TAR. FEATHERS. How an Arizona couple’s innocent bath-time photos of their kids set off a 10-year legal saga.

The Demarees said they were harmless shots of the children goofing around, no different than what you’d expect to find in any family scrapbook. But police and social workers launched a full-blown sex abuse investigation, raiding the couple’s home and putting the girls in protective custody for a month while they interviewed dozens of family members and friends about whether the Demarees were child sex offenders.

When authorities declined to bring charges — judges who reviewed the pictures found they were, in fact, harmless family photos — the couple sued two Child Protective Services employees, among others, alleging constitutional violations.

On Tuesday, after a series of defeats in the case, a federal appeals court affirmed what the Demarees have argued all along: that their children were taken from them for no good reason.

Seriously, government employees who behave this way should be whipped through the streets naked, then forced to spend a full day in the stocks. Taking someone’s children without solid reason is an outrageous violation.