Mid City Times

FORT WORTH, Texas – A Tarrant County district judge will no longer be presiding over the county's CPS cases after accusations that he disregarded Child Protective Service workers' recommendations. 

On Feb. 20, other district judges met in a closed-door meeting and determined that District Judge Alex Kim will no longer be presiding over 75% of the county's CPS cases. Kim had been the presiding judge of the 323rd Family District Court. 

"Kids are missing out on something important to them, vital to them," Tarrant County CASA worker Don Binnicker said. 

The Family Law Center downtown will not handle all CPS cases, which will be assigned to all the judges instead of Kim. Kim cut the number of advocates children got by 80% last year, the Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) said. The CASA finds pairs for children needing the advocates. 

After Kim became judge, there were 282 fewer advocates for CPS cases. 

“It’s special to me because I know these kids need help and we’re the ones that are out there advocating for them,” Binnicker said. “There’s nobody else that can really do what we do and provide the services that we provide.”

CASA worked with Adria Church and her husband when they adopted three children. 

“It’s really disappointing to think that there are so many children out there that are not receiving that extra help, that extra advocate,” Church said about fewer children receiving advocates. “The CASA workers to these children, they become like family to these kids.”

Others complained that Kim had children were reunited with their families against CPS advisement, Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley said. 

“Who’s taking care of the rights of the children? Because I think that’s the responsibility of the judge and the court,” Binnicker said. “He is acting more in a defense attorney role than a judge role.”

It was decided that CPS cases should have never been given to one judge, but randomly assigned to many judges, a committee of district judges said. Randomly assigning CPS cases to judges began on March 1. 

Kim doesn't oversee 75% of the county's CPS cases anymore, but he will keep hearing juvenile court cases in his courtroom.