/ Posted by The Republic
The Arizona Republic sent 12 reporters into the Durango Juvenile Court one day to observe procedures
By Dianna M. Náñez and Mary Jo Pitzl
On a bench near the double doors of the courthouse, a mother tries to process how she lost her son. “They didn’t even look at this,” she says, pointing at a stack of documents. Her voice shakes, “I didn’t get to talk at all.”
It’s late May, four days since Arizona Department of Child Safety workers removed her 10-year-old son. The state alleged neglect and substance abuse, she says. She denied both accusations.
“We entered a plea,” she adds, referring to the lawyer she’d met a few minutes before her hearing. “But it felt like we didn’t get very far.”
The woman is petite and has cigarette-stained fingertips. She walked into the courthouse with low expectations. She didn’t understand why her son had been taken from her. Her lawyer had tried to calm her nerves, but then she saw a half-dozen strangers in the courtroom.
“I felt like everyone was against me,” she says.
She watched as lawyers and the judge spoke about her son and her parenting. The hearing was soon over and Judge Scott McCoy announced the case’s next step — another hearing in late August.
Until then, her son would stay in a group home. The mother could see her boy for two hours each week.
As she waits for a taxi, she counts on her fingertips the months until the next hearing.
“Do you understand that’s three months away?” she asks.
Every day, cases like hers are debated in juvenile courts. A judge decides whether a child goes back with her parent or stays in a foster home, a group home or some other form of state custody.
The proceedings are the equivalent of life-or-death decisions for a family. Parents and children can be reunited, families preserved. Or, parental rights can be severed in the name of child safety, families ended.
