May 7, 2016

Vincent Davis: You’re on with Attorney Vince Davis and the name of the show is Get Your Kids Back Now. This show is dedicated to keeping families together and to fighting the tyranny of CPS and DCFS social workers. A secondary purpose of the show is to educate parents and relatives or at least to show them where to get the necessary information for their fight. The final purpose of this show is to remind the people that change can be effectuated at the ballot box, at the state and federal level, at the state and federal levels. Let us unite vote and elect those who will make the necessary changes to help keep our families together.

Good morning. It’s Saturday morning. It’s 8 o’clock. Today is I believe it’s May the 7th 2016. And today’s show is going to be dedicated to talking about files in the juvenile dependency courts and talking about something lawyers called discovery.

Now I want to define briefly what I mean by trials and what I mean by discovery. Trials are things or excuse me, are court hearings where people present evidence in the form of putting witnesses on the witness stand, in the form of presenting documents to the judge to support their position. Some people believe a trial is where the attorneys just go and they argue. In my opinion, that is not a trial because in a lot of situations, if you go into court and you have a trial and your attorney just argues without putting forth any evidence in the form of documents and/or witnesses, in most of the cases, you’re going to lose mainly because the only evidence in the case is the reports of the social worker.

I have read I believe in California Appellate Courts that argument by the attorney is not evidence and the judge can only make decisions based upon evidence before him or her. So if someone tells you, “Hey we’re going to have a trial but we’re just going to have it where the attorneys argue,” that’s not a trial and most likely unless, you know, there has been some type of chambers conference beforehand, most likely, you’re not going to win. Sometimes there’s chambers conferences where the judge gets an indicated or alternative ruling and, you know, it may not be necessary for you to have a trial because you’re going to win.

But if you’re not going to win, it’s my suggestion that you talk to your attorney and perhaps insist with your attorney that you have a trial where real evidence and real witnesses and real documents and exhibits are introduced for the judge to consider.

I did a trial, it’s been a couple of months now in San Diego and it was a trial at what’s called a 366.21-F hearing. At that trial, the social worker’s report indicated that the mother’s reunification services should be terminated and that the children should be placed or remained placed in their foster home and that the court set what’s called a 366.26 hearing to terminate the parental rights of the mother and to allow the foster mother to eventually adopt these two small children. I think the children, the ages were about 6 and 4 years old.

So at the first hearing where this recommendation was made, the county counsel and the minor’s counsel both told me there was no reason to have a trial, that the mother was not going to win a trial and that we will just be wasting the court’s time in having this trial. I did not know either of these attorneys very well and they didn’t know me very well although I had had a couple of cases in the past with the minor’s attorney. The social worker of course wanted the children adopted by the foster parent, the minor’s attorney wanted the children adopted by the foster parent. In the minor’s attorney’s opinion, she believed the children will be where well taken care of and that they wanted to remain in the foster home. By the way, which wasn’t true but that’s what she told me.

There was also another attorney on the case, a court-appointed attorney for the father who happened to be a very, very good attorney. Anyway, I let them know that my client and I were not in agreement with the foster parent keeping the children and we were not in agreement and we wanted the children returned home and they kind of chuckled, they kind of laughed like you got to be kidding and, you know, reading the social worker’s mini-reports leading up to this court date, it looked really bad. But I had talked to my client and something that I do personally and I encourage attorneys that worked with me in my office to do this, I had discovered the story or tried to discover the story in the terms of how Gerry Spence says you have to discover your client’s story. And I felt that my client had gotten a very unfair treatment throughout the entire case and I felt after talking to the foster parent — after talking to my client, the parent, I got the impression that a lot of the things in the report were false, just false, either the social worker was making the biggest mistake that you can make in reporting on the case.

Perhaps you got my client confused with another of our clients where she was just outright not telling the truth in the report and twisting facts to make them look negative instead of when the fact was really positive or a neutral fact. I tell clients all the time, “Look, these social workers are professionals. They’re professionals at what they do. They’re professionals at writing reports and they do this all the time everyday all day. So if you think that, you know, you are going to have some type of influence or you’re on equal footing with the social worker, that is an incorrect assumption. So don’t ever think that.”

Anyway, getting back to the hearing, so I told the judge, you know that we wanted to set it for trial, that I wanted to present evidence and I wanted to present witnesses. And the judge didn’t say anything but the look on her face and maybe I was misreading the judge, the look on her face was, “Okay, Mr. Davis, we’re going to waste some time but I’ll give you your right to have a trial and your client’s right to have a trial.” So we have a trial. And the social worker testified first. The social worker was interestingly enough called by the county counsel as the county counsel’s first witness.

Now, in my opinion, if I was representing the county, that was a big strategic mistake. But anyway, the social worker got on the stand and she testified for what seemed like 90 minutes, a couple of hours and, you know, after her testimony, my client seemed like were in a deeper hole than where we were when we began the trial. But I was able to cross-examine the social worker effectively. I’ve received some training in terms of how to cross-examine people through the Gerry Spence Trial Lawyers College. I’ve also subsequently received trainings, some great trainings by the way from Dan Ambrose’s course, the Trojan Horse Method, you could Google that, that’s a fascinating extension of the Gerry Spence Trial Lawyers Colleges techniques.

Anyway, I was able to crossed-examine the social worker and in the cross-examination, I was able to get her to make some admissions, to make some admissions that what she had reported in her report that it wasn’t quite accurate. And I’d have to say that these admissions were significant admissions. Additionally, we had to take a break and it was kind of — it got really bad for the social worker and they took a break and we continued the case within two weeks. When we came back, I think I continued by cross-examination of the worker and the funny thing is when I came back, the social worker changed a lot of her testimony. She had had two weeks to clean up but she changed a lot of the testimony but it was the type of thing where she did herself more harm than good because at this point, the judge to her credit just wasn’t having it. The lady had already defined ABC and if she comes back two weeks later and testifies XYZ, you know, it’s — the judge as I looked at it is kind of — looked at it as if it was kind of outrageous.

Anyway, after I got do with the social worker, the father’s attorney crossed examine the social worker and the father’s attorney was a court-appointed attorney down in San Diego, a very experienced guy, a very good attorney and he did a great job and he cleaned up a lot of things that, you know, I had not really focused in on or had missed. And then the social worker’s attorney rested her case and the minor’s attorney didn’t put on any evidence. So I made a motion to have the judge rule in our favor without putting on any evidence and we argued that motion, it seemed like for an hour.

I’m going to stop the story right there. I’m going to take a call and after I finished these calls, I’m going to try to get back to the story because I want to tell you what happened so you will know what happens when you actually have a trial even if the people in the courtroom think you’re going to lose the trial. So I’m going to take a call right now from area code 310 ending in 08. Good morning. You’re on with Attorney Vince Davis. Good morning. Hello, you’re on with Attorney Vince Davis. Okay. So nobody is there. The next call I’m going to take is from area code 310, ending in 71. Good morning, you’re on with Attorney Vince Davis.

Male: Yeah, [0:12:51 inaudible].

Vincent Davis: Hello? You’re on with Attorney Vincent Davis.

Male: Okay.

Vincent Davis: Hi. Did you have a story or a question or were you just listening? Okay. Maybe he can’t hear us. Anyway, I’ll go back to the story. So we argued this motion and basically what I told the judge is based upon the testimony of the only witness the social worker had called — excuse me, the social worker’s attorney had called which was her client and based upon her client’s reports that had already been admitted into evidence, I argued that the social worker’s testimony and that the social worker’s reports were not credible and that the judge shouldn’t consider her testimony and her reports credible and that the judge should rule in our favor since the social worker hadn’t carried her burden of proof to keep the children away from the mother and stop the children from being adopted.

I do that in cases where I think the social worker and her attorney have put on evidence that is not sufficient to win or to carry the burden of proof. In this case luckily, the judge agreed with me. She found that the social worker’s testimony was not credible. She found that the social worker’s reports were not credible and she ruled in my client’s favor and gave my client back the children.

Now don’t forget, at the beginning of the story, I didn’t tell you something, I think as I recall correctly, the children had been taken away from the mother approximately 18 months before that trial date. And before that trial date, the kids had not lived with the mother and the mother at the time of the trial was having a lot of problems even visiting her children. And my client’s opinion was and I believed her that a lot of the visits were being sabotage or canceled because of the social worker and foster mother may have been scheming to keep the children away from the mother.

So here we are at this trial, a trial that nobody thought the mother had the chance of winning and we win the trial without even putting on any evidence, meaning I didn’t have to call my client as a witness, I didn’t have to call the father as a witness, I didn’t have to call my client’s service providers like her parenting instructor, counseling instructor, her domestic violence counselor, I didn’t have to call any of those witnesses. You know, I take that back, before the case started, I told everyone I wanted one of the children, the six-year old to testify. And we ended up stipulating to the testimony of the child which was the child wanted to go back home with her mother.

Remember that before this trial began, I was told that the children were doing fine in the foster home and that the children wanted to stay at the foster home but when it really got down to it and I made them dragged that child into the courtroom, they then agreed that if the child was put on the stand, that the child would testify that she wanted to come back home to the mother.

So going back to the trial, judge makes a ruling that the department and the social worker hasn’t met its burden of proof, keep the children away from the child. And the way the statute is written, that if they don’t meet their burden of proof, the child must be returned to the parent. And in this case, the judge ordered the children back to the parent.

Now obviously, my client was shocked. She thought the best thing that she was going to get out of this trial was that she’s get an additional six months of family reunification services in order to get the children back. And I must confess, before we began the trial, I was asking for that as a settlement because the worker’s reports were so bad and so negative against the mother, I thought if they give my client another six months to get her children back, which it would take up like to the 24-month date, I was doing a great job but that offer was refused by the social worker. It was refused by the minor’s attorney. So we were forced to go to trial and we want a trial because I put a witness on the stand and I was able to cross-examine that witness.

So folks, if you’re facing a trial, please talk to your lawyer about putting on witnesses, about presenting evidence. It’s so very, very, very important. I wanted to also talk about trials at the beginning of the case. So let’s say you’ve never been at juvenile court, let’s say the children have been taken away from you and the social worker calls you up and says you have a court date in a couple of days.

At this point in time, a lot of clients or potential clients call me and asked me what they should do. Some of those clients hire me, some of them do not, may go with the court-appointed attorney. One thing I want to let everybody know, when you show up for that first hearing, it’s called the detention hearing. At that first hearing, what usually happens is that the detention hearing goes by very fast, maybe five or ten minutes.

There is a — and I forget the exact name of this judicial committee but there’s a national judicial committee that has [0:20:11 inaudible] that these initial detention hearings should take about an hour. That’s a sharp contrast for the usual detention hearing that takes about 10 minutes. Because at this detention hearing, one thing can be done and it’s rarely done, you have the right to put the social worker who took your children on the stand and have your attorney question them either that day or the next day.

What a prime opportunity for defense attorney and the parent’s attorney to get information not only about why the children were detained but about relative placement. So what happens in most counties, the detention hearing takes place and it’s about 10 minutes, nobody ever mentions bringing in the social worker to be cross examined and the case is set for what’s called a jurisdictional hearing or receipt of report date they call it in Los Angeles. Between the detention hearing and the receipt of the report date, a dependency investigator is usually appointed and does an investigation and prepares what’s called a jurisdictional and a dispositional report.

On that date, the social worker also makes written recommendations. More times than not, the recommendation is is that the children should remain out of the care of the parents and place in foster home and rarely is there a required discussion about placing children with relatives. Now, sometimes the children are already placed with relatives, sometimes not. But I want to let everyone know, there’s a hierarchy within the relative placement. So, for example, I’m on a case right now in San Bernardino where they have placed the children with the relative but the relative is the mother’s second cousin but the statute, the law also says that the children must be placed with relatives when that’s possible and the relatives are appropriate. But it also gives a group of relatives prior over other relatives. And so the group of relatives that must be first considered are the grandparents, the aunts and uncles of the child and adult siblings.

Now in that particular case where the children in San Bernardino are placed with the mother’s second cousin, there are two sets of grandparents, there are adult siblings around the country and there was even one adult sibling that lived in San Bernardino. However, because the mother’s second cousin — and this is just my opinion, reported the case to the social workers to begin with, the social worker somehow rewarded that cousin, that second cousin and placed the children there.

Now, when we got the jurisdictional and dispositional report, there was no mentioned of these other relatives and whether they’d be appropriate placement for the children. So I had my client requests that the children be moved to one of the grandparents and the social worker told my client no because the children were already bonding with the second cousin prior on that case and I’m going to be explaining or arguing to the judge why these children should be moved from the second cousin’s home and placed with one side of the grandparents or some of the adult siblings or even their aunts and uncles in this case and I don’t know if they can even take the children.

As a side note, one of the things that I usually do in cases is the child is not placed with a relative, for example, child is placed in foster or the child is not placed with a friendly relative. I have my clients make a list of 25 names and with those names, I need the addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses and the relation of that relative to the child. Now these relatives, they can be anywhere in the world.

So if you have a case in Los Angeles County, they don’t have to be Los Angeles County, they can be in San Francisco, they can be in Wyoming, they can be in Florida, they can be in New York, they can be in Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe, Asia, they can be anywhere in the world and the court must consider placing these children with those relatives.

Generally, when that happens, and you have 25 names, it’s hard for the social worker number one, to investigate all of those names but it’s required by law. It’s also hard for the social worker to place the child outside of the county and it’s my opinion that since I believe the money follows the child, county like Los Angeles or San Bernardino doesn’t want to place that child outside the county because they lose control of the child and they lose control of the money.

So make that list and then in addition to making a list, talk to your attorney about a judicial council form JV-285. That’s where each relative or [0:26:04 inaudible] a close family friend fills out and tells the judge officially, “Hey, I want to be considered for placement of visitation or taking the child to school or taking the child to counseling.” There’s a long list of what relatives and [0:26:21 inaudible] can be considered doing. A lot of social workers will tell you, “Hey, these relatives and these family friends can’t have any contact with the child.” That’s not true. So just Google JV-285 if you live in California and you’ll find the judicial council form and I think it’s like two or three pages but when you read it, you’re going to think, “Oh, my goodness, I never need this.” And don’t listen to the social worker. Have your relatives and close family friends fill out that form and file it with the court. It will be given — a copy will be given to all of the attorneys on the case and then everyone will know that there’s relatives and family friends out there that care about these children and that perhaps want placement.

There’s a new case that just came out and it’s going to be controlling I think here in California where relatives have to be considered at all stages of the case. You know, the old rule was relatives had to be considered through the disposition. The problem was will I ever talk about the relatives until, you know, months after the disposition because the social workers didn’t fulfill their statutory duty to report to the court about all the relatives out there who are possible placements.

I had a couple cases in the county and the city and the county of San Francisco and they had been sued so much that they now hire an outside agency to do a due diligence to find relatives. The only thing is is that when they call or contact the relatives, I’ve been told that the relatives are kind of discouraged from taking the child and perhaps or may even be misled. But, you know, if they call out the relative and the relative says and they tell the relatives, “Oh, you know, you don’t really want to take care of this child, saw that’s a lot of problems, it’s going to cost you money, medical care, child care, blah, blah, blah,” and the relative says, “No.” The only thing that’s reported at the court is that the relatives said no and perhaps the relative had been misled or even lied to about all the services and all of the money that is there to help the relative take the child.

But I digressed. Going back to the trial, after you get the jurisdictional report and if you don’t agree with the recommendation of the social worker, you should set the case for trial. Now a lot of clients come to me, you know, after this trial has happened and they say to me, “Oh, Mr. Davis, I plead no contest and I agree for the child or the children to be placed in foster care but I wish I would have had a trial.” And when I listen to this, I kind of cringed because my first question is, “Well, why didn’t you have a trial?” And inevitably the answer is something like this, “Well my attorney convince me that I shouldn’t have a trial. My attorney said, you know, it will be best if I just leave the children in foster care and come back in six months and get them.” By the way, when you come back in six months, it’s harder to get them under the law but we’ll talk about that later. “And, you know, I just plead no contest.”

Well, here’s the problem, the problem is is that generally — no, don’t get me wrong, sometimes that could be good advice. In my opinion, it’s rare that that could be good advice but sometimes it could be. And here’s what really is the problem, if you have a trial, you are able to present all of the witnesses that support you and you’re able to cross examine all of the witnesses that are against you. That’s a really big deal. And a lot of times, there is not evidence that something happens, it’s just people saying it and repeating, you know, things that they never heard, saw or witness with their own eyes and ears. They weren’t there but somebody said something and now they talk about it as if it were the truth, you know, like gossip.

And what’s basically happening in a lot of these cases is that gossip is used to — against parents to convict these parents and to take their children away. So it’s always my philosophy that when in doubt, have a trial, call witnesses, cross examine witnesses.

Our office did a trial for a guy — I wasn’t the attorney, another attorney in my office did the trial where the man was accused of sexually abusing I think it was two different children and his step children in the home. And after a long trial, the judge in that case threw out the sexual abuse allegation and found that it just wasn’t true. But, of course, before the trial began, everyone thought, you know, why is Davis’s office wasting the court’s time and having these long trials, and then the case gets end up getting thrown out.

So always talk to your attorney, your private attorney or court-appointed attorney about having a trial. Now, the other important thing and I don’t think a lot of people understand this is that when you plead no contest, you sometimes by mistake agree to leave the children in foster care or outside of the parent’s home. And when you have a trial right at the beginning of the case, the court is actually doing two trials within one hearing, within one trial date. And the two trials are the jurisdictional hearing and the dispositional hearing.

The jurisdictional hearing is just about whether the facts or some of the facts are true, some of the allegations are true against the parent. However, the parent is entitled to a second trial and sometimes it’s done at the same time. But the second trial was the dispositional trial. So at the first trial, whether the facts or some of the facts are true, the court must determine by hundreds of evidence that the parent is a risk to the child.

Now, hundreds of evidence is generally more than 50%. It’s the lowest burden of proof in California. But at the dispositional hearing, the court must determine even though some or all of the allegations are true, the court then must determine whether the parent is a substantial danger to each of the children and must determine that there are no less restrictive alternatives to the children being placed outside of the parent’s home and the court must do all of these by clear and convincing evidence which I generally tell people is 75% or more.

So in the second trial, the social worker has to prove not that you’re a risk but that you’re a substantial danger, not just a danger, a substantial danger to the children. And you have to be one bad you know what to be considered as substantial danger to children and they must prove that there are no less restrictive alternatives and they must prove by both of these by clear and convincing evidence.

So here let me give you something that’s a less restrictive alternative. I represent a woman in Orange County and there are allegations of drug history which by the way are true. And we have a trial and of course the social worker’s attorney and the minor’s attorney are ganging up on me. Luckily in this case though, the child is placed with the biological father who gets along with my client. Anyway, I argued to the judge during this trial and I present evidence. I got to present the evidence because argument is not evidence, but there are less restrictive alternatives. So I lost on the jurisdictional hearing because they had substantial evidence, they had a lot of evidence against my client. And I was going to lose on the clear and convincing substantial danger because of my client’s drug history.

But what the county couldn’t prove, they couldn’t prove that there were no less restrictive alternatives. And as a matter of fact, in Orange County, they call it — I forget what they call it but in every county, there’s something called preservation services and those services are just what they sound like. There are services given to the parent so that the child shouldn’t have to be removed from the parent. Now, in Orange County, they treat these services as if the exception rather than the rule because they’re very expensive services and very intense services.

So here, I argued that the mother could move in with the father and that the father would always be supervising the mother to make sure that she wasn’t becoming a risk to the child by, you know, testing positive or using drugs. I also argued that these family preservation services could be given to the mother where someone literally goes to the family home every day of the week, five to six times a week and then they get to see with their own eyes for the social worker and for the juvenile judge that the child is being well taken care of and mother is not using drugs.

So even though I lost on two of the three issues, I won on the third because there were family preservation type services that could be given and that my client was, you know — she was very cooperative, very honest and the judge ordered that she could move back in the home with the child and with the father.

Child was, you know, I think about 10 months old, getting into some very important time periods in the child’s life developmentally. And if the mother wasn’t there, to be honest with you, I think it would be more detrimental to keep the child away from the mother than to allow the mother to live outside the home because it’s really, you know — can you imagine growing up without your mother? So in that case, she got to move home.

So getting back to the trial, so at the beginning of the case, those jurisdictional and dispositional trials are done at the same time and you want to make sure that even though you plead no contest, you want to talk to your attorney about, “Hey, I’ll plead no contest to an amended petition or to the petition but I want to have a dispositional hearing.”

Now, the rule at the dispositional hearing — and of course this is my opinion, but I think it’s backed up by some case law and statutes in California, is that the judge must look at the case on the date of the dispositional hearing, not on the date of the filing of the petition. So in that Orange County example that I gave you, on the date the case was filed, my client had given birth to a child. The child had drugs in its system, illegal drugs and my client had illegal drugs in her system. But we were probably three to four months out from that date when we had the dispositional hearing.

So one of the things that I presented evidence on and I argued was, “Judge, there has been a substantial change from the date of the birth of this child to now where my client has been in a program. She’s testing clean. She has in a sponsor. She’s doing parenting. You know, she’s doing individual counseling to deal with her issues. And the judge agreed. The judge agreed and he told the social worker’s attorney and the minor’s attorney who was against me to the better end. “Look, it seems like this lady has changed her life around. And despite her history, you know, I’m going to give her a chance.”

Now the interesting thing was and here is where evidence helps and where the minor’s attorney I think fell short, the minor’s attorney kept arguing my client’s drug history as if everybody knew that today she was a substantial danger to the child. She was just using her own gut feeling, her own gut argument. If she wanted to drive that point home to the judge, she would have had to bring in an expert, a psychiatrist, a psychologist preferably one who had examined my client which no one ever did and presented evidence that my client’s history made her a substantial danger to the child on the day of that hearing or on or about that day of the hearing. Minor’s counsel didn’t do that. Minor’s counsel just was arguing the point.

And remember what I said earlier, argument is not evidence. So that’s one thing that you should talk to your attorneys about, be they privately hired attorney or court-appointed attorney, argument is not evidence.

I’m going to take a break in talking about this trial stuff and I’m going to take another call. The caller was area code 626, ending in 12. Good morning, you’re on with Attorney Vince Davis.

Female: Good morning.

Vincent Davis: Good morning. Did you have a story to share or a question to ask?

Female: A question to ask. I’m on a preadoption right now but before I was given the 388 and my granddaughter returned home, the worker has told me from the start before I received my granddaughter that I was not to have a male companion, a male relative or any friendship or anything like that in my home because they felt that that would be harmful to the child. Now I was in a — I am in a relationship since 2007 with someone and I was told that he had to leave the home. The moment my granddaughter was removed from my house had nothing to do with the case.

Actually, this is the only male person that she knows as a good person and someone that she can trust since she was born. Now that I’m in the process of adoption, she continues to tell me even though he was finger-printed a year ago and came clear, he’s not permitted to come into my life. I asked once I adopt the child, if I’m going to be married because that would change the dynamic of my granddaughter coming into my home, she said — she went as far as telling me, “I need a fine statement from you that you’re not going to have this man in your life, in your home, part of your child’s visits or relation.”

How is that possible? Can they do that to me? Can they remove my child because I choose to date, because I choose to marry in the future? How is the law when it comes to something like this?

Vincent Davis: Okay. I’m going to answer your question, but first, without mentioning your first or last name, are you a client of mine?

Female: Yes, I am.

Vincent Davis: Okay. So I recognize your voice. So the social worker can tell you that. Whether it’s enforceable or not, it’s going to be up to the judge. So at our next court hearing, we’re going to bring this up to the judge. Now, if there’s no allegations that the man you have a relationship has done anything to anybody, then I think the social worker is way out of line. The only way the social worker could do something like that and justify it and it be upheld is if the man had a drug history, domestic violence history, if he had previously sexually abused the child, you know, something like that. But the social worker just can’t say, “Oh, because he’s a man, he can’t be around the child and you can’t date.” And first of all, the social worker can’t tell you you can’t date and that you can’t get married, okay? I’m just going to say that flat out, all right. Now, but the social worker can try to control your fiance’s or your boyfriend’s contact with the child.

And if that’s becoming a problem at our next court date, I want you to sent me an email on our next court date, we will address that with the social workers. Okay?

Female: Yeah. Also, if someone is live scanned and you [0:46:06 inaudible] out to two months that she will not let go of the information and she gives partial information and she say, “No, I only have the criminal part. I don’t have the child index part so therefore, this person cannot come to your house.”

Vincent Davis: She’s probably lying to you and I want you to send me an email on that because I can request through what’s called discovery her to give me that information or her attorney. Generally speaking, live scan results take about literally 20 minutes. You can go to various places like police departments or private companies and they’ll live scan you.

Female: Oh my goodness.

Vincent Davis: And then you can get a certified copy. Some places I think even do it for free and some places — I just send a client in another case to go have the boyfriend live scanned because the social worker wrote in this report that the guy was a convicted felon and that he warrants up for his arrest, therefore he couldn’t be around the child. And, you know, when we got out of court, the guy comes up to me and he says, “Look, Mr. Davis, I’ve never been convicted of anything. I don’t have any warrants out,” and he says, “I’ve been arrested one time, you know, that was when I was minor and not like I was like 35 years old.” But he says, “How can I prove this?” And I said, “Well, I want you go to the [0:47:41 inaudible] police department and I want you to pay for a live scan.” I think it cost him 20 or 30 bucks. He went. He brought me back the live scan and he got them certified. And I’m looking at it and I’m thinking, “Oh my god, what’s the social worker talking about?”

I even talked to the social worker’s attorney and said something like, “Oh, you know, they must had the wrong –” the guy has kind of a I guess a fairly popular name and I said, “You know, well maybe she’s mixing up the guy with another guy with the same name.” Anyway, they’re adamant. They’re saying, “No, we got the right guy, blah, blah, blah.” I said, “Well, I have a copy of his live scan results. May I sent it to you?”

So we just recently filed a motion to get that banned of the boyfriend not being around the child because the social worker’s report was either mistakenly or intentionally and I think intentionally of course false. The same thing is in your case, you can have your — the person, your significant other go get a live scan to prove that he’s not a bad guy and show that he…

Female: In 2000 — no, I’m so sorry. In 2015, he was live scanned by the previous worker who had come to my home to meet with her and she said, “No, he has to leave.” So [0:49:14 inaudible] with the intention of having several witness because [0:49:21 inaudible]. The child was living in my home and she said that — the social worker said, “No, no one but you and the child in the home.” And he was finger-printed. He was live scanned and he passed. He was an IHSS nurse for a whole so he’s already — he was [0:49:50 inaudible] that he was already cleared. For some reason [0:49:56 inaudible] not permitting me to have anyone in my home. So my family was broken.

Vincent Davis: Well, what we’re going to do is we’re going to take care of this at the next court date, okay?

Female: All right.

Vincent Davis: And at the next court date, I’d like him to attend. Also, because I recognize your voice, I wanted to tell you something, I wanted to let you know that I want to talk to you about filing a lawsuit against the county and the department and some of these social workers. I’m not going to mention your name and I’m not going to tell people about your case but you came to me a long, long time ago and it took me a long time for me to get your grandchild placed with you and I think at the beginning of the case when it didn’t happen overnight, you even questioned, you know, whether I was a legitimate attorney or I even knew what I was doing. The reason why it took so long is because department played dirty. They told lies about you. They used false evidence against you and they just did everything possible to keep your grandchild away from you.

In the end, we prevailed and we got your grandchild back with you. And as I understand it, you’re moving to adopt the child which is great. I just want you to pursue with me a lawsuit against what this outrageous acts they did against you and your grandchild. So we’ll be talking about that in the future, okay?

Female: Thank you. Thank you so much and honestly, if I did not have hired you to be my lawyer, I will not have my child home. That is 100% fact.

Vincent Davis: Well, thank you very much. I appreciate that and thank you for calling.

Female: Thank you. Bye-bye.

Vincent Davis: Okay. I’m going to take one more call here. It’s area code 562, ending in 99. Good morning, you’re on with Attorney…

Female: Hello, good morning.

Vincent Davis: Hi. Did you have a story or a question to ask?

Female: I have actually a question. I wanted to know — right now, we’re in the middle of a case with my son and we’re coming towards the end, the permanency hearing and I had hired a private attorney and he left my case about a week before the 12-month hearing and I hadn’t had contacted him for about 8 or 9 months and I feel like everything that had happened in the case, he didn’t do anything including the jurisdictional trial and everything. He didn’t — he [0:52:54 inaudible] not to have trial, plead no contest. And I’m listening to you and I’m wondering is there a way that we can appeal this or do something about — to the case because nothing was — you know, we weren’t defended whatsoever. Is there a way we can go back and say, hey, we weren’t given the right information, we weren’t, you know…

Vincent Davis: Yeah. The answer is yes and depending on the facts and circumstances, it could be very difficult but there is something you can do.

Female: Okay.

Vincent Davis: May I ask you a couple questions about the case?

Female: Yeah, sure, that’s no problem.

Vincent Davis: When was your last court date and when is your next court date?

Female: Our last court date was on March 7th and our next court date is scheduled for July 5th and that’s the permanency hearing and they are trying to terminate parental rights.

Vincent Davis: Okay. Have they terminated your family reunification services?

Female: Yes, sir.

Vincent Davis: They have terminated your family reunification services already?

Female: Yes, sir.

Vincent Davis: Okay. So you’re going to have to move very fast. Are your kids or the children with relatives?

Female: They’re with my parents who are trying to adopt them. They don’t — so that [0:54:19 inaudible] ever come home again. They’re working against me, not to help.

Vincent Davis: Okay. What I would suggest because there’s a long list of things that you should be doing right now. May I ask who your attorney was or is?

Female: Right now, I have been given another public defender.

Vincent Davis: Okay, so — don’t — not that name but the name of the attorney before that.

Female: That have left the case? Mark Messi.

Vincent Davis: Okay. So your case is in Los Angeles?

Female: Yes, sir.

Vincent Davis: Okay. So what I want you to do is after this call, I want you to call my office and schedule a free initial consultation. Since you’re in the LA area, it will be better if you come to my office and meet with me and that could be, you know, early next week or whenever it’s good for you and you call the office and you make this appointment. So you have a pen and a piece of paper, I’ll give you the phone number to call.

Female: Yeah, sure, sure.

Vincent Davis: Okay. So call 888-888-6582. That’s 888-888-6582. Tell them, when you call, because my receptionist — there’s a receptionist there today from 9:00 to 5:00 and there’s another receptionist that works tomorrow. We have a skeleton crew that works on Sundays from 12:00 to 5:00. So when you call, you’ll say, “Look, I talked to Vince on the radio show today, he told me to call and make an appointment for a free initial consultation.” With that, they’ll go ahead and schedule you for the consultation. They will email me and say, “Hey, did you talk to this lady, blah, blah, blah. She wants to make a free initial consultation,” and the answer will be yes. What’s your first name?

Female: Jennifer.

Vincent Davis: Okay. So Jennifer, just do that and when they email me, I’ll verify you and I’ll see you next week. And one of the things I want you to do when you come in for our meeting if you can is before our meeting, go to the court and get all of the minute orders or as many of the minute orders as you can starting with the last court hearing going backwards. Okay?

Female: Okay.

Vincent Davis: That’s going to be very important. I need to see those minute orders. Sometimes when you go there, they’re going to say, “Oh, we can only give the last three or the last four, we’re not going to give you all of them.” So whatever you can get, bring those with you to the meeting. Better yet, before the meeting, you should probably email those to me. So my email address is if you have a pen…

Female: Yes, sir.

Vincent Davis: The letter V@VincentWDavis.com. The V@VincentWDavis.com. Email those to me before our meeting and if our meeting is on Monday, you know, and you’re able to get them Monday morning, still email them to me. You can scan or fax them to me. Okay?

Female: Okay, sir.

Vincent Davis: And I will look forward to meeting with you, Jennifer. How many children are involved?

Female: One.

Vincent Davis: How old?

Female: He’s five.

Vincent Davis: All right. So I’ll tell you everything that you need to do and you need to start looking at and planning in order to try to get your child back, okay?

Female: Yes, sir. Thank you so much, sir.

Vincent Davis: Thank you and I look forward to meeting you.

Female: Thank you very much.

Vincent Davis: All right? Alrighty. So — well, we’re coming to the end of the show. That ran by pretty fast. I just want to mention a few things regarding our services. If you want to have an initial consultation with me, it’s free. We don’t charge for it. You can come into the office and meet with me. You can do it over the phone and I’m even starting to do meetings in telephone or communicate with clients and perspective clients by Skype, Skype.com. It’s free. It’s so great. It’s video and audio and it’s free and we’re talking to each other. It’s almost like you are in my office. So if you need consultation, if you need some type of second opinion, please call me.

Finally, I want to talk people about voting. If you haven’t done so, go online today or go online Monday and register to vote. The elections are coming up. It’s important to vote because judges, juvenile judges run for reelection every so many years and you want to make sure you’re voting for a judge that will keep families together. We’ll see you next week on the air.