Mother's Hearing Delayed ... Again

State Delays Purposefully; Keeps Baby Girl

Sidebars:
Breast-Feeding of Baby Became a Legal Issue
State Tried to Disqualify Father's Lawyer
How Did Howards Get So Involved?
DSS Tells Child He's Being Adopted Before Any Hearing is Held

April 2001

DSS is delaying and stalling every hearing concerning the baby girl of the mother who was shackled at the ankles and wrists in the Lowell court last month.

The mother is being punished by the court because she does not want others taking care of her two-month-old baby girl.

The bureaucrats at DSS obviously know that if they can delay and frustrate the proceedings, they will gain because the baby girl will lose the bonding process with her mother, Heidi Howard.

They even refused to allow the mother to breast-feed the child during visitation because, they said, the mild antidepressant that the mother is taking during this terribly stressful period in her life would damage the baby. They made this decision even though a psychiatrist prescribed the medicine and the baby's pediatrician told them the mother's milk would not damage the baby in any way.

"Their obsession with these tiny details, just as though it were the Microsoft case, shows their grand strategy of always exhausting the money and patience of any parent. That is their strategy for always having their way. They don't care about the facts. They just want to get possession of these children so they can adopt them out and obtain more federal money," said Atty. Hession.

But the issue of breast-feeding has become moot, as the state hoped it would, because the mother's breasts are now dry.

The judges have allowed all of this to happen even though they are supposed to hold a hearing into the legality of the seizure within three-days. But lawyers say that this is never done in the Massachusetts courts and it is often years after a child is taken before a hearing occurs.

A hearing about the legality of the taking was finally started on March 23 although it was supposed to be decided by the court within 72-hours of the Febuary 14 taking. It will be many, many months before the hearings are over even though this is required by state law within 72-hours. Even if the baby is given back, she will have lost the bonding to her mother. The Howard's two sons have been in DSS custody for over a year without a trial.

This is not an unusual case in Massachusetts, lawyers tell us. It is what happens every day in the week.

Sidebar:
Breast-Feeding of Baby Became a Legal Issue

April 2001

DSS immediately forbade Heidi Howard from nursing her 2-month-old baby when she saw her child during visitation.

They tried to say the mother was "on drugs" and poisoning the baby. The "drugs" however were a prescribed medication for post partum depression. A psychiatrist prescribed it and different doctors approved the use and dosage while she was pregnant and later breast-feeding. They gave her a book that showed different medicines that are safe to take while pregnant. The Howards were confident that they had solid evidence to defeat the charges.

However, they were forced to spend their precious time in court fighting this problem.

They took their lawyers and their pediatrician to court on March 2, but Judge Margaret Fearey listened only to a brief exchange between the lawyers before she said the matter was too complicated for her to decide. She told them to come back again in two weeks when the regular judge would be there.

No reporters were allowed in the courtroom.

Eventually, the entire matter became moot, as everyone knew would happen, when the delay caused the milk to go dry.

According to Neil Howard, DSS also tried to say that the baby has conjunctivitis. They say that the diagnosis was made by the baby's lawyer, who is also a pharmacist. Howard told MassNews that the baby's lawyer is a court insider who works closely with DSS and has his own keys to the DSS building. The Howards are confident that they have strong evidence from many doctors which will require the court to throw out those charges if they can ever have their say in court.

Chester Darling Helps

When the civil rights lawyer, Chester Darling, heard about the Howard's predicament, he stepped in to represent Heidi. Some wonder if it was his appearance in court that made Judge Fearey nervous and desirous of getting out.

Sidebar:
State Tried to Disqualify Father's Lawyer

April 2001

Two lawyers for the Howard family sat in the crowded hallway of the Lowell court on Tuesday, March 15, from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m. before being told to come back again two days later.

Attys. Chester Darling and Greg Hession weren't there for a trial which will decide whether the two-month-old baby was legally taken by the state. Such a trial is required by state law within 72-hours after the child was taken on February 14.

The lawyers were there because the DSS lawyers were arguing that the lawyer for the father, Atty. Hession, should not be allowed to represent the father in any proceedings because he once represented both father and mother until DSS forced her to get a new lawyer against her will.

When the lawyers for the parents returned two days later as instructed by the court, the judge appeared to agree that Atty. Hession could represent the father in the future. Then everyone went home again to await a trial. Meanwhile the baby is without her mother.

Atty. Darling had to drive from Boston and Atty. Hession from near Amherst.

"We were there because of the wild-eyed zealot lawyers from DSS," Darling told MassNews. "We were packed like sardines into a stuffy, hot hallway. It was oppressive."

The 70-year-old civil rights lawyer who won the St. Patrick's Day Parade case in the U.S. Supreme Court by the rare vote of 9-0 after being turned down by every state and federal judge who ruled on the case except for one, is not shown any professional courtesy in our courts.

The state also had to pay the DSS lawyers plus another lawyer who has been appointed as guardian for the baby and another lawyer who has been appointed as guardian for the mother. Therefore, five lawyers were paid to sit all morning, three by the state and two by the Howards.

Even though Heidi wrote a letter firing her female, court-appointed lawyer after she retained Darling, the lawyer showed up Friday anyhow to add some more hours to her bill to the Commonwealth and to present a brief to the judge asking that Atty. Hession be taken off the case.

Heidi told MassNews, "She didn't go over it with me first. She stabbed me in the back. I never even saw the brief before she gave it to the judge. The guardian who was appointed to protect my baby said she spoke with the lawyer for over an hour and told her that Greg was good for us and it would hurt our case to have him removed. The lawyer would have destroyed our case if Greg had been removed. All the work he has put into it would be for nothing."

Heidi said that her appointed lawyer also tried to convince her to go visit the kids at DSS without her husband. But Heidi is much more experienced these days in DSS and court lawyer tactics than she was in the beginning. "I refused. I told her I'm not going in that DSS building without him. They want to get me there alone so they can claim I said something against him."

The Howards told MassNews that Atty. Darling offered a proposal to the female DSS lawyer on Friday. He proposed that DSS send the kids home to live with their parents and DSS could have a court-appointed Guardian ad Litem go to the Howard's home any time, unannounced, to check on them. The Howards say DSS flatly refused the offer.

In the usual case, the parents would have had to pay both Darling and Hession for their wasted time at the court and traveling, but they are donating their time.

Observers say this is typical of the way that 72-hour hearings go, often taking years before they are held as required by law, and sometimes they are never held - even though the state keeps possession of the child during this entire period. The state has no desire to hold a trial and every reason to delay it.

Sidebar:
How Did Howards Get So Involved?

April 2001

The Howards have lived at their home on an acre of land in Tyngsboro since they bought it in 1991. Neil works as a machinist and Heidi is a homemaker.

They've always been just an ordinary family trying to get ahead - until they had a baby with terminal neurological problems and the feminists at DSS discovered that having a dying baby causes stress in a family.

After that sick baby died at one year, the DSS was so entwined with the Howards that it demanded that a new baby born in December 2000 be given to them to be cared for by strangers. As any mother would understand, this was a terrifying thought.

The DSS has seen the Howard children as attractive kids that they can adopt out to people and earn money from the federal government. Although this will sound startling to most readers, it is a commonly known fact among the profession. DSS gets $100 million in federal money each year in this manner. They even have a high-priced consulting service which instructs them on how to maximize these dollars. This is fully described in our free Archives.