The State of Texas goes before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Monday.
Its lawyers want contempt fines levied by a federal court judge in Corpus Christi over failures in its foster care system struck down — and they want the judge removed from the case. That Judge — Janis Jack — called the state foster system broken in 2015. She said many kids left the system worse than when they entered it.
The case stretches back more than 13 years now — the product of many youth and their attorneys suing over civil rights violations.
Alyssa Murphy is now 27. She entered foster care at age 6. She has her own child — a child significantly younger than the lawsuit she joined at 14.
When she decided to join a lawsuit over her treatment at the hands of the state, she said she had spent time in more than three dozen placements. She had been assaulted by a staff member at a treatment center. She had been ignored by overwhelmed case workers. And she had been overmedicated.
She was allergic to many first generation psychotropic medications — a fact she found out the hard way. The worst part, she said, was that foster care officials lost four years of her case file — including her medical file. And they put her back on the drugs she was allergic to.
She spoke to TPR's Paul Flahive.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Murphy: So when that happened (getting put back on drugs she was allergic to), I developed severe tics. I had seizures, I was passing out. I was in the middle of school, and I would just not remember anything but I'd wake up in my bed.
It turned out that I was watching the teacher and then next thing you know, I busted my head open hitting the desk, because I just passed out.
Brain blank. You know, the teacher was so worried that she was reaching out to CPS to everybody. My teacher was the one who even cared. Nobody knew. I didn't even know it was happening to me.
Flahive: By the time you left you say you were on so many pills it would have sedated a 300 pound man?
Murphy: It was so bad. I don't remember anything. I don't. When I say I was taking enough to sedate a, grown man — by the time I was 17 years old I was on 200 milligrams of Trazodone, 50 milligrams of Benadryl and three melatonin just to go to sleep at night.
That was every night.
I was passing out in my dinner plate on the fireplace because that's how much it took me to sleep with all the medication that I was on during the day.
When my grandma used to come see me in Meadowlands — and she would come visit me regularly — I would be dazed, drooling out of my mouth. I wouldn't be able to speak. I was incoherent. I couldn't form sentences. I don't even remember her coming for a visit.
Flahive: Do you think that the case has made a difference for kids?
Murphy: Oh, yes. That's why I still talk about it. 100%. Not even just with those major things like overmedication. I never spoke to my caseworker. I never went to one court hearing ever. I wasn't allowed. They didn't think it was worth me putting my own input in or any of that. That has changed. The caseworkers don't have 100 kids anymore on one caseload. I believe that it's getting a lot better. Slowly. But surely,
Flahive: While the State of Texas thinks it's in compliance with these court orders, it believes that it is ready to be released from this court case, or at least from large portions of this judge's oversight. What is your take, if you have one, on the current state of child welfare in Texas?
Murphy: I believe that the state still has some things that they need to fix. And I do not believe they are ready to be released. I do not — well, just for instance, something that everybody would know is the kids and the hotels, children without placement up in hotels, just constantly being jumped to one hotel to another to another to another.
Flahive: Based on filings, Texas will argue that not only should these contempt fines for these failures be thrown out, but they also want Judge Jack thrown out — that she is biased as evidenced by these contempt rulings. They said it's evidenced by the way she comports herself in the case. What do you think of those arguments?
Murphy: It's the law. Everybody has to abide by the law. I don't see it as bias at all. I see her reforming. I see her holding people accountable. I see her seeing a problem and wanting to fix it. That is it. Now, I would like to say many of the issues that a lot of kids had experienced ... she has made sure got fixed.
Flahive: What would it mean to you if Judge Jack was taken off the case?
Murphy: I think, me personally, I would be very upset. [I]f you were to remove a judge who actually has all of the knowledge needed for a case like this, this is not a case that is something that the judge can pick up and pick up everything they need to know. ... This is not a case that they can do that in two years. Do you know what I mean? If you take judge jack off this case, you're going to be replacing her with somebody who potentially could be missing a lot of important factors that have already been presented before.
Flahive: What is it like to watch these Zoom hearings — to listen to the judge tediously extracting information from, at times, reluctant and resistant DFPS and HHSC staff. What's that like for you?
Murphy: It's frustrating. I could not be as patient as Judge Jack. That's why I'm not a judge, though I would be biased. I see them make a lot of excuses. I see that they try to run away from situations before presenting evidence. And when I see that it's very frustrating, because I don't see why they're spending money fighting her when they could be spending money trying to get out of this lawsuit and working with her.
Flahive: When you hear the numbers associated with what the state spent ... the state has said it has spent $150 million trying to improve the system and $60 million on the court monitors who are writing these reports, evaluating their progress, things like that. What do you think?
Murphy: I do appreciate what they have spent on trying to reform but that's them doing their job as the state — that's not a charity. It's them doing the right thing after many years — many years of trauma that have been induced upon a bunch of children.
