High court postpones decision on Wernecke

High court postpones decision

The Texas Supreme Court postponed a decision on whether to return 13-year-old cancer patient Katie Wernecke to her parents, stating the newly appointed judge first must have an opportunity to examine the case.

The ruling, issued Monday, gave McKinney attorney James Pikl, who is representing Edward and Michele Wernecke, until Nov. 23 to pursue or dismiss an appeal filed Oct. 6. The appeal requests all of Juvenile Judge Carl Lewis' rulings, including her removal from her parents, be reversed because the Werneckes never were found to be medically negligent...

If they were never found medically negligent, where's the justification for kidnapping their ill teenage daughter?! I personally hope the family takes her to Arkansas and refuses to go back to Texas!

Judge Lewis Steps Down

Lewis Leaves Case

Juvenile Court Judge Carl Lewis stepped aside Thursday in the case of 13-year-old cancer patient Katie Wernecke.

With that decision, Katie's case will be assigned to a new judge as she begins a long-delayed course of chemotherapy to treat her Hodgkin's disease.


Lewis has been at the center of the high-profile case since this summer, when he ordered Katie into the care of state officials. Her parents, Edward and Michele Wernecke, had resisted traditional forms of medical treatment for her cancer and had been accused of medical neglect...

About the hell time. Hopefully this new judge's pockets aren't being lined by Pfizer and the pharmaceuticals. It's time that Katie's rights were considered, instead of the rights of these huge corporations to experiment on "minors".

Texas Supreme Court allows Edward Wernecke to visit Katie

Court allows visits

The Texas Supreme Court stepped in on behalf of cancer patient Katie Wernecke's family Friday by issuing an order allowing Edward Wernecke supervised contact with his daughter.

Before the court's decision, only Katie's mother Michelle was allowed to see her daughter on the condition that she not discourage Katie from accepting prescribed cancer treatment for her Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the lymph nodes.

The court's order maintains neither parent will have access to Katie if it is determined they are persuading her to avoid treatment. All contact must be scheduled ahead of time and in cooperation with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

The order states that a department representative must be present by telephone or in person during all contact with Katie.

Officials with the Nueces County Attorney's office said late Friday night it was too soon to comment on the development.

Edward Wernecke said he was grateful for the small victory.

"It's a small step forward and a very important step," he said. "A child should not have to go through this."

The order also overrules Judge Carl Lewis' order in juvenile court that Michelle Wernecke's contact with Katie be terminated if she doesn't encourage Katie to comply with treatment plans in writing.

Edward Wernecke, whose wife Michelle was out of state because of a family illness, said Friday he had already tried to schedule a time to contact his daughter, whom he has not spoken with in 30 days.

"I just want to tell her I love her and how much I missed her," he said.

Aaron Reed, spokesman for Child Protective Services, said the court's order didn't change much, as far as the state's position that Katie must receive appropriate treatment.

"This doesn't at all change our plans for Katie," Reed said. "For her to receive the treatment, her medical team says it's necessary to get her better so she can go back home."

Wernecke family attorneys could not be reached for comment late Friday.

Katie has been in Child Protective Services custody since June 4, after her parents refused radiation treatments for her cancer. She was diagnosed in January with the cancer and underwent six rounds of chemotherapy at Driscoll Children's Hospital.

Katie has been at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where doctors recommended she undergo high-dose chemotherapy followed by radiation.

A small step in the right direction. Still this family's lives have been utterly ruined by the state government. They've learned a bitter lesson: the government owns you from cradle to grave.

MSN Money - 3 prison stocks poised to break out

MSN Money - 3 prison stocks poised to break out

Company Focus
3 prison stocks poised to break out
advertisement
Thanks in part to overcrowding, governments are turning to private companies to build and manage prisons. Here's how to pick the right time to buy into the trend.

By Michael Brush

In what might be a revealing commentary on our country's state of affairs, the nation's private prison companies look like solid investments for the next several years.

The three big prison companies -- Corrections Corp. of America (CXW, news, msgs), The Geo Group (GGI, news, msgs) and even the troubled Cornell Cos. (CRN, news, msgs) -- have decent growth prospects for the following reasons.

* Increased border patrols. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, signed by the president in December, calls for stepped up border patrols to improve domestic security. This makes it likely that more illegal immigrants will be caught. Lawmakers estimate that by 2010 the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will need another 40,000 prison "beds," as they say in the business.

* Governments are hard up for cash. "Because of tight budgets, there has not been a lot of new prison construction," says Irving Lingo, Corrections Corp. of America's finance chief. Instead, state and federal prison systems turn to private companies that build and manage prisons. In the 2005 federal budget, for example, Congress cut prison construction spending by 48%, says Patrick Swindle, an analyst who covers the sector for the brokerage Avondale Partners. Government prison systems turn to the private sector in part because costs are 10% to 15% lower.
Start investing with $100.
Explore our
new ETF center.


* Government prisons are overcrowded and the prison population will keep growing. "Federal prisons are at 33% overcapacity, and more than half the states are at overcapacity," says Swindle. "There is a scarcity of beds, and companies in the private prison space are being asked to meet the demand."

Demand should pick up over the next decade for a simple demographic reason. The children of baby boomers, the so-called echo boom, are about to enter the 18- to 24-year old age group -- the years when people commit the most crimes. The Federal Bureau of Prisons estimates it will have a 36,000 bed shortfall by 2010, partly due to this trend.

The big-fish theory
These numbers may not seem like much. But it's a big deal for the tiny private prison sector, which houses only around 7% of the 2.1 million people in prison in the United States.

To see why, let's take a closer look at some numbers. The two federal agencies, ICE and FBP, will need 76,000 new prison slots over the next five years. That alone is more than the number of beds now run by the biggest private prison company, Corrections Corp., which houses about 70,000 inmates. And it doesn't even include increases in demand expected at the state level.

So what does this mean in layman's terms? It means that the federal government stands to profit from the incarceration of poor and middleclass Americans. Oh friends, the writing's on the wall! Take your children and your pets. Flee this country while the borders are still open! They won't be happy till we're all incarcerated or under some kind of government restrictions.

Katie takes chemo she had rejected

Katie accepts chemo

Katie Wernecke no longer is refusing chemotherapy to treat her cancer, her father said Tuesday.

Edward Wernecke said his wife, Michele, visited Katie in Houston on Monday and said she is accepting the treatment she previously resisted by pulling catheters from her arm and disobeying doctors' orders. The treatment is expected to last more than four months...

OK, the tyrants win. She's accepting the damn chemo eventhough it'll sterilize her and may not work. So what happens now? Katie is in compliance. Does that mean she'll be allowed to go home, or will Lewis keep her in CPS care permanently. If she is allowed to go home, will CPS finally leave this family alone or continue to torment them with visits from social workers for the next six years?