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Drug counts against dead kids' mom are dropped

By Josh Brodesky
Arizona Daily Star
10/20/2007

Drug possession charges against the mother of Ariana and Tyler Payne have been dropped because of insufficient evidence.

Jamie Hallam was charged with possession of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia on Oct. 2 after a vehicle she was riding in was pulled over for a traffic stop.

A search revealed 18.5 grams of meth, worth nearly $2,000. Hallam was arrested along with Derek R. Palmer, 41, and Richard C. Wyman, 47.

The decision to drop the charges was made because there was not enough evidence to link Hallam to the drugs in the car, said David Berkman, chief criminal deputy county attorney.

But Berkman said he has no information indicating that charges against Palmer and Wyman will be dropped.

In February, the decomposing remains of Hallam's 4-year-old daughter, Ariana, were discovered in a trash bin stored in a plastic tub in a storage locker. The remains of her 5-year-old son, Tyler, have not been found, but he is presumed dead.

The children's father, Christopher Matthew Payne, and his girlfriend, Reina Gonzales, have been charged with the murders.

The attorney representing Gonzales has filed a motion in Pima County Superior Court asking for a grand jury to reconsider the murder charges.

In the motion, Brick Storts argues that Gonzales had no idea Ariana and Tyler had been killed, thinking that Payne had returned the children to Hallam while she was at work.

The motion also argues that while Gonzales knew about a rented storage locker, she thought it was being used to run drugs, and that she had never visited the locker.

Finally, the motion contends it's inappropriate to connect Gonzales to the deaths because the cause of Ariana's death remains unknown and Tyler's body has never been recovered.

Hallam has filed a claim against the state, Child Protective Services, the Tucson Police Department and others, seeking $12 million for the deaths of her two children.

The claim focuses largely on the decision by CPS workers and police to keep Ariana and Tyler with their father despite a court order giving her sole custody without visitation rights for him.

Hallam had allowed the children to visit Payne in January 2006 for what was supposed to be a few days, but he never returned them.

When she sought to get her children back a few months later, both CPS and Tucson police ignored the court order.

[Admin]

Analysis faults CPS approach in deaths of 2 children
2 kids died in dad's care

Matthew Benson and Amanda J. Crawford
The Arizona Republic
Nov. 2, 2007

State child-welfare workers were so singularly focused on allegations of neglect and abuse against a Tucson mother that they did only a cursory evaluation of the father before recommending two children be placed in his care, an independent analysis of the case shows.

Less than a year later, Ariana and Tyler Payne, ages 4 and 5, would be dead and their father and his girlfriend charged in the murders.

Details of the Tucson case and one other case were analyzed by a national child-welfare expert in a 29-page report released to the public Thursday. The report comes on the heels of a September legislative inquiry into Child Protective Services' actions in the cases.

The analysis, requested by CPS officials this summer, lauded caseworkers' efforts and responsiveness in the case. But it found that, in both cases, the agency was so focused on investigating specific allegations that it missed the bigger picture of family dynamics and child welfare.

Ken Deibert, a deputy director of the state agency that oversees CPS, said he feels vindicated by the report because it shows that changes made at the agency since January are taking CPS in the right direction, toward more comprehensive assessments of families.

He said caseworkers are now equipped with a new assessment tool, a guide with 17 questions that helps them have a more complete view of families and their ability to provide care and support for their children.

But Rep. Jonathan Paton, a Tucson Republican who called for the hearings into the deaths of the Payne children and 5-year-old Brandon Williams, said no assessment tool is a substitute for quality caseworkers.

"There is no tool, no instrument, no form that is going to replace a warm body going to talk to Mom and Dad," he said. "We need to figure out, at the Legislature, how to get the best people and keep them."

The analysis of the cases was conducted by Wayne Holder, executive director of ACTION for Child Protection. He completed his report in September, but it was not released to the public until after CPS finished crafting its response, Deibert said.

Holder said caseworkers did a good job in establishing relationships with the families. And he noted that the problem with caseworkers being more focused on individual incidents and missing the big picture is faced by child-welfare agencies nationwide.

Deibert said his agency began working with national experts to overcome those types of problems before the agency learned of the children's deaths.

In addition to the new tool, he said, supervisors are more involved in directing caseworkers in the kind of information that needs to be gathered. The agency also is working to involve more members of the community and extended family members in the process.

"We are taking a very comprehensive approach to improvements in the child-welfare system," said Deibert, who joined the agency last year.

But Rep. Kirk Adams, a Mesa Republican and chairman of the House Government Committee, said opening the agency to outside scrutiny is the biggest key to future improvement.

In most instances, the agency refuses to open case records and other documents for public review. Records for the Payne and Williams cases were opened only after media outlets, including The Arizona Republic, sued following the deaths and won a court order.

"Really, the only thing that appeared to change CPS was the transparency and spotlight on this particular case," Adams said. "Anything else we might do won't work unless they are more transparent."

[Admin]

Dead kids' mom: CPS culpable

Sheryl Kornman
Tucson Citizen
11/09/2007

The attorney for the mother of slain children Ariana and Tyler Payne has added evidence of culpability by CPS to its claim against the state in the children's deaths.

Their mother, Jamie Hallam, is trying to collect monetary damages from the state and Child Protective Services.

The state agency's workers ignored Hallam's child custody papers and told police to leave the children with their father, her ex-husband Christopher Payne, according to an outside review of the case paid for by the state and released Nov. 1.

Payne had been denied custody and visitation by a judge in the couple's divorce proceedings.

Payne is now charged with first-degree murder in the deaths and county prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty if he's convicted.

The body of Ariana, 4, was found in a storage locker Feb. 18. Tyler's body has not been found. The boy, 5, is presumed dead by authorities.

In an "addendum to notice of claim," attorney Jorge Franco Jr. of Phoenix used the conclusions of CPS's independent analyst, who reviewed the agency's handling of the matter, to bolster Hallam's case against the state.

Franco says in the addendum dated Nov. 7 that CPS supervisors failed multiple times to ensure the safety of the children.

He said that after CPS told police to leave the children with Payne, CPS never checked custody records or Payne's criminal record and never visited Payne's home for required home visits when children are suspected of being at risk.

Hallam was being investigated by CPS for alleged drug use and was not criminally charged. CPS failed to state how Hallam's alleged drug use affected the children, the outside review said.

Franco said the state has not responded to the notice of claim he filed Aug. 16 and said the state's 60-day response deadline expired Oct. 15.

He asks that the state meet with him to settle the case, although the notice of claim deadline has expired and he is free to file a lawsuit seeking damages. State law requires potential litigants to file a claim notice before they can sue state agencies.

Franco said he aims to save the state litigation costs through an out-of-court settlement.

On Thursday, the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office released its autopsy report on Ariana Payne.

Dr. Eric D. Peters, a forensic pathologist, said the child died from "homicidal violence" that could not be specified. He certified the death as a homicide.

At around the time of death, her back was broken in half from force applied "right to left," across the child's spine.

She had healing fractures to 12 ribs and a shoulder. One rib was broken in two.

Dr. Bruce A. Anderson, a forensic pathologist, examined the remains.

The remains were found in black, plastic garbage bags inside a duffel bag that was inside a hard, blue plastic storage bin at a rented storage locker at 519 E. Prince Road.

[Admin]

Suspect in 2 kids' deaths fights for 3rd

By Kim Smith
Arizona Daily Star
12/11/2007

A Tucson woman facing a possible death sentence in the slayings of two young children is just weeks away from losing custody of her own child, and she wants her criminal-defense attorney to represent her in Pima County family court.

Defense attorney Brick Storts asked Judge Paul Tang Monday to allow him to fight for Reina Gonzales' parental rights for two reasons.

First, Storts said, Gonzales doesn't believe her current attorney is doing a good job. And, second, if she loses custody of her son she will not be able to use her role as a mother to escape the death penalty if she's convicted.

Gonzales and her boyfriend, Christopher Payne, are both charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Ariana Payne, 4, and Tyler Payne, 5.

Ariana's remains were found in a plastic storage tub Feb. 18 after the manager of a self-storage business near East Prince Road and North First Avenue called police to report a foul odor. Tyler's remains have never been found but police believe he is dead.

Gonzales and Payne are charged with abusing and killing the children sometime between March 9 and Sept. 1, 2006.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for both of them.

Gonzales and Payne have a young son, Christopher Payne Jr., who is now living with Payne's sister.

A judge is scheduled to sever Gonzales' rights to that child on Jan. 5, and Storts said that shouldn't happen.

"We can't lose that kind of mitigation in a death case, we just can't," Storts said.

Tang scheduled a Dec. 21 hearing to discuss the matter further, but he questioned the last-minute timing of the motion, whether he has jurisdiction in the matter and whether the issue should not be discussed in a public setting.

Most dependency hearings are not open to the public.

[Admin]

Judge won't rule on parental rights of woman charged in 2 child killings

Erica Meltzer
The Arizona Daily Star
12/21/2007

Dec. 22--The attorneys for a Tucson woman charged in the killings of two young children don't want her to lose her parental rights to her son because they want to use the fact that she's a mother to help her avoid the death penalty.

But they won't get any help making that argument from Judge Paul Tang of Pima County Superior Court.

Brick Storts and Maria Davila, attorneys for Reina Gonzalez, wanted the judge to find that the mother-child relationship could be a mitigating factor in the application of the death penalty, but Deputy County Attorney Susan Eazer said anything could be a potential mitigating factor so there was no need for the judge to make any ruling.

Tang refused Friday to weigh in at all on Gonzalez's upcoming dependency hearing in Juvenile Court and said doing so would interfere inappropriately with the Juvenile Court judge's decision.

"I think you want me to give you standing in Juvenile Court, and I'm not going to do that," Tang said.

Gonzalez and her boyfriend, Christopher Payne, are both charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Ariana Payne, 4, and Tyler Payne, 5.

Ariana's remains were found in a plastic storage tub Feb. 18 after the manager of a self-storage business near East Prince Road and North First Avenue called police to report a foul odor. Tyler's remains have never been found, but police believe he is dead.

Gonzalez and Payne are charged with abusing and killing the children sometime between March 9 and Sept. 1, 2006.

Gonzalez and Payne have a young son who is living with Payne's sister. A Juvenile Court judge is scheduled to sever Gonzalez's parental rights in January.

Though Gonzalez has another attorney representing her in the parental rights case, Storts said he will be at the hearing arguing for those rights not to be severed.

[Admin]

Investigations lead to changes at CPS

Kristi Tedesco
News 4 KVOA
01/08/2007

We have a first look at some of the changes that could be coming to child protective services, the result of several News 4 investigations.

It all started when 4-year-old Ariana Payne's body was found in a midtown Tucson storage facility last February.

Her 5-year-old brother, Tyler Payne, is also presumed dead, but his remains have never been found.

Then, last March, 5-year-old Brandon Williams was beaten to death.

All three children had ties to Child Protective Services (CPS), and the agency concerns didn't stop there.

In May, News 4 also blew the lid off of a tightly held scandal, that a CPS supervisor was openly dating a convicted child abuser. That woman has since left the agency.

In all, these three investigations prompted a Tucson lawmaker to hold public hearings in Phoenix. Right now, Jonathan Paton and his colleagues are still fine-tuning the bills.

"You can't stop the evil in people's hearts," says Representative Paton. "You can't legislate that... It's a terrible tragedy... If there's any good that could come out of this, it would be that there would be reforms to protect other children."

Representative Paton is proposing a few bills to lift the so-called veil of secrecy hiding CPS activity. For example, when a child dies, their CPS file would automatically be public record, avoiding court battles like News 4 had for Ariana and Tyler Payne.

Also, all state employees facing disciplinary action would be treated just like city and county workers. Remember, the only reason News 4 found out about the CPS supervisor dating a convicted child abuser, is because an anonymous source mailed us the document that proved it.

"No matter what agency it is," says Rep. Paton, "we have to have more openness."

Another bill would address the lack of communication between beat officers and CPS. For example: right now, if an officer pulls over a vehicle, he may not know the child in the backseat is considered missing.

"When I was in Iraq," Rep. Paton tells us, "there was better communication with Coalition forces and the Iraqi Army than there is with TPD and CPS or the Sheriff's Department. That bothers me greatly."

Yet another bill would give CPS more power to find children in peril. That means more access to information. Paton thinks this could have saved Brandon Williams.

"There are between 400 and 700 kids in the state of Arizona every year that CPS cannot find; that they suspect of being abused. That's an astonishing statistic."

Finally, with the Payne case in mind, Paton says action could have been taken to keep Ariana's body from ever being dumped inside one of these units. According to Paton, authorities knew more than it seemed and didn't have the power to do anything.

"When there's suspicion that a crime is being committed, and children are involved, law enforcement needs to have a more active roll."

All of this, triggered by our News 4 investigation into the deaths of Ariana and Tyler Payne, Brandon Williams, and that CPS supervisor in a relationship with a client.

"We wouldn't even be talking about these bills right now if these records were never released."

Turns out, CPS is working with lawmakers to help craft some of those bills.

The agency's spokesperson, Liz Barker, tells News 4, "We look forward to continuing to work together on changes that support the child welfare system's efforts to promote the safety, well-being and permanency of children, particularly those that enhance our partnership with law enforcement and give us access to additional information with which to do our work."

Paton tells News 4 he'll move the bills forward before the month is out.

[Admin]

State Representatives Start Drafting CPS Legislation

J.D. Wallace
KOLD News 13
1/16/2007

Eleven months ago four year old Ariana Payne's body was found in a storage locker on east prince road the beginning of what would lead state lawmakers to look into how child protective services handled some cases. Now there could be new laws opening records to prosecutors and the public.

"This is something we have to get right," said Rep. Kirk Adams, (R) District 19, told the House Government Committee, which he chairs.

They must find serious solutions after the death of four year old Ariana Payne and the disappearance of her five year old brother Tyler. Their father Christopher Payne and his girlfriend Reina Gonzales are charged with their murders, while Diane Marsh and roommate Flower Thompson are charged with the murder of Marsh's five year old son Brandon Williams. In both cases, Child Protective Services had previously contacted the children.

"The most important thing in this bill is when CPS can notify police," Adams said to the committee on Tuesday.

That's in one of seven possible bills, from having CPS take all necessary action to find a child, such as filing a missing person report, to requiring the agency to remove children from those who can't have custody. Several bills open court hearings and records to the public, or at least to prosecutors.

"We've had a very good discussion of areas in need and how we can approach a resolution in some of those areas," said Ken Deibert, deputy director of the Department of Economic Security.

"I think with transparency and disclosure, you have a much greater chance of finding justice," Rep. Jonathan Paton, (R) District 30, said.

Along with more transparency, there's still caution about how much should become public knowledge both to protect children involved and to avoid crossing any privacy laws.

"At the very least right now, though, the bills that we're discussing are opening up the process," Paton said.

"As long as it inures to the benefit of children, then we're all for it," said Kathleen Mayer, deputy county attorney for Pima County.

The bills could offer exceptions to prevent harming a child or an investigation. But federal laws shield some CPS employee information.

"In a few minutes we're going to shut everything down, we're going to kick all of you out, you're not going to be able to come in and find out. That's a tragedy in my opinion," Paton said.

The bills could be introduced sometime next week.

[Admin]

Guest Opinion : Custody orders are crucial to keep kids safe

Elena Chabolla Stauffer
Tucson Citizen
01/23/08

Arizona's elaborate social services system did not work well for Jamie Hallam, a divorced mother who had sole custody of her children.

Nor did it work for her two small children, Ariana and Tyler Payne.

In a lapse of judgment, Hallam allowed both kids to visit their father, Christopher Payne. They never came home.

Today, Payne and his girlfriend are charged with first-degree murder.

The broken, decomposed body of 4-year-old Ariana was found discarded like garbage last February. Tyler, 5, was never found.

One or more people respon- sible for the children's welfare sealed their fate because the children, while in their father's care, reportedly appeared to be happy and well fed.

Those people have blood on their hands.

Hallam filed a $12 million wrongful death claim against several government agencies, and the state let an Oct. 15 deadline to respond to the claim pass.

A lawsuit might be the next step.

While irreparable mistakes were made in this case by employees of Arizona Child Protective Services and by local law enforcement, another key item that was devalued was a judge's sole custody order.

Any man or woman who has gone through a divorce and custody fight knows full well what Hallam endured to be granted that precious paper.

Any parent who took days off work to attend court hearings, stayed home with a child out of fear that a noncustodial parent might try to take that child, wondered where that ex might pop up and force a confrontation, that person knows getting that piece of paper is neither easy nor painless.

It takes persistence, commitment, trust in the system, resources and a lot of patience.

But in the end, when it's in our hands, that court order is worth everything that was sacrificed because somehow it will help ensure the safety of our children.

Judges deny custody and visitation for reasons based on significant concerns about the welfare of children.

Jamie Hallam had no reason to believe any different.

But what happened to this woman and her children should force us to wonder whether something like this could happen to any of us.

That paper is supposed to mean that when children are unlawfully taken or kept from their custodial parent, anything and everything will be done to get them back.

Hallam may not be the most sympathetic figure. She has faults and makes mistakes, but she was granted sole custody of her children.

No matter what her circumstances were at the time her children were being kept from her, her pleas for their return should have been as important as anyone's.

No amount of money could ever fix Hallam's unfathomable reality.

But taking her claim seriously might help fix a system that is broken and in desperate need of attention and resources.

To people who have obtained a sole custody order, who might someday need authorities to recover their children from a person the law has deemed unfit to care for them, those people must add their voices to Hallam's and send a loud and clear message that what happened here cannot be justified.

And that Hallam, Ariana and Tyler deserved better.

[Admin]

CPS reform: 'It's not too late . . . to do the right thing'
Proposed bills deal with problems in child welfare system

Jonathan Paton and Kirk Adams
Tucson Citizen
2/25/2008

Almost exactly one year ago, the images of Ariana and Tyler Payne looked out at us from our newspapers and TV screens.

Ariana's body had been found stuffed in a box inside a storage facility. Her brother Tyler's body has never been recovered.

Many things would happen in the case: confidential briefings, hearings, negotiations over policy, media revelations of mistakes.

But for both of us, it always comes back to the haunting pictures of those two children and the nagging sense that the state of Arizona could have done something to prevent their deaths.

From the beginning, there were puzzling statements from Child Protective Services at variance with those from law enforcement. Strict confidentiality laws made it nearly impossible to find out what really happened.

We signed confidentiality agreements to learn the truth in the case. What we discovered shocked us: Court orders were ignored, and CPS policies were broken.

These problems needed to be seen and debated in the light of day - not behind closed doors in the basement of the Capitol.

Ariana and Tyler were not the only children killed who died after their cases were investigated by the state.

They were followed by Brandon Williams and eventually three more children. All died here in southern Arizona within one year.

It became clear to us there were serious problems in our child welfare system, and after months of hearings and investigation, we have offered several bills to deal with them this session.

One of the biggest problems with CPS is the lack of cooperation with law enforcement. Too often, CPS does not call the police when a crime has been committed or when caseworkers accidentally taint evidence needed to prosecute a crime.

For their part, CPS charges that law enforcement often does not responds to calls to come to the home.

What is known is that of more than 600 cases of serious child abuse in Pima County last year, only about one third were investigated jointly.

HB 2455 calls for CPS and law enforcement to work together to protect children and to notify the public when they do not.

Children who have been raped or assaulted should be treated as victims. Parents who commit these acts should be treated as criminals.

But the cooperation should not end there. Between 400 and 700 suspected crime victims, such as Brandon Williams, go missing every year in this state.

Better communication between law enforcement and CPS is needed to find these kids. We propose legislation that would put their names in the data bases police routinely use.

The best way to make sure government is doing its job is to make sure it does it in the open.

CPS has legitimate concerns about protecting the confidentiality of children, but what about when those children are dead? Who are we protecting then? A bureaucracy? A criminal?

We fought to open the records of Ariana, Tyler and Brandon because we felt accountability was needed for the terrible mistakes that were made.

As soon as the records were opened, the agency began making internal changes in policies, addressing the criticism it was receiving.

Opening those records is a deterrent for future negligence and allows us to learn from mistakes. That is why we propose greater public access to case files of fatalities or near fatalities. Some names and information, such as siblings or informants would be redacted.

We also propose that the disciplinary records of all state employees - not only CPS workers - be opened the same way that city and county employees' records are.

Taxpayers have a right to review the records of the jobs they fund.

We want to ensure that children are never again placed with someone whom a court has deemed not even worthy of visitation rights.

We have negotiated with many parties in drafting these bills. We sat down with conservatives and liberals. We met with the Children's Action Alliance, prosecutors, victims' rights advocates and the governor's staff to create the very best solutions.

Most important, we have read the thousands of e-mails that have flooded our office from members of the public. We applaud all participants for their good faith efforts in negotiating these vital improvements to child welfare.

Improving child welfare is a multifaceted problem that is not prone to silver-bullet solutions. While this legislation is not the final answer, it does represent real progress.

After hundreds of hours of preparation, work and negotiation, these bills are now nearing the finish line. We are committed to doing all in our power to ensure their passage, and we encourage our colleagues in the Legislature to support this legislation.

We also call upon Gov. Janet Napolitano to join us in making Child Protective Services more accountable, more effective and more transparent by signing these bills.

It is too late to save Ariana, Tyler and Brandon. But it is not too late for Arizona's leaders to do the right thing.

[Admin]

CPS reforms win panel's bipartisan backing
Committee OKs 6 policy changes; 3 city kids' deaths got ball rolling

By Daniel Scarpinato
Arizona Daily Star
02/27/2008

PHOENIX — Prompted by the deaths of three Tucson children, a series of reforms to Child Protective Services won bipartisan approval Tuesday from a House panel.

Aiming to better protect children who are monitored by the state, the House Government Committee signed off on six policy initiatives to change how the agency operates.

The changes, which still must be approved by the full House and Senate and be signed by the governor, would:

● Require CPS to "promptly" release information regarding a case of abuse or neglect in the event of a fatality or near fatality. If releasing the information might interfere with a criminal investigation, the burden would be on the county attorney to demonstrate how.

● Require CPS to report a missing child to law enforcement authorities, and the information to be entered into a national database.

● Open the personnel records of CPS workers and other state employees.

● Require that all court proceedings involving termination of parental rights and making children dependents of the state are presumed to be open.

● Require CPS workers to promptly obtain and abide by court orders that restrict or deny custody, contact or visitation by a parent or other person in the home with the child.

● Change how CPS deals with cases and works with prosecutors.

The policy changes stem from the deaths of three Tucson children, Brandon Williams and Ariana and Tyler Payne. Although Tyler Payne's body has not been found, he is presumed to have been killed.

It took a lawsuit by the Arizona Daily Star to force CPS to surrender the documents under the state's Public Records Law — part of the motivation for requiring the agency to release records.

Lawmakers said many of the other changes were inspired by specific issues that arose in the Williams and Payne cases.

For example, in the Williams case, CPS was looking for Brandon and his mother, but the agency says it did not have the ability to file a missing-person report. Sheriff's deputies later had interaction with the mother and child but did not know CPS was looking for them.

Brandon's mother, Diane Marsh, and her roommate, Flower Tompson, have now been charged with his death.

"It is my hope . . . this will result in saving children," said state Rep. Kirk Adams, R-Mesa, the committee chairman. "It most likely would have led to a different outcome for Brandon Williams."

In the Payne case, even though the children's mother had sole custody, CPS kept the kids with their father, Christopher Matthew Payne, who is now charged with killing them. If one of the bills passes, CPS workers would be required to check court orders — a policy they have already changed internally.

Another case involved a CPS supervisor, Amy Gile, who was involved romantically with a man she met while handling his child-abuse case. Following widespread media attention on the relationship, Gile left the agency, and state lawmakers had to issue subpoenas for her personnel records.

Lawmakers are pushing to make those records fall under the state's public records law so they'd be accessible to the public.

State Rep. Jonathan Paton, R-Tucson, who originally proposed a legislative probe into CPS that has lasted for months, said opening the agency's records would give lawmakers and investigators the "keys" to make appropriate reforms.

But one committee member, State Rep. Steve Farley, D-Tucson, continued to be critical of releasing personnel records and records of cases involving dead children.

Repeating a line he has used before, Farley said he believed in "sunshine" but not if it would create "sunburn" for children monitored by CPS.

Paton responded, "I'm concerned not about a sunburn — I'm concerned about a smoke screen."

Although Farley originally questioned the motives of Paton and Adams in July, he has warmed up to some of the changes. On Tuesday, Farley praised the overall efforts as a "great example" of lawmakers working together on reforms.

However, he reiterated his position that lawmakers need to better fund social services.

"The most important thing we can do to save children is to get to the root," he said, pointing to drug abuse and domestic violence as major issues that need to be addressed.

Paton predicted the bills will face scrutiny when they go before the House and Senate.

"I'm extremely relieved that we've gotten these bills through committee, but I know this is just one step in the process," he said. "This is going to be a tough fight."

[Admin]

Mom of Payne children sues CPS, city in deaths

By Kim Smith
Arizona Daily Star
03/05/2008

The mother of two small children who allegedly were killed by their father last year has sued Child Protective Services and the city of Tucson seeking unspecified damages.

The lawsuit, which was filed in Maricopa County Superior Court, contends that even though Jamie Hallam had been given sole custody of Ariana Payne, 4, and Tyler Payne, 5, CPS allowed their father, Christopher Payne, 29, to keep them. Payne, along with his girlfriend, Reina Gonzales, 23, are accused of killing the children and could face the death penalty if convicted.

Ariana's remains were found in a plastic storage tub on Feb. 18, 2007, after the manager of a self-storage business near East Prince Road and North First Avenue called police to report a foul odor. Tyler's remains never have been found, but police believe he is dead.

The lawsuit alleges that CPS officials never investigated Payne or Gonzales, or checked on the children's well-being. If they had, they would have discovered that Payne physically abused Gonzales and he had been arrested on a drug-paraphernalia charge while the children lived with him.

The death of the Payne children, along with the death of 5-year-old Brandon Williams, has resulted in a handful of proposed bills in the state Legislature designed to revamp CPS. One of the bills, if passed, would require CPS workers to promptly obtain and abide by court orders that restrict or deny custody, contact or visitation by a parent or other person in the home with the child.

[Admin]

Protect the children, not CPS
Some legislators try to shield agency from public

Laurie Roberts
The Arizona Republic
March 8, 2008

A handful of legislators are lining up to protect Child Protective Services from the prying eyes of the public when kids die on the agency's watch.

This is not exactly a shock. Certain legislators have long fought any attempt to hold CPS accountable, and for good reason. They work for agencies that score millions of dollars in CPS contracts.

I am surprised, however, that this year's chief muscle for CPS secrecy would come from Tucson. Tucson: home of the three tragedies that led two state legislators to craft proposals aimed at better protecting the most vulnerable among us.

Or not, if Rep. Linda Lopez has her way.

On Thursday, the Tucson Democrat sprung an amendment aimed at gutting the most important CPS reform bill to come before the Legislature this year. House Bill 2454 - worked on for months by legislators, prosecutors, newspaper attorneys and child and victims' advocates - would open up records when a child is beaten to death or nearly so while CPS was supposed to be watching.

The case for openness is obvious. Evidence in case after case that has reached public view demonstrates that CPS is still an agency that keeps its secrets and excuses its mistakes. From failing to do anything about a caseworker who was dating a man she should have been investigating to clearing itself in the horrifying deaths of three Tucson tots, CPS has demonstrated that more public accountability is vital if the agency is to fix its problems and properly do its job.

Which brings us to HB 2454. The bill mandates that CPS promptly open records in child-death cases. There are protections in the bill that would allow a judge to withhold records if their release would harm an investigation.

There just aren't, apparently, enough protections to shield CPS from the public's line of sight. Enter Lopez, who not only wants to protect CPS, she wants to knit an even bigger shroud to throw over the joint.

Lopez has proposed an amendment to limit what the public could see - giving you and me even less information than we can now get. She seems to think the only information we need to know is who died, who did it, whether there were prior reports of abuse and any actions taken by CPS in response to having a dead kid on its hands.

Under Lopez's proposal, we'd never have known that CPS didn't notify police that 5-year-old Brandon Williams was missing, despite the fact that caseworkers thought the autistic child might be in danger and were searching for him. A Pima County sheriff's deputy encountered the boy shortly before he was beaten to death but had no idea CPS was looking for him. The boy's mother now awaits trial for murder.

Under Lopez's proposal, we'd never have known that CPS told Tucson police to leave Ariana and Tyler Payne with their father, despite a judge's order that denied him access due to a violent past. Now, the children are dead and the father awaits trial for murder. Five-year-old Tyler's body was never found. Ariana's was. The 4-year-old had been beaten repeatedly over time. Her spine had been snapped in half.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Jonathan Paton, was caught by surprise by Lopez's amendment, sprung on him hours before the bill was to be voted on by the House. He postponed the vote and plans to meet Monday with Lopez, the Governor's Office and various interests that have been involved in drafting the bill.

"I'm definitely going to fight it," Paton told me, referring to Lopez's amendment. "If this were to pass, there would be no information on the Williams case or the Payne case and all the reforms that we came up with - (filing) missing persons (reports), checking court records - all would be impossible because we wouldn't have known about it. That's the rationale of the bill. To save children in the future."

Lopez says the bill would violate a federal law requiring confidentiality, jeopardizing $118 million in funding. Yet those involved in drafting the bill say neither the Governor's Office nor the Attorney General's Office has mentioned such a concern in numerous meetings or in testimony before the House Government Committee, which, by the way, unanimously approved the bill. And neither has the Children's Action Alliance, fierce child advocates who support the bill.

Lopez says she is concerned the bill would also violate the privacy of innocent parties and confidential sources. Yet the bill says the names of those already protected by law would continue to be protected.

Lopez says she's just standing up for children. Indeed, she has a long record of involvement with CPS, having served as a foster parent for 10 years. She's also long worked for La Frontera Center in Tucson, which gets hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more, in CPS contracts.

A La Frontera spokeswoman on Friday declined to disclose how much tax money the agency receives to provide programs for CPS. A CPS spokesman could only say Lopez's employer gets some portion of a nearly $3.7 million contract.

Lopez, meanwhile, objected to my characterization that she's dismantling the single most important bill to improving CPS - the one that allows the public to see whether the agency is doing its job.

"I don't believe I'm gutting the bill . . . ," she said. "And there are other members besides myself who have been working with the CPS system for many, many years who are concerned about what the bill does."

No doubt there are.

The question is: How many of them work for agencies funded by CPS?

[Admin]

Execution out if slaying suspect is retarded

By Kim Smith
Arizona Daily Star
03/15/2008

A Tucson woman accused, along with her boyfriend, of murdering two young children may be mentally retarded and ineligible for the death penalty.

Authorities contend Christopher Payne, 29, and his girlfriend, Reina Gonzales, killed Christopher's oldest two children, Ariana, 4, and Tyler, 5, sometime between March 9, 2006, and Sept. 1, 2006.

Ariana's remains were found Feb. 18, 2007, stuffed inside a plastic trash bag, a designer bag and a sealed plastic tub. Tyler's body has never been found, but police believe he is dead as well.

An autopsy showed that in the days and months leading up to her death, Ariana Payne had half of her ribs and her right shoulder broken. She also suffered a fracture to one of the vertebrae in the middle of her back, at or near the time of her death.

Pima County prosecutors hope to convict the pair of first-degree murder and if successful, intend to seek the death penalty for both.

Because mentally retarded people cannot be executed in the United States, judges appoint doctors to evaluate defendants to determine their IQ and their ability to function independently.

Someone with an IQ of 65 is presumed to be mentally retarded, but the law allows attorneys to argue a client is mentally retarded if the IQ is higher.

Typically, when a court-appointed doctor says a defendant's IQ is marginal, prosecutors and defense attorneys hire their own experts to evaluate the defendant. If there's a disagreement among the doctors, the judge is then asked to make a decision.

In this case, Payne waived his right to be evaluated, but three doctors have evaluated Gonzales so far.

According to court documents, the doctors each came up with a different IQ for Gonzales, ranging from 68 to 77.

Two of them believe Gonzales, 23, may be mentally retarded, while the third does not.

One doctor reported that Gonzales' IQ was 72, meaning she scored better than only 3 percent of the people in her age group.

As a result, defense attorney Brick Storts said he is going to have at least one other expert meet with Gonzales and prepare a report.

Pima County Superior Court Judge Paul Tang will be presented all the evidence about Gonzales' mental status during a two-day hearing in May. He will make a final determination then as to whether she is eligible for the death penalty.

The doctors' reports reveal many details about Gonzales' intelligence and her background, including:

● Gonzales couldn't give two examples of a major news event that had taken place within the last month.
● She couldn't name the governor of Arizona last month.
● During one test, she couldn't recall three simple, unrelated words five minutes after they were provided.
● She quit school in the 10th grade after her father died.
● Gonzales was never diagnosed with a learning disability or placed in a special education class.
● She told doctors she has supported herself for the past eight years, mostly working in the fast-food industry.
● She told one doctor she was fired from three jobs because her boyfriend was "really jealous" and prevented her from going to work.
● Before her arrest, Gonzales said, she was a daily heroin and cocaine user. She also smoked marijuana every day between the ages of 16 and 20.
● She has gained 60 pounds since she stopped doing drugs.
● Gonzales recently stopped taking depression medication because she didn't like the way it made her feel.
● She told one doctor her goals are to get her general equivalency diploma and regain custody of her 3-year-old son, who lives with Payne's family.

Gonzales' trial is scheduled for Oct. 7 and Payne's trial is set for Jan. 27, 2009.

[Admin]

Let kids' deaths haunt debate for CPS reform

By Laurie Roberts
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 19, 2008

Their voices cry out from across the years and beyond the grave. TaJuana, and China Marie, who died in 1993 - just two weeks after a state child-welfare official declared that she was "thriving."

During the 10 months that Child Protective Services was watching, China Marie endured two broken collarbones, six arm fractures, a broken rib, a broken hand, two broken legs, two broken wrists and a broken spine. She was 2 years old.

After the deaths of China and TaJuana, another foster child beaten to death, CPS officials vowed to fix things. But nothing changed, other than the politicians in charge of this state.

And there were more voices. Henry and Odessa and 5-year-old Donovan, who was left in an unsafe home despite a pattern of abuse and a pediatrician's warning that if he died "it will be the result of neglect on the part of CPS." Donovan died in April 1996, during Child Abuse Prevention Month, and CPS vowed to change.

But nothing changed. Only the names of dead.

Anndreah and Angelene and 20-month-old Liana, who was beaten to death in 2001, wired to a rock and thrown into a canal. Her body was found one day after CPS declared it could find no evidence the tot had been abused.

More vows. More dead children.

Ariana and Tyler and Brandon and now Jahyr Holguin, who died in January, at the ripe old age of 5 months. In December, CPS was called about possible abuse but never saw the boy to sort out what was going on.

Every year, dozens of Arizona children die in unspeakable ways. Laws have been strengthened and budgets increased, and nothing has changed.

Last year, this newspaper and the Arizona Daily Star sued the state to find out what happened to Ariana and Tyler Payne and Brandon Williams. Over the objections of CPS, a judge opened the records, revealing a stunning series of foul-ups by the agency that is the only hope of some children.

This time, CPS hasn't even bothered with empty vows. In fact, a top CPS official actually testified that the agency didn't mess up. ("The actions taken by staff," explained Lillian Downing, chief of the Tucson CPS office, "were consistent with our practices.")

Reps. Kirk Adams and Jonathan Paton are sponsoring seven bills targeting failures that came to light in the Payne and Williams cases and in the case of the CPS caseworker who was dating a man she should have been investigating. By far, the most important one is House Bill 2454, which would open CPS records when children are beaten to death or nearly so.

With this bill, Paton thinks he's found the key to fixing, finally, what ails CPS: sunshine.

"I went home the other night and the power was out in my house. I couldn't find the lock. I couldn't find my keys. It took me a good 10 minutes to get in and as soon as I got in the house, I stumbled over my Army duffel bags and fell," he said. "With CPS, we can't even find the keys to the problems we're facing. We have no idea what they are. We're guessing at what those problems might be, and we're hoping that we're going to unlock the problems that we are faced with. But we can't because we're in the dark and the idea that somehow you can find truth or reform in the darkened hallways of this bureaucracy without a light? It's ridiculous."

HB 2454 will be voted upon by the House today. It would be fitting this week, of all weeks, to see the sun begin to shine on an agency that has for too long been both blessed and cursed to work in darkness. Blessed because its mistakes don't show. Cursed because neither do its needs.

This, after all, is Sunshine Week, when we in the media explain your right to know what your government is doing. It's a week when we outline all the things we're doing to further the grand goal of a truly open government.

But we can't do it alone. When it comes to CPS, we can only tell the stories. We can only appeal to the community's collective outrage and to a firm belief that these children shouldn't so silently slip away.

The rest, really, is up to you.

[Admin]

House approves CPS bills
Measures would require child-protection agency to release records

Amanda J. Crawford
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 20, 2008

Child Protective Services is the state agency charged with protecting Arizona's children, but exactly what they do in most cases - even those in which the child has died from abuse - has remained largely hidden from public view.

A bill approved by the Arizona House of Representatives on Wednesday would change that. It would require the agency to release records when a child is killed or seriously injured from abuse or neglect, unless the prosecutor determines this would cause material harm to an investigation.

House Bill 2454, which now goes to the Senate, is part of a package of reforms introduced in the wake of legislative hearings in the fall on the deaths of three Tucson children whose families were involved with CPS. Other bills approved by the House this week would make state employees' disciplinary records open to public inspection and open some court hearings on custody decisions to the public.

Rep. Jonathan Paton, R-Tucson, said he believes public scrutiny will help make meaningful reforms at the child-welfare agency.

"Our whole principle of government is checks and balances, and the ultimate check and balance is for the people to know what is going on," said Paton, sponsor of HB 2454. "And the one thing this agency has been missing is real public scrutiny."

David Bodney, an attorney at Steptoe & Johnson who represents The Arizona Republic, said there has long been a "culture of secrecy" at CPS: The agency usually argues that one law or another prevents them from releasing even basic information on cases to the public and media. Current law allows the agency to release summaries in cases of child death or near-fatality. But Bodney said those summaries are "practically useless" with information that is either inadequate or sometimes misleading.

Last year, The Republic and the Arizona Daily Star sued CPS for information on the deaths of three young Tucson children, Brandon Williams and Ariana and Tyler Payne, who died after CPS investigated allegations of abuse.

The newspapers won, which allowed the legislative hearings on the children's deaths to be open to the public and the media.

Rep. Kirk Adams, who chaired the hearings in his government committee and sponsored some of the CPS reform bills, said those hearings and the media coverage of the deaths led to the House passing two other reform bills to address problems found in those cases. One requires CPS to follow custody orders, which didn't happen in the Payne case, when the kids were placed with their father, now accused in their murder. The other requires CPS to notify law enforcement when a child is missing, something that Adams has said might have saved 5-year-old Brandon Williams.

"I, in my office, witnessed the power of public records in affecting the public good," Adams said on the House floor.

Adams and Paton worked with officials from CPS, the Governor's Office, other lawmakers and stakeholders in crafting the reform package.

Some Democratic lawmakers and the Governor's Office have expressed concerns about one piece of HB 2454 that allows the agency to challenge a prosecutor's decision not to release information. Other provisions allow the public or media to challenge any decision not to release records.

Mike Haener, a deputy chief of staff to Gov. Janet Napolitano, said the governor worries that including the agency in that part of the bill could set up an adversarial relationship with prosecutors, whom it should be working with cooperatively. The governor is otherwise supportive of the proposal, he said.

But others say they worry that releasing information on children's deaths could harm other family members. Rep. Pete Rios, D-Hayden, called the bill a "bad piece of legislation" that has the potential to "re-victimize" other children, especially in rural areas.

"The concerns that I have is that we open CPS records and we provide information, but even if we cross out names . . . people are still going to know who we are talking about," he said. "They are going to know the victims, the siblings, other people in the household that may have been physically abused, sexually abused. . . . I don't want to re-victimize the victims."