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Thursday, April 26, 2007

Courts: More on: "States urged to get abused kids' lawyers," Indiana receives "F"

Updating this ILB entry from Tuesday, which included this quote from an AP story by David Clary:

NEW YORK — Fifteen states get failing grades on a first-of-its-kind report card assessing the legal representation provided to abused and neglected children as courts make potentially fateful decisions about whether to separate them from their families. * * * The 15 states receiving an F were Alaska, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota and Washington.
David Clary of the AP has a new story today, this time carried in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, which goes into more detail about Indiana. Some quotes:
Although Indiana law used to give courts the option of whether to appoint a guardian ad-litem or a volunteer from a national program called Court Appointed Special Advocates, that law changed in July 2005. Now, courts must appoint one or the other. Part of Indiana’s failing grade was based on the previous law, which didn’t require an appointment of an attorney or CASA volunteer.

The report assigned grades based on several criteria, most importantly whether legal counsel for children is mandatory and whether that attorney is required to advocate for the child’s expressed wishes. Other criteria included requiring specialized training in child-advocacy law, the attorneys’ ethical responsibilities and the child’s right to attend key court hearings.

Adding to the AP story is a side-bar by Indiana reporter Dionne Waugh, who writes:
Allen Superior Family Relations Court Judge Charles Pratt said the report follows a dangerous trend he’s seen recently – making family court more adversarial by pitting the child against the parents and the very agencies there to protect the child.

“It starts to erode the protective powers that the juvenile court process was designed to provide to children,” Pratt said.

The children are also not often old enough, mature enough and objective enough to understand their protection, he said.

In Allen County, children have been represented by a CASA volunteer or guardian ad-litem for the past 22 years without the requirement, said Rex McFarren, director of the Allen County CASA program.

McFarren said they receive 30 hours of court-approved training and, even without the law degree, can do things attorneys can’t.

“I would rather have an energetic, caring individual with time to spend to go out and get to know the people than (one with) a legal background in the majority of my cases,” he said, “because they’ll get to know the people.

“So it takes time, … and the only way you really get that is firsthand knowledge. I’m not saying attorneys aren’t very useful and necessary, but on lot of our cases, it’s more important to have a human interest.”

Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 26, 2007 08:44 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts