The state Office of Children and Family Services in 2004 had a backlog of requests for hearings from people accused of mistreating children. Three women had recently sued the agency over the delays that were costing them jobs working with kids because they couldn’t get their names cleared. The agency had a solution to the thousands of pending written requests that would come under scrutiny by the lawsuit, according to sworn testimony from state workers: Shred. For a month in 2004, the workers were under orders to take carts of the requests for name-clearing hearings and shred them after hours...