A federal court may sanction the state of Texas over failures in the foster care system. Judge Janis Jack previously fined the state $50,000 a day for contempt. She made threats in hearings last year, and she indicated a willingness to impose contempt fines in recent months.
In a court filing late Tuesday, lawyers for foster children past and present argued the state has continued to endanger children, mismanaged powerful psychotropic drugs, overworked case workers, and failed to inform kids of their rights.
Jack found the state was hurting children with a ‘broken’ foster care system. She has overseen reforms since 2015.
Gov. Greg Abbott signaled he would again fight the oversight. He hired a law firm to take over the state’s defense in April.
Hundreds of children are kept in unlicensed placements like hotels, which resulted in some being trafficked while others have been physically assaulted at CWOP placements. Other children have fled them and then perished. Federal court monitors have repeatedly called the placements unsafe.
Plaintiffs alleged the state used a third-party vendor to rubberstamp mood altering drug prescriptions rather than review them.
The state — which is trying to free itself from court oversight — said the court allows up to 20 days for a response. It filed a motion for a continuance for a status hearing the following week, but the judge declined to give it and said the motion for contempt would not be heard at that time.
The state demonstrated a renewed defiance for Jack’s oversight in recent hearings, challenging the court’s authority over how Texas manages the medications of youths as well as the amount Texas is charged by federal court monitors.
Texas has paid more than $46 million so far to court monitors and received a number of scathing reports filled with high-profile and embarrassing revelations.
Attorneys for the state attempted to push the judge to make rulings on items like challenges to how the court monitors use their time and billing.
“You are not monitoring the monitors. I am monitoring the monitors. Don’t do this again,” Jack said in a previous response to state inquiries.
But Texas’ new attorney, Alyson Ho, has pushed the issue in filings, potentially seeking a ruling to appeal to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Ho and others from the law firm Gibson and Dunne are connected to the appellate court, which has vacated some of Jack’s rulings in the past.
The Dallas Morning News first reported Ho’s pay rate, the fact that Ho’s husband sits on the appellate panel, and that others on her team have clerked for the justices there.
Ho was expected to call more than a dozen witnesses to show the state has "substantially complied" with the reforms, according to court filings. It was expected to be an attempt to remove the state from judicial oversight, which has lasted 12 years.
