Heartland Academy Community Church v. Waddle
| Decision Date | 11 May 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. 2:01CV00060ERW.,2:01CV00060ERW. |
| Citation | 317 F.Supp.2d 984 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri |
| Parties | HEARTLAND ACADEMY COMMUNITY CHURCH, et al., Plaintiff(s), v. Michael WADDLE, et al., Defendant(s). |
Al W. Johnson, Johnson and Fellows, Brad L. Blake, Brad L. Blake, L.C., St. Louis, MO, David R. Melton, Kansas City, MO, Lisa A. Pake, Robert T. Haar, Haar and Woods, LLP, Timothy Belz, Ottsen and Mauze, St. Louis, MO, for Plaintiffs.
John J. Lynch, Paul M. Rauschenbach, Cheryl A. Schuetze, Attorney General of Missouri, Peter J. Dunne, Rabbitt, Pitzer & Snodgrass, P.C., St. Louis, MO, Doug Leyshock, Attorney General of Missouri, Assistant Attorney General, Jefferson City, MO, for Defendants.
In the United States of America, citizens are prepared to forfeit the exercise of some natural rights for the promise of the protection of laws, which are expected to be executed fairly and impartially, so the weak and the strong stand on even ground in the treatment by lawfully installed officials. This is a case where some public officials used and abused their public offices, not in accordance with their oaths to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America, but instead to violate the rights of those they were sworn to protect. The recitation of the facts of this case, which was tried over seventeen days, has burdened the file with considerable volume. Because the findings and conclusions are so significant in the lives of so many people, it is important to review the facts as reported by many, most with interests to be protected, measuring credibility, as observed from the witness stand, against a plethora of documentary evidence including video-taped events.
The statement of facts will begin with testimony of a young man who, on October 30, 2001, was at the Heartland Christian Academy when buses arrived to remove all "program students."1 Ovidiu Boghean, originally from Romania, graduated from Heartland in 2002, and continues to reside there. He is a professional pilot. His parents worked at Heartland and lived on a farm about twelve miles away from the school. At around 2:00 p.m. on October 30, 2001, he received a call while at the airplane hangar from Elisa Bock,2 who requested that he report to the School to operate a television camera. Upon his arrival at 2:15 p.m., he was advised of rumors that police officers were coming to the campus. Police officers arrived at 3:00 p.m. Mr. Boghean carried the camera, shooting intermittently for approximately two and one-half hours, making two tapes which ran for sixty-five minutes (Pl. ex. 93 OB, 93 SR and 93 SUM). The edited summary was not received in evidence. These tapes show what cannot adequately be described in words to capture the expressions and speech of students removed, and the chaotic way the removal was executed. In cross-examination, he was asked about his editorial comments that are recorded on the tapes. He described his comments as, "[t]his is the United States of America; this is wrong; this should not be happening." He describes what he was thinking at the time, and it summarizes concisely and about as well as words can describe the scene at the Heartland Christian Academy on October 30, 2001.
This case is not only about the mass removal of students from Heartland Christian Academy on October 30, 2001. It is about care and treatment of children at Heartland. It is about fear of some because Heartland exists. It is about courage of many and the perfidious behavior of others, operating under the color of law, to deprive scores of their rights as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States of America, necessitating the issuance of injunctive relief and a declaratory judgment to prevent what will predictably happen if that relief is denied.
Heartland Christian Academy is a school offering education from kindergarten through twelfth grade. It began in 1995. There was a boys' dormitory in Lewis County at the time of the mass removal on October 30, 2001. It has since been moved to Knox County. Boys and girls are now housed on alternate floors in the dormitory in Knox County. Residential group homes are located in Shelby County. The School is also located in Shelby County. Staff homes are located in Lewis and Shelby Counties. There is a "respite home," designed for individual students who are not thriving in the dormitory setting, allowing a child to be put into a single-family dwelling in a family environment for a period of weeks or months. Many students work on the dairy farm located in Lewis County. Some are heavily involved in Future Farmers of America and 4H activities. They are encouraged to show animals at the county fairs. A public steak house restaurant is located in Knox County. The convenience store, gas station, laundry and Solid Rock Cafe are located in Shelby County. Commercial enterprises are owned by a corporate "for profit" entity. All of the improvements have been built since 1996. Buildings are heated with geo-thermal technology. The plan is to build an environmentally friendly sustainable community. A Bible College has been added since October 30, 2001. On October 30, 2001, all of the children were taken from Shelby County where the School is located. For the purposes of this opinion, unless specifically otherwise designated, all of the entities will be called ("Heartland").
Before October 30, 2001, the School had two hundred and twenty students consisting of one hundred and twenty program children and one hundred residential children who reside with families. Children come to Heartland by parent, guardian and juvenile court placement. Services are provided to children from birth to eighteen years of age. Frequently, children arrive from other failed placements. Children come from "all over the United states," Eastern Europe, Mexico, and Asia. The Christ-centered mission is to help troubled youth become productive citizens. Children are not locked-down or fenced in; they are "loved," and sometimes that includes "tough love." Heartland started as a recovery center for adult drug abusers who were offered residential treatment. A natural progression involved the care of children for people in treatment. Heartland Childrens' Home followed. Heartland is financed by Charles and Lori Sharpe. No funding is accepted from local, state or federal governments.
Charles Sharpe is founder and pastor of Heartland, founder and president of CNS International Ministries, Inc., and a member of its board of directors. He is also founder of Ozark National Life Insurance Company which has its headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri. He and his, Lori Sharpe, live in a group home located on Heartland property with fourteen girls. One is eleven years old and the others are teenagers. Teenage girls have lived in his home for four years. Some have babies. Some of the babies were born while the girls were living in his house. Presently, there is a two-year old child living there. Carissa Garnel and Carol Lundstedt provide part-time help in managing the household. Mrs. Sharpe is manager of the Womens' Recovery Center, and administers the group homes and the Girls' Dormitory. She has held various positions at Heartland over the last five or six years.
Mr. Sharpe describes, in part, the mission of Heartland:
Q. Mr. Sharpe, why did you start Heartland?
A. I believed and I do believe that if we don't do something about our youth, that America is going to become a weak nation in the next 50 years. I've lived 76 years, and I've watched America's youth go from where it was when I was a kid to where it is today. And my wife and I both had very humble beginnings, but we made some money and we decided we was going to spend our money on youth. And so that's — We just want to see if we can help change our young people into a real life.
Q. And you've talked about the — There's been talk about the kinds of kids that you bring to Heartland, and Mr. Dunne pointed out that you don't say "no." What — What is your approach? Can you describe for the Court your approach in attempting to change and develop the young people that come into your ministry?
A. Our first objective is to let the kids know that we truly love them and that they need to love instead of hate and be full of anger. We direct them, of course, to Christ. We're Christian people, and we believe that that's the first way that these kids can get to have an understanding of love and appreciation, and so that's where we start. That's our — Loving the kids at whatever the cost is our fundamental beginning and then beginning to get them into some structure of going to school. Almost all of our kids when they come to Heartland, I mean nearly all of them have dropped out of school or are flunking out. They're usually two to three years behind in school. So we get them back in school and we start giving them just some — some thoughts about life that they've never had before. And, of course, it's a very, very difficult situation because these kids, many of them, are — have been in gangs, and they're really — they're — they're traumatized to the very limit. So we love them. We just keep loving them. The one thing they do know is we love them.
Q. And then you said that the other part of it is the structure.
A. Yes. We have to bring structure in[.]
Q. And what are the elements of structure that you give to these kids?
A. Well, we start off by they have to go to bed. Most of these kids stayed up all night or almost all night. Then they couldn't get up the next morning. They have to go to bed. They have to get up at a certain time. They have to eat at a certain time which is something they've never done. Many of...
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