How To Rescue Someone Else's Child From A Different State

Imagine the fear, anger and concern over losing a four year old child who had lived with you since her birth. The family who came to my office were beside themselves with worry when the child's mother sent her daughter to another part of the country to live with a man who is not her father.

The child's aunt, uncle and grandmother came to our office. Four weeks ago, the mother took the child from their home and sent her to another part of the country. She now lives with the father of her half siblings.

The case demonstrates how child custody lawyers strategize solutions to problems. First, we began with the facts. The child is four years old. She has lived mostly with her aunt and uncle for most of her life. Her mother has many children, but none of them live with their mother. Some are in foster care.

Next, we had to analyze child custody jurisdiction under the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act. Too many lawyers and even judges simplify and misunderstand child custody jurisdiction. For example, some mistakenly believe that the court where the child now resides has jurisdiction. Others think that the state where the child lived for the past six months keeps jurisdiction until the child lives somewhere else for six months. The accurate rule differs in ways that, though technical, make the difference in the life of a child.

After establishing jurisdiction, we had to consider various ways for a non-parent to take custody of a child. We considered private child in need of care actions, paternity actions, and grandparents' visits. We advised our client on the benefits, risks, speed and costs of each option. We even had to consider the reputation and experiences of particular judges to know how a court might rule.

Ultimately, we brought all of our sophistication and experience to bear for the sole purpose of rescuing a small child from a dangerous circumstance.

How To Keep Disabled Kids In School

I just resolved a case in which a school was trying to expel my client, a child with Asperger’s. He is considered gifted with intelligence. He has a talent for foreign languages, having learned five of them including Chinese. However, his Asperger’s often causes him to act clueless regarding the context of his actions. The case raised the issue of whether he was being expelled for his behavior or for his disability.

Special education law requires that children with disabilities have the same right to a free, appropriate public education as their non-disabled peers. A student can’t be denied a public education just because of a disability. However, when that disability results in misconduct, the issue becomes murky.

If the misbehavior is a manifestation of the disability, then the child should not be expelled. Otherwise, the child can be expelled, but still must be provided an education in an alternative setting.

In the Asperger’s case, his special education team decided by a vote of 5 to 3 that his behavior was not a manifestation of his disability. However, the team refused to consider important information from a therapist. We requested expedited due process to appeal the manifestation determination. Yesterday, we resolved the case on other grounds which permitted the student to return immediately to his school.

The Face on the Milk Carton is Yours

Last Wednesday CASA of Johnson and Wyandotte Counties hosted its annual Promise of Hope Lunch. CASA provides Court Appointed Special Advocates (abbreviated "CASA") for children in court. Most of the children are involved in either divorce / custody litigation or child in need of care cases for abuse and neglect. (Disclosure: I serve on the board of CASA, but I am writing this post on my own and not on behalf of CASA.)

CASA treated us to a moving program including musical performances, a video, and feature speakers. One of the speakers testified about her experience being abducted by her father at age four. She had no idea when he took her for a visit to the park that she wouldn't see her mother again for fourteen years.

Her father kept her in hiding from town to town under assumed names. They moved through 38 states, sometimes shifting every few weeks. She rarely attended school. He lied to her about her mother being evil or dead.

At age 14 she noticed the photos of missing children on some milk cartons. She said she was feeling sorry for those children. When she examined one of the cartons, she was horrified to find a picture of herself. She had never thought of herself as "missing."

From then she knew that her mother was alive and searching for her. Three years later, after escaping from her father, she finally found her mother's phone number and called. At the age of seventeen, she spoke to her mother for the first time since she was four years old.

Some people gloss over parental abduction because the child remains with a parent. However, her story reminded us that parental abduction is very real form of child abuse.

Scott Wasserman Speaks at Horizon Academy

Last night I was privileged to be a guest speaker for parents and staff at Horizon Academy , a specialized program to educate students with learning disabilities. Horizon Academy's goal is to help students with basic skills and to learn strategies so that they can successfully return to a traditional school. The student body is coeducational and serving students from first grade through high school.

I love that school. The entire community feels energized. Parents who had given up hope find a caring, dedicated and sophisticated staff eager to help their child succeed.

My presentation focused on the special education rights of students in private schools. Students in private schools might access services from the public school district where the private school is located. However, federal law limits the budget available for those services.

States are allowed to go beyond the minimal federal requirements. For example, in Kansas students in private schools can still get special education services from the school district where they reside.

MySpace Postings Charged in Juvenile Court

Two recent cases dragged postings from MySpace into Juvenile Court. In one instance, an Indiana Court of Appeals reversed the juvenile conviction of a teen who posted comments on MySpace. Her comments criticized her school principal's policy on body piercings.

The teen had created a web page under her principal's identity on MySpace. She cussed out her principal in saying that he could not control her anymore. She said that she would wear her body piercings anyway.

Her principal found the entry on MySpace and reported her to the police. The juvenile court convicted her of harassment, identity deception and identity theft. The Court of Appeals reversed the judgment, saying that the juvenile court had violated her right to free speech.

In a second case, on Wednesday students in Hartselle, Alabama left their high school after authorities discovered a post on MySpace threatening a mass homicide there. That student has been charged in juvenile court with making a terrorist threat.

How Many Children Get Abused In Kansas and Missouri?

• Five children die nationally every day from abuse and neglect, according to the U.S. Advisory Board on Abuse and Neglect.
  
  
• Seventy-eight children in Missouri were victims of fatal abuse or neglect in 2005.
  
  
• Nine children in Kansas City were victims of homicide in 2006.
  
  
• In Kansas, 8,465 incidents of child abuse and neglect were reported in fiscal year 2006.
  
  
• 608 children were substantiated as victims of abuse and neglect in Wyandotte County and Johnson County, Kansas in 2006.

Source: Debby Howland, chair of the KC Child Abuse Prevention Month Planning Committee, quoted this morning in the Kansas City Star.

CASA's Are Great People!

This is my week to volunteer for CASA of Johnson and Wyandotte Counties, Kansas, where I serve on the board of directors. CASA trains community volunteers to serve as a child's voice in court.

This morning I trained about eight new volunteers. I have been training CASA volunteers for more than ten years. This group was clearly intent on making a difference in the lives of children in court. On Tuesday evening I will train about another eleven new volunteers on the role of attorneys and guardians ad litem.

On Wednesday I am hosting a table at the annual Promise of Hope luncheon to raise community awareness and support for CASA. Thursday evening we have a regular board meeting followed by a reception for the new volunteers. I also have a speaking engagement Thursday evening with Horizon Academy, a specialized private program to educate children with learning disabilities.

I enthusiastically volunteer my time for CASA because I believe in its mission. If you believe in helping children, I encourage you to volunteer for this worthwhile organization.

Teens With Mental Illness Land In Juvenile Court

This week I spoke with two groups about teens with mental illness in juvenile court.

On Monday, I shared with the Wyandotte County, Kansas chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Last night, I was privileged to speak with about seventy parents and teens in the after care program at the Adolescent Center for Treatment of Johnson County Mental Health in Olathe, Kansas.

At both settings, we lamented the large number of teens in the juvenile system who suffer from mental health disorders. About seventy percent of all teens in juvenile justice suffer from mental health disorders, according to the National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice. Twenty five percent experience severe disorders.

For many of these teens and their families, juvenile court becomes the only way for them to access mental health services. Some families relinquish custody of their children just to get help. In juvenile court, mentally ill teens might be removed involuntarily from their parents' home.

I appreciate the invitations from NAMI and the Johnson County Mental Health Center to speak at their forums. However, the views in this post are my personal opinions, and may or may not represent the views of NAMI or the Johnson County Mental Health Center. I welcome comments from anyone who has experienced this system first hand. I also encourage any suggestions for change.

Liberty and Justice for All

You may have read about the US Supreme Court's decision not to review the appeal of two group of detainees in Guantanamo Bay. The detainees were appealing the authority of Congress in its Military Commissions Act of 2006 to strip them of their right to petition for habeas corpus.

Habeas corpus (Latin for "having the body") is an arcane legal term for the essential right to petition a court to review your detention. A petition for a writ of habeas corpus requires the governement to justify why it is holding someone in custody.

Without the right to petition for a writ of habeas corpous, the government could imprison you indefinitely for no legal reason. You would never get your day in court.

An incident from my practice illustrates the importance of this essential right. A client called me in a panic. She had been at the community newspaper office complaining about harassment from the County Sherrif. When she came home, her children were gone. A note on a business card from a deputy sherrif said that her children had been taken into foster care.

I asked her for the date and time of her temoporary custody hearing. Under Kansas law, a parent who loses her children to foster care must have a temporary custody hearing within seventy two hours.

She said that she had received no summons. I called the court to ask for the time of her hearing. The court clerk told me no case had been filed.

I called my client again. I told her that her children had been kidnapped illegally by the sherrif. Since the prosecutor had not filed a petition under the Kansas Code for the Care of Children, I filed my own petition for writ of habeas corpus.

The state returned her children to her at the courthouse before our case was heard. Without the right to petition for habeas corpus, the government could have kept her children indefinitely and without judicial review.

We enjoy our rights only if we are willing to extend them to the least deserving. Aribtrary imprisonment without judicial review lies at the core of any totalitarian government. We have no rights at all if we allow our government, rather than courts, decide which of us may petition for habeas corpus.

Two bills in Congress would undo some of the damage done by the Military Commissions Act of 2006. I urge you to write your Senators and Representative to support the Restore the Constitution Act of 2007 and the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007.

Know the Signs of Child Abuse

April is Chid Abuse Prevention Month. You can prevent child abuse by knowing the signs of the four types of child abuse: Physical, Sexual, Emotional, and Neglect. Here are some of the signs of abuse:

• Injuries in the shape of an object, or in places where injuries would be unexpected;
  
  
• Apathy, depression;
  
  
• Agressiveness;
  
  
• Sudden weight change;
  
  
• Clothing unsuited to the weather;
  
  
• Sudden changes in school performance or behavior;
  
  
• Bed wetting or nightmares.

Do you want your pizza with child support?

Three pizzarias in Ohio have plastered their pizza boxes with mug shots of parents who fall delinquent on child support. According to Reuters, the program has already resulted in the arrest of one "deadbeat" dad.

Kansas enforces child support orders through the office of the court trustee. A parent who fails to pay court ordered child support may face jail time. This time is often served on weekends so that the parent may maintain employment to pay the child support.

Letter From a Foster Child in Juvenile Detention

I just returned from visiting a fifteen year old girl at the juvenile detention center. She committed no crimes. She is detained for running away from a foster placement. I'll see her again in court this afternoon.

She is easy to like. She is intelligent and personable. She has an interest in nature and ecology. She likes to read and talk about books and music.

She has been in foster care since the age of two months. I met her when she was eleven. Since then, she has lived in well more than fifty-- maybe a hundred-- different foster homes, temporary shelters, detention centers, mental health facilities and residential treatment centers. Not suprisingly, she suffers from reactive attachment disorder and a host of other diagnoses.

When I visited her at a temporary shelter a few weeks ago, I noticed that she had scars on her arms and wrists from cutting herself. She said that the cutting released her pain. She assured me though that instead of cutting she now writes songs.

She sang this song to me. She wrote it in her diary. She gave me permission to publish it for any other child or family who might benefit.

Please post a comment. I'll be sure to bring your comment to her. I'm sure she would appreciate your support.

My mama gave me up when
i was 2 months old She
didn't break my heart she
killed my soul i was beat
and my flesh was weak i
was scared and could not
speak Daddy remember you
Raped me twice now your 30+
and still paying the price
as i grew up depression took
my life i tried to kill myself
with a knife so i asked the
Lord what to do and this is what
he said

Shout shout let it all
out leave all the pain you can
do without so come on im talking
to you so come on

pain is how
i made it through i found myself
missing you every day it was
pain i was going through
so i asked the Lord what to
do and this is what he said

there are many people
with different fates yours
is to walk through heaven's
gates

Should children be strip searched at juvenile detention centers?

A Sacramento attorney filed a lawsuit against Alameda County, California. alleging that its juvenile detential officers illegally strip searched the teens in their custody. The teens had not been arrested for possession of drugs or weapons, and there was no reasonable suspicion that the strip search would discover anything illegal.

The juvenile detention center where I practice juvenile law in Johnson County, Kansas routinely strip searches every child who enters the facility. The teens are forced to bend over and open their buttocks so that a staff member may check the anus for contraband. Juvenile justice jurisdiction in Kansas begins at age ten.

I suspect that these searches rarely find anything worth the trauma to the child. Most of the youth in juvenile detention suffer from mental illness. Some already have been sexually traumatized.

The "searches" are inflicted immediately upon entering the facility as a traumatic rite of initiation. They intentionallly dehumanize the child.

Strip searches serve the same function as rape and torture. In each instance, the perpetrator inflicts sexual trauma to demonstrate the abuser's power and dehumanize the victim.

I'm not accusing our juvenile detention center of rape or torture. Fortunately, our juvenile detention center has a great staff. They do everything they can to minimize the trauma. The searchers must be the same gender as the victim, and the search must be wintessed by another person of that same gender.

Nonetheless, the many juveniles I have represented over the years have understood all too well the dehumanizing meaning of this horrific hazing. I'm complaining about the process, not the personnel. Strip searches intentionally traumatize the victim to establish authority. They should stop.

Texas Juvenile Free At Last

Last week I wrote about the unraveling of the Texas Juvenile Justice System. The problems became public when a judge sentenced an African-American teenage girl to juvenile prison for shoving a hall monitor at school. That same judge freed a white teen who burned down his house.

Once in prison, her sentence was extended for possessing contraband in her cell. Her "contraband" was an extra pair of socks.

After a year of imprisonment, the conservator for the juvenile justice system finally released her.

U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Review Grandparents' Visitation Rights

Last Monday the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review an award of grandparent's visits by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The case concerned a conflict between a father and the mother of his deceased wife. The Pennsylvania state court ordered the father to allow visits between his son and the maternal grandmother.

This decision continues a long standing debate. On one side, parents assert their constitutional rights to raise their own children without state interference. On the other side, grandparents and child advocates argue for the rights of children to pursue their best interests even over the objections of their parents.

Parents won a major victory in 2000. In that year, the Supreme Court found a Washington state statute had been applied unconstitutionally. The Washington statute unconstitutionally allowed a court to substitute its judgment for the decision of fit parents regarding grandparents' visits.

Twelve states have no provision for grandparents' visits. The two states where I practice allow for some grandparents' visits in certain circumstances. In Kansas, grandparents can get court ordered visits if they can prove that they have a substantial relationship with their grandchild and the visits serve the child's best interest. In Missouri, courts can order grandparents' visits, but not if the parents are married to each other.

Should courts require parents to allow their children to visit their grandparents? Please post your comment.