Arizona Mom Fights Abusive Prosecution by Department of Child Safety

https://pacificlegal.org/press-release/arizona-mom-fights-abusive-prosecution-by-department-of-child-safety/

by tomohawk • 4 years ago

204 196 4 years ago

ciguy• 4 years ago

Totally insane that you can be prosecuted now for letting your kids play in a park. If this is truly the whole story, I hope she gets a nice fat settlement and the agency that did this gets gutted.

Unfortunately that's almost never how it works out in real life. The beaurocratic idiots that decided to ruin her life to boost their stats will get promoted and replaced by more idiots.

TeeMassive• 4 years ago

IME the people working at CPS tend to lack judgment and have have a controlling and abusive mindset.

I would never let a child near a CPS worker.

dr_dshiv6• 4 years ago

Yeah, there should be some measurement tool to evaluate how awful people are in different branches of the government.

marcinzm• 4 years ago

I assume very few people who deal with actually abusive parents and their kids (as CPS often does) would come out the other end without severe mental trauma.

endisneigh• 4 years ago

This is terrible. And to think there are people out there who want to get the government involved in more things, hah.

dr_dshiv6• 4 years ago

Yeah, I want to get the government involved in changing this situation. Through a democratic process. And nuanced, non-black/white thinking.

darkerside3• 4 years ago

Just pointing out that in today's world, representative democracy and nuanced thinking are almost mutually exclusive.

jrm42• 4 years ago

This itself is dangerous thinking; what people miss way too much is the variance across localities. Some are great and some are terrible -- but the whole "All government is terrible" mindset frequently enables even worse private intervention.

Dracophoenix• 4 years ago

Unless you've encountered anarchists, few truly think all government is terrible. Rather it's that government must always be scrutinized. Who will will intervene on you're behalf against a government that can have you castrated under an assumption that you're mentally deficient enough to deserve it (Buck vs Bell)? At least one can have his day in court against against another individual. However, thanks to broad interpretations of the 11th amendment, qualified immunity, and national security laws, the means to achieve vindication against government abuses have grown narrower.

proxyon• 4 years ago

The bureaucratic machine always comes up with more laws in order to justify its own existence.

noasaservice2• 4 years ago

That's the thing. If they were laws proper, then we'd get a proper defense.

Its the worst of all possible worlds: its a "bureaucratic policy" that was made without oversight, lawmakers, or anything. And it was powered because of some line "bureau will conduct appropriately the $thing"

And then, you start getting law/notlaws, lilliputian 'courts' that follow their own rules, fines and punishments that are expressly criminal but for some strained definition aren't defined as criminal.

Tao33004• 4 years ago

And it all seems fine until people you don't like from the other side get elected.

I'm not some ultra-crunchy libertarian, but I sure wish people would stop to imagine "what if an asshole has the keys?" when they think about what they want their government to be able to do.

revscat• 4 years ago

The cynic in me reads this and thinks: “Well of course. America is not safe for children. It’s only truly safe for capitalists and cops.” Then I wonder how much of that is cynicism, and how much of it is the infuriating reality. That the Arizona Department of Child Safety chose to prosecute this woman is an unstated recognition of this.

wincy4• 4 years ago

We live in an upper middle class neighborhood and the only people who drive through are other people who live here. Our daughter is seven now but we’ve let her go to her friends house of her own volition since she was five.

This wasn’t a problem until a woman with several foster children (I know this because she told me? I assume she was trying to virtue signal to me what a great person she was) moved into our neighborhood.

One day she came to our house with our daughter in tow, telling us “it isn’t safe” and other nonsense. Most of the people on the blocks are parents and we have each other’s numbers! The next time our daughter was out, then came home, a short time later we got a knock on the door by a police officer. He was friendly and asked to see our daughter to make sure she was okay, but said he’d gotten a call and he had to report it to CPS. So the man from CPS came and inspected our house to make sure we weren’t abusing our child.

Luckily nothing came from it but it was really annoying and I really hate that neighbor now. We bought our daughter an Apple Watch so she can call us and we can GPS track her so she’s not “being neglected”.

It’s frustrating because I lived in a much less safe neighborhood than we do now and was allowed to range much further when I was her age. It just takes one busybody to ruin your life, though.

pjbeam• 4 years ago

This is a real shame, it's bad for your daughter and life in general. I have three kids and as much as I'd love to let them roam a bit like my wife and I did as kids, stories like yours scare the hell out of me.

I don't know how we arrived at kids walking around in their own neighborhoods is neglect but life sure is poorer for it.

wincy4• 4 years ago

Now that she’s seven and has the watch everything seems fine. She goes further than ever and we haven’t gotten complaints. Maybe the lady gave up or decided my daughter’s magically old enough now.

We also have run ins with CPS more often than normal because we have a disabled child. We were reported to CPS because our daughter has issues with holding her breath (her brain stem isn’t quite right, she essentially has a condition where if she gets upset she forgets to breathe and has to be “rebooted” by giving her breaths) the EMTs came into the house and found her crib with poop in it when they took her to the hospital.

The thing is, when she holds her breath she proceeds to have a massive bowel movement that no diaper can contain. Hence the poop in the crib. The crazy thing is that to “protect” her, the state withdrew her nursing care (as they were being investigated by CPS), and forced the burden of taking care of her fully onto me and my wife.

This was during the crazy nursing shortage in 2021 so of course our nurses found better jobs that pay far better Which I’m glad for them, but it left us in a tight spot. We’re lucky enough that we make enough money that my wife can stay at home but this would have been absolutely ruinous for other families. The nursing shortage is so bad that the state had enacted a program where my wife gets paid to be her caregiver (which is funny, being your child’s employee, her name is on the checks).

It’s all very frustrating and makes us cautious with what we say to doctors and other mandatory reporters, even if we think we’re being good parents. One time I gave my daughter a sip of Mountain Dew and mentioned it to the doctor and now it’s in the “permanent record” that I give her Mountain Dew.

dominotw2• 4 years ago

I have family that choose to live in 100% Indian community in dallas for this exact reason. Kids can go in and out of the house at will. They walk around outside and find other kids to play and hangout. No playdates, no schedules, no dropoffs.

I used to think living in 100% indian community is a bit weird; after all america is about diversity, learning and understanding other cultures. But now i see the light and recommend this lifestyle for anyone with kids.

yieldcrv3• 4 years ago

But now i see the light and recommend this lifestyle for anyone with kids.

How many other residents in the US can live in a 100% indian community. Is that one still 100%, the family is indian?

the key takeaway being that it avoids this snitching system?

zozbot234• 4 years ago

Are you sure about the area? Texas does have a few recognized tribes, but they are nowhere near Dallas.

cool_dude85• 4 years ago

Ask your family why they only feel comfortable doing this in a 100% Indian community.

astura2• 4 years ago

The best part of growing up in an urban area is there was always neighborhood kids to play with. Just walk outside and see who else is out.

listless• 4 years ago

That is infuriating. What right does the government have to come and inspect your house and invade your privacy over your child walking around outside?!? In her own neighborhood? Surely despite everyone’s political leanings we can all agree that this is an egregious abuse of power.

manquer6• 4 years ago

Depends, if a person is really abusing a child which unfortunately happens more frequently than we all want to believe, then you would rather have the government intervene without complicated red-tape as soon as possible.

In this case above CPS and police just checked up as they should on a any complaint and then were fine with OP, the system is working as expected (neighbor is still being a dick)

Yes it is annoying, but I rather live in a world where the police or CPS chase every frivolous compliant than them unable to do anything without a court order or not stopping abuse enough.

we don’t realize how many of our rights society grant to us and can take away easily . Raising a child is a one for that matter so is marriage, or even managing your own affairs (conservatorship), while we no longer just put people in mental institutions, government absolutely have the power to do so. Compromises of living in a civil society is to abide by rules even if it invades the privacy and rights of any one individual.

spoils19• 4 years ago

If the government steps in and tries to help kids grow up to be modern citizens (read: pious, hard-working, conservative), then I don't see a problem with inspecting houses.

pessimizer• 4 years ago

We always love to blame the busybody snitch for this, and we somehow let the government off the hook, or even paint it as a victim.

If somebody reports child neglect, but doesn't report any indications that would invite a reasonable suspicion of child neglect, the government shouldn't be spending any more time on it than on all the other people who don't have any evidence of neglect. They're fearful of doing this, because if there turns out to be abuse or neglect and they got a call, they'll be lynched for it.

They should just triage with consistent rules that respect the individual freedom of parents and their children, accept that sometimes this will cause them to miss something, but not accept that they made a mistake as long as they have a record that they stuck to the rules. If the rules are not good enough, update the rules.

Child protection agencies should do this regardless of the justice system's view of what has happened. Keep a fund for settlements, make guidelines good enough that you won't have to pay them out often, and immediately settle whenever something happens, without taking responsibility. It may not appeal to the sense of justice for an agency to pay when it's done nothing wrong, but child protection isn't a person, it's a function of government, and compensating people who have lost something important to them (like a child, sibling, or grandchild) is restorative.

edit: Blaming the busybody is similar to being content to punish SWATters. We need a system that can receive an anonymous report about an innocent person, and not show up and kill them. There will always be borderline attention-seekers and people who will call in false reports; we need a system that expects them. The system failure is the problem that we can improve on. The scapegoat is an excuse not to improve.

game-of-throws• 4 years ago

One day she came to our house with our daughter in tow

So she's grabbing other people's kids off the street? She sounds unhinged. I'd do everything I could to get a restraining order.

MerelyMortal• 4 years ago

Sounds like kidnapping to me (I am not a lawyer).

itronitron3• 4 years ago

Yeah, I think a restraining order is a reasonable course of action. The 'strange neighbor' does not seem to have the best intentions and she could have easily spoken to the parent without involving the child.

__derek__• 4 years ago

Have you considered legal avenues to stop her from harassing your family?

wincy4• 4 years ago

It seems to have stopped. I’m not sure if they moved or she just gave up or what. This was two years ago and we were cautious about sending her to friends houses but she’s largely autonomous again. I think having a cell phone watch helps immensely (she can say “call mom” and “call dad” to Siri).

Technically it was anonymous, so I’m not sure how I’d even make a complaint. We did call an attorney and strangely he just said “cooperate fully with CPS it’ll be fine”. Which I mean, it was in the end.

9991• 4 years ago

So the man from CPS came and inspected our house to make sure we weren’t abusing our child.

Were you legally obligated to let him into your house?

11235813213• 4 years ago

Typically the first visit is a request to be voluntarily let in. If denied they will return with a police officer and a warrant to enter, and will be more likely to try to hurt your family rather than do a cursory walkthrough. It’s a bit of game theory but it’s best to let them in the first time.

zargon• 4 years ago

As the story demonstrates, there could be extra-legal consequences whether one allows them in or not. For average people without very deep pockets, it's damned if you do, damned if you don't.

wincy4• 4 years ago

I denied the police officer entry. He made me produce my child (to show she was there and safe) but that was it. A CPS representative came a few days later and we were advised by a lawyer to let him in and take a look. He made some minor suggestions about cleaning up around our younger daughter’s high chair (she’d thrown some food around her chair) but nothing came of it.

ChrisMarshallNY3• 4 years ago

Folks that live in UMC* neighborhoods seldom see much of the "dark side" of CPS.

I know about it from both sides.

First, CPS exists for a reason. I have family that used to run a group home for kids that were made wards of the state. The things that people will do to their own children is infuriating and heartbreaking. I have also been involved in an organization that deals with a lot of this stuff, for years, and have seen it, firsthand.

Child abuse also happens in UMC neighborhoods, but those folks are usually better at chasing away CPS cases, so you generally hear about them in less affluent areas, where the people don't have the means to fight (and also, the stress of living poor will often exacerbate child abuse/endangerment).

Second, CPS is notoriously "un-constitutional." Parents are guilty until proved innocent, and the caseworkers have great authority to be absolute tyrants. Anonymous tips from skeezballs, are given the weight of a policeman's sworn affidavit.

As a result, ratting out single moms to CPS is a favorite pastime of jerk ex-boyfriends. They make the poor girl (and, I guess, nowadays, boy)'s life a living hell, which they often can't bear, as they are already on the balls of their ass; not to mention tying up resources that could be better focused on real child abuse.

People can really suck.

*Upper Middle Class

bilbo0s• 4 years ago

This is absolutely true. In the US there are so many situations that have gone south, that CPS and the courts have an almost learned reflex to never give breaks. These cases could be physical child abuse, or sex abuse, and could even go all the way up to death. As a kind of 'prototypical' example of what I'm talking about, Google Kamari Gholston [0].

And when these sorts of things happen, it never fails, all the 'parental rights advocates' out there that were previously pushing to be more lenient with parents scatter. And the judge and CPS are left holding the bag. (Some of the 'parental rights advocates' even flip flop, and now call for heads to roll, because now all of a sudden they are child welfare advocates. :eye roll:)

So now the judge, the police and CPS have not only the political leaders and the general population asking uncomfortable questions, but CNN and Fox News trucks outside their homes asking questions as well. For the judge and the CPS workers, their careers are ruined not only locally, but nationally. There's no coming back from that.

Well the other judges and CPS workers see what happens, and are that much less likely to give a single mother a break in the future for example. And it just iterates and escalates with each tortured, raped, or murdered (or all three) child.

[0] https://www.invisiblechildren.org/2022/06/23/kamari-gholston...

joe_the_user6• 4 years ago

I know about it from both sides.

...

Anonymous tips from skeezballs, are given the weight of a policeman's sworn affidavit...

This is one of those weird supposedly-balanced posts. The balance is, "on the one hand" CPS persecutes a lot of innocent people. "On the other hand", CPS fails to find determined and intelligent pedophiles working to evade it. You ever think that this isn't sane balance at all? Like maybe CPS is failing to find people doing calculated horrible things because it's approach is this abusive scattershot? Especially, any enforcement agency has a incentive laziness (heck everyone has one). If a worker can effortlessly produce cases against random schmucks, they have less incentive to work hard to find the people systematically evading them.

peteradio• 4 years ago

already on the balls of their ass

Off topic, but thanks for this idiom.

jacquesm• 4 years ago

Child abuse also happens in foster care homes, in fact the chances of that are a lot higher than in the normal population.

Between four(!) and twenty eight(!!!) more times:

https://www.focusforhealth.org/sex-abuse-and-the-foster-care...

RavingGoat• 4 years ago

This is common these days. People use CPS to try to bully people.

I'm the white parent of a black son we adopted at birth. We live in a white middle class neighborhood but one neighbor doesn't like having a black kid living there. They've called CPS multiple times. It's always nerve racking because you don't know what can happen even if though the claims are bogus. They come to the door assuming you are guilty.

jtbayly• 4 years ago

This wasn’t a problem until a woman with several foster children (I know this because she told me? I assume she was trying to virtue signal to me what a great person she was) moved into our neighborhood. One day she came to our house with our daughter in tow, telling us “it isn’t safe” and other nonsense.

I don’t think anybody here has commented that the fact this woman fosters is actually directly connected to the fact that she reported you.

It’s indicative of how broken the whole system is that the training to be a foster parent declares things like letting a 7-yo walk alone to be unsafe.

Note that these are some of the same social workers that could be checking up on you when CPS is called. Thus, it is only a happy accident that there weren’t charges filed against you.

rasz• 4 years ago

One day she came to our house with our daughter in tow

See, the problem could have been avoided by calling police right there and reporting a kidnapping.

tomohawk• 4 years ago

It would be a shame if someone called the health department after seeing a rat in your neighbor's yard.

devwastaken• 4 years ago

1. 4th amendment, never let police in your home voluntarily.

2. If the woman contacts your child again, file for restraining order. Tell your neighbors to do the same.

People have rights, better stand up for them or they'll get trampled by blue policies like CPS, which have a long history of abuse and lack of care.

Big adopters are also generally abusive parents. Sounds to me the woman is projecting.

Am4TIfIsER0ppos• 4 years ago

Let me get this straight. You let 3 state agents trick you into strapping a government tracking device to your child?

kenned33• 4 years ago

This is actually a fairly large problem these days.

As you point out, you take people who just cant help but "virtue signal" and combine this with an anonymous reporting system and now that system is being abused.

The other day I took my dog for a walk and a young girl (around 5) approached me to ask if she could pat him. I had a short conversation with the girl, told her to make sure she is careful with the roads (we met at an intersection) and asked if her parents know where she is. She told me she has a walky-talky and her mom is aware.

I did not see a need to do anything further, the young girl knew her way home, she was like 5-6 houses away in a safe and quiet area.

But some "stranger danger" nut jobs feel they have a duty to protect YOUR kids from their imagined danger?

My dog is rather large and a rehome with some bad behaviour attributes so at times i need to be firm with him to encourage him to change.

I certainly dont "beat" him as that accomplishes nothing, but he is "yelled at" and made to sit down and not allowed to continue walking until he calms down.

someone reported me to animal control, who then came to my house. They were not able to tell me who called, when, what took place, etc.

How do yo defend your actions when you are not allowed to know what the actions were?

Flip side, if my large dog bit one of the off-leash dogs in the area the owners would then be reporting me for this?

Cant discipline the dog for being bad around other dogs, cant let the dog be aggressive to other dogs?

These reporting systems are rapidly becoming "weaponized".

noasaservice2• 4 years ago

This kind of bureaucratic law/not-law is because it's a bureaucratic determination and not a "law" proper.

It's the same kind of "its not really criminal until it is" regarding speeding and not wearing a seatbelt. Traffic court is a farce, and has been long used as a bypass of proper defense by saying "driving is a privileged and not a right".. when the very body punishing you is the state. That conveniently is thrown out the window as things move up the chain. Sure looks criminal at all phases, even if it is "minor crimes".

Naturally, other quazi-"not really criminal until it is" bureaucracies need destroyed. Like utterly, completely; until they start complying with proper courts for finding of fact and acting only upon punishment phase if found guilty.

Tao33004• 4 years ago

More details if you click through a bit:

she dropped off her seven-year-old son and his five-year-old friend at a park about five blocks from the store... a friend was teaching a Tai Chi class at the park and was watching the kids while Sarra went to buy groceries.

The friend called her when she saw the kids talking to the police, so it would indeed seem that said friend was indeed keeping an eye on them.

Ekaros• 4 years ago

So just how many kidnappings of children by total strangers there are on average? Must be quite a lot if it is so feared? How many vans are driving around blocks and looking to abduct kids with or without candy each day?

pliftkl• 4 years ago

There are many bad outcomes to unattended children that don't involve kidnapping (think uncommon but normal childhood injuries of kids on playgrounds).

That being said, none of the facts presented here indicate that CPS action would have been warranted.

Gordonjcp2• 4 years ago

think uncommon but normal childhood injuries of kids on playgrounds

Which is how (and why) I learned first aid, when I was - I can't even remember how old, single digits anyway.

Right-wingers in the US would give their children guns before they gave them basic life skills.

bagacrap2• 4 years ago

what is "uncommon but normal"?

I don't know how supervision would prevent playground injuries. I broke my arm in a soccer game when I was 9, surrounded by adults. Life went on?

SteveGerencser• 4 years ago

I have had multiple experiences with CPS over the years through friends and family. Over time I have developed a pretty dramatic hatred of them. We took in our niece for a few months years ago and the way they ran their 'system' was mind blowing. The rules that make their life hard were freely broken whenever they wanted and the rules that made our lives hard were written on stone tablets.

I'm involved in a case now where they took a 5 year old boy from the family and refused all contact for over 3 months. All with never filing a charge against the family or even telling anyone WHY they took him. It wasn't until we started writing large checks to good lawyers that we got their attention.

lbrito3• 4 years ago

Some time ago I watched a Not Just Bikes (bear with me) video where Jason mentioned how ridiculous the oversight expectations were in US/Canada. He mentioned a Vancouver parent that was "fighting police for the right to send his kids to school alone on public transit" or something. I thought that was ridiculous, it can't possibly be true. I guess its not ridiculous after all.

jbay808• 4 years ago

a Vancouver parent that was "fighting police for the right to send his kids to school alone on public transit" or something.

It's true (although it wasn't the police but rather the Ministry of Children & Family Development). It was a big local story. Fortunately he won.

http://5kids1condo.com/we-won-common-sense-prevails-in-bus-d...

SeanLuke4• 4 years ago

CPS could well be the spawn of Satan. But with the exception of a minor (Breitbart-like rag) Tennessee Star article, 100% of the references I can find on the Google appear to be postings and promotions from Pacific Legal and its partner, the Goldwater Institute. There does not appear to be a single non-ultra-biased source reporting this story. Which means, as far as we know, it could be entirely nonsense.

Cupertino950146• 4 years ago

You have a closed loop there: no media outlet I like is reporting on it, so it must not be true.

So if Big Media ignores the story, by definition it never happened?

SeanLuke4• 4 years ago

Hmmm, did i use the words "must" or "never"?

Essentially no media outlet is reporting on it. At all. Heck, the link provided to HN is directly from the PR of the legal firm itself: that would be the definition of an ultra biased source. They haven't even gone to court yet. In short: we have zero evidence that these events occurred the way being claimed.

User23• 4 years ago

This is observably the prevailing folk epistemology in the USA.

astura2• 4 years ago

In this case a primary source is available. Here's a copy of the suit filed with the court - https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...

I didn't read it so idk what it says

wawjgreen• 4 years ago

bloody 1984

jokoon• 4 years ago

unrelated to technology, and as the comments show, this buys into the libertarian agenda of this website

lbrito3• 4 years ago

HN sure has a strong libertarian presence, but I guarantee you its not here. This is more the urbanism, liveability and anti-NIMBY crowd. I don't have data but I very strongly sense intersection between both is nil.

UIUC_068• 4 years ago

There's a SCOTUS decision, nickname Chevron deference which is due to be overturned, and I think most of the posters here should be in favor of overturning it. In AZ, I'm pretty sure the Legislature and Governor never intended that parents like this should be prosecuted, but DCS is interpreting their broad statutory authority that way.

IANAL, but I believe it says that an administrative agency's interpretation of the law, if it considers the law ambiguous, should govern. Overturning it will mean that the Legislature and Governor make the laws, not the agencies.

Yeah, that probably will mean that either nothing or the wrong thing (from your perspective) happens, but that's another problem.

manquer6• 4 years ago

Hardly, overturning chevron especially in the polarized grid locked congress of today would be chaos.

Also practically the legislative branch cannot reasonably dictate laws about every single thing . Neither are they experts nor are is there remotely enough staff in all of Capitol Hill to do that.

Overturning chevron would take away force of law from regulation and make governing more legislative and judicial rather than executive.

Government cannot function with regulators unable to do anything unless congress or court saying so explicitly.

That doesn’t mean we don’t have a ton of over regulation or bad ones, removing Chevron is not a solution for that though.

PS : Arizona where this story is from already overturned chevron at the state level

yieldcrv3• 4 years ago

The roles that the federal legislative branch has assumed over the past 100 years are misguided and mostly based under an interpretation of the interstate commerce clause and how much power can be delegated away from the legislature.

I can hold that observation and also realize that it will be wildly disruptive to make an adverse ruling on that power. I can also see there are other ways to reach the same result, its really not rogue or illegitimate for a court to simply say "leave that to your elected representatives", and thats what the court is going to do. Its extremely predictable and does not require any circular logic to do so.

I don't think the disruptive nature is a reason to avoid doing it, as a consensus bridging solution would be resilient as well, antifragile.

SoftTalker• 4 years ago

the legislative branch cannot reasonably dictate laws about every single thing

That's a feature, because there should not be laws about every single thing.

If a law is ambiguous, a judge should decide how it applies. Not an bureaucrat in a governemnt agency.

grapeskin2• 4 years ago

Overturning it will mean that the Legislature and Governor make the laws, not the agencies.

In a country where Congress has been deadlocked for decades and a large number of states are racing to push the absolute limits of what they can take in corporate bribes and push moral crusades that'll be forgotten 5 years from now but have lifelong consequences, that's going to be an absolute disaster and it's mindblowing that it's being cheered on.

Some states might be better off. A few are trying to shoot their heads off and force others to do it with them.

UIUC_068• 4 years ago

In a country where Congress has been deadlocked for decades

So your answer to the problem of a government you don't like is: invent another one?

A better answer is just to write laws more carefully, broad enough to cover unforeseen circumstances, yet not so broad that they can be stretched to mean absolutely anything.

That IS challenging. On the other hand, there are a lot of lawyers working for our Congresspeople, so they should be up to the challenge.

tzs• 4 years ago

DCS is a state agency, not a federal agency. Chevron only concerned federal agencies.

colinmhayes5• 4 years ago

West Virginia v EPA is the case that overturned the chevron case you're complaining about. I'm not sure that it applies to state agencies though, might only be federal.

UIUC_068• 4 years ago

you & the other poster are right, of course -- SCOTUS only deals with Federal controversies.

They do set a (non-binding) direction for state Supreme Courts, though.

Gormo2• 4 years ago

Chevron deference is a federal doctrine related to self-interpretation of statutory powers by federal agencies.

It has no direct relevance to state agencies operating under state law. Some states do/did have equivalent doctrines, but many have explicitly forbidden judicial deference to administrative agencies either via statute law or via binding precedent created by their own supreme courts.

Everything being discussed in this thread is a matter of state-level policy that varies drastically among states, and has no direct relation to federal agencies or the way they apply federal statutes.

RappingBoomer• 4 years ago

I used to work for the govt...govt bureaucrats are always looking for new things to do...software is cutting down on their work...

and those new things entail controlling our lives...and I don't see any solution for this problem

plasticchris• 4 years ago

Why not let the govt people find other work? It isn’t a law of nature that the public sector must never shrink, though it does feel that way sometimes.

happyopossum4• 4 years ago

Look at California - the biggest lobbyists in the state are govt employee unions. Care to guess how’d theyd respond to cutting government jobs?

anigbrowl• 4 years ago

There's a lot of context missing, starting with the age of the kids.

happyopossum4• 4 years ago

(1) https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/arizona/arizona-mo...

phyzome• 4 years ago

Right? How could you possibly write a story like this without mentioning whether the kids were 2, 7, or 14? Those would be very different stories from each other...

happyopossum4• 4 years ago

The Pacific Legal Foundation is an amazing organization, and has fought this kind of battle over and over again for people that would never be able to afford attorneys of that caliber.

lbrito3• 4 years ago

Being from one of the unsafest countries in America, and having also lived in the US, specifically in Phoenix area, this story has a really surrealist tone.

Phoenix metro is pretty safe. It seems safety is just varnish over the real issue here, which is some kind of bizarre neuroticism I can't fathom. It seems like a story that a big American newspaper would smugly write about some backwater, unsophisticated Eastern European police state.

greenonions• 4 years ago

Americans? Varnishing neuroticism? Couldn't be.

googlryas• 4 years ago

What federal or state law could the child be breaking for her to get charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

Is there a law that kids a certain age can't be alone in public?

IncRnd• 4 years ago

This is the overreach of a foster parent who had good intentions. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." This foster parent, who may have had first-hand experience of what can happen to unsupervised children, caused an issue where none had previously existed.

Regarding the other aspect to your comment, in all US states there is a division or department for the welfare of children. Those are all staffed with people who can make immediate administrative decisions for what they believe to be the welfare of a child. They can immediately take a child away from parents, who they believe to be abusive.

When the person makes the right decision, they and this system are hailed are wonderful. Unfortunately, things like this often happen far too often - administrators turn the life of a family upside down, due to their own beliefs, biases, and power over others.

exotree3• 4 years ago

CPS is very often put in a “damned if you do; damned if you don’t.” Miss _one_ case, and the state is on the hook for millions, a case manager who makes $47k a year at 60 hrs a week with an oversized case load takes on an incredible amount of liability.

My wife worked as a case manager and I worked in a group home from 19-21. It was appalling how cruel and terrible parents (or other relatives) could be. No matter what socioeconomic class you’re in, child abuse is not as uncommon as one would think.

And we haven’t even touched on vulnerable adults….

This particular experience is not an ideal situation. But also, I am concerned by how many commenters believe CPS and their related agencies are completely incompetent or unnecessary.

s1artibartfast• 4 years ago

Miss _one_ case, and the state is on the hook for millions,

Doesn't the state and its agents have qualified immunity?

exotree3• 4 years ago

It gets a lot murkier for CPS and its varying contractors unlike law enforcement.

https://www.kare11.com/amp/article/news/investigations/mn-su...

joe_the_user6• 4 years ago

Miss _one_ case, and the state is on the hook for millions, a case manager who makes $47k a year at 60 hrs a week with an oversized case load takes on an incredible amount of liability.

Yes that's insane but such insanity is hardly an argument for CPS making sane, reasonable decisions. It seems to point in the opposite direction.

But also, I am concerned by how many commenters believe CPS and their related agencies are completely incompetent or unnecessary.

Something like CPS seems necessary but that need doesn't imply that current CPS is competent. It seems like you have a grossly incompetent and abusive system that continuously defends itself by pointing to how necessary it is.

11235813213• 4 years ago

Well, you should be concerned that so many people are hurt by an organization that pays your family. It’s harder for you to see the problem. Believe the people who are describing the abuses, and he willing to support meaningful policy change to protect families and give them a more appropriate degree of rights in family court systems.

exotree3• 4 years ago

Our family is no longer financially reliant on these gov't agencies. It wasn't feasible to work in an environment where the county targeted (again) the health department she worked for budget cuts, which led to higher case loads, higher insurance premiums, longer hours and virtually no chance for raises in the next 2 years at minimum.

Voters chose to not invest in agencies that protect the most vulnerable in the population. As a result, those who remain are overworked, more abuse gets through the cracks, and even the best in this group start to break or start giving up on caring. Pretty big bummer.

egberts12• 4 years ago

I am so old that I used to ride a bike across town past the social worker’s house to a park to play all day (and swim the raging American River) at the age of 10.

Yeah, it is all about proper conditioning of your kids to these wild, wild nest of anti-social works.

If I were a city kid, I’d probably should not be doing that given the danger of kid-related crimes which are commonly prevalent in urban settings (not only by frequency, but by density).

nobody99993• 4 years ago

If I were a city kid, I’d probably should not be doing that given the danger of kid-related crimes which are commonly prevalent in urban settings (not only by frequency, but by density).

I was a city kid and I rode my bike all over the place, played with other kids without adult supervision, rode the subway by myself, took myself (whether walking, biking or subway) to various activities all while around the same age.

And by the way, NYC was a tough place back then (mid 1970s) and we were generally just fine. None of my friends/schoolmates were kidnapped, tortured or killed.

And cities (especially NYC) is much, much safer now than it was back then.

I think you have some misconceptions about cities friend. I invite you to come visit us. It's really a wonderful place and not just to visit. Growing up in NYC was a great experience!

egberts12• 4 years ago

as one who actually grew up over 11 different states, rural, suburban, cities, which is easy to do as a military brat.

No misconception there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Etan_Patz

torstenvl• 4 years ago

"Where a person's good name, reputation, honor, or integrity is at stake because of what the government is doing to him, notice and an opportunity to be heard are essential." Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U.S. 433, 437, 91 S. Ct. 507, 510 (1971).

This case and similar sound in federal employment law. I cite them frequently in the context of military discharges. But the government publishing stigmatizing material about someone is odious, and I see no reason why it implicates less of a liberty interest here than it does in an employment context. It's my personal opinion that this reasoning should extend beyond federal employment -- stigmatizing material published by the government should require a hearing.

blooalien• 4 years ago

As a child I was basically forcibly kidnapped from an excellent home by child "protective" services, and spent several years bouncing from one psychotic abusive "foster" home to another, entirely on the word of one screwed up middle school principal who shouldn't have ever been allowed within a hundred miles of any child, while one of my best friends just down the street from me couldn't beg for or receive any help from those same scumbags regarding being literally beaten nightly by his drunken asshole of a father, despite multiple reports and evidence from many people (including myself and my mother). My family tried to fight it and was basically given the middle finger by every agency they contacted. How is it so very rare that these sorts of abusive agencies ever get investigated or held responsible for these destructive actions?

Arizona Mom Fights Abusive Prosecution by Department of Child Safety

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