UPDATE 4/15/2015

The judge in Juve­nile Court today has just ordered the fam­i­ly to have a psy­chol­o­gist in the home 20 hours a week to “pro­mote har­mo­ny” in the fam­i­ly. Judge Wade Naramore can be con­tact­ed here.

Reporter Clay Her­rmann of the Hot Springs Dai­ly News in Hot Springs Arkansas has pub­lished copies of the Search War­rant, the Affi­davit for the Search War­rant, and the Search War­rant Return form used to take the sev­en chil­dren out of the Stan­ley home on Jan­u­ary 12, 2015 with the full force of a tac­ti­cal SWAT-style team. As has pre­vi­ous­ly been report­ed, the chil­dren were removed by Gar­land Coun­ty Deputy Sher­iff Sgt. Michael Wright, against the protests of social ser­vice work­ers and a med­ical team who were present at the scene and saw noth­ing war­rant­i­ng the children’s removal.

Until Mr. Herrmann’s inves­tiga­tive report, the Affi­davit for the Search War­rant could not be locat­ed, even after attempts to pro­cure it were made by the family’s attor­ney. Mr. Her­rmann went direct­ly to the judge who issued the warrant:

Fol­low­ing the night­mare at their home, the Stan­leys became aware that there was sup­posed to be an affi­davit attached to the sin­gle page search war­rant they were served. The attor­ney they have engaged to rep­re­sent them, Q Byrum Hurst, was also aware of the miss­ing affi­davit. Their repeat­ed efforts to dis­cov­er if it exist­ed, and if so to obtain a copy from the Cir­cuit Clerk’s office, from the Juve­nile Court, or else­where were all unsuc­cess­ful. Attor­ney Q Byrum Hurst stat­ed that in response to their sub­poe­na of GCSD Inves­ti­ga­tor Michael Wright for a depo­si­tion, his response was that he didn’t have to tell them any­thing because there was an ongo­ing crim­i­nal investigation.

In hopes of being able to find out some­thing regard­ing the miss­ing affi­davit, I went to the Judge who signed the search war­rant on the sec­ond floor of the Coun­ty Cour­t­house. Cir­cuit Judge Lynn Williams was able to see me short­ly after I arrived, and con­firmed that there had to be an affi­davit attached to the war­rant. We dis­cussed the fact that the Stan­leys were not pro­vid­ed a copy of the affi­davit which is ref­er­enced as attached in the search war­rant, and that despite repeat­ed efforts on the part of the Stanley’s legal coun­sel they were unable to pro­cure a copy or even to ver­i­fy the exis­tence of the affi­davit. I had also been unsuc­cess­ful in get­ting infor­ma­tion on the case from the Cir­cuit Clerk, the Juve­nile Court, or the Sheriff’s office, all three cit­ing con­fi­den­tial­i­ty of Juve­nile Court.

Judge Williams explained that he is NOT a Juve­nile Judge, and that he signed a search war­rant that alleged crim­i­nal activ­i­ty. He con­sid­ered that his search war­rant, affi­davit, and return should be filed as a pub­lic record with the Cir­cuit Clerk … with his Cir­cuit Clerk at the oth­er end of the hall, and so say­ing removed his judi­cial black robe invit­ing me to accom­pa­ny him as he got to the bot­tom of this. His armed Court Secu­ri­ty Offi­cer accom­pa­nied us as well, and we fol­lowed Judge Williams as he pro­ceed­ed with delib­er­a­tion down the hall, into the Cir­cuit Clerk’s entry, and deep­er in to where the ladies were who take care of his court records.

“We don’t have it. It nev­er passed through here” he was told. They sug­gest­ed that it must be at Juve­nile Court, which is where the Court Secu­ri­ty Offi­cer and I prompt­ly fol­lowed Judge Williams to next. Breez­ing by secu­ri­ty with the Judge, I wait­ed in a chair while his Hon­or went after his search war­rant pack­age. But he returned empty-handed.

He explained that fel­low Cir­cuit Judge Wade Naramore was present in the build­ing, but his court was in ses­sion. He fur­ther remarked that a judge can go into anoth­er judge’s court­room and inter­rupt the pro­ceed­ings to let the pre­sid­ing judge know that a brief word was need­ed with him out­side … which he did. “Can’t dare do that when you are just a lawyer.” As it turned out, Juve­nile Court didn’t have the search war­rant pack­age either.

“That leaves only one place left where it could be”, Judge Williams pro­nounced. The Court Secu­ri­ty Offi­cer and I fol­lowed him to the Sheriff’s Office. Again I sat in a chair and wait­ed as sher­iff depart­ment per­son­nel worked to locate GCSD Crim­i­nal Inves­ti­ga­tor Sgt. Michael Wright for Judge Williams. The Judge even­tu­al­ly went through a secure door to the right of the wel­come counter of the Sheriff’s office. He was gone for per­haps fif­teen min­utes give or take a lit­tle, but emerged with papers in hand accom­pa­nied by Sgt. Wright.

“I want to show you the orig­i­nals of these before mak­ing you a copy,” Judge Williams said address­ing me now stand­ing beside him at the counter along with Deputy Wright and sev­er­al oth­er per­sons in audi­ence. He care­ful­ly described what each sheet was, one page at a time, as he laid them down spread out side-by-side: Search War­rant, two-page Affi­davit for the Search War­rant, Search War­rant Return with hand-writ­ten item­iza­tion of prop­er­ty seized at the Stan­ley home, and a typed copy (for leg­i­bil­i­ty) of the Return. Deputy Wright made me a copy of all five pages which I accept­ed with grat­i­tude. Shak­ing hands with Judge Williams and Deputy Wright, I thanked them and left with a copy of all five pages of the Stan­ley Search War­rant pack­age, which you can now view here.

You can view all the Search War­rant doc­u­ments on the Hot Springs Dai­ly web­site.

The affi­davit sub­mit­ted to the judge to issue the war­rant clear­ly pre­sent­ed the pres­ence of a min­er­al sub­stance, MMS, as the pri­ma­ry rea­son for the war­rant. And yet in the Search War­rant Return doc­u­ment, the bot­tle of MMS was not even con­fis­cat­ed. If Judge Williams had done a lit­tle bit of home­work pri­or to issu­ing the war­rant, he might have learned that this sup­ple­ment was not ille­gal, and was no more dan­ger­ous than com­mon house­hold clean­ers. As Mr. Her­rmann notes:

The Stanley’s alleged crime was not pos­ses­sion, man­u­fac­ture, or dis­tri­b­u­tion of Meth in the coun­ty that Sher­iff Mike McCormick reports has rep­u­ta­tion as the “Meth capi­tol of the State”. Nor was it pos­ses­sion, dis­tri­b­u­tion, or use of hero­in, or any oth­er con­trolled or ille­gal sub­stance. (Evi­dent­ly serv­ing war­rants at the many Gar­land Coun­ty homes with chil­dren in them where those activ­i­ties are known to be going on can wait.) Rather, the alle­ga­tion made against the Stan­ley par­ents is that the legal MMS sub­stance was used in ways that crim­i­nal­ly endan­gered the well-being of the children.

The bot­tle and remain­ing MMS left on the bath­room shelf has since been dis­posed of … by the Stan­leys. Those exe­cut­ing the search war­rant did how­ev­er inex­plic­a­bly con­fis­cate a bot­tle of hydro­gen per­ox­ide as list­ed on the Search War­rant Return. Against the objec­tions of DHS per­son­nel on the scene, and con­trary to the task force physi­cian, after dark on that Mon­day night, they also con­fis­cat­ed sev­en minor chil­dren and took them away.

 Are Citizens of Arkansas Willing to Live in a Police State??

So far, no crim­i­nal charges have been filed against the father Hal Stan­ley, or any oth­er fam­i­ly mem­ber. And yet, the State retains cus­tody of their chil­dren.  Some of the younger chil­dren have been allowed to return home, but DHS con­tin­ues to have cus­tody and make incred­i­ble demands on how the par­ents are to raise their children.

Why did it take a judge to force Deputy Sher­iff  Sgt. Michael Wright to final­ly release the search war­rant doc­u­ments? When the fam­i­ly attor­ney tried to obtain them via a sub­poe­na, Deputy Wright report­ed­ly stat­ed that he didn’t have to tell them any­thing because there was an ongo­ing crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion in Juve­nile Court. Can the sher­iff depart­ment, Juve­nile Court, and DHS con­tin­ue to con­spire togeth­er and vio­late this family’s civ­il rights and destroy them in the process? No crim­i­nal charges have been filed against the parents.

If you are a cit­i­zen of the Unit­ed States liv­ing in Gar­land Coun­ty Arkansas, maybe it is time to take action if you do not want to con­tin­ue liv­ing in a police state where author­i­ties can come and kid­nap your chil­dren with no crim­i­nal charges filed. If Sgt. Wright does not believe he has to give an account of his actions because he can hide in  Juve­nile Court, maybe it is time for a Cit­i­zens vs. Gar­land Coun­ty Sher­iff Depart­ment com­plaint to be filed in Gar­land Coun­ty, and specif­i­cal­ly against Mike Wright.

The Stan­leys need help. They can­not fight this bat­tle alone. Any cit­i­zen in the Coun­ty can file a com­plaint against the Sher­iff depart­ment. Sher­iff Michael McCormick is an elect­ed offi­cial, and his actions and the actions of his staff are direct­ly account­able to the cit­i­zens of his coun­ty. He has actu­al­ly tak­en an oath to pro­tect the rights of you, the cit­i­zens. If he and his staff are not doing their job, YOU the cit­i­zens need to take action to hold them accountable.

Band togeth­er and hire the best attor­ney avail­able, and file a com­plaint to stop these abus­es of pow­er imme­di­ate­ly, or they may come for your chil­dren next.