Child welfare trials are on hold in Arizona after state officials discovered a flaw in a system used by the Department of Child Safety.
DCS Director David Lujan says the flaw let judges decide to remove children from homes without all the necessary information.
The data system – called Guardian – prevented records from being directly uploaded by providers into a case file and instead required the review and approval of a case manager. This created a substantial backlog.
The Attorney General’s Office will review more than 650 closed cases to determine whether the presence of any impacted documents would have changed the outcome.
The department has asked the court to postpone all trials and hearings for two weeks while the matter is under review.