Supreme Court will decide if “children’s rights” include the Constitution’s #4

Richard Wexler

Monday, October 18, 2010
Supreme Court will decide if “children’s rights” include the Constitution’s #4

OR TO PUT IT ANOTHER WAY: DOES A NINE-YEAR-OLD GIRL HAVE AS MUCH CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTION AS TIMOTHY McVEIGH?

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal by Oregon’s Department of Human Services (DHS) of a ruling by the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals declaring that “children’s rights” include the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.

The Court of Appeals also ruled that when a little girl is being stripsearched and having her genitals photographed by a total stranger, she also has a right to have her mother present to comfort her. DHS doesn’t like that, either.

So here’s what this case really is about: Does a child have a right to be free from traumatic interrogations by total strangers when there is so little justification that a child welfare agency can’t even get a warrant? Do children have a right to be free from weeks of needless foster care when a caseworker may have lied to obtain the right to take the children away? (More on that below.) And does a young child at least have the right to have her mother present during an extremely traumatic medical exam?

DHS thinks the answer to all of these questions should be “no.” You can bet the overwhelming majority of child protective services agencies feel the same way. Which means DHS and its counterparts really are seeking the the right to inflict nearly unlimited state-sanctioned child abuse.

Indirectly, the case raises one more issue: Almost all of the questions in dispute in this case could have been quickly and easily resolved if only agencies like DHS were required to tape record all interviews in child protective services investigations – I don’t mean elaborate videotaping, a simple microcassette tape recorder (or digital equivalent) would be enough.

A RULING FOR CHILDREN’S RIGHTS

The full opinion from the Court of Appeals in the case, now called Camreta v. Greene, is well worth reading, if only because, right at the outset, the court refuses to be suckered by the party line child protective services agencies use whenever they want to trample on civil liberties: The one that says: If you support civil liberties you’re putting parents rights ahead of children’s rights – only if you trample on those liberties are you somehow standing up for “children’s rights.”

The Court of Appeals wasn’t fooled. On the contrary, the court recognized that Fourth Amendment (and Fourteenth Amendment) rights are a vital protection for the children themselves. FULL STORY