 384-b.4(e) (Supp.1981-1982) (requiring "clear and convincing proof" before parental rights may be terminated for reasons of mental illness and mental retardation or severe and repeated child abuse).
Equally as troubling is the majority's due process analysis. The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees that a State will treat individuals with "fundamental fairness" whenever its actions infringe their protected liberty or property interests. By adoption of the procedures relevant to this case, New
This case presents a classic occasion for such solicitude. As will be seen more fully in the next part, New York has enacted a comprehensive plan to aid marginal parents in regaining the custody of their child. The central purpose of the New York plan is to reunite divided families. Adoption of the preponderance of the evidence standard represents New York's good faith effort to balance the interest of parents
The majority may believe that it is adopting a relatively unobtrusive means of ensuring that termination proceedings provide "due process of law." In fact, however, fixing the standard of proof as a matter of federal constitutional law will only lead to further federal court intervention in state schemes. By holding that due process requires proof by clear and convincing evidence, the majority surely cannot mean that any state scheme passes constitutional muster so long as it applies that standard of proof. A state law permitting termination of parental rights upon a showing of neglect by clear and convincing evidence certainly would not be acceptable
As the majority opinion notes, petitioners are the parents of five children, three of whom were removed from petitioners' care on or before August 22, 1974. During the next four and one-half years, those three children were in the custody of the State and in the care of foster homes or institutions, and the State was diligently engaged in efforts to prepare petitioners for the children's return. Those efforts were unsuccessful,
Due process of law is a flexible constitutional principle. The requirements which it imposes upon governmental actions vary with the situations to which it applies. As the Court previously has recognized, "not all situations calling for
Given this flexibility, it is obvious that a proper due process inquiry cannot be made by focusing upon one narrow provision of the challenged statutory scheme. Such a focus threatens to overlook factors which may introduce constitutionally adequate protections into a particular government action. Courts must examine all procedural protections offered by the State, and must assess the cumulative effect of such safeguards. As we have stated before, courts must consider "the fairness and reliability of the existing . . . procedures" before holding that the Constitution requires more. Mathews v. Eldridge, supra, at 424 U. S. 343. Only through such a broad inquiry may courts determine whether a challenged governmental action satisfies the due process requirement of "fundamental fairness." [Footnote 2/3] In some instances, the Court has even looked to nonprocedural restraints on official action in determining whether the deprivation of a protected interest was effected without due process of law. E.g., 430 U. S.
The Family Court has jurisdiction only over those children who are in the care of an authorized agency. N.Y. Family Court Act (FCA) § 614.1.(b) (McKinney 1975 and Supp.1981-1982). Therefore, the children who are the subject of a termination petition must previously have been removed from their parents' home on a temporary basis. Temporary removal of a child can occur in one of two ways. The parents may consent to the removal, FCA § 1021, or, as occurred in this case, the Family Court can order the removal pursuant to a finding that the child is abused or neglected. [Footnote 2/5] FCA §§ 1051, 1052.
Parents subjected to temporary removal proceedings are provided extensive procedural protections. A summons and copy of the temporary removal petition must be served upon the parents within two days of issuance by the court, FCA §§ 1035, 1036, and the parents may, at their own request, delay the commencement of the factfinding hearing for three days after service of the summons. FCA § 1048. [Footnote 2/6] The factfinding hearing may not commence without a determination by the court that the parents are present at the hearing and have been served with the petition. FCA § 1041. At the hearing itself, "only competent, material and relevant evidence may be admitted," with some enumerated exceptions
As in the initial removal proceedings, two hearings are held in consideration of the permanent termination petition.
SSL § 384-b.7.(a). [Footnote 2/8] In addition, because the State considers its "first obligation" to be the reuniting of the child with its natural parents, SSL § 384-b.1.(iii), the court must also find that the supervising state agency has, without success, made "diligent efforts to encourage and strengthen the parental relationship." SSL § 384-b.7.(a) (emphasis added). [Footnote 2/9]
As this description of New York's termination procedures demonstrates, the State seeks not only to protect the interests of parents in rearing their own children, but also to assist and encourage parents who have lost custody of their children to reassume their rightful role. Fully understood, the New York system is a comprehensive program to aid parents such as petitioners. Only as a last resort, when "diligent efforts" to reunite the family have failed, does New
Temporary removal of the children was continued at an evidentiary hearing held before the Family Court in December, 1975, after which the court issued a written opinion concluding that petitioners were unable to resume their parental responsibilities due to personality disorders. Unsatisfied with the progress petitioners were making, the court also directed
It is inconceivable to me that these procedures were "fundamentally unfair" to petitioners. Only by its obsessive
focus on the standard of proof and its almost complete disregard of the facts of this case does the majority find otherwise. [Footnote 2/11] As the discussion above indicates, however, such a
In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 397 U. S. 370 (1970) (Harlan, J. concurring); Addington v. Texas, 441 U. S. 418, 441 U. S. 423 (1979). In this respect, the standard of proof is a crucial component of legal process, the primary function of which is "to minimize the risk of erroneous decisions." [Footnote 2/12] Greenholtz v. Nebraska
The standard of proof influences the relative frequency of these two types of erroneous outcomes. If, for example, the standard of proof for a criminal trial were a preponderance of the evidence, rather than proof
Lassiter v. Department of Social Services, 452 U. S. 18, 452 U. S. 27 (1981). In creating the scheme at issue in this case, the New York Legislature
On the other side of the termination proceeding are the often countervailing interests of the child. [Footnote 2/13] A stable, loving
home life is essential to a child's physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing. It requires no citation of authority to assert that children who are abused in their youth generally face extraordinary problems developing into responsible, productive citizens. The same can be said of children who, though not physically or emotionally abused, are passed from one foster home to another with no constancy of love, trust, or discipline. If the Family Court makes an incorrect factual determination resulting in a failure to terminate a parent-child relationship which rightfully should be ended, the child involved must return either to an abusive home [Footnote 2/14] or to the often unstable world of foster care. [Footnote 2/15] The reality of these
When, in the context of a permanent neglect termination proceeding, the interests of the child and the State in a stable,
This reasoning misses the mark. The child has an interest in the outcome of the factfinding hearing independent of that of the parent. To be sure, "the child and his parents share a vital interest in preventing erroneous termination of their natural relationship." Ibid. (emphasis added). But the child's interest in a continuation of the family unit exists only to the extent that such a continuation would not be harmful to him. An error in the factfinding hearing that results in a failure to terminate a parent-child relationship which rightfully should be terminated may well detrimentally affect the child. See nn. 14, 15, infra.
New York's adoption of the preponderance of the evidence standard reflects its conclusion that the undesirable consequence of an erroneous finding of parental unfitness -- the unwarranted termination of the family relationship -- is roughly equal to the undesirable consequence of an erroneous finding of parental fitness -- the risk of permanent injury to the child either by return of the child to an abusive home or by the child's continued lack of a permanent home. See nn. 14, 15, infra. Such a conclusion is well within the province of state legislatures. It cannot be said that the New York procedures are unconstitutional simply because a majority of the Members of this Court disagree with the New York Legislature's weighing of the interests of the parents and the child in an error-free factfinding hearing.
The majority's conclusion that a state interest in the child's wellbeing arises only after a determination of parental unfitness suffers from the same error as its assertion that the child has no interest, separate from that of its parents, in the accuracy of the factfinding hearing. See n. 13, supra.
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Labels: 455 U. S. 745, allegations, cps, dss, due process, erroneous termination, foster home, removal from home, SANTOSKY V. KRAMER