A year ago, the decision would have been easy for sheriff's deputies investigating a 14-year-old girl's claims that her stepfather had abused her.

As soon as the allegations against Ying "Chris" Moua were reviewed, the teenager's young siblings would almost certainly have been pulled from their south Sacramento home and placed in protective custody, alongside their older sister.

It is a rule that Sacramento County Sheriff John McGinness said has been drilled into the minds of every recruit at the academy: "When in doubt, take them out."

That didn't happen at the house on Rooster Way, where authorities say the girl's stepfather shot and killed his 2-year-old twins last Monday, seriously injured a 3-year-old daughter, killed his 32-year-old wife, then shot himself to death.

Authorities had more than a week from the time the abuse allegations were reported to the day of the quadruple slaying, but they say a 2007 court ruling in a San Joaquin County case has raised the bar on when kids can be legally taken out of their homes without a warrant.

"There are kids not being removed now who would have been removed in years past," said Sgt. Jeff Reinl, head of the sheriff's child abuse bureau and member of the county's Child Death Review Team.

"This is just another example of the rights of the accused superseding the rights of the victims," said Reinl, who is frustrated by recent court decisions that he believes tie the hands of law enforcement and Child Protective Services.

Other experts say that Sacramento County's legal advisers appear overcautious in their interpretation of recent court cases, leaving children in dangerous homes.

At the heart of the debate is the balancing act between parents' rights and government's protection of children. Where once officials erred on the side of child protection, some believe – in Sacramento County, anyway – that the scale has tipped in favor of parents.

"I think that county counsel up there (in Sacramento) seems to be advising their clients that they're more worried about getting sued for an unlawful entry or an unlawful detention than they are about leaving a child at risk," said Leslie Heimov, executive director of the Children's Law Center of Los Angeles and a child welfare law specialist.

In fact, Sacramento's Supervising Deputy County Counsel Traci F. Lee, who advises CPS, recently presented a session titled "Where's Your Warrant?" at the UC Davis National Child Abuse and Neglect Conference. Billed as an examination of federal case law in child welfare cases, Lee's presentation emphasized the "obligation to protect the parents' and children's constitutional rights" as well as the "need to protect the governmental agency or service provider from civil liability/damages."

The county counsel's office had no response Friday, though Lee said she had forwarded The Bee's inquiry to her supervisors.

In Los Angeles, Heimov said, children in circumstances similar to those of the Moua family would immediately have been removed.

Instead, Sacramento authorities placed only the 14-year-old girl in protective custody after her teachers discovered a diary alleging abuse by her stepfather for more than a year.

The girl was taken to the Children's Receiving Home on Nov. 21, and the next day, a Saturday, CPS called sheriff's officials in the afternoon and asked them to go to the girl's home and check on the condition of her siblings.

Sheriff's deputies made the check, officials have said, but found no signs of imminent threat to the remaining children. They returned to the house only after the killings.

Court case raises bar on removal

The question of "exigency," or whether a child is at imminent risk of serious injury or harm, has been challenged in court over the years. It is ultimately left to a jury to decide if the caseworker's judgment was sound, or if the caregivers' civil rights were violated.

Under the 2007 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Rogers v. San Joaquin County, the court found that two young children suffering from rotting teeth and malnutrition did not meet the threshold of "exigency" – or urgency – to remove them from their Lodi home without a warrant.

Call The Bee's Marjie Lundstrom, (916) 321-1055.