The ethics complaint letter against the 4th RC

OK, now that it has been published on other websites and made news, I'll post the email I got on March 31st.

I am not vouching for the accuracy of any of it, but since it's legitimate (that is, non-blog) news, it's time to reprint the whole thing, so her you go; draw your own conclusions:

Please let the following letter serve as my complaint against the Office of the Regional Conflict Counsel 4th District (hereinafter referred to as "RCC") being initiated pursuant to Florida Statute 112.3187 5(b), essentially claiming gross mismanagement, a continuous pattern of managerial abuses, wrongful or arbitrary and capricious acts and conduct that may have a substantial adverse economic impact.

After a longstanding professional relationship with Judith Migdal-Mack and Michelle Migdal of Migdal & Migdal P.A., private attorneys hired as Chief Assistants of the Civil Division to Mr. Massa, in October 2007, I accepted a position with the RCC as a Managing Attorney for the 19th Judicial Circuit in the Civil and Mental Health Division. At that time the new office was facing litigation claiming that Mr. Massa’s appointed position was unconstitutional. My office employment began in January 2008 although I attended organizational meetings at the Migdal’s law office prior to that.



The position that I accepted was to be based out of Stuart Florida although I was

responsible for court coverage of the civil cases in St. Lucie, Indian River and Okeechobee Counties. I was told that until the Stuart office opened I would be reimbursed for my mileage and would work out of the West Palm Beach office.

However at the time of my hire, the RCC 4th District did not have an operating state office. The office was being set- up and run out of the private practice owned and operated for over twenty years by the Migdal & Migdal P.A. This office was located in Boynton Beach Florida. The Migdals were responsible for the creation, organization and staffing of the civil division in the 15th, 19th, and 17th Judicial Circuits. Mr. Massa, myself and the other managing attorneys were given keys to this private law office and allowed to use the office equipment and computers free of charge. The 4th District RCC operated out of the private law office of Migdal & Migdal from October 2007 until mid-January 2008 without any reimbursement for the use of the equipment or space.

I was further advised by Mr. Massa of the challenges this new agency faced and I assured him of my willingness and commitment to the mission of the RCC. I agreed to take the position because of my knowledge and faith in Judith and Michelle Migdal’s ethics and organization skills. They were willing to close their practice to work for the RCC and Mr. Massa and that allowed me the faith and determination to leave my job and work with them in this new and exciting project. Mr. Massa assured us of his desire to reward all who were willing to take on the challenges this office faced at the onset. The salary that was offered was lower than I requested but Mr. Massa indicated that although he could not pay the requested amount, he would reward the attorneys who worked with him in the beginning to set-up this agency once he was up and running.

My commitment to this new agency extended to my following the lead of the Chief Assistants and agreeing to use my own resources to help with the new office. Mr. Massa was having difficulty securing space for his new offices. We were required to continue to use our homes, cell phones, internet services, home computers and printers without reimbursement. The Migdals and myself worked tirelessly to establish relationships in the 19th Circuit and to hire the attorneys needed to cover those four counties. We went about the administrative aspect of managing and setting up the only space finally secured in the 19th Circuit in downtown Fort Pierce.

At the beginning of March 2008 the 15th and 19th Circuits Civil Divisions were fully staffed and located in state leased office space. The staff in the 19th Circuit were notified of a reorganization to the management of the office without my knowledge or presence. As Managing Attorney I was not consulted or notified and was not even present when the news was told to my staff. Mr. Massa removed the Migdals from their position in the 19th Circuit and placed a long term friend, Jennifer Hixson in charge of the 19th Circuit’s Civil and Criminal Divisions . Mr. Massa stated that he had overhired for the 19th Circuit and he decided to reorganize management personnel and the manner in which the office operates. The friend that he hired possessed 6 months experience working in dependency law and was clearly without the necessary qualifications for the position.



Once the change in management came into effect, the lack of understanding or respect for the dependency system and the rights of the children to permanency became clear. A practice which engaged unethical acts began. The rights of the indigent people we have been appointed to represent and protect were unprotected. The management team which included the Office Administrator, Liza Brown, housed in the Fort Pierce office, created a hostile, offensive, abusive work environment from the onset, by engaging crude and condescending behavior. Attorneys were expected to perform acts that were not part of their job duties and have been chastised for their inability or unwillingness to do so. The Office Administrator failed to supply employees with answers to much needed policy questions with regard to the amount of annual or sick leave and the manner in which this is accrued. Instead she lied and mischaracterized information and has failed to provide any concrete answers to questions about procedures and benefits. She regularly demeaned support staff and criticized employees for seeking personnel answers on the State of Florida’s People First website. When confronted about representations that were made by both Mr. Massa and the administrator, the administrator described these representations as "myths" and employees as being misinformed but failed to correct the errors in communication. Moreover, any questions regarding issues that effect employees were treated as complaints and the attorney or support staff was criticized for requesting any information.

At the beginning of March 2008 when the friend, Ms. Hixson was appointed as Assistant Chief in the 19th Circuit a policy of personal harassment towards myself began. Ms. Hixson job duties have mostly consisted of taking attendance and treating professionals in a manner that would suggest she is not aware of what being a professional means. Ms. Hixson had been working part-time for the agency in Vero Beach. She claimed her caseload was much larger than it was and she was too busy to actually spend any time in the Fort Pierce office with her new staff. Ms. Hixson met with me at the Martin County Court once and held a ten minute conversation when she questioned how I felt about handling a jury trial on a felony or misdemeanor criminal cases. My response was that I was not a criminal attorney and I did not feel comfortable with this. I informed Mr. Massa and Ms. Hixson that I would be willing to learn how to handle those types of serious criminal cases if I was giving the opportunity to observe other attorneys and training. I also asked for some additional time to review the statutes and rules of criminal procedure. I indicated that it would not be ethical for me to represent a defendant in a criminal proceeding. She indicated to me that the new plan for the office was to now require me to handle misdemeanor and possibly felony cases immediately and that I could review the statutes and rules on my own time. No further discussion was had about this matter. She further indicated that the newly hired attorneys in Fort Pierce could handle the delinquency cases without any training. She indicated that such representation was simple work because the children charged with serious crimes where just minors and since they did not face any jail time whatever result would not be significant. I once again contacted Mr. Massa to voice my concerns regarding his offices' demand that I practice in an unethical manner representing criminal defendants. I received no response.

I was then informed that there was a crisis in the 19th Circuit Criminal Division (The crisis was caused by the former Criminal Chief, Mike Takiff failing to organize or staff the 19th Circuit. This poor management by Mr. Takiff led to his promotion to Chief Assistant responsible for the criminal and civil divisions in the 17th Circuit. Two months into the process, and he still had not even introduced himself to the judges of the 19th Circuit). The Criminal division continued to miss hearings, orders were lost, and there was no organization or record of criminal cases received from the courts. Mr. Garcia, Deputy Chief admitted to me that Mr. Massa's communication skills were poor and that he himself might have handled these changes in the 19th circuit differently. He also admitted that Mr. Massa reorganization of management was not handled appropriately.

Mrs. Hixson has made it clear to me that she was hired to police our office and treat me as if I had not been performing my job for the past three months. She continued to argue that all attorneys could handle felony cases without training. In addition, her purpose appears to be to create or manufacture a record that would support my termination. She continued to call or email me numerous times during the day to ask me my location.

On March 17th, 2008 I was treated with disrespect and embarrassed in front of my peers by Mr. Massa. I had no hearings scheduled in Fort Pierce; I attempted to work out of the West Palm Beach Office. Mr. Massa returned to the office and was furious to see me there. He started yelling at me and telling me that he did not want me in the West Palm Beach Office he wanted me in the Fort Pierce Office, and if I did not start getting some criminal cases out there, he would have to start firing people. I advised him that I was not hired to work out of Fort Pierce on a daily basis and he told me that since the Stuart Office was not ready he wanted me in Fort Pierce. He insisted that I leave the West Palm Office immediately. At approximately 3pm. I packed my bags and went home for a late lunch. At that time Jennifer Hixson called my home, she later sent me an email questioning why I was at home. Since Mr. Massa indicated that I was not allowed to visit or work out of the West Palm Beach office without prior approval from him. I had previously been allowed to work remotely because of the lack of internet access in the Fort Pierce office and the fact that I did not have an office space in Fort Pierce; I worked at home until 7:00pm on that date. To date no office policy on this issue was provided. However the past use of the Migdals’ office equipment and space without reimbursement and the use of home computers and printers by all employees had been encouraged and condoned by Mr. Massa.

On March 14th, Mr. Massa advised me that our Fort Pierce office was having a meeting on March 28th and immediately following the meeting he wished to discuss my "unauthorized absence from work on March 17th." He also told me that Ms. Hixson was my only supervisor and later advised me that he would not longer pay my mileage from West Palm Beach. Additionally, I was expected to immediately start taking criminal cases. Upon this announcement, I once again sent an email to both Mr. Massa and Ms. Hixson requesting training in criminal law. I asked for additional time to review the rules and observe other counsel. Mr. Massa never responded to that email. Ms. Hixson's response was that I must immediately represent the criminal defendants regardless of the ethical considerations and concerns I have voiced. The RCC 4th District apparently was not concerned with the ethical violations, or the rights of the accused to full and fair representation.



In the last two weeks it has become painfully obvious to me Mr. Massa and Ms. Hixson’s intentions. My position apparently had been modified without discussion. I was criticized for attempting to secure information from a court clerk on a criminal case that the office had been appointed to. When a client called the office looking for their attorney, I tried to locate the client’s information. I could not secure any file or information from Mr. Takiff and had to consult the clerk. The Court file indicated that the office had been appointed weeks before and that the order had been faxed to Mr. Takiff’s personal home fax machine. The office had no record of the order, no file, and no information. My attempts to help the client were criticized by my superiors. I was advised in no uncertain terms that I did not have any authority to speak to the clerk of the court, provide directives or request documentation.



Mr. Massa has spoken to other attorneys in the office to request the opinions of my job performance and work ethics. He has told these attorneys that he was considering terminating my employment. He has never spoken to me regarding my job performance. Instead he has engaged in a secretive harassment technique by communicating with other attorneys about me. Mr. Massa has engaging in slander in making such statements regarding the quality of my work. Mr. Massa wanted to promote his friend Ms. Hixson and it is clear that he can not justify both my and her existence in the 19th Circuit. Additionally, because Mr. Massa has failed to adequately staff attorneys to handle the criminal caseloads in the 19th circuit, and is attempting to fix his errors by requiring the untrained civil attorneys to handle criminal matters. The attorneys including myself were never consulted and never agreed to handle such criminal matters. On March 24, 2008, Mr. Massa terminated the employment of Judith Migdal-Mack and Michelle Migdal without any notice or explanation. These two Chief Assistants were the original organizers of the Civil Division. Clearly Mr. Massa knew that the Migdals would not agree to the ethical misconduct being requested of the civil attorneys.

Therefore the RCC 4th District has engaged in continuing behavior that is inappropriate and unethical and all of the above is supported by documentation currently in my possession and available upon request. As indicated in the many examples provided in the letter, the RCC 4th District has exhibited illegal behavior that includes:


· Bullying Creating a hostile work environment ( threatening to fire employees if they do not handle criminal cases because his manager failed to adequately staff), creating a negative and unhealthy environment that in which is it impossible to work effectively.

· Poor communication- The RCC has failed to provide any feedback on performance, any information regarding policy and procedures or job requirements. Mr. Massa and his staff have communicated with assumptions and lack of direction. (The RCC has never provided information regarding leave etc.)

· Engaging in micromanaging-expecting constant reports from attorneys. (i.e., sending email questioning where Managers are and what they are doing)

· Disorganization and indecision- Failure to staff the 19th circuit criminal division and relying on the untrained civil attorneys to handle criminal hearings.

· Discourtesy- Mr. Massa, Mr.Garcia, Ms. Brown and Ms. Hixson fail to offer common courtesies, or treat employees with common dignity and respect. The disparaging manner to which attorneys and support staff have been treated is unacceptable and has resulted in a desire to limit any conversation or interaction. Two members of the support staff left the West Palm Beach office and filed complaints with the Governor’s office regarding such treatment.

· The unequal treatment of employees ( Mr. Massa recently terminated the employment of Michelle Migdal and Judith Migdal-Mack without any prior warning or notification and without justification). They were not consulted on any management or policy changes because Mr. Massa was aware that their strong support of excellent representation for all children and adults would conflict with his plans for the agency.

· The RCC led by Mr. Massa and Mr. Garcia have lied and fabricated situations to suit their purposes and plans for the agency. Job descriptions, reimbursements, parking spaces, etc. were promised but never provided.

· The RCC has imposed unreasonable demands and now is attempting to enforce policies that have never been communicated to staff. Such expectations are unreasonable and allow for only failure. ( He has required that I go to an office daily in which I was not hired, where I do not possess an office or a desk and refuses to reimburse me for mileage when that was previously promised).

It is clear to me that Mr. Massa's failures, inadequacies, lack of communication skills and poor management has defeated the purpose for which he was appointed and contradict the Statute that created his position. The level of mismanagement, misconduct, and mistreatment of employees in RCC 4th District demands attention. Please feel free to contact me to discuss these issues and for further information. Thank you for your attention and time.

sloooooow blogging

OK, so I've gone for a full week.


It's not that there isn't any dependency news, in fact there is plenty this week.

And things have been interesting here in Central Florida this week in dependency court. We've had some firsts.

I just haven't had time for the bloggin' thing. Sorry. So in the next post you get what I've been promising: the ethics complaint email in its entirety.

Texas FPS files appeal to Texas Supreme Court

To briefly follow up on a couple of posts ago, there are already documents up on the Texas Supreme Court website.

Texas Family Protective Services' emergency motion can be read here. Their mandamus petition is here.

Just skimming the emergency motion, I find this irony: the State of Texas claims it cannot return the children subject to the appellate order because they don't know who those children are. It wants to shift the burden of establishing a basic jurisdictional element to the parents from whom the kids were taken.

This is serious business, but I can't help but note that "Duke Hooten" is a cool name for an appellate attorney.

Everyone have a great Memorial Day weekend. I'll be remembering a fallen friend. We'll keep you updated on this.

The ethics complaint against 4th RC goes public

Now that it's out in the regular media, I'll share more in the future of my emails on this topic.

I'll try to get you an update from Ms. Jackson as well.

So here you go:

A complaint filed with the governor’s inspector general offers a damning glimpse of early efforts by the regional conflict counsel office based in West Palm Beach.

Attorney Nicole Hunt Jackson, who worked at the Stuart office for four months, sent the complaint claiming mismanagement and “a continuous pattern of managerial abuses” three weeks before she was fired.

I doubt you'll regret it if you read the whole thing.

I'll go ahead and post the text of the entire post tomorrow.

Good news out of Texas

Texas CPS, as Vizinni:

"Imminent! Urgent!"

Texas 3rd District Court of Appeals, as Inigo Montoya:

"You keep using those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean."

Here's the decision. Footnotes 9 - 11 get right to the point.

Why I keep writing about the Texas FLDS case

Warning: long post follows. You know how lawyers are when a microphone, podium, or keyboard are nearby.

First, to get to the question posed by my subject line, you can think of Pastor Niemoeller.

I wrote a post last week with an update in the FLDS case. I've never actually explained that Texas case here in this blog on the assumption that readers would already know about it. If you are not at all familiar with it, here is a brief timeline of the first events in the case at this link.

It is not my intention to behave as if I am a defense lawyer for any of these parents, and comment accordingly. I (think) I know better than to assume that I have all of the pertinent information with only news reports and commentary to go on.

I'm still troubled by the "class action" and guilt-by-association nature of this whole thing; I am troubled by (as the presiding judge described it) the cattle call that was the shelter review hearing, or whatever they call it in Texas. I'm troubled that in the cases of 463 children sheltered on an anonymous phone call that turns out was probably a false report, not even one child can be returned to either parent's custody under any circumstances so far. That fact alone makes this effort on the part of Texas, no matter how good intentions were or are, a qualified failure.

I keep writing about this case for the same reason I continue to represent parents in dependency court: the system hurts kids. A lot. In an ongoing and relentless way.

With that said, I do regret the title I put on that earlier post, "If you are still following it. If you care." The first part of the title came from a sense that this very important case had quickly faded from public awareness. The second part of my title was a bad idea. It sounds accusatory now that I read it again. What I meant by "if you care" was simply that some people are following it and find it to be of great significance and others are not. I apologize for the tone of that phrase.

I got one comment to that post, which is actually a lot for this tiny blog. That comment is the inspiration for this post. Here it is in its entirety:

Not to restate the obvious but let's not forget that more than 40 girls under 16 (that's roguhly%10) are or were pregnant when the authorities took custody. The fathers of the babies are almost exclusively adults and the girls' parents were well aware and did nothing. Without the religious component it is just a bunch of incest and capital sexual battery charges for the men. If this was happening in a trailer park in a bad section of town noone would be upset that they took these children from home that they were being forced to have sex and marry at 12 and 13. oh.. and poligamy is illegal in every state. None of that gives the state the right to violate rights or not follow correct procedure but they have done their best under a very unique and tough situation.

We have some areas of agreement. I agree we can mentally put aside the religious component and analyze the case in other ways. We agree that the case, if proven, should come down to whether or not there was incest or sexual exploitation. We agree that due process is important.

We have some areas of disagreement. I'm not sure if anyone knows how many of the teenage girls are pregnant -- for instance:

Earlier this morning at the San Angelo courthouse, a lawyer for a 14-year-old girl that is on a list of so-called "disputed minors" said she is not pregnant as Texas child welfare authorities have alleged.
"My client does not have children. (She) is not pregnant. She's the youngest on the list of disputed minors," said Andrea Sloan.
The judge hearing the case objected, saying that was not what the hearing was about. But Sloan pressed forward.
"The department is communicating to the public that there are 14-year olds who are pregnant," she said.

Even so, the teenage pregnancy rate is, in fact, very significant. Using 2002 data, I see that the pregnancy rate for Texas girls aged 13 to 17 is 28.5 per 1000. CNN reports two days ago that CPS keeps changing the number because it keeps turning out that women they were calling "girls" are in fact adults. My math, based on earlier CPS statements, makes only a possible 4 pregnant teenagers left. CNN thinks 5 or 6. That makes the teen pregnancy rate at or less than among Texans who don't live on the FLDS ranch. That's a far cry from CPS' earlier claims that "half" of the children were pregnant. I wonder what method they used to determine pregnant status a month ago?

Am I allowed, as a dependency defense lawyer who sees the effects of child removals all the time, to just simply have no tolerance for incompetence? Did you know that Texas CPS put a 22-year-old woman in this case in foster care despite her protestations that she was not, in fact, a child?

The commenter and I disagree, sort of, on the polygamy aspect. The way I see it, it is not lawful to issue a marriage license to someone who is already married to another. It is not, however, against the law to live in an intimate relationship with more than one person without benefit of government sanction of the arrangement, and call your significant others "wife" or anything else you want to call them. Especially after the Lawrence v. Texas case, I simply don't see how polygamy can be dispositive, if even relevant, in a child dependency case. I don't approve of that, by the way, and think polygamy is a bad thing; but what the Supreme Court gives, the Supreme Court takes away, and the polygamy aspect doesn't matter any more to a child removal proceeding than a finding that a parent had failed to file an income tax return last year (which I remind you is illegal in all 50 states).

This, finally, brings me to the only really substantive thing with which my commenter (and thank you for commenting) and I disagree: that Texas CPS has done their best under a very unique and tough situation.

I couldn't disagree more. Remove every child in sight and let the judge sort them out is practically the definition of not doing their best. There is absolutely no effort involved for CPS workers in this case than there would be on any given day at the office. Get an anonymous call, get police to escort you, take each and every kid, put on a few witnesses, churn out a few hundred identical copies of the same caseplan, and keep your job.

I can tell you from experience that the case workers (or family case managers, as they like to be called now) and protective investigators who really and truly do their best, who possess good instincts coupled with courage and confidence tend to get fired.

I am now going to give you a link to another blog with several links to individual statements of mental health professionals who were involved in the Texas case. I recommend them to you. They will answer any questions you may have about whether or not case workers are doing their best.

Here you go. You really should read at least a couple of them. These people have been treated horribly.

See you in Vegas?

The National Child Abuse and Resource Center's next international conference will be September 18-20 in Las Vegas.

I attended the conference two years ago. It is excellent. You get a boatload of CLE, and it's fun to see your colleagues not only outside of juvenile court, but in Vegas.

There is a group rate, my friends, so use this link to contact me, and we can construct a Florida Dependency Defenders Group and take advantage of the better rate.

Oh, and is anyone going to the "2008 Dependency Seminar" at the Tampa Stetson Campus on June 9?

The 4th Amendment lives!

The Fourth Amendment not only actually applies even when there is a child involved, but even government social workers are subject to the United States Constitution, according to a federal court opinion issued Monday.

Since even we attorneys don't read it often enough, here is the text of the 4th Amendment:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Click on this link to read the Federal 7th Circuit opinion in Michael C. v. Gresbach. Here's one of the more interesting portions of the opinion:

"[W]e find that a reasonable child welfare worker would have known that conducting a search of a child's body under his clothes, on private property without consent or the presence of any other exception to the warrant requirement of the Fourth Amendment, is in direct violation of the child's constitutional right to be free from unreasonable searches...[W]e do not believe that requiring a child welfare caseworker to act in accordance with basic Fourth Amendment principles is an undue burden on the child welfare system, particularly when it is necessary to conduct an examination of a child's body, which is undoubtedly frightening, humiliating, and intrusive to the child...it is a violation of a child's constitutional rights to conduct a search of a child at a private school without warrant or probable cause, consent, or exigent circumstances."

A few things:

"Exigent circumstances" is defined on page 14 of the opinion simply as when life or limb is in jeopardy. Two, note that the 4th Amendment right vindicated in this opinion is one attached to the alleged child victim of abuse (abandonment, or neglect), and not to the accused parent. Third, there is a clear distinction here between private property and public property, which you can only read to mean one thing: public schools. It seems to be presumed that school officials not only can, but always will, consent to children being searched.

If you are stil following it. If you care.

Eleven employees of the Hill Country Community Mental Health-Mental Retardation Center recently provided written reports of their experiences at the request of the regional governing board. Each expressed frustration — and some anger — at how CPS treated the children.

After hearing about their experiences at the makeshift shelters last month in San Angelo, Kight said he and the board felt the need to do something.

"We can't just stand by and let this happen as Americans," he said. "Hopefully, (Gov. Perry) will take some sort of action to get these parents back with their kids."

Wednesday night quick links

It's a busy week. I apologize for not posting more; it's just a function of being in the trenches. Having a blog, liking being a writer, someone once said, is like having homework every day for the rest of your life.

First: budget decisions are coming soon. We hear that the chief judges and something called the "trial court budget commission" is meeting this week in Tampa. Stay tuned.

Second: Hey, wouldn't be cool if we dependency defense attorneys had a private message board on which to exchange ideas and gripes and rumors, and etc. More on that soon, but in the meantime, it already exists, and the sound of crickets chirping is starting to get to me.

Third: Via Drudge, I noticed this: It seems the Washington Post, rightly so, is concerned that up to 250 deportees, nationwide, have been administered psychotropic drugs against their will, and even a handful have been administered psychotropic drugs without a judge's order. That's bad. Here's hoping the Washington Post turns its eye to what happens to foster kids. 250 nationwide would seem so very quaint, wouldn't it?

Fourth: Now here's where things get interesting. You really need to read this. Seriously, if you are reading this blog because of an interest in dependency law, you need to read this. Click on the words you are reading right now to download the .pdf and read it.

I got the Manatee County court order at that link from the Justice Building blog (motto: The drivetime morning zoo of Florida legal blogs), which is a good read.

I wanted to excerpt some things from the order, but it's late, and I might get around to after tomorrow and Friday's trials. Suffice to say that attorney Joseph Campoli, with help it seems from FACDL, is something of a hero.

And The Honorable Judge Lee Haworth is an official Samurai Jurist. Faced with the impossible task of finding enough attorneys willing to take cases under the new law, Judge Haworth eyed that gordian knot, unsheathed his sword, and in 23 pages of his ruling made a solution, perhaps the only one possible.

Really, read what quite possibly is the most gratifying order denying an attorney his motion to withdraw you've ever read.

Another county won't pay for office space

From TCPalm.com, this short article:

County commissioners Tuesday approved sending a letter to Gov. Charlie Crist telling him the county will not pay rent for a regional conflict counsel office required by the state.

The county was informed last year it would have to find office space for the Office of Criminal Conflict and Civil Regional Counsel, which represents defendants when the public defender's office has a conflict, besides handling other cases. The county made space for the office at the County Administrative Complex, but later found out the office head already rented space downtown without telling the county.

In the letter, Commission Chair Joe Smith said the county spent about $2,600 readying the space for the attorneys and had no intention of spending additional money for rent. The estimated rental cost per year is about $38,400.

The governor's office previously told the county the regional conflict counsel decided the county space was not amenable to its needs, but county officials said they were never told this. The expense comes at a time when the county is attempting to trim millions from its budget in light of property tax reform and lower property tax revenue.

There are three comments to the article. I found the second one interesting. You can click on the link to the article, and then the link to comments at the bottom of the story.

"I was happy when I was happy and sad when I was sad"

The subject line is from a YouTube video of a former foster kid describing her state of normalcy when with her "regular mother" in contrast to when she was in foster care and drugged.

I'm plowing through several YouTube videos of foster care alumni primarily talking about, in their own words, having to take medication in foster care, among other issues.

That, in my opinion, is invaluable. For all the resources put into "giving children a voice", there is no replacement for, well, the actual voices of some of them, so I'm glad to see these making their way onto YouTube.

Below is a representative piece and is presented as a montage.



What really strikes me watching this is the extent to which these particular kids just didn't know what they were taking or why in any meaningful way (note the "goal in life" described by one young man at 4:36 in the video). This is a topic of growing concern for me lately, as I've got over forty children for whom I am Attorney ad Litem.

Correlation between pediatric fractures and nutrition

For what it's worth, this is from an abstract of a piece in the latest Journal of Pediatrics:

CONCLUSIONS. We identified a significant association between a history of frequent fractures and hypercalcuria in children. We propose that the appropriate screening evaluation for children who present with a history of frequent fractures consists of a dietary history targeted at calcium and vitamin D intakes, a physical examination to assess for pubertal delay, and urinary calcium concentration/creatinine ratio determination to assess for hypercalcuria. Children with abnormalities in this screening should undergo dual-energy radiographic absorptiometry and appropriate evaluation.

Cuban custody case postscript

I commented on the Izquierdo case last fall in the post at this link and a couple of others. Now there's an update from the Miami Herald, and it brings a couple of thoughts to mind.

First, it seems that DCF was quite incorrect when it argued that allowing the natural, non-offending father custody of his daughter would damage the child:

The 5-year-old with hazel eyes and a bouncy ponytail swung across the monkey bars as her Cuban father Rafael Izquierdo proudly watched nearby, ready to catch her.

"Look at me go Papi!" she squealed, just before she dropped into his waiting arms.

In the six months since Izquierdo regained custody of his young daughter after a high-profile court case, the two have developed a deep bond. It is one they never shared when the girl lived in Cuba with her mother, let alone after she first came to the U.S. and sparked an intense, international custody battle.

Second, I recommend the article to you if only to read this:

"With all those psychologists, and therapists, it was confusing. She was suffering. In the long run, they were going to damage her. I had to dance to their dance," Izquierdo said of the agreement.

....from the mouths of communist pig farmers....

It's bound to happen

I keep being told that our local Regional Counsel tells his employees that he expects the legislature to further cut the flat rates paid to court appointed attorneys. I don't know if that's true, but this article out of Sarasota provides further evidence that the system is already past the breaking point (excerpt follows):

"Criminal defense attorney Joe Campoli is stuck with a case that will pay him around $5 an hour for three months.

The state of Florida never paid handsomely for lawyers who defend poor people accused of crimes, but Campoli says the state's low fee and his office overhead mean he will lose money.

Campoli is the first to challenge Florida's new system for compensating private attorneys who do defense work for the state of Florida, saying it would ruin his law practice.

"I'm not sure I could recover," Campoli testified Thursday.

Ultimately, 12th Circuit Chief Judge Lee Haworth will have to make a ruling that weighs the rights of a 16-year-old defendant to have a competent attorney against those of Campoli, who has practiced law for 12 years.

The new system offers a flat fee to private attorneys for representing criminal cases where the public defender cannot because of a conflict.

Johnny Vazquez's case in Manatee County is a rare situation. There are 14 co-defendants, and the gang case has complicated racketeering charges, with more than 300 witnesses and piles of documents."

With 14 co-defendants, assuming that there is a conflict between each, that leaves 12 defendants left after the PD and the RC get theirs. Are we to gather from this that there are not 12 attorneys willingly on the rotation list to handle these cases?

Bottom line: Even when and if the RCs get fully operational, private attorneys available for appointment at a reasonable rate will be needed, period. There is not a way around that, and the sooner we different tribes in the defense field accept that and treat delivery of legal services to the indigent as a system, rather than a collection of systems, the better. If that seems vague, I mean only that private counsel, albeit less of them perhaps than there were before, are part of the solution, and not part of an "us vs. them" kind of problem, and solutions ought to be appreciated and funded.

"Disheartened"

(An open letter to Bob Butterworth)

One conversation with one attorney is not a scientific sample, but it is one interesting conversation nonetheless.

Chatting with a C_LS (motto "What did we ever need the child welfare part, anyway") attorney about last Friday's C_LS strategic planning pep rally involving many of DCF's lawyers in Orlando, (sorry for the awkward sentence structure there -- I know in German it's supposed to go time, negation, manner, place, in that order -- that seems to work in English as well, he summed up his feelings about the big meeting as leaving him disheartened.

He elaborated a bit, feeling like the main thrust of the meeting to explain how CWLS was going to become C_LS, a "statewide law firm" was to make it clear that all of the new bosses are outsiders, that is, that there was a certain vibe that can be described as "you (current attorneys) are the problem; we are not of you or from you, and are here to fix the problem."

With respect to DCF Secretary Butterworth (and it is genuine respect), I think that is the wrong approach (if, indeed, one man's "vibe" was accurate). DCF's lawyers aren't the problem. Yes, there are some who are drawn to government lawyer jobs because compensation and job security bear little relationship to the quality of one's legal skills or results; but such DCF attorneys are the minority.

Most of the DCF attorneys I know are good lawyers, and many had significant legal accomplishments prior to going to work for DCF. They struggle, however, with bringing legal standards and ethics to a culture that operates very differently. I'm told that one of the positive things that came out of the big meeting was an attempt to clarify who the DCF attorney's client is. That is necessary, and a question I resolutely answered for myself in my first week when I myself was a DCF attorney.

That's not enough, though. C_LS needs to be empowered to make reasonable demands upon their investigators and case managers with respect to gathering competent evidence and paying at least plausible lip service to the notion that there is such a thing as services to preserve a family. In other words, the People of Florida are not well served if the only way for a C_LS attorney to "win" a case is to separate parents from children and make every effort to keep it that way.

Before you turn CWLS into C_LS, consider simply making the requirements of CFOP (Children and Families Operating Procedure) 175-15(6)(c) actually work. That's already your policy, and there is no quality control on it. Also considering scrapping CFOP175-15(6)(f) entirely, and replace it with an internal quality control system withing the C_LS.

Dependency Defenders like movies, too

With almost all of DCF's attorneys safely confined to one conference hall today, I went and saw Iron Man.

I won't review it here except for the following: No depictions of social workers or shelter hearings, great effects, only one outrageous product placement, and a final answer to the age old question of which kind of character is more evil, the guy with the goatee or the guy with the shaved head.

Stay through the credits.