From the January 1999 Idaho Observer:

Effigy trial set for February
Lawmakers, OSP to face jury in civil action

PORTLAND--A civil rights violations jury trial is scheduled for February 9, 1999, at the federal building in here to try the actions of several state legislators and members of the Oregon State Police (OSP) who violated the First Amendment rights of people protesting the family-destroying policies of the State Offices of Services to Children and Families (SOSCF). Federal Judge Owen Panner will preside over the trial.

The State of Oregon, after losing all pre-trial motions in federal court has tried yet one more ploy to avoid accountability. The state has filed a Motion for Summary Judgment which will be heard January 25, 1999, in the Portland federal building . After losing on all of their motions regarding “immunity,” the state is now claiming that the legislators acted outside of their official capacities, and therefore the State of Oregon is not liable for their unconstitutional actions.

On April 18, 1997, a group of angry Oregonians hung SOSCF Director Kay Toran in effigy in front of the State Capitol in Salem, Oregon. A civil action was filed in response to attempts by state representatives Lynn Lundquist (R-Powell Butte), Lynn Snodgrass (R-Damascus), Margaret Carter (D-Portland), George Eighmey (D-Portland) and Ron Adams (R- Marylhurst) to stop the desperate, yet peaceful demonstration. Several members of the OSP are also named in the suit for doing nothing to protect the constitutional rights of the approximately 30 protesters, while they protected unconstitutional and illegal actions of the legislators.

For as long as The Oregon Observer has been in print, this newspaper has been publishing the true stories of the most heinous, horrible, discompassionate, illegal and purely evil policies of the state agency charged with protecting the interests of children. Mountains of documentation on countless cases prove beyond doubt that Toran's agency routinely steals children from perfectly decent and loving homes. Regardless of the unjust pain and suffering SOSCF causes innocent parents and children as the state-sponsored and federally-subsidized agency tears Oregon's families apart, nobody in the state or federal government will step in to stop the bureaucratic abuses.

Since state and federal authorities refuse to seek justice against what can only be described as a state- sponsored black market that deals in children, a group of people attempted to bring media attention to the issue by publicly hanging the agency's director in effigy at the state capitol.

To date, politicians have done nothing to stop the abuses of SOSCF, the media still looks the other way while families are being destroyed for no reason and the director of the most horrible and criminal state agency still has her job.

However, elected representatives who violated the civil rights of desperate parents by attempting to stop their peaceful demonstration and the police who refused to support and defend the peoples' First Amendment rights to protest might break the media silence which could force a thorough investigation into the activities of Toran's evil agency.