Child welfare in Michigan: Why let a few hundred “missing” foster children spoil the party?

            It was another love fest at federal court in Detroit last week, during a hearing on the dreadful consent decree between the Michigan Department of Human Services and the group that so arrogantly calls itself Children’s Rights (CR).

            According to one news account, the judge overseeing the decree praised “a different day, a different mindset, and a different atmosphere” in court compared to when the original settlement was reached in October, 2008.  According to another, a CR lawyer praised DHS for "some really important strides."

            No kidding.  The current director of Michigan DHS, Maura Corrigan, and the director of CR, Marcia Lowry, have identical outlooks: Both have contempt for birth families (Corrigan literally walked out on them during their one and only chance to tell their stories to one of those Obligatory Blue Ribbon Commissions that states and localities love to name to avoid actually changing their systems) both view permanence for children only in terms of adoption and neither cares about the slash- and-burn budget cuts in support for impoverished families used to finance their so-called reforms.  (For full details see our reports on Michigan child welfare.)

            Corrigan also is the one who wrote an op-ed column for the Detroit Free Press under the headline “Removing children from families always follows legal procedures” at the very time probation officers were illegally rubber-stamping the names of judges on orders removing children from their homes.

            So of course they get along famously.  The so-called progress largely involves hiring hundreds of new caseworkers to tear apart more families (financed in part by cutting family preservation and public assistance programs) and extending foster care until age 21.

            Amid all the celebration there is not one word about the hundreds, perhaps thousands of foster children who have gone “missing” thanks to the consent decree.

            They’re not literally missing, of course.  Someone knows where each child is individually – the foster parents and caseworkers, mostly.  But when it comes to their collective fate, they are entirely off the radar.  Corrigan and Lowry appear content to keep it that way.  They've adopted their own "don't ask, don't tell" policy.  In public, at least, Lowry's group doesn't ask and Corrigan's agency doesn't tell. 

            The children in question are those who were kicked out of the homes of grandparents or other relatives when those relatives couldn’t or wouldn’t comply with the ten pages of hypertechnical requirements to become formally licensed as a foster parent.  The consent decree requires that loving grandparents and other relatives, who often are poor, comply with exactly the same requirements as the middle-class strangers for whom those requirements originally were designed, unless they can obtain a waiver.  The consent decree deliberately makes those waivers very hard to obtain.

            Of course, all foster homes should be required to meet minimal health and safety standards – and all child welfare agencies should be required to provide the help needed to bring the homes up to those standards. But the Michigan foster care licensing requirements go way beyond that.  As I’ve noted before, the apartment where President Obama was raised by his grandmother would not have qualified under these regulations.  Some relatives simply may be too poor to provide all the required middle-class creature comforts.

            But Lowry, the ultimate bureaucrat, has shown that she doesn’t give a damn.  Licensing brings in federal money so the children be damned.  (Licensing also makes the relatives eligible for higher payments – no one is saying they shouldn’t be allowed to be licensed if they want it.)

            But damned to where?  Lowry doesn’t know, and DHS isn’t telling.

            The only clues to what is going on are in the periodic reports issued by the monitor for the decree.  The figures provided in those reports are confusing – and the most recent such report mentions only the number of unlicensed homes closed without any mention of the number of children affected.  But it appears that more than 2,000 children have been kicked out of homes with relatives since the decree went into effect.

            Where did they go?

            ● In some cases, they may have gone back to their own homes, almost always a positive outcome.

            ● In other cases, though children were forced to move, the home really might have been substandard and closing the home may have been valid.

            ● And in other cases (now that the monitor is reporting only on homes, not children) the home actually might not have had any children in it.

            But that probably still leaves hundreds of children needlessly kicked out of the homes of loving relatives and forced to live with strangers.  They may be bouncing from foster home to foster home and /or facing abuse in foster care, all to satisfy Marcia Lowry’s licensing fetish and the hostility to families she shares with Maura Corrigan. 

            The hostility runs so deep that I can find no public statement from either Lowry or Corrigan expressing the slightest concern about these children or the slightest interest in finding out what happened to them.

            The monitor, Kevin Ryan, says he’s trying to find out what happened to the children, but only those who were expelled from relative homes after July, 2011.  Why that date?  Because that’s when a new consent decree superseded the original consent decree, so he has no authority before that date.   

            So when it comes to all the children expelled from the homes of relatives between October, 2008 when the first decree was signed and July, 2011, when the second decree was signed, absolutely no one is inquiring into their status.

            After all, if they did, it might spoil the party.

Foster care in Michigan: Did the state’s child welfare chief mislead the public on purpose ...

…or was she just appallingly ignorant herself?

That’s the question raised by the latest outstanding investigative report from WXYZ-TV in Detroit.  In a series of reports dating back to last August, the station exposed the fact that probation officers were – literally – rubber stamping court orders to tear children from their families; orders that are supposed to be approved only by a real live judge.  The issue first came to light as a result of Maryanne Godboldo’s fight to rescue her daughter from needless institutionalization by the Michigan Department of Human Services.

Not surprisingly, that happens to be illegal.  But the practice was stopped only after WXYZ exposed it.

But the Wayne County Juvenile Court refuses to release any information about how many children were removed illegally or what has happened to them.  Neither will the Michigan Department of Human Services – unless the television station pays more than $32,000.  In effect, DHS is holding what should be public information for ransom.

If anyone should be scrupulous about adhering to the law it is the Director of Michigan DHS, Maura Corrigan.  After all, she is a former justice of the Michigan Supreme Court.

But, as WXYZ reported:

Following one of our first stories a year ago about child removals, DHS Director Maura Corrigan refused to speak to us on camera.  The day after our investigation aired, Corrigan wrote an opinion piece in the Detroit Free Press.  The headline: “Removing children from families always follows legal procedures.”

Now that that’s been proven to be false – we asked a DHS spokesman if they have been trying to determine how many children may have been wrongly taken from homes with invalid court orders. [Emphasis added.]

This raises an obvious question: Did Corrigan know full well that the process of removing children from their homes in Detroit was rife with illegality when she claimed otherwise – or was she appallingly ignorant herself?

If it’s the latter, it appears Corrigan has been doing nothing to educate herself.  Because in answer to WXYZ’s question, the agency said it is not lifting a finger to find out how many other children were affected by illegal rubber-stamp removals.

And if you’re wondering what the group that so arrogantly calls itself “Children’s Rights” – the group that has a consent decree with Michigan DHS – is doing about all this, the answer is: absolutely nothing.  More than nine months after the illegal rubber-stamp removals were revaled, CR hasn’t said a word about them.

But at least one member of Congress isn’t settling for silence and stonewalling.  In a follow up story, WXYZ reports that Representative Hansen Clarke (D – Detroit) is asking the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Corrigan’s agency.

Foster care in Michigan: Maryanne Godboldo's daughter is going home

--IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR THE TEXAS STORY, SCROLL DOWN TO THE NEXT POST.  
--IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR THE WAIVER STORY, SCROLL TO THE POST AFTER THAT.

There's so much good news today it's hard to keep up.  But WXYZ-TV is reporting that Maryanne Godboldo's daughter gets to go home to her mother.  After weeks of institutionalization, the child had been in the custody of an aunt.  The court also ruled that it will not force the child to take any medication.  So far there are no further details, including whether or not CPS still gets to pry into the family's life.


UPDATE, 6:05PM: CPS Remains in the family's life at least until December 12.

UPDATE: Foster care in Michigan: Wayne County bars rubber-stamp removals

This post was updated at 7:20pm to reflect additional information about the new policy.


The Michigan Department of Human Services no longer will be allowed to simply get a clerk of probation officer to rubber-stamp orders to tear children from their families. WXYZ-TV in Detroit has a story about the decision.

After the practice was exposed by attorneys for Maryanne Godboldo and some excellent reporting by WXYZ, Wayne County officials issued an unsigned memo changing the policy.

Effective immediately, orders must be signed, personally, by either a judge or a “referee,” a lawyer appointed by a judge to hear cases and make recommendations.  At least that appears to be the minimum required according to the somewhat-unclear written policy.  Though it's not in the written memo WXYZ reports that the policy requires that even when a referee "reviews" the order, a judge personally will have to sign it.

The change in policy is an important first step.  It sends a vital message to DHS that tearing a child from everyone she or he knows and loves is not a trivial act to be rubber-stamped.  And it means that, at a minimum, a real live human being with actual training in the law has to review the allegations before allowing such drastic action.

There still is a long way to go.

● First, it would be useful to have a clear, written statement that a judge and only a judge can sign these orders.  Though that's what the policy reportedly means, it can be read as allowing a referee to sign the orders.


A referee is not a judge.  Responsibility for inflicting the trauma of removal on a child should be taken, personally, by a judge.  Indeed, DHS director (and former Michigan Supreme Court Justice) Maura Corrigan herself has claimed that, by law, "only judges" can do this.   She made that claim even when probation officers were, in fact, rubber-stamping the orders in Wayne County.  Presumably, she didn't know.  But even after the rubber-stamping was revealed, Corrigan never spoke out against it.  Nor did she instruct her caseworkers to refuse to accept an order that was rubber-stamped.

● Second, while it is not entirely clear, the new policy still may allow verbal orders over the phone after hours.  In an age of e-mail there is no reason to tolerate a verbal order.  Orders to tear apart a family can and should be in writing at any hour.  There needs to be a complete written record of what was alleged.  The Godboldo case illustrates why - it is the errors throughout the written order and the failure to cite any valid reason to tear apart the family on the spot that document the slovenly nature of DHS practice in that case.  And having the order in writing helped Judge Ronald Giles reach his wise decision to throw out the criminal case against Godboldo.

● More generally, while this should mean the end of the use of a literal rubber-stamp, judges and referees all over the country are far too willing to do whatever child welfare agencies  want them to do.  As is discussed in the previous post to this Blog, juvenile court judges need to bring to bear the same wisdom and same respect for the Constitution shown by Judge Giles, who presides in Wayne County District Court.

● And  Michigan law itself makes it too easy to take away children without a full-scale court hearing first, or even going to a judge or referee at all – the standard is significantly lower than in other states.  That law needs to be changed.

But this change is still an important start. 

Maryanne Godboldo never chose this fight – and her daughter never chose it either.  But having been forced into it, they now have won an important victory for all of the vulnerable children of metropolitan Detroit. 

Foster care in Detroit: What a difference a judge makes

Do Wayne County Juvenile Court judges have a conflict of interest whenever the issue is rubber-stamp removals?

The judge was appalled.

Watch, in this story from WXYZ-TV, as Judge Ronald Giles holds in his hand the “order” used to remove Maryanne Godboldo’s daughter, by force, from her home and institutionalize her for seven weeks.  Listen as Judge Giles declares:

It is ridiculous to remove somebody’s child based on this order.  It does not even express any situation where we have contingent circumstances that says the child is at risk.

And then, in this clip from another WXYZ story:

We’re talking about a person’s constitutional rights here and to have that put up against this order, which is grossly inadequate, incorrect, the mistakes on it are numerous as identified by the protective services worker who typed it up.

Judge Giles is talking about a “court order” that never was issued by an actual court.  It was never so much as seen by a real live judge.  Instead, a probation officer literally rubber-stamped the order.  It’s a routine practice in metropolitan Detroit.  And, as WXYZ explains in this excellent in-depth report, experts on the law say it’s illegal.

Judge Giles went further.

When Detroit police tried, illegally to serve the illegal order, Maryanne Godboldo barricaded herself and her daughter in the house.  Police allege she fired a shot at them, something Godboldo’s lawyers deny.  But it resulted in a slew of criminal charges against Godboldo.

Giles threw all of those charges out, saying there was no evidence for the claims about the shot.  (The prosecution isn’t giving up. With Wayne County and the Michigan Department of Human Services, apparently desperate to retaliate against a mother who stood up to them to protect her child, the county is appealing Judge Giles’ ruling.)

Earlier this month, another judge, Lynne Pierce, upheld the same rubber-stamp court order that Judge Giles essentially said was a piece of crap.  Judge Pierce would not even allow Godboldo’s lawyers to challenge the validity of the order – so the jury in that courtroom never heard about its questionable legality.

In contrast, the jurors heard all about the standoff and the allegation that a shot was fired at police -  the very claim for which Judge Giles found no evidence.

What accounts for the difference?

Quite possibly the type of court.  Judge Pierce presides in Juvenile Court, where the issue was whether Godboldo “neglected” her daughter by exercising her legal right to remove the child from potent psychiatric medication that was causing serious side effects.  In juvenile court, judges are used to the slovenly approach of Wayne County DHS, in which clerks or probation officers routinely rubber-stamp judges’ names onto inaccurate orders to remove children for no good reason.  In fact, the name on the rubber-stamp is that of presiding judge of the juvenile court, Leslie Kim-Smith – in effect, Pierce’s boss.

That, of course, raises a couple of intriguing questions.  Had Judge Pierce ruled that rubber-stamp removals are illegal, would she have been saying in effect: “My boss has been, at the very least, condoning illegal activity over and over again for however long this has been going on”?  If so, is it, in fact, a conflict of interest for any Wayne County Juvenile Court judge to rule in a case where rubber-stamp removals are an issue?

More generally, Judge Pierce’s ruling is in keeping with the ethos of juvenile court since its inception 115 years ago, an ethos that boils down to: “We’re not out to punish anyone, we’re only here to help, so we don’t need all that fuss and bother about due process and protecting people’s rights.” 

In the juvenile justice field, the U.S. Supreme Court saw this for the farce it was nearly half a century ago.  Making clear that it understood that juvenile courts do, indeed, punish, sometimes severely, the high court declared in In re Gault that “Under our Constitution, the condition of being a boy does not justify a kangaroo court.”

But in child welfare, juvenile courts still tend to operate under what can best be described as a “pre-Gault mentality.” Too many judges behave like frustrated social workers.  (Be especially wary when they start talking about “therapeutic justice.”  You can bet they’ll be heavy on so-called “therapy” and light on justice.) 

In Michigan, this contempt for the law has reached the point where a survey found that 40 percent of juvenile court judges admit that they lie and certify that DHS has met its burden under federal law to make “reasonable efforts” to keep families together, even when the judges don’t believe it themselves.

So it’s no wonder Godboldo lost in Pierce’s courtroom.

A JUDGE WHO STILL GETS OUTRAGED BY INJUSTICE

In contrast, Judge Giles presides in district court, which handles a variety of civil and criminal cases, but not juvenile cases.  So he’s in the kind of court where, in theory at least, everyone is supposed to get a real lawyer, and old-fashioned concepts like evidence, due process and the presumption of innocence prevail.

My guess is that Judge Giles doesn’t see many of those rubber-stamp court orders to take away children.  So he looked at this one with fresh eyes – and was shocked at what he saw.


And speaking of fresh eyes, here’s what the Michigan State Court Administrative Office told WXYZ about the practice of substituting a rubber-stamp for a real, live judge:  “A judge should never delegate the decision to remove a child to a staff member."  The SCAO is an arm of the Michigan Supreme Court.  So the administrator reports to the court and, in particular, the Chief Justice.

For several years the Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court was Maura Corrigan.  Of course, now Corrigan has a different job – running the Michigan Department of Human Services.  So Corrigan is allowing workers for her new agency, DHS, to do exactly what her old agency, the State Court Administrative Office, says is utterly improper.

And, of course, just weeks before the rubber-stamp removals were revealed, Corrigan herself wrote in the Detroit Free Press that “only judges can issue orders removing children from their homes; such orders are issued only in the most extreme circumstances.”

The most generous interpretation of this is that Justice Corrigan was misinformed on both counts.

THE REAL WINNER

Although Judge Giles’ wise decision has been described as a victory for Maryanne Godboldo, it’s really a victory first and foremost for her daughter, who was needlessly torn from everyone she knew and loved and institutionalized for more than a month.  That kind of trauma can scar a child for a lifetime.  It is state-sanctioned child abuse.  Continuing to pursue the case, in either court, can only further harm the child.

Sadly, judge Giles ruling ends only the criminal part of the case.  DHS still has legal custody of Maryanne Godboldo’s daughter, who remains, for now, in the physical custody of an aunt.  Later this month, there will be another hearing in juvenile court.  It’s anybody’s guess what will happen once the case returns to kangaroo country.

Foster care in Michigan: The Carley Connection

A district attorney who prosecuted an innocent family based on junk science has a new target: Maryanne Godboldo.

UPDATE, 9:10PM: SADLY, THIS TIME THE "OUIJA BOARD CASE" D.A. WON.  WXYZ-TV reports that a jury found for DHS in the neglect case against Maryanne Godboldo.  The television station reports that:


Wednesday's ruling means that Godboldo's daughter will remain in the [legal] custody of the state for the time being. However, the court has not yet decided on whether or not to make the girl a temporary ward of the court.  A final decision is expected September 29. Until then the girl will remain in the [physical] custody of her aunt and uncle. 

While the Detroit News, WXYZ-TV and the Voice of Detroit website all have covered the case of Maryanne Godboldo the old fashioned way – by reporting both sides – the Detroit Free Press has failed to report many of the failures by the Michigan Department of Human Services.  (Details are in this previous post to this Blog). 

Free Press reporter Gina Damron has been almost reverential in her coverage of DHS’ position, and particularly the claims of Deborah Carley, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Children and Youth Services division, who is personally handling DHS’ case against Godboldo.  (Wayne County is the only county where the Attorney General’s office represents DHS in these cases.)

Just two months ago, the Free Press was a lot less reverential toward Carley in an excellent six-part series about a case she handled involving false allegations against a white, middle-class family.

That requires a lot of background:

THE FACILITATED COMMUNICATION FAD

Child welfare has gone through any number of bizarre fads, and hundreds, perhaps thousands  of children have paid the price.  There was satanic panic, when America’s latter-day “child savers,” to use the term their 19^th Century counterparts gave themselves, thought there was a devil-worshipping cult lurking in any number of day care centers.  There was “recovered memory.”  But none has been weirder than “facilitated communication” (FC), which plagued child welfare for a few years in the early 1990s.  As the PBS Series Frontline described it: 

The method uses a helper to control the involuntary movements of an autistic person's hand, allowing that person to type his or her thoughts on a keyboard.

Suddenly, it was believed, people suffering from autism, who had been trapped in silence could “speak” through their facilitators.  Some of them started to “say” some very disturbing things, claiming they had been sexually abused by their parents or others.

But, of course, it was the facilitator doing the “talking.”  Facilitated communication is about as reliable as a Ouija board.  What makes the facilitated communication fad so mind-boggling is that so many people didn’t notice this simple fact, even though it was so easy to prove. 

Frontline described a case in Maine in which a 17-year-old named Betsy accused her entire family of abusing her – at least that’s what the facilitator was typing. 

As Frontline reported, Dr. Howard Shane of Boston Children’s hospital showed Betsy and the facilitator

a series of pictures and asked them to type what they saw. When both Betsy and her facilitator saw a picture of a key, the letters K-E-Y were typed. But Shane wanted to discover what happened if each saw a different picture. When Betsy saw a cup, she didn't type "cup," she typed "hat," what the facilitator saw. …  

[Said Shane]: “What I found was that whenever the pictures were different, I always received the typed message that was seen by the facilitator, so that was pretty strong evidence that not only was Betsy not communicating, but the messages were being absolutely, totally directed and authored by the facilitator.”

The only logical conclusion of the test was that the terrible accusations had been authored not by Betsy, but by her facilitator. The [family is] now reunited. The facilitator, devastated by the test results, stopped using facilitated communication and persuaded Betsy's school to stop using it, as well.

What is striking about this case is the apparent intellectual honesty of all parties.  It was the child’s guardian ad litem who asked for the objective test – and notice how the facilitator responded.

It was a very different story in Michigan.

By the mid-1990s, facilitated communication had pretty well died out.  I almost tossed my file of news stories about it to save space.  Certainly no one would be dumb enough, or fanatical enough, to use it in a child abuse prosecution in the 21^st Century – would they?

Actually, yes.

THE FANATICS OF OAKLAND COUNTY, MICHIGAN

Back when David Gorcyca was the district attorney, no place in Michigan was more fanatical about “cracking down on child abuse” than Oakland County – an affluent suburban county near Detroit.  Gorcyca and his chief deputy, Deborah Carley, were constantly grabbing headlines by claiming that the Michigan Department of Human Services (then called the Family Independence Agency) wasn’t aggressive enough about tearing apart families.  Gorcyca even set up his own duplicate child welfare agency within his office to go after families when FIA would not.

Gorcyca and Carley were particularly aggressive about cases involving alleged sexual abuse.  They brought so many bad cases that they were getting convictions in only a little more than 50 percent, compared to the average of more than 80 percent, according to the Free Press.  Experts questioned by the Free Press said that indicated the office was bringing weak cases that never should have gone to court.

So perhaps it’s not surprising that facilitated communication’s “last stand” would be Oakland County Michigan, thanks to Gorcyca and Carley.  It was the case of the Wendrow family.

The sad irony is that it was the parents, Thal and Julian Wendrow, who actually pressured their school district into trying FC with their autistic 14-year-old daughter.   Like many parents, they were desperate to try anything to try to communicate with their child.  But when the child supposedly accused Julian of abusing her, Gorcyca and Carley apparently never checked out FC.  Indeed, after the case fell apart both said they simply didn’t know if FC is reliable or not.  But that didn’t stop them from charging ahead.

As the Free Press reported:

As public scrutiny grew, Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca assigned seven senior assistant prosecutors to try to find an expert who would support FC. They called nationwide, and Gorcyca even made calls. But they found no such expert.

One can only wonder why they didn’t do that in the first place.  But there’s more:

A judge ordered prosecutors in February 2008 to stop questioning the girl about the allegations using FC. But court records show they visited the girl four more times, trying to see whether she could communicate with FC.

A physical exam found no concrete evidence of sexual assault, but prosecutors said it showed signs of abuse. They then pressured the nurse who performed the exam to say it showed the girl had been abused. She testified that she refused to do so.

And there’s still more.  A police detective badgered and browbeat the child’s 13-year-old brother – exactly the kind of interrogation that was supposed to end after the abuses of the McMartin Preschool and other similar cases were revealed in the 1980s and 1990s.  Free Press columnist Brian Dickerson wrote two excellent columns about this – taking up the Wendrows’ cause, just as he did for that other white, middle-class family in the “Mike’s Hard Lemonade” case.

Ultimately Carley and Gorcyca had to drop the charges.  But that didn’t happen until months after the court used the same kind of test on the Wendrow child as was used in that case in Maine in the early 1990s – with the same result.  And even then, the Free Press reports:

The prosecutors made one last effort to charge the parents with something.

Carley ordered another assistant prosecutor to begin checking school attendance records for possible truancy action against the parents. That plan was eventually dropped when it was apparent the children were attending school regularly.

Also by then the father had spent nearly three months in jail, the children had been thrown into foster care and the family had been devastated. 

"TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE JUDGMENT"

The Free Press interviewed Bennett Gershman, a former prosecutor for the Manhattan district attorney ‘s office who is a professor at Pace Law School in White Plains, N.Y. Gershman called the behavior of the Oakland County District Attorney’s office in the Wendrow case:

just terrible, terrible judgment. A prosecutor is the most powerful law enforcement official in our system, and charging decisions have to be made very carefully," said Gershman, who teaches, writes and speaks nationwide on the role of prosecutors in the legal system.

But the terrible judgment didn’t stop after the charges were dropped.  The Free Press devoted an entire sidebar to contradictions between what Gorcyca, Carley and others claimed just before and after charges were dropped, and the actual court record.  Contradictions such as these:

What the prosecution said: In the motion to dismiss the criminal charges, Gorcyca didn't note the girl couldn't communicate and didn't mention FC. The girl "has consistently disclosed to eight individuals that she has been sexually assaulted," Gorcyca wrote.

What the court files show: When Gorcyca was deposed in 2010, attorneys asked him, "So did you believe" that "FC, to the limited extent that you knew about it, was reliable?" Gorcyca responded, "I have no idea."

What the prosecution said: After the charges were dropped, Chief Deputy Prosecutor Deborah Carley told a newspaper on March 19, 2008, that the girl "spoke for herself" using facilitated communication (FC).  "I don't have any doubt, and I don't think the parents did, either," she said. "We used facilitated communication with her and found it to be a perfectly acceptable way for us to communicate with her, just like her parents did."

What the court files show: When Carley was deposed in 2010, she said she "didn't know enough about" FC to form an opinion on whether it worked. [Emphasis in original.]

The depositions are in connection with a lawsuit the Wendrows filed against Gorcyca, Carley and many others.  In March a judge dismissed the case against Carley and most charges against Gorcyca on grounds that, as prosecutors, they are immune from such suits.  The judge let stand a charge that Gorcyca defamed the family after the charges were dropped.  Both sides are asking the judge to reconsider and have pledged to appeal any adverse ruling.

Gorcyca decided not to seek re-election in 2008 and his successor cleaned house.  But Carley promptly landed another prestigious job, Chief of the Children and Youth Services Division in the Michigan Attorney General’s office.  (On Sept. 20, she’ll be leading a training session for prosecutors on “Handling the Child Welfare Case,” sponsored by the State Courts Administrative Office and the Governor’s Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect.)

Now she’s back in court, this time in Wayne County, trying to convict Maryanne Godboldo of neglect.

It was Carley who claimed that the rubber-stamp order to remove Godboldo’s daughter was valid because the probation officer who signed it was a “referee” – even though the Voice of Detroit reports the county’s juvenile intake supervisor said that this officer and the others wielding rubber stamps were not, in fact referees – and state law doesn’t allow referees to issue such orders anyway.

WHY IS THIS CASE EVEN IN COURT?

And then there is the larger question: Why is DHS pursuing this case at all?

Remember, Godboldo’s daughter was taken because DHS insisted she absolutely had to be on Risperdal – a potentially dangerous psychiatric drug. After the child was taken, the institution holding her decided she didn’t need Risperdal after all.  DHS still institutionalized the girl for seven weeks, returning her to the custody of an aunt after the institution and the child’s own pediatrician agreed on a treatment plan.

So what can continuing the juvenile court case possibly accomplish except to add still more stress to the life of a child to whom DHS already has done so much harm?

There’s only one reason I can see: To send a message to anyone else who dares to fight DHS.  In which case, DHS certainly has the right lawyer for the job – as can be seen from this account of the juvenile court trial in Voice of Detroit.

Foster care in Michigan: How would YOUR child have reacted to this?

Try to imagine that it was your child.  She is 13-years-old.  The police are banging on the door, then forcing entry.  They are coming to take the child away from her mother, her father and everyone else she knows and loves.  Mom won’t let them in.  To keep the police at bay, mom allegedly fires a shot.

The police surround the house with a SWAT team.  They send in a helicopter and at least one tank (or maybe it was just an armored personnel carrier).

After an hours-long siege, mom surrenders.  The 13-year-old is torn from her, thrown into a police car and taken to an institution.  Even the artificial leg she walks on is taken from her and she is confined to a wheelchair.  She doesn’t know when, or if, she’ll get out, or if she’ll ever see her loved ones again.

All of which brings me to this sentence in a three paragraph news brief in today’s Detroit News about the trial of Maryanne Godboldo:

Dr. Julie Arellano said Monday that Godboldo's daughter was combative, with poor judgment and unpredictable behavior when she was brought to the Hawthorn Center in Northville after a standoff and had to be given an anti-psychotic drug.

You THINK????

I’d be a whole lot more worried about a child who wasn’t “combative” under these circumstances  - wouldn’t you?

That one sentence, however, does sum up the child protective services mentality: First, CPS traumatizes the child, then they use the trauma they inflicted to justify inflicting the trauma in the first place.

Of course, had Godboldo’s daughter somehow managed to remain completely calm in the face of the insanity surrounding her; that, too would have been used against her mother.  Then, you can bet CPS would have said she showed “insufficient affect” or something like that.

The miracle here is that, in spite of everything she endured, the institution ultimately decided that Maryanne Godboldo’s daughter didn’t “need” to be on medication – which was Godboldo’s position from the start.  That didn’t stop the Michigan Department of Human Services from keeping the child institutionalized for seven weeks.

So far, the very brief account in the Detroit News is all I’ve found on yesterday’s hearing.  I’m hoping Voice of Detroit will post something more complete later today, in which case I’ll post a link.

And speaking of links, tomorrow I’ll post about the link between the Godboldo case and a bizarre case in Oakland County in which the District Attorney’s office tried to convict a father of sexual abuse using the functional equivalent of a Ouija board.

Foster care in Michigan: DHS and Maryanne Godboldo: The more we learn, the worse it gets

            Two trials now are underway in the case of Maryanne Godboldo, the Detroit mother whose child was taken away after she exercised her right to take her off a potentially dangerous psychiatric medication. The trials have revealed new details about the behavior of the Michigan Department of Human Services.  They reveal DHS to be a lawless agency that refuses to abide by even the bare minimum due process protections to which families are entitled.

            First a little background:

When Godboldo refused to let the police in to execute what now appears to have been an illegal order to remove the child, it set off a chain of events including, allegedly, Godboldo firing a shot and police responding with a SWAT team, a helicopter and tanks.  (There’s an overview of the case in NCCPR’s monthly Blog for the trade journal Youth Today).

            After seizing the child and institutionalizing her, authorities decided she didn’t need the medication after all – but they continued to institutionalize her for seven weeks before releasing her to an aunt.  If not for the alleged shot, and the response, this case would be exactly like thousands of others in Michigan.  No mainstream media would have paid the slightest attention, and Godboldo’s daughter probably still would be institutionalized.

            In the course of investigating the case, WXYZ-TV learned that in the Godboldo case and many others, orders to remove children are, literally, rubber-stamped. But it wasn’t clear who does the rubber-stamping. 

            Now, we’re learning more about the process. A regular reader of NCCPR’s Facebook page, James Rinkevich, pointed me to this story on the Voice of Detroit website. VOD reports that the Interim Supervisor of Juvenile Intake for Wayne County, Vikki Kapanowski, testified at Godboldo’s juvenile court trial that the orders actually are approved by a probation officer with no law license, who then stamps the judge’s name on the order.  The judge never even sees the order.

MAURA CORRIGAN’S ELOQUENT SILENCE

            So the most charitable explanation for DHS Director (and former Michigan Supreme Court Justice) Maura Corrigan’s claim that “Only judges can issue orders removing children from their homes; such orders are issued only in the most extreme circumstances” is that she was totally unaware of what’s been going on in Detroit.  But what is the explanation for her silence about this practice now that it’s been revealed?

            One possibility: Corrigan may claim that the probation officer was acting as a “referee.”  The judge in Godboldo’s juvenile court case bought this argument.  But, Voice of Detroit points out, there are a few problems with it:

            ●Referees hear testimony in some juvenile court cases and make recommendations to judges.  But they are not authorized to issue orders to remove children.

            ● Referees have to be formally sworn in.  The probation officers wielding rubber-stamps in Detroit have not been sworn – and are not authorized to perform any of the functions of referees.

            ● A referee has to have a law license.  The probation officers rubber-stamping orders to remove Detroit children don’t have law licenses.

ILLEGAL ORDER ILLEGALLY SERVED

            Voice of Detroit and the Detroit News also reported on testimony in Godboldo’s criminal trial revealing that the whole process of serving the illegal order was, in itself, illegal.

            From the Detroit News story:

Although the juvenile order allowed 30 days for compliance, [DHS caseworker Mia] Wenk said she went straight to the Godboldo home with two other CPS workers. Wenk also said some of what she did in the hours after getting the order didn't follow normal procedure. Civil orders are normally enforced by county deputies and court process servers.

Wenk and the other CPS workers stopped a block short of serving the order themselves. Wenk instead dialed 911 on her cellphone to tell Detroit Police she needed help with a "warrant" to remove a child. Godboldo's lawyers claim Wenk elevated the tension by implying a criminal warrant was involved, not a less urgent civil order with a monthlong compliance window. …

Detroit Police Officer Kevin Simpson testified today that his department's official policy is to let other agencies enforce civil orders such as the one issued to seize Godboldo's child. But, he had been dispatched to help Wenk execute a "warrant," which Detroit police routinely enforce.

[Godboldo’s lawyer Byron] Pitts asked, "So it's not the responsibility or an official duty of the Detroit Police Department?"

"Correct," Simpson answered.

"The order was not directed to the Detroit Police Department?"

"No," Simpson said.

Noting there is no enforcement agency named on the document, Pitts asked, "In fact, it's not directed to anyone, is it?"

"No," Simpson answered.

Simpson said his supervisor decided to forcibly enter the house after Godboldo said she was calling her lawyer and shut the front door in his face.

Pitts asked, "Nobody said, 'Hey, there's no rush. Let's come back another day and talk to this woman?'"

"No," Simpson said.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO “REASONABLE EFFORTS”?

The caseworker was asked how all this could possibly comply with the requirement in federal law to make “reasonable efforts” to keep families together before resorting to taking away the child.  Her answer: She invited Goldboldo to a meeting to discuss the case.  Period.  End of efforts.  She admitted she did not tell Godboldo that if she didn’t attend, cops and caseworkers would descend on her home to remove her child by force.

And families have reason to be suspicious about such meetings.  A study of Michigan child welfare revealed that in at least one case, such a meeting was a subterfuge, used in an attempt to lure a parent and child to a DHS office to the child could be taken on the spot.

Voice of Detroit has some additional details about DHS caseworker Mia Wenk’s testimony:

“I told ‘911’ I needed assistance to execute a warrant,” Wenk said. “I told them when they get the child out they will need to transport her in their back seat since they have a cage in the car. I never met [the child]. I didn’t even know what she looked like. I asked them to bring her leg, and told them she has ‘psychosis NOS’ [not otherwise specified].”

Many in the courtroom, which was packed with Godboldo’s supporters, gasped at the reference to caging a Black child, and the derogatory terminology used to describe her disability. The child has been disabled since infancy, but according to family and church members has led a normal life including dancing, swimming and horseback riding lessons, using a prosthetic leg.

Thirty-Sixth District Court Judge Ronald Giles told audience members to leave if they could not restrain themselves, upon which Godboldo herself left the courtroom, returning shortly after she was able to compose herself.

If you’re wondering what the other Detroit daily, the Free Press had on all this, the answer is – absolutely nothing.  As usual, since this case began, reporter Gina Damron’s coverage was minimal, and focused largely on helping the prosecution and/or DHS make its case.

It is a remarkable contrast with how the Free Press covered two cases of wrongful removal involving affluent white families.  In the “Mike’s Hard Lemonade” case, in which the parents are white professors at the University of Michigan, the Free Press ran a front page column excoriating DHS.  And just two months ago, the Free Press published an excellent six-part series about another white, suburban family’s bizarre false-allegation nightmare – a case that ended three years ago, and which was covered thoroughly at the time.

Damron’s one-sided coverage is even more surprising considering the connection between that case involving the white suburban family and the Godboldo case.  That story in a future post, probably Wednesday.


UPDATE, 2:05PM: Voice of Detroit has another excellent story about the Godboldo juvenile court trial today.