When we heard about the federal lawsuit against DFS, We dutifully went down to the Lloyd courthouse to obtain the filing.

It has been 10 years since we have dealt with the federal courts, and we were prepared for an excruciating ordeal and a significant cash outlay. Not true! It turns out everything is ELECTRONIC now! The Federal Government! Who'd a thunk it!

We didn't have to go to the courthouse at all! We could pull up the whole 73-page filing on a website for about three bucks!

Prayer for Relief

d) Preliminarily and permanently enjoin Defendants from subjecting plaintiff to practices that violate their rights.

e) Order appropriate remedial relief to ensure Defendant's future compliance with their legal obligations to plaintiffs and retain jurisdiction of this matter to ensure full, adequate, and effective implementation of the relief ordered by this Court.

f) Award to the plaintiffs the reasonable costs and expenses incurred in the prosecution of this action, including but not limited to reasonable fees and costs pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1988 and 1920 and Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(h).

The first video shows Child Haven and interviews Asst. County Manager Darryl Martin (but not Thomas Morton).

In the second video, the reporter holds up the lawsuit filing, which appears to be about 50 pages. The bulk of the report appears to be a repeat broadcast of a story on Josia Spurgeon, who died while in foster care.

An Oakland-based nonprofit filed a class-action lawsuit Wednesday in federal court on behalf of abused and neglected children in Clark County, saying the county's child welfare system is in turmoil and puts children in danger instead of fulfilling the obligation to protect them.

"Instead of nurturing children, it is a system that helps to destroy them," said Bill Grimm, senior attorney for the National Center for Youth Law.

The center's lawsuit, which seeks to reform the child welfare system, names multiple defendants, including Gov. Kenny Guinn, the Nevada Division of Child and Family Services, the Clark County Department of Family Services and Clark County commissioners....

Grimm called the Department of Family Services a "catastrophe" for children in the child welfare system because state and county officials are complacent about it.

The lawsuit alleges that the Department of Family Services places abused and neglected children in unsafe homes and overcrowded and understaffed facilities such as Child Haven; that it doesn't do proper investigations into allegations of abuse and neglect and therefore pulls children out of homes too often; that it fails to properly monitor foster parents and foster homes....

Annie Uccelli, spokeswoman for the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the state's Division of Child and Family Services, said the state has received a copy of the lawsuit but wouldn't comment on it until officials review it and discuss it with their lawyers.

But a letter written Wednesday to Department of Family Services Director Tom Morton by Michael Willden, the director of the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services, noted that "it is clear, the existing level of effort to correct system deficiencies is not adequate."

Willden wrote that the county needs to do several things, including providing the state with information on children who die within 24 hours, investigate other "serious incidents" that surfaced at Child Haven when state staff investigated the facility and step up recruitment and licensing for foster parents and homes.

Darryl Martin, assistant manager for Clark County, said he had briefly reviewed the lawsuit Wednesday but couldn't address the allegations in detail.

Martin said county officials are reforming the child welfare system and recently have started training staff on how to conduct investigations into abuse and neglect cases.

He also said the county's staff "never intentionally places children in dangerous or inappropriate settings."

The National Center for Youth Law (NCYL) files a class action lawsuit today against Nevada Gov. Kenneth C. Guinn, state Health and Human Services Director Michael Willden, and Clark County officials for failing to protect the health and safety of children in Clark County's child welfare system. The suit charge the defendants with causing serious harm to many children in the system, and calls for sweeping, system-wide reform. The county is responsible for the welfare of more than 3,600 children.

Las Vegas police's abuse and neglect unit is investigating injuries to a 2-month-old girl admitted to Sunrise Hospital in critical condition Friday.

We are only a month and a half into the temporary Morton Digression and already things are disintegrating nicely.

Reports are flowing into our War Room from many different quarters. The new Family Services director Thomas Morton seems to have offended just about everyone in one way or another. The staff is stupid. All current problems must be blamed on the previous administration (most of whom are still present). The boss is always right, and your opinion, if you dare to have one separate from his, will probably get you fired. He hasn’t won an ounce of loyalty from anyone since arriving. Like Dr. Evil, he’s surrounded by frickin’ idiots and can’t even manage to rule the world.

As the new director of Clark County's Department of Family Services, I am acutely aware of the challenges in our foster care, child protective and emergency shelter service areas. Family Services needs the support of the community to develop and implement effective solutions to these challenges. We need support from members of the medical community who might be willing to become medical foster homes for children with serious medical needs. We need families willing to care for sibling groups. And, as our critics note, we critically need families willing to care for infants.

But we also need families coming forward to work with us as team members in our efforts to help birth families make changes so that, where feasible, children return to safe homes and grow up in the families which brought them into this world.

Authorities have been tight-lipped about the case because of laws restricting the release of information about children, but several sources in Clark County's juvenile justice system said they have learned the boy was sent to Montevista Hospital after his arrest....

Susan Roske, chief of the juvenile division for the county public defender's office, was among those who have been told the boy was taken to Montevista.

Roske said her office has not been appointed to represent him, and she does not know his name.

"As far as I know, he has not been detained or appeared in court," Roske said....

Deputy District Attorney Karen James said the Henderson case has not been submitted to the juvenile division of the district attorney's office, "and we're the only ones who can file charges on juveniles."

"We have not received any paperwork with that type of charge on it in the past week," she said.

James said she does not know the boy's name or any other information about his case.

"To my knowledge, he's not detained, because the paperwork has not been submitted to the district attorney's office," the prosecutor said.

James said a juvenile suspect who is detained typically appears before a judge the next day for a detention hearing.

Juvenile suspects who are not detained, but have had charges filed against them, typically appear before a judge for a plea hearing in about three to four weeks, she said....

"From what I read in the paper, it doesn't sound like a crime was committed," Roske said. "I'm very concerned if they detain this boy who may have mental problems, and I hope that his parents get counsel for him."

Roske said most children are released after police arrest them.

She said either authorities or the boy's parents could have placed him at Montevista Hospital.

The police went to the 14-year-old's house and searched his home computer. The youth was at the house and was wearing a shirt that had the words "Kill Hate Destroy" printed on it, Rasmussen said.

Authorities found video footage of the Columbine massacre on the 14-year-old's computer, he said. The footage, taken by Columbine school surveillance cameras, showed Klebold and Harris standing in the school's cafeteria holding guns.

Similar surveillance footage of the Columbine shooting, including video of the two teens shooting students, is easily found on the Internet....

The Clark County courts system will lose at least one-fourth of its administrative bailiffs to resignations in the coming weeks, and several bailiffs said the reason for the defections is simple: money.

Judges come from the Third Floor, where they are kept in cages until it is time for court to begin. Don't get me wrong, these are very nice cages. Each judge gets to decorate it however he or she chooses, but they are still cages nonetheless. They are kept there naked, to reduce the risk of escape. When it is time for court, they are unshackled and taken down a secret elevator to the second floor. Then they are lead down a hidden corridor, still naked, until they reach a back door to their assigned courtroom. Then the robe is placed upon them, and—PRESTO!—they become judges.

For better or worse, getting hitched on the spur of the moment is a long-standing tradition in Las Vegas, where weddings have been no exception to the city's 24/7 lifestyle. But as of next week, spontaneous late night I-do's will become just another footnote in this town's fabled history. Citing a tight budget, Clark County commissioners last week granted County Clerk Shirley Parraguirre's request to reduce hours at the Marriage License Bureau, eliminating the office's weekend and holiday midnight-to-8 a.m. shift

A nonprofit law office has sent two letters to Clark County officials raising concerns about overcrowding at Child Haven and other child welfare services.

The Youth Law Center, along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, also gave the county a series of deadlines to reform the child welfare system in Southern Nevada. The groups threatened a lawsuit if the deadlines and reforms are not made.

"We are extremely concerned, not only about the current deplorable overcrowding at Child Haven, but also about the harmful practice of housing babies and toddlers in an institutional setting," Carole Shauffer, executive director of the Youth Law Center, based in San Francisco, wrote on July 19....

for Children and Families Susan Orr, associate commissioner of the children's bureau at the Administration for Children and Families, said the state could be fined $369,000 if it doesn't adequately reform Child Haven. The state has oversight over the county's child welfare system.

The purpose of this letter is to inform you of the findings from our on-site visit to Clark County and our intent to renegotiate the Program Improvement Plan (PIP). Based on the information we have gathered, we have ascertained that although the original Child and Family Services Review (CFSR) conducted the week of February 23, 2004 identified many concerns related to Clark County, the situation has worsened since the on-site CFSR occurred. Subsequent information has come to light, such as the Independent Child Death Review Panel, in addition to consistent overcrowding as Child Haven and recent tragedies involving children in foster care. Our site visit confirmed for us that if the State continues on its current court, the State will not be able to achieve compliance with certain State plan requirements. It leads us to conclude that the PIP originally developed to address the findings of the CFSR is no longer adequate to address the serious deficiencies in the State's child welfare program, most specifically Clark County which accounts for the majority of the State's child welfare population.

If the state and federal government can't agree to the program improvement plan, the state faces "possible penalties for noncompliance," the letter stated.

The letter didn't specify what those penalties could be. Calls to Health and Human Services officials were not returned Wednesday.

Thomas Morton, director of the county's Department of Family Services, issued a statement Wednesday saying that he will meet with Willden and Fernando Serrano, director of the state's Division of Children and Family Services, on Aug. 21 to discuss responding to the letter and making sure federal regulations are met.

"Many of the observations and recommendations made in the letter ... are already addressed in the 'safe futures' plan that I am currently developing for future presentation to the Clark County Commission," Morton said in the statement.

Carole Shauffer, executive director for the Youth Law Center, a nonprofit law office in San Francisco that works with abused and at-risk children, said she has discussed problems with Clark County's child welfare system with state and county officials and is considering filing a lawsuit against the state and county if the issues are not resolved.

"These children are in danger because the conditions are bad right now and the basic policies of the child welfare system are not supportive of the developmental needs of the children," Shauffer said Wednesday.

She said the overcrowding at Child Haven and the county's "poor job" of recruiting foster parents are top concerns. She also said that at-risk children are too often removed from their parents' home and that services to the families could, in some situations, be better for the children.

These complaints are largely mirrored in the federal government's letter. For example, Child Haven is designed to hold 84 children and 20 infants, but on June 30, there were 205 children at the facility and 105 of them were age 4 or younger, the letter said.

As of Wednesday, the Child Haven population was 146, including 40 infants.

Tom Morton, director of the county Department of Family Services, urged County Commissioners on Wednesday to support the loosening of state privacy rules that he said restricts him and other county officials from disclosing much about deaths and near fatalities of kids in the child welfare system.

"We have very extreme limitations on what we can share with the community," Morton said. "It places us in a difficult situation when we cannot be open."

Other child welfare advocates disagree with the county's interpretation of state law, saying county officials could release more information but choose not to.

"Currently, state law allows them to release some information. Despite that, they're not releasing it," said Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, a member of the legislative subcommittee studying the health and welfare of children in public custody.

The race for a newly created Clark County Family Court position came down Tuesday to a one-time judge seeking to regain the bench and an attorney looking to advance.

With most votes tallied, Robert Lueck secured his position on the November ballot with 25 percent of the vote.

The second candidate to advance in the nonpartisan race will be attorney William Potter, who received 16 percent of the vote.

The call for help came Tuesday afternoon from a Child Haven staff member. A 17-month-old boy was found unresponsive in his crib.

Captain Terry Lesney, with Metro's Abuse and Neglect, said, "It appeared he was going in and out of consciousness, so they called the paramedics. He had a slight pulse but died in transport and upon arrival the child was declared deceased."

What police do know is that the child had been voluntarily turned over to child haven by his maternal grandmother who said she was no longer able to care for him.

"At this point, there is no reason to believe it was suspicious. But that's why we are investigating," Capt. Lesney continued.

Police say the baby had been at Child Haven since June 29th.

Investigators also say that Joshua's mother and father are a local homeless couple.

Capt. Lesney said, "They felt the child would be better off in a safe environment."

Police say the couple even visited their son at Child Haven on a regular basis.

A 15-month-old boy stopped breathing at the county's home for abused, neglected and abandoned children Tuesday afternoon and was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital, marking the fourth time since Aug. 4 that a child who had contact with the child welfare system has died....

Staff at Child Haven noticed the boy wasn't breathing about 2 p.m. on Tuesday and immediately called 911 while also administering "emergency procedures," said Gina Olivares, spokeswoman for the county.

Paramedics spent about 25 minutes trying to revive the child at the scene and used a machine, believed to be either a respirator or a ventilator, to get the child breathing, she said.

The paramedics transported the boy to North Vista Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 4:05 p.m., according to a statement issued by Thomas Morton, director of the county's Department of Family Services.

"This is a sad and tragic day, and has a tremendous impact on the child's family and the staff at Family Services. A child's loss of life is devastating to all of us at Clark County and to our community," Morton said....

There are approximately 2,100 children in foster care in Clark County and about 160 in Child Haven. In July, the county reported there were 228 children and infants inside the facility.

Brittney Bergeron, who was paralyzed in a stabbing attack in Mesquite that killed her 3-year-old sister, is expected to testify next week against one of her alleged assailants, Monique Maestas....

Monique Maestas, 18, and her brother, Beau Maestas, 22, were in court Tuesday for separate hearings. In one of their earlier joint court appearances last year, they whispered to each other and laughed. On Tuesday, Monique Maestas again acted up in court, giving the finger to a Review-Journal photographer in the moments leading up to her pretrial hearing.

Her defense lawyer, David Schieck, said afterward that his client's behavior before the hearing was immature but understandable given that she was 16 when she was arrested in the stabbings of the two children and has been in jail ever since.

"She is a kid," Schieck said. "She is sometimes juvenile in response to a stressful situation."

Schieck went on to reveal that when Monique Maestas goes to trial next week in the courtroom of District Judge Donald Mosley, he will try to show the jury that she had a lesser involvement in the stabbings than her brother did.

"We are looking to hopefully convince the jury her culpability was much less," Schieck said....

Brittney said that on the night of the stabbing, she was home alone with her sister when someone knocked on the door and told her that "she needed to go with him to see her mom," Medina said. "She said, 'I don't ever leave my house if I don't know the person.'"

Moments later, a woman who authorities said was Monique Maestas knocked on the door and pleaded with the child to let her in.

"Your mom has been hurt really bad," Monique Maestas told the child. "You need to come with me."

Eight kids, one van and 5,200 miles. Not the typical family vacation, but the Binsfelds of Minnesota are not the typical family. They have five adoptive children, and they want the rest of the world to know how rewarding it is. So they piled their children into a 15-passenger van and hit the road for an 11-city tour across the West to promote the joys of adoption. They stopped in Las Vegas Monday after two weeks on the road.

But police - knowing that curfew citations rarely have been taken seriously by anyone in the system, from prosecutors to the offenders themselves - also realized they couldn't solve the problem alone, says Officer Robert Hubbard of the Bolden Area Command.

"We were wondering what we could do to stop this," says Hubbard, who serves on Metro's problem-solving unit. "We decided we needed to come at it from a different angle."

Along with prosecutors, defense lawyers, probation officers and Family Court Judge William Voy, they devised Curfew Court, a pilot program they hoped would help.

Before Curfew Court, violators who were not on probation or parole almost never went to court, officials say. Instead, the cases usually were dropped by a probation officer before they reached a prosecutor or judge.

Now, however, youths from 12 to 17 who break curfew and who commit trespass violations must appear in Curfew Court within one week of the citation. It is held Thursday afternoons at the Family Courts building on North Pecos Road.

A review of campaign finance reports filed between 1992 and 2006 now raises questions about his political discretion. The disclosures signed by Jones document:
• Three election contributions from the spouse of an embattled subordinate that have raised questions about conflict of interest. Three months after Jones recommended suspending instead of firing Family Court Hearing Master Sylvia Beller in a 2004 disciplinary matter, husband Neil Beller is reported to have made three separate contributions for a total of $4,500 to his campaign.
  
  
• An apparent violation of the state's Code of Judicial Conduct made by another judge who contributed to Jones. Senior Judge James Brennan gave $500 to Jones in 2004. In 2002, an advisory opinion issued by a judicial review body found such contributions are tantamount to endorsements.
  
  
• Thousands of dollars of indebtedness to Tom Cecrle, a former brother-in-law and close associate whose legal troubles reflect on Jones at a time when the FBI is questioning his ties to people with criminal histories. In July, when Cecrle faced bad check charges in Las Vegas Justice Court, Jones accompanied him to the hearing in a show of support. Cecrle faces two felony criminal cases and has been the subject of at least five financial demands or judgments in District Court in recent years.

Jones, however, is determined to weather the heightened scrutiny turned on him by recent events and said through his attorney James Jimmerson that he has no plans to turn in his robes. "He is absolutely not going to resign," Jimmerson said. "He's done nothing to warrant that. That he's excellent as a Family Court judge is known countywide."

While visiting a Golden Corral restaurant in Gallup, New Mexico, we saw this political sentiment expressed on a t-shirt. The wearer, a Navajo boy, was kind enough to display it for us.

The recent string of deaths of children with ties to the Clark County Department of Family Services has shocked critics of the child welfare system and legislators involved in foster care issues.

"Clearly the situation is spiraling out of control," said Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno. "We know it (the child welfare system) has been in crisis, but it's now beyond crisis."...

Thomas Morton, the new director of the Clark County Department of Family Services, said the department has some institutional problems, such as a lack of training and staff members, which has led him to push for changes to ensure children's safety.

For example, Morton said, he wants to institute four-day training courses for case workers who investigate incidents of abuse and neglect. Currently, there is no training for investigations into such cases, he said.

"Few, if any, of our staff have received specific training about investigations," he said.

For nearly three years now, I have been "homeless", sleeping in the desert or in my car somewhere in or near Las Vegas. I don't expect your pity, however. On the contrary, I pity you.

In the beginning, this lifestyle was not my choice. Technically, I had a home, but I could not linger there and did not feel safe closing my eyes. My challenge was to support a family in a house I couldn't live in, and my own homelessness was a financial necessity. Now, it is my chosen lifestyle. It permits me to do what I want to do and not serve someone else.

A 7-month-old foster boy who was in critical condition after being injured died Friday.

"It is with great sadness that we announce today that a child in our foster care system has passed away," Tom Morton, director of Clark County Family Services, said in a statement.

Authorities refused to release the boy's name or any information about how the child was injured and said the matter remained under investigation....

Police did not know the cause of death, but the boy had head injuries, Lesney said.

Members of a Nevada committee examining child deaths are crafting legislation that would push back the cloak of secrecy obscuring failures in the child welfare system.

Retired state Supreme Court Justice Deborah Agosti, chairwoman of the Blue Ribbon Panel on Child Death Review, won approval to write a bill draft aimed at increasing accountability to the public and bolstering state authority to force compliance from county family services agencies....

Agosti suggested that in cases where county family services entities are uncooperative in meeting state and federal mandates, the state should have the power to step in, correct the problem and bill the county for the cost of intervention....

Tom Morton, who recently took over as director of Clark County Family Services, conceded that in the past, it appeared that individuals did not face consequences for poor job performance. Since his arrival in the county, Morton said, he's been made aware of cases that have not had case notes added in two years. Morton said one of his goals is to establish a performance baseline for the department so that it's easier to see if the situation is improving.

Embattled Family Court Judge Steven Jones and his former girlfriend are considering reuniting, even though the judge is charged with battering the woman, according to Jones' lawyer.

On Thursday, Jones and Amy McNair signed a legal document asking a judge to rescind his order that the two not contact each other.

"They are exploring reunification," said James Jimmerson, Jones' attorney. "It's not happening tomorrow, but they want to work on their relationship."

McNair said Thursday afternoon that was not true. When asked whether she and Jones were reuniting, she said no. But McNair wouldn't explain why she wanted the no-contact order canceled.

Her attorney, Randall Roske, said he was dismayed at McNair's decision regarding the order.

"I'm terribly troubled," Roske said. "I believe that she's gone back to a situation where there has been an exertion of control over her. I fear for her safety." ...

McGee said McNair was the primary aggressor in the incident, and he refused to extend the protective order. But McGee did tell McNair and Jones not to contact each another....

In an interview with a Review-Journal reporter last week, McNair said she would never reunite with the judge. McNair said she was in counseling, getting help for her drinking problem and dealing with the aftermath of domestic abuse.

"I don't want him back," McNair said during the interview. "I don't care if he came back with a million bucks and a 10-carat diamond ring. I don't want him back."...

"I'm homeless. I have nothing," McNair said. "I have no gas in my car. I don't know when I'll get my next job. He's got me so pinned it's ridiculous."

McNair said last week that her priorities were getting her own apartment and finding a job. Her six-year relationship with Jones cost her that independence, McNair said.

"Socially, sexually, economically, he had me under his thumb," McNair said.

A 7-month-old foster child was in critical condition at a local hospital on Thursday after being injured in a foster home this week, police said.

The infant was injured on Wednesday at the home of its foster mother, said Lisa Teele, supervisor of the Metropolitan Police Department's abuse and neglect unit...

The Nevada attorney general weighed in on the [release of information] issue in late March, saying in a brief to the director of the Department of Human and Health Services, Michael Willden, that, "Without releasing the child's name or date of birth or death, or information about uninjured siblings, information can be made available about interventions made, the referrals provided, and the status of the child protective services case at the time of the event."

Child Haven will be revising its policies after a 4-year-old girl was left in a van for 40 minutes last week.

Tom Morton, director of the Clark County Department of Family Services, said the staff of the county-run home for abused, neglected and abandoned children will now have to account for children by name, rather than by numeric count, whenever they transport the children to or from Child Haven.

The 4-year-old girl, whose name was not released, was left in the Child Haven van after a mix-up regarding how many children were in the vehicle when it returned to the home.

The girl and five other children had been taken to see the movie "Madagascar" at a theater on Rainbow Boulevard near Lake Mead Boulevard about 9:30 a.m. July 26, Morton said. The six children were taken in a Child Haven van under the supervision of two employees, he said.

When they left the theater, they picked up a child who had arrived in another van, Morton said. They arrived back at Child Haven at 12:10 p.m. and counted the children.

The 4-year-old girl was asleep in the van and didn't get out with the rest of the children, he said. The head count equaled six -- the same number of children who departed from Child Haven earlier in the day....

Morton said the department has taken "appropriate actions" against the two employees, as well as an undisclosed number of employees who were working at Child Haven who should have realized that the girl was missing. He wouldn't elaborate on the actions against the employees or provide their names.

Morton said he has asked state investigators to look into the incident. Once the state has concluded its investigation, Las Vegas police will determine whether to press charges against the Child Haven employees who were involved, he said.

Attempts by a local community activist to distribute a controversial flier in a Division of Family Services parking lot Monday turned ugly when he later confronted the state employee who had ordered him to stop.

Glenn Campbell, whose Family Court Chronicles Web site has criticized the hiring process for Clark County DFS head Thomas Morton, was putting fliers on cars in the parking lot of the state DFS office on West Charleston Boulevard....

After placing fliers on several cars, Campbell said, he went into the office with a camera and asked to speak with Morrow. When Morrow came to speak with Campbell, a heated confrontation ensued, both men say.

Campbell began snapping pictures of Morrow, who responded with an obscene hand gesture that Campbell caught on film and posted online.

The judicial activist who filed papers that could lead to the recall of two area judges started the removal effort in part because she had a case dismissed by one of them, she now acknowledges. Juli Star-Alexander filed notices Monday with the Nevada secretary of state and the Clark County registrar of voters to recall District Judge Nancy Saitta and Family Court Judge Cheryl Moss.

In 2002, Saitta threw out a personal injury suit of Star-Alexander's, which she didn't mention when announcing her intent to circulate recall petitions. In that case, Juli T. Star vs. Stanley R. Gore, Star-Alexander claimed that Gore had rammed his pickup truck into her car after running a red light at Decatur Boulevard and Spring Mountain Road in 1995, and that he owed her damages for medical bills and loss of future income.

The mother of a little girl abandoned in a hot bus at Child Haven is demanding answers. Instead, she says, she's getting the run around from the people who were supposed to protect her daughter.

Lasonia Ross tells the I-Team when she first went to get her daughter no one could tell her where she was. Eventually the head of Child Haven explained that 4-year-old Mimi had been left in a hot bus, alone, for 40 minutes.

And gets a standing "O"...