Opinion ID: 168114
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Jasmine

Text: 25 The rationale for intervention in Jasmine's case was much clearer than in Ashley's. The Defendants had ample evidence giving rise to a reasonable and articulable suspicion that Jasmine had been abused or was in imminent danger of abuse. In a period of four days, she had suffered two injuries requiring emergency care, one of which appeared to have resulted from a sharp grab or torquing motion. App. 52. Ms. Olivas had offered conflicting stories about how the injuries occurred, and Dr. Baggs and physician assistant Boone believed that her explanation could not be squared with the X-rays of Jasmine's arm. Nurse Vandergriff and Dr. Baggs reported their concerns about child abuse to CYFD independently, fulfilling a statutory duty to report the matter immediately whenever they know[] or ha[ve] a reasonable suspicion that a child is an abused or neglected child. N.M.S.A. § 32A-4-3(A). Unlike the doctor's report in Gomes, Dr. Baggs's report unequivocally cited suspicions of child abuse. Although the Defendants knew that one set of X-rays had found nothing wrong with Jasmine's leg, they had another report from Dr. Baggs that reached the opposite conclusion, diagnosing the injury as a fracture and calling it suspicious and a red flag. App. 216. The fact that his diagnosis ultimately proved incorrect does not render the Defendants' reliance on it unreasonable. Finally, during a visit to the home, two of the Defendants inspected the bed from which Jasmine fell, and found it highly unlikely that a short drop onto thick carpet could have caused such serious injuries. Under the circumstances, there is no question that the Defendants had a reasonable and articulable basis for suspicion of abuse with respect to Jasmine. 26 The Plaintiffs rely heavily on two statements by Ms. Barrera-Garcia. First, Ms. Barrera-Garcia says that she did not believe — apparently at any time — that Jasmine faced an emergency situation. Id. at 401. Yet Ms. Barrera-Garcia was only one member of the team of social workers that agreed on February 21 that Jasmine was still in immediate danger of harm, and she apparently did not share her reservations with her colleagues, either before or after the staff meeting. Id. at 211. Her statement is also difficult to reconcile with her actions: she found the situation urgent enough, on the afternoon of February 20, to remove Jasmine from the home immediately. In any case, Ms. Barrera-Garcia's subjective belief that the situation was not an emergency does not change the fact that the Defendants had an objectively reasonable basis to suspect that Jasmine had been abused or faced imminent peril of abuse. Under Gomes, reasonable suspicion is enough. 27 Second, the plaintiffs quote Ms. Barrera-Garcia as saying that there was no reason on either the 20th or the 21st why a court order could not have been obtained. App. 345. As we made clear in Gomes, the question of whether state officials had time to seek and obtain authorization for the removal without jeopardizing the safety of the child will be an important consideration when determining whether the circumstances justify the removal of a child without notice and a hearing. Gomes, 451 F.3d at 1131. But as a practical matter, this factor can be difficult to evaluate: it may not be entirely clear either how long it would take to obtain judicial approval or whether this period of delay would jeopardize the safety of the child. Id. at 1130. Accordingly, to facilitate the `subtle balancing' required in child-removal cases, we take care not to `blunt the inquiry by simply asking whether there was time to get a warrant.' Id. (quoting Kearney, 329 F.3d at 1297-98). We treat this factor as an important consideration, but not our `sole focus.' Id. at 1130-31 (quoting Kearney, 329 F.3d at 1295). 28 Although one member of the team investigating Jasmine's situation, Ms. Barrera-Garcia, stated her opinion that there was no reason why a court order could not have been obtained, she provided no information about (1) the amount of time typically required to obtain a warrant, or (2) her reasons for believing that the immediate danger of harm to Jasmine did not require immediate removal. By contrast, Ms. Locklear's affidavit states that CYFD's `SDM' (or Structured Decision Making) software concluded that the children should be removed from the home pending a 48-hour ex parte order. App. 211. This demonstrates that the decisionmaking process of the team as a whole evaluated the imminence of harm to Jasmine against the benchmark of the time it would take to obtain an ex parte order, as it should, leading to the conclusion that immediate removal was necessary. Where, as here, the child had sustained two serious injuries in four days, without plausible explanation, the team was justified in believing that delay of even a brief duration could be calamitous. Taking into account all relevant circumstances, one participant's opinion that a court order could have been obtained is insufficient to show that the decision to remove Jasmine from the home immediately falls short of the reasonable suspicion standard. See Gomes, 451 F.3d at 1131.