A friend of mine and his fiance are having problems with what they believe to be an ex BF of his fiance dropping ananymous tips to CPS every few months.
On the assumption that the reports are false
I have read several cases the most relevant one seems to be Calabretta vs. Floyd
My questions are this:
IF placed in a battle of wills between CPS/PD without a warrent or court order could you eject them like any other tresspasser? Not just shoot them on the spot of course but demand that they leave and if they refuse to do so contact the police yourself and demand their removal and expect them to do so…
In extreme circumstances they attempt to physically force entry could you concievably see this as a threat to yourself and or your family and defend yourself with force, possibly even lethal force?
IANAL, but I used to be a CPS worker, and I can tell you what we were allowed to do.
Enter a house with consent , get a warrant , get a court order requiring the parents to produce the child in court or in very rare circumstances , (such as actually being able to hear an assault through the door) call the police who will forcibly enter. But I don’t believe (at least in my state) that you’re justified in using force or deadly force against a police officer who entered your home with neither warrant nor consent (and I very much doubt a CPS worker would try it without police assistance). I expect the proper remedy would be a lawsuit.
This pretty much jives with my interpretation of the law in this scenario. In my friends situation they have arrived with PD demanding entry and threatened with arrest for “obstructing justice” or “interfering with a police investigation” or something along that line if they refused.
My advice to him at this point is, get a lawyer to write some letter to the police and CPS with regards to potentionally actionable violation of their civil rights that have already occurred.
They really are not worried about any actual abuse being found, its not an issue. They are upset because this has been 5-6 times now and each time its several hours of questioning by CPS and PD and pretty thorough searches of the house. In every case they found noting except for one time that they felt it was too messy for the kids to be there and asked that they stay with a relative until it was cleaned up. It was a mess, I was there for that one, but it was the first and last time they have found a problem…
They are frankly tired of living under a microscope and if CPS looks hard enough at anyone long enough they probably will eventually find something wrong. They are getting to the point of wondering about legally resisting the search
Could you request the name of the person who instigates these investigations and then sue the person for making false accusations? Do the CPS have to name the person who makes these allegations?
Anonymous tips from payphones will not be hindered by this. In addition, an illegal search is a far greater problem than the caller.
If CPS could be forced to take the steps to get a search warrant/court order, a judge (in my wild assed guess) is not going to be handing those out on anonymous tips where there has been a history of complaints without merit. If CPS wants to have a little stakeout across the street…fine, forcing or demanding entry under threat of arrest. Without a damn good reason, to collect evidence which may be used in a criminal case is pure evil that the bill of rights was designed to stop. If nothing else I would seriously wonder if any evidence collected under the circumstances could get thrown out by a decent criminal defense lawyer. Hmm anyone seen **Bricker ** lately…
Your friends should ask the lawyer about this as well. I know from personal,non-CPS experience that empty threats are not unheard of- police wanted to come into my parents’ house to look for my brother when he was a teenager, I wouldn’t let them in without a warrant , they threatened to come back with a warrant and break the door down.Of course, they didn’t come back, because if there had been enough evidence to get a warrant, they would have had it to begin with.