Barbara Bruce believed she'd spend 63 years in jail if convicted on the nine child endangerment counts police filed after finding deplorable conditions in her household, including a backed-up sewer and ill-fed children in dirty diapers.

Andy Starnes, Post-Gazette Barbara Bruce with her 4-month-old daughter, whom she was allowed to keep. A judge has forbidden her from contacting nine of her children during her 14 years of probation for child endangerment. Click photo for larger image.

A mildly mentally retarded woman who'd never been inside a courtroom, Bruce didn't know that even a parent who kills a child gets less time than that. So she took it to heart when Common Pleas Court Judge Donna Jo McDaniel laid out the possibility of a lengthy sentence if Bruce were to insist on a trial and be convicted. Although she felt her husband was at fault, Bruce took her public defender's advice and pleaded guilty to two counts, believing she would get no more than probation on top of the month she'd spent in jail.

But McDaniel, who also serves as administrative judge of the criminal court, added a punishment Bruce never anticipated: She forbade the 37-year-old mother from seeing, calling or even sending cards to nine of her children at any time during 14 years of probation.

When a caseworker from the Office of Children, Youth and Families explained that to Bruce two days later, she wept. "I couldn't believe it," she said.

She couldn't understand it because the order conflicted with one from another court calling for weekly visits between mother and children. That had been issued months earlier by Judge Cheryl Allen of juvenile court, based on the children's wishes and on recommendations from CYF, the children's attorney and Bruce's attorney, that the family be reunited.

Bruce's case is one of several violating an agreement between criminal and family courts to honor each other's orders. Kathleen R. Mulligan pushed for the arrangement when she was administrative judge for the Family Division, which includes juvenile court, from 1999 to 2002.

She knew that, in certain cases, criminal court judges might not want parents charged with injuring their children to have contact with them before trial for fear parents would try to sway testimony. By contrast, juvenile court judges almost always want visitation when the goal is reuniting the family.

The deal was that juvenile court would respect no-contact orders before trial, and criminal court would honor visitation orders after trial. While it is generally agreed that juvenile court judges have held up their end of the bargain, criminal court has not.

In Bruce's case, no judge had demanded she stay away from her children before trial, so Allen ordered weekly visits. It wasn't until after Bruce's plea in criminal court, when contact with the children couldn't taint their testimony, that McDaniel said Bruce had to stop the visits.

Bruce's case is particularly egregious because McDaniel told her twice during the sentencing hearing Nov. 24 that she could see the children if Allen permitted it. But McDaniel wrote only "no contact" on the court order, and when confronted twice with the discrepancy, she refused to clarify her position.

While it's unclear how often criminal court judges fail to respect juvenile court orders, when it happens, parents' and children's rights to due process under the juvenile act are violated, said Mark Edwards, director of the Juvenile Court Project, which represents impoverished parents such as Bruce.

"Simply put, the system is broken as it relates to cases that cross over between the criminal and juvenile divisions," he said.

The cost of the discord is enormous. Bruce's nine children, whose visits ended abruptly after the sentencing, are likely to suffer emotionally as they deal with what they perceive as abandonment.

In addition, taxpayers face a bill of about $225,000 for each year the children spend in foster care. While Bruce may never have gotten all of her children back, she can't even get one while she's prohibited from seeing them.

And juvenile court judges say they'd have enormous difficulty legally terminating her parental rights when she is cooperating with CYF on everything else but is forbidden by a court order from completing a task the agency says is necessary to family reunification -- visiting them regularly. So the children hang in legal limbo, not to be adopted, not to be returned.

Neil D. Rosenblum, a clinical psychologist who evaluates children and families for juvenile court, has seen several cases of conflict because of no-contact orders issued by criminal court.

"I do not think criminal court understands that they are introducing a dynamic affecting the children and punishing the children who are allegedly the victims of maltreatment," he said.

Afraid of father

Barbara Bruce's problems began last March when her oldest son called police to report that he feared his father. Officers and CYF workers arrived at the Bruces' rented house in Shadyside and found conditions so horrendous they charged her and her husband, who also is mildly mentally retarded, with nine felony counts of child endangerment.

The house's only commode was filled and broken. Mattresses were soaked with urine. An unbearable stench emanated from the basement, where a sewer backup had flooded the floor. The refrigerator was empty; cockroaches infested the oven; two children were malnourished; and a 20-month-old lay unresponsive in a pool of urine.

Bruce, who was pregnant, said she'd pleaded with the landlord to fix both the toilet and the sewer. She and her husband have said he was to come home that day with his paycheck from Salvation Army to buy groceries.

The children went to foster care and Bruce to jail for a month. Her husband spent less time in jail, but then attempted suicide and has remained in mental hospitals since.

For CYF, this wasn't even a particularly tough case because Bruce didn't suffer from mental illness or addiction. CYF told Bruce that, to get her children back, she'd have to accomplish several tasks, such as taking parenting classes.

Mulligan said she first attempted to resolve the conflict between the two courts because of a case in which she felt terminating a parent's rights might be appropriate but could not proceed because a criminal court judge's no-contact order prevented the parent from fulfilling the CYF demand for routine visits.

CYF helped Bruce get into a shelter for women and children, and she cooperated with the agency. Because of that, Allen permitted her to keep her baby when the girl was born in November.

Prosecutor in error

Bruce took her 3-week-old infant with her to her trial before McDaniel in November. Seven of her nine other children stood in the hallway with Bruce's CYF caseworker, Rade Stone, whom assistant district attorney Laura Ditka had subpoenaed.

After Bruce entered her plea, Ditka told the judge, "All of the children, but for this new baby, have been taken from the defendant and are going to be adopted elsewhere. They are permanently placed."

Bruce shook her head, protesting that this was not true, but she was ignored.

In summarizing the case for McDaniel, Ditka provided additional incorrect information. She contended the oldest child had begun calling CYF for help on Jan. 1, 2003. There is no evidence the child ever called CYF.

In addition, Ditka said there were broken windows, no water service and a child locked in a kitchen cabinet. Police and CYF reports do not support this. They do not mention windows at all. They say a child was found in a cabinet but do not say it was locked. And the city Water and Sewer Authority says water has never been shut off to the house.

The judge asked Bruce's public defender, Charles Van Keuren, if there were any corrections to Ditka's report. But he offered none. And when the court asked Bruce if she had any, Van Keuren answered for her, saying no.

The public defender and district attorney declined to comment on this case. McDaniel did not return phone calls. State law bars CYF from discussing specific cases.

After McDaniel sentenced Bruce to 14 years of probation, Ditka asked the judge to order no contact "unless mandated by Judge Allen or CYF." McDaniel agreed, telling Bruce, "If you want to see your other children, you have to go to family court and Judge Allen will decide whether or not it is appropriate."

Bruce told the judge that Allen already had permitted her visits every weekend. Then McDaniel repeated that Bruce would have to see Allen about visits.

When McDaniel signed the sentencing form specifying no contact, however, she did not specify that it could be overridden by Allen.

Catherine Volponi, the attorney with the Juvenile Law Project who represents Bruce in juvenile court, said the punishment was out of proportion to the crime.

"This sentence shocks the conscience," she said. "I have seen cases where parents have pleaded to or were convicted of endangering the welfare of children under circumstances where the child sustained a significant physical injury such as a skull fracture, and they are not forbidden from having contact with their child."

After the hearing, caseworker Stone heard Ditka informing police officers that there was to be no contact. So he told Ditka that the children had been visiting their mother routinely because the goal was reunification. There is no evidence that Ditka then tried to correct the impression she left with the judge that the goal was adoption.

When Van Keuren realized what had happened, he ordered a transcript of the hearing and asked McDaniel to clarify the order so that it would conform with her words to his client. She did not.

When Volponi and the attorney for the children found out, they asked Allen to seek a modification from McDaniel. Allen did. But McDaniel did not change the order.

So Bruce missed Thanksgiving and Christmas with her children. CYF has attempted to explain to the youngsters why they're not allowed to see their mother anymore.

But it's not clear what the children, especially the younger ones, understand when a virtual stranger informs them that a judge has forbidden them from seeing their mother, said Rosenblum, who could not discuss this case specifically but talked about children in such situations in general.

Older children may look for a scapegoat, such as the caseworker, so they do not have to find fault with the parent they love, he said. But younger children, unable to express the feelings of rejection and unequipped with defensive mechanisms to sugarcoat the situation, may act out their anger, he said. In both cases, he said, "there can be some definite damage to the child."

"Punishing the parent in this way is counterproductive to the needs of the children," he said. "We know children benefit from continued contact with a parent, even if the parent cannot care for the child." And limbo, in which a child can't return and can't be adopted, is the worst possible situation, he said.

Next month, Allen, who has spent 12 years in juvenile court, will transfer to criminal court. She has expressed interest in having child abuse cases assigned to her, a move that would be likely to improve coordination between the two courts.

It would not, however, solve Bruce's problem.