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Appeals court reviews claim that exclusion of late witnesses denied father due process in child-protection case
Summary
In 24P1017, Department of Children and Families v. father, counsel for the father argued that the trial judge’s wholesale exclusion of late‑disclosed witnesses deprived the father of an adversarial process and required reversal; Department and child’s counsel said the father offered no offer of proof and the exclusion was a proportional sanction.
An Appeals Court panel of Justice Mead, Justice Ditkoff and Justice Hirschvang heard argument in 24P1017, Department of Children and Families v. father, on whether the juvenile-court judge abused his discretion by excluding witnesses the father sought to call after a late pretrial disclosure.
Deborah Dow, attorney for the father, told the panel that the trial judge’s refusal to allow the father’s witnesses to testify “completely eliminated the adversarial process” and that the exclusion was a presumptively unreliable breakdown of due process. Dow said the father’s late-filed pretrial memorandum listed multiple witnesses—she identified two particularly, a CASA worker and the father’s therapist—and that the court should have examined…
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