Archive for December 2009
A gash under the eye and a slap on the wrist for: NY Senator Monserrate
Now HOW many $$ going to NY state for:
- DV prevention
- Abstinence counseling
- Marriage promotion?
Let’s practice what we pass funding for, OK?
Monserrate and Giraldo have been under a court order not to see each other since shortly after their violent encounter was caught on video last December. She sought to have the order lifted and said Friday that the two planned to marry, but the judge kept the protection order in place. Giraldo once again said it was an accident when Monserrate smashed a glass into her face, causing bloody injuries that required 40 stitches. “I want to be with him, and I want to continue to be with him,” she said through an interpreter. During the unusually long four-hour sentencing, Erlbaum pointedly questioned Giraldo about what happened, about her contradictory statements during the trial, about the health of their relationship and about her mental health. He said she seemed submissive to a jealous Monserrate. Erlbaum said he would be willing to lift the protection order if the couple could prove that they could address their problems. He also suggested that Giraldo seek therapy. “I hope the time will come that Karla Giraldo will have the self-respect to stop acting like a slave,” the judge said. Erlbaum sentenced Monserrate to three years on probation and 250 hours of community service, and ordered him to pay fines of more than $1,000. He’s also required to enroll in a one-year counseling program on power and control.
His attorney, Joseph Tacopina, said he would appeal the conviction and would start working on getting the protection order lifted. Monserrate was acquitted of intentionally smashing Giraldo’s face with the glass on Dec. 19, 2008, in a jealous rage. Both said it was accidental, but statements she made to hospital officials indicate she changed her story.
How’d you like to confront a powerful Senator?
Circular Reasoning – 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover (with your kids)
A Quick Post (not mine, except intro & comments)
summarizing the situation fairly well:
On reading this post, pretty accurate, I thought of “50 ways to leave your lover,” by (if you don’t know this, you probably were born after the VAWA act passed the first time) Simon & Garfunkel.
Which I’d like to rededicate to women attempting to do so, once they realize what “love” is and is not. Switch the gender, the song applies; and act on it sooner, rather than later. I guess — pray, carry Mace, and suggest you also enroll in law school ASAP, you’ll need it…
she said it’s really not my habit to intrude
furtermore i hope my meaning won’t be lost or misconstrued
but i’ll repeat my self, at the risk of being crude
there must be 50 ways to leave your loverchorus:
just slip out the back, Jack
make a new plan, Stan
don’t need to be coy, Roy
just get yourself free
hop on the bus, Gus
don’t need to discuss much
just drop off the key, Lee
and get yourself free.she said it grieves me so to see you in such pain
i wish there was something i could do to make you smile again
i said, i appreciate that,
and would you please explain about the 50 ways.she said, why don’t we both just sleep on it tonight
and i believe that in the morning you’ll begin to see the light
and then she kissed me and i realized she probably was right
there must be 50 ways to leave your lover
50 ways to leave your lover…chorus
If children are involved, realize that Big Brother has a different plan for them, and you, as well. See below:
[[my comments in brackets, otherwise it’s quote. Quote ends at the line of ]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]’s..]]
Note: Cross posted from Battered Mothers Rights – A Human Rights Issue.
Randi James is a brilliant writer- her site is replete with information from the top to bottom -thx you Randi James! http://www.randijames.com/
Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The System Sends Mixed Messages to Abuse Victims
Do you stay, or do you leave?
If you haven’t been a victim of abuse, or a victim of the legal system, you may not be able to understand why this is even posed as a question.
Of course you should leave!
I mean, who deserves to get beat up and/or sexually assaulted in their own home…regularly…or even occasionally. Even as careful as you could try to be to make sure everything is perfect, so as not to anger your abuser, SOMETHING always sets him off…sooner or later. He is a time bomb. You are his target.
What does it mean to be a target?
When you are a target, all of your abuser’s anger is directed toward you, specifically. Typically, he doesn’t pull the same shit towards those who he considers his equals, or more powerful than he. This is about power. He needs you like capitalism needs slaves. He uses you so that he can feel better about his shortcomings. He doesn’t know how to feel good without you.
But he is a good father. He doesn’t beat the kids.
You’re right. Good fathers don’t beat their kids…But nor do they beat up on women to whom they are temporarily, or permanently committed. Getting beat in front of your children doesn’t exactly send the kids a good message. In fact, they are put in limbo because your kids will either
A) Side with your abuser because he is more powerful and gets what he wants, or
B) Side with you in attempt to protect you…But let me break that down a little more
1) In protecting you, your children become targets, and the moment will come when they take blows for you
2) In choosing to side with you or not, your children will mimic the behaviors they have seen and normalize them.
Is this what you want?
I hope not because if some outsider reports what is going on in your household, CPS will come knocking and your kids may be gone before you ever get a chance to ask questions. You will be charged with neglect, endangering your children, or failure to protect.
Why?
Because everyone on the outside thinks you should have just left. You are themother. If you didn’t leave, you must be an accessory to the abuse.
What mother allows her children to get abused?
And what mother lets her children watch as she gets abused?
You must be a bad mother. You don’t deserve to have children. If you’re lucky, maybe your relatives will do you a favor and step in and raise your children for you. If not, foster care will do a great job…because it is indeed a job when they are getting paid.
Maybe you have a chance though, if you would just leave.
That seems like the best idea. Leave.
Wait!
Are you going to tell your abuser in advance, or are you going to sneak out in the middle of the night?
Remember, he needs you…is he going to agree to all of this?
Who the fuck do you think you are leaving him, and taking his children?
He owns you. He’s paying the bills. He’s the reason you can stay home and take care of his children.
[[Comment: Not all the time. Wasn’t true in my case… Many times they are financially dependent on you as well…]]
If you go, you have reason to be fearful. Get a lawyer and a restraining order. But, back up a little. The lawyer says, if you take out a restraining order, in the near future, the judge in family court could use it against you. He (the judge and your abuser) may say this was part of your vindictive scheme to get the kids and the money and the house and the car. Restraining orders don’t prevent you from being harmed though anyway, because you still have to rely on law enforcement to act.
Get the restraining order anyway.
You’ll have record of what you tried to do, in case the news opts to report it upon your “tragic” death. But you can’t put the kids on the restraining order…Silly woman! You know fathers have rights!
In fact they have so many rights that if your abuser happens to get locked up, Responsible Fatherhood money will ensure that he has the means to transition back into his caretaking, father-role (don’t roll your eyes, we know you were doing the caretaking, but you’re not important and this is politics).
Go ahead and report the entire history of abuse.
You do have pictures, right? You mean to tell me in all these years that you have been getting assaulted, you weren’t taking pictures of your injuries and saving them in a secret location?
Did you at least tell the doctor? Is there anything in your medical record?
Where are your vaginal tears, bruises, scars?
In talking to police without evidence (or with it), your case will seem suspicious. It will be your word, against your abuser’s. Your local DA will be hesitant to take the case…well, hesitant is an overstatement because he may not even acknowledge you. DA’s only take cases they can win. DA’s aren’t interested in intrafamilial abuse reports in the midst of divorce…
[[No matter what the local DA’s office website declares, it’s often true.]]
You have bad timing. You should have reported this before you were trying to separate. Oh, whoops, I forgot, they would have charged you, too!
Maybe you can work things out peacefully without involving the court.
[[Yeah, that’s the general philosophy behind sending such cases, involving kids, to mediation… Just “work it out.”]]
When was the last time you worked things out “peacefully” with an abuser?
In good conscience, you allow your abuser to continue to have a relationship with the children he didn’t abuse, well, directly abuse (or at least you think so). I don’t know if you are really doing him a favor, or rather doing as the court would order you to do so, because you do know that the court will order you to do it, right (askMs. Leichtenberg and also ask the Paul family…family, because Monica Paul happens to be deceased)? Father’s rights.
I know, I know. Yes, you have been abused, but now, yes, yes, you will be court ordered to continue to have a relationship with your abuser because kids deserve both parents. If you try to resist, they will call in the child custody evaluators and Guardians ad Litem and they will say things you would never imagine…because you ARE crazy, aren’t you?
What mother would keep a father away from his children?
[[I didn’t, because doing so would’ve been to violate a standing custody order, ordering visitation. Consequence? I lost contact with my kids. To this date! He continued to violate without impunity thereafter.]]
You know your abuser best.
[[Yeah, right. Everyone knows that only the ‘experts’ know what they’re talking about when it comes to abuse. ‘Experts” prefer to talk with each other in their language, out of the earshot of the traumatized folk. It’s cleaner and less personally disturbing/challenging. People suffering PTSD often skip around in chronology, speak or write associatively, and can ge derailed on particularly frightening topics. It takes a lot to overcome that. . . . . . . So, in one sense, this is understandable, because after long enough living with “lethality assessments” and threats, after actual physical assualts and the very high stakes of child custody, plus retaliation for reporting, some women can sound more garbled than they really are. In reality to even stay alive, or emotionally somewhat intact, through significant abuse, esp. years of it, takes keeping track of more things that the average middle manager can, I’d be, in a rapidly changing economy. We have literal lives at stake, let alone livelihoods. Let alone the normal multi-tasking that often goes with being a mother, let alone a working mother with small kids who are growing up watching your abuse. We also are highly motivated to stay alive, knowing that if we don’t who is likely to get custody of our offspring — either the abuser, or someone who enabled it, such as a close, nonreporting, non-intervening relative. Or CPS, for which money changes hands…]]
You know that when he makes threats, he can carry them through. You know if you don’t meet his demands, you and your children will suffer. But if you try to protect yourself and the children, you risk losing custody to your abuser. And why would you want to put your kids in that situation? They don’t want to live with him and if they do live with him, you already know how their lives will turn out. They will be like lost souls.
Sacrifice yourself…like Jesus Christ. Maybe you were put on earth to suffer for the sins of others.
You were supposed to be omniscient–to know that this man you chose would end up being an abuser.
You were supposed to be omnipresent–to know that this man would abuse your children while you were away at work, or school, or while he was away with the kids.
You were supposed to be omnipotent–to protect yourself and your children and to be able to hide and simultaneously remain visible, and to be able to leave your abuser, but let him remain in your life.
How do you want to die?
[[Seems to me I blogged on this long ago — title about unacceptable choices for women.]]
What do you want the news to say about you when you are murdered?
That you were nice? No, they won’t say that! The neighbors and other members of the community will say how nice your abuser was. He was a family man. He played with the kids in the yard.
Everyone will be so shocked and sad that this happened. No one knew that you and your children were getting your asses kicked on a regular.
Your family may’ve thought you were crazy, or a bad mom, so they may’ve distanced themselves from you a long time ago. In fact, they may have ADORED your abuser.
Your children’s friends will not come forward. They are children–either they won’t tell anyway, or their parents won’t let them.
You know who else might know? The teachers. But teachers are so busy disciplining and teaching to the test…and besides, it’s too late for them to come forward now.
You see what you get for pretending and ignoring and trying to keep the family together? No credit.
Maybe the media will pull your court record and note that you tried to get a restraining order, but you didn’t show up. More than likely, they will relay gossip about how you were having an affair and how you were always provoking your abuser. Because violence is mutual. Girls hit, too.
Didn’t you know in advance that he was easily provoked? You should have checked his criminal record, or asked his ex.
Maybe your children will die, too. But everyone will talk about how tragic it was andhow innocent they are. They, not you, because you had to have done something to make a nice guy want to kill you.
Or maybe you wanted to be killed, because who stays with an abuser anyway?
See Also: Carl Brizzi: Prosecuting Battered Women
Minnesota Supreme Court Allows Judge Timothy Blakely to Profit from His Fraudulent Earnings
In Texas and Florida–Court Ordered Exortion
Pennsylvania, Corruption, and Children, Just Like Florida
How Judges Set Up A System to Rig Cases for Fathers
Technorati Tags: Rock,Hard,Place,System,Messages,Abuse,Victims,Randi,James,haven,victim,abuser,equals,needs,capitalism,father,kids,children,message,fact,limbo,Side,moment,outsider,reports,failure,accessory,Maybe,Leave,Wait,Remember,lawyer,money,orders,news,death,woman,rights,Responsible,transition,role,politics,history,pictures,location,doctor,Where,tears,word,overstatement,cases,midst,conscience,relationship,Leichtenberg,Paul,Monica,custody,Litem,threats,demands,situation,Sacrifice,Jesus,Christ,earth,life,yard,friends,affair,violence,Girls,Didn,Also,Carl,Brizzi,Women,Indiana,Bench,Paradox,Recusal,Minnesota,Supreme,Court,Judge,Timothy,Profit,Fraudulent,Earnings,Texas,Florida,Exortion,Pennsylvania,Corruption,Just,Judges,fathers,injuries,Guardians,souls,members,teachers,doesn,aren,parents
Note: Cross posted from Battered Mothers Rights – A Human Rights Issue.
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http://www.nbc-2.com/Global/story.asp?S=10697462
Joseph and Melissa Shook had been separated and a final mediation hearing for their divorce was scheduled for the 26th – two days after her disappearance.
Meanwhile, her van was located at the Alva residence, allegedly abandoned with the keys in the ashtray.
The case was then turned over to detectives with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Unit.
Air, K-9 and ground searches were coordinated with family and friends in attempts to locate Melissa over the following . . .[fill in the details… they tend to blur, one family after another…]
On July 29, Shook’s body was found in a shallow grave, just four blocks from the Fitch Avenue residence.
Her hands were tied behind her back with approximately 10 feet of rope and her mouth was covered in duct tape.
AND, obviously:
Wednesday, a local hardware store employee was contacted and verified the sale of a red handled shovel and approximately ten feet of rope.
Thursday, an employee positively identified Joseph Shook as the person who purchased the items.
Around 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, 32-year-old Joseph Shook was located at local restaurant and taken into custody.
He has been charged with second degree murder.
Thursday evening Amy Davies, spokeswoman for Melissa Shook’s family said, “The family is relieved an arrest has been made, that justice has been served, and the family now has some closure.”
Davies said now the family’s main concentration is providing care for Shook’s three children.
Her parents knew something was funky about those text messages declaring she was going to break up with a boyfriend. Her coworker heard her ask who wanted some lunch brought back, after dropping off child(ren) to the father….
On Wednesday, Melissa Shook’s mother took the stand to talk about texts message she received, supposedly from her daughter, the day she disappeared.
One said she and her boyfriend, Justin Castagner, were through.
Smith thought that was odd since she’d spoken to Melissa just a few hours earlier and there was no mention of any problems.
Castagner testified Tuesday that the couple had made plans for that night and she left him a note in his lunchbox that said, “I love you.”
Melissa’s father, Gary Esckilsen, also testified Melissa was happy with Castagner.
Melissa’s parents said she had a strong relationship with Castagner and texts saying she was going somewhere to get herself help didn’t make sense. They knew something was wrong.
A co-worker of Melissa Shook testified as well, saying he got a call from her when she was on her way to drop the baby off at Joe Shook’s home.
He said she asked if anyone in the office wanted her to bring back lunch – and never heard from her again.
Just to reiterate my point: Mediation, frequent exchanges ordered. Was there prior domestic violence? WHY did she leave? Was the risk known? Should ALL women separating — not just ones experiencing abuse as the reason for separation — be afraid?
Or, should they learn to be cautious, period, and should the family law venue stop advising them to “just get along” for the sake of the kids, without regard to this possibility…
Was money a factor? Who knows…:
……..
Police say emotional distress led man to kill estranged wife
Mother’s death, impending divorce, lack of medication are factors in Lakemore killing
By Phil Trexler
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Saturday, Jan 10, 2009
LAKEMORE: His mother had died unexpectedly, he avoided the pills that helped combat his depression, and just this week, his wife left him.
Daniel Tice’s emotions boiled over Thursday afternoon when his wife, Brandi, came to pick up their three children, a day after announcing her intention to divorce.
Brandi Tice, 28, would never leave the Lakemore house. She died of a single gunshot wound to the head — a rifle shot that police say was fired by her estranged husband.
About seven hours later, after keeping SWAT officers at bay with his 4-year-old son by his side, Daniel Tice was shot by police, struck by a 9 mm bullet that miraculously bounced off his forehead, sparing his life.
Tice, 32, was to undergo surgery Friday for a fractured skull. He is expected to recover and be charged with murder.
Daniel Tice admitted in conversations to family, friends and police that he killed his wife of eight years, shooting her once in the head with a .22-caliber rifle, police said.
He blamed infidelity and divorce.
”[Brandi Tice] told me before she
was wanting to leave him and I said be careful because of his mom dying, [Daniel] was bomb,” family friend Janice Wood told police in a taped call. ”I was afraid something would happen.’
Wood, a close friend of Tice’s late mother Diana, told police that Daniel Tice called her after the shooting. Around the same time, police were surrounding his home.
”He said he killed his wife,” Wood said. ”He thought everybody was against him or hated him . . . he said, ‘I’m not coming out [of the house]. They’re going to have to kill me.’ ”
Daniel Tice made a series of phone calls that afternoon, including one to a sister who came to the Tices’ ranch-style home on Martha Avenue shortly after 3 p.m., saw Brandi Tice’s body on the living room floor and fled outside.
Tice’s brother-in-law struggled for the rifle outside the home, but the towering Daniel Tice won out, and retreated back inside.
At one point, Tice stood guard by a window with his rifle in one hand and his son, Noah, in the other, police said.
Shortly afterward, Tice’s daughters, Faith, 8, and Grace, 7, exited their school bus and were met by police, who rushed the girls away before they could go inside their home.
Stressful standoff
For the next seven-plus hours, police took over Martha Avenue, trying to coax Tice into surrendering and hoping to avoid more bloodshed. Lakemore Mayor Michael Kolomichuk gave the order to use deadly force on Daniel Tice, if necessary.
A small army of SWAT officers, talking by phone to Tice, crept closer over several hours — from the street, to the front door, to the living room and eventually to the basement stairs, where Tice paced below with his son.
The silence was sometimes unnerving to police, who feared little Noah was dead. As the night dragged, they hadn’t heard from the child and Tice was talking to police in past tense about how much he loved his son.
”We were worried that he had done something to Noah because he wouldn’t let us talk to the child,” Police Chief Kenneth Ray said.
Police eventually disconnected a land line into the Tice home and with the help of prosecutors, they cut off Tice’s cell phone. Negotiators then moved inside the house to bring Tice a cell phone.
By then, Tice had moved to the cover of the basement, at times hiding under the staircase. Metro SWAT members tossed a miniature camera to the basement, which gave them insights into Tice’s location.
Around 10:40 p.m., SWAT snipers from the top of the steps could see Tice and his rifle leaning against a wall out of reach. They fired two nonlethal bean bags, hoping to knock him to the floor. The bean bags didn’t faze Tice, who then made a move for his rifle, police said.
A sniper tried to fire his AR-15 assault rifle, but the trigger jammed. A second SWAT sniper twice fired his MP5 assault rifle. One shot missed; another struck Tice’s forehead, penetrating to the bone and bouncing off.
Suspect interviewed
Police interviewed Daniel Tice at Akron City Hospital shortly after he was shot.
”He confessed, that’s all he did,” Chief Ray said. ”He didn’t give a reason. He just said he did it.”
Noah was reunited with his sisters. The children are staying with Brandi Tice’s mother, Sandra Fox, 53, in Green.
”She was a good mother, she loved her kids so much,” said Brandi Tice’s uncle, Randy Renard.
The Tices spent Christmas with Renard and other family members at Sandra Fox’s home. The get-together came four days after Daniel Tice’s mother died.
Daniel Tice, who family said suffers from bipolar disorder, said little on Christmas Day. Family and police said Tice stopped taking his medication, which contributed to his erratic behavior.
”They brought the kids over for Christmas and I already heard what he was going through with his mother,” Renard said. ”He come over and he didn’t talk for four hours. He just sat in the chair with a stare.”
On Wednesday, Brandi Tice told her husband she wanted a divorce and was taking the children, Renard said. Police said the couple had a history of domestic squabbles, some of which ended with Daniel Tice’s arrest.
Daniel Tice also told friends that his wife was carrying on an affair with one of his relatives. The couple married in 2000.
On Thursday afternoon, Brandi Tice arrived at the Martha Avenue home, planning to take her daughters with her as they exited their school bus.
Brandi Tice worked the past four years with Community Caregivers, a Hartville home health care provider. She visited three or four patients every day, helping them with health needs.
Terry Smith, the company’s director, said Brandi Tice grew close with her patients, whom she would visit for more than two hours a day, passing the time sharing stories and proudly showing pictures of her children.
She hoped one day to be a nurse to better provide for her family, he said. The company has set up a fund at all Huntington bank branches to help the Tice children.
”Brandi was somebody who had been through some bumps in the road, some hard knocks,” Smith said. ”Yet she was someone who gave so much even though she had so little herself.”
Phil Trexler can be reached at 330-996-3717 or ptrexler@thebeaconjournal.com.
LAKEMORE: His mother had died unexpectedly, he avoided the pills that helped combat his depression, and just this week, his wife left him.
Daniel Tice’s emotions boiled over Thursday afternoon when his wife, Brandi, came to pick up their three children, a day after announcing her intention to divorce.
Brandi Tice, 28, would never leave the Lakemore house. She died of a single gunshot wound to the head ? a rifle shot that police say was fired by her estranged husband.
About seven (Akron Beacon Journal (OH), 1079 words.)
June 2009 — Autenreith – Pennsylvania:
Police rescued a 9-year-old boy who had been kidnapped by his father as a fatal gun battle broke out between the man and state troopers.
After arguing with his estranged wife during a custody exchange, Daniel Autenrieth kidnapped his son at gunpoint, then led police on a 40-mile high-speed chase that ended with a crash and an exchange of gunfire, state police commissioner Col. Frank Pawlowski said. Autenrieth and a state trooper were killed.
“I can’t begin to describe the hurt and sorrow being experienced by the Pennsylvania state police,” Pawlowski told a somber news conference at the Swiftwater barracks, the trooper’s home base. “What happened yesterday is nothing short of an American tragedy.”
September, 2009 (Labor Day) Minnesota:
Minn. officer reportedly killed with own gun (see video)
Holidays — family times for some — can be trouble hotspots for others.
Veteran North St. Paul police officer Richard Crittenden apparently was shot dead with his own gun during a violent struggle with a man who lunged at his estranged wife and the slain officer with a burning towel or rag.
“He died saving someone else,” said a law enforcement source of Crittenden. The source, familiar with the ongoing investigation, offered the first detailed description of Monday morning’s chaotic scene.
Crittenden reportedly pushed the woman out of harm’s way but in the process left himself vulnerable for the man to ambush him, grab his handgun and shoot him, the source said.
A Maplewood police officer was slightly wounded but shot the suspect dead during an exchange of gunfire moments later inside the North St. Paul apartment in the 2200 block of Skillman Avenue.
The scenario, based on preliminary witness accounts from the injured female officer and the estranged wife, remains to be confirmed and is the subject of an investigation by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
But the setting pieced together so far by investigative sources shed light on the likely circumstances that led to the first shooting death of a police officer in the line of duty in North St. Paul’s 122-year history.
Investigators on Tuesday released little official information about the details surrounding the Labor Day shootings — including the names of the injured officer and slain suspect, who was identified by his estranged wife as Devon Dockery.
But reams of court papers released Tuesday on Dockery’s numerous run-ins with the law show a violent and troubled man.
“Devon is a ticking time bomb ready to explode,” his estranged wife, Stacey Terry, wrote in filing for one of four orders of protection against him.
What would she know? Is she an “expert”?? However, she got those protection orders. . . . . .
October 23, 2009 Atlanta, Georgia, Strube-Allen:
(Isn’t this DV awareness month?)
Child of woman killed at Target in custody battle
Mother-in Law charged!
In April, a toddler sat in the backseat as someone shot and killed his mother, Heather Allen Strube. She had just gotten him from her estranged husband, his father, and hadn’t buckled her child into his car seat yet.
Moments after Steven Strube left the Target parking lot on Scene Highway, his estranged wife was approached by a person wearing a black wig that looked like a mop. As Heather tried to get into her SUV, the disguised person shot her. Investigators found Carson holding his mother’s cellphone. His mom turned 25 years old just six days before her death on April 26.
Carson, who turned 2-years-old last month, has been in the care of Heather’s parents — Buddy and Mary Allen.

Little Carson Luke Strube is now thriving in the care of his maternal grandparents. But his other grandmother, Joanna Renea Hayes, was charged this week with killing his mother, her daughter-in-law.
Hayes in jail facing charges of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Carson’s father, Steven Strube, is also in jail, following a probation violation from a 2008 conviction (for what??)
Hayes is now behind bars following her murder indictment on Wednesday. Police believe she is the one who donned a disguise and killed her daughter-in-law.
Sometimes it turns into a virtual tribal warfare, with in-laws and relatives involved….
November 30, 2009 (this one, barely cold…), New Jersey:
Police Search For Motive In Fatal N.J. Shooting
Paterson Father Allegedly Shot Estranged Wife, 2 Children
PATERSON, N.J. (CBS) ―Police are still trying to figure out what triggered Edelmiro Gonzalez to go on a shooting spree, killing his seven-year-old son, and injuring his wife and other son. They are recovering at St. Joseph’s hospital.
- Related Stories
- 2 Dead, 2 Wounded When NJ Dad Shoots His Family
(11/29/2009)Police were looking for a motive Sunday in a triple shooting that left one boy dead, and his mother and brother fighting for their lives.
Detectives in Paterson said Edelmiro Gonzalez opened fire Saturday morning on his estranged wife and two young children.
“I don’t know how anybody could do something like that,” said resident Angie Rolon.Investigators said 31-year old Johanna Gonzalez, who had been separated from her husband since September and had a restraining order against him, was in the process of dropping off their two sons at her mother’s apartment on Broadway. That’s when the 54-year-old father allegedly walked up to their vehicle, armed with two handguns.
“Her estranged husband came up to the vehicle, shot several times into the vehicle, at which time her two sons, Adrian and Eldryn exited the vehicle,” said Det Lt. Ray Humphrey.
Police said
Gonzalez actually then chased down his 7-year old son and shot him in the neck near the rear of the apartment building.The boy was pronounced dead at the scene.However, the ordeal didn’t end there. Police said Gonzalez went back to the street and chased down his estranged wife. That’s when off-duty Paterson Detective Lt. Washington Griffen, a 19-year veteran who was at a nearby McDonald’s drive-through with his son saw what was happening and intervened.“He hollered out to the suspect, advised him he was a police officer, and to drop the weapon. There was an exchange of gunfire, and the suspect was shot twice,” Humphrey said.
Edelmiro Gonzalez died later at an area hospital. His elder son Edryn and the child’s mother Johanna remained in critical condition.
Gunman kills estranged wife at Tualatin lab, injures two, kills self
By Bill Oram, The Oregonian
November 10, 2009, 8:49PM
TUALATIN — By late afternoon Tuesday, a lone state trooper guarded the front of a drug-testing clinic where a man with a rifle opened fire, killing his estranged wife and injuring two of her co-workers.
The gunman fired multiple shots inside Legacy MetroLab-Tualatin shortly before noon, said Tualatin Police Chief Kent Barker.The shooter was found dead at the scene, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, Barker said.
The dead woman was identified as Teresa Beiser, 36, of Gladstone.
A week ago, she filed for divorce from her husband of 15 years, Robert Beiser, 39, who worked as a car appraiser for Property Damage Appraisers in Lake Oswego and as an independent contractor for The Oregonian.
They had two children, a 14-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old son.
Hans Reiser Admits to Murdering Nina Reiser, Pleads to Reduced Murder Sentence
Full story: Associated Content
Hans Reiser was sentenced to 15-years-to-life Friday in an Oakland, California, courtroom for the murder of Nina Reiser. Many believe that the sentence was too lenient, that prosecutors should have given Reiser more time on his sentence. Besides, Hans Reiser was convicted in April — andconvicted without the body of Nine Reiser. But Hans Reiser, a brilliant Linux guru, had held onto one piece of information about Nine Reiser throughout his trial, a trial throughout which he maintained his innocence. Hans Reiser knew where Nina Reiser was buried.According to Wired, Hans Reiser led authorities to Nine Reiser’s body Monday in exchange for his prison sentence being reduced from a 25-years-to-life charge to 15-years-to-life charge. Prosecutors offered him the deal with the added stipulation that he waived his right to appeal the conviction. He had buried his wife just a short way from the house where he lived with his mother.
According to his confession, which was part of the plea deal, Hans Reiser killed his wife, Nina, on the afternoon of September 3, 2006. She had dropped off the couple’s two children for the Labor Day weekend. The two were going through a bitter divorce.
FYI: All I googled was “estranged wife exchange of children”
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Did you enable any of these events? I bet you’d say, Heck NO!
But, wait again (US residents) — do you pay taxes? Well then, perhaps you did….
The Trap Door They Don’t Tell Divorcing Mothers, or separating-from-abuse partners about — almost ANYwhere…
Forcing the Connection through “Access Visitation Funding” and social policy closing the exit door.
Taxpayer funds enabling these events, sometimes, through federal grants to encourage contact with noncustodial “parents” (Dads).
Meanwhile, nationwide HHS-funded “Access/Visitation” funding encourages more, and more frequent, contact between children and noncustodial parent (if male), and advertises this through child support services (“OCSE”):
GEORGIA:
These services are offered at no cost to OCSS clients and include the following:
- Coordination of visitations or parenting time
- Mediation between the parents (non-legal, non-binding)
- Written parenting plans
- Group parenting education
- Counseling on access issues
Funding for all of these projects comes from grants from the Administration for Children and Families
What is access and visitation?Mississippi’s Access and Visitation Program (MAV-P) is designed for noncustodial parents to have access to visit their children as specified in a court order or divorce decree.
[[HUH? The court order or decree ALREADY specifies this, so why do we need this program?]]
Assistance with voluntary agreements for visitation schedules is provided to parents who do not have a court order.
NOTE: Participation without a court order is strictly voluntary. Both parents must agree to be involved.
What are the goals for MAV-P?The ultimate goal is to afford services that improve the quality of life for separated families by providing noncustodial parents opportunities to participate in their children’s growth and development.
[[If it didn’t have a noble-sounding goal like this, it might not have passed Congress or anywhere else. Who wants to vote for, after-all, exchange-related gunshots, stabbings, and officers/bystanders-down headlines? But if you read details of many of these articles above, it’s in there.
“Improve the quality of life.” How does this resemble “Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness” eh? Come here. We have federal grants to improve the quality of your life. TRUST US…]]
Other goals include:
- Encouraging family agreements through mediation;
- Providing parent education plans to enhance parenting skills;
- Furnishing a safe, neutral facility for visitation, as needed; i.e., [pushing Supervised Visitation]
- Promoting compliance to the noncustodial parent’s court ordered support obligations; [[Translation: reducing support obligations in hope to bribe the other parent to better comply. This is called “helping.” ]]
- Aiding custodial parents in honoring court ordered visitations; and
Women are regularly jailed when they fail to comply with court ORDERS. Recently, a 14 yr old young man in Michigan was jailed himself, briefly, for refusing to comply. So what is this a sort of persuasive pleading session, or brainwashing? The legal process provides for a contempt process. When custodial parents are women, this is often enforced, regardless of consequences. When they are men, a different standard seems to apply.
- Working with fatherhood mentors and coaches through a Fragile Families Initiative Program.
Now WHY doesn’t that surprise me?
What are the benefits of the program? The program benefits include:
- BOTH parents being involved in the development stages of the child’s life.
- BOTH parents providing emotional, medical, psychological and financial support.
- BOTH parents sharing in the child’s character and core values development.
- BOTH parents agreeing on scheduling and time-sharing.
Potential side-effects, where an overentitled abuser, a man off (or on) medication for depression, or someone not in control of his emotions is involved — death. That’s a potential “benefit” in certain contexts. But let’s not talk about that in THIS setting, OK?
Who is eligible to participate in MAV-P?Individuals interested in participating in MAV-P are not required to have a child support case or affiliation with the Mississippi Department of Human Services. Paternity must be established for all cases. Participants seeking assistance with supervised visitation must have a verified court order or divorce decree. Finally, the custodial and noncustodial parents must agree on scheduled mediation, parent education, unsupervised or supervised visitations, as needed.
(EVER tried to “agree” with an overentitled abuser? See Randi’s article, above….)
What services are provided in MAV-P?
- MEDIATION includes MAV-P staff working with both parents to develop a peaceful resolution to visitation disputes. This process is a face-to-face interview and/or telephone sessions.
- SUPERVISED VISITATION is scheduled for parents with legally established visitation directed by a court order or divorce decree.
- EDUCATION is offered through parenting classes which address the basic needs of the child, money and stress management, child abuse, co-parenting and the concerns of the parents for their child(ren)’s well-being.
Take time for THIS link: a “wiki-leak” an “mit” site. I’m OUT of time for today….
fathers who do not pay their child support are more likely to have frequent contact with
their children (many on a daily basis) than fathers who pay their child support.
fathers’ rights groups would argue that spending time with one’s children (especially on
a daily basis) should be counted in terms of reducing that father’s financial obligation.
More generally, advocates of increasing parental responsibility would argue that it
is now time for the federal government to focus more attention on the “non-financial”
benefits associated with preserving the connection between noncustodial parents and their
children. Many policymakers and analysts maintain that a distinction must be made
between men who are “dead broke” and those who are “deadbeats.” They argue that the
federal government should help dead broke noncustodial fathers meet both their financial and emotional obligations to their children and vigorously enforce CSE laws against deadbeat parents.
+/- $1/million/state/year for Access/Visitation grants (ongoing) can’t be all wrong, despite headlines, and despite reality of the consequences of frequent exchanges, more time, with resistant disgruntled fathers..
I may take up that document in a later post; it illustrates the system involved in these issues.
Randi, good writing, thank you –I find it pretty darn close to the reality.
“Clear and Present Danger”…fuzzy usage by AFCC (Publ. Dec. 1, 2009, format Fixes May 7, 2023).
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“Clear and Present Danger”…fuzzy usage by AFCC (Publ. Dec. 1, 2009, format Fixes May 7, 2023). About 3,000 words.
(Case-sensitive short-link ends “-lD”. First character is lower case “l,” not capital “I” or number “1”.=)
The purpose of my post is to expose how a certain organization, called “AFCC,” which has openly stated it seeks transformative language (from “old” definitions of criminal to newer ones with a sociological flavor) is — as we speak — attempting to co-opt a phrase addressing the danger (to citizens of the state of California) a spousal batterer presents, for its own use.
The law — and we have an elected legislature, right? — is already clear on this. I’d have to affirm, the shoe fits this definition:
[[The LexisNexis Link had expired; I replaced it 2023 with one from eScholarship, which at least give proper citation format, and a few pages of intro. See also (from that link) a nearby 1991 by the same author.
ACTUALLY, I found a link to ones by author Shiela Koehler, not “Donna Wills” (from basic search on the title, including the year and issue number). So link replacement isn’t exactly on target.]]
From 1997, Women’s Law Journal:
Copyright (c) 1997 Regents of the University of California
UCLA Women’s Law Journal
FORUM: MANDATORY PROSECUTION IN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CASES: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: THE CASE FOR AGGRESSIVE PROSECUTION
Spring / Summer, 1997 // 7 UCLA Women’s L.J. 173
Author: Donna Wills *
I. Introduction
Prosecutors throughout the country, and especially in the State of California, have begun taking a more aggressive stance towards domestic violence prosecutions by instituting a “no drop” or “no dismissal” policy. 1 Based on my experience as a veteran prosecutor who specializes in these cases, I firmly believe that this policy is the enlightened approach to domestic violence prosecutions. Fundamentally, a “no drop” policy takes the decision of whether or not to prosecute the batterer off the victim’s shoulders and puts it where it belongs: in the discretion of the prosecutors whose job it is to enforce society’s criminal laws and hold offenders accountable for their crimes. The prosecutor’s client is the State, not the victim. 2 Accordingly, prosecutorial agencies that have opted for aggressive prosecution have concluded that their client’s interest in protecting the safety and well-being of all of its citizens overrides the individual victim’s desire to dictate whether and when criminal charges are filed.
Aggressive prosecution is the appropriate response to domestic violence cases for several reasons. First, domestic violence affects more than just the individual victim; it is a public safety issue that affects all of society. Second, prosecutors cannot rely upon domestic violence victims to appropriately vindicate the State’s interests in holding batterers responsible for the crimes they commit because victims often decline to press charges. Third, prosecutors must intervene to protect victims and their children and to prevent batterers from further intimidating their victims and manipulating the justice system.
Timeframe: 1994 — VAWA (and National Fatherhood Initiative) started, and 1998-1999, Congress getting ready to pass more fatherhood resolutions, nationally. This is, again 1997.
Here (already blogged by me) is a section from the Giles Amicus (I believe), describing SOME of the clear dangers domestic violence poses to its targets. Judge for yourself if some of these effects represent danger or not:
[[2023 note: This section is quoting later versions of state law (2004, 2005, therefore is probably from that Giles Amicus. Unfortunately I didn’t fully documented (either a link, now broken, or adequately as to place, date, year and where I found it) this time. Over the years, I got better at citations. So this next would NOT be a quote from the above 1997 UCLA Law Journal. Impossible to reconstruct such old posts 100%, I guess.. An Amicus would be in support of another case; it was apparently well-known at the time, but at the moment I cannot recall even its topic…. That doesn’t change the main point of this post, which was showing that AFCC has different definitions of “Clear and Present Danger” than does the law. Or even what looks (below on this post) an Encyclopedia…//LGH]]
Furthermore, the California Legislature has defined domestic violence to include violent and various non-violent acts, supporting the proposition that victims may reasonably fear many forms of reprisal. Specifically, the California Evidence Code states that domestic violence is “physical or sexual abuse, neglect, financial abuse, abandonment, isolation, abduction, or other treatment that results in physical harm, pain, or mental suffering, the deprivation of care by a caregiver, or other deprivation by a custodian or provider of goods or services that are necessary to avoid physical harm or mental suffering.” See Cal. Evid. Code § 1109 (West 2005) TA \l “Cal. Evid. Code § 1109 (West 2005)” \s “Cal. Evid. Code § 1109 (West 2005)” \c 2 (following the meaning of domestic violence set forth in TA \l “Cal. Pen. Code § 13700 (West 2005)“ \s “Cal. Pen. Code § 13700 (West 2005)” \c 2 Cal. Pen. Code § 13700 (West 2005) TA \s “Cal. Pen. Code § 13700 (West 2005)” ). Additionally, the California Family Code defines abuse as causing bodily injury, sexually abusing a person, or placing a person in “reasonable apprehension of serious bodily harm to that person or to another” and, further, it provides that a victim may obtain a restraining order to protect against the batterer’s non-violent reprisals, such as “stalking, threatening,…harassing, telephoning,…[or] destroying personal property.” Cal. Fam. Code §§ 6203, 6320 (West 2005) TA \l “Cal. Fam. Code § 6203 (West 2005)” \s “Cal. Fam. Code §§ 6203, 6320 (West 2005)” \c 2.
[[2023 interjection: Notice that while describing the PENAL Code Section 13700, it also admits to there being a California Family Code (two completely different sections of the California Code) are entitled, above.]]
Most commonly, a victim reasonably anticipates a physical assault, including sexual assault or even death, if the victim attempts to end a battering relationship and assist in the batterer’s prosecution. In fact, victims are at the highest risk of severe abuse or death when they challenge the batterer’s control in their attempts to leave. Hernandez, 345 F.3d at 837 TA \s “Hernandez v. Ashcroft, 345 F.3d 824, 837 (9th Cir. 2003)” ; see also Martha R. Mahoney, Victimization or Oppression? Women’s Lives, Violence, and Agency, in The Public Nature of Private Violence 59, 79 (Martha Albertson Fineman & Roxanne Mykitiuk eds., 1994) TA \l “Martha R. Mahoney, Victimization or Oppression? Women’s Lives, Violence, and Agency, in The Public Nature of Private Violence (Martha Albertson Fineman & Roxanne Mykitiuk eds., 1994)” \s “Martha R. Mahoney, Victimization or Oppression? Women’s Lives, Violence, and Agency, in The Public Nature Of Private Violence 59, 79 (Martha Albertson Fineman & Roxanne Mykitiuk eds., 1994)” \c 3 (describing the phenomenon of “separation assault” in domestic violence relationships and finding that the majority of domestic violence homicides occur upon separation).
Victims may also reasonably fear serious, non-violent reprisals. For example, a victim may fear that the batterer will abduct or injure the couple’s children. See Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 125 S. Ct. 2796, 2800-2802 (2005) TA \l “See Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 125 S. Ct. 2796 (2005)” \s “See TownCity of Castle Rock v. Gonzalesz, 125 S. Ct. 2796, 2800-2802 (2005)” \c 1 (describing incident in which batterer violated his wife’s restraining order against him, abducted his three children, and murdered them.); see also Maureen Sheeran & Scott Hampton, Supervised Visitation in Cases of Domestic Violence, 50(2) Juv. & Fam. Ct. J. 13, 13-21 (1999) TA \l “Maureen Sheeran & Scott Hampton, Supervised Visitation in Cases of Domestic Violence, 50(2) Juv. & Fam. Ct. J. 13 (1999)” \s “Maureen Sheeran & Scott Hampton, Supervised Visitation in Cases of Domestic Violence, 50(2) Juv.enile &and Family Ct. Journal 13, 13-21 (1999)” \c 3 (citing research that establishes a definitive link between parental child abduction and domestic violence). In fact, twenty-five percent of batterers directly threaten to kidnap the couple’s children if the victim pursues legal action. Buzawa & Buzawa, supra, at 183.
Additionally, because many victims depend upon the batterer for financial support, they may reasonably fear financial ruin or homelessness if they assist the prosecution. A batterer’s control of the victim’s access to money and employment is common in domestic violence situations. Diane R. Follingstad et al., The Role of Emotional Abuse in Physically Abusive Relationships, 5 J. Fam. Violence 107, 109 (1990) TA \l “Diane R. Follingstad et al., The Role of Emotional Abuse in Physically Abusive Relationships, 5 J. Fam. Violence 107 (1990)” \s “Diane R. Follingstad et al., The Role of Emotional Abuse in Physically Abusive Relationships, 5 J. Fam. Violence 107, 109 (1990)” \c 3 . A victim may reasonably fear that, without the batterer’s financial support, she and her children are at risk of becoming homeless. U.S. Conference of Mayors, A Status Report on Hunger and Homelessness in America’s Cities: A 27-City Survey (2004) TA \l “U.S. Conference of Mayors, A Status Report on Hunger and Homelessness in America’s Cities: A 27-City Survey (2004)“ \s “U.S. Conference of Mayors, A Status Report on Hunger and Homelessness in America’s Cities: A 27-City Survey (, December 2004)” \c 3 (citing domestic violence as the primary cause of homelessness in forty-four percent of the cities surveyed).
What do you say? Well, here’s the law (as quoted on my blog earlier)– you can google it yourself:
CAL. PEN. CODE § 273.8 : California Code – Section 273.8
The Legislature hereby finds that spousal abusers present a clear and present danger to the mental and physical well-being of the citizens of the State of California. The Legislature further finds that the concept of vertical prosecution, in which a specially trained deputy district attorney, deputy city attorney, or prosecution unit is assigned to a case after arraignment and continuing to its completion, is a proven way of demonstrably increasing the likelihood of convicting spousal abusers and ensuring appropriate sentences for those offenders. In enacting this chapter, the Legislature intends to support increased efforts by district attorneys’ and city attorneys’ offices to prosecute spousal abusers through organizational and operational techniques that have already proven their effectiveness in selected cities and counties in this and other states.
[Emphases changed, 2023. Notice this is in the California PENAL Code, not civil and not family codes…
(Blogger Opinion based on experience and deduced definition over time (It was my opinion in 2009, this qualifier only added 2023. I believe it’s understood in my (somewhat sarcastic tone) at the time that this was my opinion):
In order to understand family law venue, you MUST understand that part of its primary purpose is that these offenders NOT be convicted or prosecuted. One great way to shut up a parent or a child from reporting is to simply switch custody (or force repeated contact with) an abuser. In war, this is understood as a form of coercion and torture. Yet in our Golden State here, it’s business as usual. How can this be?
“It’s not abuse, or domestic violence, it’s a “high-conflict” relationship. let us “explicate” — at your expense…” (Give me a break…)
How can you explain away a law passed by a legislature?
Easy — a language shift. Co-opt the phrase and apply it to something different, and train — first, your cronies — to adopt the new usage. When said Cronies are practically RUNNING the courts, it’s kind of hard to override them. . . . . But here you are (and I’m almost out of time here. Figure out the rest yourself….).
——————-
AFCC’s explication of “Clear and Present Danger” is running out of money for them. I can certainly understand why these professionals are much more concerned about the COURTS running out of money than the parents litigating in the courts, or — as the US Governors have already stated, domestic violence being a significant cause of homelessness, evidently it includes economic abuse somewhere in there. . . . .
As you may infer, I’m upset about this. With good cause, too. I have uncollectable child support, and the guy STILL isn’t out of my life, although thanks to this system, my own kids are….Like many women, I lost a livelihood fighting this uphill battle, until someone spoke some common sense to me. Well, we are still not done exposing the money trail here. Anyhow, til later . . . .
According to AFCC, the “clear and present danger” is any cessation of the everflowing (cesspool?) of federal funds to the family courts to bastardize the legal process. That’s MY version of it, of course. It kind of does remind one of a toilet that won’t stop running, however….. The water being, public, tax-funded funds with inadequate oversight….
As I showed in a previous post, the brochure even says so:
<!—more—>
Here is the advertisement for this Feb 2010 conference:
California Annual Conference
The Crisis of Under-Funding Family
Court Resources: A Clear and Present
Danger to Our Children
Sheraton Delfina Hotel
Santa Monica, California
February 12-14, 2010
For more information
Here is the graphic, once you click on “for more information.”
Note: co-sponsored by the L.A. County Superior Court. Huh??
Finally, below here, I simply googled the phrase, and pasted a reference and discussion on this phrase. No, I have not thoroughly explored it, but at least this is a discussion of the history of the phrase.
You’d think the assortment of legal professionals in AFCC (there are judges and attorneys) might be interested in more precise language — but they are also hanging out with sociologists, psychologists, and whatnot, and surely the waters are somewhat muddier than they are in the clear law, and the cold hard facts showing up in the newspapers, weekly, daily, and year after year. . . .
Below this, I pasted a “lethality assessment” (Barbara J. Hart, Esq. Google it, it’s well-known. Why can’t we bring this stuff up in a family law case? )
Clear and Present Danger Test (Encyclopedia.com)
[2023 note. This is a very long quote and paragraphing it seems was removed. I quickly added some back in, probably not in the same places. I’m also formatting it for quote, although that’ll make the vertical much longer…//LGH 5-7-2023]
The words “clear and present danger,” first used as a casual phrase by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, became an important test for determining whether speech is protected by the First Amendment. Holmes introduced this phrase in Schenck v. United States, a 1919 opinion for a unanimous Court upholding against First Amendment challenges the convictions of socialists who had distributed antiwar circulars to men accepted for military service in World War I.
In explaining why the defendants could constitutionally be punished for violating the prohibition in the 1917 Espionage Act against obstruction of recruitment, Holmes wrote, “The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent” (p. 52). Relying on the prevailing bad tendency test he himself had applied in previous cases involving speech, Holmes reasoned that in the circumstances of war these circulars had a tendency to obstruct recruitment.
In Frohwerk v. United States and Debs v. United States, two companion unanimous decisions that also invoked the bad tendency of antiwar speech in affirming convictions under the Espionage Act, Holmes did not mention clear and present danger. Even though Holmes used the phrase “clear and present danger” only in Schenck and relied on the bad tendency test in all three opinions, Zechariah Chafee, Jr., then a young professor at Harvard Law School, soon wrote a law review article claiming that Holmes intended the clear and present danger test to make “the punishment of words for their bad tendency impossible.”
As Justices Holmes and Louis Brandeis rapidly became more sensitive to the value of free speech during the “Red Scare” following the war, they found it useful to rely on Chafee’s misconstruction of clear and present danger in Schenck to express their developing views without repudiating their prior decisions. From the dissent by Holmes in Abrams v. United States (1919) through the concurrence by Brandeis in Whitney v. California (1927), Holmes and Brandeis elaborated the meaning of clear and present danger in ways that transformed it into a First Amendment test providing substantial protection for dissident speech. Most significantly, they infused an immediacy requirement into the clear and present danger test that precluded punishment of speech unless it imminently threatened an illegal act. Brandeis’s concurrence in Whitney, moreover, belatedly responded to the majority’s assertion in Gitlow v. New York (1925) that both the bad tendency test and the clear and present danger variant apply only “in those cases where the statute merely prohibits certain acts involving the danger of substantive evil, without any reference to language itself” (p. 670).
A statute that itself defines speech as criminal, Brandeis insisted in Whitney, is also subject to judicial review under the clear and present danger test. The Supreme Court majority continued throughout the 1920s to apply the traditional bad tendency test and did not refer to clear and present danger when it first overturned convictions on First Amendment grounds in the early 1930s. From the late 1930s to the early 1950s, many majority decisions did rely on the clear and present danger test previously developed by Holmes and Brandeis to protect speech in a wide variety of contexts, and the Court never referred to clear and present danger in decisions that denied First Amendment claims.
Yet at the height of Cold War fear about a communist conspiracy, the Court in Dennis v. United States (1951) removed the immediacy requirement and accepted Judge Learned Hand’s reformulation of the clear and present danger test: “whether the gravity of the ‘evil,’ discounted by its improbability, justifies such invasion of free speech as is necessary to avoid the danger” (p. 510). Applying this new standard, the Court upheld the convictions of eleven Communist party leaders for conspiring to advocate the violent overthrow of government (see Communism and Cold War).
Since the Dennis decision, the Supreme Court has largely ignored but has not entirely abandoned the clear and present danger test while developing different doctrines to analyze a proliferating range of First Amendment issues. The clear and present danger test may have resurfaced in the Court’s 1969 per curiam opinion in Brandenburg v. Ohio, which reversed the conviction of a Ku Klux Klan leader under a state statute prohibiting the advocacy of criminal syndicalism.
In an abrupt holding accompanied by scant and unconvincing analysis of prior decisions, the Court declared that “the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action” (p. 447). Several scholars have interpreted this passage, although it does not contain the phrase “clear and present danger,” as combining the immediacy requirement derived from the Holmes‐Brandeis opinions with a further requirement that speech constitute an incitement to illegal action.
The Court has not subsequently elaborated its analysis in Brandenberg and has applied it only infrequently, leaving its meaning uncertain, particularly in contexts other than subversive advocacy. See also Speech and the Press. Bibliography David M. Rabban , The Emergence of Modern First Amendment Doctrine. University of Chicago Law Review 50 (Fall 1983): 1205–1355. David M. Rabban
(I believe this is also part of the same quote, but am not sure.//LGH 5-7-2023).
[[I realize the link to AFCC usage (2010 conference) is broken, which is the point for my post, but fortunately nearby posts (i.e., also from Dec. 2009) have posted much of the brochure’s contents (listed at the time as “Upcoming 2010” with their Speaker bios. Use Calendar Widget to browse Dec. 2009 posts by date.]]
LETHALITY ASSESSMENT SHOWS THESE CLEAR AND PRESENT INDICATORS OF DANGER:
Predictors of Lethality Include:
- Threats of suicide or homicide including killing himself, the victim, children or relatives.
- Fantasies of homicide or suicide in the guise of fantasizing “who, how, when and/or where to kill.”
- Weapons owned by the perpetrator who has threatened to used them or has used them in the past (the use of guns is a strong predictor of homicide).
- Feelings of “ownership” of the victim.
- “Centrality” to the victim (idolizing and extreme dependence).
- Separation from the victim (this is an extremely dangerous time when perpetrators make the decision to kill).
- Dangerous behavior increases in degree with little regard for legal or social consequences.
- Hostage-taking
- Depression
- Repeated calls to the police.
Lethality assessments are more an art than a science and cannot be considered precise by any means. They are not a tool for certain prediction, but rather one for risk assessment and safety planning or intervention. Social service providers should error on the side of caution and inform their clients that any abuser can potentially be lethal.
Blogger note. I might put (a little) more time into reformatting this and nearby posts, but after several tries, with detailed html code revisions, I find they are not being saved when I hit “Save” so, for now putting extra time into that project is “counter-indicated” until I find out why, or use a different input device (my full-size laptop is down for a month or so recently).
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“Clear and Present Danger”…fuzzy usage by AFCC (Publ. Dec. 1, 2009, format Fixes May 7, 2023). About 3,000 words. (Case-sensitive short-link ends “-lD”. First character is lower case “l,” not capital “I” or number “1”.=)
Let’s Just Ban Divorce. Or Marriage?
Let’s take this to the logical conclusion:
Movement under way in California to ban divorce
By Judy Lin Associated Press Posted: 11/30/2009 02:54:14 PM PST Updated: 11/30/2009 05:35:30 PM PST SACRAMENTO —
Till death do us part? The vow would really hold true in California if a Sacramento Web designer gets his way.
In a movement that seems ripped from the pages of writers for cable’s Comedy Central, John Marcotte wants to put a measure on the ballot next year to ban divorce in California.
The effort is meant to be a satirical statement after California voters outlawed gay marriage in 2008, largely on the argument that a ban is needed to protect the sanctity of traditional marriage. If that’s the case, then Marcotte reasons voters should have no problem banning divorce.
“Since California has decided to protect traditional marriage, I think it would be hypocritical of us not to sacrifice some of our own rights to protect traditional marriage even more,” the 38-year-old married father of two said.
. . .
No other state bans divorce, and only a few countries, including the Philippines and Malta, do. The Roman Catholic Church also prohibits divorce but allows annulments. The California proposal would amend the state constitution to eliminate the ability of married couples to get divorced while allowing married couples to seek annulments.
Person ally, I’m thinking women ought to hold a boycott on childbearing til we get this family courts thing straightened out.
Never in my life did I expect to spend the latter portion of my life in this type of trauma / drama, diverting energies from productive activities to defensive activities, and taking increased hits the stronger one shows up in court. What a Catch-22! How dare any organization, agency, or arm of the state, county or federal government WASTE a decade or so of any parent’s life. In particular mothers have to juggle work, job, parenthood — those things are not flippant responsibilities!
How are we supposed to teach our youngsters right from wrong if the institutions they inhabit can’t figure it out? Or, alternatively, how are we supposed to teach them to respect others and credit the process of resolving differences, when (once divorce actually starts), the entire “due process” is farmed out to professionals who don’t observe it? Or even respect it?
Prentice said proponents of traditional marriage only seek to strengthen the one man-one woman union.
Nationwide, about half of all marriages end in divorce.
Not surprisingly, Marcotte’s campaign to make divorce in California illegal has divided those involved in last year’s campaign for and against Proposition 8.
Marcotte, who is Catholic and voted against Proposition 8, views himself as an accidental activist. A registered Democrat, he led a “ban divorce” rally recently at the state Capitol to launch his effort and was pleasantly surprised by the turnout. About 50 people showed up, some holding signs that read, “You too can vote to take away civil rights from someone.”
Well, this one was just comic relief, I hope. It’s California, trendsetter to the nation….

The case was then turned over to detectives with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Unit.
Reporting



While you were sleeping: How Congress got into the Family Law business…
with 3 comments
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.
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:
[[Ya-THINK? Just perhaps MAYBE? This shows the rationale…]]
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Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up
December 5, 2009 at 4:16 PM
Posted in Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, Designer Families, Vocabulary Lessons
Tagged with "CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT AND VISITATION: SHOULD THERE BE A FEDERAL CONNECTION?" (CRS Rpt 97-590 updated 6-20-2000), Carmen Solomon-Fears, CRS Rept 97-590, CRS-Congressional Research Service, Due process, fatherhood, HHS-TAGGS grants database, History of Access and Visitation Legislation, House Ways and Means-Human Resources Subcommittee (Jurisdiction - Titles I ~IV ~VI ~X ~XIV ~XVI ~XX and related provisions of titles VII & XI of the Social Security Act per 112th Congress rules), men's rights, murder-suicides, obfuscation, social commentary, Studying Humans, U.S. Govt $$ hard @ work..