We previously discussed the bizarre case of Heath Campbell, who ran into a bit of trouble when he tried to get a store to prepare a birthday cake for his son Adolph Hitler Campbell. It turns out that the parents gave all of their kids Nazi-related names. After the “mein cake” controversy, the state appears to have placed the couple under investigation and then took away their children. The New Jersey neo-Nazi is now fighting to get back his kids. He did it however in a curious way — he and his new fascist Frau showed up in full Nazi uniforms to court. This raises a significant free speech issue. Most of us view this Nazi obsession to be weird and unbalanced. However, it is also a form of political expression. While the state insists that there is a history of violence in the family (including an “anonymous complaint”), there have been no details of the extent of this history. Should this bizarre conduct and hateful belief system be considered on the custody question.
The little Bavarian brood includes Adolf Hitler Campbell, 6, Joycelynn Aryan Nation, 5, and Honszlynn Hinler, 4, and, Hons Campbell, 2. Hons was reportedly taken from the couple immediately after his birth. The mother has since waived her parental rights.
Campbell appeared with a new woman, fellow Nazi Bethanie White dressed in her own Nazi garb. He insisted that their choice of clothing should not have an impact on custody or visitation, noting “I’m going to tell the judge, I love my children. I wanna be a father, let me be it. Let me prove to the world that I am a good father.”
Do you agree? Can the court take judicial notice of the outfit in finding that visitation is not in the best interests of the child?
I am concerned that the couples political beliefs were the cause for the initial investigation, but I have not been able to find any description of the claim of violence in the household.
Source: Daily Mail
In Oregon, the court has ordered a bakery to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple or be ordered closed down ; did N.J. courts ordered the same decision for this bakery to put the child’s name on the cake or close down too ?
While CPS and every other government agency has NO PROVISION whatsoever in their authorizing codes relating to any human being’s LIFE INTEREST, nothing can work out properly except by chance or by the work of someone like Mike Spindell, who is the exception rather than the rule.
“What the child wants” is part of the child’s “life interest.”
It is absent from American Law altogether. I noticed its absence by a reading of the Joshua DeShaney case and comparison with the Dred Scott case. We are a bunch of muscle-bound primitives ruining our future generations at an ever-increasing rate because we have the technology to do harm faster than ever.
It’s sickening and that’s why I’m sick. This Nazi is only bizarre, not unusual at all. The Nazis in the CPS units all over the country dress better than him but function often on the same level.
Couldn’t state it better myself.
“The Nazis in the CPS units all over the country dress better than him but function often on the same level.”
I am sorry if I missed it… did anyone ask the children how they felt about living with their father ? Who owns a child ? Or do they own themselves ? Lucky for me, my parents were largely indifferent to me and I could create my own family life with other people….. neighbors. 99guspuppet
Mike:
I have read your CV here and I totally respect you for it, especially that you took a stance as a civil libertarian, and upheld parents’ rights as well as being a diligent punishers of those who deserved it.
I too have had run ins with child protective services, on the other end, and I too have been informed by the behavior I have seen, and am currently going through, where the agency workers and attorneys are absolutely NOT respectful of civil liberties, let alone diligent in protecting them.
Since 2010 I have been prosecuted officially twice before by my local CPS (Ulster Co. NY), for things that are not even of their purview or charter, like bringing my kid to McDonalds, weighing her on a bathroom scale, staying up at night to 12 midnight watching movies.
They actually charged me with child neglect and maltreatment for these activities, and fortunately cooler heads on appeal of their capricious attacks ruled in my favor, stating that I did not neglect my child.
But the simple fact that I had to go through that nonsense, and risk losing my child, or be cast as a lesser parent in custody determinations, for what are reserved parental decisions, is the travesty that goes on too often.
Not content with leaving me alone, and probably pissed off that I successfully fought back against their attempts at micromanaging my parenting, they most recently charged me AGAIN with child neglect in court in Feb of this year. This time solely for *speaking* with my 9 year child about our federal court case against CPS. That’s right, a neglect charge based upon talking with my child about legal matters. And I am fighting that one right now.
And the ramifications of the charge alone are significant, even if and when I win it in court. Right now they have lodged a restraining order that criminalizes my presence within 1000′ of my child, a child I had been with every day of ther life for the first 7 years.
So don’t think that even if you are innocent, you don’t suffer at the hands of these capricious apparatchiks that disabuse the public power they are entrusted with. Taking away a child for the sole reason of speaking about court is as bad as any Nazi regime. This will go on until at least late August, for the trial date they set 4 months after they charged me.
It is clearly retaliation for my obstinacy of refusing to let them dictate discretionary parenting decisions, and for me filing a federal lawsuit against them.
But they can, and they do, unabashedly so.
What do you have to say about that, and can you see why I am so triggered when I see CPS and family courts on the ready to take children away from their parents?
(And I am not defending the nazi in this article, but you can see where I can draw a superficial parallel here. They take my child away for free speech reasons.)
“What do you have to say about that, and can you see why I am so triggered when I see CPS and family courts on the ready to take children away from their parents?”
Gary,
Now I understand where you are coming from. While I don’t know your individual circumstances, I do know this, many people involved in Child Welfare get carried away by their power and by false notions of what constitutes Child Abuse and Neglect. It is self-serving of me to say that I was rather extraordinary in the field, but in my heart I know I was. Since I have been a civil libertarian for as long as I can remember, when I was in the field I was always conscious of respecting the civil liberties of parents. Since by then I was also a trained and practicing (in the evening) psychotherapist I had learned to be able to put my prejudices aside when judging a case and to try to see it as clearly as I could.
The case I mentioned was of a White couple in their early 40’s with two children, one six and one four. The four year old had been running around in footsie pajama’s and went from a wood floor to a carpet. The child fell and had what is called a “twist” fracture, which in roughly 80% of the cases was seen as child abuse from a parent twisting the leg hard. This case hit the system two weeks after there had been a horrendous murder of a young child that hit the papers and it seemed that my Agency had known about the case but hadn’t acted in time. Because of this the word came down from the Mayor to our Commissioner that we were to take no chances and remove any children when there was the slightest suspicion that the injury came from abuse.
When the child had been taken to the hospital with the broken leg the Physicians in the Hospital seeing the “twist” fracture reported it to the NYS Central Registry as Abuse. My pilot unit known as the “High Risk Unit” was mandated to investigate all serious injuries such as DOA’s, fractures, sex abuse and serious burns. So I took the case and sent out my best worker, who was a wonderful black woman. I mention her color specifically because this was a White family. My worker was so good that her testimony in court was welcomed and accepted by all the Judges in Brooklyn Family Court because of the respect they had for her skill. She came back and told me that after seeing and interviewing the parents she felt that it couldn’t be abuse. I went out with her the next day and believed she was right. I wrote up the report of the case and sent it on. We were going to “unfound” the case which would mean that we saw no evidence of abuse/neglect. When I passed it up the line the word came down from the Commissioner (why it went that high I don’t know because that was unusual) stating that we should go to Court and remove both children into foster care. When I told my worker she emphatically told me “Mike they can fire me, but I won’t go to court, the case is unfounded”. I told her I agreed and went to my supervisor and manager and told them that I wouldn’t go to court either. While they threatened me, I refused to back down and so my direct supervisor had to go to court and then subsequently do a removal of the children. The case was taken out of my hands.
I felt sick about this because I could imagine the fear of the children in the foster cares system and the anguish of the parents. Those kids were in foster care for six months, the parents got a lawyer fought the case and brought in their own experts, highly unusual for such a Family Court Case. The parents were exonerated, the children returned home and my supervisor who went to court apologized to me because by his handling the case for six months and interacting with the parents and children, he saw that both the worker and I were right. Incidentally, at the age of six I was playing with my older brother on the carpet in our apartment and in play he tripped me and I received a similar fracture.
As you can tell I’m quite proud of the work I did in Child Welfare, but at the same time I saw a lot of shoddy work done and from your experience I can see that for you there is another side to it that is extremely personal and rightly so. It is a difficult field that requires excellent judgement and in truth I had a rather unique background to bring to it, that many workers and supervisors don’t have. Also as someone with a Masters in Social Work I can say from experience that many social workers are far too self impressed and far less compassionate than the public might imagine. Look at the history of Social Work in America sometime and you will be amazed, or possibly not, given your experience.