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Does the conversation sound familiar?
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Do you feel the agency personnel is
familiar with the Warrant Process?
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Can you think of other questions your
attorney could ask?
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Have you learned enough, to defend yourself
as well as what to do when one comes knocking at your door?
Please take a moment and read this Q&A Deposition excerpt, and any comments you may have would be most appreciated. Will be putting this as a webpage as part of the information connected with this Home Page>> Index to Legal Assistance
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Do encourage one to download this training file in pdf format. It is
actually one of the litigation proceedings in a Civil Suit against the County
Agency. It is a great outline to learn the Warrant Process. It seems, in my
opinion many CPS agents don’t understand the importance of a warrant.. But, why
shouldn’t we become knowledgeable of the importance??
Excerpt -- Deposition
Transcript
Q. In investigating children in need of protective services, when typically in the process would you first be consulted?
A. I guess that – investigating, I’m not sure what you mean, but I’m saying in the normal CHIPS proceeding – It just depended. Like what’s today, Friday? It depended on the case. I would come in Monday morning and there’d be a note, we’ve got three detention hearings. Well, many of them I wasn’t consulted on, they picked the kids up. Other ones they would call and say we’ve got an ongoing situation here, we’re looking for some guidance, what do you think we got, bla, bla, bla. I would say as to those that there was some initial involvement, and it’s not initial because I’d be involved after they’d been involved for a while, so never right at the beginning, but as – before we removed the kids, I don’t know, 20, 25 percent I guess of them, something like that.
Q. The rest they would remove the kids on their own?
A. Right. Right. It would be like – like seven – coming over here I’d hear the social worker—I’m taking them – they’d go, we’re going out to pick up three kids after school today. Okay, why, bla, bla, bla, but that would be the first I’d hear. Other ones they’d come in Monday, Wednesday and say we took two into detention. And then, like I say, a few of them, lesser amount were kind of ongoing, this is what we heard this week, you know.
Q. Were there certain circumstances where you got a warrant or a court order before picking them up and certain ones where you just picked them up?
A. Yeah. Ah-huh.
Q. How would you distinguish between those two situations?
A. The difficulty – if I had to do it, it was the difficulty to be able to, in essence, obtain the kids, you know what I’m saying? If we could pick them up after school or go to the house and pick them up, or if they were in the care of someone else that would allow us to pick them up, we’d do that. We’d get a court order for – we had court orders rarely, but it would be like situations where the parents were denying medical care or something and we knew we couldn’t get in the house, or they were – you know, it was going to be a physical confrontation, or they were fleeing with someone, and we had time. A lot of times it was a matter of time. The other times, few occasions it was just a matter of situation, how – we need additional court order to kind of – not back people off, but allow us to access.
Q. So the two situations that you described, the first one you described is if you could pick them up without having to be in a confrontational situation –
A. Right. Usually, yeah.
Q. – You then wouldn’t get a court order in those kind of situations?
A. No. No, we’d say enough facts, child’s in danger, whatever, and pick them up., right. Correct.
Q. What other situation beside that would you get a court order?
A. Like I was saying, if there was some possible -- I’m saying like maybe – if we had time, and it was maybe a hospital situation or something, where the kid was there and we weren’t sure the authority either from the hospital staff – they might say we’re not giving to you or anybody else. And we’d say, well, we got – Competing parents or stuff like that, kind of may have been in a custody situation where it would cause a lot of problems. And we’d just say our order’s clear, you know, you listen to it, hospital staff and that too. Those would be situations. I didn’t have a lot of those, but we had a few. And maybe denied immediate access to like the home or something, where we – almost like – couldn’t get anybody to let us in or we or couldn’t get in, and we didn’t know immediately that like it was immediate danger, but there was enough danger to remove, we asked for a court order to take custody of the kid. And that would help, that was – that would help too, and we’d get law enforcement field more comfortable to forcibly take or enter. Kind of those situations.
Q. But if you could expeditiously pickup the child at school or someplace where you wouldn’t confront the parents then you typically wouldn’t get a court order?
A. Correct. If the parents were the problem, you know, other times it would be other people. But, right, it was very—very common that we would remove the kids from school, that’s often where we found out the situation, but very common that we’d say we’re picking them up at school, that was very common. Other ones, that caregiver or something, same thing, you know, say we’ve got this problem, check it out, right. We typically would not get a warrant to try and enter those situations because it was more of a voluntary.
Q. Because you didn’t anticipate any resistance from either the school or the caregiver –
A. Right.
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Thanks for reviewing this information.
Any comments would be Super.
Any comments would be Super.
Remember- If you don't know your Rights,
You have NONE
May you find Strength in Your Higher Power,You have NONE
GranPa Chuck
Researcher, Editor, Publisher
