On July 11th, 2020, less than two years ago, Marc Angelucci, a well regarded civil rights attorney in the United States of America practicing primarily in California, is said to have been found dead on his front porch after having been allegedly shot in the face at point blank range.
Shortly before his assassination, Marc Angelucci raised a challenge to the constitutionality of Welfare and Institution’s Code § 300, et sequential, as void for vagueness. His complaint marked a historic milestone in the history of litigation on juvenile dependency cases in California, if not the entire United States of America. His challenge amounts to a modern day version of what may be characterized as an abolitionist stance or abolitionism with respect to Welfare and Institution’s Code § 300, et sequential. His primary thesis is that Welfare and Institution’s Code § 300, et sequential, is not knowable or unknowable, rendering it available for manipulation throughout the juvenile dependency system.
In a “VERIFIED FIRST-AMENDED COMPLAINT FOR DAMAGES AND DECLARATORY RELIEF,” listing “1. CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATIONS 42 U.S.C. § 1983, 2. CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATIONS, 3. DECLARATORY JUDGEMENTS 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201(a) and 2202” with a demand for a jury trial in case numbered 3:19-cv-07597 MMC on behalf of Plaintiff, Andrea Wood, Angelucci challenged each and every one of the provisions in Welfare and Institutions Code § 300, et sequential in his causes of action on page 16.
At paragraph 149 under the Plaintiff’s FIFTH CAUSE OF ACTION for a declaratory judgement, Angelucci raises his first strike in a series of strikes to alter or abolish a form of government, stating a “Facial and As-Applied Challenge to Cal. W & I Code (a)” under the “Fourteenth Amendment” with respect to both due process as well as the application of the doctrine void for vagueness.
Paragraph 154, however, states with specificity how W & I Code § 300(a) is challenged on its face and applied to the Plaintiff under “the Void-for-Vagueness Doctrine because it does not put a person of average intelligence on notice as to what conduct is prohibited under the statute.” In paragraph 156, Angelucci elaborates, stating: “W & I Code § 300(a) is devoid of any language defining what does and does not constitute “serious physical harm”. “Harm” encompasses an entire spectrum of bodily conditions ranging from severe, life-threatening injuries down to barely noticeable temporary inconveniences, and all points in between.” Elaborating further, he remarks how “[numerous types of physical harm have generally-accepted names, like “bone fracture”, “nosebleed”, “skinrash”, “earache”, “bruise” etc. And yet, no names of any injuries are listed in the statute.
The only language in W & I Code § 300(a) with any specificity at all is the phrase “spanking the buttocks”, but that only defines conduct that does not constitute a violation, rather than conduct that does.” He states unequivocally: “What conduct is or is not prohibited under W & I Code § 300(a) is unknowable.” Angelucci applies the doctrine throughout the additional provisions, indicating the unknowability of code.
The unknowability of the code is a major crisis. Since operation of law in W & I Code § 300(a) hinges on language the ultimate source of truth for which is unknowable, juvenile dependency Courts exercise their discretion to declare children wards of the Court through sustained Petitions with carte blanche. The problem persists throughout from one check on the balance of power to the other, destroying the ability to counter act Petitions for non-existent acts of abuse. A case in point regards W&IC § 388 where a failure to protect may not even relate to an actual incident of danger to be incapable of an appeal (c.f., C084898) in the Third District Court of No appeal or a petition for no review in the Supreme Court of California.
The vast majority of parents who find themselves thrown into juvenile dependency Court’s have absolutely no legal recourse whatsoever for the defense of its rights. The juvenile dependency Courts, for instance, require per the State of California’s statutory mandate, the Court to appoint parents attorneys, if they cannot afford one, as is often the case. These Court appointed attorneys, for instance, are often nothing more than agents of the County against which the parents have become the subject of sustained Petitions under Welfare and Institutions Code § 300, et sequential, since the vast majority of attorneys purposely avoid litigation in those Courts because of its inherent bias, prejudice, or partiality towards the County’s allegations over any objection a parent or his or her Court appointed attorney may raise. These attorneys betray parents by operating according to the development a record designed exclusively through ex parte communication to the parent’s detriment or the child’s adoption.
Few, if any private attorneys, practice “dependency” which is permitted upon receipt of the completion of continuing education. These attorneys are available exclusively for the rich, eliminating the possibility that a parent may have a right to effective legal counsel. Without effective legal counsel, not even the most intelligent parents are prepared to defend allegations in a dependency Court.
As noted in one of the documents obtained from the Federal system for litigation, Pacermonitor, an attorney in a case against a County wrote: “[Court Services Attorney] employees are in and out of juvenile dependency courts… in front of the same judges all day every day, as are their County Counsel. In juvenile dependency courtrooms across the state the same social workers, County Counsel, and “appointed attorneys” (attorneys contracting with and paid by the County through a low cost bidding process to provide representation to minors and parents unable to afford representation, see each other day in and day out. Some of these day-to-day interactions last decades; same judges, same attorneys, but different families, although juvenile judges generally serve only a two-year appointment.”
“These individuals operate in a system protected by confidentiality laws that are believed by many to foster daily abuse of families, of power, and of constitutional rights. Horrors of the “system” are readily available for review and understanding (to some degree) on a simple Google search. This system clearly blunts zealous advocacy. There is a “fraternity/sorority effect” that is undeniable to any “outsider” who witnesses the reality,” which, although unmentioned by the author, relates most closely to parents, whose lives are disrupted or whose children become the object of foster families vying with great sums of money for the youngest, whitest, healthiest babies declared wards of the Court.
Although lawyers such as Shawn McMillan or Robert Powell have secured enormous sums of money for those whose lives have been almost completely destroyed through the warrantless seizure of their children, the Courts have recently began to reduce the settlements, admonishing these lawyers openly. In a recent ruling where the latter lawyer, who is one of the foremost experts in regards to matters about violations of civil rights arising from warrantless seizure, a judge opined: “the Court’s first impression of the demeanor reflected in the briefing is that counsel “doth protest too much, methinks.” See William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act III, Scene 2; see also Ghorbani v. Pac. Gas & Elec. Co. Grp. Life Ins., 100 F.Supp.2d 1165, 1168 (N.D. Cal. 2000) (“To the contrary, the strenuousness with which a defendant objects to a plaintiffs claim might legitimately be regarded as a sign that a case has merit. As Gertrude’s observation to Hamlet reveals, suspicions are rightly fueled by one who ‘doth protest too much.’ ”). Beard v. Cnty. of Stanislaus, Case No. 1:21-cv-00841-DAD-SAB, 8 (E.D. Cal. Jun. 15, 2021).”
It is the first time in the history of Mr. Powell’s litigation as an advocate for civil rights that a Court openly questions his preference for a guardian ad litem, indicating how growing opposition to Ulysses S. Grant’s Third Enforcement Act from 1871 is widening, undermining the greatest achievements of the Civil War, just as a retired Federal judge warns how the anti-Constitutional activity of Donald J Trump, who seeks to establish a dictatorship in the United States of America, continues to threaten the peaceful transition of power in the face of the 2024 race for President, while Trump himself continues to perpetuate his false allegations of voter fraud or a “stolen election” from 2020.
The rulings upon which lawsuits against a County, its agencies (such as the Department of Child, Family and Adult Services, etc…), or its agents ( such as social workers or law enforcement) arise from an important precedent established by a famous case, entitled Rogers v. County of San Joaquin. The Rogers case established an exceptionally high bar for a County to reach upon the warrantless seizure of a child where two conditions must be met.
As the opinion in Rogers v. County of San Joaquin states: “As a general proposition, officials may remove children without a court order only if conditions are present. First, the officers must “possess information at the time of seizure that establishes reasonable cause to believe that the child is in imminent danger of serious bodily injury.” And second, even if the child is in imminent danger of serious bodily injury, the officers must also have reasonable cause to believe “that the scope of the intrusion is reasonably necessary to avert that specific injury.” The exceptionally high bar in Rogers v. County of San Joaquin, however, seldom, if ever, prevents warrantless seizures. It often serves as a blueprint for designing extremely well crafted conspiracy’s to seize children under a pseudo-legal basis.
Since the Rogers case first established the high bar for exigency, there is yet no statistical data to support a claim of successful reform in the number of warrantless seizures throughout California, especially Sacramento for that matter, where warrantless seizures continue to occur daily without exigency. The County of Sacramento, which is the headquarters for a vast operation to undermine the rights of its resident’s privileges to be free from the warrantless seizure of their papers or personal effects, is one of the worst Counties in the State of California for warrantless seizure.
A famous case, for instance, involving the seizure of a baby called Sammy from the hands Russian emigre’s exemplifies the County of Sacramento’s anti-Constitutionality. In April 2013, police officers and social workers entered the home of Anna and Alex Nikolaev and took their baby, Sammy, away from them without a warrant.
Prior to the seizure of baby Sammy, the Sacramento Bee reported in 2009: “A review of the agency’s 969 workers employed as of October 1st [that year] found that at least 68 individuals–7 percent of the work force–have criminal records in Sacramento County alone. The number is likely to be even higher because some of the natures were too common to retrieve all criminal complaints linked to them, and records in other counties were searched.”
Angelucci’s assassination shortly after raising the first challenge of Constitutionality against the code for its abolishment is a historical milestone none of the previous largely personal injury lawyers have dared to achieve (for good reason).
His assassination indicates how the ever deepening crisis of Welfare and Institution’s Code § 300, et sequential, which is already highly advanced now, is sharply rising amidst unrelenting disruption in the legal, financial, or professional lives of workers throughout California and the United States of America, just as rising gas prices or rapidly increasing inflation continue to erode their living conditions in the face of spiraling waves of hires and fires.
As the Washington Post reported in June of 2018 during the height of Trump’s separation of immigrant families, following an outcry from child health advocates, family separation has a devastating impact on the physical health of children: “Their heart rate goes up. Their body releases a flood of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. Those stress hormones can start killing off dendrites—the little branches in brain cells that transmit messages. In time, the stress can start killing off neurons and—especially in young children—wreaking dramatic and long-term damage, both psychologically and to the physical structure of the brain.”
The Left Opposition recommends readers who sympathize, seek to make a declaration to alter or abolish a form of government [Declaration of Independence, 1776], or aim to assemble workers into rank-and-file assemblies [Constitution of the United States of America, 1789] to support the effort to abolish Welfare and Institutions Code § 300, et sequential, under the doctrine of void-for-vagueness. It recommends that civil rights lawyers take up the abolitionist mantel of the assassinated attorney Marc Angelucci, to continue the fight against warrantless seizures or its most pernicious campaigns against parents in juvenile dependency Courts.