Referee throws out case against Sylvia Young

[Hannah Bell]

A referee at the Third Circuit Court in Detroit on Friday threw out the case against Sylvia Young, the 31-year-old mother who lost three small children in a house fire March 2.

Referee Kathleen Walton-Allen acknowledged there were no grounds to accuse Young of negligence and rejected the petition of the court-appointed guardian to retain court jurisdiction over Young’s surviving children. The referee ordered that Young be given full custody of her four children once a seven-day period for the guardian to appeal had ended.

While further legal action cannot be excluded, the ruling was a major setback to DTE Energy, the news media and state authorities, which backed the witch hunt against Young in order to exonerate the utility giant for the children’s deaths...

Next to testify was Sylvia’s welfare case worker, Amy Lidell, who outlined the services the state had given the young mother, while acknowledging that additional help for the children failed to materialize due to budget restraints. Under questioning from Sylvia’s attorney, Lidell acknowledged that DHS and other agencies had thoroughly checked out the mother’s story and concluded she had told the truth...“She was trying to keep her kids safe and warm,” Lidell said. “I drove to the two discount stores where she went to buy the heaters. It was approximately a seven minute drive.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/apr2010/youn-a17.shtml