Three child welfare workers in Mesa County did not commit a constitutional violation when they helped place an infant in the care of a foster mother who ultimately killed her, the federal appeals court based in Denver has ruled.

After studying its options, the Mesa County Department of Human Services recommended Angel Place be moved from an emergency placement where she appeared to be happy and thriving and instead live with Sydney White. A magistrate approved the transition of the child to White’s home in June 2014.

Three months later, Angel was dead.

Representatives of Angel’s estate filed a federal lawsuit against three of the human services employees involved in the case: Joyce Anderson, Joni Bedell and Crystal Stewart. Allegedly, they had deprived Angel of her right to be reasonably safe from harm in foster care under the Fourteenth Amendment, and had turned a blind eye to “obvious signs of abuse.”

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit agreed that the defendants could not be held liable for any constitutional violation.

Based on the allegations, wrote Judge Joel M. Carson III, a jury could have found the women’s actions amounted to negligence. But a constitutional rights claim requires “more than a state official’s mere failure to exercise professional judgment. The abdication of her professional duty must be sufficient to shock the conscience,” Carson explained in the May 10 order.

Angel was born in October 2013, but within months Mesa County launched an investigation and concluded the home was unsafe based on her parents’ physical abuse and drug usage. The human services department took custody of Angel and placed her immediately with foster parent Misty Blackwell.

Although Angel showed signs of bonding with Blackwell and a caseworker concluded the child was “very happy” and “doing very well,” the county sought to move Angel to the home of a family member in accordance with a kinship preference in state law.

“We give preference to family unless there is extenuating circumstances that it would be detrimental to the child,” Bedell wrote in an email to Anderson.

The county identified as potential foster parents White, who was 20 at the time, and her husband, Randy Bond. Bond was the cousin of Angel’s mother and they already were raising two young children. A home study by the county found them to be “very capable parents,” mature despite their ages and concluded they could provide a safe home.

There were, however, red flags. White grew up in an abusive, dysfunctional home, and suffered from depression and anxiety. Bond also came from a broken home. The two of them argued almost daily.

Nevertheless, the county recommended Angel’s placement with White and Bond, and after a hearing on June 17, 2014, Mesa County Magistrate William T. McNulty approved the transfer after concluding it would be in Angel’s best interest. Although foster parents need to be at least 21 years old, White would receive a waiver from the government.

Blackwell had wished to keep Angel in her custody, and a volunteer advocate for Angel also felt the child would be “a lot safer” with Blackwell. As part of the transition, Angel would go back and forth between Blackwell’s home and the home of White and Bond before ultimately living solely with her new foster parents.

During the transition, Blackwell raised several concerns. Angel reportedly came back sunburned, dirty and hungry. She appeared withdrawn and quiet, rather than happy. There was an alleged mark under her eye.

Stewart, the caseworker, concluded that Blackwell was “trying to sabotage (the) kin placement” with her reports.

After Angel had fully moved in with White and Bond, White notified Stewart on July 11, 2014 that the child had bruised herself by running into an object while playing tag. Angel at that point could not yet crawl. On Aug. 20, White told Stewart that Angel’s behavior was becoming more overwhelming, particularly her need for attention and her persistent crying.

“I don’t want to give up on her, but I don’t know what to do and this is hard,” White said to the caseworker.

On Sept. 15, White canceled a scheduled home visit with Stewart, ostensibly due to an illness. That same day, White and Bond took Angel to a hospital in Grand Junction because she was unresponsive. The hospital noted the injuries could be “nonaccidental trauma.”

Angel died two days later in a Denver-area hospital at the age of 11 months. White eventually pleaded guilty to child abuse resulting in death after admitting to shaking the baby violently, kicking and biting her. She received a prison sentence of 30 years.

Angel’s estate, represented by her grandfather and Blackwell, sued Anderson, Bedell and Stewart. They relied on two theories for why the defendants violated Angel’s constitutional rights. First, Angel had a special relationship with the government that triggered a duty to protect her. Second, their actions amounted to a government-created risk of violence to Angel.

Under both lines of thinking, the plaintiffs had to show that the defendants’ actions were “conscience shocking.”

In a 51-page order in June 2019, U.S. District Court Senior Judge John L. Kane sided with the county workers. With the initial placement of Angel at White’s home and the subsequent monitoring of Angel’s welfare, Kane found the defendants had not abandoned their professional responsibilities. He also believed that there was a prohibition on federal courts reviewing the claims to the extent they arose out of the Mesa County magistrate’s placement decision.

Upon appeal, the plaintiffs argued to the 10th Circuit’s panel that the defendants knew of all of the warning signs with White and Bond’s household, both before and after Angel’s placement, but stayed the course.

“There’s no prompt intervention. They don’t move to take the child away. They don’t move to maybe go back into a transition. They don’t insist that White get into counseling. And White in this period is asking for help,” attorney Damon Davis told the panel.

The lawyer for the defendants countered that they had followed the proper procedures and used their professional judgment, with no clear indication that there was an imminent danger to Angel.

“It really comes down to, did they do their best based on what they were observing firsthand?” argued Andrew B. Clauss. “And they did.”

The appellate panel largely agreed with Kane’s handling of the case, only disagreeing with him that the case did not implicate federal review of the state magistrate’s decision. The defendants, wrote Carson, indeed were aware of the red flags with White and Bond and did not hide those from the state court.

“Plaintiffs fail to focus on White’s traits that weighed in the other direction. The record reflects that White had never been abusive towards her own children. Indeed, evidence shows that individuals close to White considered her a good and fit parent,” said Carson.

Ultimately, the panel characterized the defendants’ actions as professional judgments informed by the totality of what they knew about White. No one outright ignored allegations of abuse, and, therefore, there was no constitutional violation.

“In hindsight, the decision not to remove Angel from the Bond/White household following the August 20 meeting cost Angel her life – and we conclude that a jury could find their actions negligent. But nothing in the record supports Plaintiffs’ position that Defendants’ actions shock the conscience,” Carson concluded.

Davis said he and his clients were disappointed with the panel’s ruling, and called the conscience-shocking standard problematic because it is subjective.

“Judges, who are exposed to more of the world’s wrongs, are likely to become jaded and have a higher standard than most of us. I believe many of us would find it conscience shocking to move a child from a home where they are thriving and there are no red flags into a home where there are many red flags,” he said.

Lawyers for the defendants did not immediately return a request for comment.

The case is Estate of Angel Place v. Anderson et al.