Blogger note:
We hope that these families moves their suits to federal court (section 42 USC 1983) where state workers are less likely to be granted immunity for their lack of action (crimes). Once again, a child who was truly in danger but CPS turns a blind eye. Likely because they were too busy chasing innocent parents and kidnapping their children.
By Emily Monacelli
CENTREVILLE -- The family of Calista Springer cannot sue the state for her death, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled Thursday.
Springer's grandmother, Suzanne Langdon, acting as a representative of Calista's estate, sued the Michigan Department of Human Services and St. Joseph County Child Protective Services in October 2010, asserting that state workers failed to protect Calista from her parents, which resulted in her death.
Calista was 16 when she was found chained to her bed in an upstairs room in her family's Centreville home following a February 2008 house fire.
The appeals court combined Springer's case with that of Nicholas Daniel Braman, whose estate also sued child protective services workers after Braman's father killed Nicholas, himself and his wife in October 2007 in Montcalm County. In both cases, the court ruled that the children's estates could not sue state workers for allegedly improperly acting upon allegations of abuse.
Read the 11-page opinion issued Thursday here.
"Although plaintiffs recited several failures by the employee defendants to comply with their official CPS investigation policies and guidelines, these failures merely prove the state's failure to act, not that it was acting pursuant to a mandatory policy of inaction," the appeals court ruling says.
"Plaintiffs do not point to any official policy or custom that mandated CPS investigators to improperly investigate the abuse allegations against the decedents' parents or to fail to protect the decedents," the opinion reads.
State workers found "insufficient evidence" to substantiate allegations made against Springer's and Braman's parents, and had no basis to remove the children from their homes, according to the court.
"While the facts of these cases are indeed tragic, this is not an appropriate case in which to impose a damage remedy on the state for a state constitutional due process violation, as no violation can be established," the opinion says.
Calista's grandmother filed three separate lawsuits in October 2010, one in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, one in the state Court of Claims in Lansing, and a third in St. Joseph County Circuit Court. Each demand jury trials and seek awards “in excess of $75,000.”
The court filings provided information from Michigan State Police records about abuse and neglect complaints that Langdon said were filed by family members, teachers, a mental-health worker, friends and acquaintances.
The suits claimed St. Joseph County protective services caseworker Patricia Skelding and supervisor Cynthia Bare failed to adequately respond to documented abuse from Calista's parents, Anthony and Marsha Springer. Langdon's federal suit also named as defendants former state DHS director Marianna Udow; her chief deputy, Laura Champagne; and former state manager of DHS Child Protective Services programs Ted Forrest.
A jury in February 2010 found Anthony and Marsha Springer guilty of torture and child abuse in Calista's death. They were each sentenced to prison terms.
Allegations of abuse and neglect against the Springers began in April 1995 and included accusations of lead poisoning, untreated burns, physical and emotional abuse, restraint by ropes, and being locked in her bedroom.
Source http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2012/03/calista_springers_family_cant.html
CPS corruption hurts and destroys families worldwide. Please use caution posting about CPS here or anyplace on the internet. For your protection, using your full, real name and precise location is not advised. CPS has eyes everywhere and CPS is notorious for taking what people say, twisting it, embellishing on it and then using it against them in CPS "investigations" and at court proceedings.
Showing posts with label torture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label torture. Show all posts
Friday, March 2, 2012
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Barahona judge’s efforts to ferret out leaks detailed
Court records released to The Herald document a judge’s efforts to identify lawyers or child welfare administrators she suspected of leaking secret material to the newspaper.
By Carol Marbin Miller and Diana Moskovitz
“Exceedingly chagrined” that a newspaper had published details about a controversial child custody hearing that she had wanted to keep secret, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesia calendared a court hearing for Aug. 26 to ferret out who leaked.
But a day before the scheduled proceeding, an attorney for the Miami-Dade court system told The Miami Herald’s lawyers there would be no hearing. Their presence wasn’t needed.
What court administrators didn’t say: All the courtroom participants under suspicion of talking were going to be in court anyway that morning — at a conference the public was forbidden to attend. And Sampedro-Iglesia had another plan. She was going to require all of them to sign sworn statements that they had not betrayed her trust.
“Where, as here, confidential information is leaked, the Court is vested with the authority to take additional measures to ensure the children are protected and the Court’s orders are followed,” she wrote.
The fight over courtroom access and records concerned the fate of 10-year-old Victor Barahona, who was found Feb. 14 by a road ranger on the side of Interstate 95 in West Palm Beach, convulsing and drenched with chemicals inside his adoptive father Jorge Barahona’s pickup truck.
Jorge Barahona was nearby, on the ground, also ill. The decomposing body of Victor’s twin sister, Nubia, was later found soaked in chemicals and shoved inside a trash bag in the truck..
Police and prosecutors later said the twins had been “tortured” for months inside the Barahonas’ Miami-Dade home.
The case has come to symbolize the longstanding tensions between the rights of abused children to keep private the details of their suffering — versus the public’s desire to hold its government accountable. In the months following Nubia’s death, The Miami Herald went to court four times seeking to compel the release of records or fight efforts to close to the public hearings about the Barahona children. The details surrounding the efforts of Sampedro-Iglesia and State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle to identify leakers are contained in court records the newspaper obtained this week after filing suit for their release.
“One of the greatest privileges our Constitution provides is free press afforded by the First Amendment; however, the children in this case deserve their right to privacy, and it is this Court’s responsibility to protect these children,” Sampedro-Iglesia wrote in an order.
But Carole Shauffer, executive director of the Youth Law Center, who is helping Florida’s Department of Children & Families improve foster care under a private grant, said privacy concerns often have been used to shield public officials from scrutiny. “Agencies act,” she said, “as if the privacy is there to protect them. It is not. It is supposed to protect the child.”
In the weeks following the twins’ discovery, The Herald published a series of stories documenting critical lapses in the state’s supervision of the former foster children.
The Barahonas had been allowed by the state to adopt the twins in 2009 even though “the red flag of caution and warning was raised many times” by people around the family, including a principal and a volunteer guardian , according to the report done by a panel that investigated how the system failed. Even as Nubia’s body was discovered, two reports to the state’s abuse hotline had gone unheeded.
Amid such controversy, Sampedro-Iglesia closed all future court proceedings regarding the three surviving Barahona children, including Victor, to the public in an order dated July 21.
Under Florida law, hearings in which the state seeks to terminate a parent’s right to his or her children are closed to the public. The Herald’s attorney argued that the custody dispute, and other matters, were not part of such termination efforts, as both Barahona parents, now awaiting trial for murder and aggravated child abuse, had surrendered their rights. The judge disagreed.
A month later, at the request of prosecutors, Sampedro-Iglesia ordered Victor brought back to Miami from the home of his birth uncle in Texas for a hearing to determine who would continue to raise him.
Child welfare administrators wanted Victor to remain in Texas, but prosecutors were seeking his return to foster care in Miami.
On Aug. 19, The Herald reported that Victor had become the subject of a “judicial tug of war,” and that many child welfare experts felt that the hearing never should have been held. Victor himself had testified he wished to remain “with Tio and Tia” in Texas.
The Herald was forced to rely on anonymous sources for the story because its reporters had been kept out of the courtroom.
Insisting that children should never be returned to foster care when a qualified relative wished to adopt them, the head of the University of Miami Law School’s Children & Youth Law Clinic, Bernard Perlmutter, said at the time: “It seems like some kooky things have occurred here.”
The day the story appeared, Sampedro-Iglesia filed an order that Victor be allowed to live with his relatives in Texas.
Six days later, on Aug. 25, Sampedro-Iglesia signed a “gag order” once again forbidding parties to the dispute from discussing it. “Audaciously with the highest degree of impertinence,” she wrote, a courtroom observer even leaked the date of her court hearing to determine the identity of leakers.
“The cumulative effect of the media coverage and statements made by various persons, if allowed to continue, would contravene the basic principles set forth” in state child welfare law, she wrote.
Whoever spoke with the newspaper, she wrote, betrayed “not only the trust of the Court, but, most importantly, the trust of the minor child who is relying upon the good graces of adults to protect him from further sensationalistic intrusion into his private life.”
Sampedro later cancelled the hearing. But, records show, she instructed parties to the Barahona case to go into her chambers following an Aug. 26 status conference, and had her judicial assistant give them all copies of an affidavit stating they had not divulged confidential information.
Of 33 people asked to sign them, only one did not. Former DCF Regional Administrator Jacqui Colyer, who had retired from the agency, was banned by Sampedro-Iglesia from appearing in her court for any other proceedings involving Victor.
“Colyer has apparently decided to refrain from providing the Affidavit and has offered no explanation to the Court regarding such decision,” Sampedro-Iglesia wrote in a Sept. 22 order.
Sampedro also wrote two orders limiting the number of people who can attend future Barahona hearings, and, having concluded that she had “appropriately addressed the breach of confidentiality,” denied a request from State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle to hold further proceedings to identify the leakers. Fernandez Rundle, she wrote, had authority to investigate the matter herself.
Richard Gelles, dean of the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, a well-regarded children’s advocate who followed the case closely, said it was the state that failed the boy and his sister.
“Government,” Gelles said, “ought to be held as accountable as they hold parents when involved in a maltreatment proceeding. What this judge is saying is, no, she is beyond accountability. That is contrary to law and common sense.”
“Every judge who has had a hand in this case, every agent of state government, has to be accountable. They are part of the legal parentage of this boy.”
Source http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/30/2567341/barahona-judges-efforts-to-ferret.html
By Carol Marbin Miller and Diana Moskovitz
“Exceedingly chagrined” that a newspaper had published details about a controversial child custody hearing that she had wanted to keep secret, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Maria Sampedro-Iglesia calendared a court hearing for Aug. 26 to ferret out who leaked.
But a day before the scheduled proceeding, an attorney for the Miami-Dade court system told The Miami Herald’s lawyers there would be no hearing. Their presence wasn’t needed.
What court administrators didn’t say: All the courtroom participants under suspicion of talking were going to be in court anyway that morning — at a conference the public was forbidden to attend. And Sampedro-Iglesia had another plan. She was going to require all of them to sign sworn statements that they had not betrayed her trust.
“Where, as here, confidential information is leaked, the Court is vested with the authority to take additional measures to ensure the children are protected and the Court’s orders are followed,” she wrote.
The fight over courtroom access and records concerned the fate of 10-year-old Victor Barahona, who was found Feb. 14 by a road ranger on the side of Interstate 95 in West Palm Beach, convulsing and drenched with chemicals inside his adoptive father Jorge Barahona’s pickup truck.
Jorge Barahona was nearby, on the ground, also ill. The decomposing body of Victor’s twin sister, Nubia, was later found soaked in chemicals and shoved inside a trash bag in the truck..
Police and prosecutors later said the twins had been “tortured” for months inside the Barahonas’ Miami-Dade home.
The case has come to symbolize the longstanding tensions between the rights of abused children to keep private the details of their suffering — versus the public’s desire to hold its government accountable. In the months following Nubia’s death, The Miami Herald went to court four times seeking to compel the release of records or fight efforts to close to the public hearings about the Barahona children. The details surrounding the efforts of Sampedro-Iglesia and State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle to identify leakers are contained in court records the newspaper obtained this week after filing suit for their release.
“One of the greatest privileges our Constitution provides is free press afforded by the First Amendment; however, the children in this case deserve their right to privacy, and it is this Court’s responsibility to protect these children,” Sampedro-Iglesia wrote in an order.
But Carole Shauffer, executive director of the Youth Law Center, who is helping Florida’s Department of Children & Families improve foster care under a private grant, said privacy concerns often have been used to shield public officials from scrutiny. “Agencies act,” she said, “as if the privacy is there to protect them. It is not. It is supposed to protect the child.”
In the weeks following the twins’ discovery, The Herald published a series of stories documenting critical lapses in the state’s supervision of the former foster children.
The Barahonas had been allowed by the state to adopt the twins in 2009 even though “the red flag of caution and warning was raised many times” by people around the family, including a principal and a volunteer guardian , according to the report done by a panel that investigated how the system failed. Even as Nubia’s body was discovered, two reports to the state’s abuse hotline had gone unheeded.
Amid such controversy, Sampedro-Iglesia closed all future court proceedings regarding the three surviving Barahona children, including Victor, to the public in an order dated July 21.
Under Florida law, hearings in which the state seeks to terminate a parent’s right to his or her children are closed to the public. The Herald’s attorney argued that the custody dispute, and other matters, were not part of such termination efforts, as both Barahona parents, now awaiting trial for murder and aggravated child abuse, had surrendered their rights. The judge disagreed.
A month later, at the request of prosecutors, Sampedro-Iglesia ordered Victor brought back to Miami from the home of his birth uncle in Texas for a hearing to determine who would continue to raise him.
Child welfare administrators wanted Victor to remain in Texas, but prosecutors were seeking his return to foster care in Miami.
On Aug. 19, The Herald reported that Victor had become the subject of a “judicial tug of war,” and that many child welfare experts felt that the hearing never should have been held. Victor himself had testified he wished to remain “with Tio and Tia” in Texas.
The Herald was forced to rely on anonymous sources for the story because its reporters had been kept out of the courtroom.
Insisting that children should never be returned to foster care when a qualified relative wished to adopt them, the head of the University of Miami Law School’s Children & Youth Law Clinic, Bernard Perlmutter, said at the time: “It seems like some kooky things have occurred here.”
The day the story appeared, Sampedro-Iglesia filed an order that Victor be allowed to live with his relatives in Texas.
Six days later, on Aug. 25, Sampedro-Iglesia signed a “gag order” once again forbidding parties to the dispute from discussing it. “Audaciously with the highest degree of impertinence,” she wrote, a courtroom observer even leaked the date of her court hearing to determine the identity of leakers.
“The cumulative effect of the media coverage and statements made by various persons, if allowed to continue, would contravene the basic principles set forth” in state child welfare law, she wrote.
Whoever spoke with the newspaper, she wrote, betrayed “not only the trust of the Court, but, most importantly, the trust of the minor child who is relying upon the good graces of adults to protect him from further sensationalistic intrusion into his private life.”
Sampedro later cancelled the hearing. But, records show, she instructed parties to the Barahona case to go into her chambers following an Aug. 26 status conference, and had her judicial assistant give them all copies of an affidavit stating they had not divulged confidential information.
Of 33 people asked to sign them, only one did not. Former DCF Regional Administrator Jacqui Colyer, who had retired from the agency, was banned by Sampedro-Iglesia from appearing in her court for any other proceedings involving Victor.
“Colyer has apparently decided to refrain from providing the Affidavit and has offered no explanation to the Court regarding such decision,” Sampedro-Iglesia wrote in a Sept. 22 order.
Sampedro also wrote two orders limiting the number of people who can attend future Barahona hearings, and, having concluded that she had “appropriately addressed the breach of confidentiality,” denied a request from State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle to hold further proceedings to identify the leakers. Fernandez Rundle, she wrote, had authority to investigate the matter herself.
Richard Gelles, dean of the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, a well-regarded children’s advocate who followed the case closely, said it was the state that failed the boy and his sister.
“Government,” Gelles said, “ought to be held as accountable as they hold parents when involved in a maltreatment proceeding. What this judge is saying is, no, she is beyond accountability. That is contrary to law and common sense.”
“Every judge who has had a hand in this case, every agent of state government, has to be accountable. They are part of the legal parentage of this boy.”
Source http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/30/2567341/barahona-judges-efforts-to-ferret.html
Monday, December 19, 2011
Sacramento's 'girl with a hundred scars' files claim for damages
By Marjie Lundstrom
Since the moment she was born 10 weeks premature, with cocaine rippling through her 21/2-pound body, Lilly Manning has been the recipient of other people's poor choices, bad judgment and terrible timing.
Now, the 19-year-old woman who escaped torture in a south Sacramento home is seeking retribution.
Last week, lawyers for Manning filed a claim for damages against Sacramento County's Child Protective Services and the Sacramento City Unified School District.
The claim, a precursor to any lawsuit, alleges child welfare workers and school employees failed to protect her from the violent household into which she was adopted.
"Lilly and her siblings were kept in a virtual prisoner-of-war camp where they were repeatedly, systematically and sadistically beaten and tortured by their adoptive mother, Lillian Manning-Horvath, and her husband, Joseph Horvath," according to the claim.
The legal matter has opened the curtain on Lilly Manning's past, and how she and her four siblings wound up in their great-aunt's care, only to endure savage beatings, tongue-lashings and death threats.
Confidential records recently released by the county reveal how one CPS social worker aggressively promoted the Manning children's adoption in the 1990s. The worker lavished praise on Lillian Manning-Horvath, while dismissing alarms raised by others, according to CPS and Juvenile Court documents.
The claim also singles out six workers associated with the Sacramento City Unified School District for allegedly failing to report their own suspicions of abuse, as required by law. The workers include a teacher, a school nurse, a Head Start coordinator, a vice principal, an assistant principal and an attendance clerk.
"The failure of all these mandated reporters to file (abuse) reports – it just drives me nuts," said Sacramento attorney Joseph C. George, who is representing Lilly Manning.
Yet again, timing and judgment will play a critical role in the case – for both Lilly Manning and for the government entities she seeks to sue.
In California, government is generally immune from civil liability, with exceptions. Timeliness also plays a key role, because a claim involving death or injury must be brought within six months of the alleged harm.
Manning was 15 when she escaped in October 2007 from a locked closet in the home of her adoptive mother.
The teenager, who suffered the bulk of the abuse, was stabbed, burned and beaten with 2-by-4s, broomsticks, shoes, a hammer and a swinging padlock. After she fled, the secrets tumbled out as doctors discovered a young body ravaged with more than 100 scars and injuries.
The Bee has chronicled her story since July, when the Manning children's adoptive mother was sentenced to a mental hospital and life in state prison. Horvath was convicted by a jury in 2009 and sentenced to consecutive life terms.
Now, a Superior Court judge may ultimately decide if Manning, who turns 20 in January, can pursue civil damages.
At issue: Does her claim have merit? And even if the government agrees that it does, was it filed in time?
"I feel like this is something I should do," said Lilly Manning, who returned to Sacramento last month after a short stay on the East Coast. "Somebody should pay. Hopefully this is a message to everybody to do their job right."
'The only mom I knew'
Laura McCasland, spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees CPS, said the county would not comment on pending litigation.
School district spokesman Gabe Ross issued a statement Friday saying:
"Anyone who has heard Lilly Manning's story would find it both tragic and heartbreaking. The district and its legal representatives are appropriately evaluating and responding to the claims filed by the Manning family. The safety and security of our students and employees is a top priority for SCUSD."
Manning's attorneys also have filed a claim on behalf of her younger brother, Kenyata Manning. George, a lawyer and psychologist who has worked with numerous child-abuse victims, said the core of the Lilly Manning case is the number of public workers who suspected abuse but did not formally report it.
In her claim, attorneys contend that the young woman suffers from Stockholm syndrome and was unable to recognize that she was a victim – or take any legal action – until her adoptive mother was sentenced this year.
The claim defines Stockholm syndrome as a "psychiatric disease and psychological phenomenon where hostages express empathy and have positive feelings toward their captors."
"Lilly's adoptive mother … was viewed as the person who was in control of her basic needs for survival and for her life itself," according to the claim. "In short, Lillian Manning-Horvath was viewed by Lilly as giving Lilly life simply by not killing her."
In interviews with The Bee last summer, Manning described her conflicted feelings about her adoptive mother and acknowledged making efforts to stay in touch with her.
"She was the only mom I really knew," Manning said in July.
Others to blame
But Manning also said she believes that others bear responsibility for her torturous upbringing.
Confidential Juvenile Court documents obtained earlier this year by The Bee revealed that four different agencies visited the family at least 11 times on reports of suspected abuse or neglect in a five-year period, but did not move to protect Manning or her siblings. Numerous attempts by the children to get help went unrecognized or unheeded.
The newly released CPS records show how the agency – and one social worker in particular – ramrodded the adoption, despite a series of red flags.
The five children were taken into protective custody in February 1994 after being found "abandoned by their mother … in a filthy crack house" littered with feces, used condoms, crack pipes and an open 40-ounce beer bottle, according to a CPS report to the Juvenile Court.
CPS placed Lilly Manning and her two brothers "on a trial basis" with their great-aunt a month later, and the two older sisters joined them seven months after that. At the time, Manning's home in North Highlands was found by CPS to be "appropriate for placement."
Lillian Manning renamed all five children and eventually proceeded with adoption after the CPS caseworker filed numerous glowing reports about the home.
In one confidential court document, the woman who later smashed her adoptive daughter's fingers with a hammer and burned her with boiling water and a curling iron was described as "capable, experienced and energetic."
The lead social worker who pressed for their adoption repeatedly fended off criticism of the elder Lillian Manning, describing in reports how the children thrived in the "loving environment."
"Their caretaker, Lillian Manning, manages the seemingly herculean task of caring for these children with great strength and a great sense of humor," the CPS worker wrote in July 1995. "The children are all well-bonded with her. They hover around her, and their interactions are laced with affection."
The social worker continued to defend the household, even after a social worker for Sacramento Child Advocates raised "numerous concerns" about the children's safety.
The second social worker, acting on behalf of the children's court-appointed attorneys, said one child had informed her that the caregiver was using corporal punishment. And she expressed concern that Lillian Manning was requiring the children to "sleep on the living room floor so she could monitor them."
"The minors' caretaker, Ms. Manning, has displayed a lack of insight regarding the special needs of these minors," according to the social worker's 1996 declaration to the court.
"Ms. Manning becomes defensive when concerns are raised, and has made statements about wanting to give the minors back to the Dept. because it is too much hassle now."
The social worker complained that her concerns "went unheard or were discounted" by CPS. The worker requested and got a mediation with the parties, but documents show there was little resolution – and the adoption went forward.
Alarms go unanswered
Health workers, too, raised alarms about the home.
In 1997, Lilly Manning's 6-year-old sister was examined at the UC Davis Medical Center, where a nurse identified injuries consistent with battered child syndrome, medical records show.
A physician who viewed the semi-circular "closed loop" injuries on the girl's body said they were "classical for ones inflicted by an electrical cord," according to the doctor's notes.
The physician did not believe the story that the girl had been struck with a coat hanger by her older sister, saying the injuries were not consistent with that scenario.
However, the CPS worker continued to champion the adoption and told the court the abuse allegations were unsubstantiated. The social worker said she "feels strongly that this (adoption) plan is in the children's best interest."
Documents show that the social worker had been told a week earlier about previous abuse in the household. A counselor seeing the family told the CPS worker in a June 1997 letter that Lillian Manning "does not hit any of the children and has not done so since 1994 when she was using a plastic spoon, on occasion, to discipline the children."
In the newly filed government claim, Lilly Manning's attorney cited the spoon beating as one in a series of allegations that fell on deaf ears.
The claim also singles out six workers associated with the Sacramento City Unified School District.
As reported earlier in The Bee, the school workers are described in documents as having varying degrees of concern and suspicion about the Manning home. At one point, the school nurse and a Head Start coordinator scheduled a home visit to follow up on Lilly Manning's numerous scratches but left the home without seeing her. Neither filed a child abuse report, according to the claim.
Source http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/19/4132033/sacramentos-girl-with-a-hundred.html
Since the moment she was born 10 weeks premature, with cocaine rippling through her 21/2-pound body, Lilly Manning has been the recipient of other people's poor choices, bad judgment and terrible timing.
Now, the 19-year-old woman who escaped torture in a south Sacramento home is seeking retribution.
Last week, lawyers for Manning filed a claim for damages against Sacramento County's Child Protective Services and the Sacramento City Unified School District.
The claim, a precursor to any lawsuit, alleges child welfare workers and school employees failed to protect her from the violent household into which she was adopted.
"Lilly and her siblings were kept in a virtual prisoner-of-war camp where they were repeatedly, systematically and sadistically beaten and tortured by their adoptive mother, Lillian Manning-Horvath, and her husband, Joseph Horvath," according to the claim.
The legal matter has opened the curtain on Lilly Manning's past, and how she and her four siblings wound up in their great-aunt's care, only to endure savage beatings, tongue-lashings and death threats.
Confidential records recently released by the county reveal how one CPS social worker aggressively promoted the Manning children's adoption in the 1990s. The worker lavished praise on Lillian Manning-Horvath, while dismissing alarms raised by others, according to CPS and Juvenile Court documents.
The claim also singles out six workers associated with the Sacramento City Unified School District for allegedly failing to report their own suspicions of abuse, as required by law. The workers include a teacher, a school nurse, a Head Start coordinator, a vice principal, an assistant principal and an attendance clerk.
"The failure of all these mandated reporters to file (abuse) reports – it just drives me nuts," said Sacramento attorney Joseph C. George, who is representing Lilly Manning.
Yet again, timing and judgment will play a critical role in the case – for both Lilly Manning and for the government entities she seeks to sue.
In California, government is generally immune from civil liability, with exceptions. Timeliness also plays a key role, because a claim involving death or injury must be brought within six months of the alleged harm.
Manning was 15 when she escaped in October 2007 from a locked closet in the home of her adoptive mother.
The teenager, who suffered the bulk of the abuse, was stabbed, burned and beaten with 2-by-4s, broomsticks, shoes, a hammer and a swinging padlock. After she fled, the secrets tumbled out as doctors discovered a young body ravaged with more than 100 scars and injuries.
The Bee has chronicled her story since July, when the Manning children's adoptive mother was sentenced to a mental hospital and life in state prison. Horvath was convicted by a jury in 2009 and sentenced to consecutive life terms.
Now, a Superior Court judge may ultimately decide if Manning, who turns 20 in January, can pursue civil damages.
At issue: Does her claim have merit? And even if the government agrees that it does, was it filed in time?
"I feel like this is something I should do," said Lilly Manning, who returned to Sacramento last month after a short stay on the East Coast. "Somebody should pay. Hopefully this is a message to everybody to do their job right."
'The only mom I knew'
Laura McCasland, spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees CPS, said the county would not comment on pending litigation.
School district spokesman Gabe Ross issued a statement Friday saying:
"Anyone who has heard Lilly Manning's story would find it both tragic and heartbreaking. The district and its legal representatives are appropriately evaluating and responding to the claims filed by the Manning family. The safety and security of our students and employees is a top priority for SCUSD."
Manning's attorneys also have filed a claim on behalf of her younger brother, Kenyata Manning. George, a lawyer and psychologist who has worked with numerous child-abuse victims, said the core of the Lilly Manning case is the number of public workers who suspected abuse but did not formally report it.
In her claim, attorneys contend that the young woman suffers from Stockholm syndrome and was unable to recognize that she was a victim – or take any legal action – until her adoptive mother was sentenced this year.
The claim defines Stockholm syndrome as a "psychiatric disease and psychological phenomenon where hostages express empathy and have positive feelings toward their captors."
"Lilly's adoptive mother … was viewed as the person who was in control of her basic needs for survival and for her life itself," according to the claim. "In short, Lillian Manning-Horvath was viewed by Lilly as giving Lilly life simply by not killing her."
In interviews with The Bee last summer, Manning described her conflicted feelings about her adoptive mother and acknowledged making efforts to stay in touch with her.
"She was the only mom I really knew," Manning said in July.
Others to blame
But Manning also said she believes that others bear responsibility for her torturous upbringing.
Confidential Juvenile Court documents obtained earlier this year by The Bee revealed that four different agencies visited the family at least 11 times on reports of suspected abuse or neglect in a five-year period, but did not move to protect Manning or her siblings. Numerous attempts by the children to get help went unrecognized or unheeded.
The newly released CPS records show how the agency – and one social worker in particular – ramrodded the adoption, despite a series of red flags.
The five children were taken into protective custody in February 1994 after being found "abandoned by their mother … in a filthy crack house" littered with feces, used condoms, crack pipes and an open 40-ounce beer bottle, according to a CPS report to the Juvenile Court.
CPS placed Lilly Manning and her two brothers "on a trial basis" with their great-aunt a month later, and the two older sisters joined them seven months after that. At the time, Manning's home in North Highlands was found by CPS to be "appropriate for placement."
Lillian Manning renamed all five children and eventually proceeded with adoption after the CPS caseworker filed numerous glowing reports about the home.
In one confidential court document, the woman who later smashed her adoptive daughter's fingers with a hammer and burned her with boiling water and a curling iron was described as "capable, experienced and energetic."
The lead social worker who pressed for their adoption repeatedly fended off criticism of the elder Lillian Manning, describing in reports how the children thrived in the "loving environment."
"Their caretaker, Lillian Manning, manages the seemingly herculean task of caring for these children with great strength and a great sense of humor," the CPS worker wrote in July 1995. "The children are all well-bonded with her. They hover around her, and their interactions are laced with affection."
The social worker continued to defend the household, even after a social worker for Sacramento Child Advocates raised "numerous concerns" about the children's safety.
The second social worker, acting on behalf of the children's court-appointed attorneys, said one child had informed her that the caregiver was using corporal punishment. And she expressed concern that Lillian Manning was requiring the children to "sleep on the living room floor so she could monitor them."
"The minors' caretaker, Ms. Manning, has displayed a lack of insight regarding the special needs of these minors," according to the social worker's 1996 declaration to the court.
"Ms. Manning becomes defensive when concerns are raised, and has made statements about wanting to give the minors back to the Dept. because it is too much hassle now."
The social worker complained that her concerns "went unheard or were discounted" by CPS. The worker requested and got a mediation with the parties, but documents show there was little resolution – and the adoption went forward.
Alarms go unanswered
Health workers, too, raised alarms about the home.
In 1997, Lilly Manning's 6-year-old sister was examined at the UC Davis Medical Center, where a nurse identified injuries consistent with battered child syndrome, medical records show.
A physician who viewed the semi-circular "closed loop" injuries on the girl's body said they were "classical for ones inflicted by an electrical cord," according to the doctor's notes.
The physician did not believe the story that the girl had been struck with a coat hanger by her older sister, saying the injuries were not consistent with that scenario.
However, the CPS worker continued to champion the adoption and told the court the abuse allegations were unsubstantiated. The social worker said she "feels strongly that this (adoption) plan is in the children's best interest."
Documents show that the social worker had been told a week earlier about previous abuse in the household. A counselor seeing the family told the CPS worker in a June 1997 letter that Lillian Manning "does not hit any of the children and has not done so since 1994 when she was using a plastic spoon, on occasion, to discipline the children."
In the newly filed government claim, Lilly Manning's attorney cited the spoon beating as one in a series of allegations that fell on deaf ears.
The claim also singles out six workers associated with the Sacramento City Unified School District.
As reported earlier in The Bee, the school workers are described in documents as having varying degrees of concern and suspicion about the Manning home. At one point, the school nurse and a Head Start coordinator scheduled a home visit to follow up on Lilly Manning's numerous scratches but left the home without seeing her. Neither filed a child abuse report, according to the claim.
Source http://www.sacbee.com/2011/12/19/4132033/sacramentos-girl-with-a-hundred.html
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
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
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
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Where Was CPS While Lilly Manning Was Beaten And Tortured?
You have got to watch and read this horrific story. A true story of abuse and torture that spanned several years. Where was CPS? Where were the first responders? Where?!
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/07/31/3806037/california-texas-agencies-all.html
Be sure to watch the video and read the pdf file of the sheriff's interview with Lilly at the above link. It is absolutely heartbreaking!
It was not hard to see that this girl was continually abused. It wasn't like she could hide all of the wounds as they were inflicted upon her or the scarring after the wounds healed. Her abuse was up front and in the face of anyone who had contact with her.
While CPS is out creating cases against falsely accused, chasing anonymous tips (usually false info) and making up things against people, how many other children are suffering in the same manner as beautiful Lilly?
CPS and all first responders that Lilly had contact with should be held accountable for neglecting her need for protection from her abusers.
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/07/31/3806037/california-texas-agencies-all.html
Be sure to watch the video and read the pdf file of the sheriff's interview with Lilly at the above link. It is absolutely heartbreaking!
It was not hard to see that this girl was continually abused. It wasn't like she could hide all of the wounds as they were inflicted upon her or the scarring after the wounds healed. Her abuse was up front and in the face of anyone who had contact with her.
While CPS is out creating cases against falsely accused, chasing anonymous tips (usually false info) and making up things against people, how many other children are suffering in the same manner as beautiful Lilly?
CPS and all first responders that Lilly had contact with should be held accountable for neglecting her need for protection from her abusers.
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