There Must Be a Witness: Stories of Abuse, Advocacy, and the Fight to Put Children First

Advance Praise for There Must Be a Witness

A powerful reminder that children and women are too often neglected and abused, and then have their injuries compounded by the indifference or failure of the institutions that should protect them but don’t. There Must Be a Witness is also an object lesson that to get things changed for the better, we have to work and fight for what is right.

LILLY LEDBETTER, namesake of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

This is an important work on the critical challenges our country and legal system face. Too many children in this country have been discarded, marginalized and abandoned. With the analytical insight of a Supreme Court justice and the heart and passion of a loving parent, Sue Bell Cobb’s book brings much needed clarity to the urgent issues we need to confront to protect our children.

BRYAN STEVENSON, founder, Equal Justice Initiative

I have waited for this story to be told by someone capable of leading the crusade that will open access and opportunity to all of Alabama’s children. Sue Bell Cobb is that person. She has the heart of a child, a wealth of experience, and a deep understanding of what is needed for future generations to reach their full potential. Her new book, a powerful account, offers a window into a world too often shrouded from view and demonstrates the critical importance that we live in a society that is truly trauma informed.

KELLEY PARRIS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR The Children’s Board of Hillsborough County

This book is a must-read. It chronicles the stories of child advocates growing up in starkly different circumstances, and reminds us all that we are the product of our birthright: good and bad. For the children who do not have parents to advocate and navigate for them, we must all step up to that role. Chief Justice Cobb’s experience resonates with my own, in many ways, and I, too, feel compelled to bear witness to the circumstances of children and work to shape policies that truly do put children first. The stories of this book will touch every heart and inspire action, which, of course, is exactly what the authors intend.

REBECCA LOVE KOURLIS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System

Sue Bell Cobb’s witness to the needs of our most vulnerable children and the short-sightedness of past attempts to address these needs presents a powerful call to action. Her narratives demonstrate that our failure to adequately attend to the effects of abuse and neglect on children and families dooms future generations to the personal, economic and societal costs that flow from this trauma. Chief Justice Cobb persuasively summons us individually and collectively to advocate for these children who are without power and voice and in the process create a better world for all children and their families.

— MARSHA TERNUS, former Chief Justice, Iowa Supreme Court

There Must Be a Witness emphasizes that care for underserved or abused children is not a luxury we can choose to afford—it is a responsibility we should all share. The authors bypass the rhetoric and the anxieties that so often confuse this priority among Alabamians. Instead, Chief Justice Cobb and Cenegy use stories from Cobb’s unprecedented career to plead for more proactive solutions. Beyond documenting examples of tragedy and triumph from Alabama’s child advocacy services, the book doubles as a clarion call of what’s possible for children—and for the future—in the Yellowhammer State.

— JOSH MORGAN, Host, Plural of You

This marvelous book brings to life the world of child advocacy. And while written by a judge, it includes a wide angle lens on child advocacy. It brings together the perspective of the judiciary, law enforcement, foster care, child welfare and the voices of children themselves. It should be on the bookshelf of every family lawyer, judge, prosecutor, police, child welfare worker, and student in social work and criminal justice. It is a hard topic with hard stories, and yet it is hard to put this book down.

— KEVIN CORCORAN, PHD, JD Professor of Social Work, University of Alabama

This book chronicles the ordinariness of horrific abuse harming children of all classes and races. It also captures the remarkable resiliency of those many who move beyond the harms they have suffered to support and protect others. Sue Bell Cobb and Nick Cenegy provide readers with more than good reasons to work to improve the lives of children by finding new resources and marshaling communities to insist on better services for children.

— JUDITH RESNIK, Arthur Liman Professor of Law, Yale Law School

NewSouth Books

105 S. Court Street

Montgomery, AL 36104

Copyright © 2018 by Sue Bell Cobb and Nick Cenegy.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by NewSouth Books, a division of NewSouth, Inc., Montgomery, Alabama.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ISBN 978-1-58838346-4

Design by Randall Williams

Printed in the United States of America

To my beloved parents, Otis and Thera Bell,

who filled the well from which their children could drink forever,

And to Bill, my love,

and Caitlin, my greatest blessing

Contents

Preface—The Witness

Introduction

Acknowledgments

1Flesh and Blood

2The Counterpoint

3At the Mercy of Family

4Deciding Moments

5The Greeter

6Hanging in the Balance

7The Parent System

8‘There Was This Teacher . . .’

9The Legacy of Queen Bee

10Fuel for the Fire

11The Task Force

12Just Dreaming

13Cementing Child Advocacy

14Black Shroud Over Children

15Children of Violence

16Becoming a Mother

17Mother’s Back to Mine

18Tinker Fob

19Between Buddy and Death

20Suffer [for] the Little Ones

21Personal Prison

22Lobbying for Children

23‘Getting the Bricks Beat Off of Her’

24Victory . . .?

25Between the Bars

Afterword

Solutions

Works Consulted

10 pages of photos

Preface

The Witness

What I’ve seen in the courtroom has tested my ability to remain composed and professional; what I’ve seen in government is arguably worse. Every judge, lawyer, police investigator, teacher, and social worker is dogged by a story—perhaps file cabinets full of them. They often sound like this:

There was this child . . . all the signs were there . . . we all knew she was being abused but she was afraid to say anything . . .to make matters worse, no one would come forward . . . no one would be a witness . . .

Or:

That little girl was brave enough to speak out against the person she loved . . . the adults who sat on the jury did not want to believe that she suffered such horrific abuse . . . It was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. I had to excuse myself so that I wouldn’t lose it right there in the courtroom.

There is a special community of people who work to better children’s lives. This book is my effort at bringing together some of those diverse voices. Choosing the stories was the hardest. It meant that some stories would remain confined in memory or in the sealed files of the juvenile court. I don’t for a moment pretend that cases I presided over in my three decades as a judge have left me with scars nearly as deep as those who tell their stories here. Still, violence against our children wounds us all. It’s infuriating when our system fails to identify or officially acknowledge a child’s suffering in time to do something about it. There are few failures more frustrating than witnessing a child return to a home wracked by violence or sexual abuse—yet it happened a few times in my courtroom, and it happens all too often in courtrooms across the nation. At such a moment, any consoling thought we have that the criminal justice system is working to make people safer evaporates in the reality that an innocent boy or girl is left with little more than his or her own ability to endure. Where the abuser should have suffered the consequences, the child is instead left to bear the full weight of her experience for the rest of her life, and she will forever ask why people would not believe her.

More than fifteen million children in our country are living in poverty—22 percent of the nation’s total child population. A little over 20 percent of the children in our nation live in households where at times, their families were unable to acquire adequate food for active, healthy living. In some of those households, only the parents went hungry; in others, the parents reported that at some point in the year, one or more children were hungry, skipped a meal, or did not eat for a whole day.¹ The most recent data (2015) show that nationwide an estimated 683,000 children were victims of child abuse and neglect.² Three-quarters of those were victims of neglect; 17 percent were physically abused, and over 8 percent were sexually abused. In recent years, the population of children in the South, in particular, has grown substantially faster than in many other regions,³ shifting added responsibility on to Southern leaders.

These circumstances demand next-generation policies that are smarter and more effective at both the national and state level. It has become increasingly evident that at a societal level we have acted as if we have an infinite line of moral credit. For all the bluster about family values and financial responsibility in the hallowed halls of government these days, we have among us some policymakers who would saddle our children with a debt of social unrest. We need stateswomen and statesmen who recognize that success is not measured from election cycle to election cycle, but over the course of generations. Citizens of voting age have recently allowed policymakers—particularly in the South—to get away with slashing services to the bone instead of building lean, healthy, effective institutions that improve people’s lives for generations to come. It is time for child advocates to bear witness.

As a nation, we end up paying the price for the politics of greed and bravado, and our children are left holding the bill. Whether it involves policies that allow children to languish in institutions abroad or the renewed futility of children getting caught up in a failed war on drugs, the incremental improvements made by child advocates are once again under threat. In the years leading up the publication of this book, nationwide more children had health insurance than ever before,⁴ the high school graduation rate was on the rise, teen pregnancies were down, and fewer children were abusing drugs and alcohol.⁵ Largely because of the Affordable Care Act, more kids could go to the doctor or seek other forms of health care when they needed it. In other words, by a variety of measures, we were making slow, but noticeable progress. We cannot now let a petulant few squander the hard won gains of so many dedicated child advocates.⁶

It’s my hope and my prayer that the stories in this book will not only show the drive that motivates lives of child advocacy but will also demonstrate why a true child advocate can never let it go. Though I use it throughout this book for lack of a better term, the phrase child advocacy itself is problematic. It is too broad and benign for the horror it encompasses. To our own detriment, the immensity and profound importance of child advocacy is lost because it covers too much. It involves some of the most heinous and hidden crimes, the most intimate details of the lives of children and their families, and so many of the social problems we cannot seem to shake. We could drastically reduce violent crime, unburden the prison system, improve schools, strengthen the workforce, fortify public health, and improve so many other facets of our society by better addressing the needs of children. Because child advocacy encompasses so much, it’s easy not to confront it at all. More often than not, we allow the urgency of our present needs and political expedience to distract us from addressing the most difficult problems. To understand what it is to truly be a child advocate, we need to measure our actions by the successes of our grandchildren.

I also hope to combat another impulse I’ve observed among lawmakers, elected officials, and even some of the voters who support them. Many people are too quick to think that child abuse and neglect are only a problem for poor people and minorities. The truth is, child abuse affects the poor, the rich, and every shade of skin. Yet, somehow, it often seems to remain abstract for policymakers; it gets lost in statistics and population numbers, seemingly disconnected from their day-to-day lives. There is nothing theoretical about the 3.5 million referrals made every year to child protective services across our nation⁷; nothing abstract for the 9,500 children, on average, who suffer abuse or neglect in my home state every year.⁸ Nor is child abuse an abstraction for those who work in child protective services, law enforcement, and the justice system, who have to clean up in its wake.

Yet, we cannot ignore that race and class have a very real impact on the experience of children and their parents. In the United States, children of color are more likely than their white peers to be born into poverty.⁹ In fact, data show that despite tremendous gains during recent decades for children of all races and income levels . . . African American, American Indian, and Latino children continued to experience negative outcomes at rates that were higher than the national average.¹⁰ Demographers tell us that children of color make up the majority of children in twelve states, and before the end of the decade, they will be the majority of all children in the nation.¹¹

While researchers are the first to acknowledge there is still much to learn about the complex factors that influence the well-being of children, we have greater knowledge than ever before about what works and far greater consensus about where we should invest than much of our public discourse would suggest.¹² To put it another way, as a society, we have real tools available to us and trustworthy research to guide our decisions—facts easily distinguishable from alternative facts. Armed with these tools, an alliance of regular people, the judiciary, lawmakers, educators, nonprofits, law enforcement, social workers, churches, and many others are a formidable force advocating for programs that protect children. The most optimistic part of our situation: such alliances already exist.

There are those among us who avoid getting involved because they prefer not to think about it. As long as their family is cared for and the abuse and neglect of children happens out of their sight, it is far from their thoughts. For all of these people, I hope to show through the true stories I’ve included here that the victims of abuse are our neighbors, coworkers, the people in front of us at the grocery store, the kids that play baseball and football with our kids, and often those fighting hardest to protect all of our children. To ignore them is to be complicit in the violence. It is difficult for people to face this reality, so consider how difficult it is for the victims of abuse who have no choice but to face it. Even after the bruises or broken bones heal, they carry the scars of a lifetime of remembering.

I’m still trying to come to terms with my own frustration—built up over years of seeking to convince people of what to me is so obvious a truth. We must make prevention of child abuse and neglect one of the top priorities of our state and nation, because it’s right and because it’s smart. My thirteen years as a juvenile judge engendered a life of child advocacy. My twelve years on the criminal appellate court and my legislative efforts wove it into my every fiber. If people knew what I knew, and had seen what I’ve seen, they could not so easily ignore it.

NOTES

1.Food Insecurity. America’s Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2016. ChildStats.gov. Accessed 7/7/17.

2.U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children’s Bureau. Child Maltreatment 2012. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. 2012.

3.Kids Count Data Center. Children with Indication of Abuse or Neglect. Accessed May 27, 2015.

4.Food Insecurity. America’s Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2016. ChildStats.gov. Accessed 7/7/17.

5.2017 KIDS COUNT Data Book. Annie E. Casey Foundation.

6.Ibid.

7.Child Maltreatment. Centers for Disease Control. 2014.

8.Children with Indication of Abuse or Neglect, 2017 KIDS COUNT Data Book. Annie E. Casey Foundation.

9.Ibid.

10.Racial Gaps in Child Well-Being. 2016 KIDS COUNT Data Book. Annie E. Casey Foundation.

11.Ibid.

12.2014 KIDS COUNT Data Book. Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Introduction

When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a [wo]man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

— 1 CORINTHIANS 13:11–13

In 1978, my mirror on life became a little clearer. It was the first time I remember realizing that other people didn’t grow up the same way that I had—that there were homes where life was a constant struggle. As with so many realizations people have about the place they are from, I had to go outside of it in order to really know it. I was visiting Germany, then still divided into East and West. My sister and her husband, a captain in the United States Air Force, were living in Air Force housing while he was stationed at Sembach Air Base, near Kaiserslauten. My sister was eight and a half months pregnant with my nephew.

At twenty-two years old, I was fresh out of college, but in Germany I had never felt more like a little girl from Evergreen, Alabama. I spoke not a word of German. I was intimidated, yet by most measures, I should have been a confident adult. I had just finished a bachelor’s degree, graduating number one in the history department at the University of Alabama and, at the end of the summer, was due to begin law school there. I had traveled out of the country before with my parents, Otis and Thera Bell, but hadn’t yet traveled much by myself. I fell back on a habit that had often come in handy in new places—I made friends.

It was on a day-trip from Ramstein Air Force Base to the river town of Wurzburg that I met Anne, a nurse and a captain in the U.S. Army. She must have been in her early thirties, tall with straight hair beginning to turn salt and pepper. She moved with a quiet confidence. I had boarded one of the tour buses that took Americans on day-trips to various destinations within a few hours of the base. Most of the passengers were traveling in pairs or small groups. The bus dropped us off in the center of Wurzburg, and the group fanned out to explore the spired cathedrals and stone architecture of the old European city. Like me, Anne was traveling alone. As we exited the bus I asked her if she wanted a walking partner. We talked together while exploring the sights and continued our conversation on the ride back.

Though I was only in Germany for a few more weeks, we visited on several more occasions and became very close in a short time. She took me to restaurants in town, and we also dined in the apartment she rented from a German family. As we talked, I asked typical questions, like whether she often had the chance to visit her family back in the States. As she confided in me, I discovered that my questions were not as innocuous as I thought.

She had grown up in the Midwest, the youngest of five children. Her father was a physician. About the time she turned five years old, both of her parents were killed in an automobile accident. The five children, suddenly orphaned, were now divvied up among aunts and uncles. Since no one could afford to take all of them, Anne lost not only her parents but also her siblings. She was sent to live with an aunt and uncle.

Maybe it was the couple’s age, their finances, or perhaps something more sinister, but her new guardians were ill-prepared to take care of a five-year-old child. As Anne described them, they were young and wanted to go out on the town. They locked Anne in a closet before they left in the evenings. She spent hours alone, kenneled like a dog. At some point the other relatives learned of this neglect. Anne was moved to her grandmother’s house, but the situation there turned out to be no better. Her grandmother had dementia. The affliction caused erratic behavior in the old woman. She wouldn’t let Anne flush the toilet after going to the bathroom. She wouldn’t buy Anne clothes. She would purchase a large quantity of a particular type of food, like eggs or hotdogs, and the two of them would eat only that food for every meal until it was gone.

Anne ran away. She was picked up by state authorities, taken into the foster care system, and placed in a home with the parents she ultimately came to call Mom and Dad. These were the people she visited when she went home for the holidays. She wasn’t interested in seeing her blood relatives.

I was deeply moved by the story. Initially, I reacted as almost anyone would, with empathy. Anne, in my mind, could not be more heroic. The simple fact that she had become, by all accounts, successful and independent, was a measure of resilience I had not seen before. She had decided to dedicate her life to caring for others as a nurse and had been recognized for her abilities as a leader. But more complex feelings followed. I had been raised in a family in which my parents made certain I wanted for so little. They had, as the saying goes, filled the well from which their child could drink forever. I was bowled over by Anne’s story and struck