Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So excuse me, I have the COVID. Pardon me, that's right,
Dr Cardy. Tim Sanderford is the vice president for Little
Litigation of the Goldwater Institute. He joins us, Now, Tim,
how are you, sir? I'm great. I would ask how
you are, but now I know have you actually I'm
vastly improved. Have you had COVID? Tim? Yes, in fact,
(00:20):
I'm still just I'm mostly recovered. But my wife and
I caught it about three weeks ago. We only had
about one day, that really bad day, each or exhausted
a little bit of a fever. But losing our sense
of taste was very weird, and it was actually kind
of disappointing because both of us thought that if that
ever happened, that we would eat less, and we found
(00:41):
that we actually ate more because we weren't satiated, and
we kept hoping that our our taste would come back,
and so we ended up eating more over the course
of the past three weeks than we haven't a long time. See,
I lost my taste and I started listening to nickelback
and watching according to Jim oh boy, uh so, yeah,
(01:03):
it's funny. I've had I had three solid days of fever.
I think I'm fever free today, but we'll have to see.
I easily know more people with COVID in the last
two weeks than I have in the entire two years.
Is everywhere and where it's going to be. You expect
the virus to get less dangerous as simultaneously with becoming
(01:23):
more contagious, because that means as it gets less dangerous,
it's easier for that virus to spread throughout the population.
So it kind of is a trade off. More people
are gonna get it, but they're going to suffer less, right, Yeah,
which which is fine. Let's keep moving in that direction
until it becomes just another cold as some of predictive
author Right, So let's talk about work for you at
(01:45):
the Goldwater Institute. You're involved in a really interesting case
involving an Arizona mother. Tell us about it. This are
so my clients. A woman named Sarah. She lives in Tucson.
She's heading on Thanksgiving. She's setting to a grocery store
to pick up the turkey. And she's got her seven
year old son in the car along with his five
(02:05):
year old friend. And they say, and the store said,
please don't come in unless you're shopping, and the kids said, well,
let us play in in our neighborhood park in here
and we'll just play while you go shot. So mom says, okay,
She lets them, drops them off, She looks, she sees
in the park that some friends of hers are in
the park, and so she knows the kids can go
to them if there's any kind of a problem or anything.
Goes in the store for half an hour. Next thing
(02:26):
she knows, the police are on the phone. The police
have stopped and are asking her kids why they're they're
playing in the park, and she gets charged with child
neglect under state law for letting her children play in
the park for half an hour. And now the county
prosecutor saw how ridiculous this was and dropped those charges.
(02:48):
That the state Department of Child Safety is now trying
to put her name on a list of child abusers
that would prohibit her from working with kids or even
volunteering in her community to help kids out. Great Scott. So,
I mean, not only has there been no due process here,
it would seem to be somebody asking the question is
(03:11):
the answer didn't have anything to do with COVID? Was
there was that there not allowed to be in the
park or is that not part of the story. No,
it was not that. It was that the cops. The
cops actually told her that every child under eight team
must be supervised at all times in public by an adult,
which is not true. Yeah, that's heard that it's absurd
(03:32):
and that's not the law. But Arizona law defines neglect
as the unwillingness to supervise a child if that exposes
a child to unreasonable risk. Well, Sarah was not unwilling
to supervise her children. She let her kids play in
the park for half an hour because it was safe
to do so. And the state is putting her on
this black list. And you mentioned due process. This is
the really important part of this case. Under state law,
(03:54):
your name can be put on this blacklist for twenty
five years based on probable cause. That's a lower standard
than obviously it's lower than the criminal law standard, which
is beyond a reasonable doubt. Right, But even in a
civil lawsuit that the government or the plaintiff has to
prove somebody did something by preponderance of the evidence. But
this is a lower standard even than that. Probable cause
(04:15):
is basically suspicion. The government can put your name on
this blacklist for twenty five years based on suspicion that
you might have done something wrong. That's insane. That's a
violation of due process. And that's one of the reasons
we say this is a violation of the Constitution. Wow,
you know it's funny. I was through one of your
(04:36):
tweets and I was reading a Twitter feed or Twitter
thread about what lawyers wish there. Uh, the clients understood
about litigation that layman don't understand about when you actually
try to litigate a case, um and and and one
of them, one of them was, it's not frivolous. You
(04:57):
think it's frivolous because your point of view. The other
side has a point of view. So I'm going to
be careful in saying this, but it strikes me that
the other side has no argument. How can you put
this woman on a quarter century would be child abuser
list because their kids were playing in a park? Well,
I think part of it is Arizona. About five years
(05:18):
ago or so, there was a big controversy because the
Department of Child Safety was accused of letting not doing
its job and kids are being harmed and stuff, And
I think there's been this real push by the bureaucracy
to try and change their ways and be more aggressive.
But this shows why we need constitutional protections so that
aggressive bureaucrats doing what they think is the right thing
(05:40):
don't trample on our right. I think a lot of
people think that when government does bad things, it's because
the people in charge are are just bad people are
trying to do bad things. But far more often your
rights get violated when bureaucrats do what they think is
the right thing, but there are no checks and balances
against them. And the Department Child Safety operates really without
checks and balances because it combines the judicial, legislative, and
(06:03):
executive powers. They write the rules, investigate alleged infraction, and
they put you through this administrative hearing that's sort of
supposed to be like a trial, except that the rules
of evidence and the rules of procedure don't apply. And
even if you're found not guilty at that hearing, the
department can still declare you guilty anyway, So it's a
it's a charade of due process. But I think it's
(06:23):
because you know, there's this an attempt to protect kids.
In this case, it's protect kids from playing safely in
a safe part for half an hour was mom's permission,
and adults there to keep an eye on them. Yeah,
all these child protective service organizations in their various forms
have such a hard job. And um, I think a
(06:44):
lot of the problem comes from when they get it wrong,
which you're going to get it wrong a lot. It
would be so, oh, just kill you when you got
it wrong, that's right. And there's a technical term for that.
It's called a type two error. A type one error
is when you fail to do something when you should.
A type two error is when you you do something
that you shouldn't do. The type two errors is where
(07:05):
you try to avoid that, right, And so it's safer
under this kind of mistake. It's it's safer not to
do anything because if you do something, you run the
risk of being accused of doing something wrong. If you
don't do anything, well, the blame gets put on somebody else.
You didn't do anything. It's just that the rules are
there and that sort of thing. And so that's why
bureaucracies are so slow, because they're afraid of doing anything
at all less they be accused of doing something wrong.
(07:29):
Is that the problem we have in in policing right now.
I mean, obviously it's not the whole thing, but is
that the whole pullback of the police and they're afraid
to arrest anybody phenomenon type situation. I think that's right,
and I think it's become very prominent in recent years
because that's what like the FDA does when they refuse
to approve a life saving treatment. They they're afraid of
(07:49):
approving it because if one person like suffers an adverse reaction,
they get accused. The Congress throws a fit, that bureaucracy
gets called in front of a hearing. If they don't
improve the drug, well, you know, nothing really happens. It
doesn't end up in the headlines. So there's this bias
in favor of not doing anything. And that's the kind
of problem that happens in any bureaucracy anywhere. Yes, so
(08:09):
your case is obviously important legally and you're a lawyer,
but culturally it's pretty huge too. If the government weren't
to win this case, and that's a headline, we don't
need to reinforce this idea nationwide with a headline that shows, yeah,
you actually can't let your kids play at the park.
It's too dangerous and against the law. I don't want
to encourage that totally. And there hasn't been There hasn't
been a stranger kidnapping in this neighborhood in like a
(08:31):
decade and so, and everybody is so panicked about it
even though this is safe. The result is what they
call helicopter parenting, right that you have to constantly hover
over your kids all the time. And Sarah is opposed
to helicopter parenting. She thinks kids need to have a
degree of independence as they grow up so that they
can grow up to be adults who didn't who can
take care of themselves. That doesn't mean you neglect them, obviously,
(08:53):
but it means that you allow them to play by
themselves in places, in situations where it's safe to do so,
and you're not constantly over them. And what the state
is doing in this situation is it saying that runs
the risk of putting your name on a do not
higher list for twenty five years without due process of law.
That's that's too much. That's not what the constitution allows.
We've got thirty seconds left him. What's the next step?
(09:16):
Are we filed our appeal to the Superior Court just
the other day. So there's gonna be a round of
briefings and then there's an oral argument, and if we
lose that, we'll appeal it again and we'll go to
the Supreme Court if we have to. Tim sander Ford,
vice President the Litigation Goldwater Institute. Tim, as we often
sign up, keep fighting a good fight. Good to talk
to you. Thanks. Guys who throughout the crap of kids
(09:37):
aren't allowed to be unattended up to eighteen him. How
could you function as a society like that? So you
can't let a fourteen year old ride their bike around
the neighborhood unless you're watching him. I mean, that's insane.
We've lost our minds, We really have
So excuse me, I have the COVID. Pardon me, that's right,
Dr Cardy. Tim Sanderford is the vice president for Little
Litigation of the Goldwater Institute. He joins us, Now, Tim,
how are you, sir? I'm great. I would ask how
you are, but now I know have you actually I'm
vastly improved. Have you had COVID? Tim? Yes, in fact,
(00:20):
I'm still just I'm mostly recovered. But my wife and
I caught it about three weeks ago. We only had
about one day, that really bad day, each or exhausted
a little bit of a fever. But losing our sense
of taste was very weird, and it was actually kind
of disappointing because both of us thought that if that
ever happened, that we would eat less, and we found
(00:41):
that we actually ate more because we weren't satiated, and
we kept hoping that our our taste would come back,
and so we ended up eating more over the course
of the past three weeks than we haven't a long time. See,
I lost my taste and I started listening to nickelback
and watching according to Jim oh boy, uh so, yeah,
(01:03):
it's funny. I've had I had three solid days of fever.
I think I'm fever free today, but we'll have to see.
I easily know more people with COVID in the last
two weeks than I have in the entire two years.
Is everywhere and where it's going to be. You expect
the virus to get less dangerous as simultaneously with becoming
(01:23):
more contagious, because that means as it gets less dangerous,
it's easier for that virus to spread throughout the population.
So it kind of is a trade off. More people
are gonna get it, but they're going to suffer less, right, Yeah,
which which is fine. Let's keep moving in that direction
until it becomes just another cold as some of predictive
author Right, So let's talk about work for you at
(01:45):
the Goldwater Institute. You're involved in a really interesting case
involving an Arizona mother. Tell us about it. This are
so my clients. A woman named Sarah. She lives in Tucson.
She's heading on Thanksgiving. She's setting to a grocery store
to pick up the turkey. And she's got her seven
year old son in the car along with his five
(02:05):
year old friend. And they say, and the store said,
please don't come in unless you're shopping, and the kids said, well,
let us play in in our neighborhood park in here
and we'll just play while you go shot. So mom says, okay,
She lets them, drops them off, She looks, she sees
in the park that some friends of hers are in
the park, and so she knows the kids can go
to them if there's any kind of a problem or anything.
Goes in the store for half an hour. Next thing
(02:26):
she knows, the police are on the phone. The police
have stopped and are asking her kids why they're they're
playing in the park, and she gets charged with child
neglect under state law for letting her children play in
the park for half an hour. And now the county
prosecutor saw how ridiculous this was and dropped those charges.
(02:48):
That the state Department of Child Safety is now trying
to put her name on a list of child abusers
that would prohibit her from working with kids or even
volunteering in her community to help kids out. Great Scott. So,
I mean, not only has there been no due process here,
it would seem to be somebody asking the question is
(03:11):
the answer didn't have anything to do with COVID? Was
there was that there not allowed to be in the
park or is that not part of the story. No,
it was not that. It was that the cops. The
cops actually told her that every child under eight team
must be supervised at all times in public by an adult,
which is not true. Yeah, that's heard that it's absurd
(03:32):
and that's not the law. But Arizona law defines neglect
as the unwillingness to supervise a child if that exposes
a child to unreasonable risk. Well, Sarah was not unwilling
to supervise her children. She let her kids play in
the park for half an hour because it was safe
to do so. And the state is putting her on
this black list. And you mentioned due process. This is
the really important part of this case. Under state law,
(03:54):
your name can be put on this blacklist for twenty
five years based on probable cause. That's a lower standard
than obviously it's lower than the criminal law standard, which
is beyond a reasonable doubt. Right, But even in a
civil lawsuit that the government or the plaintiff has to
prove somebody did something by preponderance of the evidence. But
this is a lower standard even than that. Probable cause
(04:15):
is basically suspicion. The government can put your name on
this blacklist for twenty five years based on suspicion that
you might have done something wrong. That's insane. That's a
violation of due process. And that's one of the reasons
we say this is a violation of the Constitution. Wow,
you know it's funny. I was through one of your
(04:36):
tweets and I was reading a Twitter feed or Twitter
thread about what lawyers wish there. Uh, the clients understood
about litigation that layman don't understand about when you actually
try to litigate a case, um and and and one
of them, one of them was, it's not frivolous. You
(04:57):
think it's frivolous because your point of view. The other
side has a point of view. So I'm going to
be careful in saying this, but it strikes me that
the other side has no argument. How can you put
this woman on a quarter century would be child abuser
list because their kids were playing in a park? Well,
I think part of it is Arizona. About five years
(05:18):
ago or so, there was a big controversy because the
Department of Child Safety was accused of letting not doing
its job and kids are being harmed and stuff, And
I think there's been this real push by the bureaucracy
to try and change their ways and be more aggressive.
But this shows why we need constitutional protections so that
aggressive bureaucrats doing what they think is the right thing
(05:40):
don't trample on our right. I think a lot of
people think that when government does bad things, it's because
the people in charge are are just bad people are
trying to do bad things. But far more often your
rights get violated when bureaucrats do what they think is
the right thing, but there are no checks and balances
against them. And the Department Child Safety operates really without
checks and balances because it combines the judicial, legislative, and
(06:03):
executive powers. They write the rules, investigate alleged infraction, and
they put you through this administrative hearing that's sort of
supposed to be like a trial, except that the rules
of evidence and the rules of procedure don't apply. And
even if you're found not guilty at that hearing, the
department can still declare you guilty anyway, So it's a
it's a charade of due process. But I think it's
(06:23):
because you know, there's this an attempt to protect kids.
In this case, it's protect kids from playing safely in
a safe part for half an hour was mom's permission,
and adults there to keep an eye on them. Yeah,
all these child protective service organizations in their various forms
have such a hard job. And um, I think a
(06:44):
lot of the problem comes from when they get it wrong,
which you're going to get it wrong a lot. It
would be so, oh, just kill you when you got
it wrong, that's right. And there's a technical term for that.
It's called a type two error. A type one error
is when you fail to do something when you should.
A type two error is when you you do something
that you shouldn't do. The type two errors is where
(07:05):
you try to avoid that, right, And so it's safer
under this kind of mistake. It's it's safer not to
do anything because if you do something, you run the
risk of being accused of doing something wrong. If you
don't do anything, well, the blame gets put on somebody else.
You didn't do anything. It's just that the rules are
there and that sort of thing. And so that's why
bureaucracies are so slow, because they're afraid of doing anything
at all less they be accused of doing something wrong.
(07:29):
Is that the problem we have in in policing right now.
I mean, obviously it's not the whole thing, but is
that the whole pullback of the police and they're afraid
to arrest anybody phenomenon type situation. I think that's right,
and I think it's become very prominent in recent years
because that's what like the FDA does when they refuse
to approve a life saving treatment. They they're afraid of
(07:49):
approving it because if one person like suffers an adverse reaction,
they get accused. The Congress throws a fit, that bureaucracy
gets called in front of a hearing. If they don't
improve the drug, well, you know, nothing really happens. It
doesn't end up in the headlines. So there's this bias
in favor of not doing anything. And that's the kind
of problem that happens in any bureaucracy anywhere. Yes, so
(08:09):
your case is obviously important legally and you're a lawyer,
but culturally it's pretty huge too. If the government weren't
to win this case, and that's a headline, we don't
need to reinforce this idea nationwide with a headline that shows, yeah,
you actually can't let your kids play at the park.
It's too dangerous and against the law. I don't want
to encourage that totally. And there hasn't been There hasn't
been a stranger kidnapping in this neighborhood in like a
(08:31):
decade and so, and everybody is so panicked about it
even though this is safe. The result is what they
call helicopter parenting, right that you have to constantly hover
over your kids all the time. And Sarah is opposed
to helicopter parenting. She thinks kids need to have a
degree of independence as they grow up so that they
can grow up to be adults who didn't who can
take care of themselves. That doesn't mean you neglect them, obviously,
(08:53):
but it means that you allow them to play by
themselves in places, in situations where it's safe to do so,
and you're not constantly over them. And what the state
is doing in this situation is it saying that runs
the risk of putting your name on a do not
higher list for twenty five years without due process of law.
That's that's too much. That's not what the constitution allows.
We've got thirty seconds left him. What's the next step?
(09:16):
Are we filed our appeal to the Superior Court just
the other day. So there's gonna be a round of
briefings and then there's an oral argument, and if we
lose that, we'll appeal it again and we'll go to
the Supreme Court if we have to. Tim sander Ford,
vice President the Litigation Goldwater Institute. Tim, as we often
sign up, keep fighting a good fight. Good to talk
to you. Thanks. Guys who throughout the crap of kids
(09:37):
aren't allowed to be unattended up to eighteen him. How
could you function as a society like that? So you
can't let a fourteen year old ride their bike around
the neighborhood unless you're watching him. I mean, that's insane.
We've lost our minds, We really have
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