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A federal appeals court has shot down a federal judge’s more than decade-long effort to improve conditions for children in the Texas foster care system.
In a decision Friday, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered that the judge, Janis Graham Jack, be removed from the case. The appeals court panel also reversed the $100,000-a-day fine Jack had imposed against the Texas Health and Human Services Department over its years-long neglect of the state’s foster care system.
The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed in 2011. Since then, Jack has found the state in contempt three times for failing to improve the system – at one point finding that foster children were being sexually abused within the system and coming out of it in worse shape than when they went in.
Attorneys representing the foster children say Judge Jack deserves a medal for what she’s tried to do and that they’ll be appealing the 5th Circuit’s decision.
