Commenter LBK alerted me to this, but the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals just yanked a case from Clinton appointee Janis Jack that she had presided over for thirteen years.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ordered the case of M.D. v. Abbott be reassigned, in addition to vacating a contempt order [Clinton appointee Janis] Jack entered.
The panel released a 36-page opinion that found Jack has shown an extensive and well-documented pattern of antagonism toward the State of Texas and its counsel, and a bias favoring plaintiffs who have strived for years to get the state to comply with orders for timely investigations into abuse allegations.
Although the panel recognized Jack’s institutional knowledge and the complexity of the civil case, the court said, “It is necessary to reconsider the continued adversarial nature of this proceeding.”
Circuit Judge Edith H. Jones, in her analysis of the history between Jack and the Texas agencies she oversees, also strongly indicated Jack erred in not recognizing the state has been “substantially compliant” in recent years with the court’s orders.
The opinion, anticipating reassignment, gives notice to that regardless which jurist inherits the case, “as a general rule of law federal judges are not allowed to become permanent de facto superintendents of major state agencies.”
Jones said it is not 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 Department of Family and Protective Services, in a prepared statement, said, “We are pleased that the Fifth Circuit recognized the significant efforts DFPS and HHSC have invested in serving the children and families of our state. 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.”
TDFPS is hardly free of sin. At one point Abbott had to instruct them to stop requiring Critical Race Theory classes. Somehow I have a feeling that wasn’t something Jack objected to…
Yetter Coleman partner R. Paul Yetter, lead counsel for the plaintiffs and appellee advocate during the Aug. 5 oral argument, has worked the case since it was first filed.
“We respectfully disagree with the panel ruling and will ask for reconsideration by the whole circuit,” Yetter said, adding the case will stay with Jack at least until the reconsideration petition is decided.
When litigation began, Jack’s role involved addressing abuses within the entire foster care program and more than 10,000 children.
In 2014, Jack issued her ruling after trial and the remedial measures were appealed to the Fifth Circuit. Although the Fifth Circuit provided the state some relief in a series of orders over a period of years, Yetter said the merits of the case have been thoroughly adjudicated and the focus has been on compliance for the past five years.
The issues before the appeals court this time are primarily focused on 38 unresolved cases involving children with intellectual disabilities that are in the state’s permanent custody.
Wait, 13 years and $100,000 in fines over 38 cases? I would imagine that most of them have aged out of the system by now. Every life is sacred, but $100,000 a day in fines for 38 cases seems…disproportionate.
Speaking in Jack’s defense, Yetter argued the judge has been “incredibly patient” with the state for the past seven years, and the Fifth Circuit did not credit Jack where she praised state officials on progress made.
“There’s been improvement, and she’s called them out and praised state officials for that,” Yetter said.
In an amicus curiae filed by Alexander Dubose & Jefferson attorney Marcy Hogan Greer on behalf of National Disability Rights Network, Center for Public Representation, New Disabled South, and Disability Rights Mississippi, Greer argued Texas has continued to fail foster children with intellectual disabilities.
The Texas Health and Human Services Commission created a special “Provider Investigations” unit to investigate alleged abuses of children with disabilities “who are often incapable of advocating for themselves,” but that unit “has been plagued by incompetence, ineptitude, insensitivity, and backlog,” Greer noted.
Texas appealed a Jack contempt order in April that came with a $100,000-a-day fine. The Fifth Circuit stayed the fine and late Friday vacated it with the reassignment order.
The actual decision is here, and near the end it notes:
We take no position on issues that have not yet matured into appealable orders. However, as a general rule of law federal judges are not allowed to become permanent de facto superintendents of major state agencies. Horne v. Flores, 557 U.S. 433, 453, 129 S. Ct. 2579, 2597 (2009) (“[T]he longer an injunction or consent decree stays in place, the greater the risk that it will improperly interfere with a State’s democratic processes.”); United States v. Mississippi, 82 F.4th 387, 400 (5th Cir. 2023)(“Micromanagement, enforced upon threat of contempt, does not reflect the principles of comity” in prison context.). 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. Horne, 557 U.S. at 448,
129 S. Ct. at 2593–94 (“Federalism concerns are heightened” where “a federal court decree has the effect of dictating state . . . budget priorities.”).Nor are federal judges even suited, by training or temperament, to manage institutions, personnel, or the provision of vital state services, even if counselled by monitors. In this case particularly, the integrity of oversight may have been further put at risk by the trial court’s creation of a “fund,” based on plaintiffs’ attorneys’ foregoing their court-approved fees, that the court may evidently disburse at its discretion. Federal judges should not be personally allocating resources from the state’s taxpayers for purposes not directly tied to and controlled by the state itself in order to abide by a court decree.
Indeed.
I’m sure there probably were some significant cases of abuse at the heart of the case, but 13 years seems like a ridiculously long time for a case to drag on (though far from the longest).
Tags: 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, Edith H. Jones, Janis Jack, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Texas Department of Family and Protective Services
Judge Jones is very well aware of how federal judges in these kinds of cases can develop micromanagement / tunnel vision problems and turn into martinets.
Recall that William Wayne Justice handled Ruiz v. Estelle (Texas prison conditions case) from its filing in 1972 through its trial in 1979, and under the claims to be enforcing his various rulings and injunctions essentially ran the Texas prison system until the early 2000’s — THIRTY YEARS after the case was filed.
He viewed that case as his mission in life, not as a dispute he was supposed to impartially referee. I suspect Judge Jones (and others on the Fifth Circuit) see Judge Jack as heading down the same path.
“13 years seems like a ridiculously long time for a case to drag on (though far from the longest).”
After reading Charles Dickens’ “Beak House” I came to realize the object of litigation is to enrich lawyers. From a different Dickens novel, the Beadle’s observation that “…the law is a fool and the law is an ass” was verified by my own life experience.
Some things never change for the better, it seems.