LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL!

FIRST HEROINES OF THE CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENT OF FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN DIAGNOSED WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES-----Mothers, Jean Bowden and Melanie Lyons get a small taste of justice when, with the recommendation of their attorneys, they settle out of court. With the backing of certain damaging precedents and corrupt law governing the "treatment" of children diagnosed with autism which puts "expert opinion" over parent's rights to protect their children from bodily harm, the perpetrators/experts escaped several of the parents charges, such as assault and battery (more to be posted). The Massachusetts parents were therefore forced to accept an insultingly small amount of money (Bowdens received $75,000 in compensation) for incalculable damage to their now broken families. Their children were diagnosed with autism and "treated" with "token economy systems" and "discrete trial/ABA." The children were diagnosed with severe PTSD as a result of the pain-compliance restraints employed to "educate them" and help them be a part of the Massachusettes "community!" --------***In the local papers, the school system had previously spun the issue as "unruly children in school." Jean had been accused as being "obsessed" with the issue.

LAWSUIT DETAILS According to Jean Bowden, the hearing did not go well for them as far as the Constitutional claims. This was due to the fact the Federal Court Judge weakened the case by dismissing the Federal Court claims under 42 U.S.C. S l983. The parents had sued the Barnstable Public School district for the violation of their children's right to bodily integrity against invasion by state actors, a right guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. They also had sued under the Tort Statue for Assault and Battery, loss of consortium and emotional distress. The Federal Claim was the most important part of the case and without it the parents were left with a scenario of a long expensive court battle for a tort claim (which is why they settled). The Judges reasons for this appeared to be a problem with a clause in the Federal Law IDEA and another one regarding case law. The most important being the following (as described in public court records): There is only a right to be free from excessive restraint, reasonable restraint is by definition lawful. See Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307 (l982). The appropriate standard for determining whether a restraint is reasonable is "whether the defendent's conduct was such a substantial departure from accepted professional judgement, practice, or standards in the care and treatment of [the] plaintiff as to demonstrate that the defendants did not base their conduct on a professional judgement." Youngberg, 457 U.S. at 3l4. See also, Doe v. Gaughan, 808 F.2d 871 (1st Cir. l986); Heidemann v. Rother, 84 F.3d 1021, 1029-1030, re'hg en banc denied, 1996 U.S. App. LEXIS 16161 (8th Cir. 1996).

WHEN THE STANDARD OF CARE IS BRUTALITY The Massachusettes Judge had been somehow convinced that the USE OF THE RESTRAINTS [WHICH WERE ASSAULT AND BATTERY OF THEIR DAUGHTER AND ABUSE OF THE BOWDENS IN THEIR LAWSUIT] was a dispute about whether the abuse was within the professionally accepted standard of care due to testimony by paid expert witnesses/Director/staff from a private school and organization called The XXX Institute (. The XXX Institute defended the controversial floor restraints which we believe amounted to PAIN COMPLIANCE TECHNIQUES as the professional standard of "care" they use. (The school staff in the district's so-called "caring and therapeutic" classroom had been trained by XXX Institute)

'REASONABLY' CONCLUDING THAT A PARENT GAVE CONSENT The most disturbing issue in aversives and restraint is that parents are falsely accused of having given consent to what they consider to be child abuse. ****HERE ARE SOME OF THE LEGAL LOOPHOLES THAT SUPPORT CURRENT INHUMAN CARE OF AUTISTIC CHILDREN --- 1) Perpetrators claim that they "reasonably thought" that the parent gave consent for the use of life threatening, pain inducing restraints, aversive and brutal treatment of their fragile young child in conversations, etc. without. documentation or documentation has been lost or erased. 2) Perpetrators work together supporting the inhuman "standard of professional care" used in the court trials where parents are trying to protect their young children. In addition, court costs are prohibitive for most victim families at this time. 3) Violation of Informed Consent: Parental agreement seldom meets the standard of "informed consent" because even when a parent allegedly agrees to restraint, aversive or intrusive procedures, they are not given a clear picture of what will be done to their child and its dangers (injury, death). 4) Euphemisms which hide or verbally disguise the violent nature of some "treatments" such as "restrictive procedures" are used in consent forms. The terms used are so innocuous that parents think they refer to things such as seatbelts in the program van, etc. 4) Parents who have few choices are often pressured, coerced, or berated into giving "consent" by threats that the child will be removed from the program or not admitted to a program. When there is no other alternative program available to them, parents are forced to act against their own consciences. 5) Parents are sometimes threatened with slander suits when they complain that their children have been abused by staff and institutions using intrusive procedures. The current prohibitively expensive U.S. legal system weakens or cripples the pursuit of justice in the courtroom by poor and middle class families whose children have been victimized Tragically, this financial reality has had a chilling effect on the free speech rights of victims.