In August, the Free the Children Coalition is planning a national rally in D.C. to expose what it says is judicial fraud in the family court system and the violation of families’ rights by child protective agencies nationwide.

Among the worst examples coalition leaders cite are these:

- California: Shirley Moore, national director of legislative affairs for the American Family Rights Association, says many Los Angeles judges who rule on family court cases also sit on the boards of phony nonprofit organizations created to generate state adoption/foster care grants via federal funding. California’s 2003 Little Hoover Commission Report said up to 70 percent of children in foster care should never have been removed from their homes.

- Georgia: State Sen. Nancy Schaefer is calling for an independent audit of her state’s Department of Family and Children Services: “I have witnessed ruthless behavior from many caseworkers, social workers, investigators, lawyers, judges, therapists and others such as those who ‘pick up’ the children. I have been stunned by what I have seen and heard from victims all over the state of Georgia.”

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- Illinois: A 2006 series in the Belleville News Democrat found that 53 children in foster care died between 1998 and 2005 after state child-welfare workers committed serious errors and ignored their own rules.

- Michigan: Robert and Janet Coleman’s two daughters, ages 6 and 2, were carried crying and screaming from a hotel room by police officers and social workers while the family was on vacation, based on what their parents say were false allegations by people they knew and tried to help. The Colemans posted evidence of what they describe as CPS officials “making it up as they go along” on YouTube.

- Missouri: Sonja De Vivo told The Examiner that her parental rights were terminated in 1999 after St. Louis social workers forced her to undergo months of psychological testing while her then 3-year-old daughter languished in foster care.

Missouri CPS officials then used the forced separation as justification to move the girl into adoption, claiming the mother-child bond had been severed. The girl, now 14, lives with her single adoptive father and his three teenage sons — not her own mother, who has never been charged with either abuse or neglect.

- Wisconsin: The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this month that a social worker violated the constitutional rights of two young children when she strip-searched them in 2004 at their private Christian school based on her suspicions that they had been spanked by their parents. The search yielded no signs of injury to either child.