MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR DEVAL PATRICK HAS ATTORNEY GENERAL Martha Coakley DEFENDING ACTIONS BY THE DISGUSTING DESPICABLE AGENCY(DCF) DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES....AGAINST THOSE NSEEKING ACTION TO PROTECT THE MOST VULNERABLE CHILDREN.....A STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL AGAIN COVERING UP AND ATTEMPTING TO PROTECT GOVERNMENT WRONGDOERS IS A MORAL OUTRAGE.
We have called for years on deaf ears the need for an Office of Independent Counsel.
The reason is the Attorney General is the lawyer for State Agencies and potential wrongdoers. This is a case in point.
The Attorney General deciding to defend the disgusting actions of the management of this Agency is despicable and unconscionable.
This is not the first time the Attorney General Office has conducted itself in this manner. There are instances also under Republican Administrations.
Let the Patrick Administration lawyers and the Department of Children and Families defend it selves.
The Attorney General should be showing Concern, Care, and Compassion for the Children and taxpayers by joining in supporting litigation, prosecution if deemed appropriate, and rooting out all inefficiency, mismanagement, waste, fraud, and abuse.
(Note: this Boston Herald News Article outlines the actions by the Governor and Attorney General)
Boston Herald-March 25, 2014
Advocacy group appeals judge’s decision in DCF suit
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
By:Matt Stout
The federal judge who handed the state’s embattled child welfare system a victory in a closely watched lawsuit last year set the bar too high for the plaintiffs to meet and either “ignored or misinterpreted” the law, a New York advocacy group charged in a sharply worded appeal of the decision.
Children’s Rights, which unsuccessfully sued state officials in a class action suit first brought in 2010, blasted U.S. District Court Judge William G. Young’s ruling, writing in a massive, 263-page appeal that it should be reversed.
Young’s so-called “two-pronged” approach — in that the group needed to prove the Department of Children and Families’ failures not only veered substantially from accepted practice but “shocks the conscience” — was unnecessarily high, Children’s Rights said.
It also argued that the deference he showed to state lawmakers to better fund the agency, and thus correct its ongoing problems, could set a dangerous precedent.
“Constitutional and statutory violations are rampant in DCF foster care,” Children’s Rights attorneys wrote in the appeal, filed late yesterday. “If this Court were to accept the district court’s view that federal judges must yield to executive and legislative prerogatives when such priorities are inconsistent with the state’s constitutional obligations to the state’s most helpless citizens, the consequences would be far-reaching.”
Furthermore, the group wrote, by putting the responsibility on lawmakers to fund DCF appropriately, “it likewise excused the abject failure by DCF.”
“Vulnerable children who are wholly dependent on the state for their safety and well-being, were erroneously held to a standard of proof no less burdensome than the standard to be met by an incarcerated felon,” the appeal states.
Children’s Rights had accused Bay State officials of failing to protect children under their care from abuse, allowing kids to flounder in the foster care system and doling out too many psychotropic drugs. It has successfully sued more than a dozen other states, and had gone to trial only once before in this type of case, winning against Washington, D.C., officials more than two decades ago.
Young had ripped DCF in his 84-page ruling released in November, concluding it failed to “not only to comport with national standards of care and state and federal requirements but also to comply with its own internal policies.”
But he said the plaintiffs, represented by Children’s Rights, had embarked on a “virtually unscalable peak” to win their suit.
“This is not a case about statistics but about children — our children — and this much is clear: The flaws noted herein are more about budgetary shortfalls than management myopia. We are all complicit in this financial failure,” Young wrote in November. He noted he wasn’t going to substitute his judgment “for that of duly elected Massachusetts lawmakers, who properly are endowed with the power to direct the reserves of the commonwealth’s coffers to whatever issue of public import they see fit.”
State officials have said that DCF’s budget had been cut by roughly $100 million between fiscal year 2009 and fiscal year 2012.
But Children’s Rights argues in its appeal it was wrong for Young to treat “fiscal constraints as a defense” and that he did so without “any valid legal basis.”
Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office, which is defending the state in the suit, will have 30 days to respond.
The situation has thrown the Democrat into an awkward position of balancing the actions of her office and her own calls for reforms at DCF as a leading gubernatorial candidate. Coakley has repeatedly said she feels there is no conflict.
The ruling likely saved the state from a costly court-mandated reform plan and the possibility of shelling out millions more in attorney fees. Last year, a judge ordered Oklahoma officials to launch a $100 million-a-year initiative to fix their system — on top of $6 million in legal costs for Children’s Rights — after the group successfully sued that state.
Children’s Rights, which unsuccessfully sued state officials in a class action suit first brought in 2010, blasted U.S. District Court Judge William G. Young’s ruling, writing in a massive, 263-page appeal that it should be reversed.
Young’s so-called “two-pronged” approach — in that the group needed to prove the Department of Children and Families’ failures not only veered substantially from accepted practice but “shocks the conscience” — was unnecessarily high, Children’s Rights said.
It also argued that the deference he showed to state lawmakers to better fund the agency, and thus correct its ongoing problems, could set a dangerous precedent.
“Constitutional and statutory violations are rampant in DCF foster care,” Children’s Rights attorneys wrote in the appeal, filed late yesterday. “If this Court were to accept the district court’s view that federal judges must yield to executive and legislative prerogatives when such priorities are inconsistent with the state’s constitutional obligations to the state’s most helpless citizens, the consequences would be far-reaching.”
Furthermore, the group wrote, by putting the responsibility on lawmakers to fund DCF appropriately, “it likewise excused the abject failure by DCF.”
“Vulnerable children who are wholly dependent on the state for their safety and well-being, were erroneously held to a standard of proof no less burdensome than the standard to be met by an incarcerated felon,” the appeal states.
Children’s Rights had accused Bay State officials of failing to protect children under their care from abuse, allowing kids to flounder in the foster care system and doling out too many psychotropic drugs. It has successfully sued more than a dozen other states, and had gone to trial only once before in this type of case, winning against Washington, D.C., officials more than two decades ago.
Young had ripped DCF in his 84-page ruling released in November, concluding it failed to “not only to comport with national standards of care and state and federal requirements but also to comply with its own internal policies.”
But he said the plaintiffs, represented by Children’s Rights, had embarked on a “virtually unscalable peak” to win their suit.
“This is not a case about statistics but about children — our children — and this much is clear: The flaws noted herein are more about budgetary shortfalls than management myopia. We are all complicit in this financial failure,” Young wrote in November. He noted he wasn’t going to substitute his judgment “for that of duly elected Massachusetts lawmakers, who properly are endowed with the power to direct the reserves of the commonwealth’s coffers to whatever issue of public import they see fit.”
State officials have said that DCF’s budget had been cut by roughly $100 million between fiscal year 2009 and fiscal year 2012.
But Children’s Rights argues in its appeal it was wrong for Young to treat “fiscal constraints as a defense” and that he did so without “any valid legal basis.”
Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office, which is defending the state in the suit, will have 30 days to respond.
The situation has thrown the Democrat into an awkward position of balancing the actions of her office and her own calls for reforms at DCF as a leading gubernatorial candidate. Coakley has repeatedly said she feels there is no conflict.
The ruling likely saved the state from a costly court-mandated reform plan and the possibility of shelling out millions more in attorney fees. Last year, a judge ordered Oklahoma officials to launch a $100 million-a-year initiative to fix their system — on top of $6 million in legal costs for Children’s Rights — after the group successfully sued that state.
