In less than two minutes, Queenyona Boyd, her voice cracking, manages to break our hearts into a million little pieces.
One moment, she says, she was celebrating the birth of her son and the next he was gone, taken away by a social worker who suspected she and her husband had physically abused the infant, who was just a few days old.
The 25-year-old Lithonia mother’s story is featured in a State Bar of Georgia advertising campaign aimed at spit-shining its members’ image.
If a 2013 Pew Research Center survey is any indication, you can understand why. According to researchers there, in a survey on professional public esteem, lawyers ranked at the bottom.
Georgia Needs Lawyers, as the campaign is dubbed, seeks to showcase the impact Georgia lawyers make every day in the lives of the state's residents as told by the clients.
The campaign, which launched TV ads early this month, employs a large-scale storytelling platform, similar to the popular Grady Hospital television ads touting its patient care: “I wouldn’t be here without Grady.” In addition to television and radio ads, the bar will also increase its social media presence and traditional public relations initiatives.
“There are so many extraordinary stories about the way our members have impacted the lives of their clients, not only by representing them in the legal system, but by going well beyond the traditional role of a lawyer,” said Patrick T. O’Connor, president of the State Bar of Georgia. “These stories are so compelling, and so emotionally moving, that we decided to make them the centerpiece of our new campaign.”
Boyd’s story is one of three selected from a field of 50 submitted in response to a call from the bar last summer.
The others feature Jarryd Wallace, an Athens resident and former high school state champion track star who lost his leg from complications during a routine surgery, and Murray English, a decorated homeless Vietnam veteran from Atlanta who, thanks to his attorney, is now a contributing member of society.
Wallace’s lawyer guided him through the ordeal and helped him realize a new goal: becoming a world record setter in the Paralympic Games.
Boyd’s attorney Diana Rugh Johnson wanted Boyd to participate in the campaign because Boyd’s story is one of the most compelling cases the lawyer has ever worked on.
“The newborn had a broken leg, and both parents denied having hurt him,” she said. “How do you fix that?”
Johnson said the parents’ case shows the importance of having strong representation.
“We have systems in place to protect children, but we need to make sure that we don’t have kids in foster care who don’t need to be there,” she said. “Sometimes, the system makes a mistake, and lawyers help to fix those mistakes.”
Queenyona gave birth to baby Anthony on Friday, June 10, 2011, and on Sunday, the two of them were released from DeKalb Medical Center. On Monday, his father noticed swelling and bruising on his right leg. Because it was at the site of a vaccination, Queenyona wasn’t concerned, but when they took the infant in for a scheduled follow-up appointment with his pediatrician, she sent them to the hospital to be sure.
An X-ray revealed a break in the infant’s thigh.
“I looked at my husband and said you have the wrong kid,” Boyd remembered. “My son doesn’t have a broken anything.”
Boyd and her husband were ushered into a waiting room, where they were met by a doctor. He wanted to know if the baby had fallen.
When a Division of Family and Children Services social worker arrived the next day with a security guard, Boyd said her heart sank.
“I knew it wasn’t going to be good,” she said.
DFCS had filed a complaint accusing the couple of abuse. They'd decided to remove the infant from their home.
The news left Boyd breathless. Her husband started to cry.
“We were in shock,” she said.
Boyd, who’d spent most of her life in foster care and the last five years as an advocate for children, reached out to Johnson.
For five days, they had no idea where Anthony might be, and the social worker had refused to give him his mother’s milk. Having had severe morning sickness throughout her pregnancy, Boyd desperately wanted to continue breastfeeding her son.
“They took that right away from me,” she said.
It would take about a month before they got a trial date, but on July 5, 2011, they finally got a chance to make their case to get Anthony back.
They proved that Anthony had been born with a broken leg.
That coupled with a lack of other telltale signs of abuse — single parent, low education, unplanned pregnancy, and addiction — the judge in the case decided the parents had done everything they were supposed to do during and after Anthony’s removal from their home.
“When a baby is removed from a parent’s care, they become helpless,” Johnson said. “Queenyona never became helpless. She established a relationship with the foster mom. Anthony needed a follow-up X-ray. The social worker was supposed to make that appointment but didn’t. Queenyona did it. She did everything that legally DFCS was supposed to do.”
The judge dismissed the case.
As the ad comes to a close, Anthony, now a healthy and happy 5-year-old, runs into his mother’s arms.
“Who needs lawyers?” crawls across the screen.
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