[BUGSWOL]

Any thoughts or advice? Thank you.

[lastchance]

Tell them to find a private lawyer who can truly dedicate his or her time to defending them and helping them navigate the sytem. Yes it will be expensive but maybe friends and family will be willing to help out.

Tell them most of all DO NOT SPEAK TO CPS AT ALL FOR ANY REASON WITHOUT THEIR ATTORNEY PRESENT TO ADVISE THEM. I can not stress that enough. They are walking through minefield and without proper legal representation they are gonna trip one of the mines.

Second go on the offensive. Publicize as much as possible the medical findings which exonerate them in the death of their child. Publicize any improper or breaches of policy by CPS workers. An example would be not telling the parents of their rights during proceedings. Or giving the impression that a court had sanctioned CPS actions when it had not. CPS has a hard time distinguishing between should and shall and often ignores the restraints that law actually puts on them.

Best to them.

[Scotsman will be Free]

I have little info on this case, but I do know, from personal and professional experience, that CPS in the state of Washington are mostly a bunch of unprofessional, make up the rules as you go along, liberal scumbags. CPS gets sued all of the time and usually loses. They totally suck.

[mad_as_he$$]

Change lawyers - tomorrow.

[Irenic]

Raeding around some and found this, I have no idea if it is worth beans.
http://familyrights.us/how_to/fight_cps.html

Also, Oregon sure sounds like a nasty place, check out this story!
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/may092010/noah_kirkman_bk.php

[genghis]

it is bloody nauseating that some bureaucrat who doesn’t care about anybody but his paycheck can do anything remotely similar to this.

[Lady Lucky]

Nicest lawyers ever:

http://www.christianlaw.org/cla/

Their homeschool law site:

http://homeschoollegaladvantage.com/

Founder and president of CLA is David Gibbs, who represented the Schindlers in the Terri Schiavo controversy.

Don’t worry that they are located in FL, they will help if they can.

[Persevero]

Have them immediately seek legal help from the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). This is all they do, they do it well, and last I heard they’ve never lost a case (over decades of work).

If that doesn’t help, try the Rutherford Institute or the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ). Just their type of case.

[A_perfect_lady]

The more I read about this case, the more I really do think you should stay out of it. This little girl left Ethiopa in 2008? At around the age of 10? And between that time and her death, she lost 30 lbs? Even if that wasn't the adoptive parents fault, they must have known that it is not normal for a child that age to be losing weight instead of gaining it. And again, why was she outside in the rain, in temperatures not much above freezing, if she was sick (from whatever cause?) And how is it that she had a tropical disease from Ethiopia when she'd left it years ago? And what's this business about some people named Pearl who wrote a book on child-raising that has been implicated in the deaths of two other adoptive children recently? And at least one person claiming to have known your friend says they were indeed proponents of this Pearl method?

Taken together, this does not sound like a good place for a well-meaning outsider to stick his nose in. I'd step back and let CPS do their job. They aren't always wrong.

[LadyDoc]

It turns out that the child had some sort of tropical malady that led to rapid weight loss loss, erratic behavior and an untimely death.

so did they bother to take the kid to the doctor?

My grandchildren are home schooled, and I think it's great.

but "home schooling" can sometimes be the way for people to abuse their kids by keeping them on wierd diets, no medicine, no shots etc...

I've also called child protective services to check the home when I found the father to be paranoid, yelling at his wife in my office, and the eight year old appeared frightened of the father. And I'd do it again.

Yes, I've seen abuse by child protective services, but I've seen kids abused and killed by mom, mom's boyfriend, dad etc...

[Hetty_Fauxvert]

Goodness, there has been a lot of finger-pointing on this one! Ahem. I have no idea what truly has been going on in the case (any more than anyone else on this thread) ... But the previously given advice to (a) call HSLDA and get their advice and possibly help on this one, and (b) lawyer up with a “Killer” lawyer who is not in the judge’s back pocket is exactly what *I* would do in this situation, and what you should probably advise the persons in the case to do.

Other than that, I don’t think I would loan or give them money to help accomplish these goals. Especially if you have kids of your own and could be tainted by this case yourself if things get really ugly. If the people in this case really are the good people you believe them to be, I hope all goes well for them.

[MrB]

Join HSLDA.

Yes, they usually just handle homeschool issues, but they have some overlap into other areas as well.

[CodeToad]

Stay out of it before you screw it up for them and they have to answer for your actions too. There is always more to the story in these matters and rarely are those issues discussed with a friend. The wife worked many of these types of cases, and still does in another respect, and often the real meat of the story is never publicly known.