Vol. 5, No. 1 • Fall 2000

Interview With District Court Judge Gary S. Cash

Judges have a tremendous impact on social workers, foster parents, and foster children and their families. In the course of their daily work they make decisions about whether it is safe for a child to remain in her home, what course of treatment a parent needs to follow, or what steps DSS must take to support families.
To help you get a better sense of a judge�s perspective, Fostering Perspectives interviewed District Court Judge Gary S. Cash. A native of Oxford, NC, Cash received a law degree from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1976. After practicing law for ten years, he was appointed to be a district court judge in the 28th Judicial District, which serves Buncombe County.

FP: Can you talk about your philosophy and your goals for families and children?
What gives me purpose in what I do is feeling that maybe there�s a chance of helping a family resolve whatever conflicts there are so maybe they can move on with their lives. This can certainly be passed down philosophically to helping kids, or helping [parents] understand that if you want to have the kids in your home and not be placed in foster care you�ve got to deal with these problems�your substance abuse, your propensity to lose control of your temper.
I�ve always believed that if you can show people that you respect them and are concerned about them, though you feel they may need to have some consequences for poor behavior�that�s more productive in modifying their behavior. Whereas if you approach them as a judge in terms of �you�re bad and you deserve to be punished,� the response you get is not too good.
When I reflect upon it that�s exactly what I�m trying to do, to get people to modify their behavior in a positive way. That tends to work very well in juvenile court and domestic court, because families still have to continue to work together. The best situation that you can create, from where I sit, is where parents have to communicate. In most cases when I get the case, that�s what�s stopped.

FP: What are your expectations of social workers in your court?
I think quite often, and it�s not just social workers, most witnesses think their job is to give their opinion. From a judicial standpoint, what I�m looking for is not whether the social worker was concerned. That�s an opinion, a state of mind. What I�m interested in is what the social worker saw. I need them to be my eyes and ears, I need that information.
What I don�t want is the issue of whether the social worker was concerned. That�s not admissable evidence anyway. If I made a finding where the social worker believed the Mom committed abuse, that finding is going to be ruled out by the court of appeals.

FP: Are there different expectations for guardians ad litem? Are they supposed to refrain from giving opinion, too?
The role of the guardian is normally the same as the social worker�s�what did I see, what did I hear. Additionally, neglect and dependency cases are divided into two phases, an adjudication and a disposition phase. The rules are different in those phases. You have to do adjudication before you can get to disposition, so if you determine as a judge that a child has been neglected, then you move to deciding what to do about it, the dispositional phase. During the adjudication phase, the rules of evidence apply. I can only hear, unless you�re qualified as an expert, what you heard, what you saw�factual testimony. And that would include testimony from the GAL. When one gets to disposition, then the rules of evidence do not apply, and a lay person such as a guardian can state an opinion.

FP: Is it common for foster parents to be given a place as part of normal court process or to be called as witnesses?
I expect the answer to that question depends on what jurisdiction you are in. In this judicial district [Buncombe County] it is not common for foster parents to appear in court.
I think the reason you don�t see that, and this is a guess, is because DSS probably wants to shield those folks from scrutiny. Sometimes it�s an issue of the not wanting [birth] parents to know who the foster parents are so the foster parents don�t get overwhelmed with phone calls, or threatened, or followed. There may be other reasons.
At any rate, [foster parents] could be great witnesses. Many times we will get the information that they would have testified about through another source�through the social worker testifying to being in the foster home and seeing something.
To foster parents I would say this: don�t feel like you�ve got to be hidden. If you want to come to court, come to court. These courtrooms are open, and they are welcome to come in court, and if a foster parent desires to do that I would expect every judge I know would support their being there. Now, whether they would be able to testify depends upon whether somebody calls them as a witness.
There may be an opportunity for you to say something in open court to a judge. That�s happened before. When we�ve gotten to the dispositional phase the foster parent just raises their hand and says �I�d like to say something.� Judge: �Who are you?� Foster parent: �I�m a foster parent.� Judge: �Sure, what do you want to say?�

FP: What is the best thing about being a judge?
The job is really about helping people. Just the resolution of a dispute helps people emotionally let go and move on to a different place. So even if you determine that a child has been neglected, it helps parents understand, �Okay, that�s been determined. I�m not going to fight against that anymore. Now I�m going to move to the next stage, and that is, how am I going to get my kids back?�
That�s really what I try to do, and I think that�s the trend nationally and what judges focus on��Let�s move through adjudication. Let�s get down to disposition. What does the department want these folks to do to get their kids back? Tell me the things. I�ll structure them. We�ll try to make it workable so the parents don�t get overburdened. Do them, and let�s get your kids back.� That can be real healing, I think.

FP: What is the hardest part about being a judge?
I think the hardest part is probably not knowing the truth. They don�t teach us how to tell if people lie. We certainly don�t have crystal balls, never have had. So you�re using your best logic, and certainly your feelings, to try to determine where you think the truth may be. Determining the truth is an elusive process that can be quite frustrating. It would be wonderful to know what�s the truth.

[Not knowing] can be pretty frustrating, particularly in the serious DSS cases involving sex abuse. Most often, we don�t know. We�ll have a child medical examiner�s report that�s inconclusive, and we�ve got a little child whose credibility issues are, are there, and you�ve got a parent who�s denying that he or she ever molested the child. And we�ve got a department [of social services] that as a matter of child safety has taken the position that �a child has made these statements, and we therefore are going to conclude this child was abused.�
So judges take the information that�s available and try to make a decision that is right, that follows the law, and that protects a child. And those can be competing goals. To know the truth would be a wonderful thing.

 

Copyright � 2000 Jordan Institute for Families