A New Jersey mother says she is taking legal action against a day care that has given her no explanation for how her 2-year-old daughter came home last week with one of her “cornrow” hair braids missing from her head — claiming they didn’t know if her child “pulled it out” herself or whether something more nefarious happened.

“You have to use some type of force for a braid to be removed,” Tamara Hemingway told New York ABC station WABC about her daughter, Myla, and what happened to her.

“It was a cornrow so it was braided down to her scalp,” Hemingway said. “There’s no way that, I don’t know who could have done it, but I know for a fact she or a kid would not have done that.”

A nurse at a county jail in Minnesota is facing a manslaughter charge nearly six years after an inmate under her care died in a case that’s already resulted in a $2.6 million lawsuit and a new law in the victim’s name to ensure something like that never happens again.

Michelle Rose Skroch, now 37, is facing charges of second-degree manslaughter culpable negligence and two counts of felony criminal neglect, one for “knowingly depriving” inmate Hardel Sherrell of medical care and the second for doing so for an “extended period of time.” A criminal complaint says the 27-year-old Sherrell was booked into the Beltrami County Jail on Aug. 24, 2018. While his blood pressure was high, he was otherwise in good condition in his initial health screening. He had a history of high blood pressure and a recent incident of respiratory failure, the complaint said.

More from Law&Crime: ‘The victim’s face is broken’: Patient viciously attacks nurse for no apparent reason, likely blinding her for life, cops say

Three days after arriving at the jail, Sherrell began complaining of chest pain and said his fingers on his left hand were tingly. Doctors performed an EKG and gave him ibuprofen, Tylenol and an anti-anxiety medication. Sherrell also stated he had stopped taking his blood pressure medication in January 2018.

Sherrell’s condition continued to worsen over the ensuing days and kept falling out of his bunk bed and was unable to stand up. He said he was unable to feel his legs. A nurse went to check on him on Aug. 31, 2018, and found him lying on a mat in his cell and not able to move. His mouth also was drooping and his speech was slurred.

A jail doctor opined that Sherrell may be suffering from Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a rare autoimmune disorder affecting the peripheral nervous system. Sherrell went to the hospital where an emergency room physician diagnosed him with “malingering and weakness” as he was able to move his legs. They sent him back to jail after an MRI found no abnormalities, the complaint said. The ER doc instructed him to return to the hospital if he had a fever, signs of stoke and/or worsening weakness.

Skroch, who worked for MEnD Correctional Care, LLC which was contracted to provide medical services at the jail, came to work on Sept. 1, 2018, and was advised about Sherrell’s condition. When she went to see him, she allegedly just stood at his cell door and “never conducted a standard, basic nursing assessment.” She told Sherrell to “get up and walk” and that “there was nothing wrong with him and he could get up and walk if he wanted to,” according to the complaint. Sherrell “pleaded” for medical attention but Skroch allegedly said she “would not bargain with him.”

A federal judge has hit pause on an effort by the Trump administration to ban federal support for transgender medical care.

On Friday afternoon, Joe Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge Lauren King, sitting in Seattle, issued a temporary restraining order in favor of three states and three doctors who sued the government on Feb. 7.

The court barred a litany of named federal defendants from “enforcing or implementing” two major sections of a recent anti-transgender executive order signed by President Donald Trump.

Under the terms of Executive Order 14187, which is fashioned as an effort to protect “Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” the 45th and 47th president intends to cut off all federal funding for institutions that offer pediatric gender transition services or provide any kind of gender-affirming care for people under the age of 19.

A Florida woman is behind bars after threatening to burn down a day care business over a months-long child custody dispute, according to law enforcement in the Sunshine State.

In August 2024, Hany Matozes More, 38, was arrested by the Broward Sheriff’s Office on multiple charges, including child abuse, child neglect, criminal mischief, and resisting arrest. She subsequently lost custody of her then-2-month-old daughter. The defendant has since posted bond, and her case in Broward County is pending, court records show.

Earlier this month, More was arrested by deputies with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.

An Indiana woman attacked a toddler but insists that she did not hit the child very hard, authorities in the Hoosier State say.

Joyce Perkins, 31, stands accused of battery on a person less than 14 years old, according to the Johnson County Prosecutor’s Office.

The underlying incident occurred on Nov. 4, 2024, at Kiddie Academy of Greenwood on South Morgantown Road in Greenwood — a medium-sized city and part of the broader Indianapolis metro area.

1. Home
2. Daily News
3. Top Montana court allows gender-affirming…

Privacy Law

Top Montana court allows gender-affirming care for trans minors during litigation, citing privacy protections

By Debra Cassens Weiss

December 12, 2024, 11:52 am CST

The Montana Supreme Court on Wednesday cited state constitutional privacy protections when it upheld a judge’s decision to block a law that bans gender-affirming care for transgender minors.

The state supreme court upheld a state judge’s determination that a privacy challenge to the 2023 law blocking the care was likely to succeed on the merits, and that challengers were likely to suffer irreparable harm absent an injunction.

The Montana Supreme Court’s Dec. 11 decision leaves in place a preliminary injunction that blocks the ban on gender-affirming care pending a trial in the case.

The state supreme court cited the Montana Constitution, which provides: “The right of individual privacy is essential to the well-being of a free society and shall not be infringed without the showing of a compelling state interest.”

The law should be evaluated using strict scrutiny, the state supreme court said.

“The statute at issue here prevents a wide range of treatment even when such treatment is determined, in the judgment of a medical professional working with their patients, to be in the patients’ best interest and given with informed consent,” the Montana Supreme Court said. “The district court reasonably concluded that the balance of the equities tips toward preliminary relief pending full consideration of the merits.”

Two concurring justices said the state supreme court also should have addressed the plaintiffs’ claim that the law violates the state constitution’s equal protection clause.

“Gender-affirming care is currently being litigated on equal protection grounds around the country, and the United States Supreme Court is poised to take up the issue this term,” the concurrence said. “These cases are instructive in certain ways, but they cannot answer what this court is being asked: how sex/gender discrimination and suspect class discrimination should be handled under the unique equal protection provision of the Montana Constitution.”

A partial dissenter would have allowed the law’s ban on Medicaid funding for gender-affirming care to take effect.

Hat tip to the American Civil Liberties Union, which issued a Dec. 11 press release.

How Appealing linked to coverage by the Flathead Beacon and Courthouse News Service.

1. Home
2. Daily News
3. Judge with ‘highly antagonistic demeanor’…

Judiciary

Judge with ‘highly antagonistic demeanor’ must be removed from foster care case, 5th Circuit says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

October 15, 2024, 8:37 am CDT

A federal appeals court has removed a federal judge from foster care litigation against the state of Texas, citing her “highly antagonistic demeanor” against the defendants during a December 2023 contempt hearing.

Senior U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack of the Southern District of Texas was ordered removed in an Oct. 11 opinion by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at New Orleans, report Bloomberg Law, the Texas Tribune and Texas Public Radio.

Jack has become “too personally involved in the proceedings,” the appeals court said.

The 5th Circuit also reversed fines of $100,000 per day that Jack had imposed April 15, 2024, for the state’s alleged failure to implement two remedial orders.

The orders required investigation of allegations of child abuse and neglect in a timely manner for children placed in “permanent managing conservatorship,” which happens when the state cannot find adoptive homes or cannot reunify the children with parents within specified time limits.

The appeals court had stayed the daily fines. Had they been implemented, Texas “would be on the hook for $7.2 million” between the April order and a June compliance hearing, the appeals court said in a footnote.

The 5th Circuit saw the state’s compliance differently than Jack, saying Texas officials have made “significant remedial efforts” in the past several years. The state has already spent $150 million trying to comply with Jack’s remedial decrees and another $60 million on monitors.

As evidence of its compliance, the state said it was hiring more staff members, training them better and implementing policies to hold providers accountable for poor care.

Jack first ruled in 2015 for the plaintiffs, who had challenged the constitutionality of Texas’ foster care system. She awarded “expansive” injunctive relief, the appeals court said.

The 5th Circuit invalidated many aspects of the initial injunction in 2018 and did so in two more opinions after Jack made changes on remand. In its last decision, the 5th Circuit ordered Jack to implement the injunction without further changes, apart from the ones ordered by the 5th Circuit.

Jack has not yet “officially modified” the injunction, the 5th Circuit said. And even though the appeals court “firmly ordered” Jack not to modify the decree, she “imposed extraneous orders” on the state to provide information on COVID-19 vaccine refusals, to expand mental health care and to produce documents not related to the remedial orders, the appeals court said.

“Not only has the district court clearly indicated an intent to continue oversight well into the future,” the 5th Circuit said, “this contempt order seems a harbinger of even more drastic district court micromanagement.”

Jack has “indicated the strong possibility” that she will issue further contempt orders or even place the foster care system in receivership, according to the appeals court.

“As a general rule of law federal judges are not allowed to become permanent de facto superintendents of major state agencies,” the 5th Circuit said. “Nor, under the federalist structure created by the Constitution, is it appropriate for federal court intervention to thwart the state’s self-management, where the state is taking strides to eliminate the abuses that led to the original decree.”

The 5th Circuit said the December hearing happened after Jack “urged and instigated” the plaintiffs for several months to seek contempt. During the hearing, Jack “repeatedly questioned the defendants’ unwillingness to exceed the requirements of the remedial decree,” suggesting that she had “substantial difficulty” moving past previously invalidated remedial orders, the appeals courts said.

“It doesn’t hurt to go over and above” the remedial orders, Jack said during the hearing.

At another point, Jack interrupted a witness to complain that “the state contracts with these people that are not doing their job, and they still keep contracting with them.”

When the witness asked Jack to clarify her question, she replied, “I don’t know if there’s a question. It was more of an irritable rant.”

During testimony by another witness, Jack said, “I don’t know how the state sleeps at night with this. I really don’t.”

Jack’s statements at the contempt hearing and at other times show that she “exhibits a sustained pattern, over the course of months and numerous hearings, of disrespect for the defendants and their counsel but no such attitude toward the plaintiffs’ counsel,” the 5th Circuit said. “The judge’s demeanor exhibits a ‘high degree of antagonism,’ calling into doubt at least ‘the appearance of fairness’ for the state defendants.”

Graham was appointed by former President Bill Clinton. The author of the 5th Circuit panel decision, Judge Edith H. Jones, is an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan.

In a statement published by the Texas Tribune, the state’s heath commission and social services agency said they are pleased that the 5th Circuit recognized their significant efforts.

“We remain committed and are grateful to Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas legislature for their continued support in furthering the well-being of our most vulnerable Texans,” the statement said.

Paul Yetter, a lawyer with Yetter Coleman, one of the attorneys for foster care children, said in a statement the decision was “a sad day for Texas children,” Bloomberg Law reports.

“For over a decade, Judge Jack pushed the state to fix its broken system,” Yetter said. “She deserves a medal for what she’s done. We will keep fighting to ensure these children are safe.”

The case is M.D. v. Abbott.

A vote is expected next week to hold Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre in contempt of Congress after he refused to appear at a hearing this week despite being subpoenaed to testify. This follows a nearly two-year CBS News investigation into how private equity investors and de la Torre siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars from Steward hospitals. Dr. Jon LaPook has more.

One of the largest hospital bankruptcies in history is leading to new concerns that some communities will be left without access to medical care. CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook has more.

A New York day care operator pleaded guilty on Thursday to sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy in his care. The Department of Justice said in a press statement that Silfredo Castillo Martinez, 34, possessed almost 10,000 image of child sexual abuse material.

According to court documents, Google gave the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children a tip on April 25, 2022, that a user had uploaded what appeared to be child sexual abuse material.