Senate Journal: Page 53: Wednesday, January 15, 2003
I will discuss the condition of our day-to-day operations later in my remarks. But
first, some encouraging news about progress we’ve made in the midst of these most
trying times.
Termination of Parental Rights: Appellate Rules
Like you, we regard our work with troubled families, especially children, as one of
the most important things we do, and we are always searching for new strategies to
address their needs. One of our most notable accomplishments this year has been our
continuing effort to move children out of foster care and into permanent homes faster
by speeding up the process in termination of parental rights cases.
The 1997 federal Adoption and Safe Families Act, and subsequent state action,
sought to reduce the amount of time children spend in foster care and to bring
permanency to their lives as quickly as possible. Immediately following the adoption of
the Act, our trial courts made great strides fulfilling its spirit, but the appellate
process, which the Act did not address, continued to be slow in termination of parental
rights cases. We sought to correct this.
Last year we adopted new court rules that simplified appellate procedures and cut
the time for appeal by more than half for these cases. A process that used to drag on
for about 13 months, now takes about four months. That means children can be adopted
sooner, or in some cases, families wait less time before they’re reunited.
The longer a case continues, the more stress on the families and children involved.
Children in these situations routinely need more therapy to cope with the uncertainty
of waiting for the process to conclude. Our new rules ease the strain of families and
children. As Judge Stephen Clarke so aptly said, "One of the primary goals of the new
rules is to let children have a childhood." Our new procedures are helping us do this.
The new rules have also helped ease the workload of juvenile judges, social workers,
juvenile court officers, court-appointed attorneys, and county attorneys.
Many people deserve credit for this success. The new procedures were the
brainchild of our Iowa Court Improvement Project Task Force. The General Assembly
and the Governor also deserve praise for your part in this success story. A simple, but
important, statutory change that you approved in 2001 helped make the expedited
procedures possible. We’re grateful for your assistance.
Our new appellate rules are the first of their kind and a model for other states.
Now we’re ready to expand the rules to child in need of assistance cases, and again, we
need your help to do so. We urge you to pass legislation, which we have submitted to
you, that would allow us to expedite more of these important cases.
iowacourtsonline.org
Perhaps our most significant advancements in the past few years have come
through the use of information technology. The Internet is increasingly becoming the
place where government business is conducted. According to a recent study, citizens’
use of the Internet to access government services increased in the US from 24% to 43%
in 2001.
Last February, we took a giant step by starting iowacourtsonline, a service that
enables anyone with Internet access to search court records in all counties and the
appellate courts. Before this, people had to travel to each clerk of court office to search
© 2003 Cornell College and
League of Women Voters of Iowa
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