The New Hampshire House of Representatives, Committee on Children and Family Law has just recommended HB553 Ought to Pass (OTP). HB553 does the following:
Ÿ It empowers the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) to go into your home for what they think will happen in the future.
Ÿ It makes you guilty unless proven innocent.
Ÿ It makes good parenting child abuse;
Ÿ It empowers DCYF to investigate you for even one illness.
House Bill 553 “relative to the definition of abuse and neglect and conditions triggering a rebuttable presumption of harm in abuse and neglect cases”, redefines psychological abuse to include that which DCYF thinks is likely to happen, or which DCYF thinks they can be predicted to happen in the future. If there is any suspicion that there is drug abuse, reckless driving or physical or emotional abuse, you are presumed guilty. That’s right, you are guilty until proven innocent. While it has often seemed that you were guilty until proven innocent in the past, HB553 will make it the law.
If a mandatory reporter, teacher, nurse, physician, or really anyone, thinks that you will probably abuse your child in the future, DCYF can begin an investigation. Bottom line, if HB553 becomes law, the State will have the power to take away your children for what hasn’t happened yet. There doesn’t even have to be multiple events, a single event can be used to predict future events, even one childhood illness (undefined) can be a cause for intervention. I know they think they’re trying to prevent child abuse, but the only abuse the State can actually prevent is abuse by the State: by taking children out of good homes.
Even more nefarious HB553, as introduced, defines psychological maltreatment so loosely that good parenting can be considered psychological maltreatment, “compelling to action with threat or force”. Have you ever told your children to clean up their toys, or you will put them in time out? That is compelling to action with a threat. There is an amendment that removes this language, but that same amendment introduces the abuse of “isolation”. If you restrict your child’s social interactions with family, peers or the community for a prolonged (undefined) period of time, they call that isolation. Have you ever, or have you considered, punishing you child by grounding them? That’s isolation. By this definition of isolation, home schooling can be considered child abuse if the investigator thinks it is. During legislative investigations in the past, the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) has demonstrated a bias against home schooling.
All of this would be heard in Family Court where there is already no due process and no rules of evidence. Revise Statute Annotated (RSA) 490-D:3 states unequivocally (in legalese) that there is no due process in Family Court. It is a court in which there is no common law, nor rules in equity. Therefore, quite literally, you can be guilty until proven innocent. HB553 would makes you guilty unless proven innocent in all cases of abuse and neglect by creating the “rebuttable presumption of guilt”. You are literally guilty unless you can prove you are innocent. The Supreme Court Rules of Evidence, Rule 1104 lists the courts in which the rules apply. Family Court is not on the list. Finally, what few rules of evidence there are in Statute, the Family Court jurists routinely fail to enforce. This empowers the DCYF, or an adversary in divorce to dump reams of evidence on you immediately before, or even during a hearing; denying you of seeing the evidence against you.
To make it even worse, many Family Court jurists are only Judical Referees. Judicial Referees do not have the power to put people under oath; therefore, there can be no penalty for perjury.
So lets review the state of affairs created and perpetuated by the Committee on Children and Family Law:
Ÿ you can have your children taken away for what hasn’t happened yet;
Ÿ good parenting can be considered psychological maltreatment;
Ÿ you are guilty unless proven innocent;
Ÿ there is no due process;
Ÿ there are no rules of evidence;
Ÿ perjury can’t be punished.
Call or email your State Representative before Thursday. You can find their telephone number and email address at https://gc.nh.gov/house/members/. Then call the Speakers Office (603)-271-3661. Tell them to stop House Bill 553. Light up the phones.
Hon. Daniel C. Itse
Former Vice Chairman Committee on Children and Family Law 2017/2018, Member 2001/2002, 2003/2004, 2005/2006, 2007/2008. 2009/2010, 2013/2014, 2015/2016
Former Chairman of the New Hampshire House of Representatives Committee on Constitutional Review and Statutory Recodification 2011/2012
603-702-0381
