Drug and Alchohol Tests ILLEGAL for CYS to Force.

PA. COURT RULING

Drug, alcohol tests can’t be required

From wire reports

Pennsylvania’s Children and Youth Services agencies have no legal authority to require suspects to submit to drug and/or alcohol testing during investigations of child abuse reports, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday, siding with a prosecutor who had come under the scrutiny of a county child welfare agency.

The unanimous decision said the Child Protective Services Law does not “expressly or implicitly authorize collecting samples of bodily fluids, without consent, for testing.”

It was a win for Greene County District Attorney David J. Russo, who disputed the authority of the child welfare agency from neighboring Fayette County to require the tests. The agency was brought in to investigate complaints about Russo. He says no abuse has ever occurred to his children.

The county began investigating Russo based on a confidential tip that he had been intoxicated in public with one of five children, as well as an inaccurate claim he had been charged with spousal abuse. Russo was a lawyer in private practice when the investigation began. A Republican, he was elected district attorney in November. Russo has said forcing drug tests on Greene County residents who were the subjects of child-abuse complaints had become a routine practice before he challenged its legality. He said Tuesday that practice has apparently ended.

Fayette County lost a lower-court decision in its quest to require Russo to submit to an observable urine test. Superior Court also rejected Fayette

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County’s attempt to force Russo and his wife to permit investigators to inspect conditions in their home.

Fayette investigators interviewed all five of the Russo children while they were at school and were unable to confirm allegations against him,

the Superior Court said in a previous ruling. Russo warned in a court filing that drug testing of parents without probable cause “will inevitably lead to the forcible extraction of bodily fluids, the incarceration of parents for refusing to comply, or the exile of parents from their children.”

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