Opinion ID: 2267972
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The neglect proceedings.

Text: J.G. Jr. began his life in unfortunate and shameful circumstances. His first few months were spent in a dirty and unkempt home, with clothes piled in the bathtub and dirty baby bottles and dirty dishes in the sink. The judge who presided over a child neglect proceeding involving J.G. Jr. (Bayly, J.) found the conditions in which the boy lived to be deplorable. More significantly, J.G. Jr.'s treatment in these conditions was even more deplorable. On September 22, 1997, when he was less than eight months old, J.G. Jr. was brought to a hospital emergency room because he was choking. The boy was wearing a soaked and soiled diaper. His weight was that of a two-month-old baby. [1] A medical examination revealed, and the neglect judge found, that J.G. Jr. had suffered numerous grave injuries, including multiple rib fractures, several broken bones, subdural bleeding and hemorrhage of the brain, a retinal hemorrhage, a swollen ankle, scratches near his nose, and a bruise on his head. The authorities were promptly notified, and the Office of Corporation Counsel instituted a neglect proceeding in which both parents were accused of abusing their young son. At the time that J.G. Jr. was brought to the hospital, his biological father, J.G. Sr. was living with the boy's mother, but the two parents were not then married. The mother and the father gave conflicting explanations of their son's injuries. The mother, who at that time was nineteen years of age, admitted to a third party that she sometimes shook her son when she was frustrated with him; the mother also claimed that the boy fell off a couch while he was in his father's care. The father asserted that J.G. Jr. fell off a swing prior to his admission to the hospital. After hearing expert medical testimony, the neglect judge found that none of [J.G. Jr's.] injuries could have been inflicted by falling off a couch or a swing, and that the boy's parents had failed to provide an adequate explanation for his injuries. The judge concluded that J.G. Jr. had received negligent treatment and maltreatment from his parents, that the boy was an abused and neglected child, and that his younger brother was in imminent danger of abuse. At disposition on May 28, 1998, J.G. Jr. was placed in the legal custody of his maternal great-aunt, with whom he had been living since September 1997.