Posts Tagged ‘custody’
“PC278.5” Arresting Moms, at least, for Felony Child-Stealing…
http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/unreport.htm
Parental Child Abduction
is Child Abuseby Nancy Faulkner, Ph.D
Presented to the
United Nations Convention on Child Rights
in Special Session, June 9, 1999,
on behalf of P.A.R.E.N.T.
and victims of parental child abduction.© Nancy Faulkner 1999-2006
Interesting: The NCJRS 
Seems to sort “child-stealing” under two main headings:
| Search results for: child-stealing | ||||||||||||||||||
|
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This would be coherent with the recent Click-Hill case, as the girl disappeared after allegations of child abuse. The other reason for child-stealing (see “Garrido,” and others) might be for personal sexual abuse by strangers, or prostituting kids.
Two reasons I can think of might be to protect a child, or to punish the other parent. Authorities ought to get which is which straight… (More on the NCJRS info towards end of this post)
pc 278.5 IS (California) Penal Code 278.5.
I have come to believe this law was written for men, not women, to get their kids back. I would like to hear of any California woman whose children of around that age were actually returned to her under this code.
We already know of women in this and other states who have been incarcerated for much lesser custodial interference (see Oconto, WI blog, and “Lorraine.” Or, Joyce Murphy.
http://custodyscam.blogspot.com/2009/06/joyce-murphy-accused-of-kidnapping-her.html
SO WHEN IS THIS LAW TAKEN SERIOUSLY, AND WHEN NOT?
It reads as follows:
http://law.onecle.com/california/penal/278.5.html
(a) Every person who takes, entices away, keeps, withholds,
or conceals a child and maliciously deprives a lawful custodian of a
right to custody, or a person of a right to visitation, shall be
punished by imprisonment in a county jail not exceeding one year, a
fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or both that fine
and imprisonment, or by imprisonment in the state prison for 16
months, or two or three years, a fine not exceeding ten thousand
dollars ($10,000), or both that fine and imprisonment.
(b) Nothing contained in this section limits the court’s contempt
power.
(c) A custody order obtained after the taking, enticing away,
keeping, withholding, or concealing of a child does not constitute a
defense to a crime charged under this section.
Do you see the word “SHALL” in there?
Here’s 287.7, which indicates circumstances — unbelievably, it seems – -in which a parent or someone COULD take, entice, or conceal a child. It is to handle possible abuse or imminent harm to the child. (Child, FYI, is defined as under 18 in this law).
(a) Section 278.5 does not apply to a person with a right to custody of a child who, with a good faith and reasonable belief that the child, if left with the other person, will suffer immediate bodily injury or emotional harm, takes, entices away, keeps, withholds, or conceals that child.
(b) Section 278.5 does not apply to a person with a right to custody of a child who has been a victim of domestic violence who, with a good faith and reasonable belief that the child, if left with the other person, will suffer immediate bodily injury or emotional harm, takes, entices away, keeps, withholds, or conceals that child.
“Emotional harm” includes having a parent who has committed domestic violence against the parent who is taking, enticing away, keeping, withholding, or concealing the child.
(c) The person who takes, entices away, keeps, withholds, or conceals a child shall do all of the following:
(1) Within a reasonable time from the taking, enticing away, keeping, withholding, or concealing, make a report to the office of the district attorney of the county where the child resided before the action.
In other words, such a person shall, as an adult, give an account to the authorities of his or her reasons for the devastating action of removing a child from a parent.
NOW HERE WE ARE IN THE CLICK-HILL CASE, and a mother disappears with a daughter (mid-1990s, right when VAWA and NFI had gotten started), having accused the father of child molestation, after which he got (apparently) unsupervised time with the girl, again, then disappears.
Here’s an article by Robert Salonga:
Resurfacing of Walnut Creek girl highlights strains of parental abductions
By Robert Salonga
Contra Costa TimesPosted: 03/05/2010 04:45:10 PM PSTUpdated: 03/05/2010 05:35:35 PM PSTWALNUT CREEK — The arrest this week of a woman who took off with her 8-year-old daughter in 1995 during a child custody dispute is being lauded by police and missing child experts as an exceptional event.
In some ways, it wasn’t an exception at all.
Parental and family abductions account for nearly 97 percent of child abduction reports in the state. In Contra Costa County, all 29 abductions reported in 2008 involved family, and just one of the 64 reported in Alameda County that year was committed by a nonrelative.
Click said Friday that he divorced Wendy Hill in the early 1990s, and their relationship became estranged after he was granted primary custody of their daughter. When he went to pick her up from his ex-wife’s Redlands home in the summer of 1995, they had moved out. He never saw Jessica again, he said.
This sounds to me like a custody-switch; another version (below) says he got unsupervised visitation… There were allegations of child molestation, which is every bit as much a crime as child-stealing, but is often not handled as such in family law system.
Here’s another one…
Man waits to reunite with daughter
found 14 years after being abducted
as a 7-year-old by her mother
March 5, 2010 | 4:26 pmA woman who vanished 14 years ago with her 7-year-old daughter was arrested Tuesday in Monrovia and her daughter was located unharmed, authorities said Friday.
Wendy Hill, 52, was spotted at a local Claim Jumper restaurant and arrested on suspicion of abducting her own daughter.
Jessica Click-Hill, now 22, was contacted by authorities after the arrest. She is believed to be living out of state.
“I’m just so excited that Jessica is found and well and that, physically, she’s fine,” said the girl’s father, Dean Click. “She’s got family who haven’t gotten to be with her, to spend Christmas or Thanksgiving together, so we’re looking forward to reconnecting with each other.”
Click said that since his daughter is an adult, authorities will not release her contact information. “At this point, she will have to come to me,” he said.
The father said he and his ex-wife were in a custody dispute when Hill cleaned out her Redlands apartment in the fall of 1995 and left with the girl.
Click said he lived in Walnut Creek in Northern California at the time and for years had not been able to visit his daughter without a mediator present. [[he probably means supervised visitation. Mediation is something different.]] He said at the time he’d been accused of molesting his daughter, a claim he denied.
He said he ultimately was exonerated and that his rights were restored for full, unsupervised visits. On his first visit, he said he celebrated by bringing his parents along and taking Jessica out to lunch.
On his second visit, he said he arrived at the apartment complex and found that his ex-wife and daughter had left.
Authorities said Hill changed her name to Gail Jackson and moved from state to state. She was sighted outside Tampa, Fla., and at one point lived in Boston, authorities said.
A warrant was issued for her arrest in 1996 out of Contra Costa County, and the FBI issued its own warrant a year later.
Click said he kept in touch with authorities, but leads were few and far between. Then a tip came in several months ago from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about the mother’s alias and her location, said Sgt. Tom Cashion of the Walnut Creek Police Department .
Hill flew to Los Angeles, apparently for a business meeting, and was picked up Tuesday at the Monrovia restaurant, Cashion said.
She has since been taken to Northern California, where she was being held on $250,000 bail.
Click said he was asked by prosecutors if he wanted to press charges.
“I said ‘yes’ because she’s been a thief and she’s taken away those years that I did not get to spend with my daughter,” Click said.
— Amina Khan
Here’s another version, from a blog apparently local to the area she was stolen from. March 4, 2010: This isn’t quite current — the mother is now out on bail.
WALNUT CREEK GIRL MISSING SINCE 1995 FOUND HEAR L.A.: MOM ARRESTED FOR ABDUCTION.
![[found.jpg]](https://familycourtmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/4e352-found.jpg?w=700)
8-year-old Walnut Creek resident Jessica Click-Hill was allegedly abducted by her mom in 1995, and today, the Walnut Creek Police announced they found the girl, who’s now 22-years-old, and arrested her mom for parental abduction.The following is from the Walnut Creek Police….
Walnut Creek Police Detectives took Wendy D. Hill into custody for the parental abduction of her eight year old daughter Jessica Click-Hill in Los Angeles.
This case started in 1995 when Jessica’s father Dean Click reported to Walnut Creek Police that he believed his wife had abducted their child, Jessica. Detectives worked the case and in 1996, the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office filed charges against Wendy Hill and an arrest warrant was issued for her PC 278.5.
In 1997, the FBI issued an unlawful flight to avoid prosecution warrant (UFAP warrant). Recently, Walnut Creek Police and the FBI were alerted by NCMEC regarding a possible location for Wendy Hill and Jessica.
WCPD and the FBI followed up on the information and started their search. On March 2, the FBI located Wendy Hill in Monrovia (Los Angeles County) and arrested her on their UFAP warrant.
Walnut Creek Detectives were immediately sent to Los Angeles where they took custody of Wendy Hill.
The FBI has also located and made contact with Jessica.
Early this morning, detectives booked Wendy Hill into the Martinez Detention Facility in Martinez and she is being held on $250,000 bail.
(THIS WOMAN HAS SINCE BEEN RELEASED)..
The “California Family Institute” founder boasts (on the site) how he was one of the first to get a substantial reward under this law… Here’s the resume…(portions of it):
MICHAEL KELLY, ESQ. RESUME:Martindale Hubbell A.V. (VERACITY, Highest Possible Lawyer Rating by Judges and Peers, Preeminent National Lawyer Directory Listing):
California Divorce Attorney, Best interest of Child Advocate, Accomplished Victorious Lawyer:
I. Professional Leadership (42 Years Family Law Experience):
- Chairman of American Bar Custody Committee 2003
- Chairman of CA State Bar Custody & Visitation Comm., two terms
- Chairman of CA Trial Lawyers – Family Law Section Mem. Comm.
- Chairman of American Bar Association – Family Law, Law Practice Economics Committee
- Chairman of American Bar Interstate Custody Task Force Committee; UCCJEA (Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act)
- Chairman of American Bar Association – Family Law, Practical Use of Computers Committee
- Chairman of California Family Law Institute
- Chairman of California Custody Commission
- Chairman of Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce – Legal Committee
- Chairman of Santa Monica Bar Association – Family Law Committee, Three Terms
- Judge Pro Tem in Los Angeles County Superior Family Law Courts 20-years
- Family Law Mediator in Santa Monica, Torrance & LA Central District Superior Courts, 24-years
- Executive Member of the American Bar Association – Continuing Education Committee
- Executive Member of the American Bar Association – Economics of Practice Committee
- Secretary of California State Bar – Custody & Visitation Committee, Two Terms
- Produced and Moderated a Course on Negotiations – 1988 Joint Meeting of California State Bar, Child Custody, Support and Division of Property Committees
II. Legal Achievements:
- First CA attorney to try a Grandparents’ rights suit (January 1970) (Petrikin)
- First CA attorney appointed by children to represent them as individuals (June 1984) (Ryan)
- First CA attorney to file suit against an abducting parent under Penal Code 278.5, for $2.5 Million (1985)
- Largest child abduction award litigated in the United States, $12.4 Million (July 1993) (Wang)
- Rewrote and expanded CA Civil Code 4606, “Children’s right to an attorney” (1985), expanding childrens rights to an attorney (Ryan)
III. Teacher:USC Law School, Advanced Family Law & Divorce Litigation classes. All courses have been certified and accredited by the California State Bar Family Law Specialization Committee for attorney certification as family law specialist since 1986 to present.
While I’m at it, let me point out this site was SPECIFICALLY called a site addressed to MEN on an information sheet at a law library near a courthouse in Northern California. Look at the connections this person has, and the functions he has worked, in the family law venue. It is unbelievably interwoven…
This is the same site, where, while women are being told that conflict is bad, and if they have “conflict” with their ex, their heads need to be examined (let us appoint someone official, that we have trained), while apart from this, sites friendly to fathers have pages like this one:
.
Evil unanswered, is evil supported. You cannot allow evil to exist, and you cannot fight it with evil. Evil resisted by evil means, contaminates the resistor. The end that justifies the means is an imperfect and flawed concept. No end justifies evil, hurtful, injurious and mean behavior to others or against innocence.
The very concept of mediation and supervised visitation, parenting plans, etc., in the family venue is a brainchild of increasing noncustodial parent visitation time, when due process, fact-gathering, and evidence wouldn’t. The Family Law venue IS a violation of due process, and it IS a venue where the end (“required outcome– more noncustodial parent time [[noncustodial parent being, “father,” as far as the intent of such programs]] justifies the means, and as such, might be characterized as “evil.” IF the concept is justice, and due process.
Evil flourishes by creating distraction, misdirection, trust, ease, inattention, enjoyment, false pride, etc. If one were asked, “What do you do?”, the answer could ask “I wage war against evil, in all of its myriad forms and colorations, at all times, places and at all costs.”
You cannot face evil on impulse; it thrives on such action. You cannot defeat evil with anger . . . anger makes evil burn brighter. You can only cut down evil with cold, fierce force driven by the vision of right, honor, truth, and godliness. Evil is so opposed to these forces that anything else simply exacerbates the evil.
Evil is heartless by necessity. Both it and the person possessed by it see circumstances and events with the view of a malignant narcissist. All things that do not agree with their view of the world are immediately labeled “Deadly Opponents” in an opposition to the self-appointed right of the evil person to their sole view of what is right and wrong, what is proper behavior and what is not, what should and should not be said, or done . . . how things should or should not be done.
Question:
SO when is a crime not a crime? Or a law against felony child-stealing not a felony or not applicable?
Answer:
When someone in authority says it’s not. And that’s up to whoever decides to prosecute, or, alternately, decides NOT to prosecute. This is NOT up to the parent, but to the reporting officers, and after that, the D.A.
When it is bounced to family law, and ends up as a check mark on a mediator’s report form.
I just searched the well-known “NCJRS” on “Child-stealing” and got these results. notice — they aren’t exactly “current,” for the most part (note years).
| Results in Publications (Abstracts Only) | ||
| Parental Child–Stealing | ||
| NCJ 078760, M W Agopian, 1981, (157 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
| Parental Child Stealing – California’s Legislative Response | ||
| NCJ 074911, M W Agopian, Canadian Criminology Forum, 3, 1, 1980, 37-43, (7 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
| Epidemic of Child–Stealing – What Can Be Done? | ||
| NCJ 080631, B W Most, Current, 194, 1977, 40-44, (5 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
| Problems in the Prosecution of Parental Child Stealing Offenses (From Parental Kidnaping Prevention Act of 1979, S 105 – Addendum, P 76-87, 1980 – See NCJ-77752) | ||
| NCJ 077753, M W Agopian, 1980, (12 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
| Characteristics of Parental Child Stealing (From Crime and the Family, P 111-120, 1985, by Alan J Lincoln and Murray A Straus – See NCJ-98873) | ||
| NCJ 098879, M W Agopian; G L Anderson, 1985, (10 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
| CHILD STEALING – A TYPOLOGY OF FEMALE OFFENDERS | ||
| NCJ 036248, P T D’ORBAN, BRITISH JOURNAL OF CRIMINOLOGY, 16, 3, 1976, 275-281, (7 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
| Child Stealing by Cesarean Section: A Psychiatric Case Report and Review of the Child Stealing Literature | ||
| NCJ 140929, S H Yutzy; J K Wolfson; P J Resnick, Journal of Forensic Sciences, 38, 1, 1993, 192-196, (5 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
| Parental Child Stealing – Participants and the Victimization Process | ||
| NCJ 085267, M W Agopian, Victimology, 5, 2-4, 1982, 263-273, (11 pages). | ||
| NCJRS Abstract | ||
Here are Miscellaneous Abstracts and characterizations from these ties:
FROM “typology of Female Offenders.” Kinda reminds you of Chesler “Women & Madness…”
| Annotation: | CASE STUDIES ARE PRESENTED AND DISCUSSED FOR FOURTEEN ENGLISH CHILD–STEALING OFFENDERS – MOST OF WHOM ARE EITHER PSYCHOTIC, SUB-NORMALLY INTELLIGENT, OR SUFFERING FROM PERSONALITY DISORDERS. |
| Abstract: | ‘CHILD–STEALING‘ IS DEFINED UNDER ENGLISH LAW AS THE UNLAWFUL TAKING AWAY OR ENTICING OF A CHILD UNDER THE AGE OF 14 YEARS WITH INTENT TO DEPRIVE THE PARENT OR GUARDIAN OR ANY OTHER PERSON HAVING THE LAWFUL CARE OF THE CHILD, OR WITH INTENT TO STEAL ANY ARTICLE FROM THE CHILD. |
| Index Term(s): | Case studies; Child abuse; Crimes against children; England; Female offenders; Kidnapping; Mentally ill offenders |
(I beg your pardon, but due to internet access time, I’m simply copying and pasting. Better option — check the links yourself).
Language: English Annotation: Analysis of parental child–stealing cases in Los Angeles reveals that this crime occurs after a divorce action and following a period of compliance with court-ordered visitation privileges. Abstract: Study data came from cases screened for prosecution by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office between July 1977 and June 1978, the first year in which California law made this activity illegal. A total of 91 cases were examined. The crime generally involved young Caucasians, with fathers generally abducting children from mothers awarded custody. The crimes occurred equally throughout the seasons of the year, but took place more often on weekend days than during the week. The parents communicated after the child theft in almost half the cases. The communication usually involved announcing the offender’s intention to keep the child, trying to influence the severed relationship, or justifying the crime. Surprise abductions and use of force were rare. Although just over half the abductions took place within 18 months of the divorce, 37 percent occurred 2 or more years after the divorce. The child stealing reflected the offender’s desire to maintain a full-time relationship with the child and to help reestablish the marital relationship. Additional California and national data suggest that about 1 child theft occurs annually for every 22 divorces. Further research should focus on other jurisdictions and other aspects of child stealing. One note, data tables, and 22 references are supplied. Index Term(s): California; Child snatching; Crimes against children; Family offenses
IN OTHER WORDS, the young Caucasian fathers didn’t want their women to leave them, so to keep the mother attached, they stole the kids. Nice… It’s not necessarily that they loved the child, or were concerned about his or her welfare.
1980: Parental Child Stealing – California’s Legislative Response
. . . Prior to July 1, 1977, California law had provided that the father and mother of a legitimate unmarried minor child were equally entitled to custody, services, and earnings.
What is a “legitimate” unmarried minor child? One whose parents were married?
Because parents had equal rights, neither parent was in violation of the law, civil or criminal, by taking and concealing the child in the absence of a court order giving custody to a particular parent. On July 1, 1977 the California legislature transferred child stealing from the civil to the criminal jurisdication and toughened sanctions and legal procedures dealing with child stealing. This California legislation is a significant effort toward clarifying numerous legal discrepancies and oversights wich have prompted parents to employ child stealing as an extra-legal method of securing their children.
I find it interesting that child-stealing went from CIVIL to CRIMINAL.
Now, depending on the context, and the prosecutors, it appears to me to be going straight back to CIVIL where protective parents (typically but not always mothers) are involved…. This was my case. It was treated like a minor blip on the radar by a “mediator.” I put the word in quotes, because what happened to us wasn’t “mediation” in any sense of the word, but a bypass of the judicial process, which otherwise would have shown missing kids!
When I search adding the word “parental kidnapping,” results differ:
Parental Abduction: A Review of the Literature NCJ 190074, Janet Chiancone, 2000, OJJDP, (13 pages). Overall, the research on parental abductions indicates that this type of crime can be traumatic for both children and left-behind parents and that the longer the separation continues the more damaging the experience becomes.
THAT would be an understatement!
(some reformatting added 2017Aug ,when I approved a comment that had mistakenly been overlooked. FYI, comments on this blog are few and far between, despite the number of views or followers showing on the front sidebar. I was working hard on current posts (this one now about 7 years old), which takes a lot of focus, and am less active on my own email. I’ll try and remember to check it more recently for submitted comments from now on… //LGH.).
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Grandparent Visitation, Father/mother visitation — 2 links
Here are two links, one showing (in considerable detail) that, whether father or mother has visitation issues, the bottom line is, at least one parent’s $$ bottom line is going to drop — as evaluators, therapists, case managers, and mental health professionals are called into make their expert opinions known.
This first link discusses a case where the father first brought up parental alienation, asked for an immediate custody switch on that basis, and called upon the powers that be — including the (now deceased) Richard Gardner, M.D. — whose theme song and swan song was parental alienation.
This time, Gardner did NOT support the father, which obviously upset him. A special case manager (a former judge) resigned after being threatened by the father, and so forth. Sooner or later, the final of 3 children aged out of this childhood, or almost.
(1) Kansas Opinions | Finding Aids: Case Name » Supreme Court or Court of Appeals | Docket Number | Release Date |
No. 93,450
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KANSAS
In the Matter of the Marriage of
JANET BOULEY, f/k/a KIMBRELL,
Appellee,
and
WILLIAM DAVID KIMBRELL,
Appellant.
[[LINK TO:]] SYLLABUS BY THE COURT
This is just a sampling. If you’re familiar with how some of these cases go (where there is some money in the family), you’ll recognize a few patterns, namely, that no matter what, SOMEONE is going to be in therapy, generally both parents AND the children. SOMETIMES I think this need for therapy is directly generated by the court procedures, not the parents….
Also note (last sentence of expcerpt here), that the father does make some good points, regarding questionable reliance on expert opinion, and due process. He is RIGHT about this. However, let us all note who started bringing on the experts to discredit his wife….
I think this link is appropriate in that this is AFCC Conference month (one of many), which I have blogged on earlier. This is a sampling of some experts that might get involved. Remember what the JohnnyPumphandle post (Marv Bryer overview) reminds us: the court respects those opinions more than sworn facts or statements under penalty of perjury from non-experts who may be more familiar with the facts of the case. That’s the nature of the beast. Excuse me, system.
In July 2001, David moved to modify the 1996 divorce decree and for an emergency change of placement for Dylan and Evan. In his motion, David asked that he be given residential custody of Dylan and Evan, that the trial court order strict supervision of Janet’s contact with the boys, and that the trial court order a psychological evaluation of Janet, Dylan, and Evan to determine whether Janet was alienating the children from him. David maintained that Janet had “commenced a program and concerted effort to alienate the three children” from him and that she had interfered with his visitations and the parenting time and visitation schedule. At David’s request, these motions were dismissed in March 2002.
For summer 2001, the parties agreed to a split parenting arrangement where the children would essentially spend alternating weeks with each parent. In addition, the parties agreed to participate in psychological evaluations and testing. The agreed parenting plan was to continue until psychological evaluations and reports were completed.
Upon agreement by the parties, the trial court appointed Susan Vorhees, Ph.D., to conduct evaluation and testing of the parties and their minor children.
Who is Dr. Vorhees? Well, here’s a Google result:
{NOTE: I didn’t read of any accusations of abuse or Domestic Violence in the case at hand in this link, .i.e., the parents of Dylan, Anna, and Evan… I am simply curious about Dr. Vorhees…as the trial court recommended her to evaluate}:
Quoting Dr. Vorhees: (NOTE: court syllabus spells last name “vorhees”. This summary below is from Shawnee, KS area…)
Put another way, people minimize boys as victims of sexual assault when the perpetrator is an older woman, said Susan Voorhees, a doctor of clinical psychology whose patients include child victims. People smirk when word gets out an underage boy had sex with an older woman.
“Everyone has their fantasies,” Voorhees said, as in, ” ‘It would have been nice to have had some older woman teach me the ways of the world.”
n sentencing Liskey to probation, Shawnee County District Court Judge Jan Leuenberger said there was no evidence the victim suffered in the relationship. The judge also said the youth is “dealing with the situation fine,” and concerns by his parents that he might “crash” in the next four to six years are “speculative.”
“Sexual abuse haIs lifelong implications for the mental health of both victims and their families,” Voorhees said in a letter dated Sept. 14 to Chief Judge Nancy Parrish to express her “grave concern” about the Liskey sentencing.
“I’ve never heard in my 30 years working with sexual abuse victims of a victim doing fine,” Voorhees said. Noting Liskey was psychologically evaluated, Voorhees questioned why the judge didn’t seek evaluation of the boy.
Boys don’t just fly right through the aftermath of abuse, Voorhees and Stultz-Lindsay said.
“The impact may not hit him until he is able to move away from the relationship,” Voorhees said.
“These boys feel like they’re in love with their perpetrator,” Stultz-Lindsay said.
Often the perpetrator is a member of the family or someone trusted by the family, and for the child, the abuser “may be one of the kindest people in their lives.” In the Liskey case, there was a double whammy because she was a paraprofessional in the victim’s gifted education program at Robinson Middle School and the best friend of the boy’s mother, Voorhees said.
“It’s not the face of evil,” the psychologist said of abusers. “It’s the actions of evil.”
It is to bad the judge did not see it that way.
BACK TO THE KANSAS CASE, LINK (1)….
Although David later moved for a protective order to prohibit the dissemination of Dr. Vorhees’ proposed report, the trial court ordered that Dr. Vorhees’ evaluation be provided to the court. Dr. Vorhees’ report, which was filed in December 2002, indicated that David was alienated from his children due to his own behavior. According to Dr. Vorhees, “[David] is alienated from them by his own inability to accept that they and their mother are independent individuals, that they need and want a relationship with both parents, and that he cannot be in control of either of these relationships.” Dr. Vorhees indicated that David’s alienation from the children could be resolved by David trying to accept his children for who they are and by listening to his children.
The trial court, on its own motion, appointed retired District Court Judge James Buchele as the case manager in January 2002. The trial court’s decision in this case indicates that the parties had been voluntarily working with Judge Buchele since October 2001. Judge Buchele recommended in January 2002 that the children reside with Janet and that David’s parenting time be “as approved by the Case Manager or as ordered by the Court.” David moved for review of these recommendations and also for an order for family therapy and other relief.
In February 2002, Judge Buchele made additional recommendations, including that Dylan and Evan be with David on Wednesdays after school until 8 p.m. and on alternating Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Judge Buchele again made recommendations in March 2002. Judge Buchele recommended that David spend a week during spring break with Evan and that the parties participate in family counseling with Michael Lubbers, Ph.D. At that time, Dylan and Evan were seeing Dale Barnum, Ph.D., and Janet and David were each working with a mental health professional. David objected to both the February 2002 and March 2002 recommendations.
Brief search on Michael Lubbers, Ph.D. shows that a Michael Lubbers got his Ph.D. in 2005-2006 year from the
January 16, 2001 – SRS Secretary Schalansky appoints Dale Barnum, for 20 years area director in Garden City, as new director of Rehabilitation Services.
Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services (SRS) Secretary Janet Schalansky today announced the appointment of Dale Barnum as state director of Rehabilitation Services, effective February 4, 2001.Mr. Barnum has been the area director of the SRS Garden City office for the last 20 years, where he was responsible for program and resource management in the 25-county area. He oversaw a $10 million administrative budget and all SRS programs in the Garden City area, including services for children and families, adult services, rehabilitation services, child support enforcement, medical services, and economic and employment support services.
On June 12, 2002, Judge Buchele submitted his report and recommendations and also responded to David’s objections. In his report, Judge Buchele addressed David’s allegations that Janet had alienated Dylan and Evan. Judge Buchele’s opinion was that Dylan’s and Evan’s alienation from David was caused by David’s own conduct. Nevertheless, Judge Buchele was encouraged by the fact that David had spoken with Dr. Barnum and had agreed to work on a new approach to communicating with Evan.
In his report, Judge Buchele recommended modification of the existing parenting plan. Judge Buchele expanded David’s parenting time with Evan, setting forth specific times that Evan would spend with David. Judge Buchele’s recommendations assumed there would be some change in the status quo. Judge Buchele recommended that David’s parenting time with Dylan be “as they may agree.”
After David and Janet separately filed objections to Judge Buchele’s recommendations, Judge Buchele issued a supplemental report on June 27, 2002. Judge Buchele indicated that the brief attempt to expand David’s parenting time with Evan had been disastrous. Judge Buchele concluded that the problems in this case could not be resolved by additional time being spent between Evan and his father. Judge Buchele recommended that Evan be with David on Wednesdays from 4 to 8 p.m. and for one 24-hour period every weekend. Both David and Janet objected to Judge Buchele’s June 27, 2002, supplemental report and recommendations.
In November 2002, upon David’s motion, the trial court appointed Dr. Richard Gardner, M.D., to conduct a parental alienation syndrome (PAS) evaluation of the family. [[FOLKS< this is 2002!! Still going on!!]] The trial court terminated its order for counseling with Dr. Lubbers but ordered Dylan and Evan to continue therapy with Dr. Barnum. Moreover, the trial court ordered that the contact between Evan and David continue under the current arrangement and that the contact between Dylan and David be as Dylan desired.
Dr. Gardner completed the PAS evaluation and filed a written report in January 2003. Dr. Gardner found no evidence that the children were suffering from PAS or that Janet was a PAS alienator. Instead, Dr. Gardner indicated that the primary source of the children’s alienation from David was David’s own psychiatric problems, especially his obsessive-compulsive personality disorder and paranoid trends.
[[In which we see that this diagnosing one’s spouse in order to get even is a two-edged sword. Names can be called either way… And will… Name-calling by experts are far more damaging to the situation than names called by mere parents, or children…]]
Dr. Gardner recommended that Janet continue to have primary parenting time with Dylan and Evan, that Janet have primary legal custody, and that the court rescind the order requiring Dylan and Evan to participate in therapy. Dr. Gardner indicated that the family could be helped with appropriate treatment given to David, Dylan, and Evan, but that such treatment should be on a voluntary basis.
[[UNDETERRED…]] In September 2003, David moved for the appointment of another case manager, for an order for the parties and children to participate in therapy, and for an order enforcing the joint decision making required under the parties’ joint custody agreement. Attached to David’s motion were letters from Nancy Hughes, Ph.D., LSCSW, who had conducted an adoption home study with David and his [[his NEW??]] wife, and from John Spiridigliozzi, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist who had been working with David for approximately 3 years. [[FYI: Spiridigliozzi appears to work with people with addictions…]] Both Dr. Hughes and Dr. Spiridigliozzi recommended the appointment of a case manager.
Obviously, both of them are working with David, not Nancy….
Moreover, Dr. Hughes indicated that she had read some of the file that David had compiled in this case and that it did not fit with her impression of David.
How comforting that expert professionals are brought in to give their “impressions.”
In November 2003, the trial court appointed William F. Ebert, III, as special master, whose duties included recommending therapy for the parties and their children as well as preparing findings of fact and conclusions of law for the trial court to review if the parties could not agree on child-rearing decisions or therapy.
Now who is William F. Ebert, III? Any relationship to THIS one? (I do see an attorney in the Topeka, KS area…) (THIS one is in Nebraska, and I note, no “III,” AND there are a lot of William Eberts around. Kind of makes you wonder, though…)
William F. Ebert, appellant, v. Nebraska Department
of Correctional Services et al., appellees.Ebert v. Nebraska Dept. of Corr. Servs.,
11 Neb. App. 553Filed February 11, 2003. No. A-01-906.
INTRODUCTION William F. Ebert was sentenced in July 1997 to serve 10 years on each of three convictions of second degree forgery and being a habitual criminal. Ebert brought a declaratory judgment action in the district court for Lancaster County against the Department of Correctional Services (DCS); Harold W. Clarke, the director of DCS; and Ronald Riethmuller, the records manager of DCS (collectively the defendants), alleging that his sentences were improperly calculated in that he had not been given good time credit. The trial court found that the defendants were entitled to summary judgment, based on statutory language mandating a minimum 10-year sentence on a habitual criminal conviction. The trial court further found that DCS was entitled to sovereign immunity and that the parties sued in their official capacities were entitled to immunity from Ebert’s request to compel them to credit him with good time. For the following reasons, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
Ebert was originally sentenced on March 26, 1996, to a term of 4 to 6 years’ imprisonment. The nature of Ebert’s original offense is not clear from the record in the present case. On July 1, 1997, Ebert received sentences of 10 years’ imprisonment on each of three separate convictions of second degree forgery and being a habitual criminal. The offenses for which Ebert received these sentences occurred in January and February 1996. These sentences were to run concurrently with one another but consecutively to Ebert’s previous sentence. Ebert has not received any good time credit toward the service of his 1997 sentences.
Ebert filed a petition on December 28, 2000, initiating an action under the Uniform Declaratory Judgment Act, see Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-21,149 et seq. (Reissue 1995 & Cum. Supp. 2002), to determine his rights and legal interests in relation to the calculation of his 1997 sentences.
Phil Lewis Medal of Distinction |
|
1995 |
J. Nick Badgerow, Martin W. Bauer, Patricia Macke Dick, William F. Ebert III, Hon. Jerry G. Elliott, and Carol G. Green |
After meeting with the parties, reviewing the court file, which included the reports issued by the various professionals, reviewing email communication, contacting individuals identified by the parties, and discussing the case with the parties’ attorneys, the special master issued his written report in January 2004. In an order issued in February 2004, the trial court adopted the following proposed conclusions of law of the special master:
“1. If David Kimbrell genuinely desires to re-establish meaningful relationships with his children, it will be necessary for him to participate in individual therapy with a therapist who is knowledgeable about parental alienation syndrome and knowledgeable about parents who are emotionally abusive, especially those with significant psychiatric problems.
“2. If the individual therapy process with David is successful (i.e. if David can be helped to . . . appreciate . . . how he has contributed to the damaged relationships with his children and helped to understand how to modify his expectations and behavior accordingly) then the door should be opened to including Evan and/or Dylan in the therapy process, if they choose to participate (as per Dr. Gardner’s recommendations, §6, Pages 117, 118, Gardner Report).”
David moved for reconsideration of the trial court’s decision or, alternatively, to modify its previous orders. In his motion, David requested specific orders relating to the following: parenting time and visitation, exchanging information regarding the children, counseling, and terminating the special master’s appointment. In his motion, David argued that there could not be a therapy precondition to his contact with his children. In addition, David argued that the special master’s report was unreliable because it was factually flawed, placed undue reliance on questionable expert opinions, and did not comport with due process.
If so, those are legitimate complaints and concerns. How can one have justice with factual flaws, undue reliance on questionable expert opinions, and violation of due process? On the other hand, it does seem that he started that ball rolling to start with.
In a memorandum decision filed in September 2004, the trial court granted in part and denied in part David’s motion. The trial court concluded:
“1. Based upon the case history, recommendations filed with the court, and the lack of any success with court-ordered therapy, the court will not order any of the parties in this case to participate in therapy. However, the court concurs with the special master’s recommendation that Respondent participate in therapy to attempt to gain some insight into his relationship with his biological children and that any of his children participate in that therapy as they would like.
“2. Dylan, DOB 09/05/86, is now eighteen. His parenting time is no longer under the jurisdiction of this court.
This one above, I actually read in detail, fine print and all. I wish I’d been a fly on the wall on the case in point. While readers are told of the various professionals involved, one wonders whether abuse was or was not, given the degree of control, and bittter anger. s might do well to go through the case (as I did some months ago on the Oconto, Wisconsin case, listing the staggering amount of “players” involved).
(2)
NEWMAN-13-1-A2-PV 3/15/2004 9:55 AM
(PUBLIC INTEREST LAW JOURNAL…)
The second link (I confess — a referral) is a lengthy discussion about using the assumption of a model, functioning family as the basis for families going through the family law system, when in fact these are typically NOT the functional ones. It comes from Boston University, and deals with the Troxel case. I have only glanced at this link, not read it.
GRANDPARENT VISITATION CLAIMS:
ASSESSING THE MULTIPLE HARMS OF LITIGATION TO FAMILIES AND CHILDREN
“In fairness, how much confrontation and litigation should a child be expected to bear?”
1
[[Or a parent, particularly a single custodial parent…]] [[note: the quote below is a little scrambled — technical cut & paste issues on my part — but gives an idea of the issues raised. ]
I
NTRODUCTION
Family law has made significant progress in the last several decades by gradually discarding two models of “family” for legal decision making purposes: the “conventional” family and the “well-functioning” family. In constitutional terms, the conventional family’s monopoly on legal rights loosened considerably in 1972 when the Supreme Court, in Stanley v. Illinois, to maintain custody of his “illegitimate” children when the children’s mother died. be unfit and made his children wards of the state. In subsequent years, a wide array of state decisions conferred family recognition and benefits, in varying degrees, upon families headed by single mothers, gay and lesbian couples, unmarried cohabitants, and others who failed to fit the conventional mold. In Stanley, The Court stuck down an Illinois law that presumed the unwed father to5Grandparent visitation laws, the subject of this article, provide an example of the law’s ill-advised use of the model of well-functioning family relationships
visitation with a child “at any time” if visits would “serve the best interest of the child.” In Troxel, the Supreme Court confronted one of the most sweeping visitation15 Tommie Granville and Brad Troxel lived together and had two children.16They separated in 1991, and two years later Brad committed suicide. Tommie allowed Brad’s parents to continue seeing the children following the suicide, but five months later she decided to adjust the visitation schedule, limiting the Troxels to one visit per month. Tommie for increased visitation, pursuing their claim through six and a half years of litigation to the United States Supreme Court.
17 At first,18 Two months afterward, the Troxels sued19The case generated six opinions from the Supreme Court. Despite the controversial nature of the substantive due process doctrine, a clear majority of the justices agreed that parents possess a due process liberty right to the care, custody, and control of their own children. Scalia would deny the existence of such a right. Washington statute, as applied, violated the mother’s constitutional rights. justice, David Souter, would have gone further and declared the statute unconstitutional on its face, effectively making the plurality opinion the operative constitutional ruling. parents’ fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children resolved the case. existence of the right to parent.20 From the opinions, it appears that only Justice21 A four-justice plurality found the22 A fifth23 Justice Thomas agreed that the Court’s recognition of24 Justices Stevens and Kennedy, though dissenting, also acknowledged the25
The plurality started its analysis by noting that the conventional family is only one of many modern family forms. “While many children may have two married parents and grandparents who visit regularly, many other children are raised in single-parent households.”26
According to cited census figures, some four million children reside in the household of grandparents, and a substantial minority ofgrandparents act in a parental role, assisting single parents in performing the“everyday tasks of child rearing.”27
The opinion also made clear that it would not rely upon an idealized version offamily relationships:In an ideal world, parents might always seek to cultivate the bonds betweengrandparents and their grandchildren. Needless to say, however, our world is
far from perfect, and in it the decision whether such an intergenerational
relationship would be beneficial in any specific case is for the parent to make
in the first instance.
28
Tactfully, but unfortunately, the justices did not identify the realities thatcontradict the classic stereotype of the well-functioning grandparent in the familylife of children. A more realistic picture of these grandparent visitation caseswould have emerged had the opinion acknowledged some of the ways in which
stereotypes involving grandparents sometimes fail. A mention, for example, of
situations in which grandparents are not doting, loving and helpful, but abusive,
demeaning, controlling, meddlesome or belligerent, would have placed these cases
in a more realistic light. In fact, the cases in the nation’s family courts regularly
feature such untraditional grandparents.
29 The only hint of such realities in the
Troxel“recognition of an independent third-party interest in a child can place a substantialburden on the traditional parent-child relationship.”plurality opinion is a possible inference from the Court’s observation that30
Again, my main purpose is to provide the two links, and a little commentary for those who are interested in the topic, and a sampling (as ever) of who ARE some of those professionals involved here (although, this time, I didn’t get much background on that…)
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From “Our Bodies, Ourselves” to “Our Courts, Ourselves”…
The topic of mediation, especially mandatory mediation, is a hot one within the family court venue, and particularly among domestic violence advocates. Many have come up opposed to it.
On the other side of the fence (??) are those who are advocating mediation to cut down on the caseload in these courts, and attempt to reconcile opposing parties for the best interests of the children, supposedly.
While looking through the RAND corporation policy papers, available on-line, I was astounded to find almost nothing whatsoever on violence against4 women, or women per se (although there were articles about the education gap for men and boys of color, with the kneejerk recommendation, more and earlier preschool. I happen to disagree, I think there’s enough subject matter for child development scholars to study throughout the educational, penal, and court institutions in this country already…). There was next to nothing current on domestic violence, although a few articles dating back to 2004/2005 actually used this word.
However, there is this interesting take on mediation. My limited technique can’t paste in the image, so I recommend taking a look at:
All I’m going to say about Our Bodies, Ourselves, is that it is reminiscent of the feminist movement (after all, these ARE our bodies, if it’s women involved), and another era. For more info, read Dr. Phyllis Chesler, including Women & Madness, Mothers on Trial, and Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman. Don’t forget to also take a serious look at Honor Killings vs. Domestic violence (articles), and so forth.
Now about, Our Courts Ourselves — I believe a takeoff on that title:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/reprints/2005/RP1090.pdf
“Our Courts, Ourselves: how the Alternative Dispute Resolution Movement is Reshaping Our Legal System.”
It says plainly what I have deduced, in using the phrase “Designer Family” and in sarcastically stating that a world without conflict IS indeed possible — if everyone is drugged, asleep, or simply not paying attention. . . . . Which appears to be an imminent possibility, or business goal in some arenas… I mean, as slavery is supposedly abolished, SOMEONE has to do life’s dirty work, for cheap or free…. Women got the vote, heck what next? ???
This tends to verify my observations: (from page 168, Section II, “Puritans Populists and Utopians.”)…
Members of America’s utopian societies yearned for social harmony and eschewed conflict. One of their goals was to eliminate adversarial legal processes. In Edward Bellamy’s Utopia, depicted in his wildly popular 1988 novel Looking Backward, citizens are inducted into the armies of a corporatist state into which all contribute and from which all receive the necessities of life….
Are you frightened yet?
As communitarian values replace private interest, economic competition, social conflict and adversarial processes are eliminated…Wise citizens take the place of judges and juries in deciding how and when to punish bad behavior, lawyers’ services become superfluous, and the law itself is discarded.
(My quote here, since I can’t cut & paste from the pdf, is from memory, for speed — check source yourself)
Bellamy’s novel inspired a new political movement called Nationalism, comprised of a series of grassroots organizations dedicated to creating a utopian society devoid of economic and social conflict and gave rise to the establishment of the Populist Party.. . .
Many in the Nationalist Movement had ties with Theosophy, a contemporary religious movement…. substituting “Universal brotherhood and cooperation for competition..” but the roots of Theosophy lay in spiritualism, and elevating the divine spirit within the individual. Their leaders eschewed social justice and activism, and eventually the movements parted paths.
To those who are somewhat versed in one of the “Abrahamic” religions (i.e., Judaism, Christianity, Islam), this utopian vision and non-involvement in social justice are at odds with fundamental beliefs that man’s nature needs redemption (i.e., “the Fall”) and that a future resurrection and judgement await.
At the very least, then, this utopian philosophy goes against the core of a substantial portion of the world’s population. Experientially, someone has to become the “wise citizens” and of a supposedly superior, elitist, caste to inform and educate the plebians in how to get along.
The philosophy that CONFLICT is bad, and that PEACE AT ANY PRICE (and sacrificing safety, or justice in the process) is the primary good is — to my reading — a violence against the concept of justice, balance and equity.
Hence, the jargon calling a divorce or process in which women protesting abuse of themselves, or their children, even when sexual abuse has been involved and documented, a “high-conflict” custody comes from this worldview. That is not the primary characteristic — only according to a certain view.
As to “our bodies, ourselves,” an 11 year old in Wisconsin and (I recently heard) a 14 year old in Michigan, have learned that they are property, not people. Michaela Tipton went back to her father to get her mother out of jail. A young man, A student, spent a night in detention for refusing to visit his father also.
http://www.macombdaily.com/articles/2009/11/21/news/srv0000006883874.txt#blogcomments
Teenager incarcerated for refusing to visit his father
Published: Saturday, November 21, 2009
A 14-year-old boy was thrown into the county youth home overnight and handcuffed for about four hours after refusing to follow a judge’s order to visit his father, as part of an ongoing custody case.
The boy, Jacob Mastrogiovanni of Warren, was ordered Thursday to spend three days in the youth home by family court Judge John Foster, who lifted the sentenced Friday following protests by his mother and a night of incarceration for her son.
The uncommon occurrence of a contempt of
court sentence for a child in a child custody dispute angered his mother, Dawn Platevoet, and several of her relatives, including the boy’s grandmother. They picketed in front of the county courthouse in downtown Mount Clemens on Thursday and Friday, garnering media attention.
“A judge shouldn’t throw an all-A student in jail for refusing to visit his father,” Platevoet said. “There are other ways to handle the situation, and apparently the judge agreed because he let him out.”
Jacob was slated to remain in the Juvenile Justice Center until 7 p.m. Sunday but was released by Foster about 12:30 p.m. Friday. Foster had Jacob brought from the youth home in handcuffs about 8:30 a.m. Friday to appear in front of him in Macomb County Circuit Court later that morning. Jacob waited in a holding cell.Moments after he was released Friday, Jacob said Foster didn’t specify why he freed him.
“He said that I don’t decide whether I see my dad or not,” Jacob said. “It was kind of like a warning, this time, I guess.”
Foster’s secretary said the judge did not want to comment.Jacob and Platevoet wouldn’t delve into many details of why he won’t visit his father, Victor Mastrogiovanni of Chesterfield Township. She said Jacob began resisting in July following an unspecified incident.
They said when Jacob has visited Mastrogiovanni recently that he is forced to stay in his room without any contact.
On Foster’s order, the three have been attending weekly counseling sessions since early September. {{That’s the racket, folks…}} But they and the therapist have been unable to resolve the disagreement.
Platevoet and Mastrogiovanni never married and have had some disputes for years {{OBviously. The boy is 14!}}regarding custody and support issues, they said.
Mastrogiovanni, who has been married for two years and has a 15-month-old child, [[IE 2nd marriage, new kid]]said he did not want to comment specifically about the dispute.
“I love my kid very much and want what’s best for him,” he said.
Platevoet said she would like her son to visit his dad but can’t force him.
“What am I supposed to do? Grab him by the back of the head and put him in the car?” she said. “He’s a teenager and wants to do teenager things.”
She said Jacob “listens to me” about other things but not about the visits
//
ANYHOW, you are either awake or asleep in this matter about trying to create a utopian society where wise citizens (NOT due process and facts/evidence, etc.) choose punishments, and where all the requirements of life are also obtained from the state. Hence, “Health & Human Services.”
The question is, Who is Being Served? And being served What?
2nd largest federal expenditure, Educational Department, making sure (that’s a laugh!) no child left behind. What isn’t being openly marketed — where they are marching, goosestep style, who is paying the drummer, and what is the origin of the tune. Not only can we not make medical or health choices for our kids, we as a populace aren’t smart enough to resource or network our life choices and also help them get educated.
You cannot really deal with the courts entirely separate from the educational system. For one, the courts are trying to run cleanup after educational (moral/value) failures, all at the expense of taxpayers (not those who can write off expenses as business owners and investors, etc.). For another, I am simply not interested in an oligarchy, a dictatorship, or any of that. After all, it’s my own body here, and the children that came out of it are NOT state property, or fodder for others’ professional careers in psychology, mental health, law, pharmacology, etc. I respected their father’s contact with them, and the law. In return from this, I lost all contact with them, and made a mockery of the process.
Several entities are laughing all the way to the bank on this one. The thing is, to get an audit of those statements.
Anyhow — take a look at that rand document — it’s for sure informative. Then also realize that what takes place through the courts, when it does — that’s not mediation in the proper sense of the word. That’s basically program marketing, and “required outcome enforcement” from things such as the Access Visitation Grants, Responsible Fatherhood/Marriage, and such-like.
Enough for today!
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Give us your huddled masses, your underage daughters: Oconto Co Wisconsin locks up Lorraine, . . .
Earlier, I (and colleagues — see those buttons on my blogroll!) posted on the 30-plus individuals involved in ONE mother reporting sexual molestation (and more) of her little girl in Wisconsin, after CPS workers in 2 counties confirmed it.
As reported Oct. 17th (DV awareness month, much?) on another blog (calling her a “teen” daughter was inaccurate. Though the abuse started earlier, my understanding is, she is 11). You should click on this link also — someone’s comment (wife of a police officer) is relating another account.
Wisconsin Mom Lorraine Tipton (Oconto County) is under fire because her teen daughter refuses to go on visitation with her abuser father, who makes her sleep on the floor and drives with her drunk in the car. The father, Craig Hensberger, managed to convince the father’s rights judge, Judge David Miron, in power there, to threaten Lorraine with jail if her daughter does not go. Her daughter was in the emergency room this past Thursday night, sick and frantic, and is currently home with her mom, medicated and scared. The abuser’s mommy has not picked her up as she threatened to do. So Lorraine faces jail on Monday. Please say a prayer for her.
Here’s a StopFamilyViolence release on it at “RandiJames.com” File it under “a Thanksgiving to remember…” I guess…
Daughter Won’t Visit Father? Jail Mommy!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 19, 2009
Contact:
Irene Weiser
Stop Family Violence
iw@stopfamilyviolence.org
WHY IS THIS MOTHER IN JAIL?
(Oconto Falls, WI) Today an Oconto County family court judge sentenced a mother to jail because she was unable to force her daughter to court mandated visitation with her abusive father. The daughter will be sent to foster care if she refuses to live with her father while the mother serves her sentence.Circuit Judge David Miron sentenced Lorraine Tipton to 30 days in county jail for contempt of court, for her failure to follow the custody order requiring her daughter to live every other week with her father, Craig Hensberger.
NOTE: Anyone see this work in reverse, father jailed for refusing visitation to mother? If so, let me know — it’s my situation. I miss my (daughters) too! And if I file for a contempt (further upsetting someone) knowing the courts or enforcement will do nothing, leaving an angry male on the loose. Same deal with “certifiably insane restraining orders.” But there’s not a single qualm about restraining protective mothers. Fork them little girls over, we want a fresh supply of young flesh, plus that adrenaline rush that comes from dominating a woman, for those who feel entitled, or have become addicted to this need.
These are country-wide, generational nightmares. When’s the wakeup call? What will it take to stop it?
“She’s terrified of going; she has night terrors and severe anxiety” says Tipton, who admits her daughter hasn’t visited with her father since August.“I thought the court was supposed to look out for the best interests of the child, not the best interest of the father,” Tipton continued. “I thought once I got out of the abusive relationship everything would be fine. Instead, my abuser is continuing his abuse of me and my daughter with the help of the court.”Over the course of their on and off 8 year relationship Hensberger was arrested three times for domestic violence and once for child abuse. Since their separation in 2005, Hensberger has been arrested twice for DWI, including once while the daughter was in the car.
Although the court has ordered Hensberger into alcohol treatment and ordered “absolute sobriety” when having visitation, the daughter claims he continues to drink to excess when she is visiting. The father told the court he had stopped drinking completely. The mother recently had a private investigator follow the father, who found that the father drank heavily on a night he was scheduled to have visitation. In court today the father admitted to his continued drinking; nonetheless the judge still sentenced the mother to jail.
Clearly this judge marches to the beat of a different drummer, or is it $$? One wonders…
Hensberger achieved his local 15 minutes of fame in Oconto in March of this year, when he forced his daughter to enter 3 different fishing tournaments using the same fish so that he could collect the money – a story covered widely by local news. While the local media angle related to his transportation of fish against DNR regulations, Ms. Tipton’s concerns were for the well-being of her daughter, who was being taught to lie, cheat and steal by her father. Since this incident, the daughter’s relationship with the father has deteriorated, Tipton claims.Additionally, the father’s employment is irregular, his house is in foreclosure and he currently resides with his mother. The daughter claims she is forced to sleep on the floor in the living room or in the unfinished basement since there is no bed or private space for her in the small 2 bedroom house.“Sadly, this case typifies the problems we are seeing in Family Courts nationwide,” says Irene Weiser, executive director of StopFamilyViolence. org. “Family court judges are failing to recognize signs of abuse, and are placing children in harms way. {{I DISAGREE. THEY SEE IT, BUT CHOOSE TO IGNORE IT. The KEY TO THIS PROBLEM IS WHAT ARE THESE JUDGES PAYING GREATER HEED TO THAN THEIR JUDICIAL MANDATE HERE?}} Even worse, instead of investigating the abuse allegations, they accuse the parent making the allegations of being vindictive and punish them for taking actions to protect their children. Often judges seem more concerned with maintaining the child’s relationship with the father than ensuring the child’s safety.”
Apparently this mother is now out of jail, and her daughter is back in a different kind of jail sentence, and we will just have to figure out how to grow up around all this. And the reporters will continue wondering why we have so much rape, violence, and substance abuse, let alone, mental health problems in our country. Gee, let’s take a wild, educated, guess…
Again, folks, this is not anomaly, some aberration, some weird exception in upstate (or wherever) Midwestern Dairy State (?) . No, this is the pattern, this is the intent, and this is the practice in the family courts. You are watching it. Watch your headlines….
At the risk of hammering in this point of HOW it happens, and why (i.e., pointing to probable cause, not just effects), here’s an excerpt from the NAFCJ.net website as to this practice.
Further down on this link the “Center for Policy Research” group is mentioned. Check it out — it’s a key player, and sets a pattern for similar groups…
Meanwhile, I am saying my prayers for the Tipton family (and mine).
Child Support role is often a key factor. Don’t know if it was this time, but t ypically it is. A broke Mom can’t stick up so well for her rights.
ANYTHING below this line is a quote from that NAFCJ site, though not so formatted, which ends my post today.
One reason I understand this pattern to make sense is watching the pattern of abuse, individually, between the family of origin and my ex, and the role of finances, etc., develop over the years, and a progression to the careful vocabulary / jargon used to justify it.
There is most definitely a system to the chaos. In fact, chaos is the desired status, from what I can see. (See also Naomi Klein, “The Shock Doctrine,” referring to continental lockdown, etc.) When people, or a nation, is in shock, it is vulnerable to dictatorship. That’s why we must FIGHT LIKE HELL for Constitutional rights for all citizens: male/female, young or old. This is a language issue, and then practicing what the Constitution says, eliminating something else in one’s life, and forcing legislators, judges, attorneys, and lawyers to practice what they swore an oath to. It requires checking public records and trying to stop kickbacks, racketeering, double-dipping, and so forth. This is the price of freedom — vigilance. And yes, it matters, if it’s not your immediate neighbor!
—————————————————————————
Read about Meyer Elkin’s role in the AFCC is discussed toward the bottom of their site AFCC: History page .
Completely omitted from this AFCC history is the very relevant fact that Meyer Elkin also co-founded in 1985, the leading fathers rights group – Children’s Rights Council. Study these people and their site carefully because it is the “blueprint” of how the courts are organized to rig cases for their paid-up allies. Nobody has to slip an envelope full of cash into the pocket of a co-conspirators to rig court cases for these people. It is all done for them by the government. They get their bribes paid for them !
The AFCC never mentions the multiple cross-affiliations between AFCC officials and the fathers rights group including Children’s Rights Council (CRC), founded by David Levy in 1985, along with several other key AFCC people. While this vital fact is no where to be found on any of their recent literature, it did appear in the early (pre-Interent) CRC hardcopy newsletters, which NAFCJ possesses, and uses to discredit this group and the judges who collude with them. Also in these older CRC newsletters was discussion of grants they received from HHS and the people who worked with them on those grants – people like incest promoters Richard Gardner and Warren Farrell. CRC allies were put into high-level HHS-ACF position such David Gray Ross, as Commission for Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) -starting in 1993 through approx 1999.. Ross was a Maryland Judge, who people who knew him say was a dead-beat dad himself. He spent his time as OCSE commissioner instituting regulations, programs and policies favorable to fathers and CRC. He essentially set up OCSE to be a fathers rights child support avoidance and custody switching agency. This perversion of OCSE’s agency’s original legislative mission continues to-date. This is the reason why so many custodial mothers can’t collect on their child support arrears, while non-custodial mothers are hounded incessantly and even jailed for support obligations assessed beyond standard guide-lines and beyond their ability to pay. Other evidence taken from HHS Inspector General Web site reveals even worse corruption at HHS-ACF/OCSE.
The AFCC claims their focus is on training judges, custody evaluators and mediators about custody and divorce issues. But in reality they are a father focused organization and promoting alienation theories to explain away family violence by men. In reality they act as a “clearinghouse” for organized case rigging. They hold conferences about parental alienation but never mention the many professional experts who have condemned it as harmful to children or the link to incest promoter Richard Gardner. Their scheme involves “recruiting” male litigants through fathers groups and federal HHS programs managed by the local child support agencies for program “services” which are ostensibly for helping non-custodial fathers get their visitation rights so they would have less incentive to default on child support obligations.
{{COMMENT: This has absolutely been my experience, and the Center for Policy Research link, and many others, tend to verify it. I pressed for child support, my kids were STOLEN, and this was rubberstamped. Have barely seen them for dust since….}}
Instead the fathers get deals to have their support obligations closed and sent to a program paid attorney to litigant [“litigate”] for custody. The judge hearing these cases proves [“provides”?] payments to the court-colluding fathers attorney and other supposedly “neutral” court evaluators. None of this is disclosed to the targeted female litigant who sometimes is also ordered to pay the fees of these court professionals (e.g. illegal double billing)..
The father is encouraged to file repeated motions (usually on frivolous claims of visitation denial or alienation) so the co-conspiring court professionals can get a steady stream of government payments. {{GOT THAT??}} It appears the judge handling these cases gets a kickback from those being paid (with his approval) based on a few exposed examples. This is what keeps their litigation game going and going. They label it high-conflict bitter custody litigation to hide their own fraud. The blame the mother for everything and keep her away from her children so she will be desperate to go back to court and get a chance to convince them of the truth (which of course they already know, and are exploiting perversely against her).
Basic Judicial ethics prohibits judges from belonging to organizations with people who appear before them in the court cases. However, this doesn’t stop the crooked AFCC affiliated judges from appointing Guardian at Litem (child’s attorneys) or court psychological evaluators who are AFCC members to the same cases which the AFCC member judge is handling. Also the AFCC conducts joint conferences with the CRC – fathers rights group – usually on the subject of Parental Alienation – which they all know has been discredited as being not a valid method for use in court evaluations.
{{NOTE: Like other organizations (me talking, again), AFCC may have some fine members. I know some. However, like our educational system, this system’s history and intent of the organization stands, and I stand by the above summary of it.}}
Other people on AFCC’s Board of Directors are many people closely associated with the Children’s Rights Council. Their favorite researcher — Sanford L. Braver, Ph.D. — was a recipient of a $10M federal grant. Braver, found, astoundingly, as a result of his study that after divorce, women do as well financially as men! Bradford and many other purported “neutral” expert evaluators all work in concert behind the scenes to issue rubber-stamp anti-woman, pro-abusive father evaluations for the primary intent of deliberately covering up for abusive fathers (as a protection racket fueled by federal program graft).
{{YOU WANT TO HELP KIDS? TRACK THEM THAR FUNDS AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT….}}
Left from previous news release above…
StopFamilyViolence. org is a national activist organization that works to ensure safety, justice, accountability and healing for victims of family violence. Irene Weiser coordinates the Family Court Reform Coalition, a coalition of advocates, professionals and organizations formed in response to the national crisis in the custody court system, where all too often, judge’s order children to live with abusers and punish, silence, or jail the parent who tries to protect the children from harm.
Irene Weiser
Executive Director
StopFamilyViolence.org
331 W. 57th St #518
New York, NY 10019
iw@stopfamilyviolence.org
OK, my commentary again. See next post (11-17-09) for next installment in this fiasco (or, business as usual, depending on one’s perspective)….
This mother eventually DID go to jail for failing to force her underaged daughter to allow her father to force himself on her, drive drunk, and other forms of child abuse. What a few judges with an agenda can do in a system that allows this . . . . We were pissed off, appropriately. I’m tired of that! This mother was sentenced to jail, in 30-day stints, until her girl went back for more of the same (as I heard it).
When the girl caved in, her mother was released. This story is still unfolding.
USA, folks, this is not Guantanamo, this is motherhood, USA. And she wasn’t even a single parent, this time. How’d you like to marry into that situation?
Unjustice and abuse affects EVERYONE….
It affects the next generation, assuming they live that long.
Over the past decade or so, researchers at McGill University in Montreal, led by Michael Meaney, have shown that affectionate mothering alters the expression of genes in animals, allowing them to dampen their physiological response to stress. These biological buffers are then passed on to the next generation: rodents and nonhuman primates biologically primed to handle stress tend to be more nurturing to their own offspring, Dr. Meaney and other researchers have found.
Now, for the first time, they have direct evidence that the same system is at work in humans. In a study of people who committed suicide published Sunday in the journal Nature Neuroscience, researchers in Montreal report that people who were abused or neglected as children showed genetic alterations that likely made them more biologically sensitive to stress.
[After Abuse, Changes in the Brain by BENEDICT CAREY
StopFamilyViolence.org, Feb. 23, 2009]
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The SF-Oakland Bay Bridge and Family Court systems.
I’m often searching for a comparison to communicate the scope & severity of the family court matters, as opposed to the lack of urgency
to address it. Seem to have found one. . . . .
Talk about a Halloween nightmare — – a high-profile engineering failure, and urgent, though disruptive, efforts to fix — although: No Serious Injuries Caused. Obviously the potential for multiple serious injuries was there…
(SF/Oakland) Bay Bridge closure could stretch beyond weekend
Rachel Gordon, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, October 31, 2009
(The next 2 paragraphs below appeared in article after the 3rd & 4th– see link for original order).
The bridge has been closed since Tuesday evening when a 5,000-pound steel beam and two steel tie-rods that were holding together a cracked structural support failed and rained down on the upper deck, damaging three vehicles but causing no serious injuries.
Engineers failed to take into account how vibrations from wind and 280,000 cars a day would affect a patch fix to the bridge’s cantilever section made over the Labor Day weekend.
Crews on the Bay Bridge struggled Friday to craft a fix that would prevent vibrations from wind and traffic from causing pieces of a structural repair to come crashing down.
. . .Crews on the Bay Bridge struggled Friday to craft a fix that would prevent vibrations from wind and traffic from causing pieces of a structural repair to come crashing down.
CONTRAST this urgency with the “business as usual” treatment of another system so engineered that serious injuried, and too often literal deaths, occur. Because these are more widespread, perhaps they still don’t warrant serious attention. Read on:\
that too often rewards custody to the abusive parent.**
by Kathleen Russell, San Rafael, California, published 10-14-09 in the Christian Science Monitor.
[story of one individual highlights the issue]…I’m numbering sentences for comments below. I also just alternate colors for easier reading. CSM policy discourages reposting whole article, reading it all is a summary of –part of — the problems with family law. system.
In a system with so much at stake — for the litigants, and their children — for those associated with the litigants and their children in work, school, play, at home, or as relatives — and with the short, short time span in which impressionable youngsters grow up — can even ONE false assumption be made in the process of fixing it?
In the Bay Bridge — a HUGE project — they forgot about the wind vibrations plus the vibrations from the traffic load would affect a “patch fix.” Seems to me that vibrations when it comes to a bridge is basic engineering vocabulary.
The FIRST sentence of this article reads:
“When a parent harms his or her own child, family courts are supposed to step in and safeguard the victim.”
Ohh?? I thought that stepping in was the province of Child Protective Services and law enforcement, since harming a child (as also a spouse, or other human being) IS a criminal act. The concept that the family law venue is set up to handle criminal actions is a misconception. To clarify, see www.justicewomen.org or anywhere that talks about the difference between civil and criminal venues, and family court vs. criminal prosecutions of domestic violence.
Harming a child is domestic violence, and little to no training in this is required even to become a certified family law practitioner. I believe I still have a link off to the side.
Association of Family & Conciliation Courts (AFCC) — see my blog — states clearly in their history page that one of their key founders was OPPOSED to the use of the “old” criminal language, and preferred newer, better terms to describe things like — child molestation or domestic violence, or things that show up as criminal acts. I blogged on it — search here, you’ll see.
However, the CPS, the law enforcement and the family law venue most certainly DO bounce back and forth off each other, at least in this area, and listen to each other in crucial decisions, I found out (alas).
This is a repeated refrain in the family law venue, so much so as to be characteristic. It is just about a DEFINING quality of these courts — and no, they do NOT exist to protect children. I believe that family law is where batterers go to hide, and was designed in part to receive them and allow them continued access. That this also just happens to be big business, and a perpetual motion (as in, legal motions) machine, is unlikely to be an afterthough, methinks…
None of the authorities she approached would effectively intervene to protect her daughter [1]. So in 2000, Ms. Rogers eventually felt that she had no choice but to flee with her child to protect her [2].
More than three years later, this protective mother was caught and jailed for five months, while her daughter was immediately handed over to her alleged abusers [3]. Rogers faced criminal charges for violating a court order by fleeing with her child [4]. After considering the evidence in her case, a jury of her peers completely exonerated her of all wrongdoing [5].
The very same evidence that exonerated her in the criminal court had been called “frivolous” by the family court judge and disregarded [6]. Despite her acquittal, Rogers was never granted custody of her daughter, who lives with her alleged abusers to this day [7]. She is now forced to pay a fee to visit with her daughter a few times a month in a supervised visitation facility [8].
=========
[1], [2] — women are trained to generally go the authorized route first. This mother did. When it failed, her motherhood instincts kicked in (see how THOSE can help in reading about which cops — male, or female — caught, and which overlooked (male or female) Phil Garrido and the two kids he’d fathered by (kidnapped * 18-years imprisoned) Jaycee Dugard this past year. Again, I blogged this. A policewoman noticed something amiss in two kids; her alertness started the process saving them and their mother.
[3] Protective mother caught and jailed. . . . Why don’t readers just google that phrase and see what comes up. See also Stopfamilyviolence.org. Women have fled to other countries — sometimes getting asylum! — to protect their children from assault & battery or molestation. The brave U.S. is not negligent to try and go fetch them back. Google, if it’s still on-line, Sheila Riggs. Or another, Joyce Murphy. Or Holly Collins.
[4]. Some states have an actual EXEMPTION for protective parents fleeing when it comes to felony child-stealing. The catch is, it’s enforced in reverse! This woman, being a Californian, should’ve been protected by California Penal Code 278, but obviously wasn’t. Who didn’t protect her — law enforcement? A judge?
[5] It seems (on a fast read] that this mother THEN got into a criminal charge, and as such, actually got in front of a jury. Because she might be jailed, this was proper. Unlike the family law, where mandatory mediation, and hearsay rules the day, an actual jury “considered the evidence in her case.” That’s why the exonerated her. It appears she was innocent and shouldn’t have been jailed. NEVERTHELESS, she still DID spend 5 months in jail. How do you think THAT affected her relationship with her daughter?
If being jailed wasn’t bad enough for an innocent mother, while she was in jail, I’m sure that knowing her daughter was now in the total custody — without her intervention, or ability to help mitigate this any more — of the alleged abusers — was worse punishment. While California jails are overcrowded, hear tell women’s are less so. They can be TOUGH.
[6]. Statement “6” above, as is, might as well be the motto of the family law venue. If you understand this, you understand enough. Due process doesn’t count. Being innocent — or guilty — matters not.
[7] I have a question: WHY didn’t custody automatically go back to her? If she fled to protect, and the evidence said there was something to protect AGAINST (if she was exonerated, it must have, right?) then WHY is that child still living with the abuser? Because the illegal and wrongfully punishing process of a protective mother destroyed her ability to have a child? Or because the family courts simply couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge a ruling coming from outside its own venue?
[8] Supervised Visitation fees. I TOLD you this was a business model. Someday, perhaps more people will start actually believing this.
Look:
Protective parents not only lose custody of the children they are trying to protect, but they lose their life savings, too. Many cannot even afford a lawyer to represent their interests, but are saddled with hefty supervised visitation fees and often threatened with a loss of custody if they object to paying the bevy of court-appointed experts that the judge assigns to their case.
Hmm. . . . threatening to take your kid, and have him/her [further] hurt, seriously, if you can’t pay the court-appointed experts. And this is NOT extortion, and NOT the Mafia?? No, they are all in here to help poor people settle their squabbles, and to protect –NOT traffick in — children.
Fees quickly add up to tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many such parents go bankrupt, making court appeals impossible. The family law “machine” operates as Big Business, and a sophisticated cottage industry has sprung up that appears to be preying on desperate parents and children who are trying to escape family violence.
The author recommends, and then talks about a “major overhaul” of the family law system. Sister, I don’t think this is about to happen, the problems are foundational, and built into it. It is designed to extract cash from parents, (one side will generally be rich enough, or if not, government grants will do instead, for court-appointed attorneys, mediators, and so forth, let alone the dang judges!) and hand it over to those in “the court.” (Think royalty). If you’re in, you’re in, if you’re out, you’re out.
Thus weakened, one parent will certainly have to fork over a child. a few drops more will of course be extracted, if some are left, because what protective parent does NOT want to see a child, even if under strained and artificial conditions — a lesson also for the next generation — and wouldn’t scrape together the funds to do so? Notice — supervised visitation SUPPOSEDLY exists to protect a child from a violent parent, or one incapable of self-restraint enough to be UNsupervised. It is typically used to punish a parent after a switch, rather than for its intended purpose. At least, so I am coming to believe.
Bay Bridge with thousands of daily commuters, commuters at risk (not yet dead), the fix is made. Why? Probably someone remembers the Loma Prieta earthquake, which DID cause deaths when this bridge collapsed. Probably because it affects BUSINESS more than families. I don’t know — you tell me!
Family Law Venue, with probably by now thousands of genuine casualties, including abductions, family wipeouts, jailed Moms, or Dads, and fractured relationships, lost work time (for the litigants — not the court folk) and a drain on the social services of the United States of America — and, resistance to changing BUSINESS as usual is high.
This is a quick post, and I hope within the framework of CSM quotation guidelines. Have a nice day!
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““The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.” **
It’s DV Awareness Month. Are you aware? I’m not seeing much in the headlines this year. It’s more than just a label. . . .or an ideology. Here’s part of what it looks like, after reporting.
( ** quotation below….)
In the website “selfrepresentedfool.org” Dr. Natalia A. Sidiakina both organizes & analyzes the non-obvious and expresses the very obvious impact of the family law system as only someone not yet? ground up by it can.
“Legal System in California Promotes Domestic Violence Against Women”
(copied in entirety, after I get through my intro — shorter than usual today….)
While some people are furthering their careers and researching, not suffering through “familycourtmatters,” I still stand amazed at the volume and breadth of information– legal, cognitive, financial, and social, AND philosophical — that some people can not only process, but interrelate, and still come out impassioned, expressive, but coherent and with detailed analysis — that women who have been through this basic tyranny through the courts, can. Perhaps these are survival skills. To sustain violence over many years is a motive driven by emotion, but enabled like any other war with strategy, foresight, diplomacy/deceit at times, and timing, and intimidation. It is a skilled mixture, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if those good at both the abuse and surviving it might make excellent chefs, or businessmen & women. For those who have been targeted, add stamina and a rock-solid motivation keeping “the pilot light lit,” year after year.
People, we are in trouble in this country, and that trouble as in any ages is, FIRST, unjust judges signing these orders, but they do not operate in a power vacuum at all — and ones that aren’t,also can take retaliation, as did Richard Fine, in L.A. County, even as we speak. Even as women reporting abuse take retaliation, sometimes in the form of taking their children, too. For “taken children” to be brave enough to speak up, or want to, is a whole other matter. I do believe that part of the reason their custody gets switched to the batterers/abusers/molesters (speaking, in cases where this has already happened, or after reporting it when it has) is to shut them up. The court just send a message — speak up, or if one parent speaks up, and you live with your abuser. Or strangers.
I have not met this woman, and was unaware of the site, that I recall, until yesterday. But it both summarizes, puts in philosophical framework, AND annotates, many issues — not all of them (child abuse, for example, doesn’t seem to be the primary feature in here), but what happens when a woman tries to report, or leave, abuse. If she is still alive, what kind of life can she have?
Are you are employed (or not), a parent (or not) married (or not), in addition to paying taxes, did you give to your neighbor, at your faith institution or progressive atheist organization, at the office, church, or local homeless shelter (or not)?
If so, still please dedicate one hour of your time to reading this site in its entirety, and thinking about its contents.
(You will notice I didn’t really appeal to people on the boards of organizations supposedly handling these problems in the court. There’s a reason I didn’t…..Nor did I appeal to religious leaders of any faith as a segment. There’s a reason I didn’t there, too. I’m appealing to people of average and relatively moral sensibility to not turn the other cheek to this type of system, because you’re not an expert in it. This is what too many of the experts in the family law system DO. The DOING of that is a drain on the economy, and your taxes (USA, I mean, and especially if California — featured here.)
http://selfrepresentedfool.org/
Pages include:
- Neurobiological basis of abuse of power.
- Democracy in CA is Moneycracy
- Legal System in CA is Immoral
- Current Legal System Leads CA To Tyranny
- Legal System in CA Turns Children Into Slaves (Think not? Where have you been living?! See sandiegochildtrafficking.org. See Courageouskids.net. Google “California Protective Parents.” See “The Leadership Council” (a website).
- “Legal System in California Promotes Domestic Violence Against Women” (posted below….)
- The Courthouse, The House of Torture (details her physical reactions to emotional torture in the courtroom, and how this limits a battered woman’s ability to self-represent after her attorney has quit, when funds ran out. Her story is here too, I believe.)
- Need for a Paradigm Shift and Legal Reform in CA
(etc.)
Complete with cites, neurological basis, and coherent explanation of the money issues in a divorce. This is written by a PhD/MBA, so don’t expect just a rant, or even that.
The woman who wrote this is no fool — at all. In addition to JusticeForWomen.org, which talks about the process we go through — this woman’s site hits almost every major facet, and I would add to a “should-read/must-read” status. It’s also current.
“Legal System in California Promotes Domestic Violence Against Women”
Copyright© 2008-2009 by Natalia A. Sidiakina for Self-Represented Fool®
All rights reserved.
Natalia A. Sidiakina permits unrestricted not-for-profit use, distribution, and reproduction of this article or any part thereof in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. See original citations in the articles on this web site and examples of citations below in this web page. For more information and permission for for-profit use, distribution, and reproduction please contact info@selfrepresentedfool.org.
”The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home.”
– Confucius (551 BC – 479 BC)
“Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.”
– Socrates (469 BC – 399 BC)
**“The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.”
– Marcus Aurelius (121-180)
“By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.”
– Socrates (469 BC – 399 BC)
The current legal system in California promotes domestic violence against women.
(main article was written in July of 2008)
Violence is the exercise of power and, as such, is addictive. In family settings, a more powerful spouse can “modify other’s states by providing or withholding resources or administering punishments”[1]. In case of domestic violence against women, the more powerful spouse is a husband, who controls financial resources and, consequently, social status.
Most men’s violent and abusive behavior in family settings, as contrary to supportive and providing behavior, results from the suppression of cognition by stress or other means (alcohol, drugs, etc.)[2]. Suppressed cognition allows anger to erupt at whoever is handy and less powerful, making the wife and children easy targets.
Frequently under stress, the suppressed anger of men, who were abused as children, gets expressed through domestic abuse and violence.[3] Stress is increasing generally in California due to war in Iraq, rising oil and food prices, financial crisis, home equity deterioration, foreclosures, exorbitant health insurance costs, economic stagnation, transferring of high-tech manufacturing and research to Asia, resulting unemployment, etc.
{{Let’s Get Honest inserted comment: Two of these commas should be omitted, making the phrasee “who were abused as children” a limiting phrase (conditional) and a qualifier added, I think: “The suppressed anger of men [omit comma] who were abused as children [omit comma] [add SOMETIMES] gets expressed through domestic abuse and violence.” Obviously not ALL men were abused as children. Or let’s hope they weren’t…}}
{{My personal opinion. I don’t know that every man who commits domestic abuse (i.e., violence against an intimate partner or family member– see legal definitions) was abused as a child. Possibly, but that still excuses it, adn there IS no excuse. What about being egged on by others? What about simple entitlement, as accepted too often in at LEAST the 3 “Abrahamic” religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, in chrono order) and/or because they — as the writer here expresses in another page — get a dopamine rush off it? Another potential source of significant stress for children can be the school situations. Either way, I noticed this statement as an assumption I don’t particularly agree with. There is STILL no excuse! On another page — the Neurological Basis of power, she compares the collective turnoff of the conscience preceding the Holocaust, the genocide — in short, the emotional DISTANCING of one population from another, turns of the morality. I have seen this within my own family, and I most definitely detect it in the “subject/object” pathologizing paradigm (to overuse a term, but it seems to work…) within the family law system, in which a crime is not a crime is not a crime, but is re-cast as a family conflict. }}
Stress from work is also increasing because most employees have bosses and peers who bully them also because of the stress and because bullying is pleasurable and addictive as it increases the dopamine levels in the brain[4]. 37% of the US employees, or the majority of potential non-bullies assuming a 50/50 ratio, are bullied at work[5].
Unlike sexual harassment, bullying has no legal remedy in California and is dismissed as “interpersonal conflict” between employees. Because bullying is addictive and because bullies have no motivation to stop it, the number of bullied at work employees will be increasing. Therefore, the number of stressed employed men (and women) with suppressed cognition in California will be also increasing.
Abusive husbands are unlikely to seek divorce or change their addictive violent behavior as long as things are going their way in the family settings. An abused wife in California is extremely unlikely to report domestic violence because such reporting will necessarily result in her husband’s arrest and, consequently, an inevitable divorce, her financial downfall, and the high likelihood of her becoming homeless and even loosing custody of her children.
After divorce, housewives will struggle to find employment even at low wages of less than $15/hour and will likely be bullied at work. For many women, a bullying husband is less threatening than bullies at work.
Husband’s arrest for domestic violence can result in a criminal case against husband or a dismissal. If the abused wife presses charges, her husband, who controls financial resources, will hire an influential criminal law attorney to defend him. After hearings and a trial, the abusive husband will be either free or in jail. Being in prison will necessarily result in husband’s loss of employment and financial crisis for the family.
The jailed abusive husband will hate his wife, will hire an influential family law attorney, will direct his attorney to transfer all family funds and assets to ensure that wife would not have access to them, and will file for divorce. The family is likely to loose its residence because the main breadwinner and the mortgage payer will be gone. Naturally, no housewife wants that. According to the family law center of Sonoma County, more then 50% of arrests for domestic violence result in dismissals prior to the establishment of a case.
If the arrest results in a dismissal, especially after the case was tried, the arrested husband will have more stress from the arrest and the court hearings and will naturally harbor a lot of hostility and anger against his wife. Moreover, the balance of power in the family will be changed by the arrest, and the arrested husband will no longer be satisfied with his marriage.
Since the abusive husband controls his family’s financial resources, he will hide and transfer the family assets in the secret preparation for divorce. He will hire an influential family law attorney and then will file for divorce requesting custody of the children, no spousal support and no attorney’s fees to his wife.
It will be extremely unlikely for his abused wife to have sufficient separate property assets and separate income to maintain continuous legal representation. Consequently, she will become self-represented shortly after the beginning of the divorce.
During the trial, the abusive husband’s attorney will lie to the judge and will make the wife look like an alcoholic, a drug addict, and a completely unfit parent. The family law trial judge will ignore any evidence and pleadings submitted by the self-represented wife.
After divorce, the abusive husband will remain living in the family residence with the children, and his abused ex-wife will likely receive no or minimal spousal support and no property because the major portion or all of the community property will be used to pay for the abusive husband’s attorney’s fees.
Women are more vulnerable to stress and twice as likely as men to develop anxiety and depression under stress[6]. Any infection, even minor flu or cold, will necessarily exacerbate the stress on the body. If the abused wife was employed during the marriage, she is likely to lose her employment because she will likely develop severe anxiety and major depression as a result of the stress during her divorce litigation. A depressed woman will have an impaired cognition and no energy to look for a new employment.
The current medications for depression take several weeks to have a clinical effect, and only 40%-50% of antidepressants work. Because of the side effects and ineffectiveness, a depressed woman will have to try 2-3 different medications to find the one that works. This will take a few months.
While being depressed with no funds and no legal knowledge, the abused wife will not be able to either hire an appellate attorney or self-represent herself in appeal and prepare in 1-3 months a good quality Appellant’s Opening Brief. As a result, the injustice created by the trial judge will become permanent.
In conclusion, the abused wife will report domestic violence ONLY when she fears for her own or her children’s lives.
In wealthy Marin County, for instance, domestic violence against women was growing quietly in the past years and is currently a primary type of violent crime accounting for 30% of violent crime cases (over 60% of violent crime arrests)[7].
Thus, the current legal system with its unrealistic deadlines and exorbitant legal fees implicitly promotes domestic violence against women.
[1] Keltner, D., Gruenfeld, D.H., Anderson, C. (2003) Power, Approach and Inhibition. Psychological Review, Vol. 110, No. 2, 265-284 at p. 265, on the web athttp://socrates.berkeley.edu/~keltner/publications/keltner.power.psychreview.2003.pdf
[2] Dr. Forward, S. (1990) Toxic Parents. Bantam Books, p.3, 120, 124, 137
[3] Dr. Forward, S. (1990) Toxic Parents. Bantam Books, p.3, 120, 124, 137.
[4] Scientific American Mind, April/May 2008, p.14.
[5] Kim, J.N. (2008) The Cubicle Bully. Scientific American Mind, July/July 2008, p.13.
[6] National Institute of Mental Health official web site; Andreasen, N.C., MD, PhD, (2004) Brave New Brain. Oxford University Press, at p. 237-238.
[7] Cal. Courts Rev., Spring 2008, p.8. At dismissal rate of 50%, DV arrests represent 60% of violent crimes.
Copyright© 2008-2009 by Natalia A. Sidiakina for Self-Represented Fool®
All rights reserved.
Natalia A. Sidiakina permits unrestricted not-for-profit use, distribution, and reproduction of this article or any part thereof in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. See original citations in the articles on this web site and examples of citations below in this web page. For more information and permission for for-profit use, distribution, and reproduction please contact info@selfrepresentedfool.org.
(END OF QUOTATION FROM THIS WEBSITE PAGE)…..
I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY LINKS OR INACTIVE LINKS, AND HAVE PASTED & COPIED THIS SITE FROM BEGINNING OF TEXT TO BOTTOM OF FOOTNOTES…
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.
I am going to bite my tongue about that training.
There’s more – read the fine print, and wonder.:
(a)There is hereby established in the Department of Justice (DOJ) a program of financial and technical assistance for district attorneys’ or city attorneys’ offices, designated the Spousal Abuser Prosecution Program. All funds appropriated to the Department of Justice for the purposes of this chapter shall be administered and disbursed by the Attorney General, and shall to the greatest extent feasible, be coordinated or consolidated with any federal or local funds that may be made available for these purposes.
The Department of Justice shall establish guidelines for the provision of grant awards to proposed and existing programs prior to the allocation of funds under this chapter. These guidelines shall contain the criteria for the selection of agencies to receive funding and the terms and conditions upon which the Department of Justice is prepared to offer grants pursuant to statutory authority. The guidelines shall not constitute rules, regulations, orders, or standards of general application. {{Then what DO they represent?}}
(b)The Attorney General may allocate and award funds to cities or counties, or both, in which spousal abuser prosecution units are established or are proposed to be established in substantial compliance with the policies and criteria set forth in this chapter.
(c)The allocation and award of funds shall be made upon application executed by the county’s district attorney or by the city’s attorney and approved by the county board of supervisors or by the city council. Funds disbursed under this chapter shall not supplant local funds that would, in the absence of the California Spousal Abuser Prosecution Program, be made available to support the prosecution of spousal abuser cases. Local grant awards made under this program shall not be subject to review as specified in Section 10295 of the Public Contract Code. {{gee. . . . . }}
(d)Local government recipients shall provide 20 percent matching funds for every grant awarded under this program.
In the next post, I am going to put the “
Amicus Curiae Brief in Support of Respondent in People v. Giles”
This is a 25 -page brief (Dec. 2005) on behalf of several organizations, responding to< I THINK, an accused spousal murderer’s right to confront his accuser. (again, speculation from memory of this), part of his defense was, his right to confront his accuser was being compromised. Well, she was dead, dude! Unbelievably, this brief addresses that issue. However, I include it because it came up when I searched on “Clear and present Danger.” IF you can go to the subject sentences of each paragraph, it also will provide more insight on domestic violence as an issue. Also, given that it’s written by Nancy K.D. Lemon, Esq. — prominent in this field, and at UC Berkeley Boalt School of Law, I think it’s worth posting. . . . . On the NEXT post.
Here, though is the ending of this document, FYI. Again, consider what the woman above (one among how many?) went through. . . . .
<><><><><>
An Intent-Based Application Of The Rule Will Significantly Diminish The Number Of Domestic Violence Prosecutions, Undermining Prosecution Efforts And Exacerbating The California Domestic Violence Crisis
The California Legislature has established that prosecutions are necessary to reduce domestic violence incidents and has made great efforts to assist these prosecutions. An Assembly Committee Report stated, “[C]riminal prosecution is one of the few factors that may interrupt the escalating pattern of domestic violence.” See Assem. Comm. Rep. at 5 TA \s “Assem. Comm. Rep. on Public Safety S.B. 1876, atpp 3-4 (June 25, 1996)” . Further, the Legislature has declared, “[Since] spousal abusers present a clear and present danger to the mental and physical well-being of the citizens of the State of California,…[we will] support increased efforts by district attorneys’ and city attorneys’ offices to prosecute spousal abusers through organizational and operational techniques.” Cal. Pen. Code § 273.8 (West 2005) {{{I JUST CITED, ABOVE}}}
{{DO readers YET? understand why the family law venue, as populated by the noble “AFCC” with enablements by also the “OCSE” (search my blog on this) “MUST” exist if batterers are to get away with this, when there are children? Why there MUST be, despite these D.A. legislated efforts in the 2005s to STOp domestic violence, and stop it by characterizing and prosecuting it as the crime (it is indeed criminal in intent and effect, seeking to undermine the basis of principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence: Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. There is no happiness possible in abuse, because there is no liberty, and sometimes it stops life, too. Ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-thump..) – – there MUST be a contrary movement, a groundswell of indignant (primarily fathers) to RE-Characterize and DE-Criminalize the language and, with that, prosecution, of criminal behavior towards individuals, including children, and re-cast it as “parental rights” and “family conflict.” ??? These motions are essentially in DIRECT opposition to each other. . . . . . .
{{ NOW, friends, begin to understand – I feel I most certainly have experienced this, along with others — how the CRIMINAL PROSECUTION side, this law enforcement, indeed plays too often (they do!) “good cop/bad cop” with the family law venue, withholding prosecution sometimes, and purusing it other times — same law, same county, same personnel. I am in the middle of this struggle presently, where I have a total and clearly identified — but who can enforce? and at what risk to the parties involved, not just me? — legal right?}} However this document is dealing with the criminal prosecution side — not the family / custody issues side – apparently segmented in too many brains, but overlapped in experiences of families going through this, with kids.}}
[Not new Para. in original] TA \l “Cal. Pen. Code § 273.8 (West 2005)” \s “Cal. Pen. Code § 273.8 (West 2005)” \c 2 ; see also Cal. Pen. Code § 273.81 (West 2005) TA \l “Cal. Pen. Code § 273.81 (West 2005)” \s “Cal. Pen. Code § 273.81 (West 2005)” \c 2 (establishing Spousal Abuser Prosecution Program within the Department of Justice that provides financial and technical assistance for district attorneys’ and city attorneys’ offices and promotes vertical prosecution in order to convict spousal abusers).
In order to address the domestic violence epidemic, the California Legislature has passed a host of laws intended to increase domestic violence arrests, prosecutions, and convictions. See, e.g., Cal. Pen. Code § 13700 (West 2005) TA \s “Cal. Pen. Code § 13700 (West 2005)” TA \l “Cal. Pen. Code § 13700 (West 2005)” \s “Cal. Pen. Code § 13700 (West 2005)” \c 1 . For example, these laws require arrests of persons who violate restraining orders [[NOT DONE IN MY CASE]] (Cal. Pen. Code § 836(c) (West 2005) TA \l “Cal. Pen. Code § 836(c) (West 2005)” \s “Cal. Pen. Code § 836(c) (West 2005)” \c 2 ); encourage arrests where there is probable cause that a person committed a domestic violence offense (Cal. Pen. Code § 13701(b) (West 2005) TA \l “Cal. Pen. Code § 13701(b) (West 2005)” \s “Cal. Pen. Code § 13701(b) (West 2005)” \c 2 ); require that suspects arrested for certain domestic violence offenses appear before a magistrate rather than be cited and released (Cal. Pen. Code § 853.6(a) (West 2005) TA \l “Cal. Pen. Code § 853.6(a) (West 2005)” \s “Cal. Pen. Code § 853.6(a) (West 2005)” \c 2 ); and encourage prosecutors to seek the most severe authorized sentence for a person convicted of a domestic violence offense (Cal. Pen. Code § 273.84(b) (West 2005) TA \l “Cal. Pen. Code § 273.84(b) (West 2005)” \s “Cal. Pen. Code § 273.84(b) (West 2005)” \c 2 ).
Additionally, the Legislature has enacted several evidentiary rules specifically designed to facilitate domestic violence prosecutions, including laws allowing experts to testify when relevant, such as when a domestic violence victim recants or refuses to testify (Cal. Evid. Code § 1107 (West 2005) TA \l “Cal. Evid. Code § 1107 (West 2005)” \s “Cal. Evid. Code § 1107 (West 2005)” \c 2 ); permitting evidence of previous acts of abuse in a criminal action in which the defendant is accused of an offense involving domestic abuse of an elder or dependent person (Cal. Evid. Code § 1109 (West 2005) TA \s “Cal. Evid. Code § 1109 (West 2005)” mentioned supra); and permitting introduction of some forms of hearsay evidence when the domestic violence victim is unavailable to testify (Cal. Evid. Code § 1370 (West 2005) TA \l “Cal. Evid. Code § 1370 (West 2005)” \s “Cal. Evid. Code § 1370 (West 2005)” \c 2 ).
{{You will notice “Cal. Evid. Code is being cited here. However, the family law SEPARATED the Evid. code from itself years ago, I heard (early 1990s?) per a CA NOW Family Law website description of the history of this system (the 2002 report). . . . . So it seems to me that this separation was intentional. THEN, a certain father got caught out with his representation, in essence “caught” by those local rules, and now we have — locally — an “Elkins Family Law Task Force” pulled together to rescue this Dad (whose name also happens to be Elkins, DNK if coincidence or related to the original Meyer Elkins. There are lots of Elkinses areound, so maybe not…) because and specifically because, family law is so different from civil procedure. Well, that was a built-in, intentional system bias! (From what I can read). Back to the text….}}
Despite the Legislature’s efforts to improve domestic violence prosecution efforts, however, there has been a substantial drop in domestic violence prosecutions since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Crawford. In the first year after Crawford, California prosecutors reported that they were dismissing a higher number of domestic violence cases than in the preceding years. Lininger, Prosecuting Batterers After Crawford TA \s “Tom Lininger, Prosecuting Batterers After Crawford, 91 Va. L. Rev. 747, 769 (2005)” , supra, at 749-50. Sixty-one percent of responding prosecutors reported that Crawford had significantly impeded domestic violence prosecutions. Id., at 772, 820.
{{Apparently this relates to where the victim(s) are basically terrorized out of testifying, based on a very real belief that they (or loved ones) will be significantly hurt if they do, and that the system isn’t going to particularly protect them. ALthough I doubt readers are up to the reasoning yet, I feel this feeds significantly into the PAS debate (Parental Alienation Syndrome) which, while I know where it came from, I feel could be sprung in reverse on mothers who have lost their kids (possibly DUE to the use of this legal tactic) and those kids are smart enough to keep their mouths shut. In short, treating people who have been exposed to abuse, long-term and significant, whether by WITNESSING it to a parent, or sibling, or EXPERIENCING IT DIRECTLY (or both) — they have a right to self-protection, which may very well, their point of view, entail joining in on the abuse of the left-behind parent (or else), or simply clamming up. For more insight into this, read the journal (true story, written after he got out and became an adult), “The Boy Called It” and a secondary brother who became “it” after the original boy was rescued from the family. In this case, it was the mother abusing, horribly so. The name escapes me presently, but is searchable…. I had a hard time reading it, as it cut close to home..in the dynamics of being targeted, as a child, for the denigrating behavior, while siblings were not…OK, back to the GILES amicus….}}
Before Crawford, prosecutors often conducted “victimless prosecutions,” where they relied on hearsay statements made by victims to police, medical personnel, clergy, social workers, and others because the victim would not testify at trial. Melissa Moody, A Blow to Domestic Violence Victims: Applying the “Testimonial Statements” Test in Crawford v. Washington, 11 Wm. & Mary J. of Women & L. 387, 387 (2005) TA \l “Melissa Moody, A Blow to Domestic Violence Victims: Applying the \“Testimonial Statements\” Test in Crawford v. Washington, 11 Wm. & Mary J. of Women & L. 3873(2005)” \s “Melissa Moody, A Blow to Domestic Violence Victims: Applying the \”Testimonial Statements\” Test in Crawford v. Washington, 11 Wm. & Mary J. of Women & L. 387, 387 (2005)” \c 3 ; Andrew King-Ries, Crawford v. Washington: The End of Victimless Prosecution?, 28 Seattle U. L. Rev. 301, 301 (2005) TA \l “Andrew King-Ries, Crawford v. Washington: The End of Victimless Prosecution? 28 Seattle U. L. Rev. 301, 301 (2005)” \s “Andrew King-Ries, Crawford v. Washington: The End of Victimless Prosecution? 28 Seattle Univ. L. Rev. 301, 301 (2005)” \c 3 . Further, these prosecutions often proved successful in combating domestic violence. See, e.g., Casey G. Gwinn & Anne O’Dell, Domestic Violence and Child Abuse: Stopping the Violence: The Role of the Police Officer and the Prosecutor, 20 W. St. U.L. Rev. 297, 303-04 (1993) TA \l “Casey G. Gwinn & Anne O’Dell, Domestic Violence and Child Abuse: Stopping the Violence: The Role of the Police Officer and the Prosecutor, 20 W. St. U.L. Rev. 297, 303-04 (1993)” \s “Casey G. Gwinn, J.D. & Sgt. Anne O’’Dell, Domestic Violence and Child Abuse: Stopping the Violence: The Role of the Police Officer and the Prosecutor, 20 W. St. U.L. Rev. 297, 303-04 (Spring 1993)” \c 3 (“Nearly 60% of our filed cases involve uncooperative or absent victims and yet we obtain convictions in 88% of our cases…Our strategies are working to reduce violence in intimate relationships in San Diego”); Linda A. McGuire, Criminal Prosecution of Domestic Violence TA \l “Linda A. McGuire, Criminal Prosecution of Domestic Violence” \s “Linda A. McGuire, , Esq., Criminal Prosecution of Domestic Violence” \c 3 , available at http://www.bwjp.org/documents/prosecuteV.htm (reporting that San Diego prosecutors’ and law enforcement officials’ strategies , including conducting victimless prosecutions, decreased San Diego’s domestic violence homicide rate by 59% from 1991 to 1993) (last visited Dec. 7, 2005).
{{COMMENT: search Case G. Gwinn on this blog, I believe I posted the article about his attempts to coverup DV of one of his employees, and a lawsuit by another one he assigned to the cover-up, step in the gap procedure. When threats came to the secondary employee (lawsuit said?) his response was to make sure she wasn’t on HIS floor, where he also might be targeted. Another “problem” I have with Casey J. Gwinn is the establishment of the replicating Family Justice Center Alliance, made possible by a $1 million grant from Verizon. This was happening at a time I myself was desperately seeking (yet did not get) help to obtain a cell phone for my own safety, from Verizon, or anyone else for that matter, being stalked and so forth. While they had their high-profile websites, we women were on our own, here, on the street level….I cannot tell you what I went through in the past 2 years alone just to keep a damn PHONE on! How’d you like to deal with that?}}
The post-Crawford drop in domestic violence prosecutions indicates that some prosecutors and judges have failed to recognize the Rule of Forfeiture as an applicable exception to the Sixth Amendment right of confrontation in many domestic violence cases. See Robert P. Mosteller, Crawford v. Washington: Encouraging and Ensuring the Confrontation of Witnesses, 39 U. Rich. L. Rev. 511, 607 (2005) TA \l “Robert P. Mosteller, Crawford v. Washington: Encouraging and Ensuring the Confrontation of Witnesses, 39 U. Rich. L. Rev. 511, 60(2005)” \s “Robert P. Mosteller, Crawford v. Washington: Encouraging and Ensuring the Confrontation of Witnesses, 39 U. Rich. L. Rev. 511, 607 (2005)” \c 3 (stating that Crawford “has caused great disruption and massive uncertainty” in the prosecution of domestic violence cases). Specifically, this trend indicates that prosecutors seek to admit an unavailable victim’s statements under the Rule only when a defendant intends to procure the victim’s unavailability at trial instead of when, as often occurs in domestic violence cases, the defendant causes the witness’s unavailability by killing the victim or by instilling fear of reprisals. As a result, the legal system appears to reward batterers by dropping some charges, dismissing entire cases, or acquitting the batterer of domestic violence charges when the victim’s statements are the only evidence to establish a battering relationship.
Furthermore, if batterers know that prosecutors will move to dismiss charges or lose domestic violence cases whenever batterers successfully terrorize and sequester their victims, they will intimidate and threaten their victims in order to derail prosecution. See Lininger, Prosecuting Batterers After Crawford TA \s “Tom Lininger, Prosecuting Batterers After Crawford, 91 Va. L. Rev. 747, 769 (2005)” , supra, at 808 (raising concern that if courts require a victim witness’s live testimony in order to admit any of the victim’s statements, it is more likely that an abuser will threaten the victim before trial in the hope of preventing prosecution). Conversely, if the judicial system holds batterers accountable for causing a victim’s unavailability, batterers will have less incentive to intimidate their victims into silence. )
{{Violations of Sixth Amendment right to confront is flagrant and essential to the family law process, far’s I can tell. This is done when the accuser is no longer the individual himself alone, but a mediator’s or evaluator’s report obtained by separate meetings (if requested for DV) from the victim (no longer considered a victim in family law either — she is a person who has a “problem” called “conflict” within the family, and as such it is as much HER duty as HIS to make it stop — which is virtually impossible, many times, without prosecution or protection of some sort.. . . But notice how much more detailed and specific the conversation is when it is in the CRIMINAL side of prosecution here..}}
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, amici respectfully request that the Court affirm the decision of the Court of Appeal.
Respectfully submitted,
_________________________
Nancy K. D. Lemon
Calif. State Bar No. 95627
Boalt Hall School of Law
University of California
Berkeley, California 94720
(510) 525-3164
Attorney for Amici Curiae
Dated: December 11, 2005
On behalf of
California Partnership to End Domestic Violence (CPEDV)
Asian Law Alliance of San Jose
California National Organization for Women (CA NOW)
California Women’s Law Center
City of Santa Cruz’s Commission for the Prevention of Violence Against Women
Glendale YWCA
Los Angeles County Bar Association Domestic Violence Project
Marjaree Mason Center
Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence
Sojourn Services for Battered Women and Their Children
South Lake Tahoe Women’s Center
Walnut Avenue Women’s Center
Women Escaping A Violent Environment (WEAVE)
WomanHaven, Inc., d/b/a Center for Family Solutions
Women’s Crisis Support – Defensa de Mujeres
CERTIFICATE OF COMPLIANCE
I certify that this brief complies with the type-volume limitation of the California Rules of Court Rule 14(c)(1).
Exclusive of the exempted portions in California Rules of Court Rule 14(c)(3), the brief contains 7638 words.
_________________________
Nancy K. D. Lemon
Boalt Hall School of Law
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley, California 94720
Telephone: 510-525-3164
Attorney for Amici Curiae
Dated: December 11, 2005
PROOF OF SERVICE (NOT relevant to the discussion)….
FOUND on the WEB at:
[DOC]
Domestic Violence, by its Nature, Frequently Results in Forfeiture …
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File Format: Microsoft Word – View as HTML
Additionally, the California Family Code defines abuse as causing bodily injury, ….. “[Since]spousal abusers present a clear and present danger to the …
http://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/GilesAmicusBrief.doc – Similar –
I simply consider the family law arena, and/or its collaboration with other arms of the system that SHOULD enable a citizen to live a normal life after separating from abuse / domestic violence — and WITH the children being PROTECTED from further, dangerous, or threatening, undermining interactions with the othe rparent. In short, when can we just take a stand and say NO! and mean it to this vice, abuse?
Only when it ceases to produce benefits for others.
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“Why does he DO that?” A walk on the wild side…. [with some 2013 updates]
I am speaking as an owner and long-time appreciator of the book. “Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry & Controlling Men.”.. which showed up like a savior, emotionally, right as my case plummeted from stablized position under protection of a restraining order, into the volatile, “mandatory-mediation” arena of Family Court, which reminded me of “Chutes and Ladders”, with more chutes than ladders.
You take one false step (or have your family placed at the top of a chute through being hauled into this venue) and are on a chute.
Kind of like life WITH the abusive guy (or woman) to start with, anyhow, huh? Hmm… Wonder why they function similarly!
(The post on “Family Court Matters a la board-games” is in pre-development stage, meaning, a little gleam in the blogger’s eye still. Paper, Scissors Stone (last post) got me thinking for sure…..)
If you haven’t read Lundy Bancroft’s material AND/OR you are not yourself a victim or being forced to co-parent with a batterer, you’re not fully informed in the domestic violence field, period.
(2013 Update, In Hindsight):
Then again, if we’d all been talking about something besides “batterers” perhaps neither Batterers Intervention Programs nor “domestic violence” would have developed into “fields,” coalitions, or industries.
And the conversation about those fields and how THEY operate is the conversation that no one seems to want to talk about, even as updates to “The Batterer As Parent” have been published and being circulated in various circles.
I mean, think about it (why didn’t we earlier??) There is a crime called “assault and battery” — but by the time someone has become a “batter-er” that means, it’s habitual — which means someone else is experiencing “domestic violence.” How can you domesticate “violence” and what’s domestic about it? (Well, you can tame down its labeling and call it domestic “abuse” — which has been done…
In fact, as it turns out, “BIPs” are actually diversionary programs to criminal prosecution for the beating up on others. Some people figured out, along with programs like, “moral reconation therapy(tm)” and Psychoeducational classes for kids undergoing divorce — that the more programs the merrier. I guess… The money is made upfront in the trainings, yours truly (The United States Government, which is essentially “yours truly” — the taxpayers) set up the policies and the corporations and then runs the population through them every time someone shows up actually needing some realtime social service — or justice — or help.
I can’t explain it too well in a single post, but this conflict was staged and manipulated in order to obtain more and more central control (literally, an economic stranglehold) on most of us through those of us that are willing to sell out for collaboration, sales, and the conference circuit. As sincere or genuine as these individuals may be, I do know they are playing on empathy to increase sales. I do not know whether or not they see the endgame, after their own use has expired in the long-range plan of bankrupting Americans so we are left as a human resource without other options than begging or slavery, at a sheer subsistence level.
Some of us have been their in marriage, we have been there AFTER filing restraining orders, which were intended to protect us (allegedly), but we were NOT there after even a year or two in the family court Archipelago.
Somehow, in this destitute and distressed state, we grasp at straws of empathy and keep referring friends and neighbors to explain our own situation to the same types of information — such as if only someone would JUST UNDERSTAND batterers’ psyches, our kids would be safer, and life would be better.
Anyhow, what follows was from very early in this blog (October 2009) and shows my understanding at that time. Even then, I was questioning the logic of the question.
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Ever seen an armed and dangerous “child custody dispute”? Do disputes shoot? Responding deputies blame shooting on the dispute, not the guntoting young Dad.
It wasn’t his fault, or his hands on the gun(s), it was that dang “child custody dispute” arising, say responding deputies. It was half the (unnamed) ex-girlfriend’s fault, for not forking over the 3-month old when told to.
And although 2 of her male relatives got shot, stepping in to protect, it is the poor, accused, walking wounded MAN (he attempted suicide after shooting, fleeing, being chased by police, including in a helicopter (??), and shooting himself) who grabs the headlines.
Here’s another “GIVE ME THE KID — or ELSE!” that took a slightly different turn. This time the shooter (Dad) wounded some others immediately (as opposed to just threatening to cut the mother’s throat, being jailed for this– for “about 16 months” plus “several months”–then when getting out of jail, calling 911, ambushing and murdering a responding sheriff in cold blood, drawing PLENTY of responding law enforcement fire, resulting in his own death, at age I think 27.)
The knife-wielding, sheriff-punching/murdering man was married, the handgun/rifle-toting younger man was not. Then again, the knife-wielding sheriff (or was it police?)-punching man later, in his ambush DID have a rifle, and after shooting the sheriff in the back, then grabbed the wounded officer’s own handgun and shot him again.
Perhaps the reason we have a fatherhood crisis is that when young and self-centered men don’t get their way in a custody exchange, they go start incidents that involve violence, and sometimes escalate to suicide.
The infant daughter ONE was fighting over was about 1-1/2 months, the other infant daughter the OTHER was shooting relatives who intervened over was only 3 months old. One father is dead already, the other one may die. Clearly the PRIMARY social crisis both daughters will be growing up with is not early childhood trauma or any other “adverse childhood event”, growing up with, is not violence but fatherlessness, although the latter little girl had at least a grandpa and an uncle who protected her Mama, which indicates bravery & commitment.
On the other hand, at age 3 months and 1-1/2 years they are already contributing to society — in the nature of newspaper fodder. Later, if either mother requires any government assistance whatsoever, they will also be contributing to future social science studies by being low income, possbly participating in a “female-headed household,” and if mothers don’t learn from these incidents and pick a better man next time, another run through the system.
“Man accused of attacking Valinda family may die from self-inflicted wounds.“
After reading article, please tell me why the headline doesn’t say upfront: “Poor, accused (POLICE-FLEEING) MAN may die from an owie (After shooting 2 other men, he shot himself).”
OR, it could come out and tell the truth, & mention a few other participants:
Publish under: “Family” section, subheading “Fathers giving orders” (excuse me, I meant) “Fathers can be nurturers too….”
Script:
“Girl, give me our infant — or I’ll shoot! Your relatives, and then, when confronted on this, myself,” says Chino man, and does so, too.
Posted: 09/29/2009 10:14:39 PM PDT
By James Wagner, Staff Writer
VALINDA – A Chino man who deputies say shot his estranged girlfriend’s relatives and then attempted suicide Monday night remained in critical condition Tuesday and could die.
Photo Gallery: Valinda Shootings (I’ll spare us….)
“We’re not too sure if he’s gonna make it,” said Los Angeles County sheriff’s Sgt. Dwight Miley.
The alleged shooter, 21-year-old Bryan Ornelas, was taken to Citrus Valley Medical Center – Queen of the Valley Campus in West Covina on Monday night after the shootings.
A child custody dispute led Ornelas to shoot two members of his ex-girlfriend’s family, deputies said….
That’s a lie! Can we start fining deputies for saying it and REPORTERS for writing, editors for publishing it, if there’s no disclaimer? On this basis, she should have clawed out someone’s eyes or shot HIS family, if the dispute led to it. I’ve been in a custody dispute for years, and I haven’t shot anyone. How are law enforcement going to enforce if they keep putting this message out to the public — a custody dispute led him to do it. . . . .
We have laws in this country. One of them is against shooting people. “The devil made me do it,” “God made me do it,”,” “unemployment made me do it,” “distress over the breakup of my marriage made me do it,” and “we had a custody dispute, which made me shoot someone,” are NOT legally valid excuses, and I would SO appreciate not having to read them in articles nationwide, year after year.
Then again, I’ve been in family law hearings, and you should hear the excuses for child-stealing and failure to work, and a few more. These were received with straight faces by the personnel (and being in court, I didn’t gag til I read the transcript afterwards).
If there is going to be a BIT of self-restraint in this country, ALL the ______ made me do it’s need to be flushed out of the headlines. It’s ceased being amusing. SELF-defense (not “ego-defense” or “pride-defense” or “my sense of masculinity-defense”) I believe in some circumstances MAY be acceptable reasons, although I have heard that women suffering long-term severe battering and abuse with no potential exit still go to death row, which is why movements to get justice for them have begun. They typically get longer than men when sentenced.
So a casual “A child custody dispute led Ornelas to shoot ANYONE is irrational and inappropriate.”
DEFINE “child custody dispute.” As in, “I have the child in my arms (or house), therefore I have ‘custody’ “? Or, there was a COURT order?
If there was an order, it was either joint, or sole legal and joint or sole physical, and likely child support was involved as well. If there was a COURT order, then it SHOULD specify visitation (of course, many of these are so vague as to be unworkable, even when DV has been an issue, which we don’t know if it had, here.)
If there was a COURT order specific enough, then it may have been a child custody “dispute” but one party was wishing to comply and the other to deny its order. So it is relevant.
Although I realize reporters can’t always find out (or reliably cite) who started the incident, in this field, a very heated field emotionally (and with lots — millions, nationwide — of $$ riding on it, highly entrenched interests — maybe not to the Ornelas/Rizo family, but nationwide), I find the over-use of domestic disputes “arising,” as if out of nowhere, and without cause, to be misleading. Such things “arise” or “emerge” like the sun “rises” (or appears to). There is generaly a reason for the season, or the emotions. In the field of child CUSTODY, if there is something in the courts, than any dispute with that is a dispute with the courts, and not a private family matter.
Officers said Ornelas shot himself in the head after a short pursuit.Ornelas and his ex-girlfriend have a three-month-old girl who was with her before the shooting, Miley said.
They are, or are not, living together? Not shown – did she take off with the little girl after her relatives intervened? (PROTECTIVE mother, eh?) Apparently the little girl missed seeing someone shot, which was good, eh? But I’m sure the fatherhood folk will get her back with her Dad, if he survives. After all, if not, he might shoot someone else. Or, simply be an uninvolved Dad, not pay child support, and burden the state with welfare, if she can’t figure something else out for a livelihood.
The shooting occurred at 6:45 p.m. Monday in the 16200 block of Benwick Street in the unincorporated county area of Valinda.
Ornelas wanted to see the child but his ex-girlfriend didn’t want to give the baby to him, Miley said. Then a dispute arose.
Whose words is Miley reporting? Why doesn’t he mention, “according to..” as he wasn’t actually there to see? In courts, hearsay is hearsay. Miley didn’t witness the dispute, so someone reported it to him.
Apparently this WAS the dispute, and a common (and dangerous, sometimes) one it is, indeed.
AKA, baby as property. Custody order was, or was not, in place? I have an idea. AT THE HOSPITALS, unmarried Moms are assigned sole custody which continues even during marriage til further notice or ABSOLUTE proof of neglect or abuse. If a Dad is on the scene, participating, and proved this with DNA, let’s return to the days of “shotgun marriages” as it appears that the alternative is shotgun (or knife, or ball bat) “give me the kids.”
LOOK, LET’s CONSIDER ALTERNATIVES ON CHILDBIRTH & PARENTHOOD!
It takes less than a half hour or so to start a baby, and around 9 months to finish the process. MOTHERS, PHYSICALLY, ARE INNATELY MORE BONDED TO THEIR CHIDLREN BECAUSE THOSE KIDS ARE INSIDE THEM BEFORE BIRTH. THEIR BODIES CHANGE REMARKABLY DURING PREGNANCY, AFFECTING MANY TIMES OTHER SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS (NOT ALWAYS, BUT USUALLY). LABOR IS INDEED “LABOR.” HAVING SEX IS, SUPPOSEDLY, MUTUALLY FUN, BUT LABOR TAKES HOURS (USUALLY) AND CAN INVOLVE HAVING PARTS OF A WOMAN’S BODY CUT (CAESARIAN) OR SNIPPED (EPISIOTOMY), SOMETIMES BY AN OVEREAGER MALE DOCTOR. (I thankfully avoided this, primarily by avoiding the hospital til right before birth, for one daughter, who was born very healthy). Afterwards, if women nurse (“breast is best,” remember? See my post, Australian authorities and Canadian trying to balance this with couples which split up so early). It’s a radical readjustment of relationships, and I think a great one. Therefore, to avoid shootings, abuse, threats to cut and 911 calls, kidnappings, and potential infanticide around exchanges, I have a simpler way (??).
UNMARRIED MOTHERS — not their grandmas and not their boyfriends and not their aunts — GET CUSTODY UNLESS THEY ARE ON DRUGS or involved in gangs, etc. As such, THEY are responsible unless rape (including statutory) or incest was a factor, and even then, she has the majority sayso because it’s HER BODY, and authorities go after the (____holes). If stupidity on the woman’s part {{such as picking up, getting pregnant by, and then marrying an ex-Porn king on a rebound marriage at a bar, as happened earlier this year, resulting in her being beat to deathwith a ball bat on the baby’s 1st birthday, and the baby (GIRL) being, briefly, abducted}}was a factor, they still get custody and must learn to take care of their children somehow, and let’s give them the support. If a young man, or middle-aged man, in this day and time is stupid or callous enough not to use a condom, when he’s uncommitted to the young (or older) woman, then he’s just not mature enough to handle children and can go practice first on small animals and at a job.
UNMARRIED MOTHERS WHO LATER MARRY — EITHER THE FATHER, OR SOMEONE ELSE — AUTOMATICALLY RETAIN CUSTODY. IF THEY SCREW UP CRIMINALLY, THROW THE HEAVY HAND OF THE LAW AT THEM. WITH THE MONEY SAVED FROM SOME OF THESE OTHER SELF-DEFEATING AND MUTUALLY-CONTRADICTORY GRANTS PROGRAMS, THIS COULD THEN BE POSSIBLE. IT MIGHT EVEN HELP REDUCE THE NATIONAL DEBT. PUT THE RESPONSIBILITY BACK ON THE INDIVIDUALS, AND THEIR IMMEDIATE ASSOCIATES. BUT DURING MARRIAGE, AND IN LIGHT OF HOW FREQUENT DIVORCE IS, MOTHERS RETAIN SOLE LEGAL CUSTODY OF THEIR CHILDREN. THE ALTERNATIVE (WHICH WE ARE NOW “IN”) IS INVESTING HEAVILY IN TRYING TO “BRIBE” MEN TO BECOME MORE RESPONSIBLE — AND IT AIN’T REALLY WORKING WITH THOSE FROM THE BRYAN ORNELAS’es to the JEFFREY LEVINGS (THROWING FUEL ON THE FIRE, the ends justify the means)– and we (yes, I said “we.” Taxpayer funds are used through HHS programs driving the courts) AND THE “BRIBE” USED IS TWO-FFOLD:
1. Money, in the form of at a minimum reduced child support payments. The Bible, at a minimum (I cannot speak for th eKoran or any other writinges) says clearly that the love of money is the ROOT of all evil. Any version of paying a man to “love” his own offspring is promoting this. It also is disturbingly close to human trafficking, when child support is reduced in exchange for pushing or enabling men to spend more time with their kids than the existing laws otherwise would enable them.
2. Children themselves. This is why sites like “Courageouskids.net” have become necessary, and why some adult children SUE the participants in their traumatic childhood once they turn 18. This is not the majority of divorcing families, but it IS a social problem. And ONE case of child molestation or any form of abuse or neglect during exchange with a newly-enfranchised father is too much. ONE is too much! As to foster care, it’s not much better. But I believe the children would be better off with a STABLE relationship with their mother, and particularly when such a mother has already separated because of violence to her by the Dad. Or, violence to her children by the Dad.
I am witness -and by far not the only one — that THE destabilizing effect in my post-separation life was the family law system, as tweaked by both the father (and friends) and — I learned, belatedly — a system of grants designed to tweak it in favor of noncustodial “parents,” but oddly enough, many, many of those programs have the word “fatherhood” in theiir titles, and even more in their texts, while the word “mothers” barely appears in: Family Violence Prevention Fund (unless under a special category) and on whitehouse.gov.
I had restraining order on, and a healthy, solvent, contributing-t0-the community, kids actively involved in the community lifestyle. This was attested to by social workers, parents of kids I taught, and colleagues, and by how the children were doing also. The ONLY way to make all that evidence disappear was to haul me into family law, defending custody of the girls, fighting to assert joint legal, and in a venue famous (I later learned) for suppressing evidence in favor of psychobabble bearing no (and citing no) evidence, and from there repeatedly upending my own life, as mother leaving violence and trying to economically re-invent myself, and with sole physical custdoy of two daughters.
WITH RESTRAINING ORDER OFF, AND “THE SKY’S THE LIMIT” AS TO INTERFERENCES WITH MY ABILITY TO WORK AND LIFE ON A WEEKLY AND MID-WEEKLY BASIS, YEAR ROUND, NO VACATION BREAKS AND NO SUMMER BREAKS (any and all contact was cause for arguing, debate, threat, and more and more involving law enforcement to adjudicate — and THEY refused to enforce clear orders, repeatedly, which is their job !! Even up to a custody order!) our daughters, have had the “crime pays — if you’re male” and the double standard passed on. They learned firsthand the dangers of reporting abuse and leaving it. They have learned it’s better to stuff it, internalize and blame themselves, or externalize and find someone to hate (better to join in with the gang rather than go against it). Apart from, and to some extents DURING the initial restraining order, the only true peace we had was while it was on, and the caretaking parent could actually function as a normal human being and they could, by association feel fairly normal with their peers and in the activities at which they were prospering.
We are at a turning point as a society (always, but especially now, it seems). Either women are full-status citizens or they are second-class citizens. Now, women, including young women, have had a taste at full-status; the horse is out of the barn, “who let the dogs out?”
While we have not used that responsibly gender-wide, I think I could make a pretty good case that men haven’t either (see Holocaust, wars, weapons of mass destruction) etc. And a woman who has a fighting chance off being treated like a human being without ALL of society, including relatives, religious institution(s), law (and its inforecment) and such in her society, MIGHT just fight rather than crumple. We have internet and books, and courageous people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali have already spoken out, just as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcom X did on racism. Phyllis Chesler exists and has published, and I’m only naming a very few obviously.
Now, either it can be guerilla warfare, plus some other forms of male on female terrorism in order to try to chase a bunch cats (ever done that?), or the males — including those in the mainstream media — can start to adjust. When people separate, there are going to be custody disputes. Either we could go back — and I do mean REgress — to some fundamentalist religions that endorse honor killings, genital mutilation, forced marriages, and whipping, stoning, or otherwise punishing women for showing signs of life, and a piece of skin, and raise generations of haters and women who cannot even trust in each other (polygamy is by definition something of a supply & demand artificially enforced situation) OR we can go the other direction, and stop men from trying to turn back the clock and “just deal” with women as BOTh citizens AND occasionally mothers. To fully deal with this, the educational system (I’m talking scheduling more than content) needs to be loosened up and homeschooling de-stigmatized, allowing family members to actually get to know each other, and not feel like oddballs in the community because they are actively participating in it daytimes. Don’t give me the Philipp Garridos for an example — he was under failed sex offender supervision. For every such incident, there is at least an equal one that takes place IN schools, including shootings, sexual assaults and “worse,” dumbing down and slowing down. Or failing to fully support those who need more help.
One of the worst things I know — and I DO know it — is where males incite their associated females to hurt other women. I’ve seen it (and been targeted, while with children in the home). If there is no solidarity on basis of gender, and no fair legal protection, and faith communities are so economically codependent with their own males (plus the volunteer services of the wives and kids that come with them, AND at times the distressed single women or single mothers that come for social/emotional nurturing too, having no families of their own) they cannot confrton domestic violence and child abuse, or even confront a member on crimianl charges of any sort against family members — that’s terrible.
This young woman’s relatives stood in for her, and took bullets.
Sorry to digress, but I am thinking this morning, about how ridiculous it is to read incident aftter incident, when I already know what resources are being poured — a tsunami, virtually – into agencies that are supposedlyo fixing the situation. Maybe we ought to just let go of the paradigm of “fixing” families at all. If they’re broken, let them be broken, but when anyone breaks a law, bring consequences, and bring it WITHOUT respect of gender, or where the pay is coming from. (Yeah, in which utopia….)
Authorities aren’t sure how the shooting unfolded but according to family members, the girlfriend’s father, Jesus Rizo, and brother, also named Jesus Rizo, intervened in the dispute.
Now THAT is brave. Or foolhardy. But I might have too, being there.
The ex-girlfriend’s 58-year-old father was shot in the forearm and her 16-year-old brother was wounded in the upper arm, authorities said. {{IN OTHER WORDS, they’re not actually saying this young man Ornelas did it? They “were shot” and “were wounded” (passive tense}}
Everyone else, including the infant, had an age, what was Mom’s?
The incident continued to a home in the 1600 block of Mullender Avenue, where authorities chased Ornelas.
Witnesses and authorities said Ornelas sped down the street in a car, ran to the back of the house, entered it and put a gun to his throat.
IN the house, shot in the head, or BEHIND the house, shot in the throat. Only the EMTS know for sure.
Sounds like a combination of witnesses. Someone saw him speeding down the street in a car. Unless they were faster than him, someone ELSE saw him behind the house, and he did indeed shoot himself, with the same gun that shot the relatives. Maybe details will come out, but probably not before some other young man or disgruntled ex tries to nab another young child somewhere in these United States, and pulls off another police-report-producing incident involving threats or weaponry.
It was there that Ornelas attempted suicide, deputies said.
Staff Writer Ruby Gonzales contributed to this story.
(626) 962-8811 ext. 2236
ANOTHER COMMENT: NAMED people in this story: 4 males: Sgt. Miley, Bryan Ornelas, Jesus Rizo & Jesus Rizo — all male. We also have all of their ages except the Sgt’s.
UNNAMED people in this story: the only 2 females (not county Staff Writer Ruby Gonzales, who contributed) ” the infant girl and her mother, who was named, in order “ex-girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, girlfriend, and ex-girlfriend.” Neither her age nor name is not in there, or where she was during the shooting, although that the child wasn’t there seems clear. She exists only as a man’s ex (a guntoting suicidal, orders-giving, retaliatory one, it seems). NOTHING is said of her emotions or fears or reasons for declining to hand over a 3-month old baby. (3 months, FYI, is pretty young. That is a dependent child. She was the mom….). No reasons is given that she was not interviewed (as in, “could not be reached for comment” or “declined to comment.” The story is only in the violence. The headline emphasizes the man’s pain and suffering, and “self-inflicted wounds” — the word “wound” is a term used in warfare — the “wounded.” This obscures the man’s violence. Although someone (probably him) clearly DID shoot, because there are 2 relatives in the hospital; I tend to doubt it was the mother who fired the gun — the headline emphasizes that he was “Accused” of “attacking” family is very misleading. He DID attack (shoot) and was chased for police by hit, to which he responded in an “adult” manner by fleeing.
I wonder, where was the girl’s MOTHER. If an older female relative had been on the scene, might she have been able to talk down the young man? She wa snot his “property” (i.e., sexually intimate) and she was not another male challenging the young man’s “property,” i.e., his little girl, and the order-giving status he held towards his “girlfriend.” It seems to me that this situation might have done better with a voice of moderation around. Then the armed officers show up (appropriately) and chase the guy.
The account as given (he fled, and shot himself) It’s plausible. It would fit a social pattern. It may be true. Point is, to the readers, it’s still hearsay, largely from the deputies. No other witnesses are named in the article.
Now, this is the trouble with trying to find more information. I googled “ornelas suicide” and unfortunately got this, a Mr. & Mrs. Ornelas
SANTA ANA – 3 Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide
March 20, 1993,
A 44-year-old Santa Ana man apparently killed his wife and then himself after fatally shooting a man he incorrectly suspected of having an affair with his wife, police said Friday.
Homicide detectives believe Jose Lopez Ornelas shot Albert Lujan Galindo, 30, outside Galindo’s apartment on East Pine Street early Thursday morning, Santa Ana Police Sgt. Art Echternacht said. {{note age difference — jealousy. }}
A neighbor discovered Galindo lying in a pool of blood just outside his apartment about 5:30 a.m.
Police said Ornelas then apparently drove his wife, Diane, 45, into southern San Diego, where he apparently killed her before fatally shooting himself, Echternacht said.
Police said the case is still under investigation and would not elaborate on what linked Ornelas to the Galindo slaying.
San Diego police, who are investigating the apparent murder-suicide in the Otay Mesa area, discovered Jose and Diane Ornelas slumped over in his 1988 Chevrolet pickup truck about 10 a.m. Thursday.
The truck was first sighted on the side of Otay Mesa Road near Heritage Road about 8 a.m., police said. The engine was running, the hood was up and the lights and radio were on, according to San Diego Police Lt. Greg Clark.
There was a small handgun in Jose Ornelas’ right hand, police said.
Friends and neighbors told police that Diane Ornelas and Galindo drove together to their custodial jobs at UCI Medical Center in Orange, Echternacht said, and “all indications are that they were not romantically involved at all, but the husband apparently got jealous.“
A hospital spokeswoman said Diane Ornelas and Galindo had worked at the hospital for about 10 years. Police said they do not know why Jose Ornelas may have been jealous.
AND, another Google result:
Yet another Ornelas was just going to work, in Las Vegas Area (I guess) and landed in the middle of a “strange crime spree blamed on alcohol & depressants” (2008). It really was out there, too. . . .
Strange crime spree ends in suicide
Alcohol, anti-depressants** blamed in Sunday’s string of events
When Marcos Ornelas was walking to work Sunday, the waiter at Joe’s Crab Shack thought it was going to be another normal afternoon.
But as he got closer to the restaurant near the intersection of Flamingo Road and the 215 Beltway, he was greeted by dozens of police cars and a helicopter circling overhead.
(**as opposed to economy, despair over breakup of a marriage (or affair), jealousy, resentment at actually having been punished for previous criminal activity, or simply a custody exchange, or God, or the devil….)
More on the Bryan Ornelas case, topic of this post: 
3 Hospitalized in Valinda Shooting
Benwick Street after “a dispute … regarding child custody,” said Sgt. Dwight Miley of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s station in Industry.
Ornelas had been arguing with his ex-girlfriend when the two men tried to intervene, and Ornelas shot each man in the arm once with a handgun, Miley said.
Given how many sheriff-described “disputes” end up with people in the hospital, and sometimes dead or dying, I object to the word “dispute.” If it is not actually a legal term, remind me to save up my money, attend one of the joint DV-training conferencees women like me are generally not allowed as speakers, and get my two bits in. In addition to recommending early intervention and immediate prosecution of any felony (or misdemeanor) domestic VIOLENCE (not “abuse”) incidents, officers should be fined 1% of their weekly paycheck every time they (post-shooting) say the word “dispute” in connection with the incident. This should go into a pro bono legal fund for women fleeing family violence who are bounced into the family law arena. This will not actually equal the federal funding to states to help noncustodial fathers, BUT it would be at least a drop in the bucket.
The sergeant said Ornelas and the woman (aka “girlfriend” aka. “mother”) were the parents of the infant at the center of the dispute. A Sheriff’s Department helicopter hovered overhead as Ornelas fled the home in a vehicle with patrol cars in pursuit.
A 16 yr old is a man… A mother is a girl. However the 21-year old Ornelas is behaving kind of immature here, like a baby (only armed).
Ornelas led deputies to another home in the 1600 block of Mullender Avenue, where he ran inside and shot himself with a rifle, authorities said. Ornelas had been at that home earlier in the day and was known to the residents there, Miley said.
{{which may explain the “witnesses and authorities said.” }}
{{This young man seems to have been pretty adept with firearms (if not emotionally mature). I would recommend that, should he survive, — and it will come, believe me, the young mother get some weapons training, and the father be informed that she has it, for the next court-ordered custody exchange. After all, she may or may not qualify for federally- or state-funded supervised visitation, but even their own materials admit that women are still sometimes shot, and killed, outside such exchanges. Her male relatives may not want to put their bodies inbetween for target practice next time. She will be smart enough, soon enough, to realize that if a MOTHER uses a gun in an illegal manner against a father, she’s going down for more years than he is. And the female prisons, I heard, are not so overcrowded as the male.}} Perhaps mace, or a Taser, or pepper spray, might be a deterrent for such a father, but I don’t know offhand. He doesn’t seem like the law-abiding, in control of his emotions.}}
ANOMALIES:
Like the incident (a month or so earlier, post) in Minnesota, I’m wondering how the man could, being chased by police, pull off a suicide so fast. I don’t handle guns, so I don’t know, BUT the first account says gun to his throat (a rifle?) and out back, not inside. He was carrying a handgun and rifle both? He was being pursued by police AND helicopter, but chose the rifle, not the handgun, to commit suicide with?? If he was going to do this, why not do it at the scene? Who actually witnessed the last shot?
I can see why people are tempted to leave answering such questions up to the professionals, or local communities. For one, with the internet, and nationwide coverage (of sorts), incidents like these seem to arise with breakneck speed. Are they copycats? Are these public messages to women/mothers as a whole that, “don’t even THINK about confronting me, or this could be you”?
Even if no action is taken, it is important, I feel, to think critically about what one reads. I am uncomfortable (extremely) when the only source cited in a news report are the deputies, especially when an incident involves blood, hospitals, or any crime scene clean-up.
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Analyze This: Wichita Woes — What happened after 911? (1st time, 2nd time).
I rest my case on “certifiably insane protection orders”. . . .
This article is a quiz (answers below). Do this:
A. Put events in order.
B. What piece of the puzzle doesn’t “fit” and which pieces are missing?
C. Keeping this within Kansas, bring this case history to Senator Oletha Faust-Goudeau, recently found sponsoring (yet another) Fatherhood act of some sort in Kansas and ask for commentary. Request permission to record, and share on youtube with the rest of us, why a man like this needed to be within cutting/shooting range of his 21 month old daughter. (Because if he didn’t get this, someone was going to pay, bad?). And how the (decade-plus) of prior fatherhood initiatives may or may not have contributed to this young man’s sense that after punching XXX officers and threatening to slit the throat of his wife, for calling for help, society still owed him something…
D. Rewrite the headline, more appropriately reflecting the crucial issues in the case.
And then Alternately
E-1. Pray to the tooth fairy that this isn’t you or anyone you know and/or recite after me:
E-2. “it spiraled out of control. We had no idea. It spiraled out of control. The real social crisis of our time is fatherlessness, not lawlessness. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Nevertheless, the Feds + faith-based + local agencies will fix this situation. We WILL eradicate violence against women and murder by men if we JUST try harder, train more professionals, and dump some dollars in that direction. We WILL, right??”
The children are our future. Now, Where’s that Valium?
Suspect in deputy’s shooting had violent past
. . . (and they married WHY???)
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BY TIM POTTER
The Wichita Eagle
The 27-year-old man accused this week of ambushing a Sedgwick County sheriff’s deputy had a history of violence against his ex-wife — and against officers.
{{For why the word “had” is used, see 2nd article, below}}
In 2005, Richard Lyons’ ex-wife, Jenifer, accused him of holding a hunting knife to her throat and threatening to kill her after she called 911, an affidavit filed in Sedgwick County District Court said.
Lyons pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and served several months in the county jail followed by about 16 months in a state prison.
He was released on parole on March 2, 2007. His sentence and parole supervision ended on April 11, 2008, records show.
In March 2005, four Wichita police officers responded to a report of a disturbance with a knife at his ex-wife’s home in the 900 block of South Waverly, in southeast Wichita.
Lyons had arrived and “demanded she give him their infant daughter,” the affidavit said.
She reported that they argued and that after she called 911, Lyons held a 4- to 6-inch knife blade to her throat and threatened her. The knife reportedly came from a sheath attached to his pants.
“Jenifer said she hung up the phone because she was in fear for her life and believed Richard would carry out his threat,” said the document, used to bring the felony aggravated assault charge against Lyons.
On the 911 call, a male voice could be heard saying, “I will cut you,” the affidavit said.
When he went to get a diaper bag in another part of the house, his ex-wife grabbed her two children and fled, the affidavit said.
At the home, officers found signs of a disturbance, and when they tried to arrest Lyons, he punched two officers, the document said.
Although prosecutors also initially charged him with two counts of misdemeanor battery against an officer, those two charges were dismissed after he agreed to plead guilty to the more serious charge of aggravated assault, records show.
His ex-wife obtained a protection-from-abuse order against Lyons.
In April 2005, about a month after the incident involving his ex-wife, court records show Lyons was living at the house where he is accused of shooting Deputy Brian Etheridge this week — first with a rifle and then with the deputy’s own gun.
Etheridge was responding to a 911 call from the South Rock Road residence, reporting a theft — a report authorities now think was concocted.
In Lyons’ 2005 divorce case, court records say he was working for Colortime in El Dorado at the time. The court at one point required him to pay $234 a month in child support.
At another point in 2005, Lyons temporarily lost visitation with his 1 1/2-year-old daughter because of the incident involving his ex-wife.
On Tuesday, a man who said he was Lyons’ father declined to comment.
Lyons’ ex-wife could not be reached.
In September 2003, about two years before the knife incident, Lyons was convicted of misdemeanor battery against an officer.
In the years before that, he had been convicted of felony criminal threat and misdemeanor domestic battery and criminal damage to property, records show.
As a juvenile, he had misdemeanor convictions dating to 1995, when he was 12, for criminal damage to property.
Wichita school district records show that Lyons withdrew from Metro Boulevard Alternative High School in July 2002.
Contributing: Hurst Laviana of The Eagle Reach Tim Potter at 316-268-6684 or tpotter@wichitaeagle.com.
QUIZ ANSWERS (mine) BELOW: (I interspersed A & B as dialogue)
Events, apparent order (quite different from article, which jumps around considerably)
- 1995 Juvenile Richard Lyons, age 12, has misdemeanor convictions for criminal damage to property, ergo he was born about 1983.
- July 2002, Lyons withdraws from alternative high school (age, about 19)
- Between age of majority (2001?) and 2003, he has convictions for felony criminal threat AND misdemeanor domestic battery, meaning, probably against a WIFE or GIRLFRIEND. This is called “domestic violence,” folks. SEE 1994 VAWA Act.
- ??? somewhere in there he gets married to Jenifer Lyons.
- Sept. 2003, misdemeanor Battery against an officer.
- Somewhere in 2003 Jenifer gives birth to his child. (Note: Physical assaults sometimes begin with pregnancy. Mine did).
- Somewhere between then and 2005, they get divorced. (Given the assaults, probably understandable. What’s not quite understandable is why they got married, unless the pregnancy PLUS her lack of other options to survive (i.e., HER family of origin support), PLUS no doubt some of this federal pushing of marriage on everyone…?? Who knows. Maybe they wanted to. Maybe HER household (how old was she?) was a place she needed to get out of.
- By 2005, he has a child support order in place and is actually, it appears working. Apparently they’ve entered the family court system somehow, I’d guess. The man is all of 22 years old, so this is a good thing and possibly a change for him?
- THIS IS TAKING LONGER THAN I PLANNED.
- OBVIOUSLY they had “visitation” (unsupervised, obviously). Note: He assaults women AND officers, felony-style, and threatenes (someone — seee above). He destroys property and punches policemen. NEVERTHELESS, an infant needs her Daddy. Daddies can be nurturers too. If we try hard enough, perhaps all of us (through funds, and social support and of course parenting classes) can transform this young man into a real nurturer before he kills someone for telling he can’t combine nurturing infants with wife assault.
Now in March 2005, things start getting, well, interesting:
- “In 2005, Richard Lyons’ ex-wife, Jenifer, accused him of holding a hunting knife to her throat and threatening to kill her after she called 911, an affidavit filed in Sedgwick County District Court said“
- HEre’s the account, I rearranged some sentences. Apparently by now there are 2 children (both his? Maybe not?)
- Lyons had arrived (EXCHANGE OF THE KIDS RIGHT? Here’s a CLASSIC CASE involving DV, and no help with the exchange. Yes, I’d imagine this was in family law system already, totally oblivious (per se!) to the potential danger of the situation, despite lethality assessments and DV literature dating back to at least 1985 (Barbara J. HART), 1989 (Family Visitation Centers started in Duluth Minnesota), 1994 (Violence Against Women Act) and all kinds of other literature. THis hadn’t reaached the “heartland” yet, I guess. ) and “demanded she give him their infant daughter,” the affidavit said. ((OMISSION – was there a custody/visitation in order or not? if so, was it clear and specific, as many states require (but don’t practice) cases involving DV be, to avoid incidents like this? If it WAS clear and specific, was his demand in compliance with or NOT in compliance with that order? As they say, and we see, this isn’t typically a guy that plays by the rules, not even the rules for graduating from high school, or refraining from damaing others’ propery. We’ll, he’s about graduate from punching officers to putting a knife to his wife’s throat. I wonder if this was the first time….)
- She reported that they argued {{POSSIBLY OVER WHETHER OR NOT IT WAS HIS TIME TO SEE HIS DAUGHTER?}} and that after she called 911, {{POSSIBLY THE ARGUMENT CONTAINED SOME THREAT OR PHYSICAL ELEMENTS?}} Lyons held a 4- to 6-inch knife blade to her throat and threatened her. The knife reportedly came from a sheath attached to his pants. {{May I speculate that perhaps Mrs. Lyons was aware that Mr. Lyons sometimes carried knives, and this may have contributed to her decision to call 911, even if the argument was only “verbal” in nature?}}
- On the 911 call, a male voice could be heard saying, “I will cut you,” the affidavit said. (I’m going to assume this is “evidence” and it was his, not a responding officer’s. I will further assume that this was a criminal prosecution, because someone actually got ahold of that 911 call. GIVEN the history, was this a creditable threat? It appears to the reader that her report was accurate in this part. Contrary to the “false allegations” stigma associated with women reporting violence (or threats of it), ” because they want to get custody,” this report seems to have some merit.
- “Jenifer said she hung up the phone because she was in fear for her life and believed Richard would carry out his threat,” said the document, used to bring the felony aggravated assault charge against Lyons. {AS FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS SHOW, YES HE WAS CAPABLE OF AND WILLING TO COMMIT MURDER WHEN HE FELT WRONGED OR WAS ANGRY OR ?? SO HERE, SHE DROPS THE “911” METHOD OF SELF PRESERVATION AND, if I may add, protecting her children, WITH HER KIDS OPTS FOR THE “FLEE” METHOD. Amazingly, a charge was actually filed. For why, possibly, read on.
- When he went to get a diaper bag in another part of the house, his ex-wife grabbed her two children and fled, the affidavit said. {{I have done this flee while he’s in the other part of the house routine, often enough}}
- HERE COME THE RESPONDING OFFICERS: In March 2005, four Wichita police officers responded to a report of a disturbance with a knife at his ex-wife’s home in the 900 block of South Waverly, in southeast Wichita. {{Officers KNOW domestic violence wih a weapon can be lethal. They didn’t send one custody evaluator, one parenting educator, one mediator, and one guardian ad litem, they sent FOUR officers, and I BET they were armed… Yet women are left to face this, sometimes weekly, without adequate protection.}}
- At the home, officers found signs of a disturbance, and when they tried to arrest Lyons, he punched two officers, the document said.
Not one but 2 officers. Tell them to thank Wade Horn, George Bush (Jr.), former President Clinton, present President Obama, (well, adjust for the year), and others for those punches to the face. Father-engagement. Healthy Families. . .. You’re in it. . . . . . . Were these male and female officers, I wonder, and which ones got punched. But in an incident, it could easily be any of them.
Moving on in our sequencing:
5. Prosecutors initially charged him with two counts of misdemeanor battery against an officer.
6. he agreed to plead guilty to the more serious charge of aggravated assault. (good move, as they saw evidence, and he was already heard on tape threatening to cut her.)
7. The lesser charges (above) were dismissed. Is this called a “plea-bargain?
8. His ex-wife obtained a protection-from-abuse order against Lyons. (((WHEN?? see last post on police reporting of incidents). Now? Or had she earlier? Criminal, or civil?)
NOW — figure out this timeline if you can:
9. Lyons pleaded guilty to aggravated assault (See 6, above. WHEN? WHAT MONTH 2005?) and
10. served several months in the county jail followed by about 16 months in a state prison.
March 2007 is 24 months from March 2005 (date of assault). Ergo “about 16 months” plus “several months” possibly does NOT add up to 24. How many people do this kind of mental math when reading leading bleeding headlines?
March 2005 (arguing, resulting in 911 call, threatening to slit wife’s throat in retaliation for calling 911, with 2 kids, one of them a toddler girl, in the home, Mom + 2 flee for safety, 4 police come, 2 of whom are punched) – March 2007 is most definitely 24.
The question is, what is “several” months? Is it 8, or 9 (8 + 16 = 24, right?) WHEN did he plea-bargain? After punching officers and threatening to kill wife was he then RELEASED in this foul mood? If he threatened to slit her throat and assaulted people who tried to help in March 2005, what kind of response might we expect after being sentenced, if he was released on bail?
11. He was released on parole on March 2, 2007.
12. His sentence and parole supervision ended on April 11, 2008, records show.
What this section of reporting does is to reassure that his crime (of — see above) was indeed punished properly. Or was it?
13. In April 2005, about a month after the incident involving his ex-wife, court records show Lyons was living at the house where he is accused of shooting Deputy Brian Etheridge this week — first with a rifle and then with the deputy’s own gun.
Omittting the obvious — after arrest (i’m going to hazard a guess that the 2 punched officers or their colleagues eventually handcufffed the guy) he was free on bail or own recognizance until arraignment and incarceration
YES, you read it right, finally. Threaten to slit her throat, punch TWO responding officers, and get out scot free, for a few months. This is an interesting sentence (I don’t operate under press deadlines, but still . . . . . the sentence bridges four years of time: 2005 & 2009!) Well, not quite scot free. He was punished with not seeing his daughter, “temporarily.” Wonder what time frame THAT word spans.
14. At another point in 2005, {{Can we get a hint which month?}} Lyons temporarily lost visitation with his 1 1/2-year-old daughter because of the incident involving his ex-wife.
When I filed for a DV restraining order with kickout, and we had the guns, knives and assaults thing, but not on officers — we got ALMOST 7 days with no visitation, as I recall. Perhaps at the most 14, as he had to find a place to live.
Now here is about the slain officer:
- Sheriff: Deputy was ambushed
- Suspect in deputy’s shooting had violent past
- Marriage came as a surprise to Johansson
- Deputy was quiet, funny, passionate about his work
- Opinion Line (Sept. 30)
- Robbers strike as police look for killer
- Deputy’s funeral set for Friday
- Sedgwick County Commission remembers slain deputy
- Opinion Line Extra (Sept. 30)
- Wichita man arrested on suspicion of animal cruelty
Sheriff was Ambushed
WICHITA – Richard Lyons set the trap shortly before noon on Monday by calling 911 to report a theft at his house.
He then hid in the shadows of a tree and brush in the backyard of a house in the 3600 block of South Rock Road with a high-powered rifle, authorities said Tuesday. He waited for a law enforcement officer to show up.
That happened to be Sedgwick County sheriff’s Deputy Brian Etheridge.
“It does appear to have been an ambush situation,” Sheriff Bob Hinshaw said Tuesday of the shooting death of Etheridge, 26, the first Sedgwick County deputy to die in the line of duty in 12 years.
Lyons, 27, was shot to death a few hours later in a field not far from the house in an exchange of gunfire with law enforcement officers.
“It’s scary,” Hinshaw said. “It could have been any law enforcement officer… this was just a call to 911 to get any officer to respond.”
Investigators spent Monday night and Tuesday collecting shell casings and other evidence, Hinshaw said, piecing together a chain of events from what was left behind.
Based on that evidence, Hinshaw offered this account:
Lyons called 911 at 11:42 a.m. Etheridge was dispatched to the address just east of McConnell Air Force Base and radioed his arrival at 11:51 a.m.
When no one answered his knock on the front door, he asked dispatchers for contact information for the caller. He then walked around to the backyard of the house and saw no one.
Lyons was hiding in the shadows on the bright, sunny day, and opened fire with a .30-30 rifle — a weapon commonly used by deer hunters — when Etheridge turned his back as he was either approaching the back door or returning to the front of the house, Hinshaw said.
The bullet hit Etheridge in the back, penetrating his body armor and knocking him down. Lyons approached the fallen deputy and tried to fire his rifle again, but it malfunctioned.
He took Etheridge’s gun and shot him in the leg before disappearing.
Etheridge radioed for help, and scores of law enforcement officers from throughout the metropolitan area converged on the scene.
The wounded deputy was alert and communicating with the first officers on the scene, Hinshaw said, but their priority at that time was his medical care — not gathering information about the suspect.
Escorted by patrol cars, an ambulance raced Etheridge to Wesley Medical Center, where he underwent surgery.
Authorities established a one-mile perimeter around the house and urged residents inside that area to leave if possible.
Wichita Police Chief Norman Williams said authorities had information indicating Lyons was likely inside the house, so that address remained the focus of their attention even as law enforcement officers combed outlying areas within the perimeter.
Tear gas was deployed twice into the house in attempt to flush the suspect out, Williams said, and SWAT team members were preparing to blast open the front door at about 5:15 p.m. when authorities were notified that the suspect had been spotted hiding near a tree row in a nearby field.
Agents from the Kansas Highway Patrol and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were patrolling a field in a Humvee when one of the officers spotted Lyons’ leg as he lay on the ground.
They stopped the Humvee, and Lyons stood up and fired at the vehicle with the deputy’s handgun. He then began running, firing several more shots as the ATF agents and KHP officers ran after him.
The law enforcement officers returned fire, striking Lyons “multiple times,” Hinshaw said.
Lyons was taken to Wesley Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 6:10 p.m.
Investigators hope to talk to neighbors and relatives of Lyons, Hinshaw said, but he doesn’t expect every question raised by the shooting to be answered.
“We may never know what the motive is,” he said.
Results of the investigation, including the use of force, will be presented to the District Attorney’s Office for review.
Flags at Wichita City Hall and other city buildings have been lowered to half staff in honor of Etheridge. They will remain at half staff through Friday, the day of Etheridge’s funeral.
“We’re just really shocked and saddened by what has happened,” Mayor Carl Brewer said. “It has affected all of our law enforcement agencies.”
Brewer said the city is providing counselors for police officers who were involved in the shoot-out and others who may be shaken by the violence.
“Every time they make a stop or enter a house, they don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “This demonstrated just how much risk there is.”
Reach Stan Finger at 316-268-6437 or sfinger@wichitaeagle.com.
FIRST 911 — from a woman — consequence, she’s threatened and has to flee for her life, BUT her ex-husband IS jailed — for about 2 years, or less.
SECOND 911 — from the formerly jailed young man (27 yrs old is young) — his ambush. SOMEONE was going to pay. Was Etheridge (the officer killed) a responding officer in the former arrest, or just anyone in uniform would do? Was he upset at what had happened in prison?
Was this suicide by cop? Sounds like possibly, to me.
WOULD IT HAVE PLAYED OUT DIFFERENTLY IF THE COUPLE HAD STAYED TOGETHER, OR WOULD SHE BE A STATISTIC, NOT THE OFFICER?
ANYONE WANT TO DO A PSYCHOLOGICAL WORK-UP ON THIS ONE (PLACE BESIDE THE WORK-UPS ON PHILLIP GARRIDO, AND HIS WIFE?) WAS IT UNEMPLOYMENT MADE HIM DO IT? WAS IT THE CHILD SUPPORRT ORDER? WAS IT ACTUALLY TAKING CONSEQUENCES FOR CRIMINAL ACTIVITY? WAS IT HIS LACK OF A FATHER IN THE YOUTHFUL HOME (FATHER CONTACTED DECLINED TO COMMENT). DID HE NOT HAVE A PLACE IN SOCIETY, WAS THAT IT? WAS HE ON MEDS? was he FORMERLY ON MEDS AND NOW OFF MEDS?
WOULD’IT HAVE BEEN BETTER TO, AT ABOUT $20K/PRISONER/YEAR (??) KEEP HIM IN LONGER, OR INDEFINITELY?
DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT I SAID EARLIER ABOUT “COLLATERAL DAMAGES” OF DV (OR SIMILAR PHRASE) IN YESTERDAY’S POST?
I do have one comment, here: Something sounds narcissistic in the mix. This person was supposedly a hell-raiser from an early age, but didn’t get help. Possib ly being a father was a shot at sanity, but I think that the child support order was probably NOT a good idea for such a person. It would’ve been better for all to let her do welfare. She’d probably get off it quicker without the threats to her life than with them.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE RESOURCES IN KANSAS:
http://www.ksag.org/page/domestic-violence (Attorney General Site):
Domestic Violence
The new Domestic Violence Unit within the Kansas Attorney General’s Office seeks to keep our families safe, stop domestic abuse and end the cycle of violence that threatens our communities.
Online Resources:
- Kansas Elements and Standards of Batterer Intervention Programs in Kansas (NEW)
- Cycle of Violence (printable flier): Learn to recognize the phases and symptoms of domestic violence.
- Warning signs of an abusive relationship
- Common characteristics of battered persons and abusers
(Be sure to catch this “get inside their head” speculation (many didn’t apply to my case, i know): date:
Source: The Battered Woman by Lenore Walker, Harper & Roe, 1979. (I’m comforted to know that the Attorney General has the latest psychological profile of batterers and their victims — only 30 years old…..)
- Believes all the myths about battering relationships {{NO one questioned me, and I hadn’t heard these…}}
- A traditionalist about the home, strongly believes in family unity and the prescribed sex role stereotype {{The alternative being, punishment….}} {{BY THE WAY, this now describes the Health and Human Services Dept., in general, on this matter….}}
- Accepts responsibility for the batterer’s actions {{SAYS WHO?}}
Resources for Law Enforcement
Child Exchange and Visitation Center Program – (CEVC)
This program provides supervised child exchange or supervised child visitation to children and families at risk because of circumstances relating to neglect; substance abuse; emotional, physical, or sexual abuse; domestic or family violence; etc. The state portion of funding can be used to fund the local match required for receipt of federal child exchange and visitation center grants.
Mighta been helpful for Jenifer Lyons . . . . .
The Essential Elements and Standards of
Batterer Intervention Programs in Kansas
The Essential Elements and Standards of Batterer Intervention Programs were developed over
seven years through the hard work of many professionals who are dedicated to ending
domestic violence in Kansas. The Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence
convened the initial work group and wishes to thank the following organizations for their work
during this process:
Developed and/or Reviewed by representatives from the following:
Alternatives to Battering, Topeka
Correctional Counseling of Kansas, Wichita {{MAYBE Mr. Lyons got this and didn’t take kindly to it?”}}{{Or, the problem was, he DIDN’t get it?}}
Family Crisis Center, Great Bend
Governor’s Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board
Halley Counseling, P.A., Girard
Johnson County Office of Court Services
The Family Peace Initiative, Girard
Kansas District Judges’ Association
Kansas Attorney General Carla Stovall
Kansas Attorney General Steve Six
Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence
Kansas County and District Attorney Association
Kansas Department of Corrections
The Mental Health Consortium
Office of Judicial Administration
Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Center, Hutchinson
Wyandotte Mental Health Center
Family Crisis Center, GreatIn 2007, The Governor’s Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board (GDVFRB), chaired by
former Attorney General Robert Stephen appointed a subcommittee to review and update the
Essential Elements and Standards of Batterer Intervention Programs. The GDVFRB adopted
these as best practice standards in providing batterer intervention programming in Kansas, and
recommended that the Office of Attorney General implement a training and certification program
for providers of batterers intervention programs.
Attorney General Steve Six readily accepted the recommendation to train and certify batterer
intervention providers in Kansas using the Essential Elements and Standards of Batterer
Intervention Programs in Kansas.
For More information about this initiative, contact the
Director of Victim Services in the office of
Kansas Attorney General
Steve N. Six
120 S.W. 10th Avenue
Topeka KS 66612-1597
785/368-8445
“FATHERHOOD IN KANSAS (google, results 124,000)
ACCESS VISITATION IN KANSAS:
Child Custody, Support and Visitation Rights – Kansas Bar …
Visitation, often called “access” is the right of the parent who does not …. Child support and visitation are considered by statute in Kansas to be two …
http://www.ksbar.org/public/public…/child_custody.shtml – Cached – Similar –
Crisis Resource Center of SE Kansas –
Child Exchange and Visitation Center. 669 South 69 Hwy. … Wichita Childrens Home Child Access. 810 North Holyoke …
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/…/access_visitation…/ks.html – Cached – Similar –
Kansas Governor Mark Parkinson website … Funding Source, The Federal State Access &Visitation grant program is a formula grant program to states and …
http://www.governor.ks.gov/grants/grants_savppp.htm – Cached – Similar –
-
Overland Park Visitation Attorney | Leawood KS Parenting Plans …
Visitation & Parenting Plans. Kansas Visitation Lawyer … custody or non- residential custody, your children have the right of access to both parents. …
http://www.cavlaw.com/PracticeAreas/Visitation-Parenting-Plans.asp – Similar –
You will have access, at our Download Site, to the legal forms you need to modify custody-visitation in Kansas.
These forms are the most current versions …
http://www.custodycenter.com/MODIFYCUSTODY-KS/index.html
Following an emotional breakup, many moms allow or deny visitation by whim, {{OR WHEN HE THREATENS TO SLIT ONE’s THROAT< CASE IN POINT}}leaving the dads without regular access to their children. …
http://www.kslegalhelp.com/Divorce-and-Family…/Paternity.shtml – Cached – Similar –
YES, THERE WAS A DIRE LACK OF SERVICES FOR MR. LYONS…
Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 
“Here Come da Judge!”
with 14 comments
Some times, hard times, a little humor helps me. I seem to notice things that maybe others don’t (oft-burnt, twice as observant?)…
This is from Womenslaw.org about Custody, and a good question, plus a sidelong plug for (what else) supervised visitation. . . . And no absolute commitment either way on this topic:
Can a parent who committed violence get “custody” or “visitation”?
Maybe. It is possible that a parent who has committed violence will get custody or visitation if the court determines that it is in the “best interest of the child” to do so. Generally, judges beleve it is in the child’s best interest to have frequent contact with both parents.*1
{{so, the “court” kind of being the “judge” who signs the order, we get back to what judges generally believe… For more of that, see the AFCC conference as to what’s being promoted among many of them…}}
Conservatorship / Custody:
If a person is filing for sole or joint managing conservatorship, the court will consider whether the person has been abusive toward his/her spouse, the parent of the child and any person under 18 years old within the 2 years before filing for conservatorship or during the proceeding. A judge may deny joint managing conservatorship if s/he finds that there is a history or pattern of child neglect or physical or sexual abuse of a parent, spouse or child.*2
{{then, again, they also may not. Sounds like a toss-up to me…}}
The judge may not {{OR, may…}} appoint joint managing conservators if reliable evidence is presented of a history or pattern of past or present child neglect, or physical or sexual abuse by one parent directed against the other parent, a spouse, or a child. *3
Likewise, the court [[as opposed to “the judge?”] will consider {{but will it act on?}} any incident of family violence in deciding whether to deny, restrict, or limit the possession of a child by a parent who is appointed as a possessory conservator.*4
Possession and Access / Visitation:
If a parent has been violent within the last two years before filing or during the court proceedings, a judge may {{or may not, we have no committed policy here, right?}} deny that parent possession of or access to the child unless:
the judge decides that allowing the parent access is not a danger to the child and is in the best interest of the child; and
the judge approves a possession order that will protect the child and any other victim from the abusive parent. The order may require:
exchange of the child in a protective setting (see note below);
that the parent not drink alcohol and not use any drugs within 12 hours before or during the time the child is with him/her; or {{See my comments on Oconto, Wisconsin, where the father was caught DUI with the daughter in the car, but still it was the MOTHER who was jailed for failing to force the daughter back into that situation.}}
that the parent attend a batterer’s prevention program or any program the judge finds appropriate. *5
Tell the judge if you have gotten a protective order within the last 2 years against the parent seeking possession of and access to your child. The judge will consider this when determining whether there is a history of family violence.*6
{{Note: Some women get SMART after the first several violent incidents, and survive more than 2 years in a relationship before someone shows them how to get out. In this case, asking what happened in the last 2 years may not indicate that the father/husband/partner has reformed or settled down, or repented, but simply that the mother/wife/partner simply got cagier and smarter in how to avoid them. As many abusers also are control freaks, as toa ccess to transportation and ways to escape their abuse, this may involve shutting down emotionally, and teaching the kids to also, i.e., “walking on eggshells.” how many judges take the time to tell the difference?}}
Note: If the abuser is granted possession and access to your child, ask the court or a local domestic violence program for information about visitation centers or visitation exchange facilities in your county if you think that is a good option for you.
GOT THIS? The judge MAY respect the danger of domestic violence, or the judge MAY instead choose to drop-kick the problem to some cronies in the supervised visitation field.
{{Which of course they will prime you to. . . .. . I asked for this, and was of course, not told that there is federal funding for this, but not available so readily for MOMS… Not being incarcerated, an abuser, or behind on my child support (as the custodial mother), there was no outreach program to help me. And as I wasn’t preventing access, that wasn’t an issue. Thanks, dudes for rewarding me for compliance and good-faith allowing regular access to my growing (and healing) children by totally removing them from me, failing to enforce child support — at all, practically — and allowing him after custody switch to totally cut off contact, failing to report felony child-stealing (meaning, no Victims of Crime compensation), and no help after this event trashed my jobs. Thanks. Merry Christmas to all, and let’ em eat cake…}}
It is assumed by the court that it is not in the best interest of a child for a parent to have unsupervised visitation with the child if there is credible evidence of a history or pattern of past or present child neglect or physical or sexual abuse by that parent directed against the other parent, a spouse, or a child. *7
*1 Tex. Fam. Code § 153.131
*2 Tex. Fam. Code § 153.004(a)
*3 Tex. Fam. Code §153.004(b)
*4 Tex. Fam. Code § 153.004(c)
*5 Tex. Fam. Code § 153.004(d)
*6 Tex. Fam. Code § 153.004
*7 Tex. Fam. Code § 153.004(e)
======================
(Since I’ve already dated, if not geographically marked (as to California) myself, I’ll go one step further and admit, this “well, it depends. . . .. ” approach to whether an abuser (or “a parent who has committed violence”) can get custody of a child approach reminded me (see highlit words, above) on the old comedy routine:
“Here Comes Da Judge!”
A little more judicial humor, even more dated (i.e., not my own…):
“THE INSCRUTABLE WORKINGS OF PROVIDENCE“
More, “HERE COME DA JUDGE” info:
I’m not really “playing around” so much as it might appear. Did you do your homework last few posts, and look up the L.A. County Judges Slush fund (at least acc. to Marv Bryer et al.), how it started out of the county court house, not paying taxes for years (til basically forced to), morphed into CCC then somehow AFCC, and now we have these tremendous professionals, and social scientists figuring out our problems for us…..?
ETHICS, TRANSFORMATIONS, and Dr. JUDITH REISMAN, Kinsey, etc….
http://www.drjudithreisman.com/archives/CaliforniaCripplesWomen.pdf
I cannot find the exact article where Dr. Reisman was talking about the importance of ETHICS in public servants, and referring to a certain (old) law that was being undermined. She is a controversial figure for sure, but I responded to her personal story, which you might also, and how her own world got rocked when it was discovered a relative had been molested. …. I’d also like to note: articles are published onto “WND” (World Net Daily) which I do NOT espouse overall….
http://www.drjudithreisman.com/about_dr_reisman.html#journey
Summary:
HER STORY:
What will your judge believe? Suppose it was your daughter? As a mother — like the Berkeley (female) officer who finally noticed something was “off” regarding Phillip Garrido’s twoa ccomplices, will “da judge?” be receptive to your story, your kid’s story, or your partner’s story? Will all of them be considered “stories” and then business farmed out to a mediator, because the story now, is, equal parenting, pretty much no matter what….. And we MUST resolve our (irreconciliable?) differences in Conciliation, excuse me, Family Court, because it’s emotionally damaging to have irreconciliable differences with real damages.
I really believe the only way out is to find out who is paying these pipers. My research, to date, shows that it’s NOT just the litigating parents, but the entire taxable workforce. And the organization spouting all this stuff began by dodging taxes itself, allegedly. Go figure!
(THESE few from NAFCJ.net, home page — links may or may not be current, but are searchable):
“Protective Mom Accused of Witchhunt”, 11/23/1999, By Cheryl Romo, LA Daily Journal — Karen Anderson, one of the retaliated protective mothers mentioned in the Insight story, has since obtained hard evidence (cancelled checks) that federal money from fatherhood programs was used without her knowledge to pay-off all court officials in her case. Anderson along with Connie Valentine are heading up NAFCJ’s reform action in California.
A Financial Fiasco Is in the Making, By Kelly Patricia O’Meara, Insight Magazine, Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Association, 2002, still slushing funds
and not paying taxes…
Insight Magazine “Is Justice for Sale in LA?”, By Kelly Patricia O’Meara – Marv Bryer fights against corruption in Los Angeles County Court – the original AFCC court judges’ association, and promoters of Dr. Richard Gardner’s discredited pedophile theory, “PAS” Parental Alienation Syndrome.
Insight Magazine “New Scandals in LA Courts”, By Kelly Patricia O’Meara — Continuation with more of Marv Bryer’s evidence details on an alleged slush fund for the L.A. Superior Court Judges Association (AFCC judges) and the possible extortion of civil litigants by some officers of the court.”
Retaliation Against Professionals Who Report Child Abuse, By Katherine Hine, J.D., Exposé The Failure of Family Courts to Protect Children from Abuse in Custody Disputes, A Resource Book for Lawmakers, Judges, Attorneys and Mental Health Professionals.
I’m still looking at the googled “Marv Bryer” myself: here’s a sample of printouts:
You know what? Maybe the love of money IS the root of all evil. Not using it, not having it, but loving it more than, say, children. Or oaths of office, etc.
DISCLAIMER: Note, this seems to be a survivalist, gun-toting, all-American (you get the picture), I’d say for sure conservative site. I am just curious to read the Marv Bryer article, and don’t know if this represents his philosophy either. Sort through it, though.
THE THING IS:
If you are going to the fruit stand in a store, are you going to sort and pick through apples for the good ones? Or pick a pre-bagged, inspected, certified organic (etc.) one, whose packaging you trust? Or, alternately, skip apples for today.
They say one bad apple spoils the whole bunch. When you get divorced and can’t figure it out OUTside court, you must go INSIDE, and in this case, you can’t forum-shop or judge shop. Remember, if there is conflict within a family, the parents just lost jurisdiction, acc. to that old law (see last few posts). Your kids and your life are no longer your own.
Therefore it’s IMPERATIVE that ALL financial incentives to defraud the public be removed for ALL judges. This ain’t going to be a walk in the park, and I wish that the Moms and Dads both (the honest ones) would quit yakking about social science studies and do their math homework.
Hope you appreciate this sacrifice of my own internet time just made to day. Have a nice day… and Let’s Get HONEST! And make sure our public officials do also!
Thanks.
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Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up
December 19, 2009 at 3:57 PM
Posted in AFCC, After HE Speaks Up - Reporting Child Sexual Abuse, After She Speaks Up - Reporting Child Sexual Abuse, Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, Context of Custody Switch, Designer Families, Domestic Violence vs Family Law, History of Family Court, Mandatory Mediation, Organizations, Foundations, Associations NGO Hybrids, Split Personality Court Orders, Who's Who (bio snapshots)
Tagged with Child Molestation, custody, Dr. Judith Reisman, Due process, Jaycee Dugard, parental kidnapping, Phil Garrido, retaliation for reporting, social commentary, Studying Humans, Supervised Visitation, U.S. Govt $$ hard @ work..