From Deseret News archives:
14 FLDS kids to exit supervision; ruling will affect how CPS removes children
Meanwhile, a new federal appeals court ruling will affect how Texas Child Protective Services removes children from homes when there are allegations of abuse.
The ruling last month by a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will bar welfare officials from automatically removing all children from a home if one child is alleged to be abused. While unrelated, the ruling came amid scrutiny of the state's removal of hundreds of children in April from the Fundamentalist LDS Church's YFZ Ranch.
"The decision will require us to make some extremely difficult decisions," Carey Cockerell, commissioner of the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, said in an "urgent legal advisory."
The ruling means child welfare workers will also be required to obtain court orders in most cases before removing allegedly abused children from their homes, officials said.
The advisory memo was sent last week to CPS staff, the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News reported Tuesday. It said staffers must follow the new policies to avoid being sued for monetary damages.
Generally, CPS removes a child if there's a threat of immediate danger or sexual abuse and then heads to the court to seek a removal order from a judge.
In the future, the memo states, the state will have to obtain parental consent or a court order first, "unless life or limb is in immediate jeopardy or sexual abuse is about to occur."
The ruling resulted from a lawsuit against the state of Texas filed by a Fort Bend County couple, Gary and Melissa Gates. Their 13 children had been removed from the home during a child abuse investigation in 2000. A judge returned the children to them several days later.
The federal appeals court dismissed the Gates lawsuit on technical grounds, but agreed that the case could have been handled better. It said that state agencies must "seek to involve the state courts, who act as neutral magistrates in these complicated matters, as early in the process as practicable."
"In that way, the government may ensure that everyone's interests are considered, and the least amount of harm will come to the children the government seeks to protect, as well as their parents," said the opinion by Judge Edward Prado.
The memo said that in the future, child abuse investigators must consider the situation of each child in the home before any of them are removed.
