“Too vague, overly broad and intrusive,” said Andrew Jackson, an attorney describing the New Jersey statute that empowers the Division of Family and Youth (DYFS) to involve itself in the lives of
thousands of New Jersey families. “It’s just another case of the road to hell being paved with good intentions,” added the Constitutional scholar and Philadelphia lawyer.
No one knows that better than Jerry and Debbie Hall, a North Cape May couple who became involved with DYFS after their daughter Suzy (not her real name) had a fight in school with another student. Suzy’s
involvement in the fight was interpreted by Richard M. Teitelman School guidance counselor Gail Schmidtchen as stemming from trouble in the home. Schmidtchen, following what school officials believe to be state-mandated protocol, then filed a complaint with
DYFS that triggered the involvement of the full state bureaucracy, from the office of the Attorney General to the Superior Court/Family Division.
(Teitelman employees declined several requests to present their side for this story.)
It has cost the Halls nearly $20,000 in legal fees. According to them, that is the least of their costs. Debbie has suffered deteriorating health during the time of this involvement, which began in
March 2000. She has had two surgeries after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer and, according to her, must take medication for all sorts of things including her nerves.
After a Family Court judge failed to find the Halls guilty under Title 9 of the New Jersey state code, they were nonetheless required to undergo counseling, pursuant to a Title 30 determination and Jerry Hall was ordered to be evaluated for alcohol abuse
based solely on a recanted accusation of a middle school child. They agreed in principle to cooperate, but then new problems arose.
When the drug and alcohol evaluator, from the Center for Family Services, came to Jerry’s home, DYFS representative Anika Collette-Freeman, accompanied him. When Jerry asked for privacy to have the
evaluation done alone with the evaluator, Collette-Freeman said that was not possible because she had to be there to “interpret the findings,” according to Jerry.
Jerry also recorded the entire conversation, with the knowledge of Collette-Freeman, who objected to the taping.
He said he began recording his meeting with DYFS because he did not trust the authorities anymore.
“So many lies had been told about me,” he explained.
Collette-Freeman, using her cell phone and telling Jerry she had to check on his use of the tape recorder, telephoned her supervisor, Diane Rhile.
According to Jerry, Rhile told Collette-Freeman to end the meeting if he insisted on recording the conversation.
Since that time DYFS agents have refused to speak with Hall if he records the conversations.
“What are they afraid of?” Jerry says today. “I just want things to be accurate. It’s too easy for things to get twisted.”
The issue of Jerry’s taping has become a central focus of the matter for DYFS.
The issue of Jerry’s taping has become a central focus of the matter for DYFS.
According to John Rauh, an attorney with offices in Rio Grande, New Jersey is a state where “it is perfectly legal to tape record a conversation with the consent of only one of the parties to the conversation because there is no expectation of privacy.
“It is only in situations where there is an expectation of privacy or confidentiality such as a lawyer-client relationship or doctor-patient, that the consent of both parties would be necessary,” he added. “If a party waives confidentiality, I can’t
see the problem.”
“I wasn’t talking about my kids or nothing like that,” said Hall. “I just wanted to be accurate on what the DYFS people were telling me and what I was answering them. After all, it was my (personal life)
that was being laid out to everybody; if I didn’t care whether it was tape recorded why would they?”
Collette-Freeman, using the legal muscle of the attorney general’s office and Deputy Attorney General Tara Catanese (who did not return this newspaper’s phone calls), arranged for a session with CARA
(Coalition Against Rape and Abuse) for domestic violence counseling to which the Halls were ordered by the court.
She then sent them an “Authorization For Release of Information” form that would permit DYFS to “release information to the Coalition Against Rape and Abuse about me or my children,” Jerry said, explaining that he and Debbie wanted to be evaluated
independently of any preconceived DYFS notions that the Halls maintain are inaccurate. Also, he said, they did not want any information concerning their daughters going to the agency because their girls were not the ones going for counseling.
Collette-Freeman insisted they sign the release or CARA would not treat them because “it was procedure,” Jerry said she told the Halls. They have refused to sign the waiver, fearing the dissemination of “more misinformation.”
At the time of Debbie Hall’s hospitalization, an appointment was apparently made for them to meet with a CARA counselor but the information was not conveyed Jerry, he said. (He has tape recordings
of all the phone calls he has made to various counseling services, including CARA, when an attempt was made to set up an appointment for an evaluation.)
The Halls have lost legal custody and supervision of their children, which had been transferred to DYFS from the parents by court order in June 2000. That order was extended and broadened on Oct. 20, 2000, a decision, which was obtained ex parte (only
the DYFS side was represented and Halls’ attorney was not present) by Catanese, who alleged to the court that the Halls had denied access to their home and children to the DYFS workers, allegations which the Halls deny.
Even though the court found no basis to enter a Title 9 judgment against the Halls--a finding that would have placed the Halls on the same public registry as the most heinous of child molesters--it
neither dismissed the case nor returned legal custody of the children to the Halls.
The case was transferred to another judge before whom the Halls were required to appear in order to “monitor their progress,” the Halls said.
Their last court appearance was Aug. 9 in Superior Court. The couple stood before the judge represented by their attorney Michael Sorensen. No testimony was taken as to any of the issues that the
Halls found disturbing; they later told this newspaper. The Halls were prepared to present all of their recorded conversations to the judge, Kyran Connor, but he did not give them the chance, Jerry Hall said.
“We didn’t get to say our side of anything. The judge did not want to hear anything about our problems. It did not seem to matter that an appointment was made without us knowing. He said there was
no room for stubbornness and we must comply with a court order,” said Jerry. “I’m trying to comply but I just can’t lie. Is that what they want?”
The judge signed a pre-printed, fill-in-the-blank, check-off-the-box order, prepared by DYFS. Handwritten by someone other than the judge at the bottom of the order was the statement “Neither Gerald
nor Deborah Hall may tape record their conversations w/DYFS representatives and/or DYFS consultants.”
The Halls were also required to appear weekly before the court beginning Aug.30 “if they have not completed services.”
Printed at the bottom of the order in bold type is the following caveat: “THE FAILURE OF THE DEFENDANT (S) TO COMPLY WITH ANY PROVISION OF THIS ORDER OR THE DEFENDANT (S) CONTINUING FAILURE TO APPEAR MAY RESULT IN A DEFAULT BEING ENTERED BY THE COURT AND
MAY RESULT IN THE COMMENCEMENT OF A TERMINATION OF PARENTAL RIGHTS PROCEEDING. A TERMINATION OF PARENTAL RIGHTS WOULD FREE THE CHILD(REN) FOR ADOPTION.”
“We’re trying to comply but we can’t say we’ve done something wrong when we haven’t. The way it looks we may end up in jail,” lamented Jerry. His wife agreed. “They’re compelling me to do something
wrong to save my kids,” she said, adding that she hasn’t been able to sleep or eat out of fear and anxiety over what may happen to her family.
The problem, according to attorney Jackson, is not in the court system.
“The judge has to follow the laws the legislators pass. He can’t make up his own rules, and most of the time he’s going to side with another government agency,” he said. “For the past 50 years everybody was screaming that the courts didn’t protect the
children so they (the legislatures) passed these draconian laws that are worse than the original abuses in the majority of cases and they have run roughshod over Constitutional protections.”
In a state sensitive to charges of profiling practices, DYFS not only profiles but admits it in their own report.
The May 2000 Child Abuse and Neglect in New Jersey Report of DYFS states, that “Black females and white males comprised the majority of perpetrators in both 1997 and 1998. More than 55 percent of all female perpetrators were black and more than 42
percent of all male perpetrators were white.” The median age, according to the DYFS report, is 32.3 years for females and 36.7 for males.
Jerry Hall fit the white male stereotype, and he has a counterpart who is a black, single, female who, ironically, shares a return court date with him involving DYFS.
Next week we’ll tell her story.
|