Tuesday, June 21, 2005

More in Congress have joined voices demanding fundamental fairness for prisoners (aka ?enemy combatants?) at Guantanamo Bay or Gitmo. Those imprisoned should know their charges, have a proper trial and be convicted or set free, they insist. Sounds reasonable.

One small disparity: American parents, wrongly processed administratively or prosecuted in secret for child abuse or neglect that never happened, have begged for the same for decades to no avail.

One U.S. Senator?when tenets of the Patriot Act were first unveiled?compared how Americans ?suspected? of child abuse or neglect were summarily labeled, often punished first (children removed, many put immediately into pre-adoptive homes), and their tribunal equivalents conducted in secret.

His bulls-eye parallel, taped by C-SPAN, apparently raised few to no eyebrows and no known effort to ensure civil and Constitutional rights for Americans. In place of that arises the groundswell favoring rights for Gitmo?s residents.

· Know the charges against them

From personal experience, this writer knows it is difficult, sometimes impossible, to learn precisely what the claim, the problem, the ?suspicion? is against a parent reported to child protective services (CPS).

More stunningly, a false report may be anonymous (per original federal appropriations laws) despite obvious malicious or mischievous motivation of the reporter or a tragic mistake. ?The people? permit government to legalize the Rule of Suspect that America denounces in Third World countries.

Not surprisingly, once children are taken and the onus is on the parent to prove innocence without an accuser?s identity and supporting documentation, even the greatest defense attorney cannot be ?effective assistance of counsel? lacking a bill of particulars unlikely ever to be shared.

The key word is ?charges.? Purposefully accused parents and caretakers are rarely criminally ?charged.? If they were, they would gain a modicum of due process and perhaps expose how ?family? courts have acted under color of law as a detriment to children and families since the Mondale Act of the mid 1970s.

· Have a proper trial

How many falsely accused mothers, fathers, grandparents, babysitters, day care providers, even old-style foster parents have wished aloud they could trade places with a serial killer. Instead they are in the losing fight of their lives against the purse and sword of extraconstitutional government and agents.

Their belief is that someone really ?charged? with a serious crime?and isn?t child abuse the worst ?crime???would have Bill of Rights and state Constitutional protections as their indicted transgressions are duly investigated then fully considered by an unbiased judge. Only a jury of previously falsely accused citizens could ever come close to serving as peers.

In a ?real trial? hearsay is not ?evidence.? Elements of the presumed crime cannot be fabricated after an ?arrest.? Anti Fifth Amendment ?mental health evaluations? could not be trick rights-breaches as a condition for ?seeing? one?s children while, in fact, justification is invented by the professional whose livelihood depends on ?finding? child abuse for CPS whether or not it exists.

Faced with stunned parents, whose court provided attorney also may depend on appointments for income, a judge who knows children have been ?removed? is likely to sign off on whatever plan child protection agents present. The judge?s signature immunizes all, and the State Attorney General?s office and taxpayers will cover legal matters and bills of nearly all errant agents.

· Convicted or set free?

A different U.S. Senator, Robert Byrd of West Virginia, has told more of his own earned labeling: 1940s involvement with the Ku Klux Klan. His just-released memoir explains, in his always facile words, the reasons he once was an organizer for the KKK.

His intervention in West Virginia, specifically Greenbrier County where the last lynchings occurred in that state, could free Marybeth Davis, a mother belatedly imprisoned by an unearned label. A shared genetic condition (and medical mistakes, cover up and corruption) in her young daughter and baby son triggered the susceptible death of one and injury to the other in the early 1980s.

Will he and others in Congress follow the lead of courts and professional bodies in UK now holding professionals and others accountable to families and justice? Will they expose the scandal of ?expert? testimony, minus science, that fractured families and trust that government only passes and uses constitutional laws?

Falsely accused parents and caretakers are just that: falsely, wrongly, inappropriately accused. Suspicions about how they were labeled become an eternal injury. That is true despite scientific evidence debunking popular syndromes, particularly Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSP, no science available) and Shaken Baby Syndrome (available science shows that absent neck injury ?signs? of SBS cannot be caused by shaking).

Patriots Acted Already

An innocent person, falsely accused of child abuse, will not be allowed by most leaders to assist with his/her child?s school, Scout or religious education activities. Imagine someone wrongly labeled ever leading the U.S. Senate!

One U.S. Senator can overcome the stigma of real KKK participation, but innocent American parents are still set upon by agents of government. Those agents are funded by Congressional appropriations. Even the falsely accused can?t shake off official injury allowed by the same and worse due process lapses for which remedy is sought for foreign prisoners at Guantanamo.

Could we do right by struggling American parents and caretakers before we cover foreigners with Constitutional blessings, ones literally bathed in the blood of patriots who acted for liberty and justice for all?