SACRAMENTO, Calif. (CN) — Attorneys in a federal civil case battled Monday over information that led government officials to remove children from their homes, arguing whether those details were provided in bad faith.
The city of Folsom and Sacramento County, California, along with a handful of other named defendants, are asking a federal judge to grant them summary judgment and qualified immunity in the case first filed in 2021.
At issue is information in a warrant application used to remove children from the home of Faun O’Neel. She argues in her suit that on Dec. 20, 2020, one of her children called 911 and lied about being abused after he was disciplined. Police interviewed the children and, two days later, government workers removed the children from the home.
O'Neel says an officer used leading questions and pressured the children to provide the answers they wanted, and, despite having no evidence of physical injuries, a social worker completed a warrant application with falsehoods and omissions. That application later was used when they sought a protective custody order from a judge.
Attorney Robert Powell, representing O’Neel, on Monday noted a few of the problems he said the warrant application contained. It made no mention that one of the children had no marks or bruises. It also stated that the social worker claimed a child told her he’d been lifted with both hands, Powell said.
“That’s another lie,” Powell said. “A bunch of these claims — they never went and talked to the parents at all.
“This is a warrant application that is riddled with lies,” he continued.
Attorney J. Scott Smith, representing the city, county and others, said a clear violation of the law in the warrant application must exist for O’Neel to overcome the government’s qualified immunity.
Smith told Senior U.S. District Judge William Shubb that attorneys have submitted a lot of evidence in this case.
“But there are really only a few critical items,” Smith added, pointing to the warrant application, police reports and transcripts of conversations between the social worker and children.
Police officers got statements from the children, which were then included in the warrant application. At one point, a detective said that it appeared the children had been coached on what to say. That also was in the application.
Days later, attorneys on both sides had a chance to argue their case to a judge. That judge then decided sufficient evidence existed to remove the children from the O’Neel home.
Powell emphasized that critical details were missing from the warrant application that were included in a police report. For example, the child who initially claimed he’d been choked later said he had lied. He said he didn’t know why he made that claim, but that he was angry and wanted to apologize.
The children were returned to their parents in May 2021, which O’Neel calls a “return to some normalcy,” but not to normal.
Shubb said he wants to see the information the previous judge used when deciding to remove the children. Smith said that specific information wasn’t necessary because that judge relied on the entirety of the warrant application when ruling.
Shubb said that in a criminal case, law enforcement may take days to write a search warrant and include all the evidence they have out of fear of omitting something essential. That can’t be done in a case involving the removal of children from their home.
“Nobody can read thousands of pages,” Shubb said. “Nobody but Congress can do that.”
No decision was made Monday on the summary judgment and qualified immunity claims, which Shubb took under submission.
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