'Factually Innocent' California Couple on Child Abuse Registry to Stay

by Robert Franklin, Esq.
Glenn Sacks
Mar. 16, 2010

Craig and Wendy Humphries of Valencia, California have had their names on that state's child abuser registry for nine years. That's not because they're child abusers; they're not, as numerous courts have ruled. But their names remain on the registry nine years after the fact and, despite court rulings in their favor and a finding by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that the registry statute is unconstitutional, the Humphrieses still haven't found a way to get their names off the registry. Read about it here (Los Angeles Times, 2/23/10). That's because, by law, once your name is on the registry, there's no way to get it off.

Nine years ago, Craig and Wendy's teenaged daughter was going through a rebellious stage and decided to show her parents a thing or two. So she reported them to child abuse authorities. Her parents were duly arrested and their children placed in foster care. Slowly, they were able to get out of jail and prove themselves innocent of the charges against them. Indeed, more than one state court has ruled them to be "factually innocent" of the abuse charges. But their names remain on the Child Abuse Central Index along with 800,000 others.

Why? Well, it seems that the state legislature, in its zeal to punish child abusers, neglected to consider the possibility of innocence, so it failed to provide a process for removing the names of those who had done nothing amiss. Inspector Javert would be so pleased. And that failure is what the Ninth Court said makes the statute unconstitutional; it denies due process of law to the innocent because it gives them no way off the registry.

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