Associated Press – Attorney Legal Counsel

$2.3B Awarded in Sex Abuse Lawsuit That Named Mormon Church

attorneylegalcounsel99 — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 07:48:38 +0000

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — A woman who was molested for years by her stepfather has been awarded $2.28 billion by a California jury in a lawsuit that also implicated her mother and the local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in which both parents were active, her attorneys announced.

The panel in Riverside County Superior Court awarded damages Tuesday to a woman described in court papers only as Jane Doe, who said she was sexually assaulted by her stepfather from age 5 until she was 14, according to an announcement by the law firm of Gary A. Dordick.

The lawsuit alleged that beginning in the 1980s, the stepfather sexually abused the girl. The assaults took place at their Lake Elsinore home and at events, meetings, and property of the local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the lawsuit said.

“These ongoing acts of abuse brought Plaintiff to the brink of suicide,” according to the lawsuit.

In addition to the stepfather, the negligence and sexual abuse suit also named the church and the woman’s mother. It alleged that the woman repeatedly told church officials, including local bishops, about the sexual abuse but that they failed to report it to law enforcement in violation of church policy and also used “intimidation and shaming tactics” to keep her from telling anyone outside the church.

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The AP is not naming the stepfather nor the mother to shield the identity of the victim. An email to the stepfather’s attorney seeking comment wasn’t returned.

The stepfather was arrested in 1997 after Jane Doe told her high school basketball coach about the abuse, the suit said. He pleaded guilty to committing lewd acts with a child under age 14 and spent three years in state prison, according to the lawsuit.

While denying wrongdoing, the church settled its part of the lawsuit for $1 million in December, and the woman’s mother settled for $200,000 in February, according to the woman’s lawyers.

The stepfather failed to appear at trial on the first day of jury selection and withdrew his answer to the lawsuit rather than face a warrant for his arrest, and “accordingly, his attorney was not able to participate in the trial,” the law firm said in an email.

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California’s Top Prosecutor Won’t Seek Charges in 2020 Fatal Police Shooting of Bay Area Man

attorneylegalcounsel99 — Mon, 25 Dec 2023 06:37:11 +0000

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California’s attorney general will not seek criminal charges against a police officer who in 2020 fatally shot a man outside a pharmacy in the San Francisco Bay Area amid national protests over the police killing of George Floyd, his office announced Tuesday.

California attorney General Rob Bonta found there was not enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Jarrett Tonn, who was a detective with the Vallejo Police Department at the time of the shooting, did not act in self-defense or in defense of his partner officers.

“Sean Monterrosa’s life mattered and there is nothing that can make up for his death. His loss is and will continue to be felt by his family and the Bay Area community,” Bonta said in a statement.

“My office remains committed to doing everything in our power to prevent these kinds of incidents from occurring and putting forward policy solutions to help ensure law enforcement are responsive to the needs of their communities,” he added.

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Tonn fired a rifle five times through the windshield of his patrol pickup, hitting a kneeling Monterrosa once in the head. Police said they initially thought Monterrosa was carrying a handgun in his waistband. But they found a hammer in the pocket of a sweatshirt he was wearing.

The windshield of the patrol pickup truck, considered a key piece of evidence in the case, was destroyed, leading city officials to seek a criminal investigation into how that happened. Bonta took the case in 2021 after Solano County District attorney Krishna Abrams recused herself.

Bonta found there was no destruction of evidence by the Vallejo Police Department and said that the officers who replaced the windshield were not involved in the shooting.

“The officers did not act with a criminal intent to suppress or destroy evidence when they had the windshield replaced and returned the vehicle to service,” he said.

Michelle Monterrosa, Sean Monterrosa’s sister, said Tuesday she found Bonta’s decision frustrating and disappointing. “It’s just really disappointing that we see people put their political careers ahead of actually doing what they need to do to bring justice to our loved ones,” she said.

Tonn was terminated last year after an independent third-party investigation determined he violated several department policies, including using deadly force that was not objectively reasonable, failing to de-escalate the situation, and failing to activate his body-worn camera in a timely manner. Tonn’s termination was overturned this year after an arbitrator found the deadly force he used was legally justified. The detective was reinstated to his job in August.

The Vallejo Police Department has come under repeated criticism in other cases as well.

The month after Monterrosa’s killing, then-Police Chief Shawny Williams started an independent investigation after two people in the department said officers had their badges bent to mark on-duty killings.

The department has had several other controversial slayings by police, including that of Willie McCoy, 20, of Suisun City, in February 2019. McCoy was killed after he fell asleep with a gun in his lap in his car at a Taco Bell drive-thru. Six Vallejo officers fired 55 shots.

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An Australian lunch host is charged with 3 murders using poisonous mushrooms

attorneylegalcounsel99 — Fri, 03 Nov 2023 11:34:16 +0000

MORWELL, Australia (AP) — A woman accused of serving her ex-husband’s parents and an aunt poisonous mushrooms with lunch appeared in an Australian court Friday, charged with three counts of murder and five of attempted murder.

Erin Patterson, 49, did not enter pleas or apply to be released on bail when she appeared briefly in a local court in Morwell in Victoria state.

Police had arrested her Thursday at her home in Leongatha, where her former husband Simon Patterson, 48; his parents, Gail and Don Patterson, both 70; Gail Patterson’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66; and Wilkinson’s husband, Ian Wilkison, 68, had been invited to lunch on July 29.

The murder charges relate to Erin Patterson’s parents-in-law and aunt-in-law, who had been hospitalized the next day and died within days.

She was charged with the attempted murder of Ian Wilkinson, a Baptist pastor who became critically ill and spent seven weeks in the hospital.

The remaining attempted murder charges relate to her former husband over various events, including the fatal lunch that he was invited to but did not attend. Police allege Simon Patterson became ill after eating three meals in 2021 and 2022, but didn’t specify Erin Patterson’s alleged involvement.

The potential maximum sentence in Victoria for murder is life imprisonment, and for attempted murder, 25 years in prison.

The defendant’s two children were at home during the lunch in July but did not share the allegedly poisonous beef Wellington dish.

Police searched Erin Patterson’s house Thursday with what they described as “technology detection dogs.” Predominantly Labradors, the dogs are trained to sniff out electronic storage devices that can be hidden in wall cavities and containers of food.

Prosecutor Greg Ellis requested the case be adjourned for 20 weeks to allow police time to analyze computer equipment seized from the home.

Magistrate Tim Walsh ordered Erin Patterson to remain in custody and appear in court next on May 3.

Walsh told her it was important that her case “progresses through the system as fast as possible.”

She replied “OK” and nodded her head.

Police say the symptoms of the four family members who attended the lunch were consistent with poisoning from wild Amanita phalloides, known as death cap mushrooms.

Patterson has publicly denied any wrongdoing.

“I’m devastated. I loved them. I can’t believe that this has happened and I’m so sorry,” she tearfully told reporters two days after the third death.

The Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported that Patterson wrote in a statement that she cooked the meal using mushrooms bought from a major supermarket chain and dried mushrooms from an Asian grocery store. She wrote that she also ate the meal and later had stomach pains and diarrhea.

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Donald Trump, Skipping GOP Debate, Eyes California Delegate Sweep in the State He Loves to Hate

attorneylegalcounsel99 — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 05:31:43 +0000

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Few corners of the U.S. may be less hospitable to Donald Trump than California, where he lost by more than 5 million votes in the 2020 election. But as the former president seeks to return to the White House, the liberal bastion may give him an unlikely boost.

A state GOP rule change has opened the possibility that Trump could sweep each of the state’s 169 delegates on March 5, when California is among more than a dozen states participating in the so-called Super Tuesday contests. With Trump already leading his rivals in many state and national polls, a dominant performance in California could move him much closer to the GOP nomination.

“This race is quickly consolidating,” said GOP fundraiser Charles Moran, a Trump delegate in 2016 and 2020. With a win in California, he added, “I truly think Trump could take the nomination on Super Tuesday — then this is over.”

With less than four months before the Iowa caucuses officially kick off the GOP nomination process, the dynamics of the race could still change. But Trump is keeping a close eye on the state, where his most prominent Republican rivals will gather without him on Wednesday for the second presidential debate. While Trump is skipping the event, he has made sure to be in California on Friday to appear at the state’s GOP convention, where many of the people who will ultimately serve as delegates will be in attendance.

In what would be an ironic twist, the state where the former president is widely loathed outside his conservative base could help him tighten his grip on the Republican White House nomination.

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Trump, who is facing criminal charges in four separate cases, has long had a conflicted relationship with California, the nation’s most populous state, where Democrats haven’t lost a statewide election since 2006 and outnumber registered Republicans by about 2-to-1.

California was home to the so-called Trump resistance during his time in office, and Trump often depicts California as representing all he sees wrong in America. As president, he called the homeless crises in Los Angeles, San Francisco and other big cities disgraceful, and threatened to intercede — faulting the “liberal establishment” for what he described as a “terrible situation.”

He berated state Democrats who supported funding health care for some adults who entered the U.S. illegally, and challenged California’s authority to reduce car emissions. Then-state attorney General Xavier Becerra filed more than 50 lawsuits against the Trump administration, targeting initiatives on immigration, health care and the environment.

Still, the Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles sits on the Pacific coast south of the city. And even in losing California in a landslide in 2020, Trump received over 6 million votes — more than any Republican presidential candidate before him — with his margins topping 70% in some rural counties that typically favor conservative candidates.

California probably will be an afterthought in November 2024 — the state’s lopsided electorate makes it a virtual lock for Democrats on Election Day. You’d have to go back to 2000 to find a Republican nominee pushing hard to win California, when George W. Bush invested millions in the state then lost to Democrat Al Gore by 12 points.

Under the rule change, a Republican presidential candidate who pulls in more than 50% of the primary vote would be awarded all 169 delegates. If no candidate hits that threshold, delegates will be awarded proportionally.

Such a winner-take-all rule didn’t exist in recent presidential elections in the state. Previously, the California GOP primary amounted to dozens of separate races on a single day — one in each congressional district across the sprawling state, and then one statewide. The winner in each district collected three delegates; the candidate who received the largest number of votes statewide claimed a bonus of about a dozen more.

That created a competitive environment where Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi ’s district in San Francisco awarded the same number of GOP delegates as a rural, conservative heartland district.

When the change was adopted in late July, state party Chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson predicted it would lure GOP presidential candidates to California to campaign, drive turnout and make the state relevant in picking the party’s 2024 nominee.

But others believe it has had the opposite effect, stifling competition in a state where buying media advertising across half a dozen markets comes at a huge, prohibitive cost. The vastness of the state, home to nearly 1-in-8 Americans, makes it hard to get to all the regions. The previous guidelines encouraged candidates to target specific districts — now, one candidate can collect them all.

“The effect of the change has been to effectively terminate the Republican primary in California,” said conservative activist Jon Fleishman, a former executive director of the state GOP.

The state party — strongly influenced by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, a Trump loyalist — “shifted everything to help Donald Trump,” Fleishman said.

In a sign of the fallout, a super PAC supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Never Back Down, recently curtailed operations in California. The committee says it had knocked on over 100,000 doors over several months but has shifted its focus elsewhere.

“The Trump team came in to rig the rules in their favor,” Ken Cuccinelli, who was deputy secretary of Homeland Security during the Trump administration and founded the PAC, said in a statement.

Similar rule changes seen as benefiting the Trump campaign are playing out elsewhere, including in Michigan and Nevada, where some GOP leaders fear changing guidelines could confuse voters. The California rules are expected to be challenged at a state party convention next week, though reversing course is seen as unlikely.

“Nobody is seriously trying to repeal it,” said longtime conservative activist Steve Frank.

The home turf of Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, California was once reliably Republican in presidential elections. Pronounced demographic shifts, particularly a boom in the Hispanic population, and a shifting economy that included the collapse of the defense industry, changed everything.

The number of Hispanics, Blacks and Asian-Americans combined has outnumbered whites in California since 1998, and Latinos alone have outnumbered the white population for about a decade. Most new voters are Democrats or left-leaning independents. Democrats hold every statewide office and dominate the Legislature and the congressional delegation.

California’s Republican Party has been in decline for years, and GOP voters account for just 23.8% of the statewide total, slightly ahead of independents. Infighting between conservatives and moderates persists, and dueling factions are expected to brawl at the state party convention over a proposed rewrite of the party platform, moving it toward the political center.

The last Republican to win a presidential contest in California was George H.W. Bush, in 1988. Since then, it’s been a long string of Election Day misery: John McCain, the 2008 GOP nominee against Barack Obama, boasted about competing in California but lost by 24 points. Mitt Romney suffered a 23-point loss to Obama in 2012. Trump lost there to Hillary Clinton in 2016 by 30 points.

However, pockets of Republican strength remain, including in the vast Central Valley farm belt and the so-called Inland Empire running east and north of Los Angeles. Despite his penchant for California-bashing, Trump won 23 of the state’s 58 counties in the state in 2020, mostly in the state’s farm belt and rural interior.

Once the primary is over, California’s relevance may lie in a string of competitive House seats, including several in Orange County southeast of Los Angeles, which are expected to play into control of the closely divided chamber next year.

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Hunter Biden indicted on federal firearms charges in long-running probe weeks after plea deal failed

attorneylegalcounsel99 — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 17:59:42 +0000

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hunter Biden was indicted Thursday on federal firearms charges, the latest and weightiest step yet in a long-running investigation into the president’s son.

Biden is accused of lying about his drug use when he bought a firearm in October 2018, a period when he has acknowledged struggling with addiction to crack cocaine, according to the indictment filed in federal court in Delaware.

President Joe Biden’s son has also been under investigation for his business dealings. The special counsel overseeing the case has indicated that charges of failure to pay taxes on time could be filed in Washington or in California, where he lives.

The indictment comes as congressional Republicans pursue an impeachment inquiry into the Democratic president, in large part over Hunter Biden’s business dealings. Republicans have obtained testimony about how Hunter Biden used the “Biden brand” to drum up work overseas, but they have not produced hard evidence of wrongdoing by the president.

A gun possession charge against Hunter Biden, 53, had previously been part of a plea deal that also included guilty pleas to misdemeanor tax charges, but the agreement imploded during a court hearing in July when a judge raised questions about its unusual provisions.

Defense attorneys have argued that a part of the deal sparing Hunter Biden prosecution on the gun count if he stays out of trouble remains in place. It includes immunity provisions against other potential charges. Attorneys indicated they would fight additional charges filed against him.

Prosecutors, though, maintain the agreement never took effect and is now invalid.

Republicans had denounced the plea agreement as a “sweetheart deal.” It would have allowed Hunter Biden to serve probation rather than jail time after pleading guilty to failing to pay taxes in both 2017 and 2018.

His personal income during those two years totaled roughly $4 million, including business and consulting fees from a company he formed with the CEO of a Chinese business conglomerate and the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, prosecutors have said.

Congressional Republicans have continued their own investigations into the Justice Department’s handling of the case as well as nearly every aspect of Hunter Biden’s business dealings, seeking to connect his financial affairs directly to his father. They have failed to produce evidence that the president directly participated in his son’s work, though he sometimes had dinner with his son’s clients or said hello to them on calls.

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Prosecution Rests at Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Impeachment Trial

attorneylegalcounsel99 — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 08:53:54 +0000

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A woman who was expected to testify about an extramarital affair with Texas attorney General Ken Paxton made a sudden appearance Wednesday at his impeachment trial, but never took the stand as the prosecutors abruptly rested their case against the Republican.

The affair is central to the historic proceedings and accusations that Paxton misused his power to help Austin real estate developer Nate Paul, who was under FBI investigation and employed the woman, Laura Olson. One of the 16 articles of impeachment against Paxton alleges that Paul’s hiring of Olson amounted to a bribe.

Olson was called to take the stand Wednesday morning in the Texas Senate and waited outside the chamber. But her testimony was delayed for hours before Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is acting as the trial’s judge, said toward the end of the day that Olson would not testify after all. He provided no further explanation but said both sides had agreed to it.

“She is present but has been deemed unavailable to testify,” Patrick said.

Shortly after the announcement, Rusty Hardin, a lawyer for the bipartisan group of lawmakers prosecuting Paxton’s impeachment said he was resting their case. Paxton attorney Tony Buzbee then moved to end the trial on the grounds of insufficient evidence, but later withdrew the request without a vote shorty before the trial adjourned for the day. It was scheduled to resume Thursday.

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Paxton, who was suspended from office pending the outcome of the trial, is not required to attend the proceedings. He has not appeared in the Senate since testimony began last week. As the scene played out Wednesday evening, the attorney general posted on social media that he was headed to Maine next week to talk with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson about “the last two weeks in Texas politics.”

“It should be interesting!” Paxton said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Olson also previously worked for Republican state Sen. Donna Campbell, who will have a vote in the trial. That underscores the many entanglements Ken Paxton has in the building as he fights for his political life after years of alleged scandal and criminal charges.

Former staff have testified that Paxton admitted to them that he had an affair. The three-term incumbent, who was reelected last November, has not discussed it publicly.

Olson has not spoken publicly about her relationship with Texas’ top law enforcement officer and his dealings with Paul, who was indicted in June on charges of making false statements to banks. Paul has pleaded not guilty.

Paxton’s former executive aide, Drew Wicker, testified Wednesday, describing Paxton as a friend and saying he met Paul three times, including once to deliver him a manila envelope and another to pick up Paxton’s phone that he had left at Paul’s house.

When Paxton began staying in an Austin hotel in 2020 while his home was being renovated, Wicker said, Paxton would call off his protective detail and have Wicker pick him up and drop him off instead. He said Paxton frequently did things and went places that were not on his schedule, including meetings with Paul, and that he saw Paxton and Olson together at the hotel.

Wicker said the cost for new countertops and cabinetry in Paxton’s kitchen came to about $20,000. He said he grew concerned after the contractor said three times that he would have to “check with Nate.”

Wicker said he told Paxton that he was left with the impression that Paul was involved in the renovations of Paxton’s home.

“It felt like there might be an inappropriate relationship there,” Wicker recalled telling Paxton. He said Paxton said that was not the case.

On cross-examination, Paxton lawyer Buzbee showed Wicker bank statements that Wicker affirmed appeared to show Paxton paying for the renovations to his home. At a June news conference, Buzbee displayed bank records that showed Paxton making that payment to a company run by an associate of Paul one day after the attorney general’s deputies reported him to the FBI.

The FBI investigation of Paxton and Paul’s dealings also scrutinized the renovations, with at least one Austin contractor receiving a grand jury subpoena in 2021 for records related to the work.

Bleiberg reported from Dallas.

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Indiana justices won’t hear 2nd abortion case for now

attorneylegalcounsel99 — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 15:58:43 +0000

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Indiana’s high court said it will not immediately consider a challenge to the state’s abortion ban that is based on the argument that the law violates some people’s religious freedoms, leaving that decision to an appeals court, at least for now.

The state Supreme Court issued an order Monday saying the state Court of Appeals will first consider the case, after a lower court judge in December sided with residents who claim the state’s abortion ban infringes on their religious beliefs. The state attorney general’s office appealed that decision, asking the high court to take up the case.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed the lawsuit in September on behalf of those residents — who hold Muslim, Jewish and other faiths — after Republican state lawmakers enacted the ban last summer.

The ACLU and the state attorney general’s office did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

Indiana’s ban, which was signed into law by Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb, goes against those residents’ religious values regarding when they believe the treatment is acceptable, the lawsuit argues.

Earlier in January, the state Supreme Court heard arguments in a lawsuit filed by abortion clinic operators. The court has maintained a block on the abortion ban while it considers the case, after a county judge in September initially found the law likely violated privacy protections under the state constitution.

While Indiana’s ban is blocked, abortion will remain legal in the state up to 20 weeks post-fertilization.

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, religious freedoms lawsuits against states’ abortion bans have sprouted across the country, where abortion-rights supporters are aiming to protect access to abortion and defend their beliefs.

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Arleigh Rodgers is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/arleighrodgers

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Child Welfare Algorithm Faces Justice Department Scrutiny

attorneylegalcounsel99 — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 14:56:58 +0000

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Justice Department has been scrutinizing a controversial artificial intelligence tool used by a Pittsburgh-area child protective services agency following concerns that it could result in discrimination against families with disabilities, The Associated Press has learned.

The interest from federal civil rights attorneys comes after an AP investigation revealed potential bias and transparency issues about the opaque algorithm that is designed to assess a family’s risk level when they are reported for child welfare concerns in Allegheny County.

Several civil rights complaints were filed in the fall about the Allegheny Family Screening Tool, which is used to help social workers decide which families to investigate, AP has learned.

Two sources said that attorneys in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division cited the AP investigation when urging them to submit formal complaints detailing their concerns about how the algorithm could harden bias against people with disabilities, including families with mental health issues.

A third person told AP that the same group of federal civil rights attorneys also spoke with them in November as part of a broad conversation about how algorithmic tools could potentially exacerbate disparities, including for people with disabilities. That conversation explored the design and construction of Allegheny’s influential algorithm, though the full scope of the Justice Department’s interest is unknown.

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All three sources spoke to AP on the condition of anonymity, saying the Justice Department asked them not to discuss the confidential conversations, and two said they also feared professional retaliation.

Wyn Hornbuckle, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to comment.

Algorithms use pools of information to turn data points into predictions, whether that’s for online shopping, identifying crime hot spots or hiring workers. Many child welfare agencies in the U.S. are considering adopting such tools as part of their work with children and families.

Though there’s been widespread debate over the moral consequences of using artificial intelligence in child protective services, the Justice Department’s interest in the pioneering Allegheny algorithm marks a significant turn toward possible legal implications.

Supporters see algorithms as a promising way to make a strained child protective services system both more thorough and efficient, saying child welfare officials should use all tools at their disposal to make sure children aren’t maltreated. But critics worry that including data points collected largely from people who are poor can automate discrimination against families based on race, income, disabilities or other external characteristics.

Robin Frank, a veteran family law attorney in Pittsburgh and vocal critic of the Allegheny algorithm, said she also filed a complaint with the Justice Department in October on behalf of a client with an intellectual disability who is fighting to get his daughter back from foster care. The AP obtained a copy of the complaint, which raised concerns about how the Allegheny Family Screening Tool assesses a family’s risk.

“I think it’s important for people to be aware of what their rights are and to the extent that we don’t have a lot of information when there seemingly are valid questions about the algorithm, it’s important to have some oversight,” Frank said.

Mark Bertolet, spokesman for the Allegheny County Department of Human Services, said by email that the agency had not heard from the Justice Department and declined interview requests.

“We are not aware of any concerns about the inclusion of these variables from research groups’ past evaluation or community feedback on the (Allegheny Family Screening Tool),” the county said, describing previous studies and outreach regarding the tool.

Allegheny County said its algorithm has used data points tied to disabilities in children, parents and other members of local households because they can help predict the risk that a child will be removed from their home after a maltreatment report. The county added that it has updated its algorithm several times and has sometimes removed disabilities-related data points.

The Allegheny Family Screening Tool was specifically designed to predict the risk that a child will be placed in foster care in the two years after the family is investigated. It has used a trove of detailed personal data collected from child welfare history, as well as birth, Medicaid, substance abuse, mental health, jail and probation records, among other government data sets. When the algorithm calculates a risk score of 1 to 20, the higher the number, the greater the risk. The risk score alone doesn’t determine what happens in the case.

The AP first revealed racial bias and transparency concerns in a story last April that focused on the Allegheny tool and how its statistical calculations help social workers decide which families should be investigated for neglect – a nuanced term that can include everything from inadequate housing to poor hygiene, but is a different category from physical or sexual abuse, which is investigated separately in Pennsylvania and is not subject to the algorithm.

A child welfare investigation can result in vulnerable families receiving more support and services, but it can also lead to the removal of children for foster care and ultimately, the termination of parental rights.

The county has said that hotline workers determine what happens with a family’s case and can always override the tool’s recommendations. It has also underscored that the tool is only applied to the beginning of a family’s potential involvement with the child welfare process. A different social worker who later conducts the investigations, as well as families and their attorneys, aren’t allowed to know the scores.

Allegheny’s algorithm, in use since 2016, has at times drawn from data related to Supplemental Security Income, a Social Security Administration program that provides monthly payments to adults and children with a disability; as well as diagnoses for mental, behavioral and neurodevelopmental disorders, including schizophrenia or mood disorders, AP found.

The county said that when the disabilities data is included, it “is predictive of the outcomes” and “it should come as no surprise that parents with disabilities … may also have a need for additional supports and services.” The county added that there are other risk assessment programs that use data about mental health and other conditions that may affect a parent’s ability to care for a child.

The AP obtained records showing hundreds of specific variables that are used to calculate the risk scores for families who are reported to child protective services, including the public data that powers the Allegheny algorithm and similar tools deployed in child welfare systems elsewhere in the U.S.

The AP’s analysis of Allegheny’s algorithm and those inspired by it in Los Angeles County, California, Douglas County, Colorado, and in Oregon reveals a range of controversial data points that have measured people with low incomes and other disadvantaged demographics, at times measuring families on race, zip code, disabilities and their use of public welfare benefits.

The Justice Department has shown a broad interest in investigating algorithms in recent years, said Christy Lopez, a Georgetown University law professor who previously led some of the Justice Department’s civil rights division litigation and investigations.

In a keynote about a year ago, Assistant attorney General Kristen Clarke warned that AI technologies had “serious implications for the rights of people with disabilities,” and her division more recently issued guidance to employers saying using AI tools in hiring could violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“They are doing their jobs as civil rights investigators to get to the bottom of what’s going on,” Lopez said of the Justice Department scrutiny of Allegheny’s tool. “It appears to me that this is a priority for the division, investigating the extent to which algorithms are perpetuating discriminatory practices.”

Traci LaLiberte, a University of Minnesota expert on child welfare and disabilities, said the Justice Department’s inquiry stood out to her, as federal authorities have largely deferred to local child welfare agencies.

“The Department of Justice is pretty far afield from child welfare,” LaLiberte said. “It really has to rise to the level of pretty significant concern to dedicate time and get involved.”

Emily Putnam-Hornstein and Rhema Vaithianathan, the two developers of Allegheny’s algorithm and other tools like it, deferred to Allegheny County’s answers about the algorithm’s inner workings. They said in an email that they were unaware of any Justice Department scrutiny relating to the algorithm.

Researchers and community members have long raised concerns that some of the data powering child welfare algorithms may heighten historical biases against marginalized people within children protective services. That includes parents with disabilities, a community that is a protected class under federal civil rights law.

The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability, which can include a wide spectrum of conditions, from diabetes, cancer and hearing loss to intellectual disabilities and mental and behavioral health diagnosis like ADHD, depression and schizophrenia.

LaLiberte has published research detailing how parents with disabilities are disproportionately affected by the child welfare system. She challenged the idea of using data points related to disabilities in any algorithm because, she said, that assesses characteristics people can’t change, rather than their behavior.

“If it isn’t part of the behavior, then having it in the (algorithm) biases it,” LaLiberte said.

Burke reported from San Francisco.

Follow Sally Ho and Garance Burke on Twitter at @_sallyho and @garanceburke. Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/

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California County to Pay $32M in Child Welfare Settlement

attorneylegalcounsel99 — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 03:45:25 +0000

VISALIA, Calif. (AP) — Central California’s Tulare County will pay $32 million to settle a lawsuit alleging its child welfare agency failed to respond to reports of abuse involving an infant boy who was hospitalized for malnutrition and suffered brain damage, plaintiffs’ attorneys said Monday.

Under the terms of the settlement, the county must also implement policies and computer software that will enable Child Welfare Services to better track and follow up on allegations of child abuse, according to a statement by the law firm Panish Shea Boyle Ravipudi.

Tulare County officials and its attorneys did not immediately respond Monday to requests for comment on the settlement.

The deal was announced just weeks before trial was scheduled in the civil case filed last February on behalf of a child named in court papers as “J.G.”

The lawsuit alleged Child Welfare Services failed to investigate multiple reports starting in March 2020 claiming that J.G. suffered neglect and abuse while in the custody of his biological parents.

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At 10 months old, the boy was hospitalized and suffered “profound and permanent brain damage due to severe malnutrition,” according to the court filing.

The lawsuit accused the county, the child welfare agency and its employees of negligence. It sought unspecified monetary damages for “physical, mental and emotional pain and suffering.”

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