Why is the Truth Important: CPS and the "Right to Lie"

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[Here's a chance to kill two birds with one stone... to shine a light on corruption in California, where an attorney actually went to court to defend CPS right to commit perjury and fabricate evidence, and to have a post for @KrNel's contest "Why is Truth Important.]

We live in a world governed by moral relativism where truth has taken a backseat to expediency; a world where it's ok to lie if it achieves some "higher good." In fact, truth is the only higher good. Truth is not a means to an end- it is the end itself. "Do as thou wilt is [NOT] the whole of the law," it is an abomination of the law- it breeds in itself a law without justice.

Case 15-55563 Preslie Hardwick v. Marcia Vreekin, in the US Ninth Circuit Court was about the Constitutional right for case workers and social workers in California to commit perjury and fabricate evidence to remove children from their birth parents and whether or not they were protected by qualified immunity from prosecution for doing so. The lawyer for the defendants, Pancy Lin argued that the social workers had worked within their rights presenting perjured testimony because there were no clearly stated case laws, or equally clearly stated statutory guidelines preventing them from doing so- either in State or Federal court.

Ms. Lin wasn't arguing as to whether perjury and evidence fabrication was permissible or not- it clearly isn't- but that given that there were no clear cut Constitutional prohibitions, the plaintiffs' Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights had not been violated. Having lost in State court, Ms. Lin and her clients appealed to Federal court. The State court held:

In this case, the jury specifically concluded
that Vreeken and Dwojak lied, falsified
evidence and suppressed exculpatory
evidence–all of which was material to the
dependency court’s decision to deprive
Fogarty-Hardwick of custody–and that they
did so with malice. These findings are clearly
sufficient to satisfy the Supreme Court’s
definition of circumstances in which
‘qualified immunity would not be available.’

Similarly, the US Ninth Circuit Court determined:

Pursuant to an order of the Superior Court of Orange
County California, arising from acrimonious juvenile
dependency proceedings, Deanna Fogerty-Hardwick lost
custody of her minor children, Preslie and Kendall. In this
subsequent civil rights action brought under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983, Preslie Hardwick sued the County and employees of
its Social Services Agency (“SSA”). She contends that the
social worker employees acting under color of state law
maliciously used perjured testimony and fabricated evidence
to secure her removal from her mother, and that this abuse of
state power violated her Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment
constitutional rights to her familial relationship with her
mother.

To me there's something Orwellian about a world where you have to go to court to confirm what most people learn in childhood... that it is not ok to lie. The fact that this even came to court is a testimony as to how corrupt CPS and the system that spawned it has become... and the system is just a reflection of the society at large. Moral Relativism and subjective truths create a slippery slope that lead to this...

Is truth dead? Subjective truth is dead- subjective truth is no truth at all, and likewise it does not and cannot achieve some greater good. It took Preslie Hardwick 17 years to get justice for having being torn from her mother's arms based on lies and fabricated evidence and personally I find it a bit disingenuous for a lawyer to say that the social workers were justified because it wasn't "clearly" stated... they knew that perjury is wrong as well as illegal. But it took until 2017 to get it codified (If the defendants don't appeal to the US Supreme Court). This should have never gone to court in the first place.

This is the crux of the defendants case:

The defendants do not contend – nor could they – that
Preslie did not have a constitutional Due Process right or a
Fourth Amendment right protecting her against deliberate
government use of perjured testimony and fabricated
evidence in the dependency court proceeding designed to
rupture her familial relationship with her mother. This right
is beyond debate. What they do claim is that the specific
granular right to be free from deliberately fabricated evidence
in civil child dependency proceedings where a parent’s or
child’s protected familial liberty interest is at stake had not
yet been “clearly established” prior to the dependency
proceeding at issue. They concede that the rights Preslie
relies upon had been clearly established in criminal
proceedings against parents, but not yet in a civil proceeding
context. We disagree.

They try to separate civil from criminal statutes, where the prohibitions against perjury have been clearly outlined in criminal cases but not civil... It is NOT permissible to commit perjury in any court- nor is it permissible to tell falsehoods anywhere else. In other words: Yes, those pants DO make your ass look fat! This case is important for families and I hope people take note of it. This establishes legal precedence that case workers, social workers and other employees of the state CANNOT commit perjury or falsify evidence, or withhold exculpatory evidence and they are NOT protected by immunity if they do. I would urge anyone who has had their children removed to remember this case, particularly if the workers lied. Justice Trott says that the Supreme Court has upheld the rights of birth parents as a Constitutionally protected right since the 1940's. This is a video of the arguments (I felt kind of bad for Ms. Lin-she didn't have a shot- I wouldn't have taken the case).

https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2017/01/03/15-55563.pdf