Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History

I am a Noncustodial mother who lost her children illegally coming up on 4 years ago because of California’s Failure to Enforce its own laws. 

Readers. . . . . I am blowing off steam here, and the paragraphs may not be in order.  All things considered, I’m doing it OK, and society should be glad that — unlike the man I left years ago — I blow off steam with my fingers on a keyboard and not with my finger’s on someone else’s neck (etc.) as I experienced before finally filing for a domestic violence order with kickout.

NOTE:  The prior post on Evan Stark, I do not agree totally with his perspective (after a re-read).  He is not addressing the primary issues, but simply reframing them.  In looking at the Glenn Sacks link to “Evan Stark,” I found no mention (at first look) of his name on the Glenn Sacks site.  Today’s post is in (irate) response to the hypocrisy of the blog about child abduction, on this site.

I don’t know whether I’ll be too coherent (below), but I do know that I’ll say my piece, particularly as it’s not being heard in the courtroom, or other places.

To expect mothers who can’t see their kids and who have been stuck in the court system for years to act “rationally” approaching this holiday — well, don’t expect too much of this. 

I actually think that these holidays — MOST of them — and “awareness” months (or days) should just be boycotted.  It gives the general public ADHD while simply providing more business for Hallmark, and psychotherapists who handle whichever distraught parent doesn’t get to see his or her offspring.

I[ll try again (better) another time.

Readers also might be aware that I have no regular internet access, and have to put up first drafts on short timespans these days.

I personally am emotionally, physically, spiritually and mentally exhausted from another attempt to do something through the family law system.  On the bright side, going there didn’t provoke PTSD like it normally does…

MOTHER’s DAY:

As I approach yet another Mothers’ Day weekend, realizing I am not going to likely see either of my children, and fully 10 years after separating from an abusive husband, who never spent a night in jail, even though the abuse lasted almost 10 years, and was at a felony level, causing serious injury as defined by law, and for which zero (0.00) compensation was ever received, I am coming up on over a year since I have seen my younger daughter by face, or heard her voice. 

The last time I considered fleeing this area for my OWN safety (even though like many women I’ve lost everything to these systems, which endorse & reward criminal behavior, let alone simple sloth, while promising to do something remedy and relieve it) the other thing I’ve lost is my respect for authority in general.  I am honest in court and have enough self-restraint not to commit crimes, and realize that this means in this culture, I will not be allowed to contact, or transmit these sane values to my own offspring.

How a woman handles this, I don’t know.  We have choices — dissociate, and not care?  Or care, and take the law into our own hands (which will likely just result in jail time or a total identity change meaning our lives just got cut in half, and whatever the first half was spent working towards, GOES), or we are continue to hurt and work, but forever changed.  The meaning of language changes.  The alienation towards major institutions — ALL of them — changes.  Speaking for myself, my desire to participate or even support any community which allows the widescale trafficking in children, and women, while loudly protesting it’s AGAINST this — is gone.

My case:

Prior to the last time I saw my daughter (2009), it was almost two years without visual contact.  The seven years prior to that, the father had generous weekly visitation, alternating holidays (and I gave him more) and two weeks in the summer. 

The moment they were put in his care, I didn’t see either daughter on a single major holiday except one of them once, the first year nor did I get any summer vacation.  Within a year, the visitation was hammered down to one phone call a week, which I didn’t get consistently then, and do not get AT ALL now.  I requested in court that the children be required to call me, which was granted verbally, but didn’t make it into the court order (which the father was allowed to write).  So, the emotional abuse of not getting through continues to this date.

During this first, critical year of separation from my children (right about as they hit puberty), I was able to talk myself into two local conferences by expert organizations in the field of domestic violence and child abuse.  NOTE:  I didn’t receive notice, mailing, and was not able to AFFORD attendance, but managed to get in anyhow. 

During this first, critical year of separation, women continued — in the same city — to be stabbed, shot, in one case as I recall, burned, and in general drop like flies while trying to leave an abuser.  I ran into a triple homicide (police cars, TV cameras) one Thanksgiving evening, causing severe PTSD.  This also turned out to be family related.  The court, failing to answer my repeated requests it state a REASON for the custody switch, also failed to acknowledge that outside the courtroom I was being intimidated as well.

Instead, they assigned another court personnel (who draws a salary, I’m sure) who MUST have walked by at least one of these domestic violence murders, high-profile, en route to my courtroom telling me to go fly a kite.

I sought to ascertain the scope or practice from this children’s attorney, and (she) couldn’t give me one.  I communicated to her when my own daughter (who’d already been abducted) sent me a troubling email about another Amber Alert of a girl her age, and was ignored.  I faxed that the father had stalked me (and credible witness of this was in the court file) in response to my attempts to see my daughters, per the court order.  I received, in return, a scathing long-distance psychological analysis by a woman whose initials after her name read “Esq.” and not “L.C.S.W.,” although if they had, she’d still be more professional to at least MEET with me once, or show some evidence that the court file had been at least read through once.

My court order says I am to see the children on Mother’s Day and their father on Father’s Day.  That hasn’t happened in approximately four years.  The court orders are unenforceable. 

After my kids were stolen on an overnight visitation based on FALSE claims that I was an abduction risk, and several other facts not proved in any court, and because law enforcement simply refused to honor the existing physical custody order, I foolishly believed a Family Law Judge would have some interest in the facts of the case, and once those facts were compared with the law, would return my children both to this household and their schools.

At the time of the abduction, the father was thousands of $$ behind in child support, which was set at a VERY minimal level.  The child support order itself was the first time this man was actually forced to support his own children without financially pimping me, i.e., I worked, took abuse, had my credit stolen, and lived in fear and half in and half out of a car (when a car was actually available) until finally, my life (then at risk) was spared by a CIVIL restraining order.  I knew nothing about criminal ones, although they would’ve been more appropriate.

Two days ago, I cooled my heels for a morning in front of a judge who had been in the DA’s office during the years I was getting slapped around my own home, and during the year that my children were stolen. 

I later looked up who he was (and the intermingling of family connections in this area).   I found out (and may write him, as our case isn’t going anywhere, and if it does, any court orders issued won’t be enforced before both kids turn 18) that by the time he got his first bachelor’s, I was getting ready to get my second.  I am beginning to tire of the “attitude” taken towards family court litigants once they get in there.

Without a second thought, my matter was dropped and I was sent back to the self-help desk which had not helped me to start with, because I’d been unable to SAFELY serve this man. 

FYI, Financial Devastation typically follows entry into the family law case.  I couldn’t afford service, was not allowed to serve by mail, and I no longer have associates willing to go there.  I sure as hell am not going anywhere near the father, who lives in another city, and particularly not without a vehicle (the original abduction resulted in lost work and — predictably over time — lost vehicle). 

Thereafter, the same date as I sat in court a half day to receive 10 seconds of judge’s time, the father (who had been at least by PHONE informed of this case, and requested to come drop his divorce action, since he was stalking me and had in writing his intent to reclaim me — against my will – as his wife (having abandoned our children with his former mistress) continued to make phone calls, and waste more of my time. 

This process is utterly exhausting, and NOT possible to work around.

I cannot speak for all marriages, obviously, but in ours the difference in education was significant (I have two college degrees to his none) and the intent from the start of this marriage, rather than for us both to be elevated by working together, was to put me down lower than he already was.  It began, continued, and has continued like a total bulldozer, whirlwind, and I am thankful that at least all of us are still alive — all though there is one daughter I’ve had no contact with for a very long time.

As we head into ANOTHER “Mother’s Day” weekend, probably a few more Moms and/or children will die, in punishment for confronting Dad about something, and Fathers & Families, ignoring this, will continue to advocate to further bury us alive financially, legally, and emotionally because — long ago and legally  — SOME of us second-class-female-gender-Moms said ENOUGH! and said it with court orders.

Japan had it right folks — they understand that women are better mothers.  Men are too often in the habit of importing women for the purposes of babymaking (I’m not saying this is the current case) and then when the mother says NO, they have an issue.

I think God had this one right too — for nine months, generally, we bond with growing life inside our bodies.  Once we give birth — or sometimes before — the battle is on for “whose kids are they” in our current environment. 

Glenn Sacks, your Sack is full of hot air, and whatever God you worship, if there’s a just one around, He will sooner or later set it straight, I hope.  I long ago ceased hoping for balance in the courts OR from law enforcement, as they are so inbred it’s nearly impossible to tell the difference.  If any parent is so foolish as to think that this is where you go for anything other than to get fleeced, you deserve it. 

The practice to get unwilling participants INTO the family law system against their will, and from there into mediation, which is by way of saying “Outcome Based Litigation” (i.e., no due process), is consolidating a restraining order with a divorce order.  She wants restraint, he files for divorce, and voila — she loses her kids, and ends up paying him.  Or else. 

Now, people in the U.S. want to threaten the nation of Japan like it was a recalcitrant child.  Let’s remember in what country Hiroshima is, and in what country American Citizens with Japanese blood in their veins were rounded up and incarcerated several decades ago.  Decades later, this is discussed on public television stations, but at the time, it was another matter.

Right now, we are rounding up noncustodial mothers who said NO! to their husbands, and when the law didn’t protect them, they took it upon themselves to protect their own kids.  The SPIN that we are all lying (based on our female gender), and that somehow the odds need to be evened towards fathers is the same mentality that said Japanese Americans are  a risk to our nation, and need to lose THEIR homes, businesses, and in some cases, childhoods til it gets figured out.  Racial profiling, Gender profiling — what’s the diff? 

MANY women fail to realize how deeply the OCSE (Child Support System) is involved in the fatherhood movement.  Glenn here is at least honest enough to say it up front.  Here’s the quote, from the site:

Fathers & Families has an ambitious legislative agenda and has helped pass family court reform legislation in over two dozen states. Below are updates on Fathers & Families’ current legislative projects. To learn more about our legislative and other achievements, click here.

California

Child Custody Reform Bill AB 2416 Passes Assembly by Unanimous Consent, Moves to Senate

F & F Introduces 5th CA. Family Court Reform Bill—SB 1188 

F & F Helps Amend CA. SB 1266 to Include Both Mothers and Fathers

F & F Introduces 4 Family Court Reform Bills into California Legislature

F & F serves on Department of Child Support Services Programs Workgroup, the only advocacy group included {{Note:  the only link not to be a hyperlink, here…}

The last time I ran into a mother who’d been deprived of her children and was stuck in the family law court was this MORNING.  For 14 years, she’s been involved in this.

WHO is stupid enough to think that this is going to help a child or adult, to keep the litigation going for so long?

That is, other than those whose livelihood is IN the courts….

They are recruiting fathers from child support office, and from prisons, to get free legal help to reduce arrears.  “Poor Fathers…”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Liz Richards ~ http://www.nafcj.net ~ out of Anandale Virginia has documented this and has been blogging the connections for over 15 years.  I took the time to research her statements, and have found them to be accurate.  The paths are clear, if you delete the “spin” and simply look at the federal funding, and see how far-thinking were some of the corporations that positioned themselves to keep “researching” the problems” (without ever solving them or, that I can tell, saving a single life) on the public taxpayer dole.

I started this site to continue posting links and some studies to follow that money trail for those who choose to.

The more I read, the more radical I became.  In the meantime, I quit churches, on the basis that enough is enough of USING women, and SILENCE on domestic violence.  I tell women to avoid the child support trap — and beware its gifts.  If you get there by receiving cash aid after support, you have just signed over your rights to advocate YOURSELF on child support.

I also say, forget it on restraining orders and (a) leave and (b) take a self-defense class, and take it SERIOUSLY.  A restraining order is just going to piss off your ex, and Glenn Sacks & Company, and fact is, they right now have more powerful access to media and government than you do.  If you doubt me, look at the makeup of the U.S. Congress. 

Do you think that the VAWA and Statewide Coalitions and other groups are going to help you?  Victims of Crime compensation?  For lost income, lost teeth, medical reimbursement for counseling and so forth?  If you are such a Mom who was so helped, please add your comment (and identifying information, if safe to do so) HERE.  I wasn’t. 

So here it is on Child Abduction. Hypocrites!   Listen to an employed businessman, apparently (it’s a *.com site, right?) with postings by a lawyer, and Fathers & Family advocating in the Child Support Agency (like it wasn’t already heavily biased towards minimizing child support for fathers, and switching custody when the come into the offices for help), piping up for a pity party that it’s too easy to get a restraining order, and that child abduction prevention orders are not being inforced…

If I could spit on screen, I would.  Women who DO comply with court orders are going to lose in this venue.  Men who don’t will be rewarded.

FL Passes Law Against Parental Child Abduction – Or Does It?

May 7th, 2010 by Robert Franklin, Esq.

This article tells us that the Florida Legislature has recently passed, with no ‘nay’ votes, a bill entitled the “Child Abduction Prevention Act.” (Capitol Soup, 4/22/10). The governor is expected to sign it. Here’s a link to the amended bill. It’s a pretty serious bill. The legislators look like they’re intent on preventing parental child abduction out of Florida to another state or to a foreign country.

{{Well, that’s less business for Florida, right?}}

So they’ve given judges the power to issue orders prohibiting a parent leaving the jurisdiction, requiring parents who seem to pose a risk of abduction to post bonds, requiring them to turn over children’s passports, notifying U.S. passport authorities of the order against the parent, refusing permission to travel to any country that’s not a signatory to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of Child Abduction, and more.

Of course the judge has to hold a hearing and receive evidence that suggests that one parent may be about to flee the jurisdiction.

Not in my state (same general wording in the bill) they don’t.  All that was needed was for law enforcement officers to threaten to call in CPS if I didn’t cede my children to the father, whose residence at this time was unidentified, who had a habitual pattern of repeatedly violating all court orders, which this station knew of, and when these law enforcement officers had in front of them a court order NOT 24 HOURS OLD — DENYING him his request for immediate ex parte total removal of my daughters on the basis that I (and not he) was the abduction risk. 

When I requested that if these officers were GOING to allow my ex to actually commit felony child-stealing (which I later learned was the description) they would — right now — issue a report that he was at a minimum violating my sole physical custody order.  They mocked me and refused, and taunted me that they would issue this — many weeks later. 

This provoked a crisis requiring us to go to mediation.  I was in shock and trauma over this, UTTERLY devastated that this could happen.  The same mediator that ignored (totally) the original domestic violence order was my only option, or fail to get to court because no other mediator was available.  He was required — by rules of court — to provide me an intake form.  He skipped it this time, no intake form was provided.  Each of the two prior times I had (truthfully) related the former violence and the current situations. It’d been several years, and the form had been updated to include, as a “check mark” “CHILD-STEALING.”

LOOK:  Is it a felony or is it a check mark on a mediator’s intake form? 

Either way, I received no intake form and was asked by this jerk how was my “relationship” with my kids.  I repeated, several times, my children are MIA, they have been stolen by their father, and I do not know where they are.  He then, doltish, asked me if they were in school.  I repeated, they are not in the school I just enrolled them in, they are truant, and I DO NOT KNOW WHERE THEY ARE AND CANNOT REACH THEM BY PHONE.  THEIR FATHER AND GIRLFRIEND HAVE TAKEN AND CONCEALED THEM. 

We go to court.  The theft provokes a hearing.  The hearing provokes BUSINESS for a family lawyer, obviously, as the mother, I’m going to hire someone to get my kids back.  That’s how it works, folks….

At the hearing, the mediator, ignoring the felony child-stealing, ignoring (which is on the record) that I actually qualified, if I myself had done this, as a domestic violence victim, having had a prior restraining order, and ignoring that for three weeks these children for the first time in their lives had no contact with their mother (something that had never been done to their father).  He produces a report — which I obviously wasn’t given before the hearing, nor was my attorney — containing lies and material factual error, and ignoring the crime.    My attorney, quick on his feet, requests the court to provide the LEGAL and FACTUAL basis for switching custody, which it is required to do by law.

The judge complains about this request (that she comply with custody laws in our state) and, complaining, sets the matter for a short trial to find out what happened (although what happened is already obvious).  The father, now with control, proceeds to violate even more court orders than before, and in essence, this is about the last time I see my children, even though they live not too far away.  When I protest and try to seek enforcement of the drastically reduced court order (less visitation than he had even immediately after being thrown out of our home), I am personally threatened by stalking, plus continued arguing, by the father of our daughters.  Whose employment, at this time, is (while I’m at it) under the table. 

The same child support agency that stalled — for a few years, when I sought its help — acted quickly — within a month — to terminate all current arrears, and continued (for 12 months) to deliberately stall and fail to file a seek work order on my recalcitrant mate, meaning, I went quickly into poverty, as did the children (they ended up receiving NO child support, as I lost my profession over this, and their father was already failing to work at his in order to punish me for seeking standards, and leaving him….). 

Thereafter, in the family law venue, per the law, the judge is require

That evidence includes not having secure ties to the community, not having financial interests in the community, obtaining passports, selling a residence, etc. And no one pretends that the law will prevent all child abductions by parents.

The Sean Goldman kidnapping is a good example.

There, the mother said she was taking the boy to visit her relatives in Brazil and never returned. Nothing in the Florida bill would have prevented that from happening, even if Goldman had lived in that state. Still, there are things legislation can accomplish and things it can’t, and, reading the bill, it’s clear that the lawmakers are trying to put teeth into the new law. They’re doing what they can to prevent parents from depriving their exes of contact via abduction. Until, that is, they get to subsection 7 (b) on page nine. At that point, the elected representatives of the People carve out an exception through which one could fly a 747 en route to Japan. Although you can guess what it is, here’s the language:

This section, including the requirement to post a bond or other security, does not apply to a parent who, in a proceeding to order or modify a parenting plan or time-sharing schedule, is determined by the court to be a victim of an act of domestic violence or provides the court with reasonable cause to believe that he or she is about to become the victim of an act of domestic violence, as defined in s. 741.28.

An injunction for protection against domestic violence issued pursuant to s. 741.30 for a parent as the petitioner which is in effect at the time of the court proceeding shall be one means of demonstrating sufficient evidence that the parent is a victim of domestic violence or is about to become the victim of an act of domestic violence, as defined in s. 741.28, and shall exempt the parent from this section, including the requirement to post a bond or other security. So if a parent has “reasonable cause” to believe that “he or she” is about to become a victim of DV, “he or she” can abduct the kids to any location desired, including any non-Hague Convention country. Once there, as we’ve seen in Paul Toland and Christopher Savoie’s cases, the kids might as well be on the dark side of the moon for all the contact dad will have with them. Significantly, all a litigant needs to show to a judge is that an injunction has issued against DV. Recall that I recently posted a piece on the process for getting a TRO in Florida. The “how to” website I linked to pronounced getting a TRO “easy,” and that looked to me like an accurate description. Just toddle down to the courthouse, ask the clerk to give you a form, fill it out, have it notarized and Presto!, there’s your TRO. No muss, no fuss, no evidence, no judge and no troublesome opposing party. We know that a domestic violence TRO need neither allege nor prove that any form of actual violence has ever occurred. If the person requesting the order fears that it will, the TRO will issue. That’s true of an injunction against DV too; fear of DV is sufficient. So what we have is this: any parent who wants to abscond with the kids can do so based on his/her ability to convince a judge of their belief that DV may occur. Given that the vast majoriy of DV TROs are issued to women, and that judges almost invariably “err on the side of caution” it’s beginning to look like Florida moms at least will have little to worry about from the “Child Abduction Prevention Act.” Thanks to Barbara for the heads-up.