Nearly six years after the Garland County Sheriff's Department removed seven children from their home at the urging of an Arkansas State Police investigator, the family and officials remain at odds over the circumstances that gave rise to the action.
Hal and Michelle Stanley's attorney, Joe Churchwell, maintains his clients' unconventional parenting, which he described in court filings as "healthy, wholesome, non-worldly and non-liberal," informed the removal, an assertion supported by a Department of Human Services email he obtained and provided to The Sentinel-Record in October 2016.
A DHS Division of Children and Family Services supervisor sent the email to other DCFS staff the day after the children were placed in DHS custody following the sheriff's department's Tactical Response Team's execution of a search warrant at the family's Treasure Isle Road home.
"It is apparent to me that this family has its own unique culture," the email said. "They home-school. They don't believe in modern medicine, and they use a legal vitamin to try and keep the children healthy and from all accounts it appeared that the children were very healthy.
"From reports, the search warrant did not find anything that would constitute the children being severely maltreated. It appears to me the only thing this family has done is not conform to modern society and how certain government officials feel they should be living."
The state and county have argued their actions were justified by claims the two oldest minor children made on the night of removal. U.S. District Senior Judge Robert T. Dawson agreed, ruling in March that reasonable suspicion of abuse was present when the children were removed in January of 2015.
He dismissed claims against Garland County Sheriff Mike McCormick, Under Sheriff Jason Lawrence, Deputy Terry Threadgill and former Sgt. Mike Wright. He also dismissed claims against Katherine Finnegan, a former civilian investigator with the Arkansas State Police's Crimes Against Children Division.
Dawson said their reasonable suspicion entitled them to qualified immunity, the legal doctrine that protects public officials from civil liability if they have acted reasonably and responsibly.
Churchwell appealed the ruling to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Its decision will bear on future child maltreatment investigations, he said. The case will go to trial in U.S. District Court if the Stanleys win the appeal.
"If we don't win, every state caseworker will know they can lie and have no responsibility at all," Churchwell said. "They can't even get sued for it. If the 8th Circuit says, 'No. You can't lie and be immune,' that's going to be huge for the 8th Circuit."
Pleadings he filed earlier this month allege that in addition to ignoring exculpatory evidence on the night of removal, the defendants fabricated evidence that led Division 2 Circuit Judge Wade Naramore to rule there was probable cause to place the children in DHS custody. They remained there until the family was reunited in the summer of 2015.
"They gave the court false evidence that made the court keep the kids for six months," Churchwell said. "That's the problem with allowing these people to go in there to lie. They can just make up cases and justify any act. Those acts are so detrimental it's hard to explain what it does to a family when they're ripped apart like that."
Churchwell said testimony defendants gave about noxious Miracle Mineral Supplement, or MMS, fumes in the home was false. Court records said the Food and Drug Administration warned consumers in 2010 about the dangers of MMS, cautioning that consumption can lead to nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, dehydration and liver failure.
Hal Stanley told officials he used the substance to promote his own health and balance the pH in the family's aquaponics system. The search confirmed MMS was in the home, but the Stanleys denied forcing the children to ingest it.
Churchwell said video the oldest minor child surreptitiously recorded during the execution of the search warrant captured officials discussing the presence of fumes. Some said they were overwhelmed by the smell, but others said they smelled nothing unusual.
According to court records, Finnegan testified at the probable cause hearing that the noxious fumes gave her a sore throat and headache, claims she recanted during testimony she gave during the Stanleys' appeal of the true findings of abuse and neglect brought by the State Police's Crimes Against Children Division.
Administrative Law Judge Gary Austin of DHS' office of appeals and hearings found insufficient evidence to support true findings of abuse, dismissing allegations that included introducing the children to poisonous substances, striking the children and burning them.
Finnegan testified at the appeals hearing that she didn't recall having a sore throat or headache. When deposed by Churchwell last year, she testified that CACD needed to justify the removal after it became a flashpoint in the debate about overzealous child welfare investigations.
"Because I was made to find true on this investigation, because the case was too political," Finnegan testified, responding to Churchwell asking how a competent investigator following the state's child abuse assessment protocol could have certified unsupported findings. "I told (former CACD Commander Maj. Ron Stayton) we did not have enough to find true on this case, and he said we have to.
"I thought I had enough to find true on poisonous and noxious substances, but I did not think it would hold up under appeal. I told Maj. Stayton we did not have enough to find true on this case. I did as I was instructed. I was instructed by people that I thought knew what they were doing."
Finnegan testified that CACD's head of investigations coached her on how to use DHS' Division of Children and Family Service's assessment protocol to support the true findings.
Pleadings from the attorney general's office, which is representing Finnegan and Stayton, said the sheriff's department ultimately decided to remove the children, as Finnegan had no authority to put them into DHS custody without the agency's approval.
When DHS failed to intervene, Wright, a former investigator at the sheriff's department, decided to place the children under a 72-hour protective hold.
"According to Sgt. Wright, he remained extremely concerned for the children's safety and about what might take place once law enforcement left the home," the attorney general's office said in the brief it filed with the 8th Circuit. " ... Sgt. Wright stated in his affidavit that he alone made that decision.
"Indeed, Sgt. Wright testified in his deposition that Finnegan's advice was not even 'the driving factor' in his decision to remove the children. Sgt. Wright explained that, in light of the circumstances and the information he had at the time, he would have removed the Stanley children even without Finnegan's input."
The lower court said the two oldest minor children's confirmation of MMS exposure during Finnegan's on-scene interview, which was consistent with allegations made in earlier complaints and in an interview with the Stanleys' adult son, who had moved out of the home a month before his siblings were put in foster care, gave authorities the reasonable suspicion they needed to remove the children.
But Churchwell said the oldest minor child was the original source of earlier allegations of abuse that convinced neighbors and family friends to report his parents to authorities in late 2014. A DHS investigator determined the claims of abuse were unsubstantiated.
According to court documents, the boy resented his strict upbringing, which included being forbidden from attending public school and interacting with peers outside the home.
"The only thing the family friends knew is what they were hearing from (the teenage boy)," Churchwell said. "It's hearsay. Corroborating evidence is evidence from an independent source. None of this was independent. It all originated with (the teenage boy). They go to the house, and he repeats it. And they claim it's corroborating evidence."
The attorney general's office declined to comment on the case when contacted by the newspaper. Attorney Burt Newell, who represents the county defendants, referred the newspaper to his pleadings when asked for comment. The Arkansas Public Entities Risk Management Association, the county's former insurance provider, contracted Newell to dispose of six pending lawsuits APERMA represented the county in prior to the Association of Arkansas Counties picking up the county's insurance coverage.
Newell took over the case from Ralph Ohm, who resigned from APERMA when he filed to run for the Division 1 circuit judge seat after Judge John Homer Wright announced he would not seek reelection and planned to retire at the end of the year.
The brief Newell filed with the 8th Circuit earlier this year said Wright's decision to remove the children came at the urging of Finnegan. The decision was affirmed by the Naramore ruling that extended DHS' custody of the children and by Dawson's dismissal of the family's claims in March, the brief said.
"The weight of evidence considered by Sgt. Wright in ordering removal of the Stanley children established the clear presence of exigent circumstances, justifying removal of the Stanley children," the brief said. "Wright's analysis considered not only the direct statements from (the oldest minor children) about exposure to MMS and a flight risk if the children were not removed, but it also considered statements from Dr. Esquival of the Arkansas Children's Hospital.
"Considering all the facts as he did, set forth in his affidavit, Sgt. Wright had ample grounds to remove the children without a court order. The district court correctly granted summary judgment to the defendants on the Stanleys' Fourth Amendment removal claims.
" ... The Stanleys had a right to be free from unnecessary governmental disruption of their family. However, the Garland County Sheriff's Department has a duty under Arkansas law to intervene in family matters when there is reasonable suspicion to believe that some form of child endangerment or child abuse is at hand."
Wright pleaded guilty to felony theft in April 2018 for embezzling funds from the Arkansas Narcotics Officers Association and was sentenced to two years' probation. He resigned from the sheriff's department in July of 2017. State auditors reported more than $25,000 in suspicious cash disbursements and reimbursements to Wright from ANOA's bank account.