Grandparent visit rights backed under Ga. bill

Associated Press

ATLANTA — The right of grandparents to visit their grandchildren caught up in custody or divorce cases would be strengthened under a bill passed by Georgia lawmakers.

House lawmakers voted 154-0 on Wednesday to pass the bill sponsored by Republican Rep. John Meadows of Calhoun.

The bill seeks to increase the visitation rights of grandparents whose grandchildren are involved in cases involving child custody, divorce or the termination of parental rights. It would encourage judges to allow children to visit their grandparents when that grandparent has financially supported the child for a year or regularly visited with the child.

The bill would allow judges to rule that the child's interests would be harmed without some "minimal" contact with their grandparents. Those visits would total at least 24 hours in a month.

High court may revisit grandparents' rights

By STEPHANIE REITZ
Associated Press

HARTFORD, Conn. — Increasingly, a wrenching dispute is playing out in courts nationwide: balancing parents' constitutional rights to raise their children without interference against grandparents' desire to be involved in those youngsters' lives.

Now, a growing number of grandparents are pushing lawmakers around the country to change state standards they say are too restrictive and ignore the unique bonds many grandparents have with their grandchildren.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide this winter whether it will revisit the issue, which it addressed 11 years ago in a landmark case out of Washington state that makes competent parents' wishes the guiding principle in most disputes.

Although all state laws must meet that constitutional threshold, their efforts have resulted in a patchwork of state court rulings and legislation. They now impose such a variety of conditions that the parties' home states can affect the cases almost as much as the specifics.

Connecticut, Florida and Arizona are considered among the most parent-friendly based on their laws or court precedents. Others are considered more grandparent-friendly, including Utah, Kansas and Oklahoma.

Connecticut has become a battleground state in the issue for two reasons: its protections for parents are among the nation's strictest and many of its grandparents are very vocal in their push to change it.

A task force will advise the General Assembly this winter on whether to change state law to give grandparents more chance to get into court to argue their cases.

"Right now it's the luck of the draw if you're some poor family stuck in a state that doesn't stand behind that grandparent-grandchild bond and attachment," said Susan Hoffman, 59. She founded Advocates for Grandparent Grandchild Connection after losing her California petition for visitation when her adult son signed away parenting rights to her grandson.

The growing movement among grandparents' groups has alarmed many parents and their advocacy groups nationwide, including organizers and participants on the parentsrights.com website.

Many say they are being pilloried by those who wrongly accept stereotypes that all grandparents are loving and supportive. And they say they're being drained financially to defend parenting rights the Supreme Court has already upheld.

Polly Tavernia, 41, said her New York case cost her family almost $10,000 even though her estranged mother's petition was eventually dismissed.

"It was one of the worst things I've ever been through," she said. "It's honestly just horrible to have to worry about someone else making those decisions for you, especially when they don't know the whole story."

All 50 states have laws governing the conditions for non-parent third parties seeking visitation, but it was only in 2000 that the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling said none of those laws can infringe on the rights of competent parents.

Source http://www.kansas.com/2011/11/06/2091841/high-court-may-revisit-grandparents.html

Grandmother fights for relative rights for children

Posted: Tuesday, September 6, 2011 4:00 am

By JENNIFER SUMMER Houston Community Newspapers

A grandmother’s love is what kept her four grandchildren out of foster care.

For Cleveland’s Linda Boles, it has been a fight to gain grandparental rights and any monetary support for all four children, a fight she is planning to take to Washington, D.C. to rally for more rights as well as the opportunity to gain custody and support as a caregiver for her grandchildren.

“My daughter was with four different drug dealers, so Child Protective Services was called numerous times. It took 29 voluntary placements for them to give me the paperwork to keep the kids at my house and keep them safe,” Boles said.

Boles was working in real estate at the time when she would receive the calls from CPS where she would keep them for several days then they would go back to the mom’s house.

After the numerous calls and the evidence, Boles now has all four grandchildren and started the group Kids Left Behind which fights for grandparental rights in Texas.

“There are a lot of grandparents in Texas who do not know we have no rights. In 2008, I spoke in Washington, D.C. on the fact there is no funding from the state for grandparents to care for their grandchildren. They are not told from the beginning what they can have and what they cannot,” Boles said.

With the Kids Left Behind group, Boles has worked with other grandparents who are going through the same thing she has.

Boles asks the questions, how many calls does it take for a true CPS investigation? and why is adoption not available to grandparents and relatives but it is to foster parents?

A few of her cases, the children are placed into a foster home and then they are picked up by the grandparents who must go through the same background checks and house checks as a foster parent would have to but they do not have the same paperwork or the same rights.

“We go through the same things foster homes do but we get nothing. Why is there not some kinship added when they develop these committees? Our voice is not heard. Grandparents are raising 3 percent of the children in this state, yet we do not have a voice,” Boles said.

Every couple of months, the grandparents have to file for custody of the children again and must take off work whenever CPS calls for a home check or visit.

In Boles’ case, she is not receiving any child support from the parents of the children so she must support them as much as she can, but they currently live on 53 cents a day.

For foster families, they are reimbursed for most of their expenses while the grandparents and other relative caregivers are not.

“Voluntary placement needs to be done away with. The parents cannot just show up when they want to. Relative caregivers need rights to take care of the children. We deal with doctor appointments, school and transportation every day so we need help,” Boles said.

There are several others across the country who are rallying behind Boles and hoping to raise funds to help her have a place to stay while in Washington, D.C. so she can share her story and rally for relative caregiver rights.

They have already received some monetary support but they are hoping for more support and donations to help the trip be successful for Boles.

“I cannot understand why Texas does not want to help with all of these children. If they are put in a relative caregiver’s home, they have a better chance at succeeding than in a foster home,” Boles said. “I have lost everything, but that is the love I have for these grandchildren; I would never give that up.”

To support her family, Boles hunts, fishes and gardens to ensure there is always food on the table.

She and the children have also had the opportunity to go Echo Hill Ranch which is owned by the son of Kinky Friedman, Dr. S.T. Friedman, where they learned how to fold the flag properly and play with other kids.

“It is wrong for the children when we do not get to participate in things because we cannot afford it. Every child should be treated the same,” Boles said.

The rally Boles plans to attend is the GrandRally in Washington, D.C. Sept. 15 where she will have the chance to meet other relative caregivers and have her voice heard.

“It is time for our voice to be heard,” Boles added.

For more information about the GrandRally, log on to www.grandrally.org.

Source http://www.yourhoustonnews.com/dayton/news/grandmother-fights-for-relative-rights-for-children/article_30d65ff7-062a-58d3-9745-727ca443db82.html

Oregon - Girl’s death spurs lawsuit

The state Department of Human Services faces a $1.5 million case over the abuse suffered by Jeanette Maples

By Karen McCowan

The Register-Guard

Oregon’s child protective services agency faces a $1.5 million lawsuit for failing to prevent the 2009 starvation, torture and beating death of north Eugene teenager Jeanette Maples.

Portland attorney David Paul mailed the wrongful death complaint Monday to Lane County Circuit Court. The court clerk had not received or filed the lawsuit Tuesday afternoon, but Paul’s legal assistant provided a copy to The Register-Guard. Paul has successfully represented children injured in state foster care, including a record-breaking $2 million settlement for twins injured by poor foster care.

The suit on behalf of Jeanette’s estate targets the state Department of Human Services, which is responsible for investigating reports of child abuse and neglect. The complaint accuses the agency of failing to reasonably respond to multiple reports over four years that Jeanette was being abused. It called the state’s inaction “a substantial factor” in her death at age 15.

Jeanette’s mother, Angela McAnulty, is on Oregon’s death row after pleading guilty in February to the aggravated murder of her daughter. The dead teen’s stepfather, Richard McAnulty, is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to murder by abuse. He denied inflicting harm, but admitted failing to protect Jeanette from her mother or to report her injuries and starvation to authorities.

“Jeanette Maples’ death could have been prevented if the State of Oregon exercised reasonable care in responding to reports that Jeanette Maples was being abused,” the suit charges. It alleges that state workers failed to “investigate and heed” allegations of abuse from reliable sources beginning in 2006, four years before Jeanette died. It also accuses the agency of failing to consider Angela McAnulty’s documented history of child abuse in California before moving to Oregon.

The suit also faults the agency for failing to adequately assess Jeanette’s “vulnerability to abuse.” It says workers wrongfully concluded that Jeanette “could fend for herself as a young teenager” despite “a history of abuse and neglect by the adult parents in her home.”

Those charges echoed the January 2010 findings of an internal Department of Human Services critical incident team.

The suit says state “negligence” was a substantial factor in Jeanette’s “suffering, humiliation, pain, fear, anguish, and torture” and ultimately in her violent death. As a result, she suffered “severe hunger, starvation, anemia, dehydration, alienation of affection, distress and a lack of the enjoyment of her short life, to her non-economic damage in the amount of $500,000.”

Siblings not considered heirs

The Oregon Attorney General’s Office, which will defend the Department of Human Services in the case, declined comment on the suit Tuesday.

“It is the policy of the Department of Justice not to comment on pending litigation,” spokesman Tony Green said.

The bulk of the lawsuit’s damages would go to Jeanette’s father, Anthony Maples, of California. The suit seeks $1 million in noneconomic damages for his loss of Jeanette’s “society, love and companionship.” As her “lone qualified heir” under Oregon law, Anthony Maples would also receive $500,000 the suit seeks as the value of the estate his daughter would probably have accumulated in her lifetime if not for her wrongful death.

The suit seeks an additional $7,000 to cover the teen’s burial and related expenses.

Anthony Maples could not be reached for comment Tuesday. He told The Register-Guard shortly after Jeanette’s death that he had not been in touch with his daughter for nearly a decade. According to his unsuccessful February 2010 court petition to be appointed personal representative of her estate, he had nine drug possession convictions — at least five involving methamphetamine — between 1990 and 2008. The petition shows that he was in and out of jail until late 2008, when he entered and completed a one-year residential treatment program. According to a June 2010 declaration in support of that petition, Maples had been clean and sober for 16 months.

Lane County Circuit Judge Lauren Holland in August 2010 denied Maples’ request, instead appointing Portland attorney Erin Olson as the estate’s personal representative.

Step-grandmother speaks out

The prospect of Anthony Maples collecting damages from the suit distressed Jeanette’s step-grandmother, Lynn McAnulty. She testified during Angela McAnulty’s trial that she made multiple — and apparently futile — abuse reports to the Department of Human Services in the last months of the teen’s life.

“Why should he profit off Jeanette’s death?” the Leaburg woman said. “He doesn’t deserve it because he wasn’t involved in her life. He didn’t know her. He didn’t even come to her memorial service.”

Lynn McAnulty said lawsuit proceeds would more rightfully go to Jeanette’s surviving half-siblings — a 14-year-old girl and an 8-year-old boy — both in foster homes and in state protective custody. Absent a will, however, only a deceased person’s parents, spouse or children are legal heirs under Oregon law.

In a interview this month, McAnulty elaborated on her trial testimony that she repeatedly and unsuccessfully phoned child protective service workers in 2009, urging them to investigate Jeanette’s emaciation and injuries. She acknowledged posing as a concerned neighbor, saying she feared losing the limited access she had to her grandchildren if Angela McAnulty learned she’d reported abuse. (According to child protection caseworkers, the agency protects the confidentiality of people who report abuse.)

Lynn McAnulty said she told one phone screener, “This child looks like an Ethiopian (famine victim),” only to have the screener respond with “something like, ‘You’re telling us she needs medical help — that’s not us,’ and, ‘Are you sure she’s not anorexic?’ ”

McAnulty said she placed her last call to the agency the week before Jeanette died, after her son called to tell her he’d caught the girl drinking from the toilet.

“I said, ‘Someone needs to go there. Something’s wrong with this child. It’s urgent,’” McAnulty said. “I told her, ‘I’ve called several times,’ and she said, ‘We don’t just drop everything — we have to go through channels.’ ”

McAnulty also reiterated her trial testimony that she asked one screener if she should call the police, but was advised that child protection workers could more effectively investigate.

The agency’s internal investigation, now posted on its website (www.oregon.gov/DHS/abuse/publications/children/cirt-jm-initial-report.pdf) without the redactions that originally blacked out information that might have compromised Angela McAnulty’s trial, reports only two calls in 2009, both from “the same individual” on Dec. 1. It says the person reported that Angela McAnulty’s children were being “abused and neglected, especially the older one.”

Report details decisions

The newly public material says the caller reported that the older child — Jeanette — was not attending school, had “current marks and bruises” and “appeared malnourished.” It also said the caller reported that the child was “not allowed to speak with her.”

“The (caller) initially would not provide the last name of the children or an address,” the state’s internal report said. “In a subsequent call that same day, the reporter called back and provided the last name and address for the family. Concluding that the call did not constitute a report of abuse or neglect, the matter was closed at screening.”

The critical incident team found that conclusion to be in error, the internal report said.

“This report in fact constituted abuse or neglect and should have been assigned for child protective service assessment,” it said.

The team’s report also acknowledged that additional calls “may have been made but not documented” if they “did not rise to the level of abuse or neglect.”

The newly public material from the internal report shows that the agency responded to two 2006 reports that Jeanette was “being punished by being forced to kneel on the tile floor with her nose to the wall and hands behind her back for extended periods of time, that she was being forced to eat chili peppers, and that her hair was being pulled making her head sore.” But the agency “could not determine whether there was a safety threat” to the girl because of inconsistent information about food deprivation and punishment from Angela and Richard McAnulty, Jeanette’s sister, and Jeanette herself.

The new material also details the agency’s response to a 2007 report from “a credible source” that Jeanette had a bruise on her chin. It says the critical incident team found that the agency erred in closing that case without further assessment, based on Jeanette’s “denial that abuse had occurred.”

The agency has adopted new protocols in response to the internal report — including a policy of more thoroughly investigating cases involving children such as Jeanette, who are not in school or other settings where other adults can see their condition.

Source http://www.registerguard.com/web/updates/26794414-55/jeanette-maples-death-oregon-paul.html.csp