[Kevin]

Originally Posted by als463

Wow to all of this. Admitting to having a controlled substance such as meth is no where near child molestation charges. As someone who works in addictions, I'd be willing to bet that her real crime wasn't simply "hanging out with the wrong crowd." Come on!

Typical CPS worker... making up your mind without having all of the facts. One of the first things I do with criminal clients with drug charges is send them off for a hair follicle the same day they come in to see me. Criminal clients have a way of lieing and I like to know--really know what I'm dealing with. In this case, when she came in to see me, she was clean. Also, without going in too much on the details, she was simply giving the wrong person a ride and consented to a search not knowing that there were drugs and a gun in her car.

I don't care how many years you are looking at--when it comes to something seen as the most heinous of crimes, no one wants to admit to being a child molester. No one!

Well again, you don't understand the choice this man faced. Either 1) admit you did it, get a suspended sentence or 2) don't admit you did it, go to trial, potentially retraumatize your child (which will happen whether you're actually guilty or not) and face the potential of 20 or more years in the penitentiary where you will still be a convicted child molester. What a choice. Most attorneys, if the state's evidence includes an interview with the child (even a three year old which a good defense attorney can have a field day with) are going to recommend 1) --take the deal, pay some money and enjoy being wealthy and free.

As far as the CPS worker qualifications, I somewhat agree and somewhat disagree. Yes, there are many people who probably shouldn't be in that field because they are definitely not qualified. Couldn't we say that about any profession though?

I can think of no other profession where a person with such low qualifications can have such huge responsibility and power.

Having said that, I find it offensive that you would just "roll" your eyes at some of these people because you figure they are a bunch of uneducated or unqualified knuckle-dragging cavemen. I'm thinking you aren't too popular with people who work in social services, are you?

You're putting words in my mouth. I roll my eyes because I know how little they typically put into a case before making huge life changing recomendations for families, including termination. A good example is that sorta famousish case I had last year. We had a botched pickup where the intake worker really just did an awful job. Our original petition was going to be for a recomendation of termination based on "shocking and heinous" allegations. It all turned out to be a misunderstanding which probably should have been worked prevention in the first place. In this case, I got lucky. The difference was some arbitary change in supervisors and a supervisor who gave the case a second glance.

I defend parents quite often where caseworkers have lept to conclusions because of the sort of thing you sort of said earlier--"In my experience with meth cases, blah blah blah." That's the sort of crazy reasoning I hear from caseworkers sometimes. Utterly mind blowing. So yes, I'm the first person to question the caseworker's report. It's my job to do that.