No Law Against Mercy: Jailed for Sheltering a Child from the State [Hardcover]

Barbara Lyn Lapp (Author), Rachel B. Lapp (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1996

A true story of America's closed-door family court system gone wrong, and the authors' eight months in jail for disobeying bad court orders.

In 1993, 15-year-old Billy Stefan was in state custody, isolated from his family, drugged, and beaten. His father helped him escape from the boy's home--his place of torment--and the authors, Barbara Lyn Lapp and Rachel Lapp, offered him refuge in their home. As authorities searched for the missing boy, the Lapp sisters helped him with secret media interviews that spilled across the nation his terrifying accounts of abuse at the hands of America's child protective system.

"No Law Against Mercy" presents a stark portrait of the human cost when legal powers clash with a moral stance. The authors, in this 428-page memoir, spare no reproach on the government as they tell what it's like to be in jail for just actions defined as crimes. Using God's law and historical common law as a basis, they make a case for responsible noncompliance to immoral laws. Victory will come by doing what is right, they assert--and the ending of the book bears this out.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Barbara Lyn Lapp and Rachel Lapp work and reside on their 3-generation family farm in Cassadaga, New York. Barbara Lyn is herdsperson for the family's sixty-cow dairy herd, which is nationally accredited for production and genetics. She is also a free-lance writer, and publisher of the journal, "Family Alert." Rachel is manager of Lapp's Produce, the farm's fresh fruit and vegetable market, and raises purebred Australian Sheperds and Norwegian Elkhounds. The Lapp sisters were home-school educated by their older sister, Lydia Lapp.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 428 pages
• Publisher: Hand of Hope Pr (December 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965354709
• ISBN-13: 978-0965354707
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,779,916 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Helping America's Untouchables, December 31, 2011

By 

William Bryan - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: No Law Against Mercy: Jailed for Sheltering a Child from the State (Hardcover)

I've been involved with education and children's rights issues since I was a kid!

People have said that I was born middle-aged and have regressed. Adults didn't

know how to handle me and kids my chronological age thought I was an Adult spy.

For the past 20 years in Georgia, we've averaged about 100 known murders or 'unexplained' deaths each year of children under the care of DFACS---Department of Family and Children Services. It seems the worse job DFACS, the more money they get---sort of like the situation in most Government K-12 schools.

Anyway, at the time I bought this book I had been working at one of the largest county run juvenile detention centers in the US, the Fulton County Youth Detention

and Treatment Center. Some kids were sent to this JAIL because it was safer than

being in DFACS custody! Example: One Ohio 10 year old boy thought he was going

with his parents to Disney World at Christmas time. When the parents got to Atlanta, they dropped their kid at our Juvy Jail---and left. The kid was safe at Juvy; but, within 24 hrs after transfer to an Emergency Child Shelter run by DFACS, he was beaten so badly that he spent a week at Grady Hospital ICU. Once the boy got well, he was accused of 'Assault and Battery' by the person who almost

beat him to death! And sent back to our Juvy Jail. This kid stayed in lock-up at Juvy Jail for 6 months! Crime? He wasn't wanted by his parents and DFACS was too dangerous.

Happily, a child advocate lawyer found out about this situation and 'adopted'

the boy outside the normal adoption channels only "If the lawyer would not mention

this DFACS 'faux pas'to the media. Mention this to the media and this

kid gets returned to DFACS." That was 15 years ago. Oh, BTW, this 10 year

old kid weighed about 50 lbs. and looked like he was just 5 or 6. The kid

culprit who put this child in Grady ICU was 16, about 5'10" and 160 lbs.

How do I explain the Lapp sisters' book? It is so full of wisdom and common

sense that I've high-lighted and tagged pages like I would a Concordia of the

Bible. I'm, also, surprised that I'm the first person to review this book!

I just can't do it justice.