foster care

Texas has succeeded in removing one of its fiercest overseers in Judge Janis Jack. Attorney's for foster youth say they will appeal.

Lawyers for the State of Texas on Monday tried to convince a U.S. appeals court that it should not be fined for failures in investigations of abuse and neglect of intellectually disabled children. The three-judge panel appeared to not need much convincing.

Alyssa Murphy turned 27 last week. She was 6 years old when she was placed in foster care. She stayed in 40 placements after that. She reflected on what the case she joined at 14 has done for foster kids, and why she wants Judge Janis Jack to stay on the case.

After 13 years of fighting a lawsuit over Texas’ troubled foster care system, state lawyers are trying to remove the judge from overseeing the case.And do you remember when a little girl fell down a Midland well in 1987? There’s much more to the story.

A 13-year fight between a judge and Texas over how the state runs its foster care system is back in court on Monday. Texas wants the judge off the case and her stiff fines canceled. The case is also part of a nationwide push back on judges who force states to take specific actions — decisions that, conservatives say, are 'corrosive to federalism.'

After 13 years, the state said Judge Janis Jack should be removed from overseeing its foster care system because she isn't 'impartial.'

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission will be fined $100,000 a day until it comes into compliance on two remedial court orders.

Four court filings, hundreds of pages and thousands of serious incidents illustrated how ill prepared the state is when directly caring for youth — a job their workers were never meant to do.

Judge Janis Jack was presented with new reports of the state's failures in its Child Without Placement issue just days after Texas' attorney's asked to void several parts of her oversight.

The state's child without placement crisis has been well known and documented for four years. Critics wonder why it hasn't been solved and what it may say about a system that's been in federal court for more than a decade.