Maura Corrigan Director Michigan Department Of Human Services

This Article is So Wrong on So Many Levels!

May 9, 2011

This article is wrong on so many levels. The author of this article states that the letter of the law is followed when children are taken. She also says that caseworkers don’t have the ability to snatch children without a signed order from the judge.

There are so many things wrong it is almost laughable.

To begin with children are snatched daily just on the word of a caseworker and we know they lie. It has been proven over and over again. The Bahrona Case is a prime example the caseworker and guardian et libum both stated there was no family trying to get the children when in fact the Aunt and Uncle in Texas had been trying almost since day one. They had even written the judge several times.
The next dumb statement is that the letter of the law is followed- really! Parents are denied their constitutional rights on every level, Their 4th, 6th, and 1st rights under the Constitution are violated from the get go. Parents are threatened, harrassed and abused by CPS from day one.
They are considered guilty before they ever get in front of a biased judge who also stands to gain under Title IV funding.
Maura Corrigan can try to spin this anyway she wants to- it still walks like a duck- looks like a duck and smells like a duck. In other words children are stolen for profit on a daily basis especially since the economy is in the tank. Parents are charged with deprivation and neglect which are criminal charges but yet they are never charged criminally- if they were the case would be open as it would be in criminal court. We who are fighting this corrupt system know they all including the judges work under the veil of secreacy in order to be able to steal children for profit. Ms. Corrigan needs to quit while she is still ahead. Before she gets in over her head.

Maura Corrigan Director Michigan Department of Human Services

BY MAURA D. CORRIGAN

DETROIT FREE PRESS GUEST WRITER

Issues of child welfare have dominated the headlines in the past few months. As the current director of the Department of Human Services and a former justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, I appreciate any spotlight on the plight of our state’s most vulnerable children. But if we are all to work together to protect children and ensure that they are living in safe and stable homes, we must understand the system in place to protect them.

Contrary to popular belief, our Child Protective Services caseworkers do not decide on their own to remove children from their homes. Only judges can issue orders removing children from their homes; such orders are issued only in the most extreme circumstances.

In fact, fewer than 8% of the cases investigated by CPS in 2010 result in children being placed in another home to protect their safety. Law enforcement sometimes removes children from home in emergencies to protect them from immediate threats of harm. In those situations, CPS still must obtain a court order before accepting the child from law enforcement for purposes of placement in a safe home.

A dramatic picture is often painted of parents being caught unaware when their child is to be removed from the home. Sometimes the parents cannot be provided advance notice of an order of removal, as it may threaten the safety of the child.

Both the parents and the child are represented by an attorney before the judge when the case is being weighed. The parents’ attorney is responsible for bringing to light relevant facts, and only when all the evidence is considered will a judge make the determination whether to place a child away from his or her home.

The best place for children is with their own families. Many programs are in place to help parents acquire the skills they need to care for their children — and these are the most prescribed actions when dealing with child abuse and neglect cases. But in that small percentage of cases where children are unsafe or at imminent risk of harm, we must take action to find a safe haven.

Under Michigan law, DHS is bound to protect the privacy of the children in our care. We cannot share the background that led to our actions or the facts that would make the court’s decision to remove a child clear. This can lead to the perpetuation of misinformation and/or a mischaracterization of the actions taken in a case. Sadly, our social workers who are so committed that they are willing to face horrors each day to protect children are demonized.

A child’s welfare is first and foremost the responsibility of the family. But when a family is unable, or unwilling, to care for their children, the courts, law enforcement, community partners and DHS all share responsibility for ensuring that children are safe and that families receive the support and services needed to achieve successful reunification.

Maura D. Corrigan became the director of the Michigan Department of Human Services in January and is a former Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice.

Categories: Abuse by CPS

Need for a search warrant trips social workers

Ohio authorities not aware of Fourth Amendment protections

Erie County, OH   A home schooling family has settled its case against Erie County social workers and Vermilion police for the coerced entry into the family's home on Feb. 21, 2001.

Courts have settled this key issue in other jurisdictions, and now its settled in this jurisdiction.  Social workers cannot enter a home, willy-nilly, without a warrant,” said Gary McCaleb, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, the national legal organization based in Scottsdale, Arizona, that supported the case.

Paul and Linda Walsh filed a lawsuit after police and caseworkers entered their home without a warrant and without permission.  The social workers said they were acting on an anonymous tip about unspecified hazards in the home, and claimed they had a right to enter the home without a warrant.

The social workers threatened the family, saying that if they were not allowed in the home they would take the children away from the parents.  In papers filed with the court, the Walshes said that a social worker even blocked their driveway with her car when the family tried to leave to attend a church function that evening. 

The social worker summoned police, who frisked Mr. Walsh and threatened to arrest him on charges of obstructing official business if he did not allow the caseworkers into the home.  Walsh said that he then allowed the workers to enter the home rather than risk being jailed.

The caseworkers found nothing in the home that constituted an immediate hazard to the family.

Instead of tolerating this official abuse, the Walshes chose to sue the caseworkers, the Erie County Department of Job and Family Services, the Erie County Board of Commissioners, the City of Vermilion, Ohio; and three Vermilion police officers.

Defendants told the court that the Fourth Amendment prohibitions against illegal searches and seizures do not apply to them in such circumstances.  They asked the court to throw the case out, but the court refused.   The court said the facts supported the Walshes claims against the defendants for unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as for false imprisonment, assulat, battery, and infliction of emotional distress.

In a forceful opinion, US District Judge James G. Carr wrote: Despite the Defendants exaggerated view of their powers, the Fourth Amendment applies to them, as it does to all other officers and agents of the state whose requests to enter, however benign or well-intentioned, are met by a closed door.  There is...no social worker exception to the strictures of the Fourth Amendment.  ...Any agency that expects to send its employees routinely into private homes has a fundamental obligation to ensure that those employees understand the constitutional limits on their authority.

The court stated that because the Walshes refused consent, and because the anonymous complaint did not supply persuasive evidence of an emergency, the caseworkers had no option but to either leave the [Walshes] alone and in peace or seek a search warrant.

The court further ruled that the police did not have probable cause to detain, frisk, and threaten to arrest Walsh, since he was not breaking any law but merely asserting his “fundamental right to be left alone.

Kurt D. Anderson, a partner with the Elyria firm of Fauver, Keyse-Walker & Donovan, represents the Walshes.  Anderson, a graduate of Alliance Defense Fund's second National Litigation Academy, said the training gave him the background to help the Walshes when the opportunity arose.

ADF's training and resources really helped us confront an issue that, unfortunately, had apparently never been addressed in Ohio before, Anderson said.  As far as we could tell, nobody in Ohio had ever challenged a caseworker's home inspection for failure to get a warrant. As a home schooling parent myself, I really took the Walshes situation to heart.  I admire them for their courage to stand up for their rights, but it's a crying shame that it would even have to come to that.  Its just a reminder that we have to be vigilant and assertive about protecting our rights.  They can be trampled on even by well-meaning but uninformed government agents.

Anderson expects that as a result of the Walsh case, training policies will be revised for social workers not just in Erie County, but across the state of Ohio.  The caseworkers in the Walsh case admitted they had never been taught anything about the Fourth Amendment or search warrants.   The feedback I'm getting is that agencies across the state have gotten a wake-up call on this issue.

Anderson declined to reveal the specific amount of the settlement, which was not stated in the court record.

For more information about home schooling and the law, please contact the Home School Legal Defense Association, an ally of the Alliance Defense Fund.  HSLDA attorney Scott Somerville can be reached at (540) 338-5600.

The Alliance Defense Fund is a servant organization serving people of faith.   The Alliance Defense Fund provides strategy, training, and funding in the legal battle for religious liberty, sanctity of life, and traditional family values.

http://www.landrights.com/Search%20Warrant.htm

President Obama Save Our Children

petition to president Obama

by Abbi Orenstein on Friday, August 19, 2011 at 1:42pm

Dear Sir, since the days of Walter Mondale and Bill Clinton's safe families act child protective services have been steadily getting out of control.

Caseworkers and social workers are oftentimes guilty of fraud. They withhold evidence. They fabricate evidence and they seek to terminate parental rights. However, when charges are made against them, the charges are ignored, They have abused civil rights, violated procedure, lied to the courts, to the parents, and have gotten away with it even when caught. Some have even used racial bias to remove and keep children.

Children have died from abuse and neglect in their care. Child welfare can operate under a veil of secrecy in which they do not have to answer to anyone. Parents often have no recourse, cannot get community support, and must rely on legal aid to respent them.

when cps goes after a family most people believe there was abuse. this is why community support is hard to get and parents may even find themselves dealing with vengful law enforcment.

WHAT WE WANT:
Transparency of the courts: the privacy act only protects cps. Parents must be given equal ability to defend themselves. The media must be allowed to research cases so it is not just the parent's word against the goverment. Parents must be allowed to invoke trial by jury.

Accountability: When a social worker breaks the law to seize a child, that seizure must be considered unjustified and the child returned immediately.

Due process: Parents must not have to wait months to years to even see their children let alone defend themselves properly. Childhood is fleeting and the children may grow up in the system abused and devoid of parental care. By the time the parents get them back they may be well on a road to destruction they cannot escape.

An amendment in the constitution to protect parental rights: up until now we have not needed one. but because social workers have taken children from birth over mere speculation or the word of an angry neighbor is high time we need one.

Education of parental rights: Laws can easily be abused when people are unaware of their rights.

Over haul of the foster care system: as there are children that need to be there, the system must be fixed to hold foster parents and cps to higher standards. Backgrounds must be checked, foster homes must be checked regularly and doctors questioned.

Protection from clinical testing: foster children must not be used to test medicines in all states.

Nancy Schaefer's act: End the financial incentives that separate families. Nancy Schaefer is so far the only politician to try and end this abuse of the system. you can be the second and you can succeed.

     Mr.president there are terrible cases of children that have starved to death in foster care. cases where an unpopular family may be ripped apart, minority children abused by racist foster parents, military families loose their children, and where a child may have a swat team unleashed to take her away when her mother decides to stop medicating her with unapproved psychotropic medicine. This should not be happening in our era, this something that happens in a Dickinson or Orwell novel. Please Mr.President, save our children.