A Judge Took Away These Kids For Good — Until A Higher Court Found A Mistake …An appeals court found that parents in three cases should have had court-appointed lawyers throughout. How many other parents were denied this right?
It looked at first like a typical Hawaii child protection case.
Someone contacted the state Child Welfare Services branch in 2018 to report that a couple on Kauai were doing drugs and couldn’t take care of their two sons.
CWS asked the parents to submit to drug tests. But over the course of the next several months, they either didn’t show up for the tests, tested positive for methamphetamines or admitted using, according to court records.
In April 2019, CWS called the police to ask for help removing the children, and placed them in foster care with strangers. That set off a Family Court proceeding that, more than a year later, led to a judge terminating parental rights, clearing the way for the boys to be adopted.
That’s where the case took a surprising turn.
