This month, the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld its decision to remove U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack from a 14-year lawsuit against the Texas foster care system. The refusal to rehear the case also threw out Jack’s most recent finding of contempt against the state agencies involved.

It was an unfortunate outcome. Jack has been resolute and effective. Her orders prodded the state to spend more than $150 million reforming the foster care system — and the system has improved.

The original lawsuit was filed in 2011 on behalf of children stranded in the state’s foster care system. It named the governor and the chief executives of the Health and Human Services Commission and Department of Family and Protective Services as defendants.

As the case progressed, it revealed dire problems with investigations, placements, providers, staffing and caseloads. It also revealed the state’s recalcitrance toward court oversight, which occasionally drew Jack’s ire.

In its ruling, the 5th Circuit cited snippets of Jack’s courtroom remarks as proof that she was no longer impartial and should be removed from the case. In a strongly worded dissent filed Feb. 11, Judge Stephen A. Higginson disagreed.

“I worry that we have concluded, from Judge Jack’s assiduous effort in the face of structural friction and intense factual complexity … that Judge Jack is not suited to preside over this case for precisely the reasons that she is suited to preside over this case.”

He also argued that, while the foster system had improved, one group of children still needs the court’s diligent protection. These youngsters are in permanent managing conservatorship; they will never be reunited with their families. They have intellectual and developmental disabilities, often are medically fragile and are exceptionally vulnerable to abuse and neglect.

His concerns were validated in the court monitors’ most recent report about deaths among these foster children. One case, involving an 11-year-old child with autism, is horrifying.

The boy, identified as O.R., had been placed in a residential treatment center in Greenville with a decade-plus history of serious violations. O.R. died during an outing with 19 other residents of the center to see the R-rated action movie Gladiator II.

Staff claimed the boy had been fine and walked into the movie theater on his own. However, law enforcement officers reviewed the theater’s security video and saw that the boy had been unable to walk unassisted, fell to the ground beside the ticket counter and had to be half-carried to a seat. He was dead by the time the movie was over.

Treatment center residents told investigators the boy had been screaming in pain that morning, hadn’t eaten any meals and had slept most of the day. A preliminary medical examiner’s report revealed the boy had a twisted intestine that had caused a bowel obstruction, a serious medical emergency.

O.R. was one of the foster children Jack worked to protect. We hope the next jurist assigned the case is as relentless in that effort as she has been.

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