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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Hospitals Are Drug Testing Mothers Without Consent, Fueling Family Separations
By junior year of high school, Desseray Wright was already a mother and didn't expect to become pregnant again so soon. The Bronx, New York, teen was juggling raising a toddler and dreaming about becoming a lawyer. Sometimes, she would hang out with her friends and occasionally smoked weed. Then one day, despite still getting her period, she found out she was pregnant. She was more than 24 weeks along — too late to consider an abortion. Because Wright smoked weed for several months into her pregnancy, she told a health care provider during a routine prenatal visit. It would be an admission she'd later regret. After giving birth at a Bronx hospital in 1995, she noticed a bag on her baby's scrotum, and demanded answers. Hospital staff told her her son had been drug tested, but didn't explain why. Then a social worker entered her room, questioning her about marijuana use. Within the first hour of her newborn son Trayquan's life, she had lost custody. 'I was honest and truthful with this lady,' recalled Wright, now 47 and a family defense practice policy advocate for the Bronx Defenders. She explained that back then she believed child protective services were only called when there were allegations of abuse. While some policies have changed since Wright's case nearly 30 years ago, health care advocates and legal experts Capital B interviewed said across the country these types of interventions and drug testing without consent still disproportionately target Black and brown mothers. At the center of the disparities, they say, are gaps in federal privacy laws — including the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) — which do not require hospitals to inform patients when they are tested for drugs. Civil rights organizations, including those led by justice-impacted Black women like Wright, argue that these covert tests have fueled a long-standing pattern of criminalizing Black and brown women in family courts and separating families under the guise of child protection. These women turned their personal pain into advocacy, calling for legislation to close HIPAA loopholes to prevent other mothers from being swept into both the criminal and family court systems instead of parenthood. There has been legislation introduced in recent years in states like California, New York, and Tennessee — where women have been prosecuted for using drugs while pregnant — to inform expectant mothers that they and their newborn are being tested for drugs. They also have the choice to opt out of those tests. 'Disproportionate drug screening of Black mothers and newborns, without consent, adds to the excessive surveillance of Black families, and leads to an increase in foster care placements,' according to a May 2024 report released by New York State's Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 'Examining the New York Child Welfare System and Its Impact on Black Children and Families.' Last month, the New York state Senate Health Committee passed the Maternal Health, Dignity, and Consent Act on an 11-2 vote. This bill 'is a clear statement that pregnant people do not deserve to be surveilled or criminalized,' Jamila Perritt, who is an OB-GYN and president & CEO of Physicians for Reproductive Health, said in a statement after the bill's advancement on May 13. In Wright's case, child protective services required her to attend family court compliance hearings for parenting classes and a drug treatment program — even though, she said, in the 1990s those services weren't designed for adolescents or applicable to marijuana use. After months of juggling two children and long commutes on public transportation from the Bronx to mostly unhelpful referrals across most of the five boroughs, Wright made the difficult decision to drop out of high school to focus on getting her son back. Capital B has reached out to New York's Office of Child and Family Services via email for comment about its policies, but has not heard back as of publication. They did respond on June 10 to say that they do not comment on pending legislation. Advocates and survivors interviewed by Capital B often refer to the combined family, child welfare, and criminal legal systems as 'family-policing systems.' Pregnant people go into labor inside a hospital almost every day. Between contractions, they, or their partner, may be handed a flood of documents. Included may be a form with legal language that could authorize a nurse practitioner or physician to drug test both the birthing person and their newborn, without clear consent or probable cause. 'The hospitals that are participating in this, it's people of color who are more impacted, and at more disproportionate rates,' said Stephanie Jeffcoat, founder of Families Inspiring Reentry & Reunification 4 Everyone. The organization helps impacted parents navigate multiple interlocking systems such as the family and criminal justice systems, and is part of the steering committee working on establishing informed consent in California. Jeffcoat and Wright say the system is broken due to social workers and other professionals with mandated reporting credentials. Jasmine Sankofa, executive director of the nonprofit organization Movement for Family Power, which is dedicated to abolishing the family policing system, agrees with them. 'There really isn't any research that justifies the use of mandated reporting, the use of test and report,' Sankofa said, adding, 'It's bias based. It's not research based.' She added that 'studies have found that even if a pregnant person was using substances while they were pregnant — even if a child is born and is experiencing neonatal abstinence syndrome, for example — the recommended treatment is the approach is called, 'eat, sleep, and console.'' The best health care for a newborn isn't separation, nor is it to test and report their birthing parent to a family-policing system, Sankofa added. In cases where mom or baby test positive, child protective services are contacted. As the parent goes back and forth to court, the baby is first placed in a foster home, and because of the Adoption and Safe Families Act enacted by former President Bill Clinton in 1997, within 15 months 'states must initiate termination of parental rights proceedings, except in specified circumstances.' Despite her specific circumstances, the California child welfare system still took Jeffcoat's daughter, Harmony Faith Chase, from her nine years ago. Jeffcoat survived being raped, and found out she was pregnant too late for an abortion. At the time she was 28, unhoused, and struggled with substance use. She didn't have health insurance, couldn't afford an abortion, and had an estranged relationship with her mother, who had custody of her two older children. One day, she went to a hospital in Orange County for an eye infection. That's when she later learned she was tested for drugs. Jeffcoat's next visit to the hospital was when she delivered her daughter via C-section. The first hour of Harmony's life was interrupted when a social worker took her away from her mom's arms and was placed into the foster care system — never to be in the care of her mother again. 'I remember the feeling that I felt of losing my child,' said Jeffcoat, now 37. In 2023, a bill was introduced in California that would, in part, prohibit medical personnel from performing a drug or alcohol test or screen on a pregnant person or a newborn without prior written and verbal informed consent, and would require the test or screen to be medically necessary to provide care. That bill failed to advance from the state's Senate health committee in March 2023. Jeffcoat is currently studying law to become an attorney in dependency law. 'I feel like my own attorney failed me,' she said. 'I want to really be up in there [court] making sure that parents aren't losing their kids to the system. Especially in the timeframe of the adoption, it should not have been able to take place in six months. It takes longer for people to be sentenced to jail or prison.' Jeffcoat said she lost custody of Harmony in 2017 while incarcerated for 6½ months for a probation violation. Family court proceedings went on without her being present. Once released, she spiraled deeper into her addiction. In 2019, she had a fight with another unhoused person about her bike. After waking up nearby a dumpster, it was the moment she said she decided to turn her life around. She contested the adoption. In 2021, she found the adopting parents. For three years, Jeffcoat said she reached out to them with hopes to create a post-adoption agreement to at least regain visitation rights, to no avail. 'I needed to make sure that I get into a position to ensure that they do not continue to do this to other people,' said Jeffcoat, who launched her nonprofit in 2023. Perritt, the doctor who is also a fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society of Family Planning, said people 'universally enter' health care professions 'because they want to change social justice issues, but during the course of medical education and training you are taught to conform to a system that exists already in order to survive it.' The history of the medical field being white and male, increases Perritt's beliefs that health care professionals teaming up with police goes back to the country's Founding Fathers. 'The police, to me, are not simply somebody in a police uniform. It's also the doctors, it's also the nurses, it's also the social workers. It's any and everybody who's a mandatory reporter.' Hospitals and health care providers often set their own drug testing and reporting policies — ones that can conflict with the ethical standards taught in medical training, particularly around informed consent and patient trust. In a notable shift, Mass General Brigham, a major hospital system in Boston, stopped automatically filing child neglect reports solely based on a newborn testing positive for drugs, citing a need to reduce unnecessary family separations. Drug testing shouldn't be considered a family testing system, advocates said. In 1996, after Wright lost custody of Trayquan, who was placed in her father's care, her troubles with the family-policing systems continued when she got pregnant with her third child and second son, Hassan. With an ongoing family court case, the newborn was immediately taken away and placed into a foster home in Brooklyn, New York. Hassan was there for nearly four years. Child protective services continued to return to Wright's life twice: when she went to federal prison for 10 years for a weapons and drug conviction, and survived a domestic violence incident by calling 911. After Wright was released from federal prison in 2013, she earned a criminal justice degree from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She mourned the loss of her oldest daughter to gun violence in 2018, and in 2021 held on tight to Hassan, now 28, when he survived being shot. 'I graduated at the top of my class,' Wright said. The post Hospitals Are Drug Testing Mothers Without Consent, Fueling Family Separations appeared first on Capital B News.
New York Times
24-03-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Hochul Backs Plan to Ease Evidence Requirements for Prosecutors
Six years ago, with crime rates at historic lows and Democratic progressivism on the rise, New York State began requiring prosecutors to turn over reams of evidence to defense lawyers well before a trial. The goal was to level the playing field for criminal defendants, who often took plea deals without understanding the full scope of the case being built against them. But many of the state's district attorneys say that their offices have struggled to comply with the new requirements and blame them in part for an increase in case dismissals, which rose 22 percentage points in New York City. They have urged state leaders to consider changing the so-called discovery rules, and have won over a powerful ally, Gov. Kathy Hochul. The governor, a Democrat, is backing a measure that would ease the consequences for prosecutors if they do not share evidence in a timely manner. Her proposal would also let them redact information without a judge's permission. Ms. Hochul has said her plan will improve processing times and solve the problem of dismissals 'based on technicalities that can prohibit justice to victims and the people of the State of New York.' Ms. Hochul's embrace of the issue reflects a broader shift in the priorities of politicians in New York and across the nation. In recent elections, Republicans have made gains by tarring Democrats with accusations that they are soft on crime. New York's leaders have sensed the shifting winds and grasped for ways to show voters they are taking their public safety concerns seriously. Not only prosecutors but liberal power brokers like the Rev. Al Sharpton back Ms. Hochul's ideas. 'There is a swing back toward pragmatism on how we approach the criminal justice problem,' said Lee Kindlon, a Democrat and Albany's district attorney, who was a defense lawyer before taking office in the fall. 'The politics have changed.' Ms. Hochul's requests, which were included in her executive budget proposal this year, have alarmed defense lawyers. Her efforts would return New York to the days when prosecutors would face no consequences for waiting until the day of trial to share evidence, depriving defendants of the chance to mount an informed defense, they said. Prosecutors, they say, will revert to withholding material. Eli Northrup, policy director of the criminal defense practice for the Bronx Defenders, disputed prosectors' arguments, saying that cases 'can't get dismissed on a 'technicality.'' 'I understand the broader complaint of cases shouldn't go away,' Mr. Northrup said. 'But it's the responsibility of a government that is bringing charges against somebody to bring documents.' Changes to the discovery law will be part of broader budget negotiations among the leaders of the State Senate and Assembly, who are both Democrats and have expressed discomfort with some changes. Both chambers recently left the government's proposals out of their budget counteroffers. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the Senate majority leader, said they should discuss the subject later outside budget talks. Carl Heastie, the Assembly speaker, said he was open to changing the law but was concerned about giving prosecutors total discretion. 'We would rather let the judge be the actual arbiter,' Mr. Heastie said. Broad changes to the criminal justice system were approved in 2019. At the time, New York was one of 10 states that allowed prosecutors to wait until the eve of trial to hand over crucial evidence. The new discovery law was a major win for defendants, who had helped draft the measure. But prosecutors say they now have to devote hundreds of hours to collecting materials they say are only tangentially related to a case. Prosecutors have said that judges regularly dismiss cases because of minor mistakes in supplying evidence, a process known by the legal term discovery. The remedy should be proportional and not result in automatic dismissals for violating the Constitution's speedy trial requirement, they have said. Only 5 percent of misdemeanor and felony cases in criminal court in New York City were dismissed because of speedy trial violations in 2019, according to state court data. In 2024, that number had jumped to 31 percent. Prosecutors insist that their goal is not to roll back the 2019 law. Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, said that he supports lawmakers making 'common-sense adjustments to the statute to protect victims of crime.' The changes would keep the state's laws 'the most open and transparent discovery laws in the nation,' he said. Darcel Clark, the Bronx district attorney, recently told lawmakers that she 'championed the transformation.' Prosecutors, she added, want 'minor revisions to help for the things that were the unintended consequences.' Amanda Jack, policy director at the Legal Aid Society, said that the governor's support, along with that of New York City's police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, and mayor, Eric Adams, has given the prosecutors' mission momentum. Ms. Hochul said this month that unease about safety changed people's attitudes about discovery laws 'dramatically.' 'I am just trying to solve the problem,' she said, adding that 'the pendulum swings, and you start seeing the impact.'
Yahoo
23-02-2025
- Yahoo
NYC's ‘worst drug dealer,' 20, busted again with crack cocaine, heroin
The man nicknamed NYC's 'worst drug dealer' because he's been arrested 20 times in two years was nabbed again this month, according to court records. Brandon Hunter was arrested Feb. 5 after he was caught with crack cocaine, heroin and the club drug MDMA, or ecstasy, records show. Hunter, 20, was picked up for dealing drugs in at the same Midtown spot he's been caught in at least two times before, according to police sources. Hunter — who this time ran from cops trying to arrest him — was almost immediately released because his crimes weren't bail eligible, according to court records and officials. Cops spotted Hunter at the corner of West 37th Street and Eighth Avenue around 4:30 a.m. and saw him 'reach into his right jacket pocket and hand a small object' to another person, according to a criminal complaint. As soon as an officer tried to step out of his vehicle, Hunter took off running, authorities said in the complaint. 'I then observed Hunter stop, throw a backpack that he was wearing into the middle of the street and run back westbound on West 38th Street,' the cop wrote in the complaint. Two other officers caught up with Hunter and 'had to perform a forcible takedown' to get him in custody, according to the complaint. When cops searched him, they allegedly recovered 'a plastic twist bag containing 37 vials of alleged crack/cocaine and $20 in U.S. currency' along with four packs of alleged heroin. In the backpack, cops discovered a plastic twist bag containing a rock of crack/cocaine, another plastic twist bag continuing 103 pills of alleged MDMA and $274 in cash, according to the complaint. At his arraignment, prosecutors asked for bail, but Judge Ilona Coleman released him with non-monetary conditions because the charges weren't bail eligible under the state's 2019 bail reform laws, according to court documents. Coleman, who has been on the bench since Jan. 1, was previously legal director of the left-wing legal advocacy group Bronx Defenders. The arrest this month marks the third time Hunter has been nabbed in the same area, records show. Hunter could be sent to jail after he appears in court for one of the other cases, officials said. But Hunter has gone to jail before. He was sentenced to nine months at Rikers Island after a May 4, 2023, arrest at the same corner after cops found him with 51 vials of alleged crack in his pants pocket and $59 on him, according to an indictment. He pleaded guilty to attempted drug possession with intent to sell on Feb. 7, and was hit with nine months at Rikers Island, which covered his other open cases, officials said. He was out on July 25 after just five months behind bars — and busted again three weeks later, on Aug. 9, records show. This time, the notoriously lenient Judge Valentina Morales — who last year released a Venezuelan migrant without bail after he allegedly stabbed a tourist in Times Square — set him free. 'I am concerned about the new allegations given that he was just released,' Morales said, according to a court transcript. She then released Hunter without bail. 'Shame on the justice system because here it is — the revolving door,' the police source said. 'God knows how many people he's hurt and he's right back out selling over and over again in the same spot.'
Yahoo
23-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ex-NYU Student Bar Association prez Ryna Workman that was axed for vile anti-Israel comments lands at woke nonprofit
The former head of NYU's Student Bar Association axed for vile anti-Israel comments has been quietly working for an ultra-woke nonprofit itself accused of antisemitism that rakes in millions in taxpayer dough. Ryna Workman began as a staff attorney for the Bronx Defenders last year, according to her LinkedIn bio, where she says, 'I have focused my work on organizing students to be involved in liberation efforts.' But Workman, is not listed on the group's website and it's unclear what her day-to-day responsibilities at the organization, which raked in more than $6 million last year from the City Council, with the overwhelming majority of those funds going to pay for legal services to illegal migrants, data show. Workman made headlines after cheering the terrorists' Oct. 7, 2023 slaughter of at least 1,200 Israelis — and blamed the Jewish state for the slaughter. 'I want to express, first and foremost, my unwavering and absolute solidarity with Palestinians in their resistance against oppression towards liberation and self-determination,' Workman, wrote in an email to the NYU Law student body three days after the attack. The statement sparked outrage and led to Workmans' removal as NYU student bar association president. A plum job at the law firm of Winston and Strawn was also rescinded. Her current employer is also no stranger to controversy. In 2021 a director there circulated an email blasting Israel with long recycled false allegations of 'genocide.' And two years later, the group was forced to issue an apology and a $170,000 settlement for alleged discrimination against a Jewish staffer. 'Ryna is a perfect case study of how the woke mind-virus poisons young minds at our elite institutions— she gets accepted to NYU, adopts they/them pronouns, begins supporting Hamas, and starts tearing down hostage posters,' said Jason Curtis Anderson, co-founder of One City Rising, a good government nonprofit. 'What are they learning at these schools that makes college students want society to collapse?' Reps for Bronx Defenders did not respond to request for comment from The Post.
