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by impeachgod 5806 days ago
I tend to hold the Thoreauvian point that one ought to resist unfair laws. As I noticed, Child Protective Services are state agencies. If someone was falsely accused of child abuse/child porn, with no hope of winning the case whatsoever, how effective would it be to run away with the family?
1 comments
cookiecaper 5806 days ago
IANAL, but in general, I think meritless cases like this one eventually get dismissed, though it's a lot of hassle and waste in the meantime. Even if your case doesn't get dismissed and your children are about to get taken away, running away with the children could only vastly, vastly aggravate the matter, as far as I am aware. In many cases you'll be able to get the children back. If you flee, that is much less likely. You'd be a fugitive and you'd be in serious, serious trouble, I think, even if the state's case was baseless to start out.

I think the best option is to do as the person in the article did and deal with it in a cooperative and respectful manner, as much as we may resent it.

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lftl 5806 days ago
I think it depends on what phase you're in with regards to leaving. If at the very beginning of the investigation, after the first visit from DFS, they had left for France I imagine this case would have simply been forgotten. They hadn't been charged with any crime, so they're not legal fugitives in any sense. They may never want to return to that particular state on the off chance someone from DFS who remembers the case notices them, but I imagine even that to be a very slim possibility. Even later in the case though, I'm troubled to think of a law they're breaking by simply moving to another state.

If I'm ever in a situation similar to this, I will heavily weigh moving, or at least sending my wife and kids out of state, before entrusting my family to a random bureaucrat.

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run4yourlives 5806 days ago
While I agree with you, it's worth noting that your children are removed from you custody almost immediately, regardless of the outcome of the investigation. So, the "hassle and waste" you refer to can devastate a family.
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