Coercion and Child Protective Services Investigations
Knock, knock. Child protective services.
The key role of the child protective services (CPS) investigator is to determine if a child is at risk of harm. When a child is in immediate danger, CPS and/or law enforcement work to ensure the child's safety. Often a safety plan is developed which will keep a child safe at home. When that is not possible the child may be taken into protective supervision.
If the unequivocal assessment indicates a high risk of danger everyone agrees that the child may be removed on an emergency basis. When that determination is not so certain, ...
Extraordinary Outpouring of Amici Support Amy in the United States Supreme Court
Today, twenty-one national and international advocacy organizations, the Dutch National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings and Sexual Violence Against Children, the attorneys general of thirty-four states and one territory, and a bi-partisan group of seven United States Senators, filed amicus curiae briefs in the United States Supreme Court supporting Amy in her five-year battle to secure federal criminal restitution for victims of child pornography.
Here are the amici, briefs, and lawyers which contributed to this extraordinary effort to support Amy's case in the ...
Calculating Damages in Negligence Lawsuits against Departments of Human Services
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Governments, be they city, county, state, tribal or federal, administer a wide range of social welfare services and have a duty to properly discharge those obligations. Professionals hired by government agencies, regardless of the tasks they do, are expected to exercise a reasonable degree of skill and care in their work. When a department of human services is legally negligent in delivering or overseeing those services, our tort system is designed in some cases to allow victims to make claims against it. Of course, negligence is a technical legal concept; not every ...
Emergency removal of a foster child – the foster parents’ rights
With 1,200 children entering foster care each day (Children’s Defense Fund, 2010, p. xv) 1 , it’s bound to happen—seemingly, the foster home and the foster child are just not a good match for each other. Let’s envision three scenarios:
The foster parents notice that the foster child appears to have an unusual fascination with fire.
The medical needs of the foster child are far more demanding than the foster parents feel they can handle.
The foster parents think there may be sexual activity between the foster child and their biological ...
Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Landmark Children’s Rights Case
Earlier today, the United States Supreme Court agreed to review a case brought by the Marsh Law Firm concerning criminal restitution for victims of child pornography.
The Court agreed to decide “what, if any, causal relationship or nexus between the defendant's conduct and the victim's harm or damages must the government or the victim establish in order to recover restitution under 18 U.S.C. §2259,” the Mandatory Restitution for Sexual Exploitation of Children Act of 1994.
The case, Doyle Randall Paroline v. Amy Unknown, arises out of a long-fought and ...
Amy and Vicky, Child Porn Victims: No Joint and Several Liability
From FindLaw, a post about the Marsh Law Firm's latest restitution case:
You'd have to imagine, at some point, that either Congress (ha!) or the Supreme Court will step in and clear up the confusion surrounding restitution for those depicted in child pornography, as well as the issue of joint and several liability of the present day possessors of the images. Though they've denied certiorari in Amy and Vicky cases before, the flood of circuit court confusion and circuit splintering continues.
Last September, the ABA Journal wrote an exhaustive feature on Amy and Vicky, ...
10th Circuit Fires the Series-Qualifier Canon Across the Restitution Bow
Earlier this month, in an uninspired decision in United States v. Benoit, the Tenth Circuit held that "showing only that defendant participated in the audience of persons who viewed the images of the victim…may be sufficient to establish that defendant's actions were one cause of the generalized harm victims suffered due to the circulation of their images on the internet, but it is not sufficient to show that they were a proximate cause of any particular losses."
In other words, "generalized harm" = no foul and no restitution for victims of child pornography.
Acc...