Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Constitutionality of CPS interrogations

The US Supreme Court has just agreed to hear another CPS case:
The U.S. Supreme Court today agreed to take up a case involving the questioning of an elementary school student at school by a deputy sheriff and a state child-protective services caseworker about possible sexual abuse at home.

The justices accepted appeals from the two Oregon investigators of a federal appeals court ruling that they violated the student's Fourth Amendment rights to be free of unreasonable search and seizure when they interviewed her at school without a warrant, court order, parental consent, or exigent circumstances.
It would be nice if the court broadly declared that parents have constitutional rights to prevent their kids from being secretly seized and interrogated while in school custody. I am afraid that there is not much chance of that. The ideology of the court is to impose rules that occasionally require the release of some nasty criminal, thereby convincing the public that the constitutional rights of criminals are being respected. Meanwhile, CPS will continue to trample on the rights of good law-abiding parents.

BTW, occasionally someone tells me that CPS has changed its name to something else, but the Santa Cruz CPS still uses the name.

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