* Capitol News Illinois…
A circuit court judge in Sangamon County threatened Tuesday to begin assessing daily fines against the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services for its repeated failure to appear in court or comply with orders to hand over documents related to the death of a teenager who was in the agency’s care.
Judge Jack Davis II issued an order Tuesday for DCFS Director Heidi Mueller to appear personally at a Sept. 9 hearing to show cause why she and the agency should not continue to be held in contempt over repeated refusals to appear in court or comply with orders to produce records related to an 18-year-old girl who died while in foster care in 2024.
Capitol News Illinois sued for access to the personnel records of two caseworkers and one supervisor who were responsible for monitoring Mackenzi Felmlee, the girl who died.
According to doctors, Mackenzi died May 11, 2024, from a blood clot that hit her lungs. She was found struggling to breathe at the bottom of the basement stairs in a Fairview Heights foster home. Doctors reported she died of a blood clot that hit her lungs. Her neck, shoulders, legs and face were bruised, and her dehydrated body weighed just 90 pounds.
Her foster mother, Shemeka Williams, and foster grandmother, Cornelia Reid, are charged with murder in connection with Mackenzi’s death. Both are currently being held in the St. Clair County Jail.
* Gov. Pritzker was asked at an unrelated news conference yesterday why DCFS failed to appear…
Pritzker: I checked in, and they want to comply. They want to comply. And, indeed, I checked in, and honestly, either through the notification process or some mix-up, they did not know about the court date. And so they absolutely want to show up. It’s not like they’re avoiding it.
We’ve got a great director there who is trying to go the right things. And so I’m certain that, if the communication process is improved, and that’s what we’re looking to do, to make sure they know when the court hearing is. They will show up.
- AlfondoGonz - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 10:16 am:
Having come through Juvenile Justice during my career as a prosecutor, it’s my experience that DCFS does not want to show up, they are avoiding it, and they don’t want to comply.
Leadership has changed in the years since I was assigned to Juvenile Justice, but DCFS has not earned the benefit of the doubt.
- Candy Dogood - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 10:17 am:
===They want to comply. And, indeed, I checked in, and honestly, either through the notification process or some mix-up, they did not know about the court date.===
I suppose we can wait to hear the version of events that the agency provides to the judge under the penalty of perjury because the explanation they’ve provided to the Governor really seems a like it isn’t very good explanation.
===to make sure they know when the court hearing is. They will show up.===
This is a very concerning response. They didn’t know when the court hearing was?
Can’t wait for the Directors explanation of how their agency is too incompetent to keep tabs of when they’re ordered to appear in court.
- Homebody - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 10:55 am:
My agency within the last 12 months got screwed in a discovery dispute because the AAG handling the case just forgot about a deadline and never filed a motion to quash an overly broad subpoena. So we had to scramble to pull together thousands of pages of ultimately irrelevant documents, wasting time of our own staff, because one attorney forgot a deadline.
It happens, it sucks, it is embarrassing. But without further information beyond what is in the article, there is no way to know if this was truly “contemptuous” behavior, or just a stupid screw up.
It is easy to forget that government agencies are still just large organizations full of normal people going about their day to day jobs, and sometimes people mess up.
- King Louis XVI - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 10:57 am:
Pretty close to “the dog ate my homework and court orders.”
- James Blessman - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 10:59 am:
This seems bad. DCFS has a legal department with lawyers. How do they miss a court date? Multiple court dates?
Someone messed up either at DCFS or the court. The Governor seems to be implying the court did. If he’s right then the court needs to look at their process it isn’t like DCFS is moving addresses to dick the court. If it was DCFS we have even bigger problems.
- Irreverent - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 11:08 am:
Am I the only one not immediately assuming the courts got everything right?
- The Most Anonymous - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 11:12 am:
I miss the days when the Governor was better prepared for unrelated questions at press conferences
- Almost the Weekend - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 11:17 am:
Sullivan got fired as director for an email he may or may not have seen.
And Pritzker is commenting on what a great director DCFS has for failing to appear in court not one time, but multiple times.
- Candy Dogood - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 11:18 am:
===and sometimes people mess up. ===
This is a good sentiment to hold and I agree with you that sometimes people do just mess up. The reporting on this story though seems to involve repeated mess ups. The pattern and it being associated with the death of a child in custody kinda makes it look a little less like someone’s whoopsie daisy, but I, like the judge in this case, would welcome an explanation to the public from the director of the agency about why their agency struggles to follow the law and follow their judicial orders.
Even if the requested documentation is embarrassing to the agency, losing a court case over the information certainly draws a spot light to that.
- Friendly Bob Adams - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 11:30 am:
I think Pritzker has done a generally good job as governor, but he needs to tighten up on state agency oversight. Things are way too loosey-goosey.
And frankly I don’t believe that no one at DCFS knew about the court order. Somebody messed up and it wasn’t the judge.
Like Rich says, Do Better….
- Thinking - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 11:31 am:
State agencies are represented in court by the Attorney General’s Office. First question: did DCFS notify Attorney General of lawsuit (i.e. who was served and did plaintiffs also serve Attorney General Officew); 2) did DCFS request Attorney General representation; 3) did Attorney General acknowledge request for representation and enter appearance; 4) if yes to above, why did Attorney General’s Office not appear?
- Think Again - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 11:31 am:
JB’s management of the agencies has been abysmal, clearly not one of his focuses
- Stephanie Kollmann - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 11:45 am:
==State agencies are represented in court by the Attorney General’s Office==
Not, to my knowledge, in FOIA cases.
Not that the AG’s office hasn’t also tried to shield personnel files.
- Banish Misfortune - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 11:50 am:
I became a fan of JB during the pandemic due to his willingness to take leadership on this issue. That JB is missing. He persistent failure to execute and demonstrate leadership and failure to hold people accountable is causing me to lose faith in him.
- DuPage Saint - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 12:39 pm:
Someone should let the Governor know it wasn’t missing one courts date according to the judge it was repeatedly missing court dates. That is a huge difference
- Thomas Paine - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 12:51 pm:
It is a FOIA suit from a news agency regarding personnel records of Operations staff related to a foster child death and the director personally.
The FOIA Officer is a member of the DCFS legal department.
At a minimum, the following individuals were aware or should have been aware of the pending court dates:
FOIA Officer
General Counsel
Comms Director
HR Director
Operations Director
Chief of Staff
Agency Director
Let the FOIA of emails surrounding the case begin.
I, too, am skeptical about the whole “we didn’t know.” Courts have an automated process.
- Derek Smalls - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 1:00 pm:
Back in the day agencies were on notice to make sure Gov Press and Gov Legal were notified immediately of significant FOIA requests. Press FOIAs were always considered significant. If the agency failed to flag it to Gov’s Office there were consequences.
- Pot calling kettle - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 1:03 pm:
==JB’s management of the agencies has been abysmal, clearly not one of his focuses==
I wonder if it is undermanagement or overmanagement. Are folks not doing things because they are incompetent and not held accountable or because they are not willing to do anything without clear assent from above?
- Sangamo Girl - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 1:48 pm:
I have not been impressed with most of the deputy governors, the folks that should know what agency directors are up to. It frequently feels like they spend much of their time jockeying for position instead driving mission critical work and encouraging agency collaboration.
- Bob - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 2:14 pm:
His continued defense of the failures at DCFS is one of the most frustrating parts of his 8 years in office.
- Space Cowboy - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 3:04 pm:
I was attempting to collect my thoughts on how there should have been multiples failsafes and awareness by multiple levels of staff; Thomas Paine @ 12:51 paints the picture better than I could.
I’ll be kind and assume that the decision makers “did not know” and did not intentionally avoid it. So then…what other matters have come to the agency that they “did not know” about? Not a reassuring thought…
- Thomas Paine - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 5:44 pm:
=== Back in the day agencies were on notice to make sure Gov Press and Gov Legal were notified immediately of significant FOIA requests. ===
I was trying to be kind, but I would assume that once a FOIA case involving the press and a child death had proceeded to a court case, that the governor’s legal team had reviewed the reasons for the FOIA denial, and the deputy governor was monitoring.
- Derek Smalls - Thursday, Aug 13, 26 @ 7:52 pm:
Gov Legal would want to know the FOIA response from the agency before it went out. Can do something on the front end if agency is going to do something unwise, after response it is just damage control. Agencies responding to sensitive FOIA with no Gov office awareness is a possible disaster for a Gov.