By DAVID IGNELL
My previous articles in Must Read Alaska about the Office of Children’s Services have generated several positive meetings with legislators and their staff interested in resolving these systemic problems.
They’ve acknowledged the repetitive patterns of shocking behavior by OCS that have plagued Alaskan families for decades. They realize any further delay to meaningful reform will result in more families being destroyed and some children being trafficked.
State officials from OCS, Department of Law, and Office of Public Advocacy are a different breed, though. They typically don’t return my calls or respond to emails. On the rare occasions I’ve had an opportunity to talk with them, they’ve walked away or hung up the phone.
These executive branch bureaucrats are supposed to be public servants, but instead are prone to retaliate when their actions are questioned. They live in an echo chamber insulated by hundreds of millions of dollars in federal and state funds which buys them loyalty. Working together, these three agencies have suppressed our constitutional rights to liberty and justice with their greed for more money and power.
Decades of failures by some legislatures and governors to reform OCS suggest we should redirect our focus to reforming the judiciary branch. It’s common sense after all. Laws and policies mean nothing when our judges ignore them and get away with it.
Bad judicial behavior – the norm
Take AK Mom’s case for example. Her five children were taken by OCS one night under an unsubstantiated claim of “emergency medical abuse.” Existing laws to protect the family’s rights were blatantly ignored by the judiciary. A judge was required to make a finding, within 48 hours, that there was a substantial chance each of the five children had to be removed immediately to protect their lives.
No judge did that though, likely because there was absolutely no evidence to support OCS’s actions.
Two years later, the judiciary still hasn’t forced OCS to prove anything. In April, a trial started but Judge Kristen Stohler gave the entire two weeks of allotted time to OCS. AK Mom was not given a chance to present any evidence in her favor. She’s had expert witnesses on standby for over a year, ready to testify she did nothing wrong, but the judiciary keeps stringing them along.
What AK Mom’s family and supporters hoped would be an opportunity for justice ended up as a cruel and expensive tease. Her legal bills increased by $20,000. Judge Stohler appears to have joined forces with OCS to play the delay game when the truth makes our government look bad.
The trial won’t resume until mid-July. After a few days it will be put on pause again and not start again until late October. A judicial system that denies a family a chance at justice and reunification for two years is an outrage, but stringing out the trial an additional seven months is pure viciousness.
Most of AK Mom’s kids were in attendance in the courtroom throughout the two weeks to support their mother. They wanted to go home but that critical fact meant little to Judge Stohler.
What the public is watching is a slow moving trainwreck with five innocent kids on it. The judiciary can stop it but won’t.
The harm to AK Mom’s family grows daily. The day after the trial was put on hold George ran away again from another foster home. He was gone all night, but no one from OCS bothered to inform AK Mom. She found out about it the next morning from a friend who sent her an APD Missing Juvenile Alert.
It’s practically useless under our existing system to file a complaint against the judges involved, and they know it. Any complaints go into the black hole known as the Alaska Commission on Judicial Conduct, an agency notorious for protecting judges behind their closed doors.
Good judicial behavior – a rare glimmer of hope
Two weeks ago, Alaskans got a glimpse of what judges should do when OCS breaks laws. Bethel Superior Court Judge Terrance Haas showed Alaskans he not only cares about families but was courageous enough to face down OCS. Haas issued an incredibly rare public sanction against OCS for their callous behavior towards a 12-year-old girl in their custody.
This girl had expressed suicidal ideations, causing OCS to remove her from a foster home and admit her into a hospital. OCS kept her there alone for a week. They didn’t bother to notify the girl’s parents, tribe or guardian ad litem. They just left her there, by herself, for a week — a 12-year-old thinking of suicide.
As usual, OCS’s actions violated several laws but for once a judge called them out. His order drew attention to one of the primary problems in our foster system — OCS, DOL, OPA and the judiciary operate in a largely secret environment, creating outcomes the public and the Legislature are not aware of.
Judge Haas will likely need legislative and public support to hold on to his job. OCS is renowned for retaliating against people who stand up to them, and the Bethel judge just did that — in a major way. Even though Haas’s next retention election isn’t until 2028, OCS may not wait that long to retaliate. OCS has extremely deep pockets and influence over many individuals; some eager to curry the favor of a powerful bureaucracy, and others who can be manipulated by fear.
Watch your back Judge Haas; false claims against you or your family may surface out of nowhere.
Judges like Terrence Haas are rare, but Alaskan families put at risk by OCS misconduct desperately need more like him. Fortunately, the Legislature has the power to ensure federal and state laws protecting families are upheld by more competent, knowledgeable, and humanistic judges like Haas.
A few months ago, Sen. Mike Shower and Rep. George Rauscher introduced similar bills seeking judicial reform. SB 31 and HB 82 quickly got bogged down in committee, but Chairs Sen. Scott Kawasaki and Rep. Sarah Vance can make up for lost ground by working on them over the summer.
I submitted comments and proposed amendments to both bills back in March. One amendment called for the creation of specialized family courts with judges selected by non-partisan elections. Former Attorney General for Gov. Hickel, Edgar Paul Boyko, was a very outspoken proponent of legislatively created family courts towards the end of his career.
My next article will focus on these proposed amendments and Boyko’s recommendations as a viable solution to a decades long nightmare.
David Ignell was born and raised in Juneau, where he currently resides. He holds a law degree from University of San Diego and formerly practiced as a licensed attorney in California. He has experience as a volunteer analyst for the California Innocence Project, and is currently a forensic journalist and author of a recent book on the Alaska Grand Jury.
