Criminal Defense Attorneys Must Be Prepared To Aggressively Challenge Child Assessment Center, Child Abuse Experts
By: Houston Criminal Defense Attorney John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
The “Mission” statement of the Houston Children Assessment Center “is to provide a professional, compassionate, and coordinated approach to the treatment of sexually abused children and their families and to serve as an advocate for all children in our community.” In its 2008 Annual Report, Yolanda Green, President of the Board of Directors of CAC, added that CAC “is an agency where children whose lives have been torn apart are given hope and the opportunity to begin the road to recovery.”
The CAC, which was founded in 1991, has morphed into more than a child advocacy and protection center. It has become a quasi-official arm of law enforcement and supplies professional witnesses for the Harris County District Attorney’s Office in child sexual assault cases. Virtually every criminal defense attorney in Harris County who has tried a child sexual abuse case faced a CAC “expert” brought into court to testify for the prosecution about these cases. The agency has a history of misrepresenting the facts in these cases to Harris County juries, sometimes at the behest of the District Attorney’s Office.
For example, in April 2004 former Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal was forced to admit that “faulty physical exams” performed by a former nurse at CAC had put in jeopardy some 170 child sexual abuse cases and had possibly resulted in the wrongful conviction of some people.
Children suspected of being the victims of sexual abuse are given physical examinations, counseling and other services at CAC. The District Attorney’s office then uses the center’s “experts”, such as the former nurse who conducted the faulty physical exams in 2004, to testify about the impact on the abused children. Despite the 2004 fiasco, the District Attorney’s office continues to utilize CAC “experts” in child sexual abuse cases, knowing full well the center’s propensity to distort data in this sensitive field. (more…)
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