Judge on emaciated child: Didn’t anyone notice?

Blogger Note:

Now here is a judge that realizes that there are many people culpable in situations where a child is being abused but those in authroity look the other way. Way to go Judge!

CPS is such a failure as is many of the mandated reporters and it amazes me that the federal government continues to fund CPS.

Now, if we could only find a judge that will put a stop to this money machine that could care a less about children!
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As the case of a 9-year-old boy with malnutrition continued in juvenile court, the emphasis shifted away from the boy’s parents and toward the actions of others who saw him.

By Carol Marbin Miller

Though Marsee Strong and Edward Bailey remain in Miami-Dade jails on aggravated child abuse charges, an inquiry Wednesday into the welfare of their 9-year-old son focused largely on the role of the doctors, therapists and investigators who were intimately involved with the family — yet failed to notice that the boy was profoundly malnourished and displaying visible signs of abuse.

Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman, who presides over child welfare cases at the county’s Children’s Courthouse in Allapattah, had an unusual hearing in the case Wednesday, requiring administrators with the Department of Children & Families to provide a detailed timeline of the agency’s involvement with the parents, as well as the involvement of other professionals. The 9-year-old, who is one of the family’s six children, was picked up by police last week after he was found wandering his North Miami Beach neighborhood naked, emaciated and sporting an injured eye.

“I still don’t understand how the child could get in this condition, how nothing was done, or inadequate things were being done,” Lederman said during the hearing.

The boy, who was described as having the frame of a 3-year-old, remains in the hospital, where doctors are fighting the effects of malnutrition, said DCF’s attorney, Christine Lopez-Acevedo. “He’s doing better,” Lopez-Acevedo said.

Officially, the children have been under the supervision of DCF since 2002, when a physical abuse report to the state’s abuse and neglect hotline led the agency to take custody of them. They remained in DCF’s care until 2004, when they were returned to Strong and Bailey. DCF retained jurisdiction over the case since then.

DCF’s attorney, Lopez-Acevedo, told Lederman the agency had substantial contact with the family in the ensuing years, though it appears much of the scrutiny concerned one of the 9-year-old’s older sisters, who has had significant involvement with the state’s juvenile justice system, and does not currently live with the family. Though investigators had spoken with the family several times over the past two years, no allegations emerged that Strong or Bailey had mistreated the kids, Lopez-Acevedo said.

Indeed, in June of last year Strong asked DCF for help in raising the children, Lopez-Acevedo said.

Neither the 9-year-old nor his siblings are being named by The Miami Herald to protect their privacy.

At Wednesday’s hearing, Lopez-Acevedo did not accuse the parents of mistreating their children. She said the 9-year-old at the center of the case appears to suffer from poorly understood psychiatric and medical conditions that cause him to eat excessively, and then vomit. Though police described him as horrifically malnourished — he weighed only 35 pounds at age 9, and Lederman said in court last week that he looked like a concentration camp survivor with protruding bones — the boy had been under the regular care of pediatricians and mental health workers, Acevedo said.

“There were a number of eyes on this child, and the [state child-abuse hotline] reports that came in did not include the possibility that he was not being fed in the home,” Acevedo told the judge. “To the naked eye, with his clothes on, you could not necessarily tell this child was suffering from malnutrition.”

Rita Doval, a nurse with the state’s Child Protection Team who interviewed the children, said the kids assured her they were well-fed at home. The 9-year-old said that his parents sometimes withheld food from him, but Doval said the parents contend they were told by other doctors to regulate what the boy ate because he would sometimes eat until he made himself sick. Though the withholding of food may have seemed like a punishment, Doval said, it was intended to protect him.

A court-appointed psychologist, Michael DiTomasso, said neither the 9-year-old nor his siblings suggested they had been abused by Bailey or Strong, though some of the children said they had been allowed to beat each other.

“Three of the children all made clear they had a good mommy and a good daddy,” DiTomasso said. “They were really defensive. They felt really bad, and they saw their parents get arrested. They miss the little one, too. They worry about him in the hospital.”

DiTomasso said he asked the 9-year-old pointedly to explain the marks and bruises police found on his body, but was unable to get an explanation. “My God, you look at the little boy and say, what happened to him? I saw the pictures, and then I saw the child. My first impression was, My God, who did this to him?”

The psychologist said the 9-year-old was in dire need of a comprehensive medical and psychiatric evaluation, and he was surprised that such a battery of tests had not yet been performed. “Something was really wrong physically with this child,” DiTomaso said. “He needs a thorough physical work-up. He’ll get it now, right?”

Source http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/08/2631712/judge-on-emaciated-child-didnt.html

State report finds Casey Anthony 'responsible' for daughter's death

By the CNN Wire Staff
August 12, 2011 5:45 a.m. EDT

(CNN) -- Casey Anthony is responsible for the 2008 death of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee, a report released Thursday by Florida's Department of Children and Families concludes.

A month after a jury acquitted Anthony on murder and child neglect charges, the state agency found that Anthony "is the caregiver responsible for the verified maltreatments of death, threatened harm and failure to protect" in her daughter's death.

Carrie Hoeppner, a spokeswoman for the Department of Children and Families, said the report was issued this week as a "professional courtesy" after the sheriff's office and prosecutors finished their work on the case.

She added that the state agency is mandated to conduct reviews when there are allegations that a child dies as a result of abuse, abandonment or neglect. The agency had no contact with the Anthonys prior to the girl's disappearance in the summer of 2008, Hoeppner added.

The Orange County Sheriff's Office will not take any further action as a result of the report, Capt. Angelo Nieves said Thursday.

"This closes out the DCF case, and it does not create additional follow-up on our part," he said.

The report said: "The Department of Children and Families concludes that the actions or the lack of actions by the alleged perpetrator ultimately resulted or contributed in the death of the child." The report was signed by officials in the department Wednesday.

Anthony is now free. While she was cleared on murder and aggravated child abuse charges, the 25-year-old Orlando woman was convicted on four counts related to misleading law enforcement authorities. She was sentenced to four years in jail on those convictions, but was given credit for the time she had already served between her arrest and the end of the seven-week trial and was released from jail in mid-July. Prosecutors cannot appeal the acquittals.

The report does not address, or substitute for, judgments regarding the guilt or innocence of the caregiver -- in this case, Casey Anthony -- DCF spokeswoman Hoeppner said.

The state report found that Anthony's "failure to act" in the 31 days between the time the girl was last seen and when police were alerted about the case "delayed and interfered with a law enforcement investigation and best efforts to safely recover the child."

The agency report noted there were "no indicators" that Caylee's death was caused by physical injury, and it was "not substantiated" that she died of asphyxiation -- both points of great contention during the trial.

An autopsy performed in December 2008 by the local medical examiner determined "that the exact cause of death cannot be determined with certainty." Prosecutors tried, unsuccessfully, to convince jurors that Anthony used chloroform to render her daughter unconscious and then duct-taped her mouth and nose to suffocate her.

In its recommendations section, the report said that "the maternal grandfather" -- in this case, George Anthony -- "should have been interviewed for the missing person report." Casey Anthony's defense lawyer had claimed, in the opening argument of the murder trial, that George Anthony knew Caylee had died accidentally and helped cover up her death.

Casey Anthony had been investigated by the agency, when state child welfare investigators determined on September 14, 2008, that there were "verified findings" indicating that Anthony was responsible for "inadequate supervision and threatened harm" of her child, although it found "no indicators of physical injury."

Exactly a month later, a grand jury indicted Anthony on murder and other charges, and the case was eventually reopened by the Department of Children and Families. No further detail was immediately offered as to why or exactly when the department chose to review the case, or why it came out this week.

The report released Thursday officially closes the department's investigation in the case.

Source Article http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/08/11/florida.casey.anthony/index.html?iref=allsearch