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Showing posts with label James Payne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label James Payne. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Cowardly Indiana Supreme Court Claims They Cannot order Indiana Department of Child Services to Obey the Law Time for a real investigation into DCS w/update

Yesterday the Indiana State Supreme Court continued their sad history of abrogating there duties to Hoosiers. And proceeded to allow the Department of Child Services (DCS) to violate the law and to shirk there responsibilities to make sure children are not horribly murdered as Tajanay Bailey was back in 2007.

Marisa Kwiatkowski wrote in this mornings issue of the Indianapolis Star about yesterday's decision by the State Supreme Court. In her article Ms. Kwiatkowski writes


The Indiana Supreme Court said it cannot force the Indiana Department of Child Services to comply with caseload limits — even though those limits are required by law.


The decision stems from a suit brought by a DCS family case manager, who argued she and other workers were handling heavy workloads that put children at risk.


The lawsuit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, sought to force DCS to reduce the caseloads handled by its workers, who investigate allegations of abuse and neglect and manage ongoing child welfare cases.


In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court said the issue can't be resolved by a judicial mandate. The justices said that while Indiana law requires a specific outcome — limits on the number of cases each family case manager must handle — the law does not specify the particular action DCS must take to reach that outcome.


The ACLU sued DCS and its director in 2015 on behalf of Mary Price and all other family case managers employed by the state agency.


Price was handling 43 ongoing cases when the lawsuit was filed. Indiana law requires family case managers to handle no more than 17 ongoing cases or 12 initial assessments.


DCS its family case managers as the "backbone" of efforts to protect Indiana youth.


As of state fiscal year 2016, only one of the 19 DCS regions — the agency’s central office — was in compliance with the caseload standard, state records show.


Ken Falk, legal director of ACLU Indiana, said Price and the ACLU of Indiana are "obviously very disappointed" by the Supreme Court's decision. More importantly, he said, family case managers still have too many children to manage.


"This is something everyone in the state of Indiana should be concerned about," Falk said. "There's a problem here that still hasn't been solved, and we'll need to see if there's other ways to resolve it."


INDY REPUBLICAN has read the court decision and it just seems as to be another example of the Court resorting to mental gymnastics to justify a bullshit decision. The justices on the court are certainly aware that DCS has been involved in questionable activities over the last decade. Ms. Kwiatkowski has written a fine article. As many of you know DCS has a long and troubled history. You may remember we previously noted former Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi's backing away from investigating the tragic death of  three year old Tajanay Bailey in 2007



Woman holding a photo of the murdered Tajanay Bailey

Both Paul Ogden and the late Gary Welsh have both written about Carl Brizzi's unusual handling of Tajanay Bailey's murder, and the questionable by DCS in this matter.  The Indiana Systemic Thinking blog has also written extensively on Tajanay Bailey click here for that blogs posts on the matter . Writing in 2010 in his article "Carl Brizzi and the Tajanay Bailey Case". Gary Welsh suggested a that Brizxi may have decided to drop his investigation into Tajanay's murder in exchange for ownership in a building being leased by DCS. Gary Welsh wrote at the time

Many of you will recall the tragic killing of 3-year-old Tajanay Bailey in November, 2007. She was beaten to death by her mother's live-in boyfriend at the troubled Phoenix Apartments where she and her mother lived. Subsequent new stories told a troubling tale of how case workers for the Indiana Department of Child Services had badly failed in their mission to protect children like Tajanay. According to a story in the Indianapolis Star, Marion Co. Prosecutor Carl Brizzi expressed deep concern about DCS's handling of the case and promised a complete and full investigation. Specifically, Brizzi wanted to know why DCS officials had failed to notify police after they learned Tajanay had been physically abused in the home in 2006 and why she had been returned to that same home. At the time Brizzi made those comments, Tajanay's tragic killing was all over the news. As time passed, we never heard from Brizzi again about DCS.

We now know that DCS entered into a lease agreement with L&BAB LLC in 2008 to lease a 13,000 square foot building for $248,500 a year that the business had acquired in Elkhart, Indiana only five months after the company purchased the building in February, 2008 and just three months after Brizzi said he planned to investigate DCS' handling of the Tajanay Bailey case. According to the IBJ, the 50-50 owners of L&BAB are Carl Brizzi and Paul Page. Brizzi was not required to pay anything to L&BAB for his 50 percent stake in the company. The deal raised eyebrows of many people in the legal community, largely because Page represented a number of criminal defense clients adverse to Brizzi's office at the time and other questions have been raised about whether Brizzi cut favors for Page's clients. Did the investigation of DCS' handling of the Tajanay Bailey case suffer because of the business deal Brizzi and his partner struck with the agency? It's a fair question to ask in light of recent disclosures about decisions his office has made.

Paul Ogden's 2011 article "Was Brizzi's Decision to Drop Investigation of DCS Following Infant's Death Connected to His Becoming DCS's Landlord Months Later?" over at Ogden On Politics.com covers the possibility of a corrupt bargain to get Carl Brizzi to back away from looking into DCS:

According to my sources, Prosecutor Brizzi's decision to investigate DCS was met with fierce resistance by officials in state government, including Governor Daniels himself who reportedly was furious with Brizzi's public announcement that the intended to investigate DCS and its head, former Marion County Judge Jim Payne.  The planned investigation went nowhere.

Three months later, in February of 2008, Brizzi became a 50% silent owner of a building in Elkhart, an ownership acquired without putting any money up for purchase.  Five months later, Brizzi and Attorney Paul Page became landlord of DCS as the agency rented the Elkhart space for an office.  Issues behind that deal has led Page, another attorney, and real estate developer John Bales to be indicted last week by a federal jury.

Was there a connection between the decision by Brizzi to drop the investigation of DCS and his later becoming the landlord for tenant DCS in a deal in which he did not have to put up any ownership of the building?   If so, the people involved could well be charged with obstruction of justice.

It is possible that Brizzi decided to not press forward with the investigation because of a lack of evidence DCS did anything wrong, at least criminally.  However, a later investigation by the Indianapolis Star, reported in May of 2010, suggests DCS almost certainly failed in its responsibility to protect Bailey:

The Indianapolis Star has obtained documents that reveal the Department of Child Services placed 11-week-old Destiny Linden with a foster family even after an advocate warned the agency about the care and safety of other foster children in the home. 
A week later, Destiny was dead.
She was placed with the family in April, five months after DCS was accused of ignoring warnings prior to the death of TaJanay Bailey -- a 3-year-old fatally beaten in November after DCS returned the toddler to her mother and the woman's boyfriend.
In both cases, it was an advocate who watches out for the best interests of children in state care who raised the red flags.
According to a report written by the advocate, Destiny's foster parents, Everett and Kimberly Coleman, did little to supervise children in their care, including leaving them to prepare their own meals and failing to treat a child burned while ironing clothes. The advocate specifically recommended that all children be removed from the home. But DCS continued placing children, including Destiny, in the foster home and even increased the number of children the couple were licensed to care for in early April.
The advocate who raised concerns about the Colemans -- just like the advocate in TaJanay's case -- was so unsatisfied with DCS' response that she turned to the courts in hopes of persuading a judge to order the removal of the children.
In both cases, the child died before the courts could act -- and in each instance, DCS workers insisted after the children's deaths that they were not made aware of the full extent of the advocates' concerns. 
One other fact the cases share: There has been no independent investigation of the agency's actions.
Was that "independent investigation" of DCS that Brizzi promised diverted by the Elkhart lease deal with DCS?


"Quid Pro Quo" Carl Brizzi?

The former head of DCS Judge Jim Payne was later implicated in a scandal dealing with DCS's handling of a case involving Judge Payne's grandchildren in 2012. Paul Ogden and Gary Welsh have both written about this. Click here and here for their articles.


Judge Jim "I Should be Locked Up" Payne

The time has long since come for DCS's reign of terror to end! Justice is calling. The Tajanay Bailey case needs to be solved, and Carl Brizzi and James Payne need to be driven out of town if not thrown in prison! 

UPDATE: A fan of the blog had this to say about the State Supreme Courts decision: "It's utterly ridiculous. You have a law that specifically requires certain caseloads to be below a certain level. And the Supreme Court says there's no way to enforce that law. Makes you scratch your head why the legislature would pass it to begin with if there was no way to enforce it."

So once again we here will place our faith in the INDY REPUBLICAN mailbag.