NCCPR in the Everett, Wash. Herald on the Snohomish County CASA scandal

Thanks to The Herald and reporter Noah Haglund for the comprehensive account of the scandal engulfing the Snohomish County Court Appointed Special Advocates (formerly Vollunteer Guardian Ad Litem) program (“Lying, spying and destroying evidence spur guardian reforms,” The Herald, Aug. 18).

In some ways, the most damning revelation about the program isn’t that its staff and volunteers as the story put it, “repeatedly crossed legal and ethical lines.” It’s not the “lying, spying, [and] withholding and destroying evidence” that the trial judge found “pervasive and egregious.”

The most telling revelation comes in the form of one step that the Snohomish County Superior Court felt the need to take in order to claim it was “fixing” the program.

Read the full column here.

And there's more about the Snohomish County CASA scandal here.

NCCPR news and commentary round-up, week ending Sept. 1, 2019

● First up, two items on the Snohomish County CASA scandal.  Just one day after the law firm that exposed the scandal asked a key funder of CASA to investigate, that funder, the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, said it is looking into the issues raised by the scandal.  I have a blog post on it, and a summary of the issues in this op-ed for The (Everett, Wash.) Herald.

● Just in time for back-to-school, school districts are ramping up their use of child protective services to harass families.  WUSA-TV exposed a particularly egregious example in Washington, D.C.  I have a blog post about it, including a link to WUSA’s story.

● One year ago, a British online news site, The Tortoise held what it calls a “ThinkIn” in the Bronx.  But let the reporter explain:

It was about masculinity and the issues facing the city’s young men. A civil rights lawyer made an intervention in the kind of tone that cuts through the noise. People weren’t so scared of the police knocking on the door, she said. What families in the Bronx most feared was a different wing of the state; it was child protection workers, because that’s when you might face the worst and lose your children.

Not only did this lawyer’s comment lead to a very good story about child welfare in New York, it led to several good stories about the depressingly-similar problems in the British system.  All of the stories are here.

● A federal appeals court ruled against a mother wrongly placed in Hawaii’s central registry of alleged child abusers.  The statute of limitations for appeals had expired – but only because the mother never knew she was in the registry in the first place, and the state never bothered to tell her.  Though the court felt it was forced to rule against the mother, one judge issued a scathing opinion blasting the state for the ultimate Catch-22.  Honolulu Civil Beat has the story.

● More than a year ago, the Associated Press exposed the use of coerced “voluntary” foster-care placements arranged by a county child protective services agency in North Carolina.  These are off-the-books placements in which child protective services says if you don’t place your child “voluntarily,” usually with a relative, they’ll take you to court and place the children with strangers.  It’s actually a common practice all over the country – but in Cherokee County, NC, it was so egregious that the state actually took over the county agency for a while.

Now, Carolina Public Press has dug even deeper and found that things were actually even worse; including a possibly illegal rush to terminate parental rights, and the state knew what was going on for months before acting.  The story is a bit confusing; it’s easier to follow if you read the AP stories first.

● Even as that was being exposed, the North Carolina Legislature actually was considering legislation to further run roughshod over the rights of children to live with their own families.  I discuss that bill in this blog post

● And a lawsuit in Vermont highlights the issue of wrongful removal in that state, which takes away children at one of the highest rates in the country.  VTDigger reports.

UPDATE: A key CASA funder is “looking into” the Snohomish County CASA scandal

● The law firm that exposed the scandal filed complaints with the agency, and with National CASA.

● The Snohomish program is so lily-white it has to use a photo from National CASA to show a Black CASA volunteer. Several other CASA programs use the same photo.

Responding to a complaint from the law firm that exposed the Snohomish County CASA scandal, a key funder for CASA says it’s “looking into” issues raised by the firm.

The federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention provides grants to National CASA and local CASA programs. The ABC Law Group is asking that  “funding from OJJDP that goes to the CASA program in Snohomish County, Washington be investigated for ethics violations.”  They’re also asking for “a federal investigation/oversight into this program which receives your funding.”

Less than 24 hours after receiving the request, OJJDP Administrator Caren Harp replied “We’re looking into it.”

The law firm also filed a formal complaint with the Executive Committee of the National CASA Board of Directors. The board is chaired by William Bell, who also is President and CEO of Casey Family Programs.

The complaint asks National CASA to investigate the Snohomish program for “on-going ethics violations which have now been shown to have hurt families.”  The complaint cites the recent scathing decision from a Washington State appellate court which “held that our CASA program engaged in the destruction of evidence, spying, perjury, abusive use of litigation, threatening lawyers and violating the appearance of fairness.”

Up to now, National CASA’s response can be summed up this way:

You can find out all about the Snohomish County CASA scandal here.

And there’s more …

The generic CASA doesn’t look much like the real CASAs

The complaint to National CASA also seeks an investigation into “false advertising and recruitment practices at Snohomish County.”

Among other things, there’s the matter of this flyer published by the program. See that nice picture of an African-American man – the only photo depicting a CASA volunteer?  There’s just one problem:  Right now, according to the Snohomish County program itself, of the 57 volunteers in the program, the total number of African-American volunteers is exactly zero.  The complaint notes that “The flyer to promote CASA contains more diversity regarding African American families than the entire program itself.”

And Snohomish County is not alone. NCCPR ran a Google Image search. We found the same photo of the same volunteer on websites for CASA programs in Kansas City, Missouri, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, Northern Neck CASA in Virginia, Blue Ridge CASA, also in Virginia, Clayton County CASA in Georgia, the Texarkana Texas CASA program and the Arkansas State CASA Association. On the Arkansas website, his picture appears above the caption “Our spotlight shines on those volunteers who have gone above and beyond the necessary.” But click on the link to find the real volunteer they’re profiling, and it’s a white woman. 

Looks like Generic CASA used to be on the site for Kansas CASA too. That actually would be an improvement. About ten years ago, a local CASA organization in Kansas held a fundraiser that included a Blackface act.

Generic CASA also turns up in a slick promotional video from National CASA itself.

This doesn’t mean that none of these chapters has an African-American volunteer.  But, as noted above, the one in Snohomish does not.

We also know that CASA volunteers are 80 to 90 percent white.  And we know that, according to the most comprehensive study ever done of CASA, commissioned by the National CASA Association itself, volunteers spend less time on a case if the child is Black. 

That study also found that CASA doesn’t work.  A study specific to Snohomish County found that the Snohomish County program doesn’t work either.

Yet still, National CASA has not responded to the scandal in Snohomish County.  Perhaps now, they’ll come up with a response better than this:

NCCPR News and commentary round-up, week ending August 14, 2019

Lots of news this week, starting with two important court decisions.

● An appellate court in Washington State blasted the scandal-plagued Snohomish County CASA program – that’s the one a judge found engaged in “the blatant withholding and destruction of evidence … rampant, continuing lying …” and “pervasive and egregious” misconduct. 

The appellate court also blasted the Snohomish County Superior Court for making a fair termination of parental rights trial impossible – because court employees actually worked with the CASA program instead of remaining neutral.  Through it all, the National CASA Association has remained silent.  Do they actually approve of the Snohomish County CASA program’s actions?  Details on all of this, and a link to the decision, in this NCCPR Blog Post.

● A federal appellate court also brought good news last week: It upheld the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act. Here’s the National Indian Child Welfare Association statement on the decision.

● In Youth Today, I review recent studies that all have one thing in common:  They demonstrate that, when it comes to reducing child abuse, there’s nothing like the transformative power of cash.  And, great news! In the same column, I reveal the apparently up-to-now secret way to target child abuse prevention without resorting to Big-Brother, privacy-invading predictive analytics!

● I have long argued that the so-called Family First act has been vastly overhyped. The funds can be used on only a few types of services and they have to meet criteria for being “evidence-based” that are vastly higher than the criteria for say, foster care or residential treatment (which have no real evidence base).  But now comes word that the federal government will be studying whether to allow funding under Family First for programs that follow the Homebuilders model for Intensive Family Preservation Services.  That alone would make Family First vastly more useful.  Here’s how Homebuilders works.  And here’s a summary of the impressive evidence base for it.

● In the Chronicle of Social Change, Vivek Sankaran writes about the need for judges to behave like – you know, judges, and enforce the law. He writes:

[T]hroughout my career, I’ve heard judges chide lawyers and parents when they emphasize the law. One frustrated judge said to a colleague, “I see you’re going down the statutory road again.” Another said to a parent, “I know there’s a legal right to ask for more visits. But if I gave it to you, then I’d have to give it to every parent.” A third said, “I know the law says that corporal punishment is allowed. But in my courtroom, this is what we do.”

And I would argue that, at its most extreme, this attitude helps explain what happened in Snohomish County (see first item above).

● Another Chronicle story looks at how “In Aftermath of Latest Child Death, L.A. Contends with Potential Foster Care Panic.”  I’ll have some thoughts on this one soon.

● In Talk Poverty Elizabeth Brico writes about how “State Laws Punish Pregnant People Just For Seeking Drug Treatment.” And of course, they also punish the children.  Ms. Brico cites an Amnesty International report documenting how such laws drive women away from treatment and away from prenatal care.

● When a parent who has lost a child to foster care – or is at risk of it – can get help from another parent who’s been through the same ordeal it can help prevent the placement, or shorten it, lessening the trauma for children.  So, Rise, a magazine written by parents who have been in this position, asks: Why aren’t more of them working in NYC? This is, of course, an excellent question for the rest of the country as well.

● Also in New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has on his desk a bill that could significantly ease the trauma for children who have lost their parents forever due to termination of parental rights.  The bill would allow judges to continue contact between these children and their parents if the judge is persuaded it’s in the child’s best interests. 

In the New York Daily News, Chris Gottlieb, co-director of the Family Defense Clinic at New York University School of Law, explains why the governor should sign the bill.  And family defense attorney Amy Mulzer has a letter to the editor about the bill in the Albany Times Union.

● Until it was surpassed in 2017 by Montana, Wyoming had the dubious distinction of child removal capital of America. (It’s still #2 in that regard.)  So it’s encouraging that the legislature in that state is considering a bill that would bolster family defense.  The story illustrates the importance of both the new study showing that high-quality family defense safely reduces foster care and the change in federal rules that allows some of the cost of such defense to be reimbursed with federal funds.

● I have a guest commentary in the Times of Northwest Indiana about how the latest McLawsuit filed by the latest group founded by Marcia Lowry, A Better Childhood, may well make that state’s dismal child welfare system even worse.

● And finally, though not related directly to child protective services, Vice News has a disturbing story about how the private adoption industry coerces parents into giving up their children.  The common denominator shared by these cases and those involving CPS is poverty. The Vice story cites a survey which found that “most women … put up their babies for adoption at least in part because of financial concerns.

A deafening silence from National CASA as an appellate court blasts a scandal-plagued CASA program in Washington State

● The court overturned the termination of a family’s parental rights, and ordered that the case start over.

● The court also ordered the CASA program, and the county Superior Court – which it called “a biased tribunal” -- cut off from any involvement in the case.

● But through it all, the National CASA Association has taken no public action against the program. Click on the audio to get a good sense of National CASA’s response:

To read all about the Snohomish County CASA Scandal, see these previous posts to this Blog.

UPDATE AUGUST 28, 2019 The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is "looking into" the Snohomish County CASA scandal.  OJJDP helps fund CASA programs. Their response comes less than 24 hours after the law firm that first exposed the scandal filed a complaint. Details here. 

                                                                                                             

UPDATE, AUGUST 18, 2019: The Everett Herald has an excellent story about the whole Snohomish County CASA scandal, with a clear step-by-step overview of what happened.

Of course court officials, who were instrumental in causing the problems and turned themselves into what an appellate court called a “biased tribunal” now claim they’ve fixed everything. In other words, the foxes have doubled the guard on the henhouse.

But the most striking part of the story is this: The Snohomish County Court system says that it “increased training [for CASAs] to, among other things, stress honesty, truthfulness and the correct way to handle documents.”

Now. one might be able to make a case that there is something complicated about handling documents.  But what does it say about the inherent nature of CASA that it can so corrupt the ethics of good people that they actually need training to know they’re supposed to be honest and truthful?

The problem with the scandal at the Court-Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) program in Snohomish County, Wash.,*  is that court decisions describe so much misconduct and it’s so awful that it’s hard to know where to begin. 

So perhaps it’s best to begin here: Everything discussed below is documented in the public record – not in assertions by parties, but in decisions by a judge; decisions that run to hundreds of pages.  And now, we can add three more judges and 29 more pages.

On Monday, an appellate court panel ruled unanimously that there was blatant bias, not just on the part of the CASA program but also the Snohomish County Superior Court (which, at one point actually declared itself and the CASA program effectively one-and-the-same).

The appellate court found so much bias that it threw out the termination of parental rights at the center of it all and ordered everyone back to square one.  They also ordered that square one, and everything else about the case, be located someplace other than Snohomish County.

The bias runs so deep, the appellate court found, that even bringing in a judge from another county isn’t good enough. They tried that, and that judge upheld the termination. But the appellate court found that the judge

heard oral argument on the motions in Snohomish County and relied on a record generated in that biased tribunal in making his decisions.  For that reason the orders [he] entered … do not escape the taint of bias and must be vacated.

It started with CASA

It all began with the CASA program.  So we should begin with a reminder, from a previous post, of what CASA is all about.

CASAs are minimally-trained amateurs, overwhelmingly white and middle-class, who are sent out to investigate overwhelmingly poor disproportionately nonwhite families. Then they recommend to the judge whether the children should be separated from those families, sometimes forever. Judges typically take the advice. 

The most comprehensive study ever done of the program, a study commissioned by the National CASA Association itself, found that it does nothing to make children safer. The study also found that CASA prolongs foster care and reduces the chances children will be placed with relatives instead of strangers.

One CASA program saw no problem when a performer at a fundraiser dressed in blackface, another CASA program fell apart as soon as it had to confront issues of race. A law review article called CASA “an exercise of white supremacy.” 

And for many years, the Snohomish County program used a volunteer who would go on to write a vile screed about the parents he investigated (and another vile screed about Muslims). They are so awful Donald Trump would probably tweet them if he knew about them.

In the case at the center of the scandal, an African-American child was placed with a white foster family days after birth.  And it appears that, from day one, the CASA assigned to the case would do anything to keep it that way, including leaking confidential documents to the foster family.

Another CASA infiltrated a listserv for family defense attorneys to learn about their strategy. (“Infiltrated” isn’t my word; it’s from a decision by Judge Anita Farris, who presided over the case. Judge Farris was praised by the appellate court for acting with integrity throughout.)

But it didn’t stop there.  Judge Farris found that the CASA program conducted a campaign of threats and intimidation against the parents’ lawyers. 

And Judge Farris used another word – one she had not used in her entire judicial career until this case: Perjury.  Judge Farris ruled that  the program engaged in “the blatant withholding and destruction of evidence … rampant, continuing lying …” and “pervasive and egregious” misconduct.

The appellate court seemed particularly struck by the fact that CASA’s

entire hard copy file for this dependency mysteriously “disappeared” from the [CASA] Program’s possession during the post-trial proceedings regarding the [CASAs’] misconduct.

The appellate court decision only scratches the surface of the misconduct.  There is more detail, and links to Judge Ferris’s decisions in this previous post and this one. 

Thumb on the scales of justice

But it didn’t stop there.  The family wasn’t just up against a CASA program that engaged in what Judge Farris called “pervasive and egregious” misconduct. They were up against a court system that did everything it could to help the CASA program win this case, putting a giant thumb on the scales of justice.  Eventually, the Snohomish County Superior Court claimed that it and the CASA program were essentially one-and-the-same – and that forced Judge Farris to recuse herself. 

Somewhat oddly, she still ruled in favor of termination of parental rights, apparently concluding that even disregarding the CASA program’s behavior there was reason to do so. But the appellate court disagreed, finding that the behavior of the court system and the CASA program made a fair trial impossible.  But that was the only area of disagreement.  The appellate court did not dispute any of Judge Farris’ findings about CASA or the Snohomish County Superior Court.  On the contrary, citing precedent that “unchallenged findings are verities on appeal” the appellate judges wrote this:

Here, Judge Farris displayed no personal bias and attempted to conduct an unbiased proceeding. But the sticky wicket is that the tribunal in which A.H.’s dependency and termination proceedings took place was biased because of the involvement of superior court employees working against the parents in this case. … And Judge Farris entered many unchallenged findings of fact in her recusal order and memorandum decision…

All of this led the judges to rule, in effect, that the Snohomish County Superior Court,  by taking sides at all, let alone siding with a CASA program that Judge Farris found engaged in “pervasive and egregious” misconduct is, itself, so biased that it should not be allowed anywhere near this case.

The court ordered a new trial in another county, and the appointment of a new lawyer for the child.

Most media failed, too

All this, of course, challenges the master narrative of most Washington State media. They cling to the view that all parents who become enmeshed in the system are at best sick and at worst evil, and send the message that foster parents, CASAs etc. can do no wrong.  That explains why with the exception of some excellent reporting from Seattle television station KING, the scandal has been ignored. [UPDATE, AUGUST 18: As noted above, the Everett Herald has now done an excellent story.]

Even worse is the behavior of the National CASA Association. The Snohomish program describes itself as “an associated member of Washington State CASA and National CASA.”

So listen again to the functional equivalent of what we’ve heard from National CASA about this scandal:

So, does National CASA have a problem with one of its associated members behaving this way or not? 

What about the other cases?

What are the odds that a CASA program would engage in “pervasive and egregious” misconduct in only one case?  What are the odds that the court system would side with the CASA program and against a family in only one case?   What are the odds that a longtime volunteer who calls the parents he investigated “felons,” “junkies,” and  “dumb as dirt” may have made some, uh, erroneous recommendations that were accepted by judges?

What is to be done about all those other cases?

*-Although it has always been a CASA program, for many years it called itself a Volunteer Guardian ad Litem (VGAL) program.  It’s the same thing, and the program has long been an associated member of National CASA.  It now calls itself a CASA program, but the appellate court decision still uses VGAL.

#CASAsoWhite: ANOTHER study shows CASA is a failure (much to the distress of the person who did the study)

Laurie Tuff really, really wanted her little study of the local Court-Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) program to show that it worked.

That’s understandable. At the time her study was completed, in 2014, she’d been associated with the local CASA program for 14 years, first as a volunteer then as a member of the staff.  At the time she conducted her study she was a program director.

But it didn’t work out that way.  In fact, based on the outcomes she chose herself, most of which are exactly the outcomes one would expect to measure to see if CASA is effective, CASA did no good at all.  On one measure, it did harm.

When the results didn’t turn out the way she wanted them too, what was Tuff’s conclusion?  She must have chosen the wrong outcomes!  If these outcomes don’t show CASA is doing any good, she says, we need to find other outcomes!

CASA’s poor track record

CASA is the program in which minimally trained volunteers, overwhelmingly white and middle-class, are assigned to families who are overwhelmingly poor and disproportionately nonwhite. Then these amateurs tell judges if the children should be taken from those families, sometimes forever. In more than 60 percent of cases, judges rubber-stamp every single recommendation these amateurs make.

A law review article aptly describes CASA as “anexercise of white supremacy” – not just because of outrages such as these, but because of the program’s very nature. 

And the largest, most comprehensive study ever done of the program, a study commissioned by the National CASA Association itself and conducted by Caliber Associates, found that it does nothing to make children safer. The study also found that CASA prolongs foster care and reduces the chances children will be placed with relatives instead of strangers.  The trade journal Youth Today found that CASAs efforts to spin that study’s findings “can border on duplicity.”

So it’s no wonder a staffer with a CASA program would be desperate to find evidence of effectiveness.

Enter Laurie Tuff and her “capstone project” for her graduate work at the University of Washington. 

Tuff didn’t work for just any CASA program. She worked for the scandal-plagued program in Snohomish County, Washington. - the one blastedby a county judge for “the blatant withholding and destruction of evidence and … rampant continuing lying …”  The one in which the judge said a program volunteer “infiltrated” – the judge’s word – a listserv for parental defense attorneys. The one which had as a volunteer for 20 years someone whose comments about the families he investigated (and about one entire religion – you can probably guess which one) read as if they’d been written by Steve Bannon.

First came the standard excuses

Tuff first offers the same excuse CASA always dredges up when studies don’t go their way. She claims the Caliber study supposedly didn’t take into account that CASAs tend to be assigned to more difficult cases.

But the Caliber study did take that into account – and took a series of steps to, in the study’s own words “level the playing field.”  (It is not clear if Tuff read the full Caliber study. Her bibliography mentions only an eight-page summary issued by Caliber.)

Tuff was able to find exactly one study which found what she wanted to find – a very small study from one county published in 1999.  A small study means nothing unless it can be replicated.  Tuff set out to do just that.  And Tuff bent over backwards to make sure that the cases in her study in which children had CASAs and those in which they did not were equally difficult.

She writes that:

The purpose of the present research was to replicate [the] 1999 study … and to compare the results … The hypothesis was that cases assigned a CASA worker were more likely to have shorter dependencies [time in foster care] fewer out-of-home placements, obtain more services for the child and have more family contact after dismissal.

The actual results for the children with a CASA:

● No shorter time in foster care

● No more services

● No more family contact

● More moves from placement to placement

The study is very small, probably even smaller than the 1999 study.  If this were all the evidence that CASA didn’t work it would prove very little (though the burden should be on CASA to prove that it does work).  But this study is in addition to the massive, rigorous Caliber study.

Spinning the results

But the most amazing part of Tuff’s study is how she sought to spin the results.  She writes:

...[T]he present research was unable to replicate the findings of [the 1999 study], confirming that these measures of effectiveness may not properly assess the value of CASA involvement. … [T]raditional measures of effectiveness are too narrowly defined and miss the subtlety of the CASA’s contribution to the child’s well-being.

What if the study had come out the other way?  If, by these measures, children with CASAs did have better outcomes would these magically become valid measures of children’s well-being after all?  If the measures don’t really tell us anything about whether CASA helps children, why bother trying to replicate a study that used them?

The answer is obvious: From the perspective of Tuff and others in CASA, if the measures make CASA look good, then they’re valid, if they make CASA look bad, get new measures!

After all, Tuff writes, there is “widespread anecdotal evidence that CASAs are effective at representing the best interests of the child…”

And if there’s anecdotal evidence,” what else do you need?

#CASAsoWhite: A Former CASA on the Parents He Dealt With: “Felons,” “Junkies,” “Dumb as Dirt”

He says he spent 20 years in the same program that was excoriated by a judge for  “the blatant withholding and destruction of evidence and … rampant continuing lying …” and  “pervasive and egregious” misconduct.

Most of the time on this blog I comment on the work of others, whether it's research or journalism. Today, however, the NCCPR Child Welfare Blog breaks some news. No news organization in Washington State or elsewhere has previously reported on the disturbing comments of a former CASA volunteer in that state discussed below. And only KING-TV has reported on the other issues concerning the Snohomish County CASA program.

As Merlin Sprague tells the story, it all began in the mid-1980s when he tried to volunteer for a Big Brothers program in Snohomish County, Washington. He was rejected.  Or, as he puts it “the pecksniffs and [sic] Big Siblings can be excessively picky” and “the shrink who evaluated my suitability found I didn’t have sufficient respect for authority.” 

But, he said, the “shrink” suggested an alternative. “She suggested I volunteer for the county’s [Volunteer] Guardian ad Litem program (a.k.a. CASA, or Court-Appointed Special Advocate).”

He says that after the program accepted him he remained a Volunteer Guardian ad litem (VGAL) – in other words, a CASA - for 20 years.

CASAs are minimally-trained amateurs, overwhelmingly white and middle-class, who are sent out to investigate overwhelmingly poor disproportionately nonwhite families. Then they recommend to the judge whether the children should be separated from those families, sometimes forever. Judges typically take the advice. 

The most comprehensive study ever done of the program, a study commissioned by the National CASA Association itself, found that it does nothing to make children safer. The study also found that CASA prolongs foster care and reduces the chances children will be placed with relatives instead of strangers.

One CASA program saw no problem when a performer at a fundraiser dressed in blackface, another fell apart as soon as it had to confront issues of race. A law review article called CASA “an exercise of white supremacy.”  And now, meet Merlin Sprague:

In a blog post in January, the man who says he spent 20 years telling judges what they should do about families told the world what he thinks of those families. He wrote:

All of us in programs like the Guardians ad Litem see that:

The vast preponderance of children who are abused and neglected come from impoverished parents.

The parents are unschooled and ignorant and are satisfied with the situation. This, of course, explains the poverty.

Many parents are of low IQ.  Like one of my colleagues said, “They’re as dumb as dirt”.

Over 50% of the parents are felons and junkies who are incapable of looking after their own selves, let alone their children. Of the remaining 50%, most are simply felons and junkies who haven’t yet been caught.  This includes booze and tobacco.

Merlin’s Modest Proposal

But Sprague does have a solution:

Give each poor person, man or woman, whither [sic] or not they’ve been dragged into the child welfare system, $20,000, cash money, to be surgically sterilized.

It’s a bargain, Sprague tells us, compared to the cost of raising the children who, under this plan,  won’t be born. And he adds,  

this $20,000 will not prevent the conception and birth of just one child, it will prevent the conception and birth of many as these kinds of people breed like flies.

But, says Sprague, that’s not all:

As this cohort of parents are mostly drunks and junkies, $20,000 will buy all the booze and dope they could ever want.  Consequently, there will be many overindulgences which will result in death, further reducing the numbers of people on welfare.

One can only hope that none of the families with whom Sprague dealt was Muslim – because in another post he writes that Islam is:

… a throw-back to the Stone Age when men put bones through their noses and painted themselves blue.  Islam has the morals, ethics and principles of an insect.  We must use every method at our disposal to stamp it out before it stamps us out.

Judge Anita Farris

Of course, this is just one volunteer in one CASA program. But this is the same program in which Snohomish County Judge Anita Farris found that another volunteer “infiltrated” a listserv maintained by parental defense attorneys.  It’s also the program the samejudge blasted for “the blatant withholding and destruction of evidence and … rampant continuing lying …” and for “pervasive and egregious” misconduct.

When I asked the Snohomish County VGAL program if anyone there had any comment on Sprague’s views, and on why he was accepted as a volunteer and allowed to remain a volunteer for many years, this was the entire response, in an email from Public Information & Disclosure Officer Brian Lewis: “The opinions expressed in this piece are the author's own and do not reflect the view of Snohomish County Superior Court or any of its services programs.” 

Conflicts of Interest

For her part Judge Farris is unlikely to be issuing any more rulings concerning the program.  That’s because of how the program is organized – or at least how it now says it’s organized.

CASA programs take a variety of organizational forms. But since its establishment in 1979, the one in Snohomish County has been run directly by the county court system itself.  Late last year, in legal papers, the program stopped calling itself the VGAL program. Instead it started referring to itself as “the Court.” 

But how can a judge of any given court rule on alleged misconduct when the accused is – the court itself?  Judge Farris concluded she can’t. So she recused herself. A judge from another county will have to decide a whole slew of issues growing out of the case that exposed the alleged misconduct.

This issue has arisen at least once before. Florida took its CASA program (also called a GAL program in that state) away from the courts after a legislative report concluded that the arrangement created “actual and perceived conflicts of interest.”

That does leave one intriguing question: If, all along, the Snohomish County VGAL program was actually the court itself, did that program have an unfair advantage in every case in which it intervened?  Do hundreds, perhaps thousands of cases need to be reopened?

If so, it might be a good idea to start with the cases handled by Merlin Sprague.

#CASAsoWhite: Judge’s decisions reveal extent of scandal at a Washington State CASA

Last year, I wrote about the scandal at the Volunteer Guardian-ad-litem (VGAL) program in Snohomish County, Wash., an affiliate of the state’s Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) network.

CASA is a white, middle-class bastion of the child welfare system, a system that tears apart families that are overwhelmingly poor and disproportionately families of color. The most comprehensive study ever done of the program found that it does nothing to make children safer. The study also found that CASA prolongs foster care and reduces the chances children will be placed with relatives instead of strangers.

Last year, I wrote about how Judge Anita Farris found that a volunteer for the Snohomish County program “infiltrated” – the judge’s word – a listserv for family defense attorneys and passed on what she’d learned so her program could use the information against families. The judge called the guardian’s explanation of her actions “filled with lies.”

But that was only the beginning. In two more court rulings, revolving around the same termination of parental rights case, Judge Farris has blasted the VGAL program for “the blatant withholding and destruction of evidence and … rampant continuing lying …”

“This was not just a lot of lying,” Judge Farris said inone decision:

It was lying with no concern that you were lying. It was lying with “I don’t care if I get caught.” It was lying again and again and again after getting caught. It was lying under circumstances where it could be absolutely proven you were lying.

“Pervasive and egregious” misconduct

In another decision, the judge said her rulings “should not be interpreted to mean the entire program or every VGAL has committed misconduct. They have not.” But for those who did, she declared: “The misconduct was not minor or insubstantial. It was pervasive and egregious.”

There’s more about this ruling in this story from KING-TV:

The judge found that the misconduct violated state and county rules for Guardians ad litem.  The program’s explanation: According to the judge, well into the proceedings, the head of the program declared that no one in the program had ever heard of such rules. Said Judge Farris:

Are we to believe that [the program’s] staff attorney … who’s been there for decades, has never once mentioned the GAL rules to any VGAL employee?  … It would be akin to an attorney general saying none of his deputies was aware of the criminal code…

Judge Farris found that VGALs do get training in “how to keep things out of discovery,” the legal process by which each party obtains information from the other essential for preparing their case. These actions, she said, denied parents information they have an “absolute right” to receive.  Sometimes, she wrote, the files just disappeared:

The sheer number of unexplained missing pieces of evidence, all showing misconduct, is remarkable. … The inescapable conclusion is that [someone] in the VGAL program scrubbed discovery to hide VGAL misconduct.

The judge found that a supervisor provided trial testimony that was:

uninformed, inconsistent, dishonest, and biased. … The mutations in testimony followed a pattern. First, she would testify to an inaccurate fact that either supported her recommendation or hid VGAL misconduct. Then, only if confronted about the inaccuracy, she would completely reverse her prior testimony and cough up the truth.

After the judge describes what she said was one misrepresentation after another, she concludes:

Not one of these fabrications did anything to promote the interests of a child. These were not well-intentioned lies. Without exception, their sole purpose was to hide the misconduct of the liar, and that was done at the expense of this child.

“A pattern of retaliation”

Also, according to Judge Farris:

The Snohomish County VGAL program engaged in a pattern of retaliation against the mother’s attorneys during this case.

 The judge noted similar complaints in other cases, though she did not rule on their validity:

One declaration [from a lawyer in another case] alleged that after an attorney had made a complaint against a Snohomish VGAL, the VGAL knew about the complaint, changed her VGAL recommendation and began a vehement witch hunt. This retaliation went on so long, and was so rabid, the lawyer felt compelled to withdraw for the sake of her client …

 Declarations also were submitted from foster parents, in another case, indicating they made a complaint against the VGAL … and the VGAL retaliated by trying to have the child removed from the foster parents.

 After listing several more instances she deemed acts of retaliation, Judge Farris concluded:

It is impossible to measure how and to what extent retaliation against a small firm in this small community affects the willingness of all parent attorneys to zealously advocate to protect their clients’ constitutional rights to raise their children. … When VGALs retaliate, they are putting their personal passions for revenge ahead of the needs of any children whose best interests they are supposed to protect.

A lawyer for the firm that was subjected to what the judge called retaliation summarized the particulars here.

As of March 13, 2017, the website for the Snohomish VGAL program states that it is still “accredited by the National CASA Association and is an associated member of Washington State CASA.”

Perhaps those groups should take a closer look at what’s going on in Snohomish County.

#CASAsoWhite: Latest CASA scandal should be no surprise: Bias is built into the model

Anita Farris, a superior court judge in Snohomish County, Wash., says, “I’ve only used the ‘P word’ once in 23 years on this bench, and it applies in this situation.”

That’s P as in perjury.

KING-TV in Seattle reports the alleged perjurer is Cynthia Bemis, a “volunteer guardian-ad-litem” in child maltreatment cases. Most states use a different term: Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA).

The program Bemis volunteers for lists itself as “accredited by the National CASA Association and … an associated member of Washington State CASA.”

At issue is how Bemis “infiltrated” – that’s the judge’s word – a listserv run by public defenders representing parents in child welfare cases. The judge called her explanation “filled with lies.” And, the judge says, Bemis’ bosses knew or should have known that.

In fact, according to the judge, Bemis was essentially a one-woman NSA, spying on the defense attorneys to use the information against families. The judge says Bemis’ bosses knew or should have known that, too.

Bemis denies any wrongdoing. She says the whole thing has been blown out of proportion. Says Bemis: “My commitment to the welfare of children has never changed and never will.”

Other Examples of Bias

The case is just the most recent example of the bias that permeates CASA, the most sacred cow in child welfare:

§  In Arkansas City, Kan., a CASA chapter’s fundraiser featured a drag queen contest. The winner was the mayor. He dressed up as a woman to whom he gave a surname described as “graphic slang for a female private part.” So is the name the mayor chose for his back-up dancers. Oh, and one more thing: the mayor did his act made up in blackface.

§  In Indianapolis, the website for the CASA program declares every family from whom a child is taken is guilty. According to the website: “volunteers help ensure that the children we fight to protect are not returned to the very situations where the mistreatment occurred” [emphasis added].

Of course, most CASAs don’t behave this way. And some CASAs do excellent work.  But these sorts of problems are almost inevitable. So is behavior like this and this and this, and defenses of CASA like this.

Because bias is built into the way CASA works:

CASA depends on volunteers spending a few hours each month on a single case. Who has time for that? Not a poor person holding down two jobs. So it’s no wonder CASA programs sometimes are pet projects of the local Junior League and the demographics of CASAs tend to be vastly different from the demographics of the families they judge.

CASA volunteers, mostly middle class and overwhelmingly white, march into the homes of people who are overwhelmingly poor and disproportionately people of color. Then they pass judgment on the families and recommend whether they should get their children back. Judges routinely rubber-stamp their recommendations.

Disturbing Findings from a Study

The demographic information, and the information about judges’ behavior, can be found in the most comprehensive study ever done of CASA – a study commissioned by the National CASA Association itself.

But that wasn’t all the study found. As Youth Today reported at the time, the study “delivers some surprisingly damning numbers”:

§  The study found that CASA’s only real accomplishments were to prolong the time children languished in foster care and reduce the chance that the child will be placed with relatives.

§  The study found no evidence that having a CASA on the case does anything to improve child safety – so all that extra foster care is for nothing. (The study specifically controlled for CASA’s all-purpose excuse for this – the claim that CASAs handle the most difficult cases.)

§  The study found that when a CASA is assigned to a child who is black, the CASA spends, on average, significantly less time on the case. (The study also found that CASAs don’t spend as much time on cases as the organization’s public relations may lead people to believe. CASA volunteers reported spending an average of only 4.3 hours per month on cases involving white children, and 2.67 hours per month on cases involving black children.)

No matter how desperately they try to spin the findings (and Youth Today concluded that those efforts “can border on duplicity”), the problem is built into the CASA model itself.

So we need a better model.

CASAs still can perform a useful service as mentors to foster children and in advocating for services. But children need a real voice in court, a lawyer with a mandate to fight for what that child wants, for any child old enough to make known a competent preference.

That’s not because the child will always be right. It’s because judges are more likely to make the best decisions when all sides have advocates making the best possible case – rather than ratifying a Junior Leaguer’s impressions.