Posts Tagged ‘Due process’
All the World’s a Stage. Or, is it Classroom? Or, is it Human Laboratory?
Well, it depends on the point of view. In yesterday’s obnoxiously long post, I ran across the phrase “Recalcitrant parents” being used in Kids’ Turn propaganda. The word “recalcitrant” is generally applied to the word “child” —
A Sampler of Timeless “Wisdom” across the centuries:
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“All the World’s A Stage” … the bottom line is…
1600s, roughly:
William Shakespeare – All the world’s a stage (from As You Like It 2/7)
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard, Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice, In fair round belly with good capon lined, With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
Whatever you may think of that phrase, it’s full of metaphors, and takes a few minutes to chew on them, translate into perhaps common terms (what is he referring to, in other words?) and you come out with a perspective on life pretty close to “from dust to dust.” Shakespeare’s seven stages of man go from infant to infant: A child “mewling and puking in its nurses’ arms…” and towards the very end, like the last scene, “sans (without) teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” There is a real truth to this, and perspective — Life has stages, beginning, and end. Noting this, with elegance, puts man — meaning ALL of us — humbly in place; all have exits and entrances, and all go to the same final stage — helpless, like a child…
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice, Turning again toward childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound.
At least it makes you think!
The World is a stage, and a sense of perspective says there are different acts, AND bottom line, the play is over, it has an exit, no matter how poorly or well we played our parts. He pokes fun at the sixth stage, a Justice — “full of wise saws (sayings)…”. He’s going to slip into high-pitched voice, no teeth, and that impressive presence is going to turn back into a helpless infancy on the way out…
Shakespeare’s speech finds something to mock in every stage — appropriately, because,
the bottom line is… there will be an exit.
Hundreds of Years BC (or, to be Politically Correct, “BCE”):
Solomon (book of Ecclesiastes, “the Preacher”)
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Vanity of Vanity, all is Vanities — the bottom line is …
From Ecclesiastes 12 (last chapter)–
Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; 2While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: 3In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened,4And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low;
Basically, he’s describing that seventh stage of life, in a very picturesque way, rich in symbolism.
5Alsowhen they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: 6Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. 7Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. 8 Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity.
And he gently mocks the endless writings….
. . .of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
To be condensed into:
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. 14For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
Again, the bottom line is Fear God, because what you do, including what you tried to do in secret, is going to be judged (in the resurrection, is implied):
Remember thy Creator while young, and Fear God, keep his commandments. THere’s even a rationale provided: “for God shall bring every work into judgment, every secret, whether good, or whether evil.”
Even those who may not believe in that future judgment, or in terms such as “good” or “evil” (perhaps this is a sad loss in our society, to openly say we believe there is good and there is evil — as opposed to functional & dysfunctional, healthy and unhealthy (as defined by ……?) might be able to grasp some interest in the symbolism, the recommendation towards humility in life. Some of the phrasing, about Times and Seasons has made it into music, old and new… it’s simple enough to grasp the concept….
“Simple Pictures are Best!”
The basic commandments cited were about ten only (one for each finger, in intact humans), not too many to count…and they too had a condensed internal order to them that refer to ethical behavior and not putting onesself first as “God” in worship, or in relationships. Most of these have some direct parallel in law today — i.e., thou shalt not bear false witness ( slander, libel, perjury), though shalt not steal (self-explanatory!), thou shalt not commit murder (homicide), and a few most have tossed since — honor the sabbath, honor mother and father, don’t commit adultery (definitely tossed by the wayside), and stop coveting all your neighbor’s stuff.
How about just TWO concepts?
Anyhow, moving on… Jesus, in the gospels, further simplified those 10 down into just 2: Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Hard to remember? No. Hard to do? Yes. But one need not Ph.D- it (pile it higher deeper) (Ph.D.) to practice, or sit at the feet of one to practice these, either. It relates to choice, determination, and will — not education only..
Even atheist George Carlin (search my site — believe I linked to this YouTube) was able to boil those 10 down to 2 also, and with some humor. Most normal people could figure these out. It takes a special mindset NOT to….
Fast forward to somewhere between 30 and 70 A.D. excuse me, politically more correct, “CE”). This — still in Shakespearean English (but in any language — Greek, Hebrew — the elegance of language still holds)
Or, OK, THREE main concepts…
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Things go better with “Love” (Charity) — without them, it’s just all show and noise”
The apostle Paul, to some Gentiles with significant “relationship” problems, including even incest, strife, and divided loyalties, ignorance, and (this addresses), the omnipresent hyperinflated EGO…
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There is a difference between doling out tons of charity, and living with this love and concern for others’ well-being. They are not the same things, and sometimes people sitting atop and running charitable foundations can be real pompous and arrogant. I can think of few things more arrogant than the attempt to train the entire U.S. population (at its own expense) in concepts like “fatherhood” or “abstinence” and so forth…. let alone “healthy relationships.” Sorry, but that’s ARROGANT! Congresspeople that voted for this are not likely monogamous, uniformly faithful to their own wives (and/or husbands — though its the male indiscretions we hear most about), or even all straight. The intent is to legislate this for the common folk — not the upper echelon or the policymakers. |
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Bear with the Bible stuff, please…
I wouldn’t be exposing readers to all this scripture without a point, be patient please. To recall: all the world’s a stage, in the bottom line, all is vanity — you’re going to die, one way or another/strength will fade; constant writing of books is weariness of the flesh, and MOST wisdom can be condensed down in to a very few basics — whether 2 items (Fear God & Keep his Commandments), 2 OTHER items (Love God with all you got AND your neighbor as yourself), or here, we are going to have THREE items, and ranked as to which one ranks the highest:
12For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 13And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of theseis charity.
This world view values humility, and realizes that changes happen — that we are NOT know-it-alls or perfect. So, until then, recognize this, and focus on the three most important qualities:
- Faith
- Hope
- Charity
The first two relate specifically to the religion — faith in Jesus Christ, hope in the return, and future judgment of good & evil, and that we are on the right side of that judgment, and recognition that, like it or not, a lot of secret things will exist till then. ALl will come out in the wash. Faith and Hope relate SPECIFICALLY to where the individual will stand at that future judgment, and expects it to come.
I don’t take this (case in point, see blog!) to mean passivity in the face of evil, or lack of social justice efforts. But anyone who undertakes serious reporting of corruption, crime, or attempts to clean up institutions, or to live so clean one-self regarding all standards– will soon learn it’s a rough road (if a good one) and a risky one, and vast in nature. Without some kind of personalized hope, personalized faith in what one is doing, the sustained effort simply wouldn’t be worth the pain and drain!
People who have this faith and hope (whether in this religion, or other causes they actually are personally committed to) are hard to manipulate, sway, and intimidate — and threaten people to whom those practices are normal.
Among such groups are parents attempting to protect their children from abuse, and I have to say judging by the courts, that SOMETHING about the mother-child relationship must be quite threatening to the status quo — because it has been disrupted, intentionally and systematically, by judges, and “in the best interests of the child.” The real bottom line in the courts is, parents cannot decide for themselves, and must not be allowed to. they are infants, they are incompetent, they are “recalcitrant” some literature from Kids Turn said (last post….). They need to be taught…. ALL of them…..
We just passed the month of Valentine’s Day. That’s about romance. This is a deeper kind of action:
The Greatest of these is Charity.
It will abide beyond the Faith and Hope…
It is the deepest motivator.
the bottom line is… charity. And a healthy dose of humility — because now, we know in PART…
Now, I’d like to contrast the above sections with where we are now, in the permanently in need of education, training and I suppose, diapering?, population of the United States of America primarily from the Executive Branch, and again, at its own expense…
No more stages of humanity — for those teaching or for those taught. Of childhood and development, yeah sure – but once in the courts, immaturity for ever seems to be assured. THis is basic public policy (those doing the teaching and “training” excepted, of course). We have really sunk so low to a permanent, unchangeable state of needing to be taught and trained…. And this is reflected in the degraded, pompous, self-important language of the trainers, which bears no relationship to the timeless wisdom of the ages — Love God (i.e., YOu are not God..) Love your neighbor, work no ill to your neighbor, and keep things in perspective…life has stages, and consider how you spend them, because assuredly there is an exit.
Nope, no more of that. Instead we have “constructs” and “Initiatives” and “Explications”. We have ever-expanding “mental health” needs (probably because the society is so insane!….).
How about “Parenting Coordination”?
I’ll just pick a random AFCC conference agenda, or a random term, for a sampler:
- All North America — well, at least (here) USA — and heck, let’s throw in Canada — needs PARENTING COORDINATION:
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Parenting Coordination. The bottom line is. . we need parenting coordinators.
But someone has to Coordinate the “parenting” coordinators — so why not put together a task force to define practices in this new field defined (and created) by the court system itself…
This is from May, 2005
Guidelines for Parenting Coordination
Developed by The AFCC Task Force on Parenting Coordination May 2005
Scratch the surface (or look at the foundations — see my blog!) of almost any family court, or “domestic relations” court, or “Unified Family Court” system — and this AFCC organization will be there, and probably helping run it as well.
Just enjoy the elegance, catch the flavor, catch the drift…..
The Guidelines for Parenting Coordination (“Guidelines”) are the product of the interdisciplinary AFCC Task Force on Parenting Coordination (“Task Force”). First appointed in 2001 by Denise McColley, AFCC President 2001-02, the Task Force originally discussed creating model standards of practice. At that time, however, the Task Force agreed that the role was too new for a comprehensive set of standards.
The Task Force instead investigated the issues inherent in the new role and described the manner in which jurisdictions in the United States that have used parenting coordination resolved those issues. The report of the Task Force’s (2001-2003) two- year study was published in April of 2003 as “Parenting Coordination: Implementation Issues.”1
The Task Force was reconstituted in 2003 by Hon. George Czutrin, AFCC President 2003-04. President Czutrin charged the Task Force with developing model standards of practice for parenting coordination for North America and named two Canadian members to the twelve-member task force. The Task Force continued investigating the use of the role in the United States and in Canada and drafted Model Standards for Parenting Coordination after much study, discussion and review of best practices in both the United States and Canada.
AFCC posted the Model Standards on its website, afccnet.org, and the TaskForce members also widely distributed them for comments. The Task Force received many thoughtful and articulate comments which were carefully considered in making substantive and editorial changes based upon the feedback that was received.
I was in the court system at this time. No one asked MY opinion…. Of course we weren’t the type of family that could afford the custody evaluation/parenting coordinator route. There are two tracks in the courts (surely you know this by now) — families with money to be drained out — they go for the custody evaluation route — and families WITHOUT money to be drained out — they go the mediator route, with the end goal of getting the minor children away fro BOTH parents and into the foster care system somehow. Alternately, someone in government could end up personally adopting children, or adolescents, if such is desired. (see my Wacko in Wisconsin series — an account is detailed, and the on-line docket supported the pattern the forlorn, probably bankrupt by now mother, described). Sometimes foster care kids get trafficked (Franklin County, NE coverup being a horrible example). Sometimes they run away and get picked up by other abusers, as has happened in the Northern California area at least once. So the No-MOney-to-extort segment of society, they are encouraged to fight in court, and then, any number of alternatives may result — but I do know in my case, when I said I was NOT going to call in CPS on a simple (but blatantly illegal) violation of a physical custody order, the local law enforcement stood by with their arms folded. I wasn’t going to, as a mother, produce some income for the county up front by abandoning my children, so “forget you!”
Track one — extort money from the parents by promoting litigation on frivolous issues, call in some parenting coordinators, custody evaluators, court-appointed attorneys, or in short almost anything court-associated. The medical equivalent would be something similar to dialysis — blood is drained out, recirculated at huge expense, and put back into the parent’s and children’s blood stream, a total sea change of relationships…
Track two — is “Give us your kids, or forget you”
Back to the sample of “literature” in the endless education field of the courts:
Even the name of this document was changed to “Guidelines for Parenting Coordination” to indicate the newness of the field of parenting coordination and the difficulty of coming to consensus in the United States and Canada on “standards” at this stage in the use of parenting coordination. The AFCC Board of Directors approved the Guidelines on May 21, 2005.
The members of the AFCC Task Force on Parenting Coordination (2003 – 2005) were: Christine A. Coates, M.Ed., J.D., Chairperson and Reporter; Linda Fieldstone, M.Ed., Secretary; Barbara Ann Bartlett, J.D., Robin M. Deutsch, Ph.D., Billie Lee Dunford-Jackson, J.D, Philip M. Epstein, Q.C. LSM, Barbara Fidler, Ph.D., C.Psych, Acc.FM. Jonathan Gould, Ph.D., Hon. William G. Jones, Joan Kelly, Ph.D., Matthew J. Sullivan, Ph.D., Robert N. Wistner, J.D.
1 See AFCC Task Force on Parenting Coordination, Parenting Coordination: Implementation Issues, 41 Fam. Ct. Re. 533 (2003).
Joan Kelly, Ph.D. (not ‘J.D.”) appears to be one of the grand dames of the system – her name, and her work is “everywhere.” Then again, AFCC has great PR.
At the bottom of this post (under the line of ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ‘s) I’ll post a classic 2003 condensed summary of the interrelationships, still a good writing on this (Cindy Ross). The same intelligence is also found at NAFCJ.net (Liz Richards’) blog, which has been exploring these matters since 1993…
The key to the system is the “business and professions” model analysis. Where professional organizations, and certain professionals who conference, task force, promote certain legislation, etc., fit into this picture is that these ASSOCIATIONS (affiliated with certain professions – judges, mediators, psychiatrists, mental health services providers, and of course, now, parenting coordinators….) are going to, each and every time, try to drum up more business. Why not — the groups boast memberships with judges on them ,and have learned how to become “principal investigators’ or “program directors” in various funding streams, and then channel those streams one way or another — and parents who lack the skill to investigate and challenge this — are babes in the wood when it comes to the family court process. THey get lost there, too.
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the bottom line apparently is, “NO exit from this system, at least in this life…”
The system expands — endlessly — and gets more and more pompous and arrogant in the positions, the languages, and the number task forces needed to change a light bulb. Experts fly to and fro across the country to collaborate with each other on the next (scam) (possible profession to establish from the messes created by the courts to start with!). …. Most parents are not alerted to the hyper-active flight schedule of their overlords…. or where they congregate.
What pithy language, what clear terms, what graphic real-life symbolism comes from this trade:
Overview and Definitions
Parenting coordination is a child-focused alternative dispute resolution process in which a mental health or legal professional with mediation training and experience assists high conflict parents to implement their parenting plan by facilitating the resolution of their disputes in a timely manner, educating parents about children’s needs, and with prior approval of the parties and/or the court, making decisions within the scope of the court order or appointment contract.
And a little grammar fluke “assist parents . . . .. to implement their parenting plan” The correct usage is “assist parents . . IN implementing their parenting plan…
To review the wonderful terms, nouns, verbs, adjectives.
PARENTING COORDINATION IS a . . . . . . PROCESS.
….Wow, I’m gripped already…. I can’t wait to hear the rest of the plot.
What kind of process?
. . . . it is a child-focused alternative dispute resolution process….
Wrong on both counts.
(1) It’s not focused on the children, it’s focused on the professionals, and drumming up more business for them. Decently written “parenting coordination plans” (what are we, cattle?? In need of personal assistants to write in dates and times of drop off, pick up?) would need extra help to implement.
(2) From what we are reading about the courts, the disputes don’t get resolved — but rather heightened and escalated until someone breaks, or someone else shuts down emotionally socially, etc.
…in which a mental health or legal professional ….
i.e., what AFCC is primarily composed of, and of course not any ordinary person. People outside the fields promoted and endorsed by this group NEED NOT APPLY. (i.e., an elite squad of only the truly informed…)
…with mediation training and experience…
Of course. The “mediation” promotion (also endless in this field) is CENTRAL to family courts and has already been identified as how to increase noncustodial parenting time. They have rules, but don’t follow them. Fact-finding on the parents is DISCOURAGED in some circumstance. Recently, an ETHICAL mediator was fired (for doing the right thing — actually reading where criminal records existed — unheard of almost, in this field) and won a case that her firing was discriminatory retaliation for, basically ,whistle-blowing.
This quote is from TODAY’s post, article by Peter Jamison, cover story on the SF Weekly.
{FYI: I have submitted 2 comments (under this name) on the site Rightsformothers.com which, if approved, may shed some more light on the article and what it does, and does not, cover.}}
Emily Gallup, a Stanford-educated mediator in the Nevada County Family Court, was fired after her supervisors criticized her for reviewing parents’ criminal histories when making her custody recommendations. In a March 2010 written reprimand of Gallup prepared by Court Executive Officer Sean Metroka, and obtained by SF Weekly, Metroka states that it was “unprofessional and unacceptable” for her to have requested a criminal history report in a recent case she was handling. “I admonished you not to take the role of a court investigator,” he wrote.
Research on parents is part of a mediator’s job, as it is for evaluators, minors’ counsels, and judges — no single court official is specifically designated as an “investigator.”
Hmm. I was told — to my face — by a court mediator that he could NOT even look at information I submitted which completely countered the story portrayed in court. It included handwritten notes from my daughters at a young age, and some photographs of them. But I was told that because it hadn’t been filed also with my ex (on the record) he couldn’t look at mine. THis didn’t go both ways — the information he himself had, submitted by my ex, I hadn’t received before the meeting. And I had ONE shot to state my case as to a multi-page, pre-fab, INDEXED parenting plan which I hadn’t seen in advance, to “come to an agreement” or take it back to court. My ex didn’t type at the time, and it clearly wasn’t his work. Moreover, once I (year or so later!) learned the rules of court for parenting plans involving domestic violence — this didn’t follow any of them. I suspect by then he’d already been contacted by a fatherhood-funded program attorney, who knew what to do — file for divorce and custody, and set up a parenting plan that didn’t state place, or exact times, and was GUARANTEED to produce a lot of debating and negotiating on these matters — and there was a restraining order on at the time….
I can see wisdom in the mediator NOT going beyond the court file– contrary to this article’s portrayal. How can a parent respond to invisible information he or she has not received or been served? It dilutes the legal due process.
Metroka says that Gallup went too far, conducting criminal background checks in cases where they weren’t relevant. “It’s easy to violate [parents’] due-process rights if you try to make more out of a case than is there when it’s presented to you,” Metroka says. “Emily’s position is that in every case a mediator should investigate and get every piece of evidence she can before the mediation.”
Just last month, Gallup prevailed in a grievance against the family court system over her dismissal. Arbitrator Christopher Burdick found that she “had reasonable cause to believe that Court’s Family Court Services department had violated or not complied with statutes and rules of court,” and ordered an audit of the court to investigate the claims in her grievance.
“They’re making these monumental decisions based on air,” Gallup says. “They think if you have too much information about a parent, that makes you biased. My contention is, if you have more information, that will make you less biased.”
Something doesn’t smell quite right about this situation. Perhaps Gallup is not aware, as some of us are, of the true purpose of mediation– which is to increase noncustodial parenting time, per federal grant, and allow the Secretary of the HHS to suggest (and get states to implement and evaluate) demonstrations on people that come through the courts, generating MORE revenue for those in courts employ, or at least in their entourage. She musta been a rookie….
For example, suppose — in a “mis”-guided (according to this mindset) attempt to comply with the state code, (I can’t speak to Nevada, but IF it has the rebuttable presumption against custody going to a batterer code) — she checked for a criminal background in domestic violence. This would compromise the mission of retaining federal funding and INCREASING custody to such people, and it would actually add some weight to a protective parent’s position.
OK continuing with this 2005 AFCC Coordinating the Parenting Coordinators whose job is to help IMPLEMENT an already- written coordination plan that parents are working with — people who do this must also:
Overview and Definitions
Parenting coordination is a child-focused alternative dispute resolution process in which a mental health or legal professional with mediation training and experience assists high conflict parents to implement their parenting plan by facilitating the resolution of their disputes in a timely manner, educating parents about children’s needs, and with prior approval of the parties and/or the court, making decisions within the scope of the court order or appointment contract.
. . . assists high conflict parents to implement their parenting plan….
[pause to adjust to the “assist . . .. to” syntax error again. OK, I’m better now …I’ll go on…]
Any legal professionals ought to know that one way to encourage a parent to comply with a written plan incorporated into any court order is, if it becomes habitual, file a contempt and seek some kind of sanction for it through the courts, putting this IN the court record..
Let us remember again – parents that comply with well-written parenting plans don’t drive more business to the courts. This behavior should NOT be encouraged……
FIRST OF ALL both parents may not need assistance. ONe may be an asshole, simply decides not to comply, thereby causing problem for either custodial or noncustodial parent, who then gets frustrated. I suppose enough of that frustration, and disruption of the children’s schedules and lives and/or someone’s work, might cause the other parent to come into a state of “needing assistance” and circuitously justify saying BOTh “parents” need this help.
“HIGH-CONFLICT PARENTS” — How about someone — for god’s sake! — actually investigating what the conflict is about, i.e, analyzing it, putting that on the record, and fixing it through normal legal means, promptly? This incessant lumping of both parents into “high-conflict” when only one may have started and continued to cause it is wrong. It’s a lose-lose combination.
Any good parent has conflict with certain BEHAVIORS, one of which is called, failing to comply with court orders. Complying with court orders is a GOOD value to give children. IF the courts themselves cannot recognize this (because some organizations wish to perpetuate work for their members) then who will?
well, here’s some more decisive, to the point, and clear writing:
…by facilitating the resolution of their disputes in a timely manner, educating parents about children’s needs, and with prior approval of the parties and/or the court, making decisions within the scope of the court order or appointment contract.
….facilitating the resolution of their disputes in a timely manner…
[by creating a co-dependent behavior between the parenting coordinators and the parents, in total conflict the court’s own theory that any domestic violence (etc.) issues are just disputes and parents should WORK IT OUT THEMSELVES!]
[“facilitating dispute resolution in a timely manner” and involving more court personnel is an oxymoron. It’s a contradiction of terms! Add to this Task Forces that can’t write straight, and what a mess! Most family law cases I personally know lasted a minimum of five years, some, three -times that. These professionals are most likely WHY….]
…educating parents about children’s needs. .
AHA! We come to the juicy caramel center of what this is about — another opportunity for endless education, including Kids’ Turn -type agenda..
Why don’t these professionals content themselves with HAVING and RAISING their own children — grandchildren, if they need to — and thus be able to help form new characters etc. Or, are they the cast-offs from the public education system, which is constantly having “peripheral” positions cut, such as psychologists and counselors, librarians, and sports/arts/ etc. roles?
“…..and with prior approval of the parties and/or the court, . . .
“…OR the court?” Meaning, if the parties don’t approve beforehand, the COURT can make more “prior approval” decisions WITHOUT their approval or prior knowledge? (commonly called ex parte when it changes a court order, so I guess this one just means, sort of fine-tuning the terms of an existing one. If that. . . It shoulda been fine-tuned out the gate. ….
making decisions within the scope of the court order or appointment contract.
In other words, high-conflict parents (some of which conflict might be with poorly-written court orders, or inappropriate decisions to start with) should become co-dependent/passive and learn to let these people make their decisions instead. Also, if some highly legitimate causes of conflict exist (like someone threatened to abduct, or did) — then how nice to have already got a new profession in place in case some illiterate judge goes back to allowing shared parenting after custody-switch, etc. (Many mothers know that the “shared parenting” with an abuser escalates in conflict, and leads to various crises, and sometimes on calling on the courts (a mistake, probably) to resolve this . . a judge will switch custody. Thereafter, she may not see her kids again — PERIOD. Or, only for pay — and a high pay — such as supervised visitation for HER (because of potential “parental alienation..”). … And so on.
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(Apologies today — my hyperlink function on this computer is temporarily not functional — so I am pasting titles, not links, to material discussed….).
MORE FROM TEXAS AFCC, 2007, ON THIS SAME TOPIC:
Report of the Texas Association of Family and Conciliation Courts Taskforce on Parenting Coordination
(translation: two years later, still needing more task forces..)
Members
Jack Bannin, San Antonio, TX Carrie Beaird, Dallas, TX Mike Booth, Dallas, TX Mary Bullock, San Antonio, TX Deborah Cashen, Houston, TX Jeff Coen, Dallas, TX
Bradley Craig, Arlington, TX Deborah Higgs, Galveston, TX Sondra Kaplan, Houston, TX
Toni Jo Lindstrom, Texas City, TX Susan Marsh, Houston, TX Judith Miller, Houston, TX Leta Parks, Houston, TX
Aaron Robb, Keller, TX Christy Schmidt, Dallas, TX Dina Trevino, San Antonio, TX Robin Walton, San Antonio, TX
Compiled by Aaron Robb, Chapter President August 8, 2007
Read a bit of this and see how it’s clear they wish to limit WHO can be a parenting coordinator to affilliated professions…. and missed the legislative bandwagon that might have allowed such a professional restriction… This article cites the one above, summarizing the scenario like this:
The AFCC parent organization began examining the issue of parenting coordination early in this century, forming a Taskforce on Parenting Coordination composed of nationally known experts in this emerging field.
“Nationally Known Experts in this emerging field.” . That’s “rich.” why does this, somehow, remind me of The National Fatherhood Initiative’s self-description as having been started by a “few prominent thinkers” back in the 1990s? Maybe it’s just the tone, I can’t say for sure.
“this emerging field” — -give me a break! With time, one comes to understand that in some lips the words ’emerging field” actually means a field that they (themselves, or close associates) are personally developing and promoting — in part by naming task forces after it — and it didn’t “emerge” like grass, or buds at springtime, or chickens from eggs, except that it IS sure that the seed was planted long ago that the sky’s the limit on professions that can spring out of the family court high-conflict parenting theme….
Supervised Visitation “emerged” the same way, as did “Batterer Intervention Programs.” Neither has proven particularly effective, both require lots of conferences, task forces, publications, and nonprofits to actually DO the supervising and intervening. Also those last two terms are known compromises with the battered women’s movement which in late 80s/early 1990s was much more pushing for full separation of the women and children from the danger, whether in shelters, or through full-custody.
The initial Taskforce produced a report entitled Parenting Coordination Implementation Issues in August of 2003 outlining the various forms and formats of practice that fell under the general heading of “Parenting Coordination.” The task force was reconstituted in 2003 and continued its work, expanding to examine best practices in both the United States and Canada.1
In 2004, in anticipation of growing interest in parenting coordination services in the state, Texas AFCC conducted a formal survey of our members, examining basic issues of role clarity and role delineation. At the same time Texas AFCC was approached regarding input on legislation that was being drafted regarding parenting coordination for the 2005 legislative session.
(Probably by someone affiliated with a father’s rights program… or CRC, etc.)
Responses from AFCC members to the survey came [“amazingly” given what AFCC is basically comprised of] from a mix of legal and mental health professionals, however the actual legislation regarding parenting coordination failed to address many of the prevailing opinions noted in the survey.
Chief among these was a strong consensus (89%) that to be qualified as a parenting coordinator a practitioner should be a mental health professional. A majority (56%) also noted that a parenting coordinator should be trained as both a mediator and parent educator.
If this became law, then any HIGH-CONFLICT PARENTS with POORLY WRITTEN PLANS (or, one or more parents who refused to comply with them) ARE GUARANTEED TO HAVE A HIGH-PRICED MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL — OR ATTORNEY — WITH A MEDIATIOR (PROMOTE MORE ACCESS FOR NONCUSTODIAL PARENT) MINDSET, AND A PENCHANT FOR EDUCATING PARENTS.
I CANNOT THINK OF ANY FIELDS I WOULD LESS LIKE HAVING IN MY PERSONAL OR RELATIONSHIP LIVES. WOULD YOU? SUPPOSE ONE PARENT JUST DECIDES TO ABANDON THE KIDS ON WEEKENDS WHEN YOU MIGHT HAVE, FOR EXAMPLE, A SOCIAL LIFE OR DATE. OR HE MIGHT… CALL IN THE MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL AND SIT DOWN — BOTH OF YOU — FOR MORE LECTURES ON HOW TO BE A PARENT, LET ALONE AN ADULT WITH A COMMITMENT OF SOME SORT!
THIS IS WHAT THIS GROUP APPEARS TO WANT.
A substantial majority of members (74%) also indicated that they believed parenting coordination Services should be non-confidential to allow reporting back to the court.
THIS NEXT SECTION IF FUNNY, IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT:
The AFCC Board of Directors accepted the final report and Guidelines on May 21, 2005.
Unfortunately this direction from the parent organization came too late for our local group to effectively act on it. HB 252 (relating to the use of parenting plans and parenting coordinators in suits affecting the parent-child relationship) had been introduced in February 2005 and had been voted out of the House by April 2005. It was subsequently voted out of the Senate in May 2005 and sent to the governor just days after the parent organization’s years worth of work on this issue came to a close.
Sounds to me like the would-be coordinator coordinator’s task force, dreaming about expansion into Canada, wasn’t too coordinated — and didn’t pay attention (or process input from the local Texas AFCC group) in time for the parenting legislation to be voted on! They were behind the 8-ball.
And this is who is trying to restrict the profession to people like themselves!
Parenting coordination is a maturing field and nationally there are many different theoretical and practice models for services that fall under the broad heading of “parenting coordination.”
Keep your (God-damn) “practices” away from my kids, and me. If I have a broken leg, I’ll go somewhere around a medical practices. If a loose tooth (both of these factors which may occur around “high-conflict” marriages and/or divorces), a dentist. If I am short an academic degree, or wishing to enter a new field MYSELF, I will approach someone qualified in that PRACTICE and will myself engage, and PRACTICE that they are qualified to teach, forming a contract between me and that person which PROBABLY would be bound the contracts, (i.e., breaking it would be a “tort” and could be handled in CIVIL courtrooms, unlike “relationship” issues which land up in this morass of family law….)
But for the “crime” of having a relationship (marriage, or out-of-wedlock birth parent) that went sour — in other words, it wasn’t a great match, or something seriously deficient or wrong showed up — we are to be doomed FOREVER to being ordered into FAMILY COURT PRACTICE PROFESSIONS (“parents forever, right?”) by a group of people who can’t find something more useful to do with their lives, and which might require hard sciences or truly disciplined practice THEMSELVES….
Here it is — they want more “training.”
Increase education and training requirements for parenting coordinators to include basic and advanced family mediation experience as well as formal parenting coordination training for all parenting coordinators.
Commentary: Given that parenting coordination is now firmly codified as a hybrid ADR procedure it seems only logical that the state should require parenting coordinators to have family ADR training. Issues of positional vs. interest based negotiations and other mediation related issues are core to helping families progress past their disputes and adopt a healthier problem solving strategy. This is reflected in not only the AFCC Guidelines but the Texas Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Parenting Coordinator Taskforce Recommended Practice Guidelines for a Family Systems Model of Parenting Coordination within the Context of Texas Family Law report as well.
Can you do this? Read aloud the title (it’s ONE title) for another related to the courts organization (AMFT). Read it in one breath, without stop, and with a straight face. i dare you. Now picture how many more such taskforces are flying around the land, invisibly spreading bad grammar, creating emerging fields, and writing model practices for those fields, and of course setting up the entrance fees to get into them, through more training…..
Did you? Try again: The Texas association for marriage and family therapy parenting coordinator taskforce (break for the short-winded)… recommended practice guidelines for a family systems model (what other kind of models would there be for ‘parenting coordination’ Extra-familial systems model, like with the athletic department of junior’s afterschool needs, or there’s a budding gymnast in the high-conflict parenting family??) within the context of texas family law
Wow — brilliant. I myself was thinking of developing some practice guidelines that CONFLICTED with texas family law — that way, more business for the cognitive dissonance folk, mental health professionals.
They go on to note (apparently catching up with FL Attorney Liz Gates — who wrote this I bet much earlier in Therapeutic Jurisprudence )
Ethically dual roles are problematic (and highly restricted) for many professionals. {{they’re more than problematic, they create a conflict of interest….}}
Attorneys, therapists, and others who may have had a previous relationship with a family member bring history to the process that may undermine their effectiveness as a parenting coordinator. A parenting coordinator who goes on to serve in one of these other roles with a family may be seen in hindsight as self-serving, and compromises the integrity of the process.
That bird has flown the coop already. People know, parents know, they blog and write and complain on the nepotism, cronyism and backroom deals around the courts — with or without the new field of parenting coordinators.. Here’s a wise group in 2007 noticing that.. This problem is intrinsic to the family law profession, let alone an expansion in that profession..into uncharted territories where “need” is anticipated — probably because these people INCLUDE many judges who are able to order such things, if they choose to..
But, they want more training — naturally.
My friends, … about those court-ordered train the trainers trainings — I have to tell you something:
“Where the Wild Things Slush FundsAre.”
Looking for where the money went, or kickbacks tend to happen? Look no further — you got it!
From “NAFCJ: Fathers Rights and Conciliation Court Law’ (article by Cindy Ross of N. CA area):
When AFCC affiliates assist fathers get [in getting] custody and get [in getting] out of paying child support, they instigate frivolous litigation for their own financial gain. They take kickbacks and other improper payments to rig the outcomes of the cases. Judicial slush funds, such as the “hearts and flowers” fund exposed in Los Angeles Superior Court, are established using fees charged for child custody “training” seminars. [20]
Because Conciliation Court codes specify how funding is dispersed to the court itself, huge sums of money are diverted out of federal and state block grants by AFCC affiliates, in the guise of “amicable settlement of domestic and family controversies”. [15] (See Codes 1800-1852). The National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) was founded in 1994, to “lead a society-wide movement to confront the problem of father absence”, i.e., to embed the fathers’ rights agenda into government policies and programs. [21]
This is such OLD news, but [far too] few women seem to be acting to do anything about I. I’ve heard of more men – such as the Richard Fine folk — who at least understand the process and strongly advocate against this. No mention of this was made in the SF Weekly Article above…. and at this late stage of the game, I’d have to say that this omission is suspect. People who work in and report on these fields KNOW the basic literature that’s out on it, it is no longer an unsolved mystery…
Maybe all the world IS a stage, but we need permission to “exit stage left” from this family court system, and as we are forced into the roles, it’s time to find out who wrote the screenplay, and who’s on the Lights, who’s pulling curtains where, and who is providing the cue cards…
To Be, or Not to Be, that is the question…”
A recent hit movie “The King’s Speech” shows how a man overcame a stutter because he had to be king in the time of radio — and when Hitler was threatening Europe and Great Britain. He didn’t want to be a public speaker, OR king — and as presented, he’d suffered some serious childhood abuse, emotional and physical (like not enough food) which probaby precipitated the stutter — but he stepped up to the plate once he fired the bad speech coaches (including the ones recommending smoking!) and got an off-ball, un-doctored Australian who actually knew how trauma works, and how to get past it. The relationship was STILL voluntary, even by a king, or future king — but once it was entered into, it became successful.
We are in times like that. I’d rather be doing something else, and investigative reporting is not my primary field, and smoking out slush funds is very disturbing. But it certainly beats walking around in a daze, wondering what happened, and blaming something or someone else for the problem!
I changed from doing free PR for psychologist professionals who talk about PAS and bad custody decisions (and not slush funds, federal funds, and fatherhood funding, etc.). I changed because I missed my daughters, and I love them, and as part of this love, I want the truth out. As part of caring about my local communities, I want to spare others going through three or four years of anguish as I did (at least) BEFORE I connected some of these dots.
Remember — Three things abide, BUT, the greatest of these is charity.
How’s yours these days?
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For footnote to Joan Kelly being omipresent (sort of) in these organizations and their literatures: From 2003,
NEWSMAKINGNEWS.COM
http://www.newsmakingnews.com/ross,familycourtcorrupt2nd2,19,03.htmFamily Court Corruption, Part 2: Fathers’ Rights and Conciliation Court Law: Federally funded misogyny and pedophile protection
by Cindy Ross © 2/19/03
Numerous reports have identified bias against women and corruption in family courts across the country. In bizarre and illegal rulings, family court judges ignore or deliberately suppress evidence of male perpetrated family violence and child molest. Fathers who are batterers and sex offenders are routinely granted visitation and custody, while mothers and children trying to escape abuse are punished through financial sanctions, loss of custody, supervised visitation, jail and institutionalization. [1]
While publicly touted as “responsible fatherhood programs” official federal documents say the purpose of their programs is to provide noncustodial fathers with free attorneys to litigate for custody. [4]. . . . {{SO — read those document, just don’t buy the “party line” that it’s really all about “relationship coaching” and healing, and so forth… It ain’t.
AFCC affiliated experts who have established federal “model custody” programs using PAS methodology, include Joan Kelly, a founding official of CRC, and Judith Wallerstein of the Center for the Family in Transition.
Richard Gardner originally based his PAS theory on Wallerstein’s and Kelly’s research. [23] Joan Kelly sets up family court services programs and trains judges and “special masters” (mediators with quasi-judicial authority), using Access to Visitation grant funding. She is also connected — primarily through CRC — to Michael Lamb, of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Kelly and Lamb promote materials developed by Richard Gardner (and other pedophiliac experts), in conferences and seminars regarding “parenting time” and “alienation”. [8]
Judith Wallerstein, is an advisor to NFI. According to CA NOW’s “Family Court Report 2002”, in 1986, Wallerstein provided testimony — along with David Levy of CRC — to the House committee on Children, Youth and Families. regarding the “problems of single female parent families”. [24]
Members of Wallerstein’s Center for the Family in Transition and Kelly’s Northern CA Mediation Center, have “reformulated” PAS as “alienated children”, possibly to distance themselves from Richard Gardner.
However, in addition to being connected to some of the most egregious local (Marin County, CA) PAS cases, as the “Northern CA Task Force on the Alienated Child”, their group promotes PAS custody switching methods and “threat therapy” at AFCC conferences around the country and the world.
[25]Wallerstein, Horn, Eberly and others connected to NFI, CRC and AFCC have expanded the Conciliation Court agenda to include not only divorce prevention, but marriage promotion. By merging conciliation court and fathers’ rights agendas with a “faith based” marriage “movement”, they call for even more federal programs promoting “two-parent” families, through “marriage initiatives” funded by TANF/Welfare grants. [26]
And we wonder why the economy is in such crisis!
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2 from 2002 and the Kitchen Sink: Why Sociologists (are hired) to Rule America
Bifurcating Parenthood (Georgetown), 2-Pronged Fatherhood (Progressive Policythink), Ridiculous Rulings (in Kansas) and Who Rules America (UC sociologist)
Today’s post (extended and updated from yesterdays, which I published in short form) has 4 (FOUR) parts:
1,
2,
3,
4.
As is usual for me, the “juice” that inspired the post is in the middle, [2-3] the Intro, and the kicker [4] at the end, and the Intro [1] sometimes gets so extended, I never actually publish the middle. So we have:
1, Symbolizing Judicial Tyranny (dombrowski)
2, Parental Bifurcation (2002 Georgetown article)
3, The 2nd prong of Fatherhood (2002 Progressive Policy-think)
4. Jobs ain’t Wealth & Who Rules America (since we just saw how).
As is usual for me, the “juice” that inspired the post is in the middle, [2-3] the Intro, and the kicker [4] at the end, and the Intro [1] sometimes gets so extended, I never actually publish the middle.
4 was simply me mentioning the theme of “income v. wealth” that I know by now is critical in the social engine called these courts. It’s basically workforce development, and US/Them paradigm. There are several links and quotes. I could’ve chosen any. But it will hold together, I trust. At the top, I’m going to post a QUOTE from a Professor Dumoff, a sociologist at UC Santa Cruz. It’s from his site “WHO RULES AMERICA?” which is a good question. More below, at the banner.
In my last year of research and reflection (including on my own experience) of who’s doing WHAT in the courts an WHY those dang nonprofits have been useless, basically, I had to get to foundations, who support the nonprofits doing nothing. Then I began to understand the forces that are driving America into materialistic chaos, to sustain a global economy based on permanent debt. I feel this ain’t too bad work, considering what have also been through in the “decade of the courts” in my adult life.
I suggest we read this site THROUGH.
I am burnt out on reporting on outrageous family law cases, also beseeching noncustodial parents I know to take a little more critical look at organizations — not just good/cop bad/cop individuals. I have . . . . . I also have repeatedly encouraged people to take a very illuminating glance at some of the IRS 990s on some of the “helkping” organizations who continue to pay CEOs over $100,000 year to report on the carnage or insults to personhood.
Losers in the family law situation who don’t end up physically and emotionally dysfunctional might definitely end up homeless may definitely end up homeless, male or female. Yet there’s a real reluctance among litigants to not just look at the role of the child support system (federal) as a planned move to socialism for most of us based on policies set by the foundations hiring the nonprofits selecting what will (and will not) get talked about in the arena. They may blog or acknowledge it briefly, then go back to collaborating with the closest nonprofit that makes a big noise.
Battered women who’ve gone into the family law court after leaving the relationship are in a UNIQUE position to understand and speak to the power structure from underneath, analytically and as to attitude.
Once I began looking at organizational structures (it helps to have a model of a virtual “gang” in one’s own family for reference) I never stopped looking. Here’s a diagram for the more visually organized:
This is how such an inane policy as “fatherhood” could actually go through Congress, and get enacted. It’s a form of psychological warfare, basically, to frame the conversation nationally, yet fail to inform have the litigants in court that the conversation is taking place.
ANYHOW, this represents my post for today, and welcome to it. Do your own homework!
Here’s from Part 4, to think about in 1, 2, and 3:
- “The rich” coalesce into a social upper class that has developed institutions by which the children of its members are socialized into an upper-class worldview, and newly wealthy people are assimilated.
- Members of this upper class control corporations, which have been the primary mechanisms for generating and holding wealth in the United States for upwards of 150 years now.
- There exists a network of nonprofit organizations through which members of the upper class and hired corporate leaders not yet in the upper class shape policy debates in the United States.
This I can attest to. See (for a starter) “shady shaky foundations of family law” and some of the organizational geneaology. IN good part, that’s what this blog is for — to show the connections. This tells me also why the “Coalitions Against Domestic Violence” simply “cannot” hear our truths.
- Members of the upper class, with the help of their high-level employees in profit and nonprofit institutions, are able to dominate the federal government in Washington.
- The rich, and corporate leaders, nonetheless claim to be relatively powerless.
- Working people have less power than in many other democratic countries.
1, Symbolizing Judicial Tyranny (dombrowski)
If I don’t post something more “detached” today, I’m going to post the entire docket for Hal Richardson v. Claudine Dombrowski in the “Third Judicial Court of Public Access,” Kansas. Claudine has been in this system for 14 + years, and isn’t broken yet, though it’s making a good effort to do so to her. Her case also illustrates the cognitive dissonance between criminal and family law, and between family law as stated and as practiced. Not to mention what the U.S. is doing to the half of parenthood in the United States who are female. We are still fighting for recognition as human beings and thus covered under civil rights, due process, etc.
Even though I know so much about this case, it’s still possible to be entirely shocked at the behavior of the court and court personnel in it.
As summarized in a blog, August 1, this year
Judge James P. Buchele, who refused to permit adequate testimony at trial, shortening it to benefit his docket, and also ordered Claudine to move back to Topeka to live near Richardson, for the sake of their “co-parenting.” WHAT?! Richardson is a man with multiple criminal convictions for violent behavior (Battery, Attempted Battery, Battery of a Law Enforcement Officer, Obstruction of Legal Process, Possession of Marijuana and violation of Open Container law), a man who has beaten and raped Claudine multiple times before and after her divorce from him, a man who has threatened to kill her and her child.
Worse, Judge Buchele also ordered Claudine not to call the police any more without the permission of her case manager. When Judge James Buchele retired, Judge Richard D. Anderson affirmed Buchele’s previous orders, including the illegal prohibition on Claudine’s being able to call the police.As reported in Manhattan (KS) Free press, July 9 years ago (also see blog):
The divorce proceedings were extended for eighteen months. Throughout the proceedings Claudine’s attorneys filed numerous reports claiming violations of the restraining order and requesting an order to sever contact between Hal, Claudine and daughter Rikki.
The first involved an incident that both parties agreed in court happened, they just could not agree what happened. Claudine said she was hit in the head with a crow bar and Hal said it was a piece of wood. What ever he hit her with it took 24 stitches to close the head wounds.
At a hearing on June 17, 1996 Shawnee County District Court Judge Jan W. Leuenberger signed order giving custody of Rikki to Claudine and authorizing her to move to the Great Bend area so that “Ms. Dombrowski could avoid the history of physical and verbal abuse she had suffered from Mr. Richardson.”
In other words, were she not a mother, she would have the right to flee to protect her unalienable right to LIFE. However, unknown to her, other things had already been cooking in Congress around this time, which are mentioned below. In 1994 a little National Fatherhood Initiative had been formed. In 1995, then-President Clinton had issued his (in)famous Executive Order about Fathers. In 1996, we have Welfare Reform, some of the Congressional Testimony of which I posted recently and which is summarized below on a site calling itself “Progressive Policy.” I call it Regressive, because it results in cases like this. You can track the REgression in individual cases, and how it happened, through adding personnel besides the judge.
Hal was given supervised visitation
Why this Supervision shouldn’t have been done with him inside a jail cell, I just don’t “get.” Rikki must’ve seen her mother’s stitches — what message does that send to a young girl? It’s OK for fathers to beat up mothers, right? A family court judge will sweep up the evidence . Whistleblowers will be punished.
Reading on in the case, he WILL get even for even that restriction. A GAL will help, Scott MacKenzie (if I can keep the narrative straight who did what when….) In time — that’s how these things go — Supervised visitation will be switched to the mother. Then, her fight will be to get that UNsupervised. She will win that “privilege,” but apparently wasn’t docile enough, because she then loses all contact entirely for a while. It’s all in the record. Meanwhile, the various parties are REAL serious about getting the money she owes absolutely everyone for these types of “services.”
In Judge Buchele’s Orders after the trial he made it clear that he wanted more from this couple than what was possible. Here is what he wrote: “Mutual parental involvement with this child has been made worse by Ms. Dombrowski’s unilateral decision to move to Larned, Kansas in May of 1996. The distance between Topeka and Larned makes it virtually impossible for an individual treater to work with the family; for Mr. Richardson to have regular and frequent contact with this child; to establish any reasonable dialogue between the parents toward resolving their conflicts. The move from Topeka to Larned, due to the proximity of the parties, has lessened the physical violence. It has, however, done violence to the relationship of Rikki and her father. If long distance visitation is continued, in the Court’s view, will take its toll not only on Rikki but each of the parties. The Court specifically finds that separation of the child from either parent for long periods of time is harmful for a child of about three years of age.”
And THERE, “in a nutshell,” you have how a family law judge skillfully Re-frames the conversation and Re-Prioritizes it from safety to reconciliation. Better Claudine maybe die the next time than a father’s rights be conditioned upon not abusing them — or her. Sounds “squirrelly” to me. A woman gets temporary reprieve and safety, then this is reversed, and made worse. The decisions become more and more authoritative.
He then went on to require Claudine to move back to the Topeka area.
And then Judge Buchele made a judgment that some Manhattan attorneys say is not legal. Judge Buchele ordered: “Further, respondent (Claudine) is directed to not call law enforcement authorities to investigate the petitioner (Hal) without first consulting with the case manager.”
On December 14, 2000 after returning her daughter to her fathers home Claudine alleges that she was battered and raped by Hal. Under order not to call law enforcement authorities and with bleeding that would not stop, she drove to St. Marys, Kansas to get treatment. Claudine knew that if she had gone to a Topeka Hospital they would have called the police.
In St. Marys hospital officials did contact the Pottawatomie Sheriff and a report was made. She was advised that because the alleged event occurred in Shawnee County she would have to file there.
RIGHT THERE — is a typical “between a rock and a hard place” situation. I have experienced a modified situation, where I was so frightened, I drove, fast, to a police station in another city. They told me to go back to practically the scene of a stalking incident that had terrified me. There, I was treated abominably by officers, who refused to report, though dispatched to do so by the intake person who heard my voice; the incident was also witnessed by others, and signed letters are in the file.
Claudine had a choice of, NOT REPORTING, saving her own skin (to hell with her daughter) and just dealing with it. Supposed the injuries had been different and the bleeding faster, and she didn’t TRY to appease an outright vicious court order, but reported right in Topeka at first, and going straight from having wounds tended to, to jail (or soon thereafter) in contempt. She did what any mother would in a crisis — stop the bleeding, let the mandatory reporters (probably ) report, and go save her daughter.
Claudine said that because of the battery and rape she picked up Rikki the next day and did not return her.
Now, does that “revise” your opinion of what Sherriff’s Departments are in the business of?
The Shawnee County Sheriff’s Department was called and took Rikki back to Topeka. The court gave Hal custody and orders for her to attend Topeka schools.
As it stands now, [2001] Rikki is with her father in Topeka. Claudine gets two one-hour visits per week
Here is a link to that ex parte, JUDGE-initiated order (Neither party initiated it. The judge in this matter totally redefined his own role in the courtroom. This judge ain’t the only one around doing this.). Can you read it? The link is “scribd” and take a while to load. My computer is too slow today to load its 11 pp. Also, I’m curtailing my own commentary because even keystrokes are coming out one at a time, slowly. I can only fill up a short “buffer” zone, about 4 words, and then have to just wait for it to catch up.
Shawnee County District Court– Topeka, Kansas, 200 SE 7th Street 66603 Div 2 – Hon. Richard D. Anderson (785) 233-8200 Ext. 4350
Order without motion from either party WITHOUT Hearing on his OWN—I REPEAT on his own
Took my daughter and gave her to a KNOWN AND convicted Batterer and drug abuser AND CHILD RAPIST
Fast-forward 9 years or so. ..
By way of a 2007 Petition before the “Inter American Commission on HUMAN Rights” On Item 17 Courageous Kids personal stories, please read “Letter to IACHR by siblings” (#3 )here. These are 4 siblings now aged out of the system, detailing what happened when they called the cops, or ran away, what happened to their mother; how one girl was thrown out by her father and forced to live in a car for a while in retaliation. It’s only 3 pages. These are the types of fathers getting custody in this system.
THIS site has links to more details:
People are outraged everywhere. The last time 15 year old Rikki called to cancel her two hour Sunday visit she is allowed each week with her mother, she was crying on the phone and said she couldn’t come. Abuser WOS (waste of skin) Hal Richardson was yelling in the background, and Rikki cried more. Dear Claudine told her daughter it was okay, that everything would be okay. That was it. After that, not even a phone call to cancel, Hal Richardson failed to produce Rikki at the Topeka Police Station as he was ordered to do. Nothing. And the court let him get away with all 67 violations of this court order on August 20th when they went to court.
(the woman who writes this, above, herself lost contact with her own mother, a generation earlier).
(Compare, above, when Claudine “messed up” by going to a hospital, even though she attempted to go to the politically correct one, in 2000. I believe this was when she was punished for bleeding and trying to regain her child, by losing custody of her child then about-5-year-old daughter.)
Contrast this case history and pattern of bad ethics and decision-making with the more detached narratives, below.
2, Parental Bifurcation (2002 Georgetown article)
I decided to post two pieces (first — long / second – short) that talk openly about the social agenda in the family court/ family law arena. That SOCIAL AGENDA is what most offends me about the Family Law Process. Not its equally destructive consequences. What’s most offensive is how the process eradicates precious civil rights, that are encased in the documents foundational to our country. An elitist attitude and practice, that disdains these, needs to be dismantled. Instead, they have become increasingly blatant and oppressive (similar case, CA 2000/StopFamilyViolence.org site reporting).
[Criminal jury exonerates mother, after she was jailed, fleeing to protect her children. Ignoring this family law judge STILL leaves custody with the abusers, and mother has to pay to see her own children. This is how “supervised visitation” — marketed and sold to the public as protecting children from violent FATHERS, is being used to punish protective MOTHERS),]
even after people are dying as a consequence of bad custody calls (2 women and a man dead, Maricopa Co., AZ, 2009/StopFamilyViolence.org site reporting).
I hope the people I network with as well as visitors will download and read these. The first one may explain why so many of us are being treated dismissively and as silly putty to be stretched, bounced, and reformed in amusing or comical distortions that please the manipulators rather than acknowledging that they are of the same substance as us, as human beings, just occupying different seats in the room.
(1) BIFURCATION
in the Legal Regulation of Parenthood
This is 44+ screens long and from GeorgetownLaw; popped up under a search for “The Origin of Family Law.”
I look forward to reading the rest of it. The “bifurcation” around gender. You will see…
There are some misspellings on the website. Font changes are (most likely) mine. I am not indenting for the quote, and will put any comments in bullet form
Parenthood divided: A legal history of the bifurcated law of parental relations
INTRODUCTION
The American law of parent and child is conventionally understood to be extremely deferential to parental prerogatives and highly reluctant to intervene.1 But this picture, endorsed by legal authorities and popular commentators from the nineteenth century to the present day, reflects only one tradition in the law’s regulation of parenthood. Since the last quarter of the nineteenth century, {{1875-1900}}there has also been massive legal intervention into the parental relation. This second legal tradition, moreover, has been guided by norms wholly different from those conventionally associated with family law, often evincing a radical suspicion of parental autonomy and an eager willingness to reshape family relations.
.
A STARK DIVIDE IN THE LEGAL REGUALTION OF PARENTHOOD EMERGES IN LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA
The founding of the first Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children marks a pivotal moment in the bifurcation of the law’s treatment of parental relations. The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children was established in New York City in 1874 by two elite reformers, Henry Bergh and Elbridge Gerry, who used the occasion of a celebrated case of physical violence against a child to create the first organization designed to combat “child cruelty” in the United States.7 Common law courts of the period staunchly protected the rights that parents in general and fathers in particular exercised over the custody and control of their children.
- SPCC formed by two elite reformers
- “the rights that parents in general and fathers in particular exercised. . . .”
8 But the New York society accorded almost no weight to the prerogatives of the parents it was concerned about, characterizing their connection to their children as little stronger than the ties of happenstance. Gerry explained at an organizational meeting in December 1874, for instance, that the society would “seek out and rescue from the dens and slums of the City the little unfortunates whose lives were rendered miserable by the system of cruelty and abuse which was constantly practiced upon them by the human brutes [their parents] who happened to possess the custody or control of them.”9 Describing the homes of cruel parents as “dens and slums” offered a key clue, of course, to the limits the New York society placed on its jurisdiction. From the start, it focused on families that had not been successful in the wage labor economy, operating on the principle that this economic failure had been caused by some crucial moral or character flaw.10
3, The 2nd prong of Fatherhood (2002 Progressive Policy-think)
(2) COMPLETION
of the Critical Job of Welfare Reform
And — what else — “promoting responsible fatherhood“
AND THIS from Progressive Policy Institute. BOTH of them let us know clearly that family law is a social engineering project. Too bad it says “law” on the outside which has other connotations to the unwary.
PPI | Policy Report | March 19, 2002
Promoting Responsible Fatherhood
Some Promising Strategies
By Megan Burns
One of the key successes of welfare reform has been in the increase of low-income single mothers in the labor force. Due in part to a strong economy and the 1996 welfare reform law, 16 percent more poor moms entered the labor force over the past six years. However, evidence suggests poor men did not fare as well. Because the first round of welfare reform required mothers to work, this next round should issue a similar challenge to fathers in order to help them become current and continue to pay child support.According to the Urban Institute, about two-thirds of the nearly 11 million American fathers who do not live with their children fail to pay child support.1 Therefore it is no surprise that children who grow up fatherless are five times more likely to be poor.2
This reasoning assumes that women who have left an abuser (which are among those numbers) cannot do better financially afterwards, or that women in general cannot do well alone — in short, it assumes a stable working wage. In 2002, I had tripled my working wage, and was doing better. But I had to use a nontraditional model of employment. This was not the model that welfare funnels women onto.
This 2002 report was also six years into welfare reform, and fails to account for cases like Dombrowski/Richardson, above, where (thanks go fathers’ rights movements and encouragements) cases STAY in the family law venue for years, impoverishing the family through ongoing litigation, and removing protection for the protective parents.
Social researchers also note that while women flooded the labor market, poor men did not. For example, during the 1990s, the labor force participation of young black women rose 18 percent, whereas the participation rate among low-income, non-college-educated black men actually fell by almost 10 percent.3
Well, now we have it clearly who welfare policies affecting all populations are aimed at. Supposedly.
In recent months, policymakers have increasingly begun to recognize that bringing fathers into the work-based system created by the 1996 law will be the next critical step in finishing the job of welfare reform. While “responsible fatherhood” programs have sprouted across the country, fatherhood and family formation promise to be central issues in the reauthorization of welfare reform legislation this year.
This type of discussion defines where income comes from — labor. However, that’s not at all where it comes from all the time. People who set policies KNOW this and they are not the chief laborers in question.
4. Jobs ain’t Wealth & Who Rules America (since we just saw how).
MOST people can find out the difference between wealth and income, or understand it (I believe) if someone engages in a discussion of it. The policymakers and the child support enforcement system are here to make sure that discussion never happens in any significant way. Here are a few links:
2003
http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm2003/03may/may03interviewswolff.html
May 2003 – VOLUME 24 – NUMBER 5
The Wealth Divide
The Growing Gap in the United States
Between the Rich and the Rest
An Interview with Edward Wolff
Edward Wolff is a professor of economics at New York University. He is the author of Top Heavy: The Increasing Inequality of Wealth in America and What Can Be Done About It, as well as many other books and articles on economic and tax policy. He is managing editor of the Review of Income and Wealth.
In the United States, the richest 1 percent of households owns 38 percent of all wealth. Multinational Monitor: What is wealth?
Edward Wolff: Wealth is the stuff that people own. The main items are your home, other real estate, any small business you own, liquid assets like savings accounts, CDs and money market funds, bonds, other securities, stocks, and the cash surrender value of any life insurance you have. Those are the total assets someone owns. From that, you subtract debts. The main debt is mortgage debt on your home. Other kinds of debt include consumer loans, auto debt and the like. That difference is referred to as net worth, or just wealth.MM: Why is it important to think about wealth, as opposed just to income?
Wolff: Wealth provides another dimension of well-being. Two people who have the same income may not be as well off if one person has more wealth. If one person owns his home, for example, and the other person doesn’t, then he is better off.
2005
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/class_domination.html
Wealth, Income, and Power
by G. William Domhoff
September 2005 (updated July 2010)
This document presents details on the wealth and income distributions in the United States, and explains how we use these two distributions as power indicators.
This sociologist actually quotes Wolff, above.
The Wealth Distribution
In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one’s home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%. Table 1 and Figure 1 present further details drawn from the careful work of economist Edward N. Wolff at New York University (2010).
http://www.halfsigma.com/2005/05/class_vs_income.html
May 17, 2005
Class vs. income vs. wealth
Wealth is how much money you have, income is how much you earn, and class is how much other people think you have based on how you behave.
People often don’t realize class exists because most people only associate with people of their own class. They don’t comprehend that people from other classes behave and think in ways totally alien to them.
If people are aware of class, it’s only of the class directly below them whom they feel superior to. Yes, class has a lot to do with looking down at people, which is why it’s a topic that’s seldom talked about. It’s not politically correct to admit that you look down at people.
2008
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9611
Confusing Wealth and Income
by Richard W. Rahn
Richard W. Rahn is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and chairman of the Institute for Global Economic Growth.
Added to cato.org on August 27, 2008
This article appeared in the Washington Times on August 27, 2008.
Which of the following families is “richer”? The first family consists of a wife who has recently become a medical doctor, and she makes $160,000 per year. Her husband is a small business entrepreneur who makes $110,000 per year, giving them a total family income of $270,000 per year. However, they are still paying off the loans the wife took out for medical school and the loans the husband took out to start his business, amounting to debts of $300,000. Their total assets are valued at $450,000; hence, their real net worth or wealth (the difference between gross assets and liabilities) is only $150,000.
The second family consists of a trial lawyer who took early retirement and his non-working wife. They have an annual income of $230,000, all of it derived from interest on tax-free municipal bonds they own. However, their net worth is $7 million, consisting of $5 million in bonds, a million-dollar home with no mortgage, and a million dollars in art work, home furnishings, automobiles and personal items
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Social Services or Simply Serving Up Socialism?
{{post began in late May…}}
I’m almost off the deep end after having made the rounds of all the potential “services” available to help with — well, what exactly WERE they supposed to help with?
I looked at yet another set of conferences (and the backgrounds of the speakers).
Consider:
FAMILY COURT SERVICES (serving up WHAT to WHOM?)….
HUMAN SERVICES
and for that matter,
SUNDAY, or SATURDAY, MORNING SERVICES.
Adding to the dissociation, neither the word “Sunday” nor “Saturday” (above) derive from the Judaeo-Christian writings, which forbade worship of the heavens (or creation) and simply numbered the days, rather than naming them, except for specified feast days. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, SABBATH.
Changing that 7th day to “Sunday” was a power play not even shrouded in history, but clearly documented — and part of our ADHD landscape today. The days of the week are named after what this tradition called “Pagan” gods, and not even consistently so. Some are named after planets, some are gods (Norse, if I have it right).
Then we name the months also — some of them after divinities (January, March) some after emperors (August) and some after numbers (like September — which means Seven — but in OUR mixed up calendar, it’s actually the 9th month). No wonder the year starts with the god with two faces, Janus.
======
BUT — back to the idea of “SERVICE”
Just who is being served? And what?
What’s on the plate, and who’s paying the piper?
The more I actually THINK about this, examine, and reflect (things low-income single mothers, let alone litigants are NOT supposed to do; they are supposed to leave the evaluation up to those hired to do so, i.e., the “evaluators” and other “experts,” few of who — as I keep saying — have experienced what we are going through (including at the hands of the courts), and not enough of them having actually even experienced giving birth and functionin as a MOTHER, and then suddenly having motherhood ripped out from underneath them…. That is not typically the job route to becoming a judge…. But, if you are a 2nd (or in the case of Ms. Nadia Lockyer, I heard, THIRD) wife, then it’s probably a different scenario. She moved up real quickly through the ranks, having a child the same year she married, and within 4 years (who’s raising HER child?) becoming head of the Alameda County Family Justice Center — something she surely knows a lot about, having actually raised a family (??? ??? ????)
There is a slippery road of Slipshod language sliding downhill FAST to what I basically call SLAVERY.
14 steps to slavery listed
in the back of the NDCC book. “NDCC” stands for “None Dare Call It Conspiracy.”
One dare not call a conspiracy a conspiracy because of the namecalling, slander, shunning campaign likely to follow.
Why can’t one use the word “conspiracy” if one exists, or is thought to exist? We have a Department of Homeland Security whose very job is to STOP “conspiracies” to overthrow it.
Suppose people notice a conspiracy to overthrow civil rights, or a particular group of people, which shows indicators of heading towards a partial genocide by (name your profile) — we are NOT supposed to talk about it? Will that DHS come after us if we do?
I’m going to talk about it, because I know what I have personally experienced, I know my experience is NOT unique, and I’ve been around enough to know which topics are censored (never brought up) by which types of conferences, even when the conference APPEARS to have (on the face of it) diversity of viewpoints represented.
The diversity is superficial, as in the case of the VAWA groups collaborating with the Fatherhood Groups (1994 VAWA and 1994 NFI are clear enough indicators) and NONE Of them are really talking about the Fatherhood movement actually being a religion [these adherents are so upset with feminists because feminism challenges the male-dominated Judaeo-Christian religion], about misappropriations of federal grants, nor are they talking about government sanctioned child-trafficking, which is just about what’s taking place these days.
[[I’ll paste top of that link at the bottom of this post…]]
Here are 14 indicators, per Gary Allen, (link below) and he wrote this in 1970. He claimed that several were already in effect at the time:
- Restrictions on taking money out of the country and on the establishment or retention of a foreign bank account by an American citizen.
- Abolition of private ownership of hand guns.
- Detention of individuals without judicial process.
- Requirements that private financial transactions be keyed to social security numbers or other government identification so taht government records of these transactions can be kept and fed into a computer.
- Use of compulsory education laws to forbid attendance at presently existing private schools.
- Compulsory non-military service.
- Compulsory psychological tratment for non-government workers or public school children. {{Note: Mandatory Parenting Classes??}}
- An official declaration that anti-communist organizations are subversive and subsequent legal action taken to suppress them.
- Laws limiting the number of people allowed to meet in a private home. {{No religion in unidentified HOMES unauthorized by the state, or commerce, either}}
- Any significant change in passport regulations to make passports more difficult to obtain or use.
- Wage and price controls, especially in a non-wartime situation.
- Any kind of compulsory registration with the government of where individuals work.
- Any attempt to make a new major law by executive decree (that is, actually put into effect, not mereley authorized as by existing executive orders). {{the due process violations in the courts are outrageous, unless one’s “dues” are paid to this system in the form of either money, personal connections with decisionmakers — i.e., unless a conflict of interest status exists, or of simply forking over the kids. Or one’s time until one does…}}
I SHUDDER as I realize how many of the above are taking place through the family law system, and have become accepted, and commonplace, by society {A few bracketed above in italics are mine, not Mr. Allen’s}. I was deeply affected by the one regarding education when private education is possible. It’s easier to make orders like this to divorcing or separated parents (given the threat of removing custody to the other parent if compliance is not quick) than a united pair. I most definitely had fewer rights separated than married, and remember, my marriage standard was the religious version of domestic violence.
Here’s where it goes when the Religious Police hold sway, or could go. THis time, a man was caught, but typically it leans hard on women:
Is this where we want to head?
We DO realize, right? that psychology & psychiatry is basically a religion substitute, and shares many of the same qualities, stating norms and deviance from them as mental illness sometimes requiring medication …..
And Wade Horn and other religious folk are fundamental architects of many HHS programs.
We’d better face these issues nationally!
We’re on it, and far down this road. I can’t take on the nonprofits and the foundations behind them without reliable housing, food, and transportation, let alone identifiable FUTURE. At this point, I can’t even write a well-reviewed post.
But one thing I CAN do is walk into a room, or a venue, and pick up on the linguistic ambience. This comes perhaps from my former profession (teaching, musicianship) in combination with the years of living with a spouse who was overt about controlling everything.
You want to “explicate” domestic violence? I have it in a simple motto, and no conferences need be run on the finer points of it: It’s slavery.
It’s this attitude:
I am God and you are Dog.
Our relationship is called obedience training. Run, sit down, BEG (boy do we know about that one!), roll over, jump through hoops (Note: CPS is good at this training aspect, as are custody evaluators, mediators, and others. “If you are a GOOD Mommy or Daddy Doggy, you may get to see your puppies again. You want to growl back? Give me your offspring, bitch!”).
Alternate description:
“MY standards for you and NO standards for me.”
Domestic violence is, in essence, the double standard, the crazymaking that there is some “reason” to what is known as simply tyranny, in other contexts.
Read the “14 steps to slavery” in the back of this book. We’re in it. And while reading, ignore any onlookers who start the namecalling — you’re a Tea Party member, you’re a fundie, you’re paranoid.
NO, I’m awake. Grrrrowllll
[PDF]
NONE DARE CALL IT CONSPIRACY
at their disposal to fire the barrages at None Dare Call It Conspiracy. …… This book: None Dare Call It Conspiracy. In writing this book we have tried …
Welcome to the Net-based copy of 16 chapters of Irwin Schiff’s masterpiece on the US “Income Tax”! Laws are the whitewash that governments use to disguise the ugly fact that they steal money from productive people, then use it to control how they live their lives.
Being merely one-sided contracts, [tax, presumably] laws have no moral validity whatsoever; but eight generations of government schooling have conned Americans into supposing that they are magic, to be held in respect and awe.
Accordingly, if there is a tax law, most people tend to obey it. In this masterpiece, perhaps the most important book he ever wrote, Irwin Schiff shows that there is no such thing; how even that veneer of respectability falls off the “income tax” when its origins are systematically probed
==============
SANDIEGOCHILDTRAFFICKING:
(The sites spelling and formatting is a LITTLE better than mine…)
JUVENILE AND FAMILY COURT ARE TRAFFICKING OUR CHILDREN!
San Diego is the largest Family and Juvenile system in the world. It is also the Largest child trafficking Supplier in the world. One of the largest child trafficking receivers is the Baptist Church. Just like the Catholics have had their little dirty secrets the Baptist have theirs. I have no Fear to state what I just stated. I dare anyone to file a civil suit against me. I would love for this to go to court, because I can prove every word I say.
In 1993 I ran away from home, as a young teenager I was preyed apon. I was first took in by some guys from Pakistan. I then ended up in the Hands a human trafficker that supplied people to a Juvenile Judge Dan Camp Of Carroll County, Ga and his mafia. I lived 15 years in the underworld, what start out as willing, quickly turn into held hostage. In the mist of my 17 year ordeal. I saw and witness things America, along with the world should be intrested in. Does American care about justice any more? Does American even care the Government is trafficking there own children? Time will tell. As the percentage of victims rises you will hear more and more stories like the Ninjas that killed the adoptive parents of 12 special need children, Holly Collins, and Baby Gabriel. The number of websites like this one are also popping up every where, exposing these crimes against Humanity. What will Americans do? Will they demand Justice or will they just sit by and let our children be walked out the door by CPS and police to be trafficked by the Baptist or any others ? Well I sure the Hell won’t!!! It is time to EXPOSE! EXPOSE EXPOSE!!!! and DEMAND THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT TO STOP THIS NOW! BECAUSE OUR CHILDREN ARE OUR FUTURE!
Here are some of the links at the top of the page. The average person does not have the time or stomach to process all of this:
Child Trafficking
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“PC278.5” Arresting Moms, at least, for Felony Child-Stealing…
http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/unreport.htm
Parental Child Abduction
is Child Abuseby Nancy Faulkner, Ph.D
Presented to the
United Nations Convention on Child Rights
in Special Session, June 9, 1999,
on behalf of P.A.R.E.N.T.
and victims of parental child abduction.© Nancy Faulkner 1999-2006
Interesting: The NCJRS 
Seems to sort “child-stealing” under two main headings:
| Search results for: child-stealing | ||||||||||||||||||
|
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This would be coherent with the recent Click-Hill case, as the girl disappeared after allegations of child abuse. The other reason for child-stealing (see “Garrido,” and others) might be for personal sexual abuse by strangers, or prostituting kids.
Two reasons I can think of might be to protect a child, or to punish the other parent. Authorities ought to get which is which straight… (More on the NCJRS info towards end of this post)
pc 278.5 IS (California) Penal Code 278.5.
I have come to believe this law was written for men, not women, to get their kids back. I would like to hear of any California woman whose children of around that age were actually returned to her under this code.
We already know of women in this and other states who have been incarcerated for much lesser custodial interference (see Oconto, WI blog, and “Lorraine.” Or, Joyce Murphy.
http://custodyscam.blogspot.com/2009/06/joyce-murphy-accused-of-kidnapping-her.html
SO WHEN IS THIS LAW TAKEN SERIOUSLY, AND WHEN NOT?
It reads as follows:
http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/278.5.html
(a) Every person who takes, entices away, keeps, withholds,
or conceals a child and maliciously deprives a lawful custodian of a
right to custody, or a person of a right to visitation, shall be
punished by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, a
fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or both that fine
and imprisonment, or by imprisonment in the state prison for 16
months, or two or three years, a fine not exceeding ten thousand
dollars ($10,000), or both that fine and imprisonment.
(b) Nothing contained in this section limits the court’s contempt
power.
(c) A custody order obtained after the taking, enticing away,
keeping, withholding, or concealing of a child does not constitute a
defense to a crime charged under this section.
Do you see the word “SHALL” in there?
Here’s 287.7, which indicates circumstances — unbelievably, it seems – -in which a parent or someone COULD take, entice, or conceal a child. It is to handle possible abuse or imminent harm to the child. (Child, FYI, is defined as under 18 in this law).
(a) Section 278.5 does not apply to a person with a right to custody of a child who, with a good faith and reasonable belief that the child, if left with the other person, will suffer immediate bodily injury or emotional harm, takes, entices away, keeps, withholds, or conceals that child.
(b) Section 278.5 does not apply to a person with a right to custody of a child who has been a victim of domestic violence who, with a good faith and reasonable belief that the child, if left with the other person, will suffer immediate bodily injury or emotional harm, takes, entices away, keeps, withholds, or conceals that child.
“Emotional harm” includes having a parent who has committed domestic violence against the parent who is taking, enticing away, keeping, withholding, or concealing the child.
(c) The person who takes, entices away, keeps, withholds, or conceals a child shall do all of the following:
(1) Within a reasonable time from the taking, enticing away, keeping, withholding, or concealing, make a report to the office of the district attorney of the county where the child resided before the action.
In other words, such a person shall, as an adult, give an account to the authorities of his or her reasons for the devastating action of removing a child from a parent.
NOW HERE WE ARE IN THE CLICK-HILL CASE, and a mother disappears with a daughter (mid-1990s, right when VAWA and NFI had gotten started), having accused the father of child molestation, after which he got (apparently) unsupervised time with the girl, again, then disappears.
Here’s an article by Robert Salonga:
Resurfacing of Walnut Creek girl highlights strains of parental abductions
By Robert Salonga
Contra Costa TimesPosted: 03/05/2010 04:45:10 PM PSTUpdated: 03/05/2010 05:35:35 PM PSTWALNUT CREEK — The arrest this week of a woman who took off with her 8-year-old daughter in 1995 during a child custody dispute is being lauded by police and missing child experts as an exceptional event.
In some ways, it wasn’t an exception at all.
Parental and family abductions account for nearly 97 percent of child abduction reports in the state. In Contra Costa County, all 29 abductions reported in 2008 involved family, and just one of the 64 reported in Alameda County that year was committed by a nonrelative.
Click said Friday that he divorced Wendy Hill in the early 1990s, and their relationship became estranged after he was granted primary custody of their daughter. When he went to pick her up from his ex-wife’s Redlands home in the summer of 1995, they had moved out. He never saw Jessica again, he said.
This sounds to me like a custody-switch; another version (below) says he got unsupervised visitation… There were allegations of child molestation, which is every bit as much a crime as child-stealing, but is often not handled as such in family law system.
Here’s another one…
Man waits to reunite with daughter
found 14 years after being abducted
as a 7-year-old by her mother
March 5, 2010 | 4:26 pmA woman who vanished 14 years ago with her 7-year-old daughter was arrested Tuesday in Monrovia and her daughter was located unharmed, authorities said Friday.
Wendy Hill, 52, was spotted at a local Claim Jumper restaurant and arrested on suspicion of abducting her own daughter.
Jessica Click-Hill, now 22, was contacted by authorities after the arrest. She is believed to be living out of state.
“I’m just so excited that Jessica is found and well and that, physically, she’s fine,” said the girl’s father, Dean Click. “She’s got family who haven’t gotten to be with her, to spend Christmas or Thanksgiving together, so we’re looking forward to reconnecting with each other.”
Click said that since his daughter is an adult, authorities will not release her contact information. “At this point, she will have to come to me,” he said.
The father said he and his ex-wife were in a custody dispute when Hill cleaned out her Redlands apartment in the fall of 1995 and left with the girl.
Click said he lived in Walnut Creek in Northern California at the time and for years had not been able to visit his daughter without a mediator present. [[he probably means supervised visitation. Mediation is something different.]] He said at the time he’d been accused of molesting his daughter, a claim he denied.
He said he ultimately was exonerated and that his rights were restored for full, unsupervised visits. On his first visit, he said he celebrated by bringing his parents along and taking Jessica out to lunch.
On his second visit, he said he arrived at the apartment complex and found that his ex-wife and daughter had left.
Authorities said Hill changed her name to Gail Jackson and moved from state to state. She was sighted outside Tampa, Fla., and at one point lived in Boston, authorities said.
A warrant was issued for her arrest in 1996 out of Contra Costa County, and the FBI issued its own warrant a year later.
Click said he kept in touch with authorities, but leads were few and far between. Then a tip came in several months ago from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about the mother’s alias and her location, said Sgt. Tom Cashion of the Walnut Creek Police Department .
Hill flew to Los Angeles, apparently for a business meeting, and was picked up Tuesday at the Monrovia restaurant, Cashion said.
She has since been taken to Northern California, where she was being held on $250,000 bail.
Click said he was asked by prosecutors if he wanted to press charges.
“I said ‘yes’ because she’s been a thief and she’s taken away those years that I did not get to spend with my daughter,” Click said.
— Amina Khan
Here’s another version, from a blog apparently local to the area she was stolen from. March 4, 2010: This isn’t quite current — the mother is now out on bail.
WALNUT CREEK GIRL MISSING SINCE 1995 FOUND HEAR L.A.: MOM ARRESTED FOR ABDUCTION.
![[found.jpg]](https://familycourtmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/4e352-found.jpg?w=700)
8-year-old Walnut Creek resident Jessica Click-Hill was allegedly abducted by her mom in 1995, and today, the Walnut Creek Police announced they found the girl, who’s now 22-years-old, and arrested her mom for parental abduction.The following is from the Walnut Creek Police….
Walnut Creek Police Detectives took Wendy D. Hill into custody for the parental abduction of her eight year old daughter Jessica Click-Hill in Los Angeles.
This case started in 1995 when Jessica’s father Dean Click reported to Walnut Creek Police that he believed his wife had abducted their child, Jessica. Detectives worked the case and in 1996, the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office filed charges against Wendy Hill and an arrest warrant was issued for her PC 278.5.
In 1997, the FBI issued an unlawful flight to avoid prosecution warrant (UFAP warrant). Recently, Walnut Creek Police and the FBI were alerted by NCMEC regarding a possible location for Wendy Hill and Jessica.
WCPD and the FBI followed up on the information and started their search. On March 2, the FBI located Wendy Hill in Monrovia (Los Angeles County) and arrested her on their UFAP warrant.
Walnut Creek Detectives were immediately sent to Los Angeles where they took custody of Wendy Hill.
The FBI has also located and made contact with Jessica.
Early this morning, detectives booked Wendy Hill into the Martinez Detention Facility in Martinez and she is being held on $250,000 bail.
(THIS WOMAN HAS SINCE BEEN RELEASED)..
The “California Family Institute” founder boasts (on the site) how he was one of the first to get a substantial reward under this law… Here’s the resume…(portions of it):
MICHAEL KELLY, ESQ. RESUME:Martindale Hubbell A.V. (VERACITY, Highest Possible Lawyer Rating by Judges and Peers, Preeminent National Lawyer Directory Listing):
California Divorce Attorney, Best interest of Child Advocate, Accomplished Victorious Lawyer:
I. Professional Leadership (42 Years Family Law Experience):
- Chairman of American Bar Custody Committee 2003
- Chairman of CA State Bar Custody & Visitation Comm., two terms
- Chairman of CA Trial Lawyers – Family Law Section Mem. Comm.
- Chairman of American Bar Association – Family Law, Law Practice Economics Committee
- Chairman of American Bar Interstate Custody Task Force Committee; UCCJEA (Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act)
- Chairman of American Bar Association – Family Law, Practical Use of Computers Committee
- Chairman of California Family Law Institute
- Chairman of California Custody Commission
- Chairman of Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce – Legal Committee
- Chairman of Santa Monica Bar Association – Family Law Committee, Three Terms
- Judge Pro Tem in Los Angeles County Superior Family Law Courts 20-years
- Family Law Mediator in Santa Monica, Torrance & LA Central District Superior Courts, 24-years
- Executive Member of the American Bar Association – Continuing Education Committee
- Executive Member of the American Bar Association – Economics of Practice Committee
- Secretary of California State Bar – Custody & Visitation Committee, Two Terms
- Produced and Moderated a Course on Negotiations – 1988 Joint Meeting of California State Bar, Child Custody, Support and Division of Property Committees
II. Legal Achievements:
- First CA attorney to try a Grandparents’ rights suit (January 1970) (Petrikin)
- First CA attorney appointed by children to represent them as individuals (June 1984) (Ryan)
- First CA attorney to file suit against an abducting parent under Penal Code 278.5, for $2.5 Million (1985)
- Largest child abduction award litigated in the United States, $12.4 Million (July 1993) (Wang)
- Rewrote and expanded CA Civil Code 4606, “Children’s right to an attorney” (1985), expanding childrens rights to an attorney (Ryan)
III. Teacher:USC Law School, Advanced Family Law & Divorce Litigation classes. All courses have been certified and accredited by the California State Bar Family Law Specialization Committee for attorney certification as family law specialist since 1986 to present.
While I’m at it, let me point out this site was SPECIFICALLY called a site addressed to MEN on an information sheet at a law library near a courthouse in Northern California. Look at the connections this person has, and the functions he has worked, in the family law venue. It is unbelievably interwoven…
This is the same site, where, while women are being told that conflict is bad, and if they have “conflict” with their ex, their heads need to be examined (let us appoint someone official, that we have trained), while apart from this, sites friendly to fathers have pages like this one:
.
Evil unanswered, is evil supported. You cannot allow evil to exist, and you cannot fight it with evil. Evil resisted by evil means, contaminates the resistor. The end that justifies the means is an imperfect and flawed concept. No end justifies evil, hurtful, injurious and mean behavior to others or against innocence.
The very concept of mediation and supervised visitation, parenting plans, etc., in the family venue is a brainchild of increasing noncustodial parent visitation time, when due process, fact-gathering, and evidence wouldn’t. The Family Law venue IS a violation of due process, and it IS a venue where the end (“required outcome– more noncustodial parent time [[noncustodial parent being, “father,” as far as the intent of such programs]] justifies the means, and as such, might be characterized as “evil.” IF the concept is justice, and due process.
Evil flourishes by creating distraction, misdirection, trust, ease, inattention, enjoyment, false pride, etc. If one were asked, “What do you do?”, the answer could ask “I wage war against evil, in all of its myriad forms and colorations, at all times, places and at all costs.”
You cannot face evil on impulse; it thrives on such action. You cannot defeat evil with anger . . . anger makes evil burn brighter. You can only cut down evil with cold, fierce force driven by the vision of right, honor, truth, and godliness. Evil is so opposed to these forces that anything else simply exacerbates the evil.
Evil is heartless by necessity. Both it and the person possessed by it see circumstances and events with the view of a malignant narcissist. All things that do not agree with their view of the world are immediately labeled “Deadly Opponents” in an opposition to the self-appointed right of the evil person to their sole view of what is right and wrong, what is proper behavior and what is not, what should and should not be said, or done . . . how things should or should not be done.
Question:
SO when is a crime not a crime? Or a law against felony child-stealing not a felony or not applicable?
Answer:
When someone in authority says it’s not. And that’s up to whoever decides to prosecute, or, alternately, decides NOT to prosecute. This is NOT up to the parent, but to the reporting officers, and after that, the D.A.
When it is bounced to family law, and ends up as a check mark on a mediator’s report form.
I just searched the well-known “NCJRS” on “Child-stealing” and got these results. notice — they aren’t exactly “current,” for the most part (note years).
| Results in Publications (Abstracts Only) | ||
| Parental Child–Stealing | ||
| NCJ 078760, M W Agopian, 1981, (157 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
| Parental Child Stealing – California’s Legislative Response | ||
| NCJ 074911, M W Agopian, Canadian Criminology Forum, 3, 1, 1980, 37-43, (7 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
| Epidemic of Child–Stealing – What Can Be Done? | ||
| NCJ 080631, B W Most, Current, 194, 1977, 40-44, (5 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
| Problems in the Prosecution of Parental Child Stealing Offenses (From Parental Kidnaping Prevention Act of 1979, S 105 – Addendum, P 76-87, 1980 – See NCJ-77752) | ||
| NCJ 077753, M W Agopian, 1980, (12 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
| Characteristics of Parental Child Stealing (From Crime and the Family, P 111-120, 1985, by Alan J Lincoln and Murray A Straus – See NCJ-98873) | ||
| NCJ 098879, M W Agopian; G L Anderson, 1985, (10 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
| CHILD STEALING – A TYPOLOGY OF FEMALE OFFENDERS | ||
| NCJ 036248, P T D’ORBAN, BRITISH JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY, 16, 3, 1976, 275-281, (7 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
| Child Stealing by Cesarean Section: A Psychiatric Case Report and Review of the Child Stealing Literature | ||
| NCJ 140929, S H Yutzy; J K Wolfson; P J Resnick, Journal of Forensic Sciences, 38, 1, 1993, 192-196, (5 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
| Parental Child Stealing – Participants and the Victimization Process | ||
| NCJ 085267, M W Agopian, Victimology, 5, 2-4, 1982, 263-273, (11 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
Here are Miscellaneous Abstracts and characterizations from these ties:
FROM “typology of Female Offenders.” Kinda reminds you of Chesler “Women & Madness…”
| Annotation: | CASE STUDIES ARE PRESENTED AND DISCUSSED FOR FOURTEEN ENGLISH CHILD–STEALING OFFENDERS – MOST OF WHOM ARE EITHER PSYCHOTIC, SUB-NORMALLY INTELLIGENT, OR SUFFERING FROM PERSONALITY DISORDERS. |
| Abstract: | ‘CHILD–STEALING‘ IS DEFINED UNDER ENGLISH LAW AS THE UNLAWFUL TAKING AWAY OR ENTICING OF A CHILD UNDER THE AGE OF 14 YEARS WITH INTENT TO DEPRIVE THE PARENT OR GUARDIAN OR ANY OTHER PERSON HAVING THE LAWFUL CARE OF THE CHILD, OR WITH INTENT TO STEAL ANY ARTICLE FROM THE CHILD. |
| Index Term(s): | Case studies; Child abuse; Crimes against children; England; Female offenders; Kidnapping; Mentally ill offenders |
(I beg your pardon, but due to internet access time, I’m simply copying and pasting. Better option — check the links yourself).
Language: English Annotation: Analysis of parental child–stealing cases in Los Angeles reveals that this crime occurs after a divorce action and following a period of compliance with court-ordered visitation privileges. Abstract: Study data came from cases screened for prosecution by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office between July 1977 and June 1978, the first year in which California law made this activity illegal. A total of 91 cases were examined. The crime generally involved young Caucasians, with fathers generally abducting children from mothers awarded custody. The crimes occurred equally throughout the seasons of the year, but took place more often on weekend days than during the week. The parents communicated after the child theft in almost half the cases. The communication usually involved announcing the offender’s intention to keep the child, trying to influence the severed relationship, or justifying the crime. Surprise abductions and use of force were rare. Although just over half the abductions took place within 18 months of the divorce, 37 percent occurred 2 or more years after the divorce. The child stealing reflected the offender’s desire to maintain a full-time relationship with the child and to help reestablish the marital relationship. Additional California and national data suggest that about 1 child theft occurs annually for every 22 divorces. Further research should focus on other jurisdictions and other aspects of child stealing. One note, data tables, and 22 references are supplied. Index Term(s): California; Child snatching; Crimes against children; Family offenses
IN OTHER WORDS, the young Caucasian fathers didn’t want their women to leave them, so to keep the mother attached, they stole the kids. Nice… It’s not necessarily that they loved the child, or were concerned about his or her welfare.
1980: Parental Child Stealing – California’s Legislative Response
. . . Prior to July 1, 1977, California law had provided that the father and mother of a legitimate unmarried minor child were equally entitled to custody, services, and earnings.
What is a “legitimate” unmarried minor child? One whose parents were married?
Because parents had equal rights, neither parent was in violation of the law, civil or criminal, by taking and concealing the child in the absence of a court order giving custody to a particular parent. On July 1, 1977 the California legislature transferred child stealing from the civil to the criminal jurisdication and toughened sanctions and legal procedures dealing with child stealing. This California legislation is a significant effort toward clarifying numerous legal discrepancies and oversights wich have prompted parents to employ child stealing as an extra-legal method of securing their children.
I find it interesting that child-stealing went from CIVIL to CRIMINAL.
Now, depending on the context, and the prosecutors, it appears to me to be going straight back to CIVIL where protective parents (typically but not always mothers) are involved…. This was my case. It was treated like a minor blip on the radar by a “mediator.” I put the word in quotes, because what happened to us wasn’t “mediation” in any sense of the word, but a bypass of the judicial process, which otherwise would have shown missing kids!
When I search adding the word “parental kidnapping,” results differ:
Parental Abduction: A Review of the Literature NCJ 190074, Janet Chiancone, 2000, OJJDP, (13 pages). Overall, the research on parental abductions indicates that this type of crime can be traumatic for both children and left-behind parents and that the longer the separation continues the more damaging the experience becomes.
THAT would be an understatement!
(some reformatting added 2017Aug ,when I approved a comment that had mistakenly been overlooked. FYI, comments on this blog are few and far between, despite the number of views or followers showing on the front sidebar. I was working hard on current posts (this one now about 7 years old), which takes a lot of focus, and am less active on my own email. I’ll try and remember to check it more recently for submitted comments from now on… //LGH.).
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Grandparent Visitation, Father/mother visitation — 2 links
Here are two links, one showing (in considerable detail) that, whether father or mother has visitation issues, the bottom line is, at least one parent’s $$ bottom line is going to drop — as evaluators, therapists, case managers, and mental health professionals are called into make their expert opinions known.
This first link discusses a case where the father first brought up parental alienation, asked for an immediate custody switch on that basis, and called upon the powers that be — including the (now deceased) Richard Gardner, M.D. — whose theme song and swan song was parental alienation.
This time, Gardner did NOT support the father, which obviously upset him. A special case manager (a former judge) resigned after being threatened by the father, and so forth. Sooner or later, the final of 3 children aged out of this childhood, or almost.
(1) Kansas Opinions | Finding Aids: Case Name » Supreme Court or Court of Appeals | Docket Number | Release Date |
No. 93,450
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KANSAS
In the Matter of the Marriage of
JANET BOULEY, f/k/a KIMBRELL,
Appellee,
and
WILLIAM DAVID KIMBRELL,
Appellant.
[[LINK TO:]] SYLLABUS BY THE COURT
This is just a sampling. If you’re familiar with how some of these cases go (where there is some money in the family), you’ll recognize a few patterns, namely, that no matter what, SOMEONE is going to be in therapy, generally both parents AND the children. SOMETIMES I think this need for therapy is directly generated by the court procedures, not the parents….
Also note (last sentence of expcerpt here), that the father does make some good points, regarding questionable reliance on expert opinion, and due process. He is RIGHT about this. However, let us all note who started bringing on the experts to discredit his wife….
I think this link is appropriate in that this is AFCC Conference month (one of many), which I have blogged on earlier. This is a sampling of some experts that might get involved. Remember what the JohnnyPumphandle post (Marv Bryer overview) reminds us: the court respects those opinions more than sworn facts or statements under penalty of perjury from non-experts who may be more familiar with the facts of the case. That’s the nature of the beast. Excuse me, system.
In July 2001, David moved to modify the 1996 divorce decree and for an emergency change of placement for Dylan and Evan. In his motion, David asked that he be given residential custody of Dylan and Evan, that the trial court order strict supervision of Janet’s contact with the boys, and that the trial court order a psychological evaluation of Janet, Dylan, and Evan to determine whether Janet was alienating the children from him. David maintained that Janet had “commenced a program and concerted effort to alienate the three children” from him and that she had interfered with his visitations and the parenting time and visitation schedule. At David’s request, these motions were dismissed in March 2002.
For summer 2001, the parties agreed to a split parenting arrangement where the children would essentially spend alternating weeks with each parent. In addition, the parties agreed to participate in psychological evaluations and testing. The agreed parenting plan was to continue until psychological evaluations and reports were completed.
Upon agreement by the parties, the trial court appointed Susan Vorhees, Ph.D., to conduct evaluation and testing of the parties and their minor children.
Who is Dr. Vorhees? Well, here’s a Google result:
{NOTE: I didn’t read of any accusations of abuse or Domestic Violence in the case at hand in this link, .i.e., the parents of Dylan, Anna, and Evan… I am simply curious about Dr. Vorhees…as the trial court recommended her to evaluate}:
Quoting Dr. Vorhees: (NOTE: court syllabus spells last name “vorhees”. This summary below is from Shawnee, KS area…)
Put another way, people minimize boys as victims of sexual assault when the perpetrator is an older woman, said Susan Voorhees, a doctor of clinical psychology whose patients include child victims. People smirk when word gets out an underage boy had sex with an older woman.
“Everyone has their fantasies,” Voorhees said, as in, ” ‘It would have been nice to have had some older woman teach me the ways of the world.”
n sentencing Liskey to probation, Shawnee County District Court Judge Jan Leuenberger said there was no evidence the victim suffered in the relationship. The judge also said the youth is “dealing with the situation fine,” and concerns by his parents that he might “crash” in the next four to six years are “speculative.”
“Sexual abuse haIs lifelong implications for the mental health of both victims and their families,” Voorhees said in a letter dated Sept. 14 to Chief Judge Nancy Parrish to express her “grave concern” about the Liskey sentencing.
“I’ve never heard in my 30 years working with sexual abuse victims of a victim doing fine,” Voorhees said. Noting Liskey was psychologically evaluated, Voorhees questioned why the judge didn’t seek evaluation of the boy.
Boys don’t just fly right through the aftermath of abuse, Voorhees and Stultz-Lindsay said.
“The impact may not hit him until he is able to move away from the relationship,” Voorhees said.
“These boys feel like they’re in love with their perpetrator,” Stultz-Lindsay said.
Often the perpetrator is a member of the family or someone trusted by the family, and for the child, the abuser “may be one of the kindest people in their lives.” In the Liskey case, there was a double whammy because she was a paraprofessional in the victim’s gifted education program at Robinson Middle School and the best friend of the boy’s mother, Voorhees said.
“It’s not the face of evil,” the psychologist said of abusers. “It’s the actions of evil.”
It is to bad the judge did not see it that way.
BACK TO THE KANSAS CASE, LINK (1)….
Although David later moved for a protective order to prohibit the dissemination of Dr. Vorhees’ proposed report, the trial court ordered that Dr. Vorhees’ evaluation be provided to the court. Dr. Vorhees’ report, which was filed in December 2002, indicated that David was alienated from his children due to his own behavior. According to Dr. Vorhees, “[David] is alienated from them by his own inability to accept that they and their mother are independent individuals, that they need and want a relationship with both parents, and that he cannot be in control of either of these relationships.” Dr. Vorhees indicated that David’s alienation from the children could be resolved by David trying to accept his children for who they are and by listening to his children.
The trial court, on its own motion, appointed retired District Court Judge James Buchele as the case manager in January 2002. The trial court’s decision in this case indicates that the parties had been voluntarily working with Judge Buchele since October 2001. Judge Buchele recommended in January 2002 that the children reside with Janet and that David’s parenting time be “as approved by the Case Manager or as ordered by the Court.” David moved for review of these recommendations and also for an order for family therapy and other relief.
In February 2002, Judge Buchele made additional recommendations, including that Dylan and Evan be with David on Wednesdays after school until 8 p.m. and on alternating Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Judge Buchele again made recommendations in March 2002. Judge Buchele recommended that David spend a week during spring break with Evan and that the parties participate in family counseling with Michael Lubbers, Ph.D. At that time, Dylan and Evan were seeing Dale Barnum, Ph.D., and Janet and David were each working with a mental health professional. David objected to both the February 2002 and March 2002 recommendations.
Brief search on Michael Lubbers, Ph.D. shows that a Michael Lubbers got his Ph.D. in 2005-2006 year from the
January 16, 2001 – SRS Secretary Schalansky appoints Dale Barnum, for 20 years area director in Garden City, as new director of Rehabilitation Services.
Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services (SRS) Secretary Janet Schalansky today announced the appointment of Dale Barnum as state director of Rehabilitation Services, effective February 4, 2001.Mr. Barnum has been the area director of the SRS Garden City office for the last 20 years, where he was responsible for program and resource management in the 25-county area. He oversaw a $10 million administrative budget and all SRS programs in the Garden City area, including services for children and families, adult services, rehabilitation services, child support enforcement, medical services, and economic and employment support services.
On June 12, 2002, Judge Buchele submitted his report and recommendations and also responded to David’s objections. In his report, Judge Buchele addressed David’s allegations that Janet had alienated Dylan and Evan. Judge Buchele’s opinion was that Dylan’s and Evan’s alienation from David was caused by David’s own conduct. Nevertheless, Judge Buchele was encouraged by the fact that David had spoken with Dr. Barnum and had agreed to work on a new approach to communicating with Evan.
In his report, Judge Buchele recommended modification of the existing parenting plan. Judge Buchele expanded David’s parenting time with Evan, setting forth specific times that Evan would spend with David. Judge Buchele’s recommendations assumed there would be some change in the status quo. Judge Buchele recommended that David’s parenting time with Dylan be “as they may agree.”
After David and Janet separately filed objections to Judge Buchele’s recommendations, Judge Buchele issued a supplemental report on June 27, 2002. Judge Buchele indicated that the brief attempt to expand David’s parenting time with Evan had been disastrous. Judge Buchele concluded that the problems in this case could not be resolved by additional time being spent between Evan and his father. Judge Buchele recommended that Evan be with David on Wednesdays from 4 to 8 p.m. and for one 24-hour period every weekend. Both David and Janet objected to Judge Buchele’s June 27, 2002, supplemental report and recommendations.
In November 2002, upon David’s motion, the trial court appointed Dr. Richard Gardner, M.D., to conduct a parental alienation syndrome (PAS) evaluation of the family. [[FOLKS< this is 2002!! Still going on!!]] The trial court terminated its order for counseling with Dr. Lubbers but ordered Dylan and Evan to continue therapy with Dr. Barnum. Moreover, the trial court ordered that the contact between Evan and David continue under the current arrangement and that the contact between Dylan and David be as Dylan desired.
Dr. Gardner completed the PAS evaluation and filed a written report in January 2003. Dr. Gardner found no evidence that the children were suffering from PAS or that Janet was a PAS alienator. Instead, Dr. Gardner indicated that the primary source of the children’s alienation from David was David’s own psychiatric problems, especially his obsessive-compulsive personality disorder and paranoid trends.
[[In which we see that this diagnosing one’s spouse in order to get even is a two-edged sword. Names can be called either way… And will… Name-calling by experts are far more damaging to the situation than names called by mere parents, or children…]]
Dr. Gardner recommended that Janet continue to have primary parenting time with Dylan and Evan, that Janet have primary legal custody, and that the court rescind the order requiring Dylan and Evan to participate in therapy. Dr. Gardner indicated that the family could be helped with appropriate treatment given to David, Dylan, and Evan, but that such treatment should be on a voluntary basis.
[[UNDETERRED…]] In September 2003, David moved for the appointment of another case manager, for an order for the parties and children to participate in therapy, and for an order enforcing the joint decision making required under the parties’ joint custody agreement. Attached to David’s motion were letters from Nancy Hughes, Ph.D., LSCSW, who had conducted an adoption home study with David and his [[his NEW??]] wife, and from John Spiridigliozzi, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist who had been working with David for approximately 3 years. [[FYI: Spiridigliozzi appears to work with people with addictions…]] Both Dr. Hughes and Dr. Spiridigliozzi recommended the appointment of a case manager.
Obviously, both of them are working with David, not Nancy….
Moreover, Dr. Hughes indicated that she had read some of the file that David had compiled in this case and that it did not fit with her impression of David.
How comforting that expert professionals are brought in to give their “impressions.”
In November 2003, the trial court appointed William F. Ebert, III, as special master, whose duties included recommending therapy for the parties and their children as well as preparing findings of fact and conclusions of law for the trial court to review if the parties could not agree on child-rearing decisions or therapy.
Now who is William F. Ebert, III? Any relationship to THIS one? (I do see an attorney in the Topeka, KS area…) (THIS one is in Nebraska, and I note, no “III,” AND there are a lot of William Eberts around. Kind of makes you wonder, though…)
William F. Ebert, appellant, v. Nebraska Department
of Correctional Services et al., appellees.Ebert v. Nebraska Dept. of Corr. Servs.,
11 Neb. App. 553Filed February 11, 2003. No. A-01-906.
INTRODUCTION William F. Ebert was sentenced in July 1997 to serve 10 years on each of three convictions of second degree forgery and being a habitual criminal. Ebert brought a declaratory judgment action in the district court for Lancaster County against the Department of Correctional Services (DCS); Harold W. Clarke, the director of DCS; and Ronald Riethmuller, the records manager of DCS (collectively the defendants), alleging that his sentences were improperly calculated in that he had not been given good time credit. The trial court found that the defendants were entitled to summary judgment, based on statutory language mandating a minimum 10-year sentence on a habitual criminal conviction. The trial court further found that DCS was entitled to sovereign immunity and that the parties sued in their official capacities were entitled to immunity from Ebert’s request to compel them to credit him with good time. For the following reasons, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
Ebert was originally sentenced on March 26, 1996, to a term of 4 to 6 years’ imprisonment. The nature of Ebert’s original offense is not clear from the record in the present case. On July 1, 1997, Ebert received sentences of 10 years’ imprisonment on each of three separate convictions of second degree forgery and being a habitual criminal. The offenses for which Ebert received these sentences occurred in January and February 1996. These sentences were to run concurrently with one another but consecutively to Ebert’s previous sentence. Ebert has not received any good time credit toward the service of his 1997 sentences.
Ebert filed a petition on December 28, 2000, initiating an action under the Uniform Declaratory Judgment Act, see Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-21,149 et seq. (Reissue 1995 & Cum. Supp. 2002), to determine his rights and legal interests in relation to the calculation of his 1997 sentences.
Phil Lewis Medal of Distinction |
|
1995 |
J. Nick Badgerow, Martin W. Bauer, Patricia Macke Dick, William F. Ebert III, Hon. Jerry G. Elliott, and Carol G. Green |
After meeting with the parties, reviewing the court file, which included the reports issued by the various professionals, reviewing email communication, contacting individuals identified by the parties, and discussing the case with the parties’ attorneys, the special master issued his written report in January 2004. In an order issued in February 2004, the trial court adopted the following proposed conclusions of law of the special master:
“1. If David Kimbrell genuinely desires to re-establish meaningful relationships with his children, it will be necessary for him to participate in individual therapy with a therapist who is knowledgeable about parental alienation syndrome and knowledgeable about parents who are emotionally abusive, especially those with significant psychiatric problems.
“2. If the individual therapy process with David is successful (i.e. if David can be helped to . . . appreciate . . . how he has contributed to the damaged relationships with his children and helped to understand how to modify his expectations and behavior accordingly) then the door should be opened to including Evan and/or Dylan in the therapy process, if they choose to participate (as per Dr. Gardner’s recommendations, §6, Pages 117, 118, Gardner Report).”
David moved for reconsideration of the trial court’s decision or, alternatively, to modify its previous orders. In his motion, David requested specific orders relating to the following: parenting time and visitation, exchanging information regarding the children, counseling, and terminating the special master’s appointment. In his motion, David argued that there could not be a therapy precondition to his contact with his children. In addition, David argued that the special master’s report was unreliable because it was factually flawed, placed undue reliance on questionable expert opinions, and did not comport with due process.
If so, those are legitimate complaints and concerns. How can one have justice with factual flaws, undue reliance on questionable expert opinions, and violation of due process? On the other hand, it does seem that he started that ball rolling to start with.
In a memorandum decision filed in September 2004, the trial court granted in part and denied in part David’s motion. The trial court concluded:
“1. Based upon the case history, recommendations filed with the court, and the lack of any success with court-ordered therapy, the court will not order any of the parties in this case to participate in therapy. However, the court concurs with the special master’s recommendation that Respondent participate in therapy to attempt to gain some insight into his relationship with his biological children and that any of his children participate in that therapy as they would like.
“2. Dylan, DOB 09/05/86, is now eighteen. His parenting time is no longer under the jurisdiction of this court.
This one above, I actually read in detail, fine print and all. I wish I’d been a fly on the wall on the case in point. While readers are told of the various professionals involved, one wonders whether abuse was or was not, given the degree of control, and bittter anger. s might do well to go through the case (as I did some months ago on the Oconto, Wisconsin case, listing the staggering amount of “players” involved).
(2)
NEWMAN-13-1-A2-PV 3/15/2004 9:55 AM
(PUBLIC INTEREST LAW JOURNAL…)
The second link (I confess — a referral) is a lengthy discussion about using the assumption of a model, functioning family as the basis for families going through the family law system, when in fact these are typically NOT the functional ones. It comes from Boston University, and deals with the Troxel case. I have only glanced at this link, not read it.
GRANDPARENT VISITATION CLAIMS:
ASSESSING THE MULTIPLE HARMS OF LITIGATION TO FAMILIES AND CHILDREN
“In fairness, how much confrontation and litigation should a child be expected to bear?”
1
[[Or a parent, particularly a single custodial parent…]] [[note: the quote below is a little scrambled — technical cut & paste issues on my part — but gives an idea of the issues raised. ]
I
NTRODUCTION
Family law has made significant progress in the last several decades by gradually discarding two models of “family” for legal decision making purposes: the “conventional” family and the “well-functioning” family. In constitutional terms, the conventional family’s monopoly on legal rights loosened considerably in 1972 when the Supreme Court, in Stanley v. Illinois, to maintain custody of his “illegitimate” children when the children’s mother died. be unfit and made his children wards of the state. In subsequent years, a wide array of state decisions conferred family recognition and benefits, in varying degrees, upon families headed by single mothers, gay and lesbian couples, unmarried cohabitants, and others who failed to fit the conventional mold. In Stanley, The Court stuck down an Illinois law that presumed the unwed father to5Grandparent visitation laws, the subject of this article, provide an example of the law’s ill-advised use of the model of well-functioning family relationships
visitation with a child “at any time” if visits would “serve the best interest of the child.” In Troxel, the Supreme Court confronted one of the most sweeping visitation15 Tommie Granville and Brad Troxel lived together and had two children.16They separated in 1991, and two years later Brad committed suicide. Tommie allowed Brad’s parents to continue seeing the children following the suicide, but five months later she decided to adjust the visitation schedule, limiting the Troxels to one visit per month. Tommie for increased visitation, pursuing their claim through six and a half years of litigation to the United States Supreme Court.
17 At first,18 Two months afterward, the Troxels sued19The case generated six opinions from the Supreme Court. Despite the controversial nature of the substantive due process doctrine, a clear majority of the justices agreed that parents possess a due process liberty right to the care, custody, and control of their own children. Scalia would deny the existence of such a right. Washington statute, as applied, violated the mother’s constitutional rights. justice, David Souter, would have gone further and declared the statute unconstitutional on its face, effectively making the plurality opinion the operative constitutional ruling. parents’ fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children resolved the case. existence of the right to parent.20 From the opinions, it appears that only Justice21 A four-justice plurality found the22 A fifth23 Justice Thomas agreed that the Court’s recognition of24 Justices Stevens and Kennedy, though dissenting, also acknowledged the25
The plurality started its analysis by noting that the conventional family is only one of many modern family forms. “While many children may have two married parents and grandparents who visit regularly, many other children are raised in single-parent households.”26
According to cited census figures, some four million children reside in the household of grandparents, and a substantial minority ofgrandparents act in a parental role, assisting single parents in performing the“everyday tasks of child rearing.”27
The opinion also made clear that it would not rely upon an idealized version offamily relationships:In an ideal world, parents might always seek to cultivate the bonds betweengrandparents and their grandchildren. Needless to say, however, our world is
far from perfect, and in it the decision whether such an intergenerational
relationship would be beneficial in any specific case is for the parent to make
in the first instance.
28
Tactfully, but unfortunately, the justices did not identify the realities thatcontradict the classic stereotype of the well-functioning grandparent in the familylife of children. A more realistic picture of these grandparent visitation caseswould have emerged had the opinion acknowledged some of the ways in which
stereotypes involving grandparents sometimes fail. A mention, for example, of
situations in which grandparents are not doting, loving and helpful, but abusive,
demeaning, controlling, meddlesome or belligerent, would have placed these cases
in a more realistic light. In fact, the cases in the nation’s family courts regularly
feature such untraditional grandparents.
29 The only hint of such realities in the
Troxel“recognition of an independent third-party interest in a child can place a substantialburden on the traditional parent-child relationship.”plurality opinion is a possible inference from the Court’s observation that30
Again, my main purpose is to provide the two links, and a little commentary for those who are interested in the topic, and a sampling (as ever) of who ARE some of those professionals involved here (although, this time, I didn’t get much background on that…)
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“Here Come da Judge!”
Some times, hard times, a little humor helps me. I seem to notice things that maybe others don’t (oft-burnt, twice as observant?)…
This is from Womenslaw.org about Custody, and a good question, plus a sidelong plug for (what else) supervised visitation. . . . And no absolute commitment either way on this topic:
Can a parent who committed violence get “custody” or “visitation”?
Maybe. It is possible that a parent who has committed violence will get custody or visitation if the court determines that it is in the “best interest of the child” to do so. Generally, judges beleve it is in the child’s best interest to have frequent contact with both parents.*1
{{so, the “court” kind of being the “judge” who signs the order, we get back to what judges generally believe… For more of that, see the AFCC conference as to what’s being promoted among many of them…}}
Conservatorship / Custody:
If a person is filing for sole or joint managing conservatorship, the court will consider whether the person has been abusive toward his/her spouse, the parent of the child and any person under 18 years old within the 2 years before filing for conservatorship or during the proceeding. A judge may deny joint managing conservatorship if s/he finds that there is a history or pattern of child neglect or physical or sexual abuse of a parent, spouse or child.*2
{{then, again, they also may not. Sounds like a toss-up to me…}}
The judge may not {{OR, may…}} appoint joint managing conservators if reliable evidence is presented of a history or pattern of past or present child neglect, or physical or sexual abuse by one parent directed against the other parent, a spouse, or a child. *3
Likewise, the court [[as opposed to “the judge?”] will consider {{but will it act on?}} any incident of family violence in deciding whether to deny, restrict, or limit the possession of a child by a parent who is appointed as a possessory conservator.*4
Possession and Access / Visitation:
If a parent has been violent within the last two years before filing or during the court proceedings, a judge may {{or may not, we have no committed policy here, right?}} deny that parent possession of or access to the child unless:
the judge decides that allowing the parent access is not a danger to the child and is in the best interest of the child; and
the judge approves a possession order that will protect the child and any other victim from the abusive parent. The order may require:
- supervised access; {{Here’s the Business Model…}}
exchange of the child in a protective setting (see note below);
that the parent not drink alcohol and not use any drugs within 12 hours before or during the time the child is with him/her; or {{See my comments on Oconto, Wisconsin, where the father was caught DUI with the daughter in the car, but still it was the MOTHER who was jailed for failing to force the daughter back into that situation.}}
that the parent attend a batterer’s prevention program or any program the judge finds appropriate. *5
Tell the judge if you have gotten a protective order within the last 2 years against the parent seeking possession of and access to your child. The judge will consider this when determining whether there is a history of family violence.*6
{{Note: Some women get SMART after the first several violent incidents, and survive more than 2 years in a relationship before someone shows them how to get out. In this case, asking what happened in the last 2 years may not indicate that the father/husband/partner has reformed or settled down, or repented, but simply that the mother/wife/partner simply got cagier and smarter in how to avoid them. As many abusers also are control freaks, as toa ccess to transportation and ways to escape their abuse, this may involve shutting down emotionally, and teaching the kids to also, i.e., “walking on eggshells.” how many judges take the time to tell the difference?}}
Note: If the abuser is granted possession and access to your child, ask the court or a local domestic violence program for information about visitation centers or visitation exchange facilities in your county if you think that is a good option for you.
GOT THIS? The judge MAY respect the danger of domestic violence, or the judge MAY instead choose to drop-kick the problem to some cronies in the supervised visitation field.
{{Which of course they will prime you to. . . .. . I asked for this, and was of course, not told that there is federal funding for this, but not available so readily for MOMS… Not being incarcerated, an abuser, or behind on my child support (as the custodial mother), there was no outreach program to help me. And as I wasn’t preventing access, that wasn’t an issue. Thanks, dudes for rewarding me for compliance and good-faith allowing regular access to my growing (and healing) children by totally removing them from me, failing to enforce child support — at all, practically — and allowing him after custody switch to totally cut off contact, failing to report felony child-stealing (meaning, no Victims of Crime compensation), and no help after this event trashed my jobs. Thanks. Merry Christmas to all, and let’ em eat cake…}}
It is assumed by the court that it is not in the best interest of a child for a parent to have unsupervised visitation with the child if there is credible evidence of a history or pattern of past or present child neglect or physical or sexual abuse by that parent directed against the other parent, a spouse, or a child. *7
*1 Tex. Fam. Code § 153.131
*2 Tex. Fam. Code § 153.004(a)
*3 Tex. Fam. Code §153.004(b)
*4 Tex. Fam. Code § 153.004(c)
*5 Tex. Fam. Code § 153.004(d)
*6 Tex. Fam. Code § 153.004
*7 Tex. Fam. Code § 153.004(e)
======================
(Since I’ve already dated, if not geographically marked (as to California) myself, I’ll go one step further and admit, this “well, it depends. . . .. ” approach to whether an abuser (or “a parent who has committed violence”) can get custody of a child approach reminded me (see highlit words, above) on the old comedy routine:
“Here Comes Da Judge!”
A little more judicial humor, even more dated (i.e., not my own…):
“THE INSCRUTABLE WORKINGS OF PROVIDENCE“
My last blog{{whoever this is...}}, on the rather bland exchanges between lawyers and justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, gave me a craving for red meat. So I pulled out my copy of Winston Churchill's marvelous little book, Great Contemporaries, and I turned to the essay on F.E. Smith, a lawyer who later became the first Earl of Birkenhead. Smith was famous for his stilletto wit, which once drew a pompous rebuke from a presiding judge: "Mr. Smith, have you ever heard a saying by Bacon -- the great Bacon -- that youth and discretion are ill-wedded companions?" "Yes I have," came the instant repartee. "And have you ever heard a saying of Bacon -- the great Bacon -- that a much-talking judge is like an ill-tuned cymbal?" Taken aback, the judge resorted to scolding, "You are extremely offensive, young man," "As a matter of fact," said Smith, "we both are; but I am trying to be, and you can't help it." The judge, who apparently had never heard of citing a lawyer for contempt, came back for another drubbing: ""What do you suppose I am on the bench for, Mr. Smith?" "It is not for me, your honor, to attempt to fathom the inscrutable workings of Providence." That kind of exchange is something we we will never hear in oral arguments before the Supreme Court. Americans are much too dignified for any such thing. Posted on January 9, 2006 10:40 PM | PermalinkOR:If I want to quote a Supreme Court justice who was genuinely funny, I usually turn to Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935).Among my favorite Holmes stories is the one concerning how he was supposed to lecture at a college, and discovered that he had arrived at an insane asylum by mistake. The justice was philosophical. “Oh well,” he said to the guard, “I don’t suppose that there is a great deal of difference.” For once, the legal eagle was topped. “With great respect, Mr. Justice,” the guard replied, “there is. Before they let you out of this place, you have to show some improvement.” Posted on January 2, 2006 7:53 PM | Permalink
More, “HERE COME DA JUDGE” info:
Here comes the Judge!
Here comes the judge!
The court's in session!
The Funky Judge! Updated 8.28.02
That’s right. 1968 was the year of the funky craze (see last issue’s Soul With An African Twist). It may not have showed up on the Chinese astrological calendar, but ’68 was definitely the year of the Judge. Dewey ‘Pigmeat’ Markham trod the boards of the ‘Chitlin’ circuit for decades as well as appearing in many of the ‘sepia’ films aimed at forcibly segregated black audiences. In 1968 a routine of his about an angry, obstreperous judge broke into the mainstream of America’s pop consciousness. Pigmeat, a big guy with a loud, extremely gravelly voice would enter with a chant of: ‘Here come da judge, here come da judge! The court’s in session, the court’s in session!’ and then would launch into a hysterical tirade. In early 1968 Pigmeat and his rap found their way onto Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-in, and rapidly became a favorite, eventually becoming a regular on the show. It wasn’t long before ‘Judge’ records started to appear on the scene. Ironically, the first hit (chronologically) was not by Markham but Motown mainstay Shorty Long. Long, who had hit before with the original versions of ‘Devil With the Blue Dress On’ and ‘Function at the Junction’, made it (in June of ’68) to #4 on the R&B charts and #8 on the pop charts with his very funky ‘Here Comes The Judge’. In Long’s record, the Judge is sentencing the defendant to various amounts of time for the boogaloo, the four corners and the Afro-twist. The judge on the record even sounds like Pigmeat. Markham charted with his own version a few weeks later, on Chess (Chess2049). His tune ( a different song entirely) starts out with a long proto-rap speech, with exclamations from the gallery. The tune breaks into a deep, rough funk. In fact, despite the fact that he was an old fella, Pigmeat laid down the funkiest records in the entire ‘Judge’ genre (though it’s fair to mention that he had the mighty talents of the Chess house band backing him up).
I’m not really “playing around” so much as it might appear. Did you do your homework last few posts, and look up the L.A. County Judges Slush fund (at least acc. to Marv Bryer et al.), how it started out of the county court house, not paying taxes for years (til basically forced to), morphed into CCC then somehow AFCC, and now we have these tremendous professionals, and social scientists figuring out our problems for us…..?
ETHICS, TRANSFORMATIONS, and Dr. JUDITH REISMAN, Kinsey, etc….
http://www.drjudithreisman.com/archives/CaliforniaCripplesWomen.pdf
I cannot find the exact article where Dr. Reisman was talking about the importance of ETHICS in public servants, and referring to a certain (old) law that was being undermined. She is a controversial figure for sure, but I responded to her personal story, which you might also, and how her own world got rocked when it was discovered a relative had been molested. …. I’d also like to note: articles are published onto “WND” (World Net Daily) which I do NOT espouse overall….
http://www.drjudithreisman.com/about_dr_reisman.html#journey
Summary:
Dr. Judith Reisman is sought worldwide to speak, lecture, testify, and counsel individuals, organizations, professionals and governments in Media Forensics, the scientific analysis of images, pictures, cartoons, illustrations, pornography and text in sexual harassment of women and children in the workplace, schools, and homes. Her Media Forensic expertise has been successful in child custody cases, examining “pseudo-child” and “virtual-child” pornography, as well as in judicial and legislative decisions about a) fraudulent sex science, sex education and b) the way in which media images restructure human brain, mind, memory, and conduct by hijacking rationality. The special emphasis of her Media Forensic research has been and continues to be the scientific documentation of the difference between public and private space human erotic displays, and the subversion of informed consent via exposure to supranormal visual stimuli.
Dr. Reisman is a consultant and former president of The Institute for Media Education and is the scientific adviser for the California Protective Parents Association. She was Principal Investigator and author of the U.S. Department of Justice, Juvenile Justice study, Images of Children, Crime and Violence in Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler (1989), Kinsey, Sex and Fraud (Reisman, et al., 1990) and Soft Porn Plays Hardball (1991), Partner Solicitation Language as a Reflection of Male Sexual Orientation (w/Johnson, 1995), and Kinsey, Crimes & Consequences (1998, 2000) and is a news commentator for WorldNetDaily.com. She has been a consultant to four U.S. Department of Justice administrations, The U.S. Department of Education, as well as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Reisman is listed in numerous Who’s Who biographies such as: Who’s Who in Science & Engineering, International Who’s Who in Sexology, International Who’s Who in Education, Who’s Who of American Women and The World’s Who’s Who of Women. Her scholarly findings have had international legislative and scientific import in the United States, Israel, South Africa, Canada and Australia, while The German Medical Tribune and the British medical journal, The Lancet demanded that the Kinsey Institute be investigated, saying:
The Kinsey reports (one in 1948 on males and the companion five years later) claimed that sexual activity began much earlier in life…. and displayed less horror of age differences and same-sex relationships than anyone at the time imagined. It was as if, to follow Mr. Porter again, “Anything goes”. In Kinsey, Sex and Fraud, Dr. Judith A. Reisman and her colleagues demolish the foundations of the two reports … Kinsey et al … questioned an unrepresentative proportion of prison inmates and sex offenders in a survey of “normal” sexual behavior. Presumably some at least of those offenders were also the sources of information on stimulation to orgasm in young children that can only have come from pedophiles–or so it must be hoped. Kinsey…. has left his former co-workers some explaining to do. The Lancet, (Vol. 337: March 2, 1991, p. 547).
Tim Tate, UNESCO and Amnesty International Award-winning Producer-Director of “Kinsey’s Paedophiles,” Yorkshire Television, Great Britain, 1998: “In the course of producing my documentary-Kinsey’s Paedophiles–it became clear that every substantive allegation Reisman made was not only true but thoroughly sourced with documentary evidence–despite the Kinsey Institute’s reluctance to open its files.”
HER STORY:
By Judith A. Reisman, Ph.D.
I have been asked to introduce myself so that you know something of my life and how I came to discover Kinsey’s child molestation protocol, his false data, his molding of modern sex education and of western sexual culture and conduct, as well as how I came be involved in international governmental hearings on science fraud, child sexual abuse, pornography, drugs and the other critical issues of our time. I will try to touch on the points in my life which may be of most use to readers of this Kinsey expose.
I was born, Judith Ann Gelernter, in 1935 in Newark, New Jersey. Mine was a large and thriving second-generation Jewish-American family, Russian on my maternal side, German on my parental side. Both sets of grandparents had fled persecution in Europe, and upon landing at Ellis Island in New York, they thankfully embraced their adopted country, immediately took up menial labor, and raised large families of achievers.
My father Matthew was born in Massachusetts and my mother Ada in New Jersey. They eventually owned “Matthew’s Sea Food,” which they developed into a prosperous fish business in Irvington, New Jersey. The Gelernter’s held family meetings every few months at Aunt Laura’s large home in South Orange, New Jersey. More than forty adults and dozens of children sat down to dinners tastefully arranged and served, table manners always impeccable. After dinner, without the modern invention of television, political debates raged between my parents and the family. My parents were the radicals of the family. They believed the widely publicized propaganda of a perfect new world order under socialism or communism. None of our mainstream newspapers had ever revealed the multiple millions of Russians murdered by “Uncle Joe” Stalin. Still, all was mended when cousin Ruth sat down at the piano to accompany my father and three aunts, Laura, Shirley and Mary, as they sang old Yiddish and American folk songs in four-part harmony. I was mesmerized.
For me, they were musical giants, singing, swaying, smiling and beckoning. My dad, looked, I thought, movie-star handsome alongside my favorite Aunt Mary, a beautiful red-haired, green-eyed soprano who had rejected an offer from the Metropolitan Opera in order to marry and raise a family.
. . .
I lived at a wonderful time. My mother welcomed me home every day and my father supported anything I did. I was safe among neighbors, uncles or cousins due to the delightfully repressive influence of the time. I married, and the hedge of protection about my life was not breached until 1966 when my 10-year-old daughter was molested by a 13-year-old adored and trusted family friend. She told him to stop, but he persisted. He knew she would like it, he said, he knew from his father’s magazines, Playboy, the only “acceptable” pornography of the time. The boy left the country a few weeks later, after it came to light that my daughter was but one of several neighborhood children he had raped, including his own little brother. My heart was broken for all the families involved.
This appalling event in our lives, I would learn later, was a pattern with juvenile sex offenders, as they are known in law enforcement circles.
I might never have known anything about her violation, except that my daughter slipped into a deep depression. Only after I promised not to call the police would she talk about what happened. After assuring her this was not her fault, I called my dependable, staid aunt who listened sympathetically and declared, “Well Judy, she may have been looking for this herself. Children are sexual from birth.” Stunned, I replied that my child was not seeking sex, and called my Berkeley school chum, Carole, who counseled, “Well Judy, she may have been looking for this herself. You know children are sexual from birth.” I wondered at this same locution from two such different people so separated geographically. I recognized an ideological “party line.” I did not know it then, but as a young mother, I had entered the world according to Kinsey. I would hear and read that “children are sexual from birth” often again. But finaly I would uncover the hidden circumstances surrounding its source.
What will your judge believe? Suppose it was your daughter? As a mother — like the Berkeley (female) officer who finally noticed something was “off” regarding Phillip Garrido’s twoa ccomplices, will “da judge?” be receptive to your story, your kid’s story, or your partner’s story? Will all of them be considered “stories” and then business farmed out to a mediator, because the story now, is, equal parenting, pretty much no matter what….. And we MUST resolve our (irreconciliable?) differences in Conciliation, excuse me, Family Court, because it’s emotionally damaging to have irreconciliable differences with real damages.
I really believe the only way out is to find out who is paying these pipers. My research, to date, shows that it’s NOT just the litigating parents, but the entire taxable workforce. And the organization spouting all this stuff began by dodging taxes itself, allegedly. Go figure!
(THESE few from NAFCJ.net, home page — links may or may not be current, but are searchable):
“Protective Mom Accused of Witchhunt”, 11/23/1999, By Cheryl Romo, LA Daily Journal — Karen Anderson, one of the retaliated protective mothers mentioned in the Insight story, has since obtained hard evidence (cancelled checks) that federal money from fatherhood programs was used without her knowledge to pay-off all court officials in her case. Anderson along with Connie Valentine are heading up NAFCJ’s reform action in California.
A Financial Fiasco Is in the Making, By Kelly Patricia O’Meara, Insight Magazine, Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Association, 2002, still slushing funds
and not paying taxes…
Insight Magazine “Is Justice for Sale in LA?”, By Kelly Patricia O’Meara – Marv Bryer fights against corruption in Los Angeles County Court – the original AFCC court judges’ association, and promoters of Dr. Richard Gardner’s discredited pedophile theory, “PAS” Parental Alienation Syndrome.
Insight Magazine “New Scandals in LA Courts”, By Kelly Patricia O’Meara — Continuation with more of Marv Bryer’s evidence details on an alleged slush fund for the L.A. Superior Court Judges Association (AFCC judges) and the possible extortion of civil litigants by some officers of the court.”
Retaliation Against Professionals Who Report Child Abuse, By Katherine Hine, J.D., Exposé The Failure of Family Courts to Protect Children from Abuse in Custody Disputes, A Resource Book for Lawmakers, Judges, Attorneys and Mental Health Professionals.
I’m still looking at the googled “Marv Bryer” myself: here’s a sample of printouts:
Videos: Interview with Marvin Bryer – Naples, Fl | Naples Daily News
Marvin Bryer talks about getting to see Obama – Video taken in or around Naples, Florida.
http://www.naplesnews.com/videos/detail/interview-marvin–bryer/ – Cached – SimilarHave you Ever Heard of Marvin Bryer
3 posts – 3 authors – Last post: Dec 28, 2008Have you Ever Heard of Marvin Bryer. … It starts at about Minute 50 about Marvin Bryer. The below document indicates some of the stuff …
forum.prisonplanet.com › … › General Discussion – Cached – SimilarIRS Non-Profit Organization
Dec 21, 1998 … A letter has been sent by Marvin Bryer to the IRS alerting them of this scam; the attendant mis-use of government facilities; …
http://www.johnnypumphandle.com/cc/irscpa.htm – Cached – SimilarBryer Tort Claim of 9/10/98
May 8, 1999 … Enter Marvin Bryer, a retired computer analyst in La Crescenta, Calif. . . . . Bryer became ensnared with the family-court system after his …
http://www.johnnypumphandle.com/cc/bryr0910.htm – Cached – Similar
You know what? Maybe the love of money IS the root of all evil. Not using it, not having it, but loving it more than, say, children. Or oaths of office, etc.
Exposing & Prosecuting
Judicial Corruption thru
Common Law Discovery
by Marvin Bryer [1997]
DISCLAIMER: Note, this seems to be a survivalist, gun-toting, all-American (you get the picture), I’d say for sure conservative site. I am just curious to read the Marv Bryer article, and don’t know if this represents his philosophy either. Sort through it, though.
THE THING IS:
If you are going to the fruit stand in a store, are you going to sort and pick through apples for the good ones? Or pick a pre-bagged, inspected, certified organic (etc.) one, whose packaging you trust? Or, alternately, skip apples for today.
They say one bad apple spoils the whole bunch. When you get divorced and can’t figure it out OUTside court, you must go INSIDE, and in this case, you can’t forum-shop or judge shop. Remember, if there is conflict within a family, the parents just lost jurisdiction, acc. to that old law (see last few posts). Your kids and your life are no longer your own.
Therefore it’s IMPERATIVE that ALL financial incentives to defraud the public be removed for ALL judges. This ain’t going to be a walk in the park, and I wish that the Moms and Dads both (the honest ones) would quit yakking about social science studies and do their math homework.
Hope you appreciate this sacrifice of my own internet time just made to day. Have a nice day… and Let’s Get HONEST! And make sure our public officials do also!
Thanks.
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While you were sleeping: How Congress got into the Family Law business…
2016 BLOGGER UPDATE on this December 5, 2009 post:
In an April 3, 2016 post, I searched for documentation on the history of the Access and Visitation grants back in the 1980s, as part of a time-line of the domestic violence industry. These grants are STILL discussed so infrequently, in general, that my own 12/5/2009 “While you were sleeping” post here (as quoted by “Fearless Fathers” 3 days later) was one of the search results.
That post title and the two short links on it posted as far back as December 2009 (within one year of when I began blogging) and found when I didn’t even have access to a normal laptop, almost “says it all.”
I briefly cleaned up formatting in this older (now over five years old) post, added borders and some background color plus lines around quotes (which I didn’t know how to do at the time), and below that will copy, in different background-color, the text on the same subject matter from 2016 post, “Can You Tell the “Tells” of the DV (so-called) Cartel? It’s Show-and-Tell Time.” That was my 15th post of 2016 — see the Table of Contents here.
It took me longer than a few months (a few years) to put together, from the timeline of major domestic violence prevention groups, that most of them probably knew all along about the influence of the HHS-sponsored (at the time, HEW-sponsored, as HHS only came into being 1990, but some key DV groups were formed in 1980 (“Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs” in Duluth, MN), 1989 (“Futures without Violence”), or earlier) strategically positioned ACCESS and VISITATION GRANTS of first $4M (1988 dollars) then $10M (1996 dollars)/year and MARRIAGE/FATHERHOOD, about 15 times larger annual appropriations than the A/V.
These domestic violence nonprofits at the leadership level did not inform their “clients,” typically battered and abused women with or without children, about the Access and Visitation grants those clients who were MOTHERS would be up against, by virtue of their not being fathers, and by virtue, as it applied, of their having custody of the children and there even being a (male) “Noncustodial” parent. It was social public welfare policy!
This old post stands as a simple testimony that IF certain information is available, other parts of major systems start to make sense, and if it is not, they simply do not. Therefore, in my opinion, one of the larger “crimes” in responding to domestic violence, and evidence itself of an abusive approach to the target population being helped, is to withhold timely information which, if NOT withheld, might lead to a different strategic decision on the part of that individual parent. For example, SOME individual parents may decide whether or not to go up against the largest grant-making federal agency around in seeking to protect their children and do it by way of the family courts.
I found this on-line yesterday [12/4/2009], it appears to date to JUNE 2000.
Congressional Research Service
Report 97-590
CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT AND VISITATION: SHOULD THERE BE A FEDERAL CONNECTION?
Carmen D. Solomon-Fears, Education and Public Welfare Division
Updated June 20, 2000
Found at this link: http://stuff.mit.edu/afs/sipb/contrib/wikileaks-crs/wikileaks-crs-reports/97-590.pdf
Abstract.
From time to time, the issue arises of whether the federal Child Support Enforcement (CSE)program should be actively involved in enforcing visitation rights. Both federal and state policymakers agree that denial of visitation rights should not be considered a reason for stopping child support payments.
AVAILABLE HERE — and I’m going to add it to my bloglinks. It’s ONLY 7 pages long, and provides a summary background of HOW the Federal Government got to be “in the family way.” The rationale was TANF/Welfare. That was the chink in the door.
The question arises, in my mind at least — what major institutions and practices in this nation are creating the welfare population to start with? The 2 largest areas of expenditure in the government are two agencies: 1. Health and Human Service, and 2. Education. The others, are smaller. Go to at least usaspending.gov and look at the pie chart, and take a look. Why are the courts and the child support agencies in the business of education, at which the educational system is already failing, clearly?
http://stuff.mit.edu/afs/sipb/contrib/wikileaks-crs/wikileaks-crs-reports/97-590.pdf
Recommended reading for the uninitiated, for example:
Is the Federal Government Becoming Too Intrusive in Family Law Policy?
[[Ya-THINK? Just perhaps MAYBE? This shows the rationale…]]
Congress does not have general authority to pass laws dealing with family law issues, unless there is a connection or “nexus” between such legislation and one of the areas in which it is authorized to act. In the case of the CSE program, the federal nexus is the …
H.R. 3073, the Fathers Count Act of 1999, would provide $140 million in grants over four years to public and private entities to achieve three purposes: (1) promote marriage, (2) promote successful parenting, and (3) help noncustodial parent improve their economic status. H.R. 3073 was passed by the House on November 10, 1999, but has not been acted on by the Senate.
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Rocky Mountain High– if you’re in one of these professions…
or should I say, Rocky Mountain HYbrid? Sure looks like one here….
A.k.a. Carpet Bagging on Divorce Distress, at high altitudes…
I just had an odd question: Why is SF’s famous, and well-established Family Violence Prevention Fund, a pace-setter and leader in the field of violence preVENtion conferences and training, promoting conferences like this?
I mean, I just got on “endabuse.org” and searched for “family law,” to see if they actually address some of the rampant troubles with the family law system. After all, they are a FAMILY violence prevention fund….
Here are links on top right, first page”:
Do you see anything about preventing violence against WOMEN? In fact, women show up, if they’re immigrants. A search of “fathers” versus a search of “mothers” on this site pull up entirely different stats — you should try it some time.
This came up on page 1 of search results, only the 4th item:
clipped from Google – 11/2009
The Association of Family and Conciliation Courts 46th annual conference will be held at the Sheraton New Orleans and will examine how family law research, practices and processes have evolved.** It will feature 70 workshops, including three-hour advanced sessions, three plenary sessions and a choice of six daylong pre-conference institutes.Sessions will address challenges to conventional child custody wisdom including assertions about 50/50 parenting, the child’s role in the process, the resiliency of children after divorce, the changing role of court systems in resolving family disputes, and more. For more information, click here.
…
**:have evolved.” Wake up. Want to know how? Look at AFCC’s “About us” or history page — this was not accident, it was intentional transformation, and “how” they evolved was particularly through conferences such as the AFCC puts on, policies which the FVPF has now more overtly (i’m not sure for how long they were ever truly independent) bought into….
I DID “click here,” which brought me not to New Orleans, but to Denver. At which point, this post was conceived and “evolved” — we deserve to know that the organization called “endabuse” is advertising for, and sponsoring conferences for, the organization that is promoting doctrines specifically originated to cover up domestic VIOLENCE (not “abuse”), Child Abuse (is the term, although it does violence to children), and incest, etc. . . . To cover up criminal behavior and change it into something else, linguistically.
/ / / / /
Let me clarify “AFCC”, in case you’re under 20, IN one of these professions, and haven’t been a parent involved in divorce: Custody Switches Happen. HOW do they happen? When something is confronted by one parent, or reported by a children, generally speaking. WHY does this occur? Well, a variety of reasons, but generally in retaliation for reporting. (From what I can see). I mean, what’s the common (?) or $$-and-cents for pulling a sole-custody switch midway through a growing child’s life? It’s $$ and sense from a certain perspective… The “best interests” of the child is not as common sense as we might wish to think (see my blog on slavery & domestic violence, a recent one).
But I’m blabbing here: AFCC, per Liz Richards of NAFCJ.net, and I have to agree after my studies, at least of grants patterns and some of the printed materials, not to mention experiences:
This and other factors show that the fathers rights movement was a creation of a ring [of] judges who dominate the family court system and public policy in many states. These judges are not only hearing a large percentage of domestic litigation, they are also writing the state laws covering custody, divorce and child support. In addition they influence HHS-ACF agency which controls most of the grant funds going to the state level agencies and courts. Their people are getting the grants and using for the fathers rights cases.
READ ABOUT THESE GROUPS TO COMPREHEND THE EXTENT OF THIS COLLUSIONAFCC: Association of Family and Conciliation Courts
“AFCC is the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts – an interdisciplinary and international association of professionals dedicated to the resolution of family conflict.” . . . .The AFCC claims their focus is on training judges, custody evaluators and mediators about custody and divorce issues. But in reality they are a father focused organization and promoting alienation theories to explain away family violence by men. In reality they act as a “clearinghouse” for organized case rigging. They hold conferences about parental alienation but never mention the many professional experts who have condemned it [[using this PAS to retaliate against those reporting abuse, including sometimes sexual abuse of minors]]as harmful to children or the link to incest promoter Richard Gardner. Their scheme involves “recruiting” male litigants through fathers groups and federal HHS programs managed by the local child support agencies for program “services” which are ostensibly for helping non-custodial fathers get their visitation rights so they would have less incentive to default on child support obligations.
The LEGAL disincentive for defaulting on child support obligations is a contempt of a court order action. There was no problem in using this against the protective mother in Oconto Wisconsin, recently, so I know the judges “understand” the concept. But when a father is involved, somehow we need to give them “incentive” to care about their children’s welfare by helping “bribe” (you give me this, I may give you that, perhaps) them to carry this out in the form of stepping up to that child support plate. That alone is suspect to me, as well as many other aspects of the child support system.. . . . . Women are supposed to care, men have to be bribed to?
ALSO, Is that what any type of courts are FOR? To resolve family conflict? I thought that’s what counseling and therapy was for. Sounds like we have a confusion of purposes somewhere (and should throw out the Constitution as irrelevant, as well as laws). ANYHOW, here they are:
| Exhibit and advertise at AFCC 47Th Annual Conference June 2-5, 2010 Denver, Colorado More information>> |
AFCC Training Programs In Baltimore, Maryland December 7-8 & 9-10, 2009More information >> |
AFCC Training Programs In Houston, Texas February 22-23 & 24-25, 2010More information >> |
Subscribe to the AFCC free Monthly eNews Subscribe>> |
‘Traversing the Trail of Alienation: Mountains of Emotion, Mile High Conflict‘
…AFCC’s Annual Conference is the premiere event for family law, mental health and dispute resolution professionals. AFCC’s 47th Annual Conference will bring together between 800-1000 judges, lawyers, mediators, social workers, psychologists, parenting coordinators, parent educators and others.
I’d like to pause here for a brief prayer: “Lord, deliver us from all do-gooders, parent educators, and unsolicited profiteering helpers that may cross my life, or my children’s this day, in Jesus name, Amen.” (I’d rather SEE a sermon than attend a parenting seminar any day. This is parenting: you get your kids SAFE, FIRST, and teach them right from wrong based on behavior, character — not family function. You do not assault & batter yourself, and you protect them from those who do, to the best of your ability, and empathize at least when you can’t. How many of those parenting educators have actually GONE through what family law system has put us through, and after DV, too in many cases? Moreover, I’m not paid for being a mother. In some contexts, doing this can be criminalized as resulting in family “conflict,” i.e., taking a stand somwhere along the line!)
The exhibitor forum is centrally located in a high traffic area near conference beverage breaks and is designed to maximize visibility of exhibitors. Exhibitors receive admission to all conference sessions, meal functions and networking opportunities, including AFCC’s famous Hospitality Suite.
Don’t miss this great opportunity to build your business with AFCC
Join AFCC for a look at innovations and interventions for addressing our most difficultwork. This conference will build on a special issue of
guest edited by Dr. Barbara Fidler and Professor Nicholas Bala. The program and journal will examine the latest interventions
designed to address family conflict involving allegations of alienation, featuring unique perspectives from
judges, lawyers, mental health and dispute resolution professionals.
Family Court Review on alienation, forthcoming in January 2010,
FVPF should not be promoting this! Why are they? Oh– I forgot to tell you:
| Fiscal Year | OPDIV | Grantee Name | City | Award Title | CFDA Program Name | Principal Investigator | Sum of Actions |
| 2009 | ACF | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND | SAN FRANCISCO | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION & SERVICES | Family Violence Prevention and Services/Grants for Battered Women’s Shelters: Discretionary Grants | ESTA SOLER | $- 1 |
| 2009 | ACF | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND | SAN FRANCISCO | SPECIAL ISSUE RESOURCE CENTERS FOR INFORMATION AND TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE | Family Violence Prevention and Services/Grants for Battered Women’s Shelters: Discretionary Grants | DEBBIE LEE | $ 1,353,812 |
| 2009 | DHHS/OS | Family Violence Prevention Fund | SAN FRANCISCO | FY09 HEALTH CARE PROVIDER RESPONSE TO VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN – EDUCATION, TRAINING AND TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAM | Advancing System Improvements to Support Targets for Healthy People 2010 (ASIST2010) | LISA JAMES | $ 31,000 |
| 2008 | ACF | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND | SAN FRANCISCO | SPECIAL ISSUE RESOURCE CENTERS FOR INFORMATION AND TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE | Family Violence Prevention and Services/Grants for Battered Women’s Shelters: Discretionary Grants | DEBBIE LEE | $ 1,323,812 |
| 2007 | ACF | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND | SAN FRANCISCO | SPECIAL ISSUE RESOURCE CENTERS FOR INFORMATION AND TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE | Family Violence Prevention and Services/Grants for Battered Women’s Shelters: Discretionary Grants | DEBBIE LEE | $ 1,394,127 |
| 2006 | ACF | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND | SAN FRANCISCO | SPECIAL ISSUE RESOURCE CENTERS FOR INFORMATION AND TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE | Family Violence Prevention and Services/Grants for Battered Women’s Shelters: Discretionary Grants | DEBBIE LEE | $ 1,145,872 |
| 2005 | ACF | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND | SAN FRANCISCO | CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT | Child Abuse and Neglect Discretionary Activities | ESTA SOLER | $ 496,000 |
| 2005 | ACF | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND | SAN FRANCISCO | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION & SERVICES | Family Violence Prevention and Services/Grants for Battered Women’s Shelters: Discretionary Grants | ESTA SOLER | $ 1,240,689 |
| 2004 | ACF | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND | SAN FRANCISCO | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION & SERVICES | Family Violence Prevention and Services/Grants for Battered Women’s Shelters: Discretionary Grants | ESTA SOLER | $ 1,215,689 |
| 2003 | ACF | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND | SAN FRANCISCO | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION & SERVICES | Family Violence Prevention and Services/Grants for Battered Women’s Shelters: Discretionary Grants | ESTA SOLER | $ 1,133,236 |
| 2003 | CDC | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND | SAN FRANCISCO | PUBLIC HEALTH CONFERENCE SUPPORT COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention_Investigations and Technical Assistance | ESTA SOLER, PRESIDENT | $ 102,186 |
| 2002 | ACF | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND | SAN FRANCISCO | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION & SERVICES | Family Violence Prevention and Services/Grants for Battered Women’s Shelters: Discretionary Grants | ESTA SOLER | $ 1,113,796 |
| 2001 | ACF | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND | SAN FRANCISCO | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION & SERVICES | Family Violence Prevention and Services/Grants for Battered Women’s Shelters: Discretionary Grants | ESTA SOLER | $ 958,542 |
| 2000 | ACF | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND | SAN FRANCISCO | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION & SERVICES – SPECIAL ISSUE RESOURCE CENTER | Family Violence Prevention and Services/Grants for Battered Women’s Shelters: Discretionary Grants | ESTA SOLER | $ 804,542 |
| 1999 | ACF | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND | SAN FRANCISCO | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION & SERVICES – SPECIAL ISSUE RESOURCE CENTER | Family Violence Prevention and Services/Grants for Battered Women’s Shelters: Discretionary Grants | ESTA SOLER | $ 698,710 |
| 1998 | ACF | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND | SAN FRANCISCO | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION & SERVICES | Family Violence Prevention and Services/Grants for Battered Women’s Shelters: Discretionary Grants | ESTA SOLER | $ 50,000 |
| 1998 | ACF | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND | SAN FRANCISCO | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION & SERVICES – SPECIAL ISSUE RESOURCE CENTER | Family Violence Prevention and Services/Grants for Battered Women’s Shelters: Discretionary Grants | ESTA SOLER | $ 678,710 |
| 1998 | ACF | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND | SAN FRANCISCO | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION SERVICES | Family Violence Prevention and Services/Grants for Battered Women’s Shelters: Discretionary Grants | LRNI MARIN | $ 50,000 |
| 1997 | ACF | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND | SAN FRANCISCO | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION & SERVICES – SPECIAL ISSUE RESOURCE CENTER | Family Violence Prevention and Services/Grants for Battered Women’s Shelters: Discretionary Grants | ESTA SOLER | $ 637,604 |
| 1997 | ACF | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND | SAN FRANCISCO | P.A. FV-03-93 – DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: HEALTH CARE & ACCESS: SIRC | Family Violence Prevention and Services/Grants for Battered Women’s Shelters: Discretionary Grants | JANET NUDELMAN | $- 9,549 |
| 1995 | ACF | FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND | SAN FRANCISCO | P.A. FV-03-93 – DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: HEALTH CARE & ACCESS: SIRC | Family Violence Prevention and Services/Grants for Battered Women’s Shelters: Grants to States and Indian Tribes
|
JANET NUDELMAN | $ 451,525 |
Do you see the word “discretionary” in the “grants to shelters” ??label? Really, it’s about conferences and training, not actually STOPPING violence. For another, perhaps, because they can: I mean — this is 2009, alone.
| Recipient Name | State | Federal Funding (for this search) | DUNS Number |
|---|---|---|---|
| FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION FUND | California | $10,825,813 | 618375687 |
Funding is going GREAT for THIS nonprofit:
Assistance to Recipient(s) “family violence prevention fund”
(FY 2000-2010)
| Federal dollars: $33,745,685 Total number of recipients: 1 Total number of transactions: 67 |
Look at which branches are funding it now — the best of both worlds, from HHS and DOJ both. One is promoting fatherhood through federal grants, another is spouting out millions (and that’s literally) to organizations like this, and others, to “train” judges how to recognize domestic violence (clue: look in the law, look at the facts, look at the bleeding, look at the casualties) and be good and address it, supposedly.
Top 5 Agencies Providing Assistance
| DOJ – Office of Justice Programs | $18,464,457 |
| HHS – Secy. of Health and Human Services | $11,107,290 |
| HHS – Administration for Children and Families | $4,071,752 |
| HHS – Centers for Disease Control and Prevention | $102,186 |
HERE”s the CALIFORNIA chapter of AFCC, transforming the words “clear and present danger” (lifted DIRECTLY from the legislature’s own definition of a spousal batterer) into a budget crisis — which the same group has contributed to!
Whose children ARE they now? Are they your subject matter or the progeny of two parents? When you see a kid, do you see a $$ sign for your profession?
Apparently so, and government grants to ENDABUSE.org going to promote AFCC — a membership charging organization — for professionals to hawk their wares, while too many parents are UNaware of it.
Which I hope to stop, obviously!
That’s what I call Carpetbagging, no matter what the altitude.
Would like to analyze a bit more, but time and technical limitations prevent. Check this out yourself….
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From “Our Bodies, Ourselves” to “Our Courts, Ourselves”…
The topic of mediation, especially mandatory mediation, is a hot one within the family court venue, and particularly among domestic violence advocates. Many have come up opposed to it.
On the other side of the fence (??) are those who are advocating mediation to cut down on the caseload in these courts, and attempt to reconcile opposing parties for the best interests of the children, supposedly.
While looking through the RAND corporation policy papers, available on-line, I was astounded to find almost nothing whatsoever on violence against4 women, or women per se (although there were articles about the education gap for men and boys of color, with the kneejerk recommendation, more and earlier preschool. I happen to disagree, I think there’s enough subject matter for child development scholars to study throughout the educational, penal, and court institutions in this country already…). There was next to nothing current on domestic violence, although a few articles dating back to 2004/2005 actually used this word.
However, there is this interesting take on mediation. My limited technique can’t paste in the image, so I recommend taking a look at:
All I’m going to say about Our Bodies, Ourselves, is that it is reminiscent of the feminist movement (after all, these ARE our bodies, if it’s women involved), and another era. For more info, read Dr. Phyllis Chesler, including Women & Madness, Mothers on Trial, and Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman. Don’t forget to also take a serious look at Honor Killings vs. Domestic violence (articles), and so forth.
Now about, Our Courts Ourselves — I believe a takeoff on that title:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/reprints/2005/RP1090.pdf
“Our Courts, Ourselves: how the Alternative Dispute Resolution Movement is Reshaping Our Legal System.”
It says plainly what I have deduced, in using the phrase “Designer Family” and in sarcastically stating that a world without conflict IS indeed possible — if everyone is drugged, asleep, or simply not paying attention. . . . . Which appears to be an imminent possibility, or business goal in some arenas… I mean, as slavery is supposedly abolished, SOMEONE has to do life’s dirty work, for cheap or free…. Women got the vote, heck what next? ???
This tends to verify my observations: (from page 168, Section II, “Puritans Populists and Utopians.”)…
Members of America’s utopian societies yearned for social harmony and eschewed conflict. One of their goals was to eliminate adversarial legal processes. In Edward Bellamy’s Utopia, depicted in his wildly popular 1988 novel Looking Backward, citizens are inducted into the armies of a corporatist state into which all contribute and from which all receive the necessities of life….
Are you frightened yet?
As communitarian values replace private interest, economic competition, social conflict and adversarial processes are eliminated…Wise citizens take the place of judges and juries in deciding how and when to punish bad behavior, lawyers’ services become superfluous, and the law itself is discarded.
(My quote here, since I can’t cut & paste from the pdf, is from memory, for speed — check source yourself)
Bellamy’s novel inspired a new political movement called Nationalism, comprised of a series of grassroots organizations dedicated to creating a utopian society devoid of economic and social conflict and gave rise to the establishment of the Populist Party.. . .
Many in the Nationalist Movement had ties with Theosophy, a contemporary religious movement…. substituting “Universal brotherhood and cooperation for competition..” but the roots of Theosophy lay in spiritualism, and elevating the divine spirit within the individual. Their leaders eschewed social justice and activism, and eventually the movements parted paths.
To those who are somewhat versed in one of the “Abrahamic” religions (i.e., Judaism, Christianity, Islam), this utopian vision and non-involvement in social justice are at odds with fundamental beliefs that man’s nature needs redemption (i.e., “the Fall”) and that a future resurrection and judgement await.
At the very least, then, this utopian philosophy goes against the core of a substantial portion of the world’s population. Experientially, someone has to become the “wise citizens” and of a supposedly superior, elitist, caste to inform and educate the plebians in how to get along.
The philosophy that CONFLICT is bad, and that PEACE AT ANY PRICE (and sacrificing safety, or justice in the process) is the primary good is — to my reading — a violence against the concept of justice, balance and equity.
Hence, the jargon calling a divorce or process in which women protesting abuse of themselves, or their children, even when sexual abuse has been involved and documented, a “high-conflict” custody comes from this worldview. That is not the primary characteristic — only according to a certain view.
As to “our bodies, ourselves,” an 11 year old in Wisconsin and (I recently heard) a 14 year old in Michigan, have learned that they are property, not people. Michaela Tipton went back to her father to get her mother out of jail. A young man, A student, spent a night in detention for refusing to visit his father also.
http://www.macombdaily.com/articles/2009/11/21/news/srv0000006883874.txt#blogcomments
Teenager incarcerated for refusing to visit his father
Published: Saturday, November 21, 2009
A 14-year-old boy was thrown into the county youth home overnight and handcuffed for about four hours after refusing to follow a judge’s order to visit his father, as part of an ongoing custody case.
The boy, Jacob Mastrogiovanni of Warren, was ordered Thursday to spend three days in the youth home by family court Judge John Foster, who lifted the sentenced Friday following protests by his mother and a night of incarceration for her son.
The uncommon occurrence of a contempt of
court sentence for a child in a child custody dispute angered his mother, Dawn Platevoet, and several of her relatives, including the boy’s grandmother. They picketed in front of the county courthouse in downtown Mount Clemens on Thursday and Friday, garnering media attention.
“A judge shouldn’t throw an all-A student in jail for refusing to visit his father,” Platevoet said. “There are other ways to handle the situation, and apparently the judge agreed because he let him out.”
Jacob was slated to remain in the Juvenile Justice Center until 7 p.m. Sunday but was released by Foster about 12:30 p.m. Friday. Foster had Jacob brought from the youth home in handcuffs about 8:30 a.m. Friday to appear in front of him in Macomb County Circuit Court later that morning. Jacob waited in a holding cell.Moments after he was released Friday, Jacob said Foster didn’t specify why he freed him.
“He said that I don’t decide whether I see my dad or not,” Jacob said. “It was kind of like a warning, this time, I guess.”
Foster’s secretary said the judge did not want to comment.Jacob and Platevoet wouldn’t delve into many details of why he won’t visit his father, Victor Mastrogiovanni of Chesterfield Township. She said Jacob began resisting in July following an unspecified incident.
They said when Jacob has visited Mastrogiovanni recently that he is forced to stay in his room without any contact.
On Foster’s order, the three have been attending weekly counseling sessions since early September. {{That’s the racket, folks…}} But they and the therapist have been unable to resolve the disagreement.
Platevoet and Mastrogiovanni never married and have had some disputes for years {{OBviously. The boy is 14!}}regarding custody and support issues, they said.
Mastrogiovanni, who has been married for two years and has a 15-month-old child, [[IE 2nd marriage, new kid]]said he did not want to comment specifically about the dispute.
“I love my kid very much and want what’s best for him,” he said.
Platevoet said she would like her son to visit his dad but can’t force him.
“What am I supposed to do? Grab him by the back of the head and put him in the car?” she said. “He’s a teenager and wants to do teenager things.”
She said Jacob “listens to me” about other things but not about the visits
//
ANYHOW, you are either awake or asleep in this matter about trying to create a utopian society where wise citizens (NOT due process and facts/evidence, etc.) choose punishments, and where all the requirements of life are also obtained from the state. Hence, “Health & Human Services.”
The question is, Who is Being Served? And being served What?
2nd largest federal expenditure, Educational Department, making sure (that’s a laugh!) no child left behind. What isn’t being openly marketed — where they are marching, goosestep style, who is paying the drummer, and what is the origin of the tune. Not only can we not make medical or health choices for our kids, we as a populace aren’t smart enough to resource or network our life choices and also help them get educated.
You cannot really deal with the courts entirely separate from the educational system. For one, the courts are trying to run cleanup after educational (moral/value) failures, all at the expense of taxpayers (not those who can write off expenses as business owners and investors, etc.). For another, I am simply not interested in an oligarchy, a dictatorship, or any of that. After all, it’s my own body here, and the children that came out of it are NOT state property, or fodder for others’ professional careers in psychology, mental health, law, pharmacology, etc. I respected their father’s contact with them, and the law. In return from this, I lost all contact with them, and made a mockery of the process.
Several entities are laughing all the way to the bank on this one. The thing is, to get an audit of those statements.
Anyhow — take a look at that rand document — it’s for sure informative. Then also realize that what takes place through the courts, when it does — that’s not mediation in the proper sense of the word. That’s basically program marketing, and “required outcome enforcement” from things such as the Access Visitation Grants, Responsible Fatherhood/Marriage, and such-like.
Enough for today!
Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 
Mile-High Emotions, Abysmal Logic in (and around) Jamison’s SFWeekly articles
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With graphics like THESE (gaggged and bound woman in a chair drawing, by Fred Noland)and the Broken-child’s arm graphics on earlier article, backlash is guaranteed, even though gag orders have become part of the Family Law weaponry against exposure. But the article is not talking about Gag orders, although the ACLU has gotten some of them off in family law cases…
(Source: Article “Family Courts Need Reform, say Judges, Legislators”
Note: The title says “Judges and Legislators” and mentions one judge (who is not ‘reforming” but business as usual — as I’ll show — and one legislator, only).
The original one, March 2nd, had this graphic, hardly about to win friends, or encourage rational debate, seen at
California Family Courts Helping Pedophiles, Batterers Get Child Custody
I tried (you can see, on there….)…
Attempt to Trash a person after attempt to demolish reasoning failed:
Even got a piece of hate-mail on here, by someone I deduce came in the door “hating” and with a specific comment on the brain. It being an open forum, I engaged. Disengaging might be a little harder — but this does qualify some of the behavior on the anti-Mom side of the debate, at its most vicious when another female is doing the dirty work, posting under “Female with a Brain.” I questioned, based on the dialogue, what she was doing with hers. Here’s a sample — posted yesterday evening on this blog:
I could, generally speaking that as, trailer-talk, designed to cut through — well, I post a lot of prose, and links, surely it can be annoying. Same poster was mixing up identities of several others on-line, libeled one, and was warned by her about it, etc. So, that’s why fewer posts recently – I was on the high-traffic California blog getting some information out. Generally speaking, neutral readers will learn more from the comments (pro, con, and threatening) than the articles themselves.
(note — posted here only for an example of the level of “discourse” at street level around court decisions made in high places)
FamilyCourtMatters gest few commens, but for reference, the SFWeekly terms of use will apply, and any more talk like that of course will not be approved. Keep your hate to yourself. I’ve already experienced stalking — this woulnd’t be the first threat either, and my appearance, gender, color (or hair color), height, weight, dress, and marital status are not relevant to whether or not someone is paying off one of your legislators, judges, or federal grants to the states program administrators.
Speaking of which….
This is my comment that may or may not be approved at the SFWeekly FOLLOWup article to the March 2nd, 2011 “California Family Courts” one that now has 1,700 comments.
The follow-up article is, essentially, another PR piece, I believe, dodging the primary issues. However, it’s HERE:
“Parental Alienation Syndrome — The Judge Just Isn’t Buying It“
The Judge in question was head of the Elkins Family Law Task Force. And (incidentally) on the Board of Directors of AFCC, an organization which absolutely has bought — or, rather, is selling — “Parental Alienation Syndrome.” What appears to have brought it is the investigation behind investigative reporting (either that, or someone “bought” the article — a professional favor, or what? Or is this level of denial FREE, being so common….)
Should I write the Judge and ask her to verify that quote (and say, when it happened, in what context?)
Who do they think she — or for that matter, the Elkins Family Law Task force IS? Guess no one looked to close:
I just Submitted – will it be posted?:
Or has the entire series of articles, PR work for one theme, already been structured, and will go ahead as planned? This article mentions a Judge Jerilyn Borack, lightly, and Mark Leno. I spent time last night looking up Leno’s funding at maplight.org, and found out that Judge Borack is on the Board of Directors of one of THE premier PAS-promoters around, the AFCC (Association of Family and Conciliation Courts) who are, virtually, the heart-throb of the family law system, and have been identified as very likely proceeding from a Los Angeles County Judges’ (slush fund) decades ago. So at what point can “investigative reporting” protesting “PAS” be labeled, correctly, plain old “negligent”? If you’re concerned about PAS, then find out WHO is promoting it.
Here is a link to the 2009 AFCC conference brochure, co-sponsored by the Santa Clara County Superior Court (do you think this might relate to a Santa Clara County case reporting in the last article?)
And this is what the organization’s purpose is (self-described):”$205 single/double (may explain why low-incomie parents, or parents devastated through years of family court litigation, perhaps, didn’t attend.
The other reason – so few advocates told them about this organization!Professionals dedicated to improving lives of children and families through the resolution of family conflict.”{{Note — this doens’t exactly highlight the due process and legal functions….}}
Who is AFCC? Well, brochure describes the organization:
“AFCC California Chapter
Although AFCC is a truly international organization, it began in California in 1963. Its original purpose was to provide continuing, specialized education for judicial officers, attorneys, and mental health professionals working with family court issues. Now there are over 3,600 members of AFCC in approximately 24 countries, and its headquarters are located in Madison, Wisconsin. Indeed, most AFCC activity takes place at national and international levels. California, with nearly 400 members, is one of ten U.S. states with a local chapter. The California Chapter has served an important role in the state’s training of family-law judicial officers, mediators, evaluators, counselors, and attorneys.”
Oh, not worth mentioning in a press release about poor custody decisions or what might have led to them …..
.ANd here’s (on this brochure) is Judge Borack, mentioned in your article:”
Here’s you (the article), quoting her opinion on PAS:
**why isn’t the word “admissible” in quotes also? Has our Judge been misquoted, or said “I don’t think it is” in answer to some other question?
By Contrast, here’s some of the conference material — and this is typical:(I searched “alienation” on this conference agenda (it’s on most of them. It occurred 10 times. For example, here’s an upcoming workshop:)
“W12 Interventions with Alienated Children and their Parents: Evolution and Innovation”
I can’t bold words on-line, but do you notice a certain recurring theme, and attitude there?
So, assuming you have quoted this highly-positioned judge correctly, she is talking out of both sides of her mouth. OR, knows that –whether or not it’s admissible in a courtroom is irrelevant. Because the intent of this organization is to run “interventions,” where possible, for “alienation.” So what if it’s junk science, or inadmissible? With the amount of excess characters around the courtroom (and expensive conferences where they can get together the next set of policy for each other), who cares?
NB: California Judicial Council / AOC /CFCC also boasts a few AFCC members of this group. They are not a neutral, “best interests of the children” organization. They are a self-service, business-propagating trade organization that has a captive clientele, and gets government funding to add to the business they drum up.
In 2010, the conference (then only $165) was in Denver, and even bore the title of “alienation”!”
47th Annual Conference Denver, ColoradoTraversing the Trail of AlienationRocky RelationshipsMountains of EmotionMile High Conflict”
Denver is a significant locale for groups helping run the courts. Time you found out about them (email me, I’ll send a list). It’s becoming clear to mothers, not just fathers (who should stop complaining — they have AFCC and Fathers Rights orgs in their camp, or so they assume, already) — that these are simply PR pieces in an alternative newspaper calling attention to the organizations behind them.
ANOTHER POINT: The graphics in both articles are going to naturally draw fire from opposing viewpoints. I want you to be alert to the factor that this is going to HURT some mothers, individually, in a backlash which may hit home personally — or, may hurt their children in custody of someone who is tired of this type of reporting.
The gray adult hand BREAKING a child’s arm on a purple background, and this one (though I agree, gag orders happen, and as a mother, I felt gagged in my own court case– no one cares about evidence in there) — are violent, emotional, and will drag down the conversations.This is a lose/lose situation for the litigants with minor children still and open court cases — and a “win/win” for both sets of advocating nonprofits and professionals.
What was your real intent in this? Please have a heart-to-heart somewhere. We are blogging, and eventually, these blogs are going to make articles like this look as foolish as they are.It’s not about PAS. That’s the excuse. It’s also not primarily about domestic violence (sorry, but there is an overriding theme). It’s about business for those in the business of failing to fix the family court system. These already have been times that tried OUR souls. Until you get to that point, I doubt anything I wrote will sink in.I’m not going to continue posting on this article as on the last one. I will blog, though. This tunnel vision is outrageous.
Even a site “In the Best Interests of the Child” (local, I believe, to Bay Area, and run by professionals) took the time to rehash someone else’s work on this AFCC organization:This is a good primer. Take a look:
http://www.stopcourtorderedchildabuse.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/scoca/newpage.pl?h=7&p=1&v=off&l=English
Time to start asking why no one, almost, even bothers to report on this organization!
Note. This blog (though not well-formatted) is a gold-mine of references, and points of reference for those willing to look. I may not be investing a lot more time in it from here on, have other ideas of how to effect some court reforms, and leave it up as an FYI site (as well as record of my opinions on these things). I’ve heard that it has some judges running a little scared (I don’t see that all the Crisis in the Courts movement really has) — which tells me, it’s a little closer to the mark than some.
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Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up
March 25, 2011 at 11:27 am
Posted in History of Family Court
Tagged with AFCC, Due process, obfuscation, Peter Jamison SFWeekly, social commentary, women's rights