Amicus Brief: Matter of Joshua J. (Tameka J.)
Brooklyn Defender Services, alongside a group of legal providers who provide representation of behalf of parents in Article 10 cases across New York State, drafted and submitted an amicus curiae brief in the New York State Court of Appeals urging the court to recognize a mootness exception for the review of permanency hearing orders extending children’s placement in the foster system.
The brief is in support of the experience of the J. family, whose case has been pending for six years without reunification or resolution whatsoever. The family has been entitled to approximately eleven permanency hearings during that time, but the record below indicates these hearings have fallen short of basic statutory requirements. The J. family’s experience echoes permanency hearings’ myriad flaws witnessed by Amici in family courts across the state. Courts routinely fail to consider whether children can safely be reunified with their parents before continuing their placement in the foster system, as statutorily required, and do not hold the local social services district or child protective agency responsible for the child’s removal to their obligation to make reasonable efforts to reunite the family.
The deficient state of permanency hearings persists, to the detriment of families, because a quirk of timing has allowed permanency hearing orders extending children’s placement in the foster system to evade appellate review. The absence of substance appellate review of these life-shaping decisions allows New York children to languish in foster care, needlessly delaying reunification with their families in contravention of clear legislative intent. The families harmed by the lack of review are almost all low-income and disproportionately Black and Latine.
Amici urge this Court to make clear that appeals of permanency hearing orders extending children’s placement in the foster system are not rendered moot merely by the issuance of subsequent extension orders. Doing so would bring these orders under the oversight of appellate courts, ensure that the hearings that lead to these critical decisions are conducted in compliance with the law, and limit further harm to New York families.
