Opinion ID: 62905
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Seizing the Children from the Home

Text: Next, the Gates children claim that their Fourth Amendment rights were violated when the TDPRS employees and Fort Bend deputies seized them by removing them from their home without a court order on February 11, 2000. The individual defendants contend that the seizure was justified pursuant to exigent circumstances, namely the threat of abuse and the inability to obtain a court order that evening, and that they are entitled to qualified immunity. The Fort Bend deputies further argue that they were entitled to rely on the decision made by TDPRS to remove the children. The Gateses counter that there was no evidence of an immediate danger to the children, that the defendants had all day to obtain a court order but failed to do so, and that the Fort Bend deputies may not blindly rely on TDPRS's decision to remove the children. We will analyze each group of defendants separately.
We begin with the TDPRS employees, as they were the individuals responsible for interviewing the Gates children and making the decision to seize them from the Gateses' house. As with the entry into the Gateses' house, we must first define the Fourth Amendment standards that apply in this situation. This court has previously held that the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable seizures, applies to the seizure of children from their homes. Wooley, 211 F.3d at 925. To determine the reasonableness of a seizure under the Fourth Amendment, we balance `the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against the importance of the governmental interests alleged to justify the intrusion.' Id. (quoting United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696, 703, 103 S.Ct. 2637, 77 L.Ed.2d 110 (1983)). We begin by noting that seizing a child who may be the victim of abuse presents a different Fourth Amendment dynamic than seizing an individual suspected of criminal wrongdoing. In the latter case, the government seizes the individual in order to keep that individual from harming others, while in the former case, the child is seized to keep others from harming him. Thus, while a Fourth Amendment seizure has taken place when the government seizes the alleged victim of child abuse, the government's interest is primarily in protecting the child, not in restricting the child's freedoms. Therefore, when courts are called upon to balance the child's Fourth Amendment rights with the government's interests, it is important to recognize that the child's interests may align with the government's interests if, indeed, the child is at risk of abuse. In Roe, we noted in dicta that social workers may seize a child when exigent circumstances exist, specifically if they have reason to believe that life or limb is in immediate jeopardy. 299 F.3d at 407. However, we have never described in more detail the circumstances that will permit the warrantless seizure of such a child. Other circuits, however, have considered this question in depth and have reached differing conclusions. The Ninth and Tenth Circuits have adopted the strictest standards for removal of a child, requiring an immediate danger to the child's life or health and the inability to obtain a warrant before the abuse might occur. The Ninth Circuit recently held that there must be reasonable cause to believe that the child is likely to experience serious bodily harm in the time that would be required to obtain a warrant. Rogers v. County of San Joaquin, 487 F.3d 1288, 1294 (9th Cir.2007) (noting that, in the due process context, social workers must have reasonable cause to believe that the child is in imminent danger of serious bodily injury and that the scope of the intrusion is reasonably necessary to avert that specific injury (internal quotation marks omitted)). The Tenth Circuit similarly requires reasonable grounds to believe that there is an immediate need to protect the life of the child. Roska, 328 F.3d at 1242 (Simply put, unless the child is in imminent danger, there is no reason that it is impracticable to obtain a warrant before social workers remove a child from the home.). The Second Circuit permits the removal of a child pursuant to exigent circumstances when information possessed by a state officer would warrant a person of reasonable caution in the belief that a child is subject to the danger of abuse if not removed from [home] before court authorization can reasonably be obtained .... Tenenbaum, 193 F.3d at 605. However, the court refrained from creating a categorical rule that a lesser standard would never be appropriate. Id. at 604 (There may be circumstances in which the law of warrant and probable cause established in the criminal setting does not work effectively in the child removal or child examination context.). The First and Eleventh Circuits have considered the removal of a child in the context of a due process analysis. The First Circuit opted for a rule that would permit social workers to take temporary custody of a child without a court order when the social worker has a reasonable suspicion that child abuse has occurred (or, alternatively, that a threat of abuse is imminent). Hatch v. Dep't for Children, Youth & Their Families, 274 F.3d 12, 22 (1st Cir.2001). There, the court specifically rejected a proposed rule that would have required the social worker to have reasonable cause to believe that the child is in imminent danger of serious bodily injury and that the scope of the intrusion is reasonably necessary to avert that specific injury. Id. at 21 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Eleventh Circuit simply attempted to balance all of the interests involved. Doe v. Kearney, 329 F.3d 1286, 1295 (11th Cir.2003). Notably, though, the Eleventh Circuit declined to make the inability of a social worker to timely obtain a court order dispositive of the exigent circumstances analysis, instead choosing to consider it as part of an overall balancing. Id. at 1297-98 (rejecting the Second Circuit's statement in Tenenbaum that there can be no emergency removal unless there is insufficient time to obtain a court order). In the instant case, the Gateses contend that the defendants are attempting to create a child abuse exception to the Fourth Amendment. Regardless of the defendants' intentions, we agree with the Gateses that any sort of categorical rule that applies only in child abuse cases is not appropriate in the Fourth Amendment analysis. The Fourth Amendment caselaw has been developed in a myriad of situations involving very serious threats to individuals and society, and we find no suggestion there that the governing principles should vary depending on the court's assessment of the gravity of the societal risk involved. Good, 891 F.2d at 1094. That being said, there is no doubt that child abuse is a heinous crime, and the government's interest in stopping abuse and removing children from abusive situations is paramount. As noted earlier, seizures due to allegations of child abuse present a unique dynamic in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence which cannot be ignored. Deciding what is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment will require an assessment of the fact that the courts are dealing with a child who likely resides in the same house as, and is under the control of, the alleged abuser. The analysis cannot be divorced from that fact, but that fact does not override all other Fourth Amendment considerations. Therefore, we hold that the government may not seize a child from his or her parents absent a court order, [16] parental consent, or exigent circumstances. Exigent circumstances in this context means that, based on the totality of the circumstances, there is reasonable cause to believe that the child is in imminent danger of physical or sexual abuse if he remains in his home. This is a flexible inquiry that considers all of the facts and circumstances with no one factor being dispositive. Thus, for example, we agree with the Eleventh Circuit in Doe that the question of whether there was time to obtain a court order is only one factor that informs the reasonableness analysis; it is not a dispositive issue. Other non-exclusive factors the court might consider are the nature of the abuse (its severity, duration, and frequency), the strength of the evidence supporting the allegations of abuse, the risk that the parent will flee with the child, the possibility of less extreme solutions to the problem, and any harm to the child that might result from the removal. Using that standard, we consider the facts of the instant case, paying careful attention to what information was known by the TDPRS employees making the decision to remove the Gates children. As noted earlier, Travis displayed two small wounds that had allegedly been inflicted by Gary. Several children corroborated the story that Gary had punched or kicked Travis that morning. The children also spoke of Gary's unusual discipline methods, which could be abusive if carried to an extreme. Gary had forced at least two of his children (Travis and Alexis) to throw up food they had eaten and had allegedly handcuffed Travis to a bed. Timothy expressed fear of his father because Gary hurt[ ] Travis and the big kids. Cynthia stated that Gary had hit Cassandra and Andrew the previous day and that she was scared to live at home because of Gary's anger. [17] Based on this information, we do not believe that it was unreasonable for the TDPRS employees to conclude that the children needed to be removed from their home that day. There were allegations of recent physical abuse of multiple children  Travis, the big kids, Cassandra, and Andrew. Further, some of the allegations had been corroborated by several children, giving the claims more credence. There is no evidence that TDPRS was able to gather all of this information before the state courts closed that day, so obtaining a court order in a timely fashion was likely not possible. Further, TDPRS considered and ruled out the less drastic options of having Gary vacate the house or placing the children with a family friend, concluding that Melissa or the family friend might not keep Gary away. Although it is a close call, we conclude that the TDPRS employees did not violate the Fourth Amendment rights of the Gates children by seizing them without a court order. [18] Consequently, summary judgment was appropriate on this issue. Our conclusion that TDPRS's seizure was reasonable under the exigent circumstances standard also means that the seizure of Will from his high school dance was reasonable. Once the TDPRS employees decided that all of the children needed to be removed, they did not need to wait for Will to return home and be exposed to the possibly dangerous circumstances before seizing him. Judged under a standard of reasonableness, the seizure of Will was not unconstitutional, and summary judgment was proper on that claim as well.
The Gates children also fault the Fort Bend deputies for their roles in the seizure that evening and argue that the deputies may not blindly rely on TDPRS's conclusions to justify their actions. Because we have determined that TDPRS did not violate the Fourth Amendment by seizing the Gates children, we also conclude that the Fort Bend deputies acted constitutionally. We note that the Supreme Court has held that police officers may act on the basis of information known by their colleagues in conducting searches and seizures. See United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 230-31, 105 S.Ct. 675, 83 L.Ed.2d 604 (1985); see also Whiteley v. Warden, 401 U.S. 560, 568, 91 S.Ct. 1031, 28 L.Ed.2d 306 (1971) (Certainly police officers called upon to aid other officers in executing arrest warrants are entitled to assume that the officers requesting aid offered the magistrate the information requisite to support an independent judicial assessment of probable cause.). As stated by the Ninth Circuit, [E]ffective law enforcement cannot be conducted unless police officers can act on directions and information transmitted by one officer to another and that officers, who must often act swiftly, cannot be expected to cross-examine their fellow officers about the foundation for the transmitted information. United States v. Robinson, 536 F.2d 1298, 1299 (9th Cir.1976). Because TDPRS concluded that it was necessary to remove the Gates children, the Fort Bend deputies were entitled to reasonably rely on TDPRS's assessment of the situation. The Fort Bend deputies' reliance was reasonable in this case because the deputies were aware that the TDPRS employees had questioned the children for several hours, which would indicate that TDPRS was making an informed decision. Further, the Gateses did not present any evidence that TDPRS had routinely made unconstitutional decisions to remove children in the past, which might have given the Fort Bend deputies pause before agreeing to assist the TDPRS employees. Consequently, the Fort Bend deputies did not violate the Gates children's Fourth Amendment rights in assisting TDPRS in removing the children from their home. [19]