Three employees of the Department of Children's Services can be held liable for their behavior after a traffic stops were taken from her mother last year, a federal judge decided.
The court's decision is made in a civil lawsuit that was raised by Bianca Clayborne for himself and her five children, which after the stop in February 2023 for almost two months in a number of nursing homes. At that time the children were 7, 5, 3, 2 and four months old.
The officials of the Tennessee Highway Patrol initially took over Clayborne and her partner Deonte Williams because of a Slowpoke violation and driving with tinted windows when the family went through Tennessee on the way to family statement in Illinois from their Georgia at home.
At the stop, officers smelled of marijuana and carried out a search. The crime is an offense in Tennessee, which normally leads to cited and fine, does not lead to an arrest.
The soldiers, however, arrested Williams, gave Clayborne a quote and told her that she was free to go with the children.
Hours after the traffic disability, when Clayborne waited for the binding of Williams from prison, the children were taken from their side and brought them away in waiting vehicles.
The escalation of offenses stops until the children's removal of their mother's removal, questions asked whether the family – the black – is unequal treatment while driving through a largely white and rural Tennessee.
(Read more: A family of Georgia fights for tinted windows to get her children back from Tennessee DCS)
Claims
Clayborne filed a lawsuit at the beginning of this year and named the three employees of the pediatric services, the Tennessee Highway Patrol Troopers and the MPs of the Sheriff Coffee County.
“These officers tore apart illegally and terrorized (Bianca) Clayborne's family. They acted incredibly and illegally. Clayborne and each of their five children have caused a serious emotional trauma,” says the lawsuit.
The department in their legal answer asked the workers to be released from the lawsuit and claimed that they had immunity to act in their official capacities.
The court ruling at the beginning of this month allows Clayborne's lawyers, with claims to drive the workers against the family's fourth amendment against illegal searches and confiscations.
The judgment also allows Clayborne's legal claims for incorrect arrest and incorrect detention according to Tennessee Law to advance against the workers.
The US district judge Clifton Corker dismissed the separate claims of Claybornes that the actions of children's employees had violated their constitutional guarantees in the search for an emergency court to remove the children.
The workers had applied for an emergency court that was authorized to take the children in the hours after the traffic stop. They never told Clayborne about the hearing of the emergency court and gave them the opportunity to answer, even though the workers were at this time with Clayborne in the County Justice Center.
The court decided these measures by absolute immunity for government officials who act in the property of lawyers.
A spokesman for DCS refused to comment on pending legal disputes, and a lawyer of Clayborne and her children could not be reached last week. The family is represented by a trio of civil rights lawyers in Nashville, including Tricia Herzfeld, Abby Rubenfeld and Anthony Orlandi.
“A good mother”
Last year, the case steered the events last year according to a history of view that was based on law enforcement reports, youth court applications and e -mails between the children's officials and the family lawyers.
The records showed that the deposition was initially informed that both Clayborne and Williams had been arrested at the traffic stop – a scenario in which social workers had to enter the children and take care of the children.
In Bodycam videos, which were cited in court files, a soldier informed two employees for child services that Clayborne “was a good mother was” “” The children were not neglected or misused “and” It would be best for everyone to stay with the children. “
(Read more: Five children who were taken from the black family after the rural Tennessee traffic stop had returned home)
The workers nevertheless pursued an emergency court in a nearby courtroom, which gave them the authority to bring the children to state custody.
They also approached Clayborne in the parking lot of the prison, where she had driven with the children to wait for the release of Williams.
They asked Clayborne to leave the children in the car to go to an almost toilet to produce a urine sample for a drug test.
When Clayborne refused – she later said that she was afraid of what the workers would do if she left her children with them – she tried to produce one in the car, and lowered her pants and underwear while a social worker was sitting next to her.
When she couldn't urinate, the clerks told her that she “made the matter worse”. The coffee County officers then put Spike strips around the family's car and prevented them from walking.
In the criminal judiciary, in which Clayborne had gone with her children to publish the deposit, the law enforcement officers approached her not to reach for her baby. They brought all five children into a waiting vehicle when they cried.
In the first day of the couple of the couple, Clayborne and Williams were asked to submit to the urine drug test.
Williams is positive for THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. Clayborne, who competed, consumed marijuana, tested negatively.
The records showed that they were then asked to submit Rapid Hair Follicell tests.
The results came back positively for both: the test had proven methamphetamines, fentanyl and oxycodone. Williams and Clayradora contested these substances.
(Read more: The legislators of Tennessee want more supervision about the youth.
A viewpoint examination showed that the fast hair follicle test used by the parents was not permissible according to the Coffee County Court's own administrator. An expert said that the Rapid machines can be unreliable and proven practice demand that positive tests are diverted into certified laboratories.
The tests nevertheless presented children's service as part of their petition, in which they applied for a decision that the children had been misused.
The department's lawyers also applied for sanctions against the lawyers of the family and the criminal persecution of the parents because they had spoken publicly about the case.
The children were returned by their parents 55 days after their separation. The children had initially been separated from each other in various nursing homes before they were reunited in the home of a friend of the family who agreed to become an emergency care.
Williams guilty of an offense. The indictment against tonborne was dropped.
Read more at Tennesseelookout.com.
