HENDRICKS COUNTY, Ind. — A Hendricks County Superior Court judge signed an order demanding that Department of Child Services director Eric Miller appear in-person at a hearing on Sept. 25 to explain why his department should not be held in contempt for failing to obey court motions ordering DCS to produce documents for a case relating to the torture killing of 4-year-old Judah Morgan.
DCS was named as a non-party to a case filed last January which sought damages against Judah's biological father, 29-year-old Alan Morgan.
In September 2022, Morgan was found guilty in the torture and murder of his son, Judah. Morgan will serve 70 years in prison for beating his son to death, and will serve at least 75% of that sentence.
Judah was found beaten to death on the floor of his biological parents' northern Indiana home, which was littered with animal feces and had a lock on the refrigerator, seven months after a court ordered he return there.
Judah's second cousin and foster mother Jenna Hullett, who is a plaintiff in the lawsuit against her cousin Morgan, told 13News shortly after his death in Oct. 2021 that she had tried multiple times to alert DCS of ongoing abuse endured by Judah inside the home where he later died.
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That civil lawsuit filed against Morgan also took aim at the Indiana Department of Child Services, accusing the organization of dropping Judah's case file even as he remained “an endangered child” and “ward of the state.”
"From his birth on June 17, 2017, until the year of his death, Judah was a 'child in need of services' or CHINS, a ward of non-party Indiana Department of Child Services, the state agency responsible for the safety and well-being of Hoosier children who come into contact with the state's child welfare system," the suit read.
It further outlined how, under Indiana law, DCS's responsibilities included providing child protection services and providing child abuse and neglect prevention services for children like Judah. The suit also said Judah, at the time of his birth on June 17, 2017, tested positive for drugs. Six weeks prior, the suit said allegations of physical abuse and neglect of Judah's older sibling by Judah's parents were substantiated.
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“Three days after Judah’s birth, he was placed in a kinship placement and not allowed to go home with his parents from the hospital,” the suit read. However, in April 2021, DCS removed Judah from foster care and placed him, "for the first time in his life," in the home of his parents.
The civil suit also pointed out that in November, the LaPorte County prosecutor amended criminal charges against Mary Yoder, his biological mother who pleaded guilty to killing and torturing Judah in August, to allege that Judah was an endangered and neglected child "from the moment that Judah was placed by DCS in his parents' home".
Lawyers for Judah Morgan's estate, who named DCS as a non-party in that suit, filed an order on April 26 requesting the following documents from DCS:
- All documents in the possession or control of DCS regarding Judah Morgan, who was the subject of a CHINS proceeding
- All documents - including emails and text messages - in the possession or control of DCS regarding Personal Representative of the Estate of Judah Morgan, Jenna Hullett.
- All documents - including emails and text messages - in the possession or control of DCS regarding the investigation of possible placements for the child.
- All documents - including emails and text messages - in the possession or control of DCS regarding the biological parents of the child.
- All documents - including emails and text messages - in the possession or control of DCS regarding the death of Judah Morgan.
DCS moved several times to block that request, according to a court order, and requested a protective order be granted prior to giving up the documents on July 14, which was granted five days later.
But August 11, 2023, a court order shows DCS finally produced "a few documents" to the plaintiffs, and then asked the Court for an extension of time seeking to push out the deadline for production of documents to a date after the statute of limitations.
In its third request for extension, the court order claims, DCS' production of documents to date was "woefully inadequate" and not in good faith.
"For example, many of the documents produced by DCS only contained the first page of documents and redacted material from these documents even though this court has entered a protective order so as to avoid the need for redactions," a motion filed Aug. 15 claimed. "DCS has still not produced all of the documents ordered to be produced by the court and despite the court denying the motion for extension, has not given a time frame for when these documents will be produced."
Miller, who was promoted to the role of DCS director in May, must now appear in person at 10 a.m. on September 6 to prove his department should not be held in contempt for failing to obey this Court's Orders, an order signed by Hendricks Superior Judge Robert Freese reads.
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The order to appear was filed the same month a scathing class action suit accused DCS and Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb of failing to protect Indiana children. The lawsuit illuminated a myriad of alleged systemic inadequacies within Indiana’s welfare system, representatives for nine children in foster care accuse high-ranking state officials and the Department of Child Services of failing to protect abused and neglected children in Indiana.
The lawsuit filed in early August with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana accused the state’s highest ranking official of violating the rights of abused and neglected children by failing to address persistent, ongoing issues within Indiana’s welfare system.
Issues within DCS that contributed to the further trauma of children, the class action suit contends, were well known among local and federal officials for years.
The suit similarly leveraged accusations against Department of Child Services director Eric Miller and the Department of Child Services of failing in their constitutional duty to protect children in the care of the state.
Hullett is representing a child in that suit against Miller and Holcomb.
The Indiana Department of Child Services declined to respond to 13News' request for comment.
A lawyer representing Jenna Hullett in the suit against Alan Morgan said DCS has still yet to produce the necessary documents as of Aug. 30.
The hearing was initially scheduled Sept. 6. The Indiana Office of the Attorney Generalsaid in a brief supporting the motion to vacate that DCS had not "acted in bad faith".
"DCS has worked diligently to produce documents and has, to date, produced more than 1,900 documents and 22,707 emails. The document and email search returned thousands of potentially responsive documents and tens of thousands of potentially responsive emails, all of which needed to be reviewed to ensure they were responsive and did not contain privileged information. As of this filing, DCS has produced more than 24,000 responsive documents and emails in its possession to Plaintiff’s counsel, unredacted," the office wrote in the brief.
The office also suggested Internal Affairs Officer at the Department of Child Services Christine MacDonald testify in lieu of Miller.
(Editor's note: This story has been updated from the original report, to reflect the date change from Sept. 6 to Sept. 25.)