To: The Utah State Legislature; Governor of Utah;

Utah Grand Jury Panel;

Utah Department of Occupational and Professional Licencing;

Utah State Auditor;

Office of the Utah Attorney General care of Robert Smith and Ken Wallentine;

All Utah elected officials, and all civil servants in capacities relevant to family law.

Cc: All victims of systemic failures in Utah family law, and all other interested parties.

Families are important to Utah, which is why Utah family law has clear standards and burdens that must be met in family court cases. The Constitution, Parental Rights act, and Victim Bill of Rights guarantee that children will be protected from abuse, and that parents have a fundamental liberty interest in the care, custody, and management of their children. Before interfering with these rights, the state has the burden of proving that it has met the strict scrutiny, compelling state interest, and fundamentally fair process standards to ensure no undue government interference and due process are applied. Otherwise, it is a deprivation of the rights of the child, witness, or parent due to no fault of their own.

A fundamentally fair process implies that a reasonable person would find it to be fundamentally fair. It implies due effort to identify and serve the best interests of children. It implies that there will be a full application of ethics, equality, transparency, and accountability. It implies that the best evidence will be used. It implies that the burden of proving no undue government interference is an affirmative one, especially when the oath of office applies. One might say that there is an objective and unwritten law commanding all officials who issue, or are required to issue an oath of office, to deliver the best evidence to judges in family rights related cases whenever and wherever possible.

A fundamentally fair process does not imply that a child's right to privacy will be considered the state's right to keep it a secret, or a method of depriving their other rights. It does not imply that perjury, or materially false information will be allowed in court. It does not imply that oaths of office will be ignored, or that immunity and misinterpreted discretion will allow them to be legally sworn lies. It does not imply that there will be an impossible toll bridge in the pursuit of family rights. It does not imply that that a guardian ad litem will be assigned involuntarily or by default to represent the best interests of children in lieu of the right of a fit parent who has not lost their rights to the care custody and management of their children without due process and compelling state interest. It does not apply that an assigned guardian with full immunity can put themselves in the shoes of children they barely know, and replace the best evidence with hip-shot reccomendations that are unsupported by anything a judge might be able to condider to come to the same conclusion. It does not imply that caseworkers may have influence on court without issuing oaths of office, and without having any constitutional or government authority. It does not imply that an agency who doesn't have government authority, and is constantly sued for deprivation of rights, who constantly counters such claims with a claim that they are not legally accountable, should have any say in the best interests of children, or be allowed to apply rules that have the force and effect of law. It does not imply that they may ignore a lagislative audit reccomendation to increase state administration oversight to address an over-all theme of inconsistent application of guidelines. It does not imply that the civil process in child abuse cases may be surreptitiously and prejudicially applied when the criminal process is applicable and more appropriate. It does not imply that ambiguity, conflict, and misconstruction of laws and rules related to child abuse may be applied. It does not imply that there may be perverse institutional and/or institutionalized motivations for applying the civil or criminal process for financial benefit, to suppress evidence, and cover-up misconduct.

Unfortunately, these systemic failures are deeply imbedded in Utah family law. Putting asside criminal intent, and with the understanding that many practices are structurally imposed, Utah guardians ad litem and alleged DCFS caseworkers are essentially racketers, by virtue of compensation and employment-related benefits realized in the process of misconstruing and misapplying the laws and rules that govern them, and Judges are essentially extortionists, when they enforce the toll bridge on family rights. A more meaningful audit is more than past due.

See the Notice and Demand for Civil Servant Oath of Office Accountability Here:

http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=218&ad=28020016&cat=&lpid=&search=oath%20of%20office&ad_cid=1

The 2011 Utah Legislative Performance Audit of DCFS clearly outlined that the over-all theme of the audit was inconsistent application of guidelines. While inconsistency is an expected and inevitable result of human behavior, the identification of systemic government patterns and practices, or the lack thereof, suggesting there were ongoing statewide deprivations of constitutional rights amounting to no less than unequal protection under the law, is something else. It is at very least, an unignorable problem imposing unavoidable duties to remedy a serious problem. The primary legislative reccomendation was Increased oversight by state administration. The official response and subsequent actions of the administration suggest no such reccomendation was made. In 2013, a new audit failed to address or identify the lack of response, and simply reported more of the same thing.

The children and parents of Utah deserve more. They deserve a response. They deserve to know the motivation behind the failed response. They deserve due effort to discover the cause and motivations behind the inconsistent application of guidelines, and how they relate to available and fit parents, the income of parties, Medicaid, and federal funding. They deserve to know why some kind of evidence is nearly always heard in courts, but the best evidence (e.g., the actual recorded child interviews as opposed to references or reports about them) are unduly difficult or impossible for a fit parent to obtain and present when DCFS has it, and then a parent has to request or subpoena it for use in court. They deserve to know how many parents who allege abuse end up loosing custody to the alleged abuser. They deserve to know the depth, scope, and compliance rate of civil rights training and drug testing.

They deserve full and conclusive financial reports that prove strict scrutiny to ensure there is no fraud, waste, or kickbacks for contractors or stakeholders. When citizens make such complaints, they should not be ignored. The people should know what DCFS does and doesn't consider to be misconduct as it relates to Ombudsman investigations, and what they considers to be adequate preventative or corrective action. The people should knoe about the lack of mandatory termination requirements, etc.

An honest investigation of evidence denied by DCFS in the last couple of years upon parental issuance of subpoena will uncover a systemic deprivation of rights. That would reveal the perverse motivations you claim you haven't seen, which are largely hidden behind structural protections of a culture of corruption. I'll follow up on additional specifications for an audit, but I believe it should focus on inconsistent applications of guidelines related to available and fit parents, the income of parties, Medicaid, and federal funding. I believe an objective investigation should be performed by an independent, neutral, third-party private investigator, then be compared to a paralell internal investigation by the State, with the results made public.

Supporters,

Email a link with your pledge of support to:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9gaqlMwYMzwTFdrTWh1dms3UEk/edit?usp=docslist_api

(Disclaimer: This was not written by a lawyer or anyone with such capacity, and no one was paid for writing it.)