State Power vs. Parental Rights: Is CPS Out of Control?

[XLFD]

All states have agencies who are supposed to be protecting abused and neglected children that find themselves in dangerous households.  These agencies go by the banner of Child Protective Services (CPS), and while there is an important need to find neglected and abused children and to protect them, the current system is only finding a small percentage of those truly abused children.  The Mondale Act of 1974, the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980, and the American Safe Families Act of 1997 all guarantee more funding through aggressively getting a child out of their natural home under the aegis of protecting them. 

 

 

But this often comes at the cost of removing children from loving parents, who may be victimized by the state not for being uncaring and violent monsters, but for being poor, or for having a baseless allegation reported on them by people with malicious intent, or for taking their child in for medical care for a 'questionable' injury or even someone with good intent witnessing something that may be abusive or neglectful.  The state is often quick to remove the children, however, the system is so corrupted in areas that there are major roadblocks to get children back in cases where there is no abuse or neglect, and big incentives for CPS to get the children into foster care.

 

The larger percentage of children that filter through the system come from families that aren't neglectful or abusive; these numbers are often fueled by  the need for CPS to justify their funding and continued existence.  Consider: if an area has very few abusive or neglectful homes, that will tend to cut the staff and salary down in future years as the agency is mostly idle and losing revenue.  Successful CPS investigation, interventions, child abductions and relocations guarantee their usefulness, and gain them good bounties from the federal government. 

 

But don't get me wrong, we still need an agency like CPS to do the core purpose they are founded on, but what is needed is reform and an overhaul of the current system which neglects to teach their agents investigative techniques that are in line with preserving the rights of all parties concerned, to refocus the efforts on preserving families if at all possible, and give everyone affected proper safeguards that would be maintained in all but the most emergent situations.  

We need also be aware of the various psychological factors not only of suspected parents, but of these social workers.  Victims of abuse/neglect often navigate into the ranks of the CPS, motivated by a desire to help children escape such situations, and they may be likely to use their own experience to assume guilt and rationalize away the rights of the parents they come into contact with.  CPS workers without kids should have additional training, since they may have ideals that are too lofty to expect from every parent.  Current training is often very limited for those employed by CPS.

 

Currently many mothers and fathers are having their kid(s) removed from their care by the state with a very low threshold.  This year a father was shot in Grayling under mysterious circumstances, by police officers coming to his house to take his two year old child, after a complaint was put in of him using marijuana.  He had no THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, found in his system by toxicology reports after his death; the lack of such means he had not used marijuana for at least 13 days.  This video highlights two other cases of note in Michigan:

 

 

And perhaps the most egregious case went down at Tiger Stadium when a man brought his son to the ballpark for a game, and got some overpriced lemonade for his son.  It happened to be Mike's Hard Lemonade, an alcoholic beverage.  The boy never drank the beverage, but someone noticed the father had given his boy alcohol, and the wheels began rolling... over the father's (and even the mother's, who wasn't there) rights.  Fortunately, the man received help from the Michigan chapter of the ACLU and is on his way to getting back his son from the foster care system.  These children of the state that died under foster care will never be so lucky. 

 

But here's the full story of the case where the DHS/CPS 'stole home' from that seven year old kid out with his father to enjoy America's pastime, and its recent developments.  Perhaps with enough horror stories we can reform the system of child protection, which is currently broken.

 

 

 

DETROIT – A federal judge ruled this last week that claims against a Wayne County Family Court judge could proceed in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan on behalf of an Ann Arbor family whose 7-year-old son was placed in foster care after his father mistakenly gave him a Mike’s Hard Lemonade at a Detroit Tigers game in 2008.

Through depositions, the ACLU of Michigan discovered the boy was removed from his parents even though Family Court Judge Judy A. Hartsfield had not made a determination that the child was in danger. Instead the judge had a practice of providing pre-signed child removal orders for the on-duty desk clerk to be filled out after hours based on police allegations. Neither the judge nor a probation officer scrutinized the claims of the police.

“Today’s ruling is a victory for all those who believe that the government should not be taking children from their parents unless a judge finds the parents pose an immediate danger to their kids,” said Michael J. Steinberg, legal director of the ACLU of Michigan. “The Wayne County Family Court’s practice of instructing clerks to simply fill out pre-signed child removal orders based on the say-so of a police officer violates all notions of due process and common sense.”

In allowing the case to proceed, Judge Avern Cohn ruled that if the allegations are true, the practice of pre-signing orders violated the parent and child’s fundamental right to family integrity and the “clearly established” rights of parents to notice and a hearing before the removal of their child, unless emergency circumstances exist. Furthermore, Judge Cohn ruled that the family court judge was not entitled to judicial immunity because in pre-signing the orders, she was not exercising her judicial discretion, but rather acting in an administrative capacity.

Judge Cohn also dismissed the ACLU’s claims against two Department of Human Services supervisors who, according to the judge, were relying on what they believed to be a valid court order when they placed Leo in foster care. Finally, the claims against Detroit police officers have been put on hold pending the bankruptcy proceedings in Detroit.

The lawsuit stems from an April 2008 incident, in which Leo Ratté, then 7 years old, attended a Detroit Tigers game with his father, Christopher Ratté, a professor of classical archaeology at the University of Michigan. Christopher accidently purchased what he thought was lemonade from a stand advertising “Mike’s Lemonade,” and, not knowing that it contained alcohol, gave it to his son. A security guard saw the beverage in the boy’s possession and turned the matter over to the police even though Christopher insisted he did not know it was an alcoholic drink.

While Christopher was being questioned by police, Comerica Park medical staff examined Leo and gave him a clean bill of health. Nonetheless, Leo was taken to Children's Hospital in Detroit, where he was examined again and found to have no alcohol in his blood. Despite the fact that he was cleared to go home, he was taken into custody by Wayne County Children's Protective Services (CPS), a division of the state Department of Human Services.

CPS refused to release Leo into the custody of his mother, Claire Zimmerman, who was not at the game, or to his aunts – one of whom is a social worker and licensed foster parent. The first night, Leo slept on a couch in the CPS building with his parents waiting outside on the sidewalk. The next day, he was sent to a foster home.

Several days after the incident, with the assistance of the University of Michigan Child Advocacy Clinic, Leo was finally released into his mother’s custody after Christopher agreed to move out of the house and only have supervised contact with Leo. Soon after, the case was dismissed and Christopher was allowed back into his home.

In filing the lawsuit, the ACLU of Michigan argued that the state’s standard for the emergency removal of children was unconstitutional as it did not require state officials to prove that the child is in immediate danger. After their experience, the Ratté family was instrumental in amending the law to conform more closely to constitutional standards.

Though the law was amended, the ACLU of Michigan argues that the new law fails to adequately protect the rights of innocent parents like Leo Ratté’s mother.The federal judge is expected to rule soon on the ACLU of Michigan’s request to declare that Claire’s constitutional rights were violated when her son was removed from her custody even though she was not present at the ballpark and had nothing to do with the Mike’s Hard Lemonade mistake.

In addition to Steinberg, the Ratté family are represented by ACLU Cooperating Attorneys Matthew Lund, Robert Ludolf, Adam Wolfe and Andrea Hayden of the law firm Pepper Hamilton LLP and Amy Sankaran.

Key News and Documents

► Document | Read the opinion

► Document | Read the amended complaint

► News | Child Removal Laws Are Unconstitutional, ACLU Charges in Federal La...

 

http://www.aclumich.org/issues/child-custody/2013-11/1898

[Willy]

Amazing stories of legal kidnapping. Great job X

[XLFD]

Thanks, and in related news, today's COLDNews has a nice feature story on Emma Martin, the new Miss Ludington, and her platform of bringing awareness to orphans and caring for the fatherless.  She will be pursuing a Master's Degree in Social Work at GVSU, and try to get more community involvement, particularly in mentoring.  Hopefully she can help with future reforms and maintain her energy of her stated platform.

[wildfire]

well "y"'s mother has done alot of this to "y"  n her brothers, all their life so i see them kids doing this to their own kids, all because the courts never went in "y"'s real mothers home n acually checked things  out  so here we r again with messed up issues in the justise  systom again, when some parents promiss (lies)  of stuff for their kids by telling them things like a person that groom the kids n  no one goes in to check out why "y"'s real mother n step day was doing all these yrs is why kids  are takin out of homes   "y"  is begin tought  how to be just like her real mother n   IF "y" is really carrying a child herself,  then she is going to grown up begin another evil person like her mother, who has (lied)  to her own kids all these yrs n  lies to the court n cops n  everybody who come in contact with her, she needs to be put into a mental hospital n though the key away before she hurts more people in this  process this real mother of "y"'s works on people it takes her about a yr  to get them in her hands n then as she is doing all this she tells them  something like , you would make a good mother  or your fat, n ugly,  you are a loser,  you need to get out n kicks them out of house with all they have on n don't care if they have shoes on or not, makes them go out n work for her like getting money  for her n its never reported, takes the money from them, n makes them get her more,  doesnt buy food for them  n  if so all they have is mac n cheese n a few cans of beans,  makes them still stuff  n try to get money from it to give to her she never claims that she was the cause of any of this, she alouds the blaim to go on the kids, so anyways I know  how their r people out their that try to keep their kids for things they never did wrong n  i also know their are people out their that are doing wrong by their kids but WHY DO THEY GET AWAY WITH IT?

[XLFD]

The CPS does act unevenly.  You can have a family where the kids are neglected and have to grow up fending for themselves, where they could be sexually, mentally and emotionally abused, and they slip through the cracks.  But the literature is filled with what many would consider caring, responsibility parents who lose their kids at least temporarily to the State because of a malicious report or a suspicious injury. 

Personally, I know of two cases where the parent's were deprived of their kid unfairly, and one where the State failed to act on my personal complaint which turned into a situation where the kid was molested.  There was very little accountability noted in the latter instance.