Star Chamber in America - Part 1

The star chamber was a court in England for the trial of prominent people whom the monarchy believed would not be convicted by common jurors. The court sessions were held in secret with no indictments, no juries, and no witnesses. Evidence was presented in writing. There was no appeal. Parliament abolished the infamous star chamber in 1640.

For the most part, our system prohibits the worst excesses of the star chamber. Provisions in our constitution secure the right to a public jury trial, the right to confront our accusers through cross examination, and the right against self-incrimination. The right to appeal is guaranteed generally by statute.

Having mentioned the star chamber, you’ve probably figured out that I’m going to talk about the military tribunals at Guantanamo where inmates sit for years not knowing what charges or evidence landed them there. But I’m not going to talk about that. I’m going to discuss a different court system that touches many more lives than the few hundred at Guantanamo. It's a system that exists in every county in the United States and it’s called the juvenile dependency court. This is the court where parents go when their children have been taken away based on allegations of parental abuse or neglect.

The juvenile dependency system shares many hallmarks of the star chamber. The allegations are usually drafted in a vague manner subject to revision at any time as opportunity arises. Defending against fluid allegations that may be radically altered at the whim of the court, the parents are forced to deal with a moving target. The proceedings are secret. There is no jury. The entire case can be disposed of by submission on a social worker’s report largely consisting of hearsay. The families have a huge stake in the outcome because it may mean termination of parent-child relationships and transitioning of children into permanent adoptive homes. If the children are very young, the parents have only six months to reunite with them before a permanent plan is made for adoption.

Most of the parents sucked into the system are poor. Living constantly on the edge of financial ruin, they must meet the system’s demand for their time to deal with the disaster that now confronts them. The state has taken the first step to sever the relationship between these parents and their children.

The federal government funds the system through Title 4-E of the Social Security Act. The law rewards state and local governments for each child placed in foster care. The sky is the limit. Only a small fraction of this money ends in the hands of the foster parents. The rest is used to hire more social workers to get out and grab more kids. The feds will pay a bonus for each child successfully placed for adoption. If the child has special needs, the feds will supplement the money. These monetary incentives favoring permanent removal of children infect the bureaucratic culture in such a way that children are often removed for the flimsiest and most trivial of reasons.

The first step in the process is the detention hearing where the court will decide if the children will be kept in foster care until a trial is held. Most of the time they already are in custody having been removed from their homes by a social worker and/or the police. There’s a high probability that the removal was effected illegally because the children were taken without a warrant when they were not in danger. Frequently, the social worker accompanied by armed police officers who know nothing about the case barge into the house without consent. The juvenile court does not care about that.

We will talk about a hypothetical case involving Mom, Dad, their daughter, Amber and two sons. The children were removed and currently reside in foster care. The court will hold a hearing today to determine where they will live until the case is decided. A petition has been filed alleging that Mom and Dad have abused and neglected the children.

The detention hearing (item 26 on the court's afternoon calendar) will likely be over in less than 10 minutes. Mom and Dad have had no time to prepare for it. They were just handed a slew of documents at the door and won’t be able to look at it until they get home. It’s equally likely that their newly appointed attorneys haven’t read it either before they utter the only ten words they'll say during the hearing: "your honor, we'll submit on the social worker's detention report."
The children are detained. Mom and Dad are grieving. The only salve offered by their new lawyers is, "don't worry, we'll have a chance to talk about this later." In a few weeks or months depending on how busy the court is, there will be a trial or as it's known in juvenile court lingo, an adjudication hearing.