The Advocate - 02 - The Advocate's Betrayal by Teresa Burrell

needed to go over with the clients at each hearing.
    Wagner always went to bat for his clients in the courtroom, but he didn’t pull any punches. On any given day, you could hear him chew out a client for doing something stupid. Most of the attorneys tried hard to be tactful with the clients and not rile them up. Wagner didn’t seem to care if they acted out. Rather, he seemed to enjoy it. You could hear him say, “Hey, it’s your life. If you want to screw it up more than it already is, that’s fine with me. Now if you want to try to get out of this unscathed, then you better start listening. But if you want to act a fool, and don’t care whether you get your kids back or not, that’s your choice.”
    Inside the courtroom, Sabre sat down in the back of the room to review the file while Bob finished his conversation with the social worker. She read the allegations on the petition. It was filed under Welfare and Institutions Code 300 (c). A “c” petition was what the Department of Social Services used to remove children from what they determined were abusive homes. In these situations, there was no physical evidence, making it very difficult to prove. Kat’s petition read:
(c) The child is suffering serious emotional damage, or is at substantial risk of suffering serious emotional damage, evidenced by severe anxiety, depression, withdrawal, or untoward aggressive behavior toward self or others, as a result of the conduct of the parent or guardian or who has no parent or guardian capable of providing appropriate care. No child shall be found to be a person described by this subdivision if the willful failure of the parent or guardian to provide adequate mental health treatment is based on a sincerely held religious belief and if a less intrusive judicial intervention is available…in that the parents have taught Kat to hate anyone of a different race, religion, or sexual orientation to such a degree it has resulted in fights at school on a regular basis.
Kurt’s petition was also a “c.”
… in that the parents have taught Kurt to hate anyone of a different race, religion, or sexual orientation to such a degree it has resulted in the child making statements of killing other human beings and the father has taught the child to aim a real gun at targets depicting other races.
    Sabre knew the petitions to be true based on her one conversation with the children, but she also knew how difficult it would be to prove.
    “Hi, Sobs,” Bob said as he walked over to her.
    “Good morning,” Sabre said. “It looks like Wagner has the mother on Kemp. He’s outside talking to her right now.”
    “Oh, good.” Bob grinned. “This is going to be fun. And Wags and I are going to win this one. That will be one more jurisdictional win for me—the king of juvenile court!”
    “Yeah, right. In front of Hekman? I don’t think so.”
    The door opened and Wagner walked in. “You ready to send these kids home, Sabre?”
    “I’m going to ask they be detained with you, Wagner, and Judge Hekman is going to make regular unannounced visits to your house. What do you think of that?”
    “I think you’re crazy,” Wagner responded and walked off to let the court officer know he was ready.
    “I’m going to tell them we’re ready, too, before we lose Wags,” Bob said as he followed Wagner.
    Within minutes the attorneys and their clients assembled at the tables. The defense—Bob with the father and Wagner with the mother—and Sabre, representing the children, sat on the right side; County Counsel and Thelma, an African-American social worker three months away from retirement, sat on the left. Thelma, sixty-one-years old and carrying about fifty extra pounds, was a sharp woman with plenty of experience dealing with these cases, but she was tiring of the whole juvenile court thing and ready to move on to the next chapter of her life. She had lasted longer than most. The burn-out rate for social workers appeared to be fewer than