Indiana Mothers For Custodial Justice

Legal Domestic Abuse - Psychiatric Ploys of Child Custody

2011-07-18T20:21:00.000-07:00

Twisted: Expert Witnesses and Their Ethics

2011-06-26T18:30:00.000-07:00

This article reminds us of some of our less favorite Whores of the Court here in Indiana. Yes Virginia, it is happening all over the country.

Seattle Times special report: Twisted ethics of an expert witness

By Ken Armstrong and Maureen O'Hagan

Seattle Times staff reporters

June 25, 20011

Earlier this year, a four-page document with a bland title, "Stipulation for Dismissal with Prejudice," was filed in a civil matter percolating on the King County Courthouse's ninth floor. Hardly anyone took notice. Most everyone had moved on.

But that document — filed by lawyers tangled up in the estate of Stuart Greenberg, a nationally renowned psychologist whose life ended in scandal — signaled the end of a tortuous undertaking.

Greenberg had proved such a toxic force — a poison coursing through the state's court system — that it took more than three years for lawyers and judges to sift through his victims and account for the damage done.

For a quarter century Greenberg testified as an expert in forensic psychology, an inscrutable field with immense power. Purporting to offer insight into the human condition, he evaluated more than 2,000 children, teenagers and adults. His word could determine which parent received custody of a child, or whether a jury believed a claim of sexual assault, or what damages might be awarded for emotional distress.

At conferences and in classrooms, in Washington and beyond, he taught others to do what he did. He became his profession's gatekeeper, quizzing aspirants, judging others' work, writing the national-certification exam. His peers elected him their national president.

But his formidable career was built upon a foundation of hypocrisy and lies. In the years since Greenberg's death, while court officials wrestled over his estate, The Seattle Times worked to unearth Greenberg's secrets, getting court records unsealed and disciplinary records opened.

Those records are a testament to Greenberg's cunning. They show how he played the courts for a fool. He played state regulators for a fool. He played his fellow psychologists for a fool. And were it not for a hidden camera, he might have gotten away with it.

In summer 1984, Cathy Graden, a 27-year-old surgical nurse from Woodinville, was summoned to King County Superior Court for an emergency hearing in her child-custody case.

Her lawyer said a psychologist's report was behind the hearing. But Graden wasn't allowed to read the report. Nor was she allowed in the courtroom while the psychologist testified.

The psychologist, Stuart Greenberg, had been hired to help resolve a custody dispute involving Graden's only child, a 4-year-old boy whose bright, goopy finger-paintings Graden taped up all over the house.

Although appointed by the court, Greenberg was paid by the parties. He had interviewed the boy and both parents, and run a half-dozen tests with impressive names (the Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist, the Michigan Screening Profile of Parenting ... ).

Graden figured she had nothing to fear. She taught Sunday school; she did volunteer work; she had taken care of her son when the boy's father moved to Alaska after the couple's divorce. "I thought there was no way I could possibly lose this," she says.

Greenberg had arrived in Seattle five years earlier, hired by the University of Washington. A letter written by the department chairman called Greenberg a "last-minute replacement" for a psychology professor who'd resigned. Greenberg's credentials "were on hand," because he'd applied for some other position.

His credentials were acceptable but not extraordinary. He had a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California, where his thesis was a word salad: "Stimulus and Response Generalization of Classes of Imitative and Non-imitative Behavior as a Function of Reinforcement, Task, Cues, and Number of Therapists." On Washington's psychology licensing test, one examiner marked Greenberg's professional judgment as "good," his knowledge and skills, "okay."

Teaching, Greenberg earned just $15,300 his first year. His second year, he was assigned only a single evening class. He left the university and moved into private practice. He picked up court appointments in Western Washington as a custody investigator, expert evaluator, arbiter, mediator, guardian ad litem, special master. He became enmeshed in the court system, buddying up to lawyers, judges, fellow experts.

On the stand, he radiated confidence. "He was just kind of a notch above the rest of us," says Nick Wiltz, a fellow forensic psychologist. "He was able to present reports and information in a very powerful way."

But Greenberg also demonstrated dubious judgment and a cavalier attitude toward his ethical obligations, which forbade even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Please go to the original article to read the rest of the story.

Daily Occurrence: More Blood on the Hands of Family Court Judges

2011-06-22T12:40:00.000-07:00

Lauren McConniel

Another case, one of many mothers who lose their children for no reason. This little girl's last days on earth were hell, and thanks to the family courts, other children are still suffering this fate every day. Just look at the news.

Mother "broken" after five year-old daughter's death

The mother of a little girl in Muncie who died of malnutrition, has strong words for Central Indiana: "Do not let this happen to another kid."

Indianapolis — The mother of a little girl who died of malnutrition, has strong words for Central Indiana: "Do not let this happen to another kid."

That was the message from five-year-old Lauren McConniel's mother Amber Huggins. Higgins spoke via phone to Fox59 News Thursday.

Huggins made a desperate plea to the public saying, "To everybody, if you ever see a child that you think is being abused, even if you have your doubts, please contact Child Protective Services."

Huggins lives in Knoxville, Tennessee. She said she lost custody of Lauren to her ex-husband Ryan McConniel who is now being bars along with his wife Brittany. Both are charged with Class A Felony counts of neglect, causing Lauren's death.

According to Huggins, "The only reason that she [Lauren] ended out of my custody is because when I went to my divorce proceeding, I did not have an attorney to represent me. I mean you've got your children and you're a good mother of them and a judge says, 'Alright, we're going to give custody to the dad.' "

A detective with the Muncie Police Department said the custody battle took place in Arkansas. On Amber Huggins' Myspace page, she lists her status as "broken." She said her daughter was in perfect health before Ryan McConniel received custody.

"She was perfect. She had an upper respiratory infection once. Other than that, she was in perfect health from the minute of her birth," said Huggins.

No Way Out But One

2011-06-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

This is an inmportant documentary in the works about Holly Collins, an abused mother who rescued her children from their abuser. She was the first refugee in the Netherlands to be allowed to seek refuge because of being a domestic violence victim. No family court or no family court judge in Minnesota would protect her children, even though courts acknowledged severe abuse had happened. Their response was to give the abuser sole custody and the abused mother supervised visitation.

Please consider helping the producers finish this important work by pledging to Kickstart for the film. The time is short to make a pledge so hurry! Thank you.

The Parental Alienation Scam

2011-05-18T10:43:00.000-07:00

Mommy Hates Daddy, and You Should Too

The extraordinary fight over "parental alienation syndrome" and what it means for divorce cases.

By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Tuesday, May 17, 2011, at 7:09 PM ET

The competition to get your favorite disease recognized in the bible of mental health, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, can be as fierce as the talent contest in the Little Miss St. Paul Contest. The American Psychiatric Association is contemplating adding something called "parental alienation syndrome" (PAS) to the new edition of the DSM, scheduled to be published in May 2013, and the question has launched a national lobbying and letter-writing campaign on both sides. That angry letters and editorials might play any part in a debate about mental health and custody disputes probably tells you most of what you need to know about the validity of PAS.

What is parental alienation syndrome? William Bernet, a professor of psychiatry at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and an advocate for its inclusion in the DSM-5, describes it as "a mental condition in which a child, usually one whose parents are engaged in a high conflict divorce, allies himself or herself strongly with one parent, and rejects a relationship with the other parent, without legitimate justification."* There is no doubt that an ugly divorce can affect kids' relationship with their parents or cause children to choose sides, often in anger. In fact, that probably happens more often than not. But Bernet and others who argue for adding PAS to the Sears, Roebuck catalogue of mental health want to see it recognized as a legitimate mental health disorder in order to "spur insurance coverage, stimulate more systematic research, lend credence to [the] charge of parental alienation in court, and raise the odds that children would get timely treatment."

They want, in other words, to affix a name, some blame, and also a price tag on a broad range of child responses to a custody fight—some perfectly justified and some not—in the hopes of expanding its use in court.

And what's the downside to including PAS in the DSM? Well, for one thing, with a minimum of three participants needed to diagnose it, PAS starts to look less like a mental health disorder than an epidemic. It assumes that one crazy person (the mother) brainwashes a second crazy person (the child) into telling lies about a third person (the father). Just because a lot of parents have experienced blocked visitation and unreturned phone calls doesn't make every instance of that conduct the result of a medical "syndrome."

Joan S. Meier, a professor of clinical law at George Washington University School of Law, has explained it this way: "PAS is a label that offers a particular explanation for a breach in relationship between a child and parent, but insofar as that breach could be explained in other ways, it is not in itself a medical or psychological diagnosis so much as a particular legal hypothesis."

The most worrisome aspect of the legal fight over parental alienation syndrome may be that it divides supporters and opponents along strict gender lines: As a rule, this is classed as a women's sickness alleged by men. Fathers' rights groups are not solely to blame for the fact that an entire "disease" is predicated on the notion that women are lying liars; the inventor of the syndrome can take responsibility for that. But no hypothesis so rooted in gender bias should be credited by medical science. And because evidence of PAS is so frequently offered to counter maternal allegations of abuse, the experts testifying about PAS can be aiding and abetting a system that takes children from abused mothers and hands them right back to abusive fathers. Once again, this doesn't mean that some parents don't alienate their children in a divorce. It means that PAS is now used to discredit women whenever they claim abuse.

Much of the blame for the biased history of PAS can be laid at the feet of its originator, Dr. Richard Gardner, who developed the theory—from his own practice and without clinical studies—of mothers who foster hatred for their children's father as a ''powerful weapon'' to grab custody for themselves. This wasn't a theory born of objective empirical observation. It was a campaign against mothers rooted in the idea that they regularly lie and then "brainwash" their children into lying about paternal abuse. Because of Gardner's gender-freighted conclusions, it was probably inevitable that men, in the form of fathers' rights groups, would seize upon the battle to legitimize PAS. One of its most famous spokesmen became Alec Baldwin, who wrote practically a whole book on the subject in 2008, arguing paradoxically that corrupt judges and the courts have too much power over custody disputes and that by recognizing PAS, the courts could make the whole child-custody process more fair. (Here is Baldwin describing PAS as something women mainly do to men.)

Supporters of PAS argue largely from personal experience, and their stories are often compelling. But the theory of PAS is not recognized as valid by the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, or the American Medical Association. And the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges has published guidelines for custody courts clarifying that "the theory positing the existence of 'PAS' has been discredited by the scientific community. Any testimony that a party to a custody case suffers from the syndrome or 'parental alienation' should therefore be ruled inadmissible and/or stricken from the evaluation report."

Gardner's long-term scientific credibility was not helped by some of his kookier pronouncements about incest ("intrafamilial pedophilia … is widespread and ... is probably an ancient tradition"), or pedophilia ("It is of interest that of all the ancient peoples it may very well be that the Jews were the only ones who were punitive toward pedophiles."). But he still managed to become the David Barton of child-custody law, having written more than 250 books and articles, cassettes, and videotapes (often self-published) and testified as an expert in approximately 400 cases in more than 25 states.

There are a lot of websites, experts, and emotion invested in this debate. But there aren't two empirical sides. There is science, and then there is passionate non-science. As Paul Fink, a professor of psychiatry at Temple University School of Medicine and a past president of the American Psychiatric Association in Arlington, Va., once said of Gardner, "He invented a concept and talked as if it were proven science. It's not."

That's what makes the current debate over inserting PAS into the DSM-5, which has been going on for years, something of a red herring. It almost doesn't matter. Nobody really believes it's a scientific theory anymore, and Gardner has been all but discredited where it counts. That's what worries Meier most of all: "Courts and experts have stopped talking about parental alienation syndrome and started talking about parental alienation," she says. "By dropping the word 'syndrome' they purport to just be describing a behavior; and that's harder to challenge as inadmissible, even though Parental Alienation is used virtually identically to PAS, with virtually identical quasi-scientific claims and prescriptions." Back when it was a matter of science, opponents of PAS could advance arguments about admissibility and scientific legitimacy. Now it's a conclusory legal term that can barely be refuted.

Even without a scientific basis, parental alienation, like climate denialism, has its own language, passions, and saliency. Right or wrong, recognized or not, most family courts now take PAS extremely seriously. Experts testify, court-appointed advocates offer diagnoses, and family-court judges regularly adopt alienation explanations as a way of rejecting abuse allegations. As Meier wrote in a 2009 article: "Despite the palpably extreme and unbalanced quality of both the PAS theory and the thinking of its author, as well as the lack of scientific basis, the theory has for over a decade become virtually ubiquitous in family courts."

The science just doesn't matter now. Even though no appellate court has found evidence of PAS to meet the scientific standards for legal admissibility, courts admit evidence of precisely the same phenomenon all the time, and by calling it "parental alienation," they achieve the same effect: overlooking allegations of abuse by one parent in order to blame the other for "alienating" the child. In other words, whether science supports them or the DSM-5 ultimately validates them, the supporters of Richard Gardner and parental alienation may have already won. While nobody was looking, a mythical legal argument known as parental alienation may have already taken over family courts.

BMCC VIII: Author Lundy Bancroft Teaches Battered Mothers to Fight Back

2011-01-13T14:32:00.000-08:00

Okay corrupt Indiana court whores! We ARE going to get things fixed in Indiana...we are going to FIGHT BACK!

From Suite 101
By Liora Farkovitz
Last Updated Jan 13, 2011, Published Jan 12, 2011

Leading author and therapist Lundy Bancroft teaches battered mothers to fight back at the 8th Battered Mothers Custody Conference in Albany, New York 1/7/11

The 8th Battered Mother’s Custody Conference featured author and activist Lundy Bancroft, who has for more than a decade addressed the issues of battered mothers who lost custody to their abusers in family courts. Well known as the founder of the Battered Mothers Testimony Project in Massachusetts, Bancroft is also the author of three books on the dynamics and subsequent effects of domestic violence. He was the winner of the 2004 Pro Humanitate Award from the North American Resource Center for Child Welfare, for his book, “The Batterer as Parent”.

Battered Mothers Fight Myths

The past seven Battered Mother’s Custody Conferences validated and quantified an emergent judicial and human rights crisis in our family courts. Judges are delivering abused children to the very abusers that their protective mothers painstakingly escaped. For the first time in the conference’s history, Bancroft introduced fighting back against this injustice as the theme for this year’s conference meetings and speakers.

The prevailing myth is that once out of an abusive marriage, the mother is now safe from her abuser. But the truth is that 75% of women who are injured or murdered by their abusers suffer the attack within the first thirty days of escaping the relationship[1]. Despite the divorce, many women endure ongoing torment by their former spouse and abuser because they are permanently connected through their common children.

An abuser stalking, threatening, and torturing the mother, and abusing their children in order to hurt her, are very common realities. The courts perceive repeated requests for protection as strategic chicanery and often fail to validate an ongoing threat to the mother.

Paradoxically, many battered mothers are in the unenviable position of being challenged by Child Protective Services to ‘leave their abusive marriage to protect their children’, despite the statistical odds of their own demise, and the unlikelihood that law enforcement will provide or enforce protective orders. Once embroiled in the family court systems, the battered mothers are marginalized and accused of lying to gain unfair advantage over abusive fathers.

No amount of presenting the actual facts and figures seems to gain these protective mothers and their children safe harbor. Judges and other legal participants routinely place children with their abusers. There are both domestic and international human rights implications to this issue with more than 1,000 families a week now facing this crisis; Bancroft’s expertise is needed more than ever[2].

Battered Mothers Fight Courts

The first shock a protective mother must overcome is the reality that the justice system does not exist within the family court system. On television, in our classrooms, and in the news, the myth that our legal system is fair and just is promulgated. Many protective mothers discover that the truth is that the rules which apply in a criminal court or in business related civil cases are not applied in family courts. Rules of evidence and consequences for challenging the status quo are harsh and unpredictable. Judges have unilateral discretion to define what happens, how it happens and whether she is even allowed to tell anyone else about the court’s orders.
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A protective mother stripped of her children, is also stripped of her right to parent; her right of free speech; her right of protection; and her right to protest these injustices. Our Bill of Rights is frequently ignored, and the judicial system affords immunity for the legal participants including Judges, Child Custody Evaluators, Child Protective Services, and Law Enforcement Agencies. If they misjudge, and the battered mother or her children die, then no one is accountable. Do you risk contempt of a court order in an attempt to protect your children?

Battered Mothers Fight Child Abuse

Often the abuser begins to deliberately alienate the protective mother from her children, telling the children that she abandoned them, did not want to mother them, lies about his abuse, or fails to parent them effectively. The child begins to doubt their own ability to perceive reality. They may feel a forced sense of loyalty to their abuser. If the children do not follow his lead and mistreat their mother, what are the physical and emotional consequences they suffer at the hands of the abusers?

Bancroft advises protective mothers and their support systems to remember that the purpose of the fight is to keep as close to your children as possible. Keep things calm, remind them that you love them. Rather than debate which parent is “right” in a never ending battle for the right to exist without the abuser’s influence – ask your child, “What do YOU think?” Maintain the child’s ability to read the situation, assess it and come to an independent conclusion. When the abuser misrepresents a mother’s feelings or actions, correct the lie, and encourage the child to rely on their own personal experience with their mother.

Battered Mothers Fight Isolation

Many Americans erroneously believe family court dynamics are identical to other courts’ standard of evidence in the United States. Therefore they come to the conclusion that a mother who loses custody in civil proceedings must have done something to deserve the loss. The stigma of losing one’s child is an isolating experience. The battered mother finds the experience so painful that she abandons any attempt to explain what happened to her.

To overcome the stigma, the battered mother may attend conferences like the annual Battered Mother’s Custody Conference; join Facebook Causes; and support websites related to healing from and fighting domestic violence; connect with other people with like experiences; and research what is happening in other parts of the country. Books like those published by authors Lundy Bancroft, Mo Therese Hannah, Barry Goldstein, Amy Neuman, Michael Lesher, Wendy Murphy, Karin Huffer and others can provide specific legal, emotional and political strategies to effect change.

Battered Mothers Fight Human Rights Injustices

Political initiatives are reflected in the progress of landmark legal cases in human rights; follow the outcome of cases such as Jessica Ruth Gonzales v. USA, as well as other international cases concerning domestic violence under consideration by the Inter America Human Rights Commission. The U. S. Supreme Court upheld the Castle Rock, Colorado Police Department’s refusal to enforce a protective order against Simon Gonzales that resulted in the murder of their three children. Gonzales (now Lanahan) is protesting the violation of her human rights.

As the first U. S. Citizen to receive political asylum from The Netherlands, Holly Collins and her three children fled the United States in 1994 to be free of domestic violence when they could not obtain protection from family courts. Ms. Collins plans to return to live in the U. S., just as her youngest child reaches adulthood. How our country responds to the knowledge that a mother was forced to flee her own country for protection will be an important barometer of progress.

[1] Indiana Law School Protective Order Project, “What is Domestic Violence?” Website. Referenced January 12, 2011. http://www.law.indiana.edu/pop/domestic_violence/

[2] Silberg, Joyanna, “How Many Children Are Court -Ordered Into Unsupervised Contact With an Abusive Parent After Divorce?”, The Leadership Council on Child Abuse & Interpersonal Violence, Press Release. September, 22, 2008, http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/1/med/PR3.html, referenced January 12, 2011

The Huffington Post and Dr. Richard Warshak: Supporting Child Abusers Through Censorship

2010-12-12T21:27:00.000-08:00

From Rights for Mothers:

Everyone knows that the concept of “parental alienation” will not be in the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), but this hasn’t thwarted those who make a handsome income off of it. Dr. Richard Warshak, who sells his testimony and services treating “parental alienation” in child custody cases, has apparently bought or scammed his way onto The Huffington Post and is not allowing comments on how others, including professional organizations, look at this excuse for protecting abusive parents. I, along with several other domestic violence advocates, posted comments on The Huffington Post in response to a new post by Warshak that touts his professional bread-and-butter, and they were apparently dropped in their bit bucket. Here is my first comment:

Many professional organizations recognize that claims of so-called “parental alienation” are used by abusive spouses to gain custody of children from their victims. Some of these organizations include the American Judges Association, the National District Attorney’s Association, the American Bar Association, and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, with the latter warning family court judges not to accept claims of “parental alienation” or “parental alienation syndrome” because of it’s well know use by abusers. Research has shown that the number one reason children refuse to visit a parent is because of the behavior of that parent. Stop putting children in danger by placing them with the abuser. Dr. Warshak and others that push this so-called disorder make a lot of money selling their testimony in this family court scam. I would think The Huffington Post was above promoting such snake oil salesmen.

As of the morning after Warshak’s post appeared on The Huffington Post, there were twelve hand-picked comments on the post, which includes one by Warshak cheerleader “Monika” who is Monika Logan, a big “parental alienation” supporter in Texas. She is a regular commenter on stories that push this scam. Her blog supports these people who make lots of money off of promoting this “judicial tool of abuse.”

Warshak was involved in a case recently in Canada, in which he testified that two boys apparently “poisoned” by “parental alienation” would benefit being treated at his “treatment center,” a center that charges $40,000 per four day session. The recommendation was so ordered, but overturned in appeal because Warshak admitted that he had only interviewed the parent claiming “parental alienation” and not the other parent. Warshak failed to even interview the boys when he recommended them for his unproven program. Seems $40,000 is quite an incentive to recommend something to someone he hasn’t even seen.

Shame on The Huffington Post to allow these quacks and their supporters space to sell their wares, because that is exactly what they are doing. Then again, The Huffington Post has a history of censorship. So be careful what you read even if you think it is a respectable site. Apparently everyone has their price, and there’s a lot to be made in the “parental alienation” jackpot.

It was suggested to post comments on censorship on The Huffington Post, then share on your Facebook or Twitter account…this is an excellent idea!

Just Another Day in Indianapolis: Man Beats Wife While Children Call 911 From Closet

2010-11-02T10:45:00.000-07:00

Surprisingly, this was reported in the news. It isn't often these cases get noticed. Wanna bet daddy will get custody of the children, and mommy will get supervised visitation, if any at all? This is Standard Operating Procedure in most Indiana courts now, to give the abuser custody of the children and to limit's mother's contact so she cannot discuss the horrible abuse that the children witnessed. Instead, Indiana children can experience their own horrors of life with the abuser.

Man beats wife, kids call 911 in closet

Updated: Tuesday, 02 Nov 2010, 12:25 PM EDT
Published : Monday, 01 Nov 2010, 6:45 PM EDT

* By: AJ Colley

NEW WHITELAND, Ind. (WISH) - A man was arrested in New Whiteland Sunday night after badly beating his wife in front of the couple’s children, police say.

The two children hid in a closet in a back bedroom while calling 911. The incident happened at about 11 p.m. Sunday.

According to police, Timothy Brown was holding the front door closed on officers. Three officers responded and two used a stun gun on Brown.

When police got inside, Brown’s wife was unconscious on the couch. She was taken to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis. Brown was taken to Johnson Memorial Hospital after making suicidal comments, but was later transferred to jail.

Police say Brown has had domestic issues in the past. New Whiteland Police Sgt. Dave Glaze said it’s the worst case of domestic violence he’s seen in his 23 years on the department.

Police escorted the two children out of the house with a blanket over their heads so they couldn’t see their injured mom or their dad in handcuffs.

Custody Evaluator Bingo!

2010-09-26T20:45:00.000-07:00

Do you keep falling asleep during meetings and conference calls? Custody Evaluator Bingo is a way to change all of that!

How to play:

Before each meeting or conference call, visit Custody Evaluator Bingo and print one copy of this game card for each player, refreshing the page before each print, or have the players print their own bingo cards. These instructions will not be printed. You can also select card only and multiple card versions of this page when playing on line, or with a PDA.

Check off each block when you hear these words during the meeting or conference call. When you get five blocks horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, stand up and shout SHENANIGANS!

Click cells to mark them off. Get a new card or build your own card.

Phrases for "Custody Evaluator Bingo" randomly chosen from a list of 136 possible selections, last updated: Sep 19, 2010.

"Custody Evaluator Bingo" was suggested by, and initial phrase list supplied by: http://www.thelizlibrary.org/

This is YOUR GAME, make it better by sending new phrases to phrases@buzzwordbingogame.com.
Follow @buzzword_bingo at Twitter.

Victims of Dr. Richard Lawlor Support Group

2010-08-21T19:38:00.000-07:00

Does one need to be created?

We are amazed at the number of people coming to this website accessing the posts on Dr. Richard Lawlor. More so than anyone else ever posted about.

Have you had dealings with Dr. Lawlor? Let us know at "missingmychild@gmail.com" and we will see if there is a need to start a group!

Parental Alienation Syndrome: The Facts

2010-07-30T07:18:00.000-07:00

There's Nothing Friendly About Abuse

2010-07-29T19:54:00.000-07:00

From the current issue of Ms. Magazine:

Children are at risk when custody cases rely on a meritless theory of parental "alienation"

by R. Dianne Bartlow

It's a statistic so unbelievable that it's difficult to wrap your head around: A research review by lawyer and domestic violence expert Joan Zorza found that in about half of the 100,000 contested child custody cases each year in the United States, custody goes to the father - even though at least one-third of these fathers reportedly committed domestic violence against the mother or the child. In fact, women are actually more likely to win custody if they do not allege abuse.

The force behind these rulings are the innocuous-sounding "friendly parent" statutes on the books in at least 32 states, which mandate that courts, in deciding custody, consider how willing each parent is to facilitate a "close and continuing" relationship between the child and the other parent. This is one factor in determining what custody arrangements are "in the best interests of the child."

"Friendly parent" statutes are a dressed-down form of a theory called Parental Alienation Syndrome. PAS theorizes that most accusations of child abuse (especially sexual abuse) made during a custody battle are actually fraudulent. Not only are the charges false, says the theory, but they are deliberately undertaken by one parent (in most cases, the mother) to "alienate" the child from the other parent (generally, the father).

Never mind that the American Psychological Association has said PAS has no valid merit, nor that PAS inventor Richard Gardner has also said that society "overreacts" to sexual abuse and that pedophilia is an honorable lifestyle choice. PAS lives on in "friendly parent" statutes and in the testimony of many court-appointed evaluators and mental-health professionals. Those who diagnose PAS often recommend that full custody go to the "alienated parent" (usually the biological father) and that unsupervised visitation with the "alienating parent" (usually the mother) be cut off.

Ultimately, these outmoded ideas maintain their grip because of a long-standing tradition of discrediting women's concerns and believability in comparison to men's, wrote Zorza in Domestic Violence, Abuse and Child Custody (Civic Research Institute, 2010). Their effect is to lend powerful leverage to abusers.

"Severely abusive fathers may deliberately escalate their abuse to force the woman to complain, flee, or bargain away valuable marital assets, alimony or child support. They then retaliate by filing for custody, knowing they will likely be able to deprive the mothers of the children," writes Zorza. "Other abusive fathers use the "friendly parent" concept to force the mother to pay them child support and to deprive her of any visitation."

The consequences can be dire. According to the Center for Judicial Excellence, a court advocacy organization, an estimated 75 children nationwide were murdered between June 2009 and April 2010 by abusive fathers who won custody battles.

Currently, about half of the states in the U.S. have laws requiring courts to consider domestic violence on an equal basis with factors such as "friendly parent" statutes when making custody determinations. But family courts have wide discretion in how heavily to weigh domestic violence. The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and the American Bar Association recommend that abuse be given more consideration than other factors in custody cases - and that courts withhold sole or joint custody from anyone with a history of domestic violence.

It's high time for parents and the public to know what's going on in these situations, says Barry Goldstein, co-editor of Domestic Violence, Abuse, and Child Custody: "I believe that if the public was aware of the frequency in which courts make fundamental mistakes and send children to live with abusers, the practice would quickly end because it would not be tolerated."

R.Dianne Bartlow, PH.D., is associate professor of gender and women's studies at California State University, Northridge.

It's Pretty Sad When Your Own Lawyer Screws You (Literally)

2010-07-05T05:40:00.000-07:00

UPDATE (7/15/10): William Wallace drops out of race for Gibson County Prosecutor.

William Wallace, a family law attorney in Evansville, and currently a candidate for Gibson County Prosecutor, is a dirty, dirty guy. He'll probably get elected because he'll fit right in...

From the Indiana Law Blog:

William Wallace, a local attorney and the Democratic Party's candidate for Gibson County prosecutor in November's election, was indicted Tuesday for allegedly having videotaped sex with a former client to pay off a $550 debt to him for work he did in a civil case.

The woman said on at least one other occasion, Wallace offered to have sex with her and pay her for it because he knew she was having financial issues and needed the money.

Special Prosecutor Jonathan Parkhurst said Tuesday that the Gibson County grand jury heard from eight witnesses before deciding that Wallace should be charged.

He faces four charges that include obstruction of justice and possession of child pornography, both class D felonies; patronizing a prostitute, a class A misdemeanor; and false informing, a class B misdemeanor.

A class D felony carries a term of six months to three years; a class A misdemeanor is from no time to a year; and a class B misdemeanor is no time to 180 days.

Wallace was ordered by Gibson Superior Court Judge Earl Penrod to turn himself in to the county jail Tuesday evening and pay at least $500 of a $750 cash bond.

The attorney, who has worked in both Gibson and Vanderburgh counties, has been in practice since 1989 and is a former public defender for the Vanderburgh County Public Defenders Agency. He also has been an adjunct professor at Oakland City University and serves on a number of boards in the community.

Dr. Richard Lawlor Worshipped at the Altar of Pedophile-lover Dr. Richard Gardner

2010-07-01T17:15:00.000-07:00

The more I have dug into this father-loving Whore of the Court, the more I am sickened. During a case Dr. Richard Lawlor was involved in, which a child was taken from the mother and given to the father, he didn't even interview the primary people in the case. His bought-and-paid-for testimony was formed over looking at another therapist's notes. How nice!

Even though the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges have warned judges against accepting claims of "parental alienation syndrome" or "parental alienation" (pg.12 of 2009 guide), the appeals court upheld the trial court's finding. (This includes attempts at calling it something else too). Here is a section of the dissenting opinion, which in the view of the scientific community and professional organizations should have been the concurring opinion:

I respectfully decline to join in the opinion of the majority, however, to the extent that it validates the trial court's reliance on “Parental Alienation Syndrome” (PAS) evidence. Admittedly, the trial judge never specifically used the term PAS. It is clear from the language in his findings, however, that the trial court relied heavily on the testimony offered by Dr. Lawlor regarding this “syndrome” and all but used the exact term “PAS” when stating its findings of fact and conclusions of law. I recognize the concept of “parental alienation” and understand that it is not uncommon for parents, during a dissolution proceeding, to make disparaging comments about their respective spouses in the presence of their children. However, I am troubled by, and seriously question the existence of a parental alienation “syndrome”.

PAS is a relatively new theory created by Dr. Richard A. Gardner, M.D., and is explained in his self-published book, The Parental Alienation Syndrome (1992). This theory, developed solely through Gardner's personal observations of his own patients in private practice, is defined by Gardner as a situation where children are not merely systematically and consciously “brainwashed”, but are also subconsciously and unsubconsciously “programmed” by one parent against the other parent. Gardner, The Parental Alienation Syndrome p. 59-60. Gardner further asserts, “PAS is a disorder of children, arising almost exclusively in child-custody disputes, in which one parent (usually the mother) programs the child to hate the other parent (usually the father).” Richard A. Gardner, Dr. Gardner Defends Work on Sex Abuse, Nat'l L.J., Sept. 6, 1993, at 16. Moreover, Dr. Gardner professes that in 90% of the cases it is only the mother who attempts to alienate the children from the father. Gardner, The Parental Alienation Syndrome at 62, 106. When questioned as to why women are programming their children against their fathers in nine out of ten cases where PAS is present, Dr. Gardner explains by quoting William Congreve: “Heaven has no rage, like love turned to hatred. Nor hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd.” Id. at 62, 122. This gender-biased generalization is ludicrous and an affront to all reasonable women and men. This is unacceptable.

The record indicates that Dr. Lawlor, a clinical psychologist and attorney, testified as an expert witness in this case. His testimony, elicited primarily through a series of one-sided hypotheticals, was replete with PAS language suggesting that Marianne was causing PAS to occur in M.S., but was not yet a “full blown syndrome.” (R. 1917). For example, Dr. Lawlor's responses on direct examination included language such as, “[Marianne is] systematically trying to convey through a denigration of father that he's evil, that uh he's dangerous, and that the child uh shouldn't be involved with [Edward].” (R. 1887). Dr. Lawlor also stated during his direct examination that he thought it was, “․ extremely detrimental to be in custody of a parent who's engaging in a pattern of alienation against the other parent” and that the research on parental alienation shows that the “․ prognosis [for the child] is poor once uh an alienation situation uh has developed. Uh the success rate is almost zero and the failure rate is almost a hundred percent in cases like that once they get going.” (R. 1880). Furthermore, Dr. Lawlor admitted under oath that he is familiar with Dr. Gardner's syndrome called “Parental Alienation Syndrome” and described it as “․ a situation where you have a systematic uh attempt at denigration of the parent with with attempts at isolation of the child from the parent.” (R. 1910)

Dr. Lawlor's “PAS language” is rephrased and woven throughout the trial court's findings, as can be seen in his specific finding number eight which includes statements such as:

8. The Court Specifically finds that since the joint custody agreement in this case, Marianne, beyond a reasonable doubt, has engaged in a concerted bad faith effort to destroy any relationship the minor child, [M.S.], has with Edward. It is not necessary to include the litany of vicious and false allegations made by Marianne against Edward ․ Marianne ․ made numerous trips to social workers and counselors alleging unsubstantiated allegations of Edward's conduct, his psychiatric condition, and a general vicious broadside on Edward's character. Marianne met willing accomplices with her visits to social workers and counselors and continued to allege to the counselors false and vicious rumors. Marianne established no basis in fact or believable testimony that would support her baseless claims ․ Marianne's false and disgusting behavior based on false allegations were beyond a doubt designed to destroy any relationship Edward has with Margaret. (R. 1344-45).

There are also several other significant problems with PAS including “causation”, “scientific reliability” and “admissibility” as scientific evidence ¹⁰ . Dr. Garner's PAS syndrome has no apparent objective criteria to determine its validity or its reliability. Moreover, PAS has not been subjected to peer review and has not gained general acceptance by scientists in the relevant scientific communities. Thus, it is my opinion that Dr. Garner's PAS “disorder” is a disturbing, inflammatory, unscientific and unsubstantiated theory which has no place in our courtrooms. As the court in United States v. Brown, 557 F.2d 541 (6th Cir.1977) so eloquently stated, “A courtroom is not a research laboratory. The fate of [a party] should not hang on his ability to successfully rebut scientific evidence which bears an ‘aura of special reliability and trustworthiness,’ although, in reality the witness is testifying on the basis of an unproved hypothesis in an isolated experiment which has yet to gain general acceptance in its field.” Id. at 556. The PAS syndrome described by Dr. Garner is analogous to “cult” theories like the “Peter Pan Syndrome” or the “Cinderella Complex”, and is more suitable in a pop psychology venue rather than in a court of law.

Finally, the record reveals that Edward has emotional problems so severe that he is totally disabled and unable to work. Moreover, Dr. Lawlor, who never interviewed Marianne, Edward, or M.S., apparently formed his opinions based on notes from Dr. Crane, a therapist who also had never met Edward. Thus, Dr. Lawlor and the therapist would be unable to determine the extent to which Marianne's allegations regarding Edward's conduct might be true. Further, the lack of clinical research to substantiate the theory of PAS, along with the lack of evidence as to Edward's emotional health and the slender threads of evidence which supported the hypotheticals posed to Dr. Lawlor, make the apparent recognition of PAS very troubling. This case poses a threat not only to the well-being of this small child, but also to any child with less than perfect parents who are divorcing.

CHEZEM, J., dissents in result, with opinion

Also see:

Battered Women Now Safe from Retiring Father-loving Whore of the Court Richard Lawlor?

Lethal Trinity of Hoodlums: Fatherhood, Motherhood, White-hooded White Men in the American Midwest

2010-06-20T11:09:00.000-07:00

I got my "Happy Father's Day" email this morning from Senator Evan Bayh. He forgot about, or decided to ignore, Mother's Day again. From Let's Get Honest:

Lethal Trinity of Hoodlums: Fatherhood, Motherhood, White-hooded White Men in the American MidWest

Custodial Dads & Stepmoms, Divorcing Dads, and Absent Moms… Not good for kids.

I’ve been thinking about this one for a while. I’m going to pick on Indiana, as it has a prominent Fatherhood promoter in legislator Evan Bayh, and recent trouble with another Dad that won custody, 5 year old girl died, and he and STEPMOM tried to blame it (unsuccessfully) on the REAL (biological) mother, who is now down a child, just months after losing custody of (her).

In this one, the mandated reporters who had a chance to, DIDN’T, and the first who did report, just went along with blaming the real Mom.

New details emerge in death of 5-year-old girl at hands of custodial dad, step mom

(Muncie, Indiana)

The general public still thinks that mothers don’t lose custody unless they’re nuts or sluts. But this article tells you the truth: the protective mother lost custody because she COULD NOT AFFORD AN ATTORNEY. She was outgunned by a lawyered-up Daddy who could buy what he wanted. Which was basically a 5-year-old girl he could rape, torture, and systematically starve. Everybody happy now? In addition to CPS getting dragged through the wringer (again), are we going to see the names of the custody evaluators, judges, and other court officials who rubberstamped this custody arrangement? Don’t hold your breath. Even if a few CPS or medical workers get reprimanded or lose their jobs, the court people will stay golden. One of the few exceptions is Judge Robert Lemkau who got voted out of office after he gave a crazy violent father visitation of an infant, an infant who was murdered less than two weeks later. The public has got to start holding the courts responsible for these gross miscarriages of justice.

http://www.fox59.com/news/wxin-muncie-death-investigation-update-061610,0,871744.story

New details emerge in death of Muncie 5-year-old
During a six-month period last fall and winter, more than a half dozen health care workers treated or observed serious problems with five year-old Lauren McConniel. It wasn’t until about a week before she died on March 9th from severe malnutrition, that her injuries were reported to . . .

Another century, and …..

Here’s MOTHERHOOD WORSHIP with the HOODED WHITE GUYS, same state (and supported by religious women, also….)

Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong – Google Books Result

James W. Loewen – 2007 – History – 464 pages
The Indiana Klan stressed law enforcement, motherhood, virtue, patriotism, … In that year’s Democratic National Convention, the Ku Klux

(This is accessible to view by Googlebooks and shows that a large resurgence of this clan, pre-civil rights of the 1960s, happened in INDIANA. It’s worth a read. They had got the press, the governor, and were aiming for U.S. President, as I recall, and they emphasized MOTHERHOOD. How ironic, the pendulum has swung the otherway; same state (and possibly same practices), now it’s “Fatherhood.” In Indiana and, thanks to the internet and increasing centralization in the U.S., and a less and less diverse U.S. Congress (it’s EXPENSIVE to get elected), nationwide.

I’m going to digress here, because the link to the “less and less diverse” article pictures Roland Burris, well-known in FATHERHOOD circles:

Senate likely to be less diverse after elections

By Deanna Bellandi, Associated Press Writer Fri Feb 5

CHICAGO – That historically all-white club known as the U.S. Senate is likely to lose what little diversity it has after November’s elections.

Two white men will be competing for President Barack Obama’s former seat in Illinois, now held by Roland Burris, the chamber’s lone African-American. Appointed by the scandal-tainted former governor, Burris won’t be seeking a full term.

In contests in Florida, Texas and North Carolina, black candidates face daunting challenges to joining the august body, from difficulty raising cash to lack of name recognition to formidable rivals.

Blacks comprise 12.2 percent of the nation’s population, but you wouldn’t know it in the 100-member Senate. Come next year, the total number could add up to zero.

“It certainly is not a desirable state of affairs,” said David Bositis, a senior political analyst with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

Bositis noted that blacks don’t make up the majority population in any state and in states where there are large numbers of blacks, as in the South, there are racial divisions that make getting elected difficult.

Florida is more likely to produce the next Hispanic senator than it is the next black senator…

Notice that this article is only talking about the ‘diversity’ of skin color, not the ‘diversity’ of political thought.

In truth, if the Republicans take away more seats from the Democrat super-majority, the Congress will be certainly be more diverse.

But of course in the minds of the Associated Press, the color of one’s skin is far more important than the content of their character.

{{Guess that was not a pro-Burriss based on his politics site. However, he’s no less “fatherhood” than white guys….}}

Here’s to “Roland Burris fatherhood” google search:

U.S. Senator Roland Burris to Appear on a Special Father’s Day …

US Senator Roland Burris to Appear on a Special Father’s Day Edition of Chicago Attorney Jeffery Leving’s ‘Fathers’ Rights Legal Show’ on June 20th.
www.prnewswire.com/…/us-senator-roland-burris-to-appear-on-a-special-fathers-day-edition-of-chicago-attorney-jeffery-levings-fathers-right… – Cached

Attorney Jeffery Leving to Interview U.S. Senator Roland Burris on …

United States Senator Roland Burris (D-IL) will join Mr. Leving on his “Fathers’ Rights … Obama’s proposed $500 million budget for Responsible

Fathers Rights: Jeffery M Leving-Leading Family Law & Divorce …

U.S. Senator Roland Burris to Appear on(etc., etc.)

NOW, this is back about a CENTURY (almost) and talking about another kind of HOODlum (Pictured below, and self-described on the infamous site, below). Look at how it was sold — temperance, and motherhood.

20thcentury

This exact figure was found in the book, “Inside Ku Klux Klan” by Paul Gillette ….. Women of the Klan in many Indiana counties met with township trustees to … While girls were learning the virtues and tasks of motherhood and moral …. This meant stressing the virtues of Christian fundamentalism and temperance. …
www.kkklan.com/various.htm

“God,” I hate to quote this, or even VISIT this site – but notice — described (in this “KKK” site) as historically just nice, law-abiding, religious folk contributing to charitable, children’s oriented, and church/school folks. And that’s men & women BOTH…..

The following was taken from, “Hoods: The Story of the Ku Klux Klan”, by Robert Ingalls.

In Portland, Or., in the early 1920′s, the Ku Klux Klan pledged $50,000 to a children’s home and held a Christmas party featuring Kris Kringle. The Klan also organized a Klan Kommunity Kit to compete with the Community Chest, church visits became a kind of ritual. Typically, a small group of Klansmen would march down the aisle, hand the minister an offering of money, and silently depart. (page 39)

Protestant ministers quickly found that the Klan’s emphasis on religion helped swell church attendance. (page 41)

Similarly, the emphasis on DOMINATING women and keeping them in their “proper” roles is helping swell church tithes to this day, 2010….

Most Klansmen were law abiding, church going family men. Klansmen also hoped to eliminate vice and corruption through the ballot box. One Klansman declared, “Everybody knows that politicians nowadays cater to all kinds of elements, mostly selfish, some corrupt, and some definitely anti-American. They cater to the vice vote and even to the violently criminal vote. What the Klan intends to do is make them pay some attention to the decent God fearing, law abiding vote.” (pages 42-43)

Mr. Smith goes to Washington.

During the 1920′s, the Klan was subjected not only to verbal abuse but also to physical assault in some areas. Bootleggers, for example, did not take kindly to the Klan’s attempts to enforce prohibition. When New Jersey’s Klan declared war on local bootleggers, the rum runners formed a defense council and publicly threatened to “Shoot to kill” anyone other then a policeman who interfered with their illegal traffic in liquor. (page 68)

The following was taken from, “Hooded Americanism, the History of the Ku Klux Klan”, by David M. Chalmers.

In Minneapolis, the Klan presented bibles to Methodist Churches and stressed “positive Protestantism”. (page 151)

In Indiana the Klan gathered contributions to build a new hospital. (page 165

NOW FATHERHOOD:

=========

We (see blogroll to right) have blogged on this before. See Wikipedia for Son (Evan) and Father (Birch):

Evan Bayh – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birch Evans “Evan” Bayh III (pronounced /ˈbaɪ/, bye; born December 26, 1955) is an American Democratic politician who has served as the junior U.S. Senator …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Bayh – 17 hours ago – Cached – Similar

Birch Bayh – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Children, Evan Bayh (born 1955), Christopher Bayh (born 1982) … He is the father of former Indiana governor and current U.S. Senator Evan Bayh. …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birch_Bayh – Cached – Similar

And see “MamaLiberty”‘s Sept. 2009 weblog for commentary on this:

http://justice4mothers.wordpress.com/2009/08/30/fatherhood-initiative-bill-senator-evan-bayh-d-in-is-not-his-fathers-son/

This is from the Indiana Mothers For Custodial Justice, covering the recently introduced Fatherhood Initiative Bill:

Evan Bayh is Not His Father’s Son

I heard this comment in a meeting yesterday, and how true it is. ” Evan Bayh is not his father’s son.”

In Birch Bayh’s eyes, women should be given the same chances that men have. Women deserved equality and this was evident in his legislation.

‘Father’ Of Title IX Honored

By Richard Veilleux

Former U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh of Indiana, considered the “father” of Title IX, the landmark federal legislation created more than 30 years ago that greatly expanded educational and athletics opportunities for girls and women, was honored during half-time of the women’s basketball game between UConn and Rutgers on Martin Luther King Day.

. . .

Sen. Bayh also played a leadership role in many other areas and in framing two Constitutional amendments: the 26th Amendment, which lowered the legal voting age to 18, and the Equal Rights Amendment, a proposed Constitutional amendment guaranteeing equal rights to women, which has been ratified by 35 states, including Connecticut.

AND, now, the son….

na in the U.S. Senate from 1963 to 1981.But for Evan Bayh, the apple has fallen far from the tree…he supports fatherhood (not parenthood)…this being sent out in preparation of the reintroduction of a Fatherhood Initiative Bill into the U.S. Senate:

Senator Bayh sent out this wonderful message for fathers on Father’s Day to the Hoosiers he represents. He missed sending out a message for mothers…tells you a lot, doesn’t it. He is up for re-election next year….Hoosiers mothers, are you paying attention?

Watch out for these bill just introduced: S. 1309, introduced by Sen. Evan Bayh, (D-IN) and two co-sponsors.H.R. 2979, introduced by Rep. Danny K. Davis (IL-7) and 27 co-sponsors.President Obama told Senator Bayh last year he would sign the bill when he gets it.

The 2006 attempt at this bill (with U.S. Senator Barack Obama as one of the two co-sponsors) died:

The list below shows legislation in this and previous sessions of Congress that had the same title as this bill. Often bills are incorporated into other omnibus bills, and you may be able to track the status of provisions of this bill by looking for an omnibus bill below. Note that bills may have multiple titles.

109^th Congress: S. 3607: Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act Dead

This one needs to die too.

Is it fair for our government tax dollars to go help take children from mothers, to help fund a custody battle in court (among other ‘fatherly’ support things), help that is only available to fathers? These funds pay for dads to do this. All dads are not good (see Dastardly Dads).

Abusive custodial fathers are constantly in the news, such as today [SEPT. 2009] : New Mexico Custodial Father Murdered Allegedly By 10 Year Old Son Who Couldn’t Take Anymore Abuse and Jon Pomeroy, Father of Seattle-area Girl, Pleads Guilty to Starving Her. Why should we help abusers take children from their moms? The American Judge’s Association knows this is a problem, why do you want to fund abusers to take custody of the children?

Yes, Evan, your dad took time to be with you. He didn’t seek to take your mother out of your life though, did he? Yes, this apple has fallen very far from the tree.

Interviews from the Battered Mothers Custody Conference in New York

2010-06-05T18:36:00.000-07:00

Battered Women Now Safe from Retiring Father-loving Whore of the Court Richard Lawlor?

2010-05-31T05:39:00.000-07:00

Let's hope so. He's put children into the hands of alleged abusers. (He well known for loving fathers after all). He does this by twisting anything to fit his own personal bias.

From Lawlor, in "The National Psychologist":

Similarly, if psychologists become involved in child custody areas, they need to understand the law relating to child custody. The dangers of psychologists getting inadvertently involved in this type of situation have recently been discussed. (See Younggren, The National Psychologist, September/October 2009; and Williams, The National Psychologist, November/December, 2009).

This article is not oriented toward an in-depth discussion of any of these issues. However, it does seem that we as a profession need to systematically train practitioners in this area where, in a variety of ways, the law significantly impacts our practices. Current training is hit or miss.

Psychologists who become sub-specialized in the area of forensic psychology typically have a subset of psychology where they have developed expertise, for example, custody evaluations. In order to do those competently, the psychologist needs to understand the research that underlies that particular area of practice. Similarly, psychologists need to understand the legal statutes, case law and administrative laws of their jurisdictions that impact all of the areas in which they practice.

When Lawlor was quoted in a 2005 Indianapolis Star article about the McGuffey murder-suicide, he said what Edward McGuffey did "was so over the top," rejecting that a father could actually do that to a child. Well it happens almost every day in the United States. Lawlor has NO understanding of domestic violence and violent acts upon children. Fathers are abusing their children, yet they are handed custody of them (if they haven't killed them already), thanks to people like Lawlor. (See more about this on Dastardly Dads).

Hyper-focused Lawlor never practiced his own spiel here and never apparently read Indiana State Code. He never understood that domestic violence and fathers that sexually abuse their children SHOULD be taken into account when considering custody. He apparently does not know anything of the American Bar Association, the American Psychological Association, the National District Attorney's Association, the American Judge's Association, and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judge's (pg. 12) studies, discussions and warnings about this. No, he's just your run-of-the-mill hired gun. He did make plenty of money as a Court Whore, testifying mostly on behalf of fathers.

Richard Lawlor, Ph.D., J.D., retired after 35 years as a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Indiana University School of Medicine. He was the director of the psychology internship program for 10 years and chief of the outpatient forensic child psychiatry service for 10 years.

Adios Muchacho...

Also see: Dr. Richard Lawlor Worshipped at the Altar of Pedophile-lover Dr. Richard Gardner

Battered Mothers to Hold Vigil at the White House on Mother's Day

2010-05-07T04:54:00.000-07:00

No thanks to the civil (?) court judges that give child custody to abusers, and cut mothers out of the children's lives....don't you think the children know what is going on already? Don't you know they often witness when a parent beats the crap out of the other parent, over and over again?

By Mary Darcy

WeNews correspondent

Friday, May 7, 2010

Battered mothers often shy away from publicity. But this year, in a sign of their growing organization, some plan to spend Mother's Day in Washington in a White House vigil to draw attention to a court system that often gives custody to abusers.

(WOMENSENEWS)--On Mother's Day, busloads of battered moms and advocates for abused children will roll into Washington, D.C.

They'll hold a vigil outside the White House in an effort to persuade President Obama to take up their cause of reforming a family court system that they say all too often puts children into the hands of abusive parents.

For some it marks a new and somewhat frightening degree of public exposure. Some of the protesters will be shrouded in scarves, hiding from their abusers or a court system they fear will punish them for speaking out.

"They're whistleblowers," said vigil organizer Connie Valentine, policy director for The California Protective Custody Association, based in Sacramento. "The system doesn't look kindly on whistleblowers. It's a difficult situation because we have seen enormous judicial retaliation against mothers who step up in front of the problem."

Efforts to quantify the problem are just beginning but protective parents claim it is widespread. A study done by the Williamsburg, Va.-based American Judges Foundation in the early 1990s showed that in 70 percent of challenged cases, battering parents involved in custody battles persuaded authorities the victimized parent was unfit for sole custody, according to a spokesperson from the foundation.

Valentine and other advocates for protective parents call the family courts broken and corrupt and say the system not only puts children into the hands of abusive parents, it also bankrupts and punishes the protective parents who fight for them. At the same time, they say it's hard to reform the system because the people it hurts are hiding from abusers and anxious to avoid publicity.

Shifting Ground

But Valentine feels the ground shifting. "I think we're in the early stages of a civil rights movement for protecting children from physical and sexual abuse."

She said the Internet is helping battered mothers come together. "E-mail has helped. It's a good part of the reason for all of the advocacy," Valentine said. "Women are beginning to see that it's not their fault and that they are just pawns in the game."

Mo Hannah, psychology professor at Siena College, near Albany, N.Y., used the Internet to organize the first annual conference for battered women seeking custody in 2004, after her own difficult custody battle.

This past January marked the seventh gathering, which meets annually in Albany and is the major organizing and networking event of the year for protective parents.

"The first conference was about getting people to talk and validate their experiences," Hannah said. "But as the conferences continued it became very clear that we needed a national movement. Now the conference is just sort of an umbrella or structure that encourages people to share with each other."

Over the seven years, women have met at the conference and formed smaller groups, such as the Massachusetts Protective Mothers for Custodial Justice.

"Mass Moms," as it has come to be known, brings together women who have gone through custody battles with those currently in the throes. Volunteers accompany women to court and on lawyer visits and play a general shepherding role.

"We stand next to a woman who is fighting for her children while she pleads and receives orders," one Mass Mom told Women's eNews at January's Battered Mothers Custody Conference.

These volunteers have all been through their own custody battles and declined to be named for fear of retribution from their ex-husbands or the court system. Many have gag orders associated with their own cases. It is this type of fear of retribution that has helped keep the protective parents movement under the radar.

Fear Stands in the Way

The California Protective Custody Association's Valentine understands the fear that keeps women from protesting and fighting the bigger battles.

"I waited until my own children were grown so we weren't affected by the family court system," she said.

Valentine says advocates and organizers need to study and replicate the successful civil rights campaigns of the past.

"Slavery was ended with a good law but slavery wasn't ended because a good law happened to come about. The law happened because huge masses of people put their lives on the line and fought for it," Valentine said.

This year "Mass Moms" is preparing to add some more public activism to their advocacy with a demonstration taking place in Boston on a date to be announced soon. In what they're planning to call "Confetti," the moms will symbolically shred court-appointed guardian reports--which they feel are particularly unfair to protective parents--into little bits and toss them at the statehouse to call attention to the plight of protective mothers fighting for custody of their children.

In New York City, a group called V.O.W., or Voices of Women, has been working within the court system to try to provide legal counsel and one-on-one help for women. On a wider scale its mission is to "promote long-term systemic change by documenting institutional failures, testifying at hearings, creating position papers and meeting with local and state officials."

Both Valentine and Hannah say this is the right time to take the movement to the next level.

"The new president is a fatherless man with a good wife and they will hear us," said Valentine. "And if they don't hear us, Vice President Joe Biden worked on the violence against women act and he will hear us. And if they don't hear us we will keep going until they do hear us."

Mary Darcy is a multimedia producer/host and documentary filmmaker. She's a two time Gracie Award winner for her work with Kate Mulgrew on Herstory and The Sounds of Progress, public radio series about great women in science. Darcy is a co-owner in Uptown/Downtown Media, producers of Alloveralbany.com.

For more information:

Battered Mothers Custody Conference
http://www.batteredmotherscustodyconference.org/

Battered Mothers Custody Conference California Protective Parents Association http://www.protectiveparents.com/research.html

Indiana Civil Court Judges: Are You That Stupid or That Corrupt?

2010-03-26T16:27:00.000-07:00

Most children I know care for their mothers very, very much. A lot of them would try and protect their mother, just as this son did recently in Indianapolis. Do you think this boy will have loving feelings toward the boyfriend? Should he? What if mom got him in to counseling to not be afraid of the boyfriend anymore, even though he watched him almost kill his mom?

She would bend over backwards to have him not afraid of the boyfriend, and still an Indiana judge would gladly hand over that child to the abuser if they were in a custody battle. It happens all the time here. WHY?

The Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Committee and the Indiana Commission on Judicial Qualifications are tired of the corruption/incompetence in family court. Don't you guys know anything about the fact that when a child is afraid of an abuser, it is probably for a good reason? Do you guy subscribe to any ethical rules and practices. Maybe you need to read this from the National Association of Juvenile and Family Court Judges:

2009: A Judicial Guide to Child Safety in Custody Cases
National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges Family Violence Department

Page 12:
C. [§3.3] A Word of Caution about Parental Alienation34

Under relevant evidentiary standards, the court should not accept testimony regarding parental alienation syndrome, or “PAS.” The theory positing the existence of PAS has been discredited by the scientific community.35 In Kumho Tire v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137 (1999), the Supreme Court ruled that even expert testimony based in the “soft sciences” must meet the standard set in the Daubert case.36 Daubert, in which the court re-examined the standard it had earlier articulated in the Frye37 case, requires application of a multi-factor test, including peer review, publication, testability, rate of error, and general acceptance. PAS does not pass this test. Any testimony that a party to a custody case suffers from the syndrome or “parental alienation” should therefore be ruled inadmissible and stricken from the evaluation report under both the standard established in Daubert and the earlier Frye standard.38

The discredited “diagnosis” of PAS (or an allegation of “parental alienation”), quite apart from its scientific invalidity, inappropriately asks the court to assume that the child’s behaviors and attitudes toward the parent who claims to be “alienated” have no grounding in reality. It also diverts attention away from the behaviors of the abusive parent, who may have directly influenced the child’s responses by acting in violent, disrespectful, intimidating, humiliating, or discrediting ways toward the child or the other parent. The task for the court is to distinguish between situations in which the child is critical of one parent because they have been inappropriately manipulated by the other (taking care not to rely solely on subtle indications) , and situations in which the child has his or her own legitimate grounds for criticism or fear of a parent, which will likely be the case when that parent has perpetrated domestic violence. Those grounds do not become less legitimate because the abused parent shares them, and seeks to advocate for the child by voicing his or her concerns.

Perverted Justice

2010-03-11T14:44:00.000-08:00

Well, well. Imagine that, a lawyer breaking the law. A lawyer that specializes in divorce and child custody...his child-porno-free blog is still running. From the Indianapolis Star:

An Anderson attorney remained in federal custody Wednesday after authorities say he distributed child pornography.

Samuel C. Hasler, 50, was arrested Tuesday at his law office, 1109 Meridian Plaza, Anderson, on two counts of distributing and one count of possessing child pornography, according to a statement from U.S. Attorney Timothy Morrison's office.

Hasler appeared late Tuesday afternoon for an initial hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Kennard P. Foster and remained in a holding facility in Indianapolis, the statement said.
Distributing child pornography carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; the possession charge carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence.

Authorities say Hasler distributed explicit images of children through the Internet to someone in another state on Dec. 3 and sent more images to an undercover police officer on Feb. 14. Authorities say they found child pornography on his computer when they searched his office on Tuesday.

Hasler was granted a law license in 1987 and has never been disciplined, according to the Indiana Supreme Court.

UPDATE (6/11/10): Sam submitted his resignation to the Indiana Bar, effectively making punishment by the Indiana Supreme Court "moot." Read the published order here. Word is he's still sitting in jail awaiting hearing...

And This Kind of Behavior is Surprising? Come to Indiana...

2010-03-07T09:38:00.000-08:00

Gee, sounds like Paterson would be welcome in Indiana. This is the typical MO for courts and government agencies here...sweep violence against women under the rug.

The Worst Governor for Women

by Linda Hirshman, The Daily Beast

It’s hard enough for domestic-violence victims to speak up in the best of circumstances. That’s what makes the allegations against Gov. Paterson so profoundly disturbing.

Reviewing the scandal-plagued record of the nation’s governors Thursday morning, The New York Times suggested that part of the problem might be that women are acting up. “Would the assault case bedeviling Mr. Paterson have surfaced or had the same throw weight three decades ago before women’s issues became as much a part of the conversation?” columnist Peter Applebome asks. The assault case bedeviling Paterson involves, in case you’ve been asleep for a week, him and his surrogates allegedly leaning on his chief aide’s ex-girlfriend to drop her request for a protective order against the governor’s man. The complainant, one Sherr-una Booker, says the Paterson aide David Johnson choked her, threw her against a mirror, and tried to rip her Halloween costume off. (Paterson says there’s more to the story, which actually involves people who worked for him, not him.)

People have nothing if they cannot protect themselves from physical assault. It is the foundation of every other freedom. And it is the first duty of government.

Blah, blah, blah: The conversation is the problem. Now 30 years after the women entered the “conversation,” getting the women who’ve had the shit beat out of them to actually do something about it is brutal. When the Rihanna/Chris Brown thing surfaced last year, I was one of the few women in the media willing to say that women, especially rich, childless women who could exit the situation have a responsibility to themselves to leave and take all available steps to protect themselves (and other women) from the abuser. The blogosphere exploded. How could I “blame” the victims for their abuse? How could I fail to understand how having your boyfriend hit you causes your brain to cease functioning like a normal organ, because abusers always taunt their victims to leave? I was no better than an abuser myself. A privileged and famous intellectual went public with the heart-rending story of how her Turkish boyfriend screaming at her caused her to lose her vaunted ability to think for several days before she finally found her way to the airport to come home. The self-described “blonde” and privileged Harvard graduate Leslie Morgan Steiner has written a tear-jerking memoir of the four years she spent being beaten regularly by her “blond” husband before neighbors rescued her by chance.

• Reihan Salam: What Paterson Got Right Defying all these stereotypes about women’s passivity in the face of domestic violence, Sherr-una Booker actually did it. A woman with a history of cancer, a young son, and what was apparently a long relationship with the abuser, called 911. When the criminal-justice system treated her choking injuries as too minor for their serious attention, she went to family court to get an order to protect her. The governor allegedly sent emissaries to discourage Booker from pursuing it, but she kept showing up in court, trying to get the order served, running the Kafkaesque obstacle course the court system puts before any domestic-violence victim. Faced with such stubbornness, witnesses say the governor was forced to call her himself, and she finally stopped coming to court.

Unless you have been in the trenches of the more than three decades-long movement to turn women into people, it is difficult to understand the damage the governor of the state of New York purportedly set out to do. People have nothing if they cannot protect themselves from physical assault. It is the foundation of every other freedom. And it is the first duty of government. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men.” Sound familiar? Women are smaller than men on the whole and vulnerable through their children. They have a devilish time securing their right to life themselves. If Harvard-educated blondes (and their defenders in the blogosphere) are hard-pressed to resist and call in their government to protect them, imagine how hard it was for Booker. And then the head of the government whose first duty it is to protect her calls her up to make her go away. (“Make it go away,” Paterson allegedly told ordered his staff.) Every day that he remains in office is a message to all the women in New York that Jefferson’s recitation of rights is, indeed, confined to “men.”

Perhaps because powerful men haven’t heard enough of the conversation yet, the New York state government recently provided its citizens with another opportunity to discuss women’s issues. In December 2008, former State Senator Hiram Monserrate, (D-Queens) allegedly slashed his girlfriend Katy Giraldo with a broken glass before incontrovertibly dragging her kicking and screaming to the car (videocameras, bless them) to take her to a hospital far from his district, where she told the hospital staff that he’d slashed her face. No Sherr-una Booker she, however; when the police came, Giraldo changed her mind about the alleged slashing. All a terrible accident, she said, a terrible 20-stitch blunder into a broken drinking glass. When Monserrate came to trial, the judge dismissed all but one count of misdemeanor assault (a.k.a. dragging while being videoed). Giraldo changed her story once dragged on the stand by a subpoena, saying the incident was all a mistake. The judge ruled there wasn’t sufficient evidence to convict the senator of the more serious felony counts. The state senate threw Monserrate out, but he’s running as an independent in the election to replace himself, so in a couple of weeks the Queens voters will be able to reelect him if they want to. With no story from the girlfriend, the Times reports, female constituents they interviewed have... doubt: “There’s a lot of talk about what he did and didn’t do, but if he’s fighting so hard to clear his name, it could be that what’s out there is wrong,” one of them said. Another, Marlene Berliner, said that she was still “very confused.”

Even if Governor Paterson resigns, then New Yorkers may still have the opportunity to be governed by someone who thinks it’s OK to hit a woman.

Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't

2010-02-26T16:33:00.000-08:00

If this Indiana mother would have left the violence with her children and reported the father for abuse before the little girl died, she would have lost her children. This is the typical action for abusers: he will go to court and gain custody of the children, claiming the children are afraid of him because of so-called “parental alienation syndrome.” Even with documented abuse, the courts will gladly hand children over to an abuser. The protective parent will be blamed for “alienating” the children, and will most likely be kept from ever seeing them again.

Or she could have stayed, so that the abuser could just kill the little girl. Either way she and the children lose.

From The South Bend Tribune (Indiana):

South Bend mother gets 30 years without parole in neglect case

Byers-Escobedo ordered to report immediately to prison

By ERIN BLASKO
Tribune Staff Writer

SOUTH BEND – A South Bend woman convicted of neglect in the death of her daughter is going to prison. Kristina Byers-Escobedo sobbed quietly this morning as sheriff’s deputies led her from the courtroom of Judge Jane Woodward Miller in handcuffs.

Miller sentenced Byers-Escobedo to 30 years executed, denying the 31-year-old an opportunity for parole. She also denied a request by Byers-Escobedo’s lawyer to allow his client one day to report in order to say goodbye to her young son. “I cannot and will not give you additional time to report,” Miller said, explaining Byers-Escobedo should have already prepared the child for the possibility she would be imprisoned.

In sentencing Byers-Escobedo, Miller admonished the mother for failing to protect her daughter, 2-year-old Maya Escobedo, from the child’s father, Valentin Escobedo, who has been charged with murder in the child’s death.

“You told us you were protecting your family,” Miller said, referring to Byers-Escobedo’s explanation of why she ignored signs of abuse by Valentin Escobedo. “… I don’t know what you were protecting. I know what you were not protecting. You were not protecting the one person who was too young and too vulnerable to protect herself.”

During the trial, the prosecution presented evidence establishing a history of abuse by Valentin Escobedo against Maya, including multiple broken bones. The child died in December 2008 after suffering a skull fracture.

Asked afterward about the judge’s decision, prosecutor Ken Cotter said he trusted Miller’s judgment, adding, “Nobody is happy with what happened here. It’s just awful.”

Byers-Escobedo’s parents attended the hearing, but declined to comment afterward.

Byers-Escobedo was convicted of Class A felony neglect in January following a four-day trial. According to her lawyer, she plans to appeal the conviction.

Family Courts Implicated in Infant's Murders

2010-02-13T16:21:00.000-08:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 10, 2010

Contacts: Rita Smith, NCADV 303-839-1852 ext. 105

Kathleen Russell, CJE 415-250-1180

Family Courts Implicated in Infants’ Murders

Two Young Boys Killed by Two Divorcing Dads in Past 10 Days

Points to Massive System Failure

SAN RAFAEL- National and local advocacy groups are expressing outrage over what has become a disturbing national trend of divorcing Dads killing their children and themselves.

8-month-old baby Bekm was shot and killed by his father, Nicholas Bacon, in Meridian, Idaho just 48 hours ago, while 9-month-old baby Wyatt was killed by his father Stephen Garcia just ten days ago in San Bernardino County. Details are still emerging about the tragic Idaho murder-suicide of baby Bekm on Monday night.

In the Garcia case, three different judges refused multiple requests by the child’s mother for restraining orders to protect her child, despite police reports and documented death threats by the father in text messages and on Facebook.

“The system failed Wyatt Garcia and Katie Tagle,’’ said California Assemblymember Jim Beall, Jr., the lead sponsor of Assembly Bill 612, which aims to prevent the use of non-scientific theories in California family courts. “Wyatt’s tragic death was completely avoidable.”

http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/

Numerous sources report a significant spike in murder suicides across the country by violent fathers who kill their children and themselves, frequently after mothers’ requests for protection of their children are denied by family court judges. In addition, the Leadership Council on Child Abuse & Interpersonal Violence estimates that more than 58,000 children per year in America are ordered by family courts into unsupervised contact with physically or sexually abusive parents following divorce.

“The time has come for us as a society to speak out and put a stop to this growing national body count. Across the country, women and children are being killed because of judges’ personal biases and junk science that tells them to disbelieve women’s legitimate claims and evidence of abuse,” said Rita Smith, the Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

According to court transcripts and eyewitness accounts, judges reacted with disbelief when mother Katie Tagle presented them with evidence of death threats against her son by the father.

Judge David Mazurek stated, “I get concerned when there’s a pending child custody and visitation issue and in between that, one party or the other claims that there’s some violence in between. It raises the court’s eyebrows because based on my experience, it’s a way for one party to try to gain an advantage over the other,” he said.

http://www.centerforjudicialexcellence.org/

“This attitude permeates the courts, that women are lying about the danger they are in,” said Kathleen Russell from the Center for Judicial Excellence. “This attitude causes judges to ignore tangible evidence of death threats and abuse. The abusers’ lobby has convinced judges that shared custody is always the answer, and sadly, this case points out how deadly that approach can be,” she said.

According to a family member who was in the courtroom when Ms. Tagle last sought protection for her son, the judge reportedly said, “One of you is lying, and I think it’s you,” while pointing at Katie. Transcripts from this hearing are not yet available.

The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the Center for Judicial Excellence are part of a growing national advocacy movement to educate the public as well as litigants, lawmakers, judges, and social service providers about the need for comprehensive family court reform. The Center for Judicial Excellence and their allies worked with California State Senator Mark Leno and others to pass an audit request through the state legislature last July. The California State Auditor is currently investigating the use of court appointees in family courts because of growing evidence that children are being harmed there. The California Legislature is slated to consider additional family court reform bills being presented by the Center and the California Protective Parents Association in the coming months.

“We must assess what’s happening in our family courts, and that’s why I’ve requested a state audit to take a hard look at the performance and effectiveness of the family court system,’’ said Assemblymember Beall.

The State Auditor’s report about the California Family Courts has an expected release date of June 2010.

***************

http://www.ncadv.org/

NCADV – The Mission of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) is to organize for collective power by advancing transformative work, thinking and leadership of communities and individuals working to end the violence in our lives.

http://www.centerforjudicialexcellence.org/

CJE – The Center for Judicial Excellence (CJE) was established to improve the judiciary’s public accountability and strengthen and maintain the integrity of the courts. CJE has made a special commitment to protect the rights of children and other vulnerable populations in the courts.

KATHLEEN RUSSELL | KATHLEEN RUSSELL CONSULTING

1346 4th Street | San Rafael, CA | 94901

Main 415.459.9211 | Fax 415.459.9210

Telling Stories, Moving Mountains

www.kathleenrussell.com

A CERTIFIED BAY AREA GREEN BUSINESS

Mothers are Already Walking Wombs in Indiana, Now the Legislature Wants to Control Our Wombs Too

2010-01-27T10:04:00.000-08:00

OMG! The judges and Family Courts of Indiana have already turned mothers into walking wombs, having children for the taking when a father wants total control of them (which judges gladly oblige here, handing them over to abusive fathers is their specialty). Now the Indiana Legislature wants control of the wombs too! Heil Hitler!

Planned Parenthood of Indiana (PPIN) and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Indiana (PPAI) have been hard at work since January 5 monitoring the 2010 Indiana General Assembly session. Unfortunately, Friday, on the 37th anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, the Indiana House of Representatives scheduled a hearing on a bill, House Bill 1366, that would overly regulate women's reproductive health care options.

HB 1366, titled "Informed consent for a hysterectomy" (Authors: Rep. Borders, Klinker, Dodge and Messmer), would require doctors to provide to their patients, both verbally and in writing, a litany of information prescribed by legislators. The woman must sign a written statement that "she read and understood" the legislator-prescribed information before the surgery is performed. It would also require the Office of Women's Health to adopt certain rules concerning consent procedures and medical reasons for hysterectomies - thereby dictating whether and when a woman should or should not obtain a hysterectomy. Where have we heard this all before??

PPIN and PPAI will continue to track the progress of HB 1366 - which is scheduled to be heard in front of the Indiana House Public Health Committee Monday, January 25, at 10:30 a.m. in the House Chambers. We encourage you to attend the hearing and speak up on behalf of women's reproductive rights.

Or, simply contact the members of the Public Health Committee. Thank them for their dedicated service and express your concerns regarding HB 1366. For a complete list of all the members of the Public Health committee click here. To look-up your legislator, click here.

We are also monitoring more than 60 additional bills that may enhance or endanger reproductive health, including bills on sexting, health care reform and insurance issues. Please visit our website, www.advocates.ppin.org , for more information on these bills and to find out more about what we do to protect reproductive health care in Indiana.

Each election you have the ability to decide who will represent your best interests - make sure you are registered to vote.

Want to help monitor the activity of these bills, as well as many others, from the comfort of your home? Visit Indiana's legislative website and e-mail us for volunteer and capitol activist opportunities!

Visit the web address below to tell your friends about this.
Tell-a-friend!

If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for Planned Parenthood Action Network of Indiana.

Not Just Indiana But Everywhere: Child Custody Crisis

2010-01-19T16:02:00.000-08:00

Sound like these cases could be in Indiana...it seems to be the standard operating procedure here now. Take children from mothers and give them to abusers who have been beating the mom and/or children and/or raping the children. From Mom Logic:

Custody Crisis: Why Moms Are Punished in Court

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

filed under: divorce logic

Talk to mothers, divorce lawyers, and child advocates and you'll hear tales of a family court system that's badly broken.

Gina Kaysen Fernandes: To an outsider, Linda Marie Sacks had the perfect life. Her husband was rich, and they lived in a huge home in Daytona Beach, FL, where she spent her days shuttling her girls to school and various activities. Linda Marie describes herself as a "squeaky clean soccer mom" who "lived my life for my children." Behind that façade, Linda Marie says she married a monster -- a man who verbally and emotionally attacked her for years and sexually abused their two young daughters.

When she finally left him and tried to take her girls with her, she encountered a new monster -- family court. Rather than protecting Linda Marie and her two young daughters from a sexual predator, a family court judge denied Linda Marie custody and put her daughters into the hands of their sexually abusive father.

Talk to mothers, divorce lawyers, and child advocates and you'll hear tales of a family court system that's badly broken. It's one that routinely punishes women for coming forward with allegations of abuse by denying them custody of their children. Instead of protecting children from abusers and predators, the court often gives sole custody to the abusive parent, say child advocates. Mothers who tell judges their children are being molested or beaten are accused of lying and are punished for trying to intervene. Some are thrown in jail for trying to keep their kids from seeing an abusive parent. Women, many of whom have few financial resources at their disposal, are often at the mercy of a court system that is not designed to handle domestic violence.

Linda Marie first suspected something was wrong in 2002 when she received a shocking phone call from a school administrator. Her 7-year-old daughter was acting out sexually, with knowledge beyond her years. A short time later, the Sunday school teacher reported overhearing Linda Marie's daughter saying, "I suck my dad's penis." She received more phone calls from school about her little girl using Barbie dolls to simulate oral sex with a boy in her class. "I was very concerned, these are alarming red flags," said Linda Marie.

She consulted family therapists who also expressed alarm and concern, but failed to report these claims to an abuse hotline. In one of the therapy sessions, the oldest daughter drew a picture that depicted her father as an erect penis on legs. Linda Marie says she once walked in on her husband wiping her daughters' vaginas in the bathroom before school, "because he told me he wanted them to be fresh." When Linda Marie confronted her husband, he ignored and dismissed the allegations.

After 11 years of marriage, Linda Marie filed for divorce in 2004. Armed with detailed documentation, she believed the judge would grant her sole custody of her two daughters for their protection. "I was sheltered. I didn't know I had stepped into a national crisis in the courts," said Linda Marie, who spent tens of thousands of dollars in a legal battle that ended in the loss of her parental rights. Linda Marie has only seen her children during supervised visits for a total of 54 hours over the past two and a half years. "I'm one of the lucky moms," she said, choking back tears. "Some bonds are severed forever. I'm thankful for my two hours a month."

Some mothers like Lorraine Tipton of Oconto Falls, WI, have served jail time as the result of contentious custody arraignments. In November, a judge sentenced Lorraine to 30 days behind bars because she didn't force her 11-year-old daughter to follow the court's order to live every other week with her abusive father. "She's terrified of going; she has night terrors and severe anxiety," said Lorraine.

Her ex, Craig Hensberger, was arrested three times for domestic violence and once for child abuse. His criminal record also includes two DUI arrests, one of which happened while driving with his daughter. The court ordered Hensberger into rehab and demanded "absolute sobriety," but his daughter claims he still drinks excessively when she visits.

Hensberger admitted in court that he still continues to drink, but the judge punished Lorraine instead for trying to protect her child. "My abuser is continuing his abuse of me and my daughter with the help of the court," said Lorraine, who spent three days locked up until her daughter made the heart-wrenching decision to return to her father's home so her mother could be released from jail. "He can't get to me physically. The only way he knows how to hurt me is to take my child away."

"What we are seeing amounts to a civil rights crisis," says attorney and legal writer Michael Lesher, who co-authored the book From Madness To Mutiny: Why Mothers Are Running from the Family Courts -- and What Can Be Done about It. Many judges and court-appointed guardians act above the law with apparent impunity, he argues.

"There's no hearing, no evidence, no notice -- they can take your child away from you," Lesher tells momlogic. If a mother raises concerns or openly discusses child abuse in court, she typically ends up being the one under investigation. "Mom is guilty until proven innocent," he says.

A family court judge with the Los Angeles Superior Court refused momlogic's request for an interview to respond to these allegations.

Unlike criminal court, family court does not rely on criminal investigators to gather evidence in an alleged child abuse case. Instead, the court appoints family advocates known as "guardian ad litem," or GAL, who are expected to investigate the abuse allegations and make their recommendation in the best interest of the child. GALs are sometimes licensed psychologists, social workers, or attorneys who are not necessarily trained in evaluating sexual abuse or domestic violence. They have the judge's ear, and their opinions can alter a child's future. There are no juries and there's no mandate for legal representation. In fact, most women end up representing themselves because they can't afford the attorney fees.

Most moms don't want to take the case to criminal court because they prefer to keep the matter private. Legal experts contend the evidence in sexual abuse cases isn't typically strong enough to hold up in criminal court to overcome the threshold of "beyond a reasonable doubt." While the bar is set much lower for proving evidence in family court, advocates argue Child Protective Services frequently doesn't want to get involved. "If there's a custody battle going on, CPS won't touch it," says Irene Weiser of the advocacy group StopFamilyViolence.org.

There's no doubt fathers play a critical role in a child's life, and in most cases, are equally loving and capable parents who deserve custody. However, studies find when a wife accuses her husband of abuse, more than half the time, she faces a counter-accusation of "parental alienation syndrome," or PAS. Although PAS is not a medically recognized disorder, divorce attorneys often successfully argue that it emerges when a parent brainwashes a child into thinking the other parent is the enemy.

The psychiatrist Richard Gardner, who first coined the phrase "parental alienation syndrome" in 1987, has written more than one hundred articles on the subject, but has offered no scientific data to support his theory. While it's not considered a certifiable medical condition, PAS is widely accepted in the legal community.

"Parental Alienation unequivocally, categorically exists, and it's a form of child abuse," says author and forensic consultant Dean Tong. While he believes more studies need to be done to validate PAS, "it does exist, anecdotally speaking," he says. As an expert witness, Tong has been called a "fathers' rights prostitute" for his work in court clashes. But he also testifies for mothers who are fighting to appeal unfavorable rulings. For Tong, it's about using forensics to find the truth. "I'm not here to protect guys who are guilty," he says.

In years past, mothers were typically considered the "protective parent" in custody decisions when courts relied on the "Tender Years Doctrine," which states that children under the age of 13 should live with their mothers. Recently, several courts have ruled that doctrine violated the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th amendment, and replaced it with the "Best Interests of the Children" doctrine. It's a huge victory for the increasingly powerful Fatherhood Movement that contends dads are systematically alienated from their children after a divorce.

Tong argues the current legal climate continues to put fathers on the receiving end of false allegations. "It's handcuffs first, speak later," said Tong, who experienced that firsthand. In 1985, Tong's ex-wife falsely accused him of sexually abusing his 3-year-old daughter. He spent time in jail and went through "a year of hell" trying to prove his innocence. While Tong was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing, he never regained custody of his kids, and remained under supervised visitation for years. Tong became a self-taught expert on the subject of family rights and abuse accusations. He has written three books, including Elusive Innocence: Survival Guide for the Falsely Accused.

"There's an assumption that maintaining a child's relationship with the father is a good idea -- even if the father is abusive," says Stop Family Violence's Weiser, who believes when the overburdened court system is unable to sort out a custody conflict, it relies on misogyny. She argues there are many judges, GALs, and evaluators who believe that women are inherently vindictive and will lie to get a leg up in a custody battle. "We see it over and over again in family court, where judges or professionals don't believe the violence is occurring," Weiser says.

"All we have is 'he said, she said.' Who's telling the truth? That's up to the judge," says Tong, who believes the justice system isn't working for either side. "The system is not doing a good job interviewing kids, we're still in the dark ages there," says Tong, who thinks there needs to be more formal education and training for the professionals, including judges who are hearing child custody cases.

According to the American Bar Association, child abuse allegations in custody disputes are rare -- occurring in only six percent of cases. The majority of those accusations are substantiated. In terms of false allegations, fathers are more likely than mothers to intentionally lie (21 percent, compared to 1.3 percent). In fact, abusive parents are more likely to seek sole custody than nonviolent ones, and are successful about 70 percent of the time.

After three years of litigation, Linda Marie Sacks says she was no match for her ex-husband's financial resources and powerful connections. "He was buying his way through the courtroom." Despite 10 calls into the abuse hotline by licensed professionals, Linda Marie's ex-husband still claimed she was making false allegations of abuse to alienate his children, and the judge believed him. Linda Marie was kicked out of her home and put on supervised visitation with her two daughters, who are now ages 10 and 12. "The judge legally kidnapped my daughters and won't give them back," she said.

In some extreme cases, a custody decision will be reversed, which is what happened to Joyce Murphy. The San Diego mother was charged with kidnapping after she took her daughter out of state, away from the girl's father, because she believed he was a child molester. The father, Henry Parson, accused Joyce of parental alienation and she lost custody. "Despite my pleas for protection to the police and the DA and the family court representatives, and even psychologists, Mr. Parson was able to convince them and the community at large that he was the victim, and I was just an angry, embittered, divorced woman," explained Joyce.

Six years later, Parson was caught in the act and pleaded guilty to six counts of child abuse, which included oral sex with a child, molestation, possessing child porn, and using a child to make porn. After Parson received a six-year prison sentence, Joyce told reporters that family court's only good decision in her case was granting her full permanent custody of her daughter after her ex-husband was jailed.

Lorraine, the Wisconsin mom who was jailed for protecting her daughter, knows her daughter's nightmare will continue for the rest of her childhood. "He's never going to stop, it's never going to end until she's 18." Linda Marie says she's putting every penny towards her legal efforts to win back custody of her daughters. "I will never stop fighting for my girls. I know one day justice will prevail."

Critics argue that not only is the family court system broken, it was never designed to deal with issues like child custody. The goal is to develop solutions that are in the best interest of the child. "Unfortunately when judges and guardians start thinking of themselves as super government, all sorts of abuses will occur," says attorney and author Lesher.

Activists are working towards making reforms through legislation. "The heartbreaking challenge is that there's not one quick fix," says Stop Family Violence's Weiser. "This is a war -- it's very ugly, it's bloody, and very bitter," concludes Tong.

Civil Legal Aid Groups Soon to Receive Funds from the Indiana Supreme Court

2009-12-24T11:36:00.000-08:00

The Indiana Supreme Court has money going to agencies that can provide legal help for your child custody situation, if you cannot afford a lawyer. Visit the agencies listed in their press release below and seek help to fix what the courts did to you in the first place. Good luck...

	FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 23, 2009	Contact: Kathryn Dolan 317.234.4722
	INDIANA SUPREME COURT PROVIDES $750,000 IN FUNDING TO CIVIL LEGAL AID GROUPS IN JANUARY 2010

In January 2010, agencies that provide low income Hoosiers with civil legal services will receive funding from the Indiana Supreme Court. The Indiana General Assembly appropriates the funding for the Civil Legal Aid Fund and the Indiana Supreme Court awards the grant money to qualified agencies across the state.

Civil cases involve a conflict between people or business, such as foreclosure or divorce. In criminal cases, the government brings a charge against a person accused of a crime and an attorney is provided at state expense if the defendant cannot afford one. The Supreme Court is committed to ensuring that individuals involved in civil matters also have access to attorneys. The Supreme Court will provide $1.5 million to civil legal aid groups in 2010. The first installment, totaling $750,000, will be provided in January 2010 to the following eleven agencies.

Legal Aid - District Eleven
$8,369.19

Community Organizations Legal Assistance Program
$24,675.72

Elkhart Legal Aid Service, Inc.
$12,344.39

Indiana Legal Services, Inc.
$479,012.74

Indianapolis Legal Aid Society, Inc.
$46,126.50

Law School Legal Service, Inc.
$24,675.72

Legal Aid Corporation of Tippecanoe County
$5,020.32

Legal Aid Society of Evansville, Inc.
$13,650.05

Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic
$80,315.63

Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Inc.
$24,675.72

Volunteer Lawyer Program of Northeast Indiana, Inc.
$31,134.02

TOTAL: $750,000.00

To qualify for Indiana Supreme Court Civil Legal Aid funding, an agency must be an Indiana non-profit that provides civil legal aid services to the poor without charge. The above agencies across the state meet those specifications.

In a separate effort to help civil legal aid, the Court also recently agreed to provide funding to the Indiana Bar Foundation’s Justice Givan Loan Repayment Assistance Program for Indiana or LRAP-IN. That program is designed to help civil legal aid attorneys with lower incomes and often high educational debt to repay student loans. The Court will provide up to $200,000 to LRAP-IN to help Indiana civil legal aid groups recruit and retain qualified attorneys.

Both efforts are designed to help provide legal service programs for the poor. For more information about the Indiana Supreme Court and the Civil Legal Aid Fund, visit courts.in.gov.

Madison County Judge FINALLY Gets Fired after Being Punished THREE TIMES Previously By Indiana Judicial Commission

2009-10-06T15:27:00.000-07:00

"Spencer had been disciplined by the commission three times in prior cases that resulted in a 30-day suspension without pay, a public reprimand and a public admonition."

Pretty pathetic. Disciplined THREE TIMES. (How many times was Danielle Gregory punished before she was fired?)...is there special protection for corrupt male judges over corrupt female judges in Indiana? Why are any of them around (including those on the Hall of Shame)...disregard for the law should be a one-way ticket off the bench. After all, most of these corrupt judges take children from mothers and give them to abusers, to the detriment of our children.

From WRTV-6:

Judge Resigns Amid Investigation Into Murder Case

Disciplinary Investigation Dropped

MADISON COUNTY, Ind. -- A Madison County judge will resign amid an investigation into his handling of a murder case.Circuit Court Judge Fredrick Spencer, 71, was the subject of a probe by the Judicial Qualifications Commission regarding the case of State v. Ward, 6News' Derrik Thomas reported.

Spencer had been disciplined by the commission three times in prior cases that resulted in a 30-day suspension without pay, a public reprimand and a public admonition.

His resignation will halt the current investigation."For his actions related to a murder case, Judge Spencer has tendered his resignation to the Judicial Qualifications Commission. In light of his resignation, the commission is no longer investigating the case," said Indiana Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathryn Dolan.

Former Madison County Prosecutor Rodney Cummings tried more than 30 cases in front of Spencer. While he had many public disagreements with the judge, he said he wished him well."Careers come to an end. I hope for Judge Spencer's sake, it is a happy day for him," he said. "I hope, even though there have been issues that have drawn media attention, I hope it doesn't get overshadowed by some of the other things that he did."

Friday will be the final day of Spencer's 26-year career as a judge.The Indiana Supreme Court will appoint a temporary judge to fill his position. His successor will be appointed by Gov. Mitch Daniels.

Another Crooked Marion County Judge Caught: Adios Muchacha!

2009-09-21T20:09:00.000-07:00

From WTHR:

Judge loses job over texting during hearings

Updated: Sep 21, 2009 5:08 PM EDT

Sandra Chapman/13 Investigates

Indianapolis - Teens are warned every day not to text anything inappropriate, and definitely not while behind the wheel or in the classroom.

But it's a message that escaped a Marion County Juvenile Magistrate. She was fired for texting violations while hearing cases.

Most assume unrestrained texting is a juvenile problem. At the Marion County Juvenile Court, where camera phones are banned, it isn't just troubled teens with busy fingers but a magistrate caught breaking the rules.

According to a court disciplinary record obtained by 13 Investigates, Magistrate Danielle Gregory engaged in inappropriate conduct, texting a married male employee in the middle of more than one juvenile hearing.

Outside the court, visitors couldn't believe it.

"Really?" questioned one mom while another man chimed in, "That's crazy."

Ashley Wingler, who was told she couldn't bring in a cell phone because it would interrupt proceedings, found it just as troubling. "The judge should be more interested in the hearing instead of texting on the phone," she said.

In fact, Gregory's supervisor writes in the disciplinary record that "Multiple text messages were sent from [Gregory's] cell phone number to [the male employee's] cell phone during court hours including times [she] was on the bench conducting court sessions."

"Text messages were sent from your phone...on August 7th during a court session...and the messages included sending three pictures of yourself," the report read.

"That's inappropriate. You on your phone and texting, sending pictures while you're having court, that's inappropriate," said Robert Lasley as he awaited a hearing Monday afternoon.

Within less than an hour outside the facility at 2451 North Keystone Avenue, nearly a dozen parents were turned away from the juvenile court because of camera phones. But it might surprise some to learn that the Marion Superior Court does not have a policy against texting from the bench.

Instead, Gregory was terminated for violating court policies, including: "committing any act while off duty that would discredit the Court," and for "immoral, unprofessional, or disruptive behavior while on duty."

According to the disciplinary report, the male employee on the receiving end was assigned to mentor families in the court.

Indiana Supreme Court Spokeswoman Kathryn Dolan told 13 Investigates, "Behavior for judicial officers, including judges and magistrates, is guided by the Indiana Code of Judicial Conduct. And while the code does not specifically deal with new media, it does provide specific and detailed information on how judicial officers are required to behave."

"She should have been fired, you know. Definitely shouldn't have been doing that. Especially being a judge...she should have definitely known better," said Jim, the father of an incarcerated teen being held at the center, agreeing with the decision to fire Gregory.

"I think that's terrible," added Tavia Norman, in disbelief. "Of course I would want them paying attention to what's going on. Shouldn't no judge or nobody should be texting on the cell phones," she said.

Attention Indiana Judges and Lawyers: Ethics Counseling Available For You

2009-09-05T07:05:00.000-07:00

Hey Indiana Judges and Lawyers, Look Here at This

A lot of you have a problem with ethics and ethical decisions. Well, on the Indiana Bar Association, I found this that may help you all:

Ethics counseling for lawyers & judges available by phone

The telephone advisory panel of the ISBA Legal Ethics Committee has fielded hundreds of calls from attorneys since establishment of the panel more than 10 years ago. This little-known service was made available to lawyers and judges by the Association to provide a "hotline" for obtaining ethical counseling for members who have, or believe they have, an ethical dilemma, and who typically do not have the time to await a formal opinion by the full committee. Or, more often, the caller has preliminarily decided upon a course of conduct that is thought to conform to the Rules of Professional Conduct, but needs to discuss that course with a committee member for reassurance.

The dedicated members of the advisory panel welcome such calls, provided the caller first has carefully reviewed the seemingly implicated rule or rules and any cases that appear in the annotations to such rule, and has been unable to arrive at a comfortable solution to the dilemma.To obtain counseling on a matter of legal ethics, click here for a roster of the telephone advisory panel. (The panel will not respond to inquiries by nonmembers of the Association.)

In responding to a call, the advisory panel member likely will not provide an opinion, authority for which is reserved to the committee as a whole. Rather, the advisor will discuss with the inquirer the effect of particular rules upon the proposed conduct, and perhaps make a recommendation as to how to avoid a particular ethical pitfall.

SO, PLEASE USE THIS SERVICE BEFORE DESTROYING ANYMORE FAMILIES IN INDIANA

Evan Bayh is Not His Father's Son

2009-08-30T11:20:00.000-07:00

I heard this comment in a meeting yesterday, and how true it is. Evan Bayh just is not his father's son.

In Birch Bayh's eyes, women should be given the same chances that men have. Women deserved equality and this was evident in his legislation.

'Father' Of Title IX Honored

By Richard Veilleux

Former U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh of Indiana, considered the "father" of Title IX, the landmark federal legislation created more than 30 years ago that greatly expanded educational and athletics opportunities for girls and women, was honored during half-time of the women's basketball game between UConn and Rutgers on Martin Luther King Day.

Former U.S. Senator
Birch Bayh

"Thanks to Title IX, women have taken their rightful place in American education - as students, teachers, administrators, and athletes," said U.S. Sen. Christopher R. Dodd, in joining University President Philip Austin to present the award. "Sen. Bayh's leadership as original author of this legislation has directly impacted the millions of young women whose lives have been touched and bettered through equality in education, collegiate athletics, and opportunities for success in virtually every aspect of American life."

Although UConn began admitting women in 1893, many publicly funded universities did not admit women, and many women who did enter universities were discouraged from studying math, science, law, or medicine, before Title IX became law in 1972, Dodd said. Perhaps the most profound change came in the area of athletics, however; and participation by women in virtually every sport has boomed since passage of the act.

"Title IX represented a major advance not just for women, but for all Americans and for higher education," said University President Philip E. Austin. "I'm proud that UConn has a long and worthy tradition in making a university education accessible to women, and I'm especially proud of our efforts to encourage women to pursue their aspirations in fields in which they have been historically underrepresented.

"And of course, the success of our women's sports programs and what that means for all the people of Connecticut speaks for itself," Austin added.

Sen. Bayh also played a leadership role in many other areas and in framing two Constitutional amendments: the 26th Amendment, which lowered the legal voting age to 18, and the Equal Rights Amendment, a proposed Constitutional amendment guaranteeing equal rights to women, which has been ratified by 35 states, including Connecticut.

Bayh, who also served in the Indiana House of Representatives, represented Indiana in the U.S. Senate from 1963 to 1981.

But for Evan Bayh, this apple has fallen far from the tree...

Senator Bayh sent out this wonderful message for fathers on Father’s Day to the Hoosiers he represents. He missed sending out a message for mothers…tells you a lot, doesn’t it. He is up for re-election next year….Hoosiers mothers, are you paying attention?

Watch out for these bill just introduced:

S. 1309, introduced by Sen. Evan Bayh, (D-IN) and two co-sponsors.

H.R. 2979, introduced by Rep. Danny K. Davis (IL-7) and 27 co-sponsors.

President Obama told Senator Bayh last year he would sign the bill when he gets it.

The 2006 attempt at this bill (with U.S. Senator Barack Obama as one of the two co-sponsors) died:

The list below shows legislation in this and previous sessions of Congress that had the same title as this bill. Often bills are incorporated into other omnibus bills, and you may be able to track the status of provisions of this bill by looking for an omnibus bill below. Note that bills may have multiple titles.

109^th Congress: S. 3607: Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act Dead

This one needs to die too.

Is it fair for our government tax dollars to go help take children from mothers, to help fund a custody battle in court, help that is only available to fathers? These funds pay for dads to do this. All dads are not good (see Dastardly Dads) Why should we help abusers take children from their moms. The American Judge's Association knows this is a problem, why do you want to fund abusers to take custody of the children?

Yes, Evan, your dad took time to be with you. He didn't seek to take your mother out of your life though, did he? Yes, this apple has fallen very far from the tree.

Parental Alienation Syndrome: Just How Gullible Do They Think We Are?

2009-08-22T10:32:00.000-07:00

From RightsForMothers.com:

August 22, 2009
Parental Alienation Syndrome: How Gullible Are We?

Up for inclusion in the new DMS (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the most widely used psychiatric reference in the world) is the so-called “Parental Alienation Syndrome,” a syndrome invented by the pedophile-loving psychologist Dr. Richard Gardner, who committed suicide eventually. Also up for inclusion again is making women’s menstral cycles a pyschiatric syndrome.

Money-grubbing nutcase lawyers and/or psychologists (in some cases they have both degrees!) work to get these so-called syndromes included so they can use them as a basis for taking children from protective parents (and make more money). They use this twisted science as a basis for their claims…just how gullible do they think we all are? Apparently many judges are, and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges are trying to correct this: see Family Courts are Warned They Should Not Accept So-called “Parental Alienation Syndrome”.

Here is a good example of how gullible people can be when you start throwing out so-called “scientific claims”:

A student at Eagle Rock Junior High won first prize at the Greater Idaho Falls Science Fair, April 26. He was attempting to show how conditioned we have become to alarmists practicing junk science and spreading fear of everything in our environment. In his project he urged people to sign a petition demanding strict control or total elimination of the chemical “dihydrogen monoxide.”

And for plenty of good reasons, since:

1. it can cause excessive sweating and vomiting 2. it is a major component in acid rain 3. it can cause severe burns in its gaseous state 4. accidental inhalation can kill you 5. it contributes to erosion 6. it decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes 7. it has been found in tumors of terminal cancer patients

He asked 50 people if they supported a ban of the chemical.

Forty-three (43) said yes, six (6) were undecided, and only one (1) knew that the chemical was actually just plain old water.

The title of his prize winning project was, “How Gullible Are We?”

He feels the conclusion is obvious. http://www.snopes.com/science/dhmo.asp

Ending the Culture of Violence Against Women

2009-08-15T08:34:00.000-07:00

Will you judges and state legislators read this, PLEASE?

From The Huffington Post:

Ending The Culture of Violence Against Women: A Critical Healthcare Issue
RJ Eskow Consultant, Writer, Health Analyst

Posted: August 13, 2009 06:33 PM

I was walking down the street in Berkeley many years ago when I saw a man with a knife holding a woman by her hair. He would release her, hit her, then grab her again, using the knife to make sure she didn’t run. A small crowd was gathering around them.

“It’s okay,” he said to the onlookers. “She’s my girlfriend.”

That seemed to stop everybody in their tracks.

We never know how we’ll react in situations like these until they happen. I stepped forward, as I would have hoped I’d do, and told him to let her go. That seemed to break the spell, and several men came forward to stand beside me. “You don’t get it,” the attacker said in a whining voice. “You’re interfering. This is between us, it’s personal.” The police arrived in what seemed like seconds and persuaded him to surrender peacefully.

This story’s been on my mind lately. Last week a man shot up a room filled with women taking a gym class, killing three and wounding several more. Why? Because he couldn’t get a date. Murderer George Sodini was a devout follower of “seduction guru” R. Don Steele, a prime example of America’s culture of objectifying women.

“Who Is R. Don Steele?” asks his Web site, “Steel Balls.” (Pathetic …) It says he’s a dating expert and former Republican National Committee operative who has “a deep, abiding hatred for hypocrites, bureaucrats, poverty pimps and nearly all politicians.” But who is R. Don Steele, really? He’s a creep, a parasite, a sleazebag self-promoter who claims to specialize in teaching older men how to pick up much younger women.

He also must be lousy at his profession. For all his effort and investment in the “Steele” program, George Sodini never did get a date. The lonely, twisted man that fired that gun in the gym might — just might — have had a better life if he hadn’t tried to find that young babe R. Don Steele told him he could have, and had looked for someone appropriate to his age and lifestyle.

To be clear, Steele doesn’t advocate violence or anything close to it. But the culture of violence begins with the idea that women are objects — the younger and sexier the better — rather than fellow human beings with as rich an interior life as oneself. In a diseased mind, an object of manipulation can descend into an object of destructive impulses. Culture has a role to play in reversing the desensitization that comes with soulless sexual role-playing.

So when Chris Brown beat up Rihanna — viciously enough to draw blood — it was especially disappointing to see the rest of the hip-hop community act just like that crowd outside the restaurant in Berkeley. With the notable exception of Ghostface Killah, the typical reaction was like Ne-Yo’s: “”I won’t say who was responsible. I won’t pick no sides … I’m praying for the both of them.”

I like Ne-Yo’s musical and sartorial style. But why can’t he do something that takes real guts and admit that domestic violence is always wrong? Isn’t he brave enough? When one human being hurts another, that’s the one who’s responsible. Period. Full stop. Man up and do the right thing, Ne-Yo. It’s not too late.

Domestic violence is a health policy issue. It adds to the cost of medical care while harming the public’s health. Meaningful statistics are hard to come by — which of itself reflects society’s neglect of the topic — but I recently received a compilation of domestic violence statistics from DASH, the District Alliance for Safe Housing in Washington DC, where my daughter was a law clerk this summer.

In the District of Columbia alone, with less than 600,000 inhabitants, the Police Department received 31,215 “domestic-related crime calls.” That’s one call every nineteen minutes, as DASH notes. Most of these incidents (this site estimates 85-95%) involve violence against women.
The last meaningful federal survey took place in 2000, at the end of the Clinton administration. A Department of Justice survey on the “Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence” found that nearly 25% of surveyed women said they had been raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, partner, or date. That equates to roughly 4.8 million violent attacks against women annually in this country. And many women were the victim of repeat attacks (an average of 6.9 assaults by the same partner).

The study also found that “approximately one-fifth of all rapes, one-quarter of all physical assaults, and one-half of all stalkings” experienced by women will not be reported to the police. That makes DASH’s police figures even more staggering.

It’s curious how blind we become to our own culture. We can criticize tribal Muslim societies for their abuse of women, yet fail to see how ours sometimes does the same thing. What can we do? We can support organizations like DASH, which provides alternate housing for victims of domestic violence. We can press for public policies that address domestic violence. We can speak out against the culture of violence — a culture that’s strengthened every time a women is treated like an object. (I’m talking to you, Mr. “Steel Balls.”)

Oh, and as for the Berkeley attack — she didn’t know the guy. He had seen her through a restaurant window and had become obsessed with her. He just thought people would leave him alone if they believed it was a domestic dispute — and he was almost right.

The police officer who took my statement said they’d picked the man up before for similar crimes against women, but that he was always released with a warning. He said they’d contact me if it ever came to trial, but not to be surprised if I never heard from them again.

I never did.

Police: Man Bought Weapons To Carry Out Judge Killings

2009-08-01T12:54:00.000-07:00

From theindychannel.com:

DANVILLE, Ind. -- A man was arrested Thursday after he made threats to kill several people, including two Hendricks County judges, and had bought weapons to carry out that plan, police said. Hendricks County sheriff's Lt. Jim Yetter said Nicholas Suding, 38, of Danville, was angry about a protective order that had been issued against him by Superior Court Judge Stephanie Lemay-Luken. Suding's wife told police that he had purchased weapons and scouted areas from which to shoot.

Armed with a search warrant, police said they found several weapons in Suding's home, including rifles, handguns, a silencer, night vision and ammunition. Officers apprehended Suding as he returned home from work Thursday.

"Suding did admit to purchasing the weapons and making the threats," Yetter said in a news release. " The threats were made against two Hendricks County judges, a local attorney, his ex-wife and her parents, as well as his wife's ex-husband."

Suding was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and was held Friday at the Hendricks County Jail without bond. "We are not going to tolerate this type of behavior by anyone," said Hendricks County Sheriff Dave Galloway.

Suding was convicted of misdemeanor battery in Hendricks County in 2005.

Family Courts are Warned Against Use of So-called "Parental Alienation Syndrome"

2009-07-25T09:37:00.000-07:00

From Rights For Mothers:

Here is the new Judicial Guide to Child Safety in Custody Cases from the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges Family Violence Department. Again the fake, so-called "Parental Alienation Syndrome" and the use of "parental alienation" is warned against and the Council tells the courts they should not accept this BS.

The only entities that do believe in this fairy tale syndrome is father's rights groups who are fronted by abusive violent men and the Whores of the Court that sustain themselves by use of these false syndromes.

2009: A Judicial Guide to Child Safety in Custody Cases

National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges Family Violence Department

Page 12:

C. [§3.3] A Word of Caution about Parental Alienation34

Under relevant evidentiary standards, the court should not accept testimony regarding parental alienation syndrome, or “PAS.” The theory positing the existence of PAS has been discredited by the scientific community.35 In Kumho Tire v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137 (1999), the Supreme Court ruled that even expert testimony based in the “soft sciences” must meet the standard set in the Daubert case.36 Daubert, in which the court re-examined the standard it had earlier articulated in the Frye37 case, requires application of a multi-factor test, including peer review, publication, testability, rate of error, and general acceptance. PAS does not pass this test. Any testimony that a party to a custody case suffers from the syndrome or “parental alienation” should therefore be ruled inadmissible and stricken from the evaluation report under both the standard established in Daubert and the earlier Frye standard.38

The discredited “diagnosis” of PAS (or an allegation of “parental alienation”), quite apart from its scientific invalidity, inappropriately asks the court to assume that the child’s behaviors and attitudes toward the parent who claims to be “alienated” have no grounding in reality. It also diverts attention away from the behaviors of the abusive parent, who may have directly influenced the child’s responses by acting in violent, disrespectful, intimidating, humiliating, or discrediting ways toward the child or the other parent. The task for the court is to distinguish between situations in which the child is critical of one parent because they have been inappropriately manipulated by the other (taking care not to rely solely on subtle indications) , and situations in which the child has his or her own legitimate grounds for criticism or fear of a parent, which will likely be the case when that parent has perpetrated domestic violence. Those grounds do not become less legitimate because the abused parent shares them, and seeks to advocate for the child by voicing his or her concerns.

To read the entire report, "A Judicial Guide to Child Safety in Custody Cases (2009)" by National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges Family Violence Department, please click here. This report should be very useful to both moms and dads who are under attack by claims of PAS against them.

Tennessee Murder Suspect Tried to Take Custody of Children From Ex-Wife...Called Her "UNFIT"

2009-07-23T17:35:00.000-07:00

If it would have been in Indiana, he would have gotten away with it...court fee paid or not! From The Huntsville Times:

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 By Niki DoyleTimes Staff Writer niki.doyle@htimes.com

The man accused of killing six people, including his wife and her 16-year-old son, once tried to take custody of his two children away from his ex-wife by claiming she was an unfit mother.

According to court records from August 2008, 30-year-old Jacob Shaffer claimed his ex-wife, Elizabeth Shaffer, was "neglectful in the welfare and well-being" of the couple's two children, 9-year-old Arianna and 7-year-old Justin.

The case was promptly dismissed in December when Shaffer failed to pay the $382 in court costs, records show.

Shaffer has been charged with murder in Lincoln County, Tenn., in connection with the brutal slayings of his current wife, 38-year-old Tracie Shaffer, and the woman's father, brother and son, along with the son's friend and a Huntsville man.

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation officials said Shaffer spared his own 4-year-old daughter, who was in the home with his wife at the time of the killings. According to court records and family, Shaffer has at least three children - the two from his marriage to Elizabeth Shaffer, and the 4-year-old girl from his marriage to Tracie Shaffer.

Jacob Shaffer claimed less than a year ago that his oldest daughter thrived in his household, earning better grades and showing more involvement in Sunday school than when she lived with her mother.

Shaffer said his ex-wife had been living with her boyfriend and left the children in his sole custody for months, neglecting to pick them up at scheduled times, according to court records.

The claims went unanswered, and the case was closed in December after a Madison County judge denied Shaffer's request for a waiver of fees based on financial hardship.

The 2008 civil case was the second chapter of a custody battle between Shaffer and his ex, who sued him three years earlier for $7,375 in back child support for their two children.

Shaffer teetered on the brink of a 110-day jail sentence for failing to pay 80 child support payments since the couple's divorce in 2003. Shaffer put down a "large good-faith payment" after the civil court claim was filed, causing the judge to withdraw the order that could have sent him to jail.

Do Children Need This Type Of Father?

2009-07-05T12:32:00.000-07:00

Read about Holly Collins and her daughter Jennifer, who made this video, here.

Three Mothers Dead, Three Fathers Under Arrest

2009-06-28T11:43:00.000-07:00

From The Indianapolis Star:

3 domestic violence deaths prompt questions of what can be done

By Francesca Jarosz
Posted: June 28, 2009

For Angela Warnock, getting a protective order against her abusive husband was a huge step toward freedom. In the weeks after she obtained it May 27, her friends noted the typically soft-spoken woman was more open to talking about her problems.

But her fatal stabbing June 21 -- a few days before she was to move to Hawaii with her daughters -- highlights a grim reality: Protective orders can't save those whose abusers intend to kill. In cases such as Warnock's, experts say, preventing such a tragedy requires drastic steps.

"A protective order is just not enough. Going to a friend's house is not enough. You need a shelter," said Ann DeLaney, executive director of the Julian Center in Indianapolis.

Police say Warnock's husband, Joseph Warnock, entered her Brownsburg home on Father's Day and stabbed her multiple times. Their daughters, ages 8 and 12, were present. He has been charged with murder.

The death of Warnock, 38, a devoted mother and hairstylist whom friends remembered for her empathy and thoughtfulness, was the third domestic violence fatality in less than two months in the Indianapolis metro area.

In all three cases, the women recently had broken away from their husbands. Experts say this is a point at which victims are at the greatest risk, because abusers think they are losing control.

In May, four of Amenda Yang's children found the 43-year-old dead in her Lawrence home from blunt-force trauma to the head and strangulation. Her husband, Michael Yang, has been charged with murder and violating the protective order she had filed against him.

A month later, Beth Stayer, 34, was fatally beaten with a hammer and tire iron in her Whitestown home. Her ex-husband, Michael Stayer, faces charges in her death.

The number of protective orders filed in Marion County during the first six months of this year is up more than 15 percent, to 1,911, over the same period last year, when there were 1,649. Some experts say the increase can be explained by an uptick in domestic violence because of added stress brought on by the recession.

Nationwide, about 1,600 victims die from domestic violence each year, said Jacquelyn Campbell, a professor of nursing at Johns Hopkins University who authored a nationwide study of intimate partner femicide. At least 75 percent of those victims are women.

There have been 44 such homicides statewide, including 15 in Marion County, since July 1, 2008, according to the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence, which tracks the numbers by fiscal year.

Victims' advocates say protective orders serve as valuable tools that can keep violence from escalating. But their power is limited and depends on how well they are enforced.

Violators of protective orders typically would be charged with a misdemeanor, but in some cases, charges are not filed, said Maria Larrison, executive director at Sheltering Wings in Danville.

Another shortcoming, experts say, is that the system often fails to identify subjects of protective orders who are highly dangerous. That's something Campbell said could be done by evaluating domestic violence offenders or having victims complete a risk assessment.

Some who have protective orders realize their limitations. A domestic abuse victim, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she fears for her safety, said the protective order she received this month has helped encourage her abuser to stay away but hasn't alleviated her worries.

"I'll live in fear the rest of my life and hope to God that a protective order helps me," she said. "But if the law doesn't reinforce the protective order, it's not going to do any good."

On the day Angela Warnock was granted a temporary protective order, she called the Hendricks County Sheriff's Department to report that Joseph Warnock kept calling and harassing her, according to emergency dispatch records.

A month later, during a hearing to determine whether that protective order should be permanent, Warnock testified that the temporary order hadn't stopped her husband from stalking the family. He had called up to 18 times a day, and sent gifts and cards, text messages and flowers.

In the years before she got her protective order, Warnock was generally private about her husband's behavior but had confided that she was verbally abused, said Sally Shattuck, a massage therapist and Sheltering Wings volunteer who worked with Warnock at a Brownsburg salon.

Shattuck said she occasionally would suggest Warnock visit Sheltering Wings, but Warnock always insisted the abuse hadn't elevated to that level.

Advocates in the Indianapolis area are working to increase awareness about domestic violence in an attempt to prevent future tragedies.

A new state law goes into effect Wednesday, giving courts the authority to require a protective order violator to wear a GPS monitoring unit that also informs victims if their attacker is nearby.
Central Indiana's Domestic Violence Network is leading a three-year effort to improve educational efforts and strengthen the way domestic violence-related cases are handled by the criminal justice system, said Julie Marsh, the group's chief executive officer.

Marsh's group also is holding a rally Thursday to bring attention to the issue, and on July 13, Larrison will host a workshop in Brownsburg.

Warnock's friends, meanwhile, are asking themselves what could have been done to prevent the tragedy. Those questions remain unanswered.

"The questions come up, but we've all admitted we don't get it," Shattuck said. "You don't have any idea what goes on behind closed doors."

Message to Our Family Courts: Do Nothing and You Might as Well Be Lending a Hand

2009-06-16T17:12:00.000-07:00

A Society Illusively Fixated on Fatherhood

2009-05-09T09:22:00.000-07:00

Written by Randi James

This is in response to Hopes rise for progress on fatherhood woes.

President Obama is seen as key figure in campaign to promote responsible dads because he has been a target: a target of the idea of "Responsible Fatherhood" that originated in Illinois (and Indiana):

He is a past co-sponsor of an ambitious fatherhood bill that Democrats Sen. Evan Bayh of Indiana and Rep. Danny Davis of Illinois plan to reintroduce in conjunction with Father's Day. Many of its provisions are aimed at removing barriers that deter noncustodial fathers from providing financial support to their children.

These men are not well-intentioned. They could give a flying fuck about the needs of Black families, especially women and children. They illustrate Black matriarchal families as the epitome of all of societal ills, citing deceptive research that talks about father absence and sex, incarceration, education, self-esteem, etc. This is crafted in order to continue to subjugate White women...all women.

The "Responsible Fatherhood" money (Courtesy of the Administration of Children and Families ACF) is supposed to be used to help men improve themselves economically, for the betterment of their children. And many of us support this idea. However, when this money is being used to help fathers gain access to their children via joint custody and custody switching (from mothers), we must question the motives.

90FR0025
RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD: CLASSES WITH INCARCERATED FATHERS. CONCURRENT WORK WITH MOTHER/CARETAKER OF CHILD, TO LEARN RESPONSIBILITY
ACF
ACF
$441,387

How does decreasing or eliminating child support benefit children of poverty?

How does establishing or maintaining a relationship with a previously/currently violent father benefit children with emotional problems?

How does alternating custody benefit children with stability and attachment issues?
And much more...

The Black communities have a multiplicity of needs that stem from the intersection of the -isms. We are not well-served by simple notions, especially those that are held by people not vested in our best interests.

"No one objects to responsible fatherhood," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. "What we object to is the use of very limited welfare funds that are needed for the support of children being diverted into job training and other programs for fathers that are not available to the mothers."

Joshua DuBois, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, said Obama's record on women's rights should help ease any concerns over his interest in fatherhood.

"The president has been such a solid supporter of women's issues," DuBois said. "They know he's not going to do anything to compromise the position of women in their families, and that trust is key in the search for common ground."

Interesting. Notice the lack of the use of the word "mother." When does society talk about mothers, only on Mother's Day? Where in the Whitehouse.gov literature are mothers' issues addressed? This is very telling.

Apparently, women and mothers are indistinguishable--fathers and men are not. If President Obama really wanted to help families, he would establish policies that create stability for children in their current arrangements. Regulating the family through Fatherhood Initiatives is a joke, unless it involves re-framing the negative ideas that many men have about women, mothers, and caretaking.

Some like to speak about how Black men disrespect their own women in their music lyrics, video, and literature. However, these attitudes do not operate inside of a vacuum--they are reflective of society at large. This pitting Black men against Black women serves the agenda of men like Bayh and Leving. We know we have all this booty shaking and titties in the videos, we're addressing it. But who's doing something about all of these homicides and familicides, mostly committed by White men?

It is our greatest hope that President Obama is as intelligent as we thought he was when we voted for him. Not all of us want a dog, a two parent male/female household, and a white picket fence. Fatherhood can't even exist, without Motherhood.

List of Award Numbers, Award Title, OPDIV, Program Officen, and finally Sum of Actions (our tax $$$):

90FR0093
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 450,000
90FR0093
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
OFA
$ 225,000
90FR0082
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD- PRIORITY AREA #3
ACF
ACF
$ 450,000
90FR0082
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD- PRIORITY AREA #3
ACF
OFA
$ 225,000
90FR0079
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 499,104
90FR0079
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
OFA
$ 249,552
90FR0060
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 449,416
90FR0060
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
OFA
$ 223,808
90FR0031
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 2,000,000
90FR0031
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
OFA
$ 1,000,000
90FR0104
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 474,640
90FR0010
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 652,110
90FR0008
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD, PRIORITY AREA 3
ACF
ACF
$ 500,000
90FR0007
F&CS PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD PROJECT
ACF
ACF
$ 460,000
90FR0004
HEALTHY MARRIAGE AND RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD PROJECT
ACF
ACF
$ 956,109
90FR0103
HSI RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD LEVEL 1 - A COORDINATED EFFORT TO RECRUIT AND ENROLL FATHERS AND EDUCATE THE COMMUNITY ABOUT
ACF
ACF
$ 1,500,000
90FR0101
IDOC APPLICATION FOR THE PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD GRANT FOR THE PREP PROGRAM
ACF
ACF
$ 798,740
90FR0098
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD COMMUNITY ACCESS PROGRAM
ACF
ACF
$ 1,900,000
90FR0097
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 922,924
90FR0095
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 950,000
90FR0094
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 440,184
90FR0092
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 694,061
90FR0091
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 1,450,442
90FR0088
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD, COMMUNITY ACCESS PROGRAM
ACF
ACF
$ 2,000,000
90FR0086
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD COMMUNITY ACCESS PROGRAM
ACF
ACF
$ 1,998,000
90FR0085
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD COMMUNITY ACCESS PROGRAM
ACF
ACF
$ 4,000,000
90FR0084
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 1,000,000
90FR0081
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 407,588
90FR0080
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 462,500
90FR0077
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 561,660
90FR0075
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 452,000
90FR0073
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 870,000
90FR0072
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 500,000
90FR0070
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 388,998
90FR0069
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 486,488
90FR0068
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 975,000
90FR0067
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 1,000,000
90FR0066
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 738,664
90FR0064
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 310,000
90FR0063
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 450,000
90FR0062
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 464,203
90FR0059
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 852,000
90FR0058
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 500,000
90FR0057
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 436,671
90FR0056
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD, PRIORITY AREA 3
ACF
ACF
$ 465,533
90FR0055
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 400,000
90FR0053
POMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 500,000
90FR0052
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 350,000
90FR0050
PROMORING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 847,712
90FR0049
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 1,000,000
90FR0045
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 462,000
90FR0044
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 824,000
90FR0043
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 463,999
90FR0042
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 1,410,000
90FR0040
PROMOTING RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD
ACF
ACF
$ 500,000
For more info on fatherhood drivel, see: this, and click on some of the posts categorized below.

Dr. Richard Gardner: "Sex with Children is Not a Bad Thing"

2009-04-25T09:54:00.000-07:00

In 1985, "Paretnal Alienation Syndrome," or PAS for short, was first described by Richard Gardner, a psychiatrist who wrote that adults having sex with children is not a bad thing. Gardner described PAS as a “syndrome” whereby vengeful mothers employed child abuse allegations as a powerful weapon to punish ex-husbands and ensure custody to themselves. He further theorized that such protective parents enlisted the children in their “campaign of denigration” and “vilification” of the abuser, that they often “brainwashed” or “programmed” the children into believing untrue claims of abuse by the father, and that the children then fabricated and contributed their own stories.

Since 1985, abusers have come to convince family courts to ignore children’s allegations of abuse by invoking parental alienation and Parental Alienation Syndrome. They wrongly claim that mothers are to blame because they are brainwashing their children.

2006 – The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges also discredited the theory. It stated:

The discredited “diagnosis” of “PAS” (or allegation of “parental alienation”), quite apart from its scientific invalidity, inappropriately asks the court to assume that the children’s behaviors and attitudes toward the parent who claims to be “alienated” have no grounding in reality. It also diverts attention away from the behaviors of the abusive parent, who may have directly influenced the children’s responses by acting in violent, disrespectful, intimidating, humiliating and/or discrediting ways toward the children themselves, or the children’s other parent.

One of the most troubling consequences of Gardner’s theory is that, “PAS shifts attention away from the perhaps dangerous behaviour of the parent seeking custody to that of the custodial parent. This person, who may be attempting to protect the child, is instead presumed to be lying and poisoning the child.”

As a result, some children placed in the custody of their abusers have committed suicide; others have run away, and countless others have endured the abuse and are permanently traumatized. In recent years, children placed in custody of their abusers have been coming forward to tell their stories and to warn of the danger surrounding the fictitious syndrome.

Isn't it Time for Someone to Call Cut?

2009-04-04T07:40:00.000-07:00

Keira Knightley stars in video to raise awareness of domestic violence for Women's Aid in the UK. WARNING: MAY TRIGGER.

Illinois Judge Didn't Listen to Mother's Concern for Her Sons...BAM! They are Dead Now

2009-04-02T17:13:00.000-07:00

About the murder-suicide that happened recently in Illinois, a father killing his two young sons and himself during visitation...from NBC Week:

Family and friends of two slain LeRoy boys say a McLean County judge is just as guilty as the boys' father in their deaths. More than a thousand people have signed a petition calling for Judge James Souk to resign.

Online Petition for Judge Souk To Resign

Amy Leitchenberg believes her boys would be with her now if it weren't for Judge James Souk granting her ex-husband unsupervised visitations. She pleaded with the courts to keep her boys away from their father, Michael Connolly, because she says he was abusive to her, depressed and suicidal.

Now, there are calls for the courts to change and consider those risk factors in cases like this. "If those risk factors are high for a parent to parent, then is there a way to put that protective factor in place," Kim Wells, Executive Director for the Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence, says.

"There is a lot of protection and I doubt very much that the judge failed in this case," Longtime Peoria Divorce Attorney David Lynch says. Lynch says even though Michael Connolly violated orders of protection, he believes the judge followed the law because he showed no specific harm to the kids. "A court cannot stop a visitation unless it finds the visitation would be dangerous to the child's mental, moral or physical health," Lynch says.

Still, family and friends of the boys are frustrated saying Jack and Duncan's deaths could have been prevented. That's why they're also planning to file a complaint with a Judicial Board in Springfield about Judge Souk's decision. "I do believe this family was failed. That these children were failed and we need to take a long, hard look at what we can do," Wells says.

"A judge is going to say look at what happened to those two kids. Should I be overly restrictive to a very good parent because they might be that one in 10-thousand or one in 100,000. It’s a very nerve-wracking business," Lynch says.

Judge Souk's decision in November does include a psychiatrist report that states Michael Connolly was not a threat to himself or others. Authorities say they believe the father Michael Connolly hanged himself. Meanwhile, the cause of death for his two boys found in the back of his car is not being released because their mother does not want to know.

Funeral arrangements for Jack and Duncan Connolly will be at the LeRoy Christian Church. A visitation will be Thursday from four to seven p.m. The Funeral will be Friday morning at 10 a.m.

Margaret Torre Wouldn't Have Stood a Chance in Indiana's Family Courts

2009-03-28T11:31:00.000-07:00

She would have had her son, Joe Torre, taken away and given to her abuser because he was afraid of his dad. Afraid of him because of the abuse his mother suffered. Not because of so-called "parental alienation."

Visit Joe Torre's "Safe at Home" Foundation website.

When Judicial Misconduct Happens in Indiana, Public Action is Taken Against the Bad Judge Only 1% of the Time

2009-03-28T10:31:00.000-07:00

Indiana Law - Feature on discipline of Indiana judges

The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette published this feature story today on judicial discipline in Indiana. Some quotes:

Of the more than 1,000 allegations of judicial misconduct investigated by a state panel in the past four fiscal years, public discipline was taken against judges only slightly more than 1 percent of the time. But dozens of private cautions - or confidential letters of warning - were issued by the Indiana Commission on Judicial Qualifications, which also dismissed 85 percent of the complaints.

Although lawmakers are subject to public ethics challenges and discipline against police officers is open, state law and a Supreme Court rule keep the vast majority of complaints against judges under wraps. * * *

[N]early all cases are disposed of before the public gets a chance to look at them - either by a flat dismissal or a private scolding. Of 1,013 allegations or complaints filed the past four fiscal years, 801 were immediately dismissed.

[Meg Babcock, attorney for the qualifications commission,] said this number is so high because many of the allegations are actually issues for legal appeal, such as when a defendant is unhappy with a ruling or sentence. The commission focuses only on judicial conduct.

Some cases continue to an inquiry stage - 185 in recent years. During that stage, the judge might be contacted and some basic information gathered. The seven-member commission then decides whether to dismiss the case or move to a formal investigation.

Of those 185 cases, 62 were dismissed and 82 ended in private cautions. Those are essentially letters that warn judges their behavior might be on or over the line of ethical conduct.

"They are usually a minor discretion by a judge," said Ann Borne, a Fort Wayne teacher who served two terms on the commission under former governors Evan Bayh and Frank O'Bannon.
"Whether it stays private partly has a lot to do with the attitude of the judge," she said. "Sometimes the judge is very defensive and that means we have to go further and look for patterns or problems. If there are no priors and they feel remorseful, we may go ahead and do the private caution."

Indiana isn't much different from the rest of the country, where most judicial commissions' proceedings only become public at the point of a charge or when the judge is disciplined.Here is the website of the Indiana Commission on Judicial Qualifications. The right column of the page provides links to a number of useful items, including Activities, which leads to detailed annual reports for each year. The most recent report covers July 1, 2002 through June 30, 2003 and provides a complete review of the complaints received and actions taken during that period.

Also of interest are the links to: Advisory Opinions, which cover questions involving law practices of part-time judges, fundraising activites, nepotism, etc.; and to Disciplinary Function, an overview of the Commission's disciplinary process.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 30, 2004 12:39 PM
Posted to Indiana Law

How to File Complaints Against Indiana Judges and Lawyers

2009-03-28T10:21:00.000-07:00

Indiana Judge Complaints

Contact the Indiana Commission of Judicial Qualifications. To file a complaint about a judge in Indiana: www.in.gov/judiciary

An Adobe or fillable PDF complaint form is available online.

Indiana Judicial Complaint Mailing Address
Judicial Qualifications Committee
115 W. Washington Street Suite 1080
Indianapolis, IN 46204

Indiana Lawyer Complaints

Disciplinary Commission handles complaints about lawyers in Indiana. To file a complaint about a lawyer in Indiana: http://www.in.gov/

Lawyer Complaint Mailing Address
Disciplinary Commission
115 W. Washington St., Suite 1165
Indianapolis, IN 46204

Telephone
317-232-1807

Complaints about Indiana Judges and Indiana Lawyers
Each State has its own procedures for filing complaints against judges. All states require a written and signed complaint. Some states have a form for you to fill out. Other States request a letter. Grievances of misconduct usually concern issues of conflict of interest or impartiality. Adverse rulings or judgments are not considered legitimate grievances. You must support the complaint about the Indiana Judge with sufficient documentation. Contact the Indiana Commission of Judicial Qualifications.

All states maintain an agency to process lawyer complaints. These disciplinary counsels can usually be found as a department of the state bar association or as a branch of the state supreme court. Complaints can be filed by filling out a form supplied by the disciplinary counsel or by writing a letter to Disciplinary Commission. Check the Indiana web site http://www.in.gov/ to find the requirements for a complaint about a Indiana Lawyer.

Maternal Deprivation: Something Indiana's Judges Just Don't Get

2009-03-18T14:45:00.000-07:00

Harlow's monkey's....he was on to something...too bad the Family Court Judges and Whores of the Court here in Indiana JUST DON'T GET IT, children need their mothers.

Welcome New Judges to The Indiana Family Court Judge's Hall of Shame

2009-03-12T16:26:00.000-07:00

Welcome new Inductees Commissioner Israel Nunez Cruz, Marion Superior Court, caught drunk driving in Hendricks County, and Honorable Thomas J. Felts, Allen Circuit Court, caught drunk driving in Marion County. Thank goodness you guys didn't kill anyone the nights you were caught driving drunk. Didn't it occur to you both that you should have respect for the law, and try to follow it.

Thanks Indiana Supreme Court: Another Marion Superior Court Judge Gets a Non-Punishment

2009-03-12T15:40:00.000-07:00

Soooooooooo sorry he didn't get a punishment appropriate for the screwup of someone's life he has caused. But that is just THE INDIANA SUPREME COURT for you. OMG...do they really think that Judge Grant Hawkins getting 60 days off without pay is enough punishment for keeping a man in prison an extra TWO YEARS, ignoring the family's letters and pleas to release him after he had been exhonerated. God help us all...

Read the Punishment here.

The Indiana Supreme Court Deserves to be in the Hall of Shame for this one.

Current Justices
Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard dissented
Justice Brent E. Dickson concurred
Justice Frank Sullivan, Jr. dissented
Justice Theodore R. Boehm dissented (but counted as a concurred???)
Justice Robert D. Rucker concurred

Scientific Report: Battered Women ARE Losing Custody of Their Children

2009-03-04T15:50:00.000-08:00

Child Custody and Visitation Decisions in Domestic Violence Cases:
Legal Trends, Risk Factors, and Safety Concerns (Revised 2007)

by Daniel G. Saunders, Ph.D.

It may be hard to believe that an abusive partner can ever make good on his threat to gain custody of the children from his victim. After all, he has a history of violent behavior and she almost never does. Unfortunately, a surprising number of battered women lose custody of their children (e.g., Saccuzzo & Johnson, 2004). This document describes how this can happen through uninformed and biased courts, court staff, evaluators, and attorneys and how the very act of protecting ones’ children can lead to their loss. It also describes the major legal and social trends surrounding custody and visitation decisions and the social science evidence supporting the need to consider domestic violence in these decisions. It ends with some recommendations for custody and visitation in domestic violence cases.

Please find the document for download here.

Hey Indiana Judges and Lawyers, Look Here at This

2009-03-03T10:07:00.000-08:00

An Indianapolis Mother Continues Her Search For Justice, Part 3

2009-02-28T12:43:00.000-08:00

From The Indianapolis Recorder:

Indianapolis mother Tracie Nelson’s fight to regain custody of her daughter has been difficult, and the concerns she has raised could place select individuals in the Marion County court system on the defensive. Nelson, however, maintains that every motion filed in court and every complaint presented to various agencies has only been used for the best interest of her daughter, Kay (Not her real name. The Recorder does not publish names of minors in court cases.)

Nelson insists her goal is to have Kay removed from the home of her father, who was questioned for (but has never been charged with) sexual abuse. At the least, she would like more visitation with her seven-year-old child. “I’m not out to try to hurt or anger anyone,” Nelson says, holding back tears. “All I’m asking for is justice and safety for my beautiful daughter. I raised Kay from her birth until she was taken, and she and I have a special bond that can’t be erased.”

As written in previous segments of this series, Nelson said her main obstacle to getting a fair assessment of her situation was conflict of interest in local paternity and civil courts, allegedly due to close ties between particular judges and the attorney of her ex-boyfriend.However, Nelson is also disappointed with the assistance she has received from individuals charged with ensuring the protection of children.

Specifically, she is unhappy with Kay’s Guardian Ad Litem. The guardian ad litem is a person asked by the court or attorney to represent a child and independently assess their needs during a legal dispute between parents. At the request of Nelson’s attorney, a guardian ad item was appointed for Kay. According to public records, Nelson recently filed a petition for the dismissal of that guardian ad litem, Denise Hayden.

Nelson says she has information that Hayden had served as a pro tempore judge in a court case involving her custody dispute, and therefore cannot be impartial. She also claims Hayden has refused to return her phone calls, has not actually spoken with Kay since July and refused to recommend counseling for the girl following allegations of abuse. “If there were nothing to hide, what would it have hurt?” said Nelson.

Nelson said she asked Hayden’s attorney, Claire Deichman to appoint another guardian ad litem but was told another was not available. Neither Hayden nor Deichman could be interviewed. Inquires were directed to Kid’s Voice, a not-for-profit organization that provides representation for children, as well as parent-child visitation, programs for volunteers serving at-risk youth, and legal resources for attorneys.

Nelson said Kid’s Voice is a good organization, so she can’t understand why Kay couldn’t get another guardian ad litem. Eddie Rivers, CEO of Kid’s Voice, said he could not talk about any case publicly, but said he hoped a misunderstanding about a single person will not tarnish the reputation of well-meaning volunteers with the organization who work hard to protect children.
“We are asked to provide information for judges in a manner that shows no prejudice against either parent. Our main goal is to take care of the child and look at what we can do to help them,” Rivers said. Kid’s Voice has a staff of five attorneys who are responsible for different programs, as well as a team of volunteers.

“People choose to serve as a guardian ad litem on a volunteer basis, and we train our volunteers extremely well before we let them work with children,” said Rivers. “We conduct background checks to prevent any possibility of conflict on interest. We take that seriously.”

Nelson also says the Marion County Department of Child Services (DCS), which is part of the Indiana Department of Child Services, has not stood up for the protection of Kay. DCS had been contacted twice to file reports of sexual abuse, after the girl gave details of how she was allegedly touched to a forensic interviewer and detective. In January 2008 a CHINS (child in need of services) case was filed to investigate, and Kay was moved from the father’s custody to her grandmother’s home temporarily pending the investigation. Two month’s later however, the CHINS investigation was suddenly dismissed, and custody of Kay shifted back to the father.
Nelson said at first DCS joined her in expressing surprise when the CHINS case was suddenly dismissed without a fact-finding hearing, which is required by law. She was hoping that after its review, DCS would support her in demanding a strong investigation of the abuse allegations and call for the removal of Kay from the father’s home.

But Nelson is upset that following a review last month, DCS determined that abuse allegations against the father are “unsubstantiated,” and the fact that the courts dismissed the CHINS case, even though the case was dismissed by a judge accused of conflict of interest.

At the same time, the review said concerns about Nelson fostering an endangering environment for Kay are “substantiated,” adding that being at the center of a custody battle and hearing damaging accusations could impact Kay’s mental stability. “They are letting the person who is hurting my child get away, but they’re trying to penalize me for fighting,” said Nelson.

Ann Houseforth, director of communications for DCS, said she can’t speak specifically about anyone’s case, but explained that since 2006 the agency has reviewed cases using a procedure under CAPTA (the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act). When a report of abuse or neglect is made, the agency goes to a child’s home to determine their safety. Different individuals and experts familiar with the case are interviewed about the allegations.

A report is then issued that will either substantiate or unsubstantiate the allegations. Individuals unhappy with the report can ask for information to be removed through a review process or administrative trial. However, even if a parent has negative information substantiated (upheld) against them, it does not mean an automatic change in custody.

“If you have a substantiation on your record, it wont mean that your children will be permanently taken away from you or that you can’t get them back,” said Houseforth. “They may be removed temporarily until conditions improve, but the parent will not lose them forever.”

Houseforth said DCS also works with community service organizations to help parents provide a more healthy and safe environment for children. In addition to requesting a new guardian ad litem, Nelson is trying to get her case assigned to a new court.

Nelson’s family is hopeful that such action will be another step taken to get Kay home. Minnie Blaylock, Nelson’s mother and Kay’s maternal grandmother, describes her granddaughter as smart, funny and genuinely interested in connecting with other people.

Blaylock says it doesn’t make sense that she and Kay are in the same city, yet haven’t seen each other in months. (Nelson can have paid supervised visits with Kay, but Blaylock and anyone else from Nelson’s family are not authorized to participate.) “We are being penalized because we are trying to protect her,” said Blaylock. “What kind of justice is that?”

Black Fathers and the Family Court

2009-02-17T13:07:00.000-08:00

From RandiJames.com:

Tuesday

Black Fathers and the Family Court

“The court has the mentality that if a Black father is interested in his child, even if he has shown no interest previously, that it is such a unique situation that the mother must be wrongfully interfering,” said Davis.I found this quote in an article about the Marion County, Indiana family court system, posted on Indiana Mothers for Custodial Justice.

I take special notice of this statement and how the White Patriarchal establishment uses the Black family as an example of what is dysfunctional in society, in order to maintain White male hegemony. And this affects the thinking of everyone operating under this context.

For example, a recent weekend airing (during this lovely month of Black History) on MSNBC was a documentary entitled, A Father's Promise (thank you Professor Tracey for informing us). Jana Lerner, associate producer for this documentary, had a forum on Newsvine in which she wanted to hear people's opinions on the show. I damn sure gave her mine though somehow how I doubt they really wanted to hear what we thought.

I said:

"Fatherlessness" is not an "epidemic." Nor does it deserve a cure so simple as injecting the Black man back into the family life. Patriarchal views teach us that there is only one functional family structure, so kids growing up thinking that their families are pathological:"You ain't got no daddy?"

"You ain't gon' be @!$%#, just like yo' daddy!"

You keep telling a child that and it insults the child's self-esteem. The child begins to believe that something is wrong...creating a problem where one may not have existed.

What's wrong with changing the thinking to help children appreciate what they do have and give existing families what they need to rise above the adversity? Why can't we stop putting children down because of the apparent deficiencies of their parents? Having NO father isn't the worst thing in the world...In fact, it is much better than having a drug-dealing father, a physically abusive father, an emotionally abusive or emotionally absent father, an inconsistent father, a self-absorbed father, a father that is draining the families resources rather than contributing to them...ANY father won't do.

You cannot force anyone to be a father. But you can understand the the issue is really poverty, and that can be alleviated by having a better educational system, and alleviating barriers to employment.

Children need stability, emotional support, and economic resources. Fathers may or may not be able to provide these things. Those who can will, and those who haven't and those who won't, don't.

Women need to be more discerning in the relationships with children...and perhaps children should not be brought into this world unless families--whatever structure--can fully provide for them.Responsible fatherhood initiatives is a corrupt industry whose focus is to eliminate child support obligations by the unrelenting support of 50-50 custody.This focus on fatherhood and targeting the Black community serves us no justice and it is a completely disgusting.

And in response to someone saying this:

It is time that the Black American categorically rebuke feminism and Welfare.

I had to say this:

I seriously disagree with this and yet it doesn't surprise me that someone would state this. Feminism, by way of Womanism, is what has allowed the Black family to continue to press forward in spite of the hardest times. How dare someone declare that Blacks should rebuke it-- giving connotations that it were evil. It is at the point in which Black men embrace Womanism that they will rise above those things that White society casts as a burden.

And in response to this:

America scared to report or have a show about what black women do. To keep father away.

I felt forced to say this:

What in the heck? Have you any knowledge of Black history? What an insult.

And in response to this:

One thing that stuck out for me, was the piece about not knowing what a father "looks" like. I ran a parenting group and asked these young men what a good father "looked" like. They came up with the standard descriptions, but not one of them could tell me what it took to reach that goal.

I felt the need to say this:

Sad, indeed. But do they know what contraception looks like? How to use it? The results of sex? I'm not insulting you, please forgive me if you think that's my intention. It is just hard for me to grasp that as anything other than an excuse. Do they know what a father does NOT look like? The conversation should begin there (well, after the sex stuff).

And when this was said:

A father is the person that protects his household...he's the person that checks over every guy that dates his daughter and the person of the house that collars his misbehaving son and gets in his face about anything thats going wrong...these homes have lost their protector!!!!!

I definitely was compelled to say this:

This is a very stereotypical assertion. It does no one any justice. Gender-role nonsense.

You can go back and read the entire board at the link I provided above so that you can see everything in context. I can give you a summary of the types of commentors: single mothers, divorced dads, second wives/girlfriend supporters/family supporters, and adults that were products of fatherless homes. So, as you can gather there was some of the same ol same "arguments" about why [Black] men weren't/aren't a part of their childrens' lives. Everyone has someone else to blame, especially the men.

1. Plenty of White folk jumped in the conversation, wanting their spot to complain about how fathers worldwide are getting fucked in the family court system by their vindictive exes.

2. Plenty of Black men wanted to talk about how the system is keeping them down so that they can't succeed in life overall.

3. And plenty of Black men and women spoke about how babymamas erect an impenetrable boundary that keeps Black men away from their children.

Understand that the most important thing in this conversation was #1.

And where do successful Black women speak for the same?

Now, going back to the quote about Marion County, I have observed that statement to be 100% true. It makes me feel like these White judges don't give a damn about Black children's needs...outside of the need for a father. In other words, A father is the primary need for Black children.

I ask you, if a Black child is homeless and/or hungry, will a father cure him/her? If a father is a criminal or is so self-absorbed to be [virtually] non-existent, will he cure his child of the major problems that ail him/her?Only a fool would believe that the answer is so simple as father-injection. Ooh, I think I've coined a new term:

Father injection.

The solutions for Black families lie in Black communities. White society continues to try to profiteer off of our "problems," all the while not creating any solutions, but rather, creating more problems. I have seen White men trying to actively recruit Black men into this parental alienation scam. I have seen White men try to align their parental alienation cause with the likes of the Civil Rights Movement. This is shameful.

Black people, beware!

I'm not trying to further the racial divide...I just want to create awareness. And understand this is difficult to do in spite of feeling the urge to protect Blacks as a community while simultaneously insisting upon individual personal responsibility. For too long have we Black women sat silent while our needs have been trampled upon...our children's needs...I can't sit back and watch it continue.

From the Institute on Domestic Violence in the African American Community (emphasis mine):

Fathers contribute to the well-being of their children and female partners when relationships are healthy and loving. Yet research indicates that in high conflict relationships when fathers are abusive to their female partners and/or their children, victims suffer short-term and long-term physical, emotional, financial, and spiritual affects of the abuse. Even during separation and divorce, abusive fathers may still have contact with their former partners and children because the courts, mother, or children choose it. What should our helping systems consider in order to protect and support women and children when domestic violence occurs? What can be done to encourage healthy, non-abusive behavior among fathers with a history of violence and abuse?

Black women are last on the totem pole. Browse the stats on the IDVACC website.

Black people pay attention.

Our children will continue to suffer. And I will not pretend that President Obama is going to be our savior because he has internalized the same beliefs held by White majority...those same beliefs offer more disaster and little relief.

You wouldn't hire a mortician to save your life. You wouldn't ask a sumo wrestler to play pro-ball. What makes you think that anyone will do? Any father isn't good enough...and I'm sick of the patriarchal court systems "coming to the rescue"...acting as if they are doing us a damn favor by legislating Black families!!!

Indianapolis Mom's Attorney: I Have Never Seen the Level of Incompetence Displayed in the Family Law Cases of Marion County

2009-02-16T16:44:00.000-08:00

Part 2 of Tracie Nelson's NIGHTMARE from the MARION SUPERIOR COURTS, from The Indianapolis Recorder:

A mother's journey for justice
By BRANDON A. PERRY, Part 2 of 3
Published: Thursday, February 12, 2009 11:56 AM CST

Indianapolis mother Tracie Nelson has faced several obstacles in her effort to regain custody of her daughter since August of 2007. That year a custody struggle began between Nelson and her ex-boyfriend over guardianship of their daughter Kay (this is not her real name; the Recorder does not publish the names of minors involved in court cases). The custody case was assigned to the paternity court of Judge Alicia Gooden. Nelson said she lost custody of Kay in Gooden’s court due to conflict of interest. Kim Bacon, the father’s attorney is a pro tempore judge in Gooden’s court, and Nelson alleges Bacon is the girlfriend of the father’s best friend.

“We never stood a chance in getting the help we need,” Nelson said. She filed a complaint against Bacon with the Indianapolis Bar Association, and against Gooden and two other judges with the Indiana Commission on Judicial Qualifications, which investigates complaints against state and local judges.

Adrienne Meiring, a staff attorney and spokeswoman for the commission, confirmed that a case like Nelson’s complaint is under review, but it cannot be discussed publicly. “Admission and Discipline Rule 25 prevents us from discussing a case before formal charges are made against someone, unless there is a threat against an individual or the public,” said Meiring. “Until a complaint is verified or dismissed the details and course of investigation are confidential.” At Recorder press time Gooden had not responded to an attempt to reach her for comment. Bacon has stated that neither she nor Kay’s father will comment on the case.

Nelson’s attorney, Dana Childress-Jones, successfully filed a request for change of venue (or change of judge) and the custody dispute was transferred to the civil court of Judge Gary Miller in the fall of 2007. Nelson said Miller appeared to be fair, granting her request to appoint a Guardian Ad Litem (impartial child advocate) for Kay. After a March, 2008 meeting with Gooden, however, Miller changed course and made rulings throughout 2008 that upheld the custody rights of Kay’s father, dismissed a child in need of services (CHINS) investigation on the father, held Nelson in contempt of court and suspended her visits with Kay (although in August he did authorize paid supervised visits).

Miller’s rulings against Nelson occurred despite police and Child Protective Services’ (CPS) investigations against the father for abuse, as well as a document filed with the court that included the statements of a forensic investigator, and Jim Dalton, a local psychologist hired by CPS, who supported the validity of Kay’s detailed claim of being touched by her father.“It’s like no one is looking out for the best interest of my baby,” said Nelson. Miller’s term as a county judge expired at the end of December, and he was unavailable for comment.

Since Nelson went public with her case, several parents have expressed similar frustrations with select judges and attorneys. One of them, Tamara Davis (not real name), has spent nearly $30,000 in legal fees to keep custody of her daughter from an ex-husband who has not yet received court ordered treatment for alcoholism. “The Marion County Court system is a disaster and I also think it is biased against Black mothers,” Davis said. “I’m in the process of preparing for a custody fight with a man that the same court will only allow to have supervised visits with my daughter once a month. It doesn’t make sense.” Davis said the court has allowed her ex-husband’s attorney to lie for clients and use contempt proceedings to extort money from mothers in custody cases. “The court has the mentality that if a Black father is interested in his child, even if he has shown no interest previously, that it is such a unique situation that the mother must be wrongfully interfering,” said Davis. “I am a licensed attorney, and I have never seen the level of incompetence displayed in the family law cases of this county. These things don’t happen in other counties.”

Meiring said complaints about judges filed with the commission are definitely not uncommon.“We generally receive in the neighborhood of at least 300 complaints each year,” Meiring said.If a complaint is upheld, the offense will be reviewd by a court that will decide what kind of action should be taken, from a simple censure to the suspension of a law license.“We get different complaints, but they are usually from people who are simply unhappy with the judge’s ruling,” said Meiring. “Most of these complaints are dismissed because there is lack of substantiation that the judge acted in a prejudicial manner.”

In part 3: Nelson, Kay and the child welfare system.

IMPD Officer Accused of Choking Daughter

2009-02-14T09:06:00.000-08:00

By Joe Wambach, WIBC
2/13/2009

A Indianapolis Metro police officer has been arrested on charges of assaulting his 11- year-old daughter. Officer Andrew Dodds, 35, is accused of dragging the girl off a couch and down a hall and choking her after she spilled milk on the couch.

IMPD Lt. Jeffrey Duhamell said Dodds is apparently having some marital problems and the girl was upset over some of the things he said about her mother. Police investigated a domestic disturbance involved Dodds and his wife about three weeks ago. Dodds is being held on $100,000 bond and has been suspended without pay. He's charged with battery on a minor, battery on a minor with a family member present that's under the age of 16 and strangulation. All are 'D' Felonies. Chief Michael Spears is recommending that Dodds be taken before the merit board for termination.

Duhamell said Dodds had received commendation letters from an agent with the U.S. Postal Service n 2007 and from an IMPD detective a year ago. He was nominated for Northwest District Officer of the Month last Summer.

Why does the media put on the "gee, he is a great guy" face when talking about white males who commit domestic violence???? See Double Standards in Domestic Violence Reporting.

Marion County, the Land of Drunk Driving Judges

2009-02-12T09:01:00.000-08:00

We wonder about the jurists holding judgement over us and making decisions that affect lives incredibly, and whether they truly are making judgements in line with state code, without bias. And they don't even follow the laws of our state for themselves! They feel they are above the law, that they can continue their reign of terror in familiy courts and not even follow the law! Hey, Indiana Commission on Judicial Qualifications, you need to get rid of these Bozos that don't follow state code or break the law!

From IndianaLawBlog:

Ind. Courts - Commission on Judicial Qualifications files charges against Judge Thomas Felts of Allen Circuit Court

From a release this afternoon by the Indiana Court:

The Indiana Commission on Judicial Qualifications filed charges against Judge Thomas Felts of Allen Circuit Court. Judge Felts is accused of violating the Code of Judicial Conduct during a July 2008 incident.

An investigation by the Commission shows that on July 18, 2008 Judge Felts was arrested in Marion County for Operating a Motor Vehicle with an alcohol content of at least .15, which is a misdemeanor. He was also arrested for public intoxication, also a misdemeanor. In August, Judge Felts plead guilty to the OWI charge and the state dropped the public intoxication charge. A judge sentenced Felts to one year in jail and suspended the sentence for the time served. Judge Felts was also ordered to serve one year probation, have his driver's license suspended for 90 days, and attend alcohol treatment.

The Commission has filed a “Notice of the Institution of Formal Proceedings and Statement of Charges” detailing the above events. The Commission has charged Judge Felts with two counts of judicial misconduct. Count One accuses Judge Felts of violating Canon 1A of the Judicial Code of Conduct which requires judges to uphold the integrity of the judiciary. Count Two accuses Judge Felts of violating Canon 2A, which requires judges to avoid impropriety at all times.
Judge Felts has the right to provide the Commission a written answer within 20 days. At that time, the Indiana Supreme Court will appoint three Masters to hold a hearing on the charges of misconduct. Supreme Court rules also allow for the Commission and the judge to reach a settlement agreement. Any settlement agreement or any decision reached by the Masters must be approved by the Indiana Supreme Court. The Indiana Supreme Court has final authority over all judicial discipline cases.

The Indiana Commission on Judicial Qualifications Needs to Grow a Pair and Get Rid of the Corrupt Family Court Judges

2009-02-11T17:19:00.000-08:00

From The Indianapolis Recorder, it was reported that ANOTHER corrupt Marion County court has taken a child from a good mother and given the child to an abusive ex-boyfriend. When will the Indiana Commission on Judicial Qualifications grow a pair and get rid of these corrupt bastards that are giving children to abusers and sex preditors.

A mother’s journey for justice

Part 1

By BRANDON A. PERRY

Published: Thursday, February 5, 2009 4:09 PM CST

Following a recent hearing inside a Marion County paternity court, Tracie Nelson learned that things would not change anytime soon: Her daughter still won’t be coming home. While leaving the court chamber with her attorney, Nelson appears frustrated and sad. “I’m so tired, I don’t know what else to do,” Nelson says with tears in her eyes as she is embraced by her mother, Minnie Blaylock.

Nelson has learned that an ex-boyfriend will retain custody of her seven-year-old daughter, Kay. An ugly custody battle involving allegations of molestation and mental illness continues.
However, as the two discuss the case with attorney Dana Childress-Jones, Nelson recovers her strength, recognizing that she can’t give up even if the odds seemed stacked against her. “If I do not fight for Kay, who will?” said Nelson.

The challenge

When most Americans find themselves involved in the court system, they expect justice to be administered based on the law and compassion. Nelson, however, says she and Kay have not received anything resembling justice. According to Nelson, biased judges and attorneys have refused to remove Kay from the father’s home, despite serious allegations of abuse in that household. Nelson, who raised Kay for the first six years of her life, believes custody should be returned to her or to Blaylock, Kay’s maternal grandmother. “Right now all we’re asking is for someone to stand up and do what’s in the best interest of Kay,” said Blaylock. “She’s a wonderful child, and deserves to be in an environment where she is safe and cared for with love.”

Nelson wants to share Kay’s case with the community because, she stated, she’s not only fighting for her daughter, but hopes to provide a testimony to help parents who find themselves in similar situations.

The beginning

In May, 2001, Kay was born to Tracie Nelson and ex-boyfriend Billy Dupree (Dupree refused to speak with the Recorder regarding the case). From Kay’s birth Nelson had sole legal custody of her. Although the relationship between Nelson and Dupree ended, Nelson said she understood the importance of a father’s presence in a child’s life and encouraged Dupree to visit Kay.

In September 2004, Kay began exhibiting unexplained sexual behavior, which a nurse at Community North Hospital later stated was very unusual for a girl her age. This puzzled Nelson because she knew her daughter had no reason to be with any man other than her father, who occasionally had Kay at his home for overnight visitations. In written documents submitted in court, Nelson said Dupree “was very guarded when I spoke with him about these concerns, and told me if I kept looking I would find what I was ‘looking for.’”

Family members wanted Nelson to contact child authorities immediately to investigate Dupree, but Nelson said she urged caution, wanting to give Dupree a chance to defend himself and help in discovering if anyone did molest Kay. Nelson took Kay to a therapist, and expressed her concerns to paternity court Judge Alicia Gooden, who suspended Dupree’s overnight visitations. Then, for the first time, Dupree expressed an interest in having custody of Kay.

According to Nelson, Kay later told a forensic investigator, child psychologist and police detective that Dupree had touched her inappropriately, and that Dupree’s stepson had been “playing house” on her.

An employee for the Marion County Prosecutor’s office, who has to remain anonymous, believes Kay’s story is legitimate, but could not take action due to the custody dispute.

In August 2007, following a hearing, Gooden granted custody of Kay to Dupree.

The railroad

Nelson believes Gooden’s decision was based on a conflict of interest. She said Kim Bacon, Dupree’s attorney, was given preferential treatment during the hearing because she is a pro temp judge in Gooden’s paternity court. She also claims that Bacon’s boyfriend is Dupree’s best friend. Nelson says she has been a target ever since she filed a complaint against Bacon with the Indiana Bar Association. “The judge’s decision was based, not on the best interest of Kay, but on Gooden’s bias against me and her relationship with Bacon,” said Nelson.

Bacon and Dupree have declined to talk publicly. When contacted by the Recorder to get Dupree’s version of events, Bacon firmly ruled out a discussion about the case. “What we’re seeing right now is a situation where the private business of a seven-year-old girl is being dragged out into the public, and that’s not right,” Bacon said. “Neither my client nor I will be a part of that. We decline to comment.”

According to court records, Dupree has strongly denied any allegations of abuse, and he and Bacon assert that Nelson is mentally and financially unstable. They also believe that Nelson has coached Kay into saying certain things to bolster her case. Nelson’s attorney, Childress-Jones, requested a change of judge, and Kay’s case was passed to Judge Gary Miller. Nelson alleges that Miller appeared to be fair at first, but after speaking with Gooden and Bacon (Gee whiz Commission members, sounds like ex parte communications to me, against the law), has refused to grant even temporary custody to Nelson, despite the investigation into alleged abuse.

To date, Nelson has only occasional supervised visits with Kay that she must pay for, and Kay is not allowed to keep gifts or other items. Nelson says she has had several attorneys helping her, simply because they get hopeless after a short time working on her case. Shortly after Nelson lost custody of Kay, one former attorney, Dylan Vigh, stated on WTLC-AM (1310) “Afternoons with Amos” show that her case was “by far” one of the “greatest injustices” he has ever seen, and that Nelson has been “railroaded” in the courtroom.

Still, Nelson says she is not surrendering the fight to get Kay back home. She is seeking to move her case to the court of a third judge with no connections to Gooden. She is also seeking removal of the Guardian Ad Litem (GAL), a representative appointed to serve as a nonbiased guardian of a child in a custody dispute. Nelson says the GAL has not acted in Kay’s best interest.

“I have a divine right, as Kay’s mother, to protect her,” Nelson said. “All I’m trying to do is get her life back to normal and keep her safe.”

Coming in Part 2: A closer look into the case. Note: Kay is not the child’s real name. The Recorder does not publish names of minors involved in pending legal cases.

The Indiana Judicial Qualifications Commission is Tired of Corrupt Family Court Judges and Lawyers

2009-01-28T17:26:00.000-08:00

Recently punished Judge Daniel C. Banina, Miami Superior Court 2, and Lawyer Jeffry Price, of Peru, Indiana, has brought a warning from the Commission to all family court judges and lawyers:

In the Commission’s view, there is perhaps no greater injustice than to strip a parent of custodial rights without an opportunity to be heard and in the absence of an emergency. The Commission calls upon all judges and lawyers in Indiana to respect this fundamental notion, on the Commission and its counter-part, the Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission, attempted to convey now for several years, only to repeated address the same violation.

Read the story from the Peru newspaper about the dastardly duo:

A local judge and attorney are being publicly reprimanded for violating the state’s professional and judicial conduct rules. The Indiana Commission on Judicial Qualifications has issued a public admonition against Judge Dan Banina and the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission has imposed a public reprimand against Attorney Jeffry Price, both stemming from a February 2007 incident concerning the custody of a child. According to a press release, the commission states the incident involves a mother and father who were divorced but living together.

The couple had a child, but that child was under the sole custody of the mother. In January 2007, the mother decided to move from their home and take the child with her. The father and local police intervened and demanded she leave the child with the father. Then Price, the father’s attorney, filed a petition to establish paternity which included an emergency order for his client to receive temporary custody of the child. Banina granted it the next day, February 2, 2007. The order was granted in favor of the father without prior notice given to the mother - the only notice she received was service of the petition about two weeks after it was filed.

According to the commission, Banina should have ensured the mother had notice of the petition and held a hearing to resolve the custody dispute. Likewise Price, in seeking and obtaining the order, deprived the mother of an opportunity to be heard before the order was granted. Banina says he “made a mistake.” “I thought I was doing the right thing at the time,” he explained. “I should have required more information.”

Although charges were warranted, Banina’s admonition states, the judge is not being formally charged with misconduct. He cooperated fully with the commission and acknowledges he violated the Code of Judicial Conduct. His only punishment is to be publicly warned concerning the matter, which is the purpose of the admonition.

The decision of whether or not to file charges is generally based on prior history of disciplinary action or lack thereof, severity of the misconduct and whether or not the code was willfully violated, among other things. That’s according to Kathryn Dolan, the Indiana Supreme Court’s Public Information Officer.

Dolan said this is the first disciplinary action to be taken again Banina. Additionally, the Governor Mitch Daniels’ office said Wednesday that Banina fully disclosed the matter while it was pending in his application for appointment as judge over Miami County Superior Court 2, which he was appointed to as of Jan. 1. At the time of the incident he was judge of what is now Miami County Superior Court 1.

The admonition was issued on Jan. 20, 2009, as was Price’s public reprimand. It was issued by Randall T. Shepard, Chief Justice of Indiana, and states Price cooperated with the commission and has no prior misconduct.

Messages left at Price’s firm and home were not immediately returned Wednesday afternoon. Dolan declined to release the name of the party who initiated the process to have the incident reviewed by state officials.

Sen. Evan Bayh Wants Dungy to Lead Dads Effort, But What About Moms?

2009-01-17T09:26:00.000-08:00

Well, Senator Evan Bayh, what about moms? Your Fatherhood Initiative legislation has been successful in helping fathers get help in court to get custody of children away from mothers, by having the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services give grants to fatherhood groups...including Circle City Fatherhood Coalition. What about the children that are now separated from their mothers, who rarely get to see their mothers anymore, due to the fatherhood bias raging in the family courts now. What about the children, Senator Bayh???

From The Indianapolis Star:

WASHINGTON -- Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh collaborated with President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday on how to keep outgoing Indianapolis Colts Coach Tony Dungy busy in retirement.

Bayh said he suggested to Obama that he recruit Dungy to work on promoting responsible fatherhood. “He enthusiastically agreed, saying, `I love that guy,’” Bayh said.

Dungy, who announced his retirement Monday, was active in community work, particularly on faith and family issues. He made public service announcements urging people to adopt or foster children and worked with the nonprofit group Family First, which promotes strong families.

Bayh has introduced for years legislation to provide economic and social support for fatherhood. Obama said last year that if he became president, he would sign the bill into law if it passed Congress.

Bayh plans to re-introduce the bill next month. It would fund programs that promote financial literacy, support domestic violence prevention efforts, change work participation rules for two-parent families on welfare, crack down on men avoiding child support payments, and require all the child support collected by a state go the family.

January is National Stalking Awareness Month

2009-01-12T16:54:00.000-08:00

During January 2009, communities across the country will observe National Stalking Awareness Month, a time to focus on a crime that affects 1.4 million victims a year. This year’s theme, “Stalking: Know It. Name It. Stop It.” challenges the nation to combat this dangerous crime by learning more about it. Stalking is a crime in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. One in 12 women and one in 45 men will be stalked in their lifetime, for an average duration of almost two years, and most victims are ordinary Americans (1). Victims may experience psychological trauma, financial hardship, and even death (2). Eighty-one percent of victims stalked by an intimate partner were also physically assaulted by that partner (3), and seventy-six percent of female homicide victims were stalked prior to their death(4). Yet many victims underestimate the seriousness and impact of the crime.

At first, they may view stalking as “creepy” but not dangerous. They may think that ignoring or confronting stalkers will stop them. But stalkers almost never stop, and confronting a stalker may escalate the violence. Even when victims see the danger and report the crime, stalking may be hard for authorities to recognize, investigate, and prosecute. Unlike other crimes, stalking is not a single, easily identifiable crime but a series of acts, a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause that person fear. Stalking may take many forms—such as assaults, threats, vandalism, burglary, or animal abuse—as well as unwanted cards, calls, gifts, or visits. Stalkers may use a range of devices—such as computers, Global Position System devices, or hidden cameras—to track their victims’ daily activities. Stalkers fit no standard psychological profile, and many have been known to follow their victims from one jurisdiction to another, making apprehension by the authorities even more difficult.

Go to the Stalking Awareness website for more details!

1 Tjaden and Thoennes, “Stalking in America,” (Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, 1998).

2 Mullen, Pathe, and Purcell, Stalkers and Their Victims, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

3 Tjaden, “Stalking in America.”

4 MacFarlane et al., “Stalking and Intimate Partner Femicide,” Homicide Studies 3, no. 4 (1998): 300-16

Seminar for How to Represent a Victim of Domestic Violence? It Should Be Required for All Attorneys!

2009-01-02T13:37:00.000-08:00

The Indiana Continuing Legal Education Forum is holding a training session on How to Represent a Victim of Domestic Violence. The price for the one day seminar is $285 for your average schmoe off the streets. This should be required training for all attorneys EVERYWHERE who JUST DON'T GET IT. The seminar should be opened up to victims of domestic violence who are Pro Se in court...on a Pro Bono basis...they can't afford high legal fees or have already been drained by the lawyers. I think I will work on this....stay tuned....

Here is the information:

How to Represent a Victim of Domestic Violence
6 CLE / .5 Ethics / Also Qualifies for New Lawyer Credit

Welcome & Course Objectives

Amy Huffman Oliver

Using Social Science Research to Support Victims in Domestic Violence Cases

Prof. Margaret Drew

For those practitioners representing victims of violence, the struggle might seem interminable. This session is designed to open communication around what is valid social science as well as studies and authors that can help support your case.

Discussion with the Hon. Teresa Harper

Understanding the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA)

Monica N. Player

This session will discuss the UCCJEA and its application and effect on victims of domestic violence attempting to relocate.

Healing Ourselves: Self-Care for Survivors’ Advocates

Prof. Margaret Drew

The facts of domestic violence cases are serious and often dreadful. The opposition is fierce and your case load never ending. This key session will explore the importance of keeping the framework of your own well being throughout – physically, emotionally, and mentally.

Discussion with the Hon. Teresa Harper

Refreshment Break

Standards of Practice: An Overview of the ABA Standards for Lawyers Representing Victims of Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, and Stalking in Civil Protection Orders

Monica N. Player

Participants will also have an opportunity to discuss and share best practices

To Mediate or Not to Mediate in Cases Involving Domestic Violence: Are Victims Empowered or Intimidated in the Process?

Prof. Amy G. Applegate

In this session, Professor Applegate will address legal, ethical, social science, and practical issues about mediating family law cases where there has been actual or threatened violence or intimidation. Included will be research and anecdotal evidence.

Adjourn

Dates & Locations

Please note: Check-in begins 30 minutes prior to every event.
Location Start Time End Time
Kindig & Sloat Conference Facility, Course No. 850N2
102 Heritage Parkway, Nappanee, IN 46550
Thu, 8:00A
Jan 15, 2009 Thu, 3:30P
Jan 15, 2009 Register

Tuition

ISBA Members
$210.00
Non-ISBA Members
$285.00
ISBA Member 0-3 Years in Practice & ISBA Paralegal Member
$170.00
Non-ISBA Member 0-3 Years in Practice & Non-ISBA Paralegal
$235.00

Faculty

Amy Huffman Oliver, Director of Legal Services, Turning Point Domestic Violence Services, Columbus
Prof. Margaret Drew, Director, Domestic Violence and CPO Clinic, University of Cincinnati College of Law, Cincinnati
Monica N. Player, Staff Attorney, National Center on Full Faith and Credit, Arlington, VA
Prof. Amy G. Applegate, Clinical Professor of Law, Indiana University School of Law, Bloomington
Hon. Teresa D. Harper, Judge, Monroe Circuit Court, Bloomington

See website here.

Okay, Indiana Child Support Nazi's....Read This and Understand What is Truly Going On

2008-12-20T09:04:00.000-08:00

Now this (thank goodness): A guest column in the Muncie Star that addresses the state ramping up child support enforcement (see next article on this site for the article she is referencing):

Guest column: Why some parents refuse to pay child support
By Joy Henley • December 19, 2008

I understand your recent Your View "State is Getting Tough on Deadbeat Parents" was intended for parents who have the means to pay child support but fail to do so. It is true that it is child abuse when a parent fails to pay child support and meet the needs of their child. There is no other word for it.

In an ideal legal world, there is not supposed to be any correlation whatsoever between child support and visitation. In real life, there is a huge connection. In some cases if the non-custodial parent had more involvement with his or her children, there would be more child support paid. There would be an investment and entitlement that extends beyond the wallet.

There is no excuse in the world for a parent to not support their child. I cannot imagine anyone disputing this. I do not know what goes on inside the minds of what society terms "deadbeat parents." However, I can probably give you an idea of what factors into a non-custodial parent's decision to not pay child support.

It is horror when a mother or father loses custody of their child to the abusive parent. Imagine paying "child support" to the one who battered you and/or your child. Or, providing the booze money that is disguised as "child support." You wonder what judge in his right mind would give custody to an abuser? It would be a judge who did not consider all of the evidence of abuse. This can occur when there are numerous, continuous false allegations. Sometimes, a parent just is not believed. An initial decision for child custody is usually brief -- the courts have only so much time allotted for each case. Not all of the evidence is always heard. Judges and courts are not perfect.

Children often end up with the abuser because the stable parent runs out of money. This is the blunt, simple truth. It takes many thousands of dollars to be involved in a child-custody case. Quality legal counsel does not come cheap. It is a vicious cycle of the innocent parent paying attorney's fees, court costs, psychological evaluations, etc.

Usually, guardian ad litems -- appointed by the courts on behalf of the child -- do a wonderful job. However, they are like judges -- imperfect and human. A guardian ad litem is as good as his or her training, which can be as little as 40 hours. I have to wonder how much specialized training should be required to determine custody. In most cases, the guardian ad litems are known as the "eyes and ears" of the courts. Their words carry a lot of power. They are supposed to remain neutral and in the best interests of the child. They are only as good, though, as their ability to be neutral.

False allegations run rampant in family court. It only takes one -- even anonymous -- complaint to a child welfare agency, and a parent is told to stay away from their child. In the early 1980s, it was believed children never lie about child abuse. Never. If you do not believe a child can be persuaded to lie by a vindictive, revengeful parent, go to www.paskids.org or www.hostile-aggressive-parenting.com. Children are often manipulated into making the false allegations.

A wise judge once said he could practically predict the extent of a child's future emotional problems by the size of the parent's litigation file. Isn't it about time we stop the war? Until courts learn we have to create win-win situations, there will be parents who refuse to pay child support. This should not be "winner take all" -- as in one parent gets the children, the money, the house and all of the advantages, while the other gets nothing. The child will ultimately be the big loser in all of this. Perhaps it is time we look at what both parents and the child can gain from the situation. Child support is just one major component of the total emotional, health and well-being of a child.

Failure to support a child -- you bet it's criminal. So is denying a child visitation with the other parent, parental alienation and parental abduction. The major difference is that when one doesn't pay child support, there are records and it can be monitored and penalized. When a parent subtly instills alienation in a child toward the absent parent, misuses the support money and fails to provide for the child, it is much more difficult to recognize. The parent who receives child support should be held just as accountable as the parent who pays child support.

Children need both parents if at all possible in their lives. When a parent speaks badly to a child about his or her other parent, the parent is bad-mouthing one-half the child. Perhaps it is time to look at workable solutions and how both parents can be invested in their child's future. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the need for and rights of children to have contact with their non-custodial parents were just as important as child support? It would be a win-win situation, and there would be some mighty child support collections!

Joy Henley is a former Muncie resident who is a newspaper reporter/correspondent and author. She has been in the social work profession for 28 years and is an educator of hostile aggressive parenting and parental alienation. For the past 22 years, she has worked with non-custodial parents in family law situations. She is the founder/executive director of The Juliette Gilbert Association for the Prevention of the Parental Abduction of Children.

The Indiana Child Support Nazi's are Gearing Up to Get You

2008-12-06T11:22:00.000-08:00

Oh oh, the Child Support Nazi's are gearing up. I have seen many problems of courts in Indiana NOT getting the support calculations right, and no matter what effort there is to make corrections, the courts are too lazy to get things right. So here you go, the CS Nazi's will be coming to getcha...

From The Star Press:

Our View: State is getting tough on deadbeat parents

Some deadbeat parents in Indiana could find themselves walking instead of riding under a program announced by Gov. Mitch Daniels -- for good reason.

Noncustodial parents who owe at least $25,000 and have not made payments in at least a year could have their state-issued licenses suspended. These include driver's licenses, as well as hunting and fishing licenses.

Daniels announced the program at the end of October, saying it would be first implemented in eight counties: Marion, Lake, Allen and St. Joseph -- the state's most populous -- and in Vanderburgh, Monroe, Tippecanoe and Kosciusko. About 4,000 delinquent parents meeting the criteria for suspension live in those counties. The rest of the state's 92 counties will follow soon.

"We don't want to take anybody's license," Daniels said, "but if you won't do your duty, then certain privileges the state confers ought not be yours until you start doing your duty."

There are built-in protections. The suspensions would not be automatic. The prosecutor's office in each county administers the process. There will be a series of notifications with a 60-day response period. Delinquent parents would not have to pay in full to avoid losing licenses and will be able to set up payment schedules.

The governor said the threshold for suspension will eventually be lowered from $25,000 to $3,000 and the length of time in arrears from a year to three months.

According to the Indiana Department of Child Services, more than 76,000 parents who owe $1.3 billion to their children meet the lower standard.

Indiana courts could previously suspend the licenses of non-paying parents, but the governor's proposal makes it an administrative action.

Indiana officials say they don't want to take anyone's license, but they believe drastic measures are necessary to get some people to meet their obligations. Those who still refuse to pay could go to jail.

Lake County Prosecutor Bernard Carter, who attended the news conference, said he viewed the failure to pay child support by parents with the means as child abuse.

Because the state is responsible for health care and other welfare payments for many of these children and their families, it has the responsibility to collect back child support for the benefit and well-being of these children and as a fiscal responsibility to the taxpayers of Indiana who are footing the bill.

It's sad when it gets to the point it is necessary to threaten someone with something as important as the loss of a driver's license to get them to support their children. The fact that 76,000 Indiana parents owe $2,000 or more is proof the program is needed.

There are many good parents who find themselves in financial difficulty and are temporarily unable to pay their child support. This program is not directed at them. It is to get the attention of those who have the means but refuse to support their children. They deserve to lose their driver's license. They probably also deserve to go to jail for child abuse.

Woman in Minnesota Planned to Return to Indiana and Leave Her Troubled Marriage Behind

2008-11-22T12:43:00.000-08:00

Submitted by Pat Minelli on November 14, 2008 - 9:34pm.
By Shannon Fiecke and Pat Minelli, Shakopee Valley News

Ruth Anne Maddox was only weeks away from being free from her troubled marriage and back in her home state of Indiana when she was found beaten to death in her Prior Lake home Wednesday last week.

The Shakopee Valley News reporter’s husband, Charles Anthony “Tony” Maddox Jr., has been charged in her death. On Friday, bail was set at $1 million in the 43-year-old man’s initial appearance in Scott County District Court. He remains in custody in the Scott County Jail. Maddox faces one count of second-degree murder with intent, but without premeditation. The Minnesota Regional Coroner’s Office, in its preliminary findings, concluded that Ruth Anne Maddox, 45, died of blunt-force head and neck injuries sometime late Monday night or early Tuesday.

Tony Maddox is alleged to have killed his wife in their townhouse and hid her body in the garage. Police, after three visits to the Maddox home and two conversations with her husband, who refused to allow them into the house, obtained a search warrant and entered the residence at 3:17 a.m. Wednesday. Tony Maddox faces a maximum 40 years in prison if convicted. A grand jury must be convened if the county attorney’s office decides to pursue a first-degree murder charge.

Bail has been set at $1 million, cash or bond. A bondsman who attended the hearing told a reporter afterward that a bail company would likely require $100,000 to be put up, but he doubted one would be willing to issue a bond.

The defendant allegedly told police he and his wife had a fight and she came at him with a screwdriver and a knife. He said he put his knee on the arm holding the knife and choked her. The couple was going through a divorce and Ruth Anne Maddox had
expressed concern for her safety on several occasions to friends.

She recently informed her supervisor that after the divorce was final, she planned to resign and return to her native Indiana to be closer to her daughter. According to court records, Ruth Anne Maddox’s 19-year-old daughter, Kelsey, told police she had recently received two text messages from Tony Maddox, saying he would never allow her mother to leave him.

Supervisors reported Ruth Anne Maddox missing Tuesday afternoon of last week after she failed to show up for work. A supervisor had received a text message from her phone that morning, saying she had a doctor's appointment and would let him know when she would be in. That was uncharacteristic, supervisors said, because Maddox would normally call, not send a text message. A male acquaintance in Indiana said he too received a text message from Ruth Anne Maddox's phone on Tuesday morning, also unusual, and the message said, "I'm not having a good morning."

According to the criminal complaint: A neighbor, Sabrina Norrbohm, told police both Maddox vehicles were parked in the driveway when she left for work Tuesday morning. Norrbohm last spoke with Maddox at about 11:30 p.m. Monday. She told police Maddox was home alone and that she had been at a Shakopee School Board meeting Monday night and had three stories to finish for the newspaper’s deadline Tuesday morning. Norrbohm said she was aware of past violence in the Maddox home, but police were never previously involved.

After Prior Lake police were alerted, officers went to the home about 4:40 p.m. Tuesday but there was no answer. They returned about 6:11 p.m. and were met at the door by Tony Maddox. He told officers, who noticed two scratches on his nose, that he didn’t know where his wife was. He said he received a text message from his wife saying she was headed out of town and wouldn’t be back until Sunday. The defendant would not allow police inside the home and spoke to them from the front steps. He refused to sign a missing-person report and said he wanted to see if her family members in Indiana called to report that she arrived there.

Tony Maddox also told police he was watching football at a friend’s house Monday evening. At 9:14 p.m. Tuesday, police visited the home again, and spoke
with Tony Maddox outside the home. It was windy and sleeting at that time, and officers asked if they could go inside the house. He refused. At 3:17 a.m. Wednesday, police entered with a search warrant.

Shortly after police entered the home, Tony Maddox told police without being questioned: “I might as well save you the trouble; you will find Ruth Anne’s body in the garage.” Police found her body wrapped in what appeared to be a tent,
covered by a blanket.

Maddox was last seen at a School Board meeting she was covering for the Valley News on Monday night. When she left the meeting, it was with a wave and a smile on her face, School Board Chair Kathy Busch told the newspaper. At a Veterans Day program the next morning, Cristina Oxtra, communications coordinator for the Shakopee School District, was excitedly waiting to show Maddox her military uniform and introduce her to friends. But no one could find Maddox.

A school administrator tried calling and only got voicemail. There was no response to e-mails Oxtra sent throughout the day, which was uncharacteristic for her, Oxtra said. It was also deadline day at the Valley News, and therefore highly
unusual for Maddox, known for her responsibility, not to show up. Co-workers grew more anxious about her whereabouts as the day progressed and went to the Prior Lake Police Department Tuesday afternoon after driving past the Maddox home, where her green Subura Outback was missing from the driveway.

Always friendly and humorous, Maddox had been especially chatty Monday evening. She and the assistant to the superintendent, Sarah Koehn, talked during much of the meeting, which ended about 9:20 p.m., and Maddox lingered longer than usual afterward, until about 9:45 p.m. The pair’s conversation Monday evening eventually moved to chit-chat, but it started off serious, with Maddox recounting the latest updates in her pending divorce and Koehn helping brainstorm to make sure all the bases were covered — financial, legal, personal, etc. “She seemed OK, like she was getting things taken care of,” Koehn said.

Koehn remembers the conversation ending with her offering to take Maddox’s dogs until she was permanently settled. Maddox had expressed concern that night about the pets, and Koehn now wonders to what extent she might also have been concerned for herself.

Maddox had been preparing in the previous few months to leave her husband. On Oct. 22, she filed for divorce in Scott County and asked for temporary possession of their home, stating in an affidavit she “cannot imagine living under the same roof with him while we wait for the case to be concluded.” Acknowledging that the townhome likely would be foreclosed upon because neither she nor her husband could afford to live there on their own after the divorce, she asked to continue staying there in the meantime without her husband, stating it “will prevent the likelihood of me being domestic[ly] abused by Charles. This is a real threat with which I am faced.”

In a divorce affidavit, Maddox expressed concern about how her husband would react to the breakup, based on an incident of abuse about a year prior when the possibility of divorce was discussed. She wrote, “Charles hit me and pulled me down the stairs” and “more recently he threw keys at me after he thought I was going to file for divorce. Charles is chemically dependent and I do fear Charles’ reaction to the fact I have now started this divorce case … ” A divorce hearing scheduled for Nov. 6 was postponed when the couple’s attorneys came to an agreement.

Ruth Anne Maddox had told co-workers her husband initially agreed to consent to all of her demands, not requiring a court battle, so long as she let him stay in the home a few weeks longer. Peter Horejsi, Ruth Anne Maddox’s attorney, didn’t respond to a call for comment. Last Thursday he told the Times-Union Newspaper in Indiana,
where Ruth Anne Maddox had worked for 16 years, he expected the divorce to become final that week and that Tony Maddox had agreed to be out of the home by the end of this month.

Maddox moved to Prior Lake from Warsaw, Ind., about five years ago after marrying Tony Maddox. The couple attended high school together in Hammond, Ind., and reconnected at a high school reunion. She got a job at the Savage Pacer newspaper, and just over a year ago started working for the Shakopee Valley News. Both papers are part of Southwest Newspapers, based in Shakopee.

The two had been married since May 2003. Ruth Anne is survived by a daughter, Kelsey, from a previous marriage, who lives in Indiana, and two sisters and a brother and her parents.

In court on Friday, Scott County Attorney's Office prosecutors requested $1 million bail, citing the domestic-abuse allegation and because they considered Tony Maddox a flight risk. The defendant’s attorney, Larry Rapoport, disputed allegations
of domestic abuse, saying no record of such abuse exists. “One million dollars [bail] is too exorbitant,” he told the judge. The next court hearing is set for 8:30 a.m. Dec. 29 in Scott County District Court.

Tony Maddox spoke politely to the judge and was composed throughout the hearing, until after acknowledging his family members as he left the courtroom, at which time he began to cry. His family — there were five members at the hearing — declined comment. The victim’s family members, who were not at the hearing and held a funeral for Maddox in Indiana on Monday, were too shaken last week to comment.

Since 2003, nine people have been charged with murder in Scott County, according to the county attorney’s office. There were five victims among the cases. Three cases involved more than one defendant. The last homicide that occurred in Prior Lake was Jan. 27, 2002, when a man killed his wife and then committed suicide. Two other homicides occurred in Prior Lake in 1997. The first involved a man who killed another man on Feb. 8, 1997. The second was a man who killed a woman while the two were in a relationship on Dec. 30, 1997.

Shawn Hogendorf and Lori Carlson contributed to this report.

Story originally from Shakopee Valley News.

Parental Alienation Syndrome is Misused in Child Custody Cases involving Domestic Violence

2008-11-16T18:04:00.000-08:00

From Womens Legal Resource:

November 14th, 2008

I first learned about PAS, Parental Alienation Syndrome during my divorce. I would hear lawyers argue this syndrome over and over again in custody battles. This syndrome hit a nerve, being four credits shy of a Bachelors Degree in Psychology, I never read anything about this syndrome in any of my studies. So, I went back to my psychology books to re-read information maybe I skipped and still, I found nothing about PAS. Then continuing on with research, I found the following information which shed much light about this mysterious syndrome which I will call the “Judicial Syndrome”:

The National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV), the Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project (DV LEAP), Stop Family Violence, and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, four of the nation’s leading domestic violence victim advocacy organizations, call on the media and the courts to rectify the misunderstanding and misuse of Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) in custody cases.

“Child custody cases are among the toughest cases courts have to handle. And in custody cases where domestic violence is involved, the judges have an even higher responsibility to ensure that the safety of family members is not dangerously impaired by misleading - and legally unjustifiable - ‘parental alienation syndrome’ theories,” said Sue Else, president of the National Network to End Domestic Violence.

“Parental Alienation Syndrome” is a claim that has been used to suggest that some parents try to undermine their children’s relationship with the other parent, typically the noncustodial parent, by making false statements about that other parent, most often in the form of abuse allegations. In fact, actor Alec Baldwin made that claim about his own child custody case in a recent interview with Diane Sawyer.

“PAS is being used by some abusers as a tactic to demonize parents’ attempts to protect their children from abuse, denying victims of domestic violence justice in the courts. The fact that some parents behave badly in ordinary cases is no reason to ignore real abuse when it is presented to the court,” also stated Else.
Joan Meier, DV LEAP’s Executive Director, said, “PAS was invented to defeat child abuse claims - and it has been remarkably successful in misleading family courts into believing that women who are sincerely trying to protect their children and themselves from abuse, are just seeking to end the children’s relationship with their noncustodial father.”

According to NNEDV, DV LEAP, SFV, and NCADV, victims of domestic violence face a surprisingly uphill battle in family court to win custody of and safety for their children. All too often, courts award custody and unsupervised visitation to parents found to have committed domestic abuse. Many courts handling custody cases do not understand the dynamics of domestic violence and fail to properly factor in the impact of abuse when considering the best interests of the child.

“The most important factor judges should be weighing in making custody decisions is the safety of the mother and children, and the introduction of PAS overshadows this critical need for safety,” said Rita Smith, Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Meier states that research has shown that children become “alienated” from a parent for a variety of valid reasons, most often resulting from the parent’s own negative behavior and relationship with that child.

“The proponents of ‘parental alienation syndrome’ are purveying invalid junk science is not even legally admissible. PAS has been emphatically rejected by the Presidential Task Force of the American Psychological Association and by the National Council of Juvenile & Family Court Judges. Leading researchers in the field of custody have agreed that PAS has no scientific validity and the only courts to address the issue have found it inadmissible,” said Meier.

“With the increased media attention surrounding the release of Alec Baldwin’s book, it is important to let the public know that victims of domestic violence are being silenced through the use of ‘parental alienation syndrome.’ We cannot afford to consign thousands of children to unsafe custody or visitation with abusive parents because family courts have come to believe that abuse allegations mean nothing more than a campaign of alienation,” said Else.

Freud found that women were “hysterical” could this be an extension of hysteria, I think not. I was abused both emotionally and physically, I will not allow a judge to tell me what I feel or don’t feel. I had enough of that banter with my ex-husband’s lawyer, who in a court of law stated, “I was a hysterical woman”, and by the way, was a woman.

Alec Baldwin exhibited threatening behavior toward his child which happened to end up on the Internet. As a mother, you better believe I will protect that child from that behavior. If a man does that, especially in the public eye, you loose your right as a parent and now become a perpetrator of violence. So when a woman protects her child from violence, she is labeled, with PAS Syndrome and deemed by the court as withholding the father’s right to visit with his child. I don’t think so.

Custody Visitation Scandal Cases

2008-11-09T12:17:00.000-08:00

Original story at Stop Family Violence:

Custody Visitation Scandal Cases
by Barry Goldstein Esq.

The movement to end domestic violence started when women began to speak to each other about their experiences of spousal abuse, which had always been considered a private matter. These discussions led to the realization that domestic violence was far more common then generally believed. This discovery was necessary in order to begin the work to end domestic violence.

Today, disturbingly, in thousands of custody-visitation cases all over the country, abused women and children are being revictimized rather than protected. Some of the cases have been publicized, but most have been hidden from public view. Often the media is reluctant to feature such cases, because they don’t have the resources to determine which side is telling the truth or out of fear of lawsuits. As a result, only the victims and genuine experts are aware of the pattern and frequency of such cases.

When women first started to learn about the extent to which men were abusing their female partners, there was no term to describe such behavior. Only later was the term domestic violence invented. This was an important step, because it gave us common language to describe an all too common and harmful behavior pattern. I believe we now need a term that describes cases in which women and children are further abused by the courts instead of being protected. I suggest using the term CUSTODY-VISITATION SCANDAL CASES, which would help us to better detect and understand the pattern and frequency of such atrocities, so that we can stop such abuse in the future.

Custody-Visitation Scandal Cases can be defined as having many but not all of the following attributes:

Allegations of domestic violence and/or child abuse made by the mother and/or child(ren)
A failure or refusal by court agents (attorneys, law guardians, forensic evaluator, therapists, and/or judge) to take such allegations seriously.
An outcome that places the children at serious risk
An outcome that appears to be 180 degrees from what it should be.
An outcome that gives custody to the alleged abuser and restricted visitation to the protective mother.
The use by the abusive father and his attorney of “standard abuser tactics” (i.e. seeking custody to punish the mother or maintain control; using visitation or custody to harass mother; claiming that unfounded child protective claims were made falsely and maliciously by the mother; attempting to manipulate the children etc.)
The propogation of myths and stereotypes about domestic violence (i.e. that mothers and children frequently make false allegations of abuse to gain an advantage in litigation) by the court and its agents.
Using “experts” with little or no training and understanding of domestic violence.
Gender bias and double standards (mothers being held to a higher standard than fathers)
Failure to consider and use up-to-date domestic violence research.
Approaches that blame the victim.
Use of biased or unsupported theories (i.e. Parental Alienation Syndrome; “Angry women”; “Vindictive women”; alienation; masochism etc.)
Extreme penalties against protective mothers.
Outcomes that make it appear like the judge was bribed even though that is usually not the cause of the judicial abuse.

I am not saying that every case that fits many of the above criteria has to have been improperly decided, but I believe research will find that 98% or more of such cases have been tragically mishandled. Custody-Visitation Scandal Cases should be identified, examined. and corrected when necessary. Even more important, society must create a system to prevent such cases from happening.

2008-11-01T08:30:00.000-07:00

UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman invites you to Say NO to Violence against Women. "One in three women may suffer from abuse and violence in her lifetime. This is an appalling human rights violation. We can put a stop to this. I became UNIFEM's Goodwill Ambassador to amplify the voices of these women. That's why I signed my name to this book. It will help UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a strong supporter of our cause, to strengthen the United Nation's efforts to fulfil women's right to a life free of violence. So please join me. And add your name."

Add your voice to an ever-growing movement of people who call for global action to end violence against women. Goal: One million people to say no to violence, and deliver to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on November 25th. Click here to go to the Say No To Violence website.

Why now may be a good time for a Modification in Child Support Payments or Custody

2008-10-18T12:17:00.000-07:00

A post by a "shared parenting" person, who supports the using the claim of PAS...but I think it has some points for use by us noncustodial moms who have lost our children from false claims of the so-called PAS syndrome.

18 October 2008
by Stuart Showalter

Although much of this article focuses on Indiana law it is generally applicable to all states and can be conformed through application of the various state statutes. Although most parents do care about and love their children there are some who can’t or won’t provide a loving and nurturing environment to their children and require special consideration not applicable to this topic.

The United States and the world is in what will likely be a prolonged recession and it now appears that the general population knows it. Government officials are even starting to hint at it also. In October 2008 the University of Michigan Consumer Confidence Survey fell from 70.3 to 57.5 even as fuel prices were retreating. [Any reading below 100 indicates that consumers have a negative feeling about future economic activity] Consumers were especially bleak in their outlook for employment and inflation.

What does this mean for Parents, both the Non-Custodial Parent (NCP) and Custodial Parent (CP) as it relates to existing court orders? If you haven’t already, you likely will face a change in circumstances, primarily employment, that is continuing and substantial enough to justify a modification in support payments or custody. Your former spouse may change jobs, take on a second job or lose employment. Relocation will also become probable as companies consolidate or merge to save costs. This can affect not only income but also place of residence, time of day scheduled to work, daycare and/or babysitting.

Child support payment and custody orders that are based upon two working parents with a child in a daycare may require modification. The child reaching school age is the most obvious when cost of daycare has been made a part of the child support payment order. This is a change in circumstances that often goes unnoticed or challenged but can cost $1000’s per year to a NCP not seeking a modification. Additionally, a remarried parent in a two earned family that suddenly becomes a one earner family can produce a significant change.

If the NCP loses a job and the parents live in close proximity then the NCP could provide child care services for the parties children. This is mandatory in Indiana where the NCP is to be given first right-of-refusal to provide childcare services when the CP or a family member cannot. This can be a cost savings for both and also give the child more interaction with the NCP which is a benefit to the child.

Similarly, if the CP loses employment and can provide care for the child then daycare expenses would be eliminated.

Either parent losing employment is going to have an effect on child support payment calculations. If it is you who is paying then naturally it is in your best interest to run straight to the courthouse and ask for a modification. If the CP loses employment then the NCP may want to offer to help alleviate some of the costs and stress associated with child rearing. This could be taking the children to practices and events, keeping them in the evening and feeding them. This will give the other parent a chance to look for employment and get a break from some of the expenses. Ultimately it benefits the children and both parents should be receptive to this.

It economically stressful times neither parent is going to want to spend a considerable amount of money on attorneys. This can be beneficial to your children in that if you are a NCP seeking more time or a CP seeking to have the NCP have the children more and have lost your job you have the upper hand. Such as life is that would be the time to take advantage. With a little help you don’t need to hire an attorney.

The parent who has a job knows that the other likely can’t afford to pay attorney fees and would be stuck paying them. A prolonged battle will only be had by the most vindictive of parents. Instead I suggest that if you are the NCP who has hit upon hard times that you request greater custody and a corresponding reduction in child support payments. If your are the CP who has hit upon hard times and are wanting the NCP to have more involvement then you can request that the NCP spend more time caring for the children. In exchange you offer not to seek to have support payments modified upward since you lost your job.

In a time of economic crisis the “me” culture always resorts back to family and community. There is no better reason to do this than for the benefit of your children. Regardless of your relationship status with your child(ren)’s other parent there is one thing that will never change: You both have the responsibility to set aside your differences and work together for what is best for your children.

Gun Powder and Lead: Violence in Custody Cases

2008-10-11T09:31:00.000-07:00

Very moving video. When will the family courts realize what is happening when they make their horrible decisions!

The Julian Jam

2008-10-06T16:48:00.000-07:00

For the ninth consecutive year, The Julian Center is hosting The Julian Jam presented by Ratio Architects, Inc. and Barnes & Thornburg, LLP.

The Julian Jam is a Big Band evening filled with live music by The Stardusters, swing dancing, hors d'oeuvres, drinks, silent auction, and chances to win fun gifts. Naptown Stomp Lindy Hop Society will be on hand to provide short lessons and swing time fun!

The proceeds from this event will help underwrite the children’s programming at The Julian Center and in particular, the onsite therapy program for child victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault.

WHEN: Saturday, November 8, 2008
7:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m.

WHERE: American Cabaret Theatre
401 East Michigan Street
Indianapolis, IN 46204

Parking is available on the streets
and area parking lots.

COST: Individual tickets are available for $20. You may order your tickets online by clicking here or over the phone by calling Molly Barrick at 317.941.2220. MasterCard, Visa, and American Express are accepted.

Table sponsorships are also available. For more information, click here. You may also contact Pamela Testa at 317.941.2215.

Clothesline Highlights Survivor's Plight

2008-10-04T09:35:00.001-07:00

Clothesline highlights survivors' plight
By Bob Scott • bscott@journalandcourier.com • October 2, 2008

"Love is not pain."

"Stop the violence."

The hand-painted T-shirts communicate silently as they hang above the atrium in Ivy Hall at Ivy Tech Community College. The colorful T-shirts were made by local mothers and children who survived domestic violence. The shirts' creators were served by the YWCA's Domestic Violence Intervention and Prevention Program. A brief ceremony Wednesday at Ivy Tech kicked off the local, monthlong "Clothesline Project" and its T-shirt displays. The project is part of a YWCA effort to raise awareness about violence against women. Other local T-shirt displays are at Indiana Business College and in the Purdue Memorial Union.

Last year, 75 women died in Indiana because of domestic violence, said the YWCA's Jasmine Dowd, outreach coordinator of the Domestic Violence Intervention and Prevention Program. "We want to remind those who suffer from domestic violence that they are not alone," she said. A joint proclamation from local governmental officials showed support for survivors of domestic violence.

Issuing the proclamation were West Lafayette Mayor John Dennis, Lafayette Clerk Cindy Murray and Tippecanoe County Commissioner Ruth Shedd. "There is nothing more disruptive to a family and a community than domestic violence," said Dennis, a former deputy chief with the Lafayette Police Department.

Domestic violence review team forming

2008-09-25T17:20:00.000-07:00

By Barrett Newkirk, Herald Bulletin Staff Writer

ANDERSON — Madison County took a step Wednesday toward fighting its high rate of domestic violence related deaths. Government and service agency officials announced that a newly formed Domestic Violence Fatality Review Team will begin reviewing closed cases to determine how deaths linked to domestic violence could have been prevented.

It is the first review team of its kind in Indiana and took two years of planning to get off the ground after Madison County commissioners adopted an ordinance in 2006 to form the team. The Indiana General Assembly passed legislation in 2004 to encourage county review teams. Madison County's team is partially funded through a federal grant. "I'm very excited that this is the first team, and I can't wait to see what results we share statewide," said Laura Berry Berman, executive director on the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

In the 12 months from July 2007 through June 2008, Madison County had six domestic violence-related homicides. Five of those occurred in the first half of 2008.
That's compared with just two deaths in all of 2007, three in 2006 and only one in 2005. Berman said Madison County ranked third for its overall deaths and first based on population, which shows the crucial role of the new review team. Research shows that high unemployment and access to guns are factors that frequently contribute to domestic violence related deaths, Berman said, and with local unemployment above the state average and Indiana's high number of gun owners, those trends could be part of the recent rise in deaths. But only by examining closed cases will the review team be able to determine what factors lead to the deaths, she said.

However, several members on the team emphasized that domestic violence-related deaths are never inevitable. "We know that domestic violence-related fatalities can be prevented, and our goal is to intervene and reduce those fatalities," said Kandi Floyd, a victim advocate at Alternatives Inc. and a member of the review team. Other members of the team include law enforcement officials, social service leaders and domestic violence awareness advocates.

To see the orginal story, please click here.

Another Noncustodial Mom and Her Children Being Kept From Seeing Each Other

2008-09-09T15:53:00.000-07:00

Sadly, Danielle Malmquist (Germantown, TN) has been jailed by the Honorable Judge Jerry Stokes, Shelby County, Tennessee. Even sadder is that her wussy exhusband, Shem Malmquist, claims he is now disabled from the stress from this case. Apparently Shem has a bigger problem with ego. In the book “Professional Pilot Career Guide” by Robert P. Marks, published by McGraw-Hill Professional, 2nd Ed. (1999), ISBN-10 0071346910, on page 266, Shem Malmquist is quoted as saying (with respect to upgrading to captain) “The ego can be a big deal for some people (in upgrading), also the pleasure of being the boss and running the cockpit the way you like it.” Oops, your ego is showing again, Shem. The court and all involved need to think of those children’s rights before letting those egos get in the way of things.

Also visit Fox-13 Memphis’s site for the update: Custody Fight Continues, Mom Jailed. Read about Danielle and the background of her case from a local reporter:

Blog story by Ernie Freeman, Co-host of Fox-13’s Emmy Award winning Good Morning Memphis.

The strange custody story involving the Danielle Malmquist and her ex husband Shem, a FedEx pilot, aired last night. In the end we learned that a Shelby County Circuit Court Judge Jerry Stokes granted Shem his petition for divorce, and gave him custody of their two children, and ordered Danielle to have supervised visitation with her boys, at a cost of $100 per hour. If Danielle visits the maximum allowable hours each week, which is eight, she would have to pay $800 a week to see her boys. She’s unemployed. Which raises the question many people have asked me since the story aired, why does she have to pay $100 dollars an hour. The question I have is why does she have to pay at all.

Representative John DeBerry, who chairs the Tennessee Children and Family Affairs Committee is now looking into this matter. Danielle says she hopes to appeal, but worries she may not have the financial capacity to follow through. I suspect this story will have legs. Sadly, for this mother, it may take years to win back her children, or to have a court issue a sensible order that allows her to visit with her children. Look at the story online, and you will see that the Reverend Dwight Montgomery offered his church as a place Danielle could visit with her children for free. With her employment status, and the costs for the supervised visits, this judge has effectively suspended her parental rights.

If you haven’t seen the story, click on the “News” tab, then finid the “I-Team” link on the right side, then go to the “Bizzare Custody” story.

The question I anticipate most from this story is “what did she do?” According to the Judge’s order, she did nothing. Both parents made allegations against each other, as parents often do in divorces, but nothing stuck. In the story I mention the arrests of Danielle. Let me caution you there is evidence those “arrests” may have been orchestrated. Whether they were or not, all charges were dropped, and “other people” were investigated for possibly orchestrating the arrests.

Many parents have called, as they often do following the airing of a divorce, custody story, saying Shelby County Courts are corrupt to the core, particularly Juvenile Court, which Danielle says hi-jacked her children in the first place. Proving the system is corrupt will take more than just a few non custodial parents complaining about how their cases turned out, but clearly “out of balance” rulings by local judges need to looked at from time to time. If you don’t believe me, just ask Jack and Casey He. Or Danielle Malmquist. Or, maybe her little boys, who must be asking, “where is my mommy?”

The Sixth Annual Battered Mother's Custody Conference Dates Are Set

2008-09-07T11:33:00.000-07:00

BMCC-VI: SAVE THE DATES!

JANUARY 9th - 11th, 2009
at the HOLIDAY INN HOTEL AND CONFERENCE CENTER
Wolf Road, Albany, New York

SPECIAL BMCC VI RATE: $99/night
For reservations: 1 -800-HOLIDAY
Ask for the Battered Mother's Custody Conference Block
Free shuttle to/from Albany Airport (5 minutes away)

The Conference includes presentations, round-table discussions, and question & answer sessions with nationally-distinguished professionals whose work is focused on resolving the complex issues facing battered women as they strive to protect themselves and their children in and out of court during custody and visitation disputes. It is open to lay persons, and of special interest to advocates, social workers, psychologists, attorneys, judges, legal personnel, and others involved in the issue of battered women's and abused children's legal and civil rights violations by family courts, DSS, and other government systems.

Single Moms' Sons Can Succeed, New Research Shows

2008-08-30T10:08:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama, Michael Phelps Are Examples of Success

By SHARON JAYSON
USA TODAY
Aug. 29, 2008

Conventional wisdom is that boys who grow up without fathers are at greater risk of problems, from doing poorly in school to substance abuse. So how does that account for the high-profile successes of standouts such as presidential candidate Barack Obama, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps and others who were reared by single mothers?

Barack Obama and Michael Phelps, both of whom were raised primarily by their mothers, have enjoyed tremendous success in their chosen fields. Obama, a U.S. senator from Illinois, tonight will accept the Democratic presidential nomination. Phelps just won eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics. They -- as well as Tour de France-winning cyclist Lance Armstrong, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and actor Benjamin Bratt -- are just some of the accomplished men who grew up in single-parent households for most or all of their youth.

For decades, researchers have said children from two-parent families do better than those raised by a single parent. That's still true, they say. But newer research pokes holes into that all-or-nothing approach, says fatherhood expert Michael Lamb, a psychology professor at the University of Cambridge in England. "The key point is yes, there is a risk," he says. "But it's not really a risk inherent in the single-parent family, per se. You can't assume that every child raised by a single parent is going to have difficulties. The majority don't."

Lamb says that decades ago, researchers were concerned about risks to children, and "their concerns were driven by a lot of cultural assumptions, which led them to propose kids are better off in the traditional family."

"The evidence, on the whole, hasn't supported that, but the beliefs have persisted in society," he says. Another expert on fatherhood, sociologist Tim Biblarz of the University of Southern California-Los Angeles, says the evidence shows economics plays a significant role in the risk for negative outcomes, such as poorer grades and lower educational attainment, substance abuse or poor social adjustment.

"Those who grow up with single mothers with adequate socioeconomic resources tend to do well. The children of poor single mothers are more at risk," Biblarz says. "Many of the results that say that kids are at increased risk for negative outcomes have to do with economics."

According to the most recent data for 2007 from the U.S. Census, 8.4 million boys under 18 were living with a single mother. That's 22 percent of all boys in that age group in the USA. Lamb says children do better if they have a good relationship with the in-home parent, as well as if the parents have low conflict; if the parent has economic resources; and if children have individual resilience to adverse circumstances.

"What's important is not whether they are raised by one or two parents. It's how good is the relationship with the parent, how much support they're getting from that parent and how harmonious is the environment. "In the case of Obama, his mother was not particularly well off, though she was well-resourced intellectually and had been to college and had supportive parents," Lamb says.

Michael Kimmel, a sociologist and gender studies expert at Stony Brook University in New York, says the resident parent has a huge effect. "We see constantly children of single-parent families who thrive because the parents are so devoted because they're compensating for the absence of the other parent," he says.

But Biblarz says the idea "that boys in particular need fathers in the way girls need mothers" doesn't hold true. "I can tell you there's almost no evidence supporting that," he says. "For a variety of reasons, children who grow up with single fathers, for example, are at higher risk than those who grow up with single mothers for either sex."

In the case of swimmer Phelps, mothers such as Debbie Phelps have the right approach, says Peggy Drexler, author of the 2005 book Raising Boys Without Men. "Phelps was born with a gift that his mother nurtured," says Drexler, an assistant professor of psychology at Cornell University's Weill Medical College in New York City. Such mothers "don't hold them back," she says. "They encourage their talents, and drive and encourage independence and a sense of adventure."

The "Pig Page"

2008-08-23T10:28:00.000-07:00

Check out the "Pig Page", as Liz Kates refers to it. Liz is an attorney in FL and is very careful about what she put on her page. These are quotes directly from these Fathers Righters that she has gathered from their own writings either to her, or others, with full dates, times, email headers, etc. Look at how ignorant and vicious these quotes are.

The Pig Page

Liz is no dummy.

Internet Safety Tips for Abused Women

2008-08-20T16:30:00.000-07:00

If you are in danger, please try to use a safer computer that someone abusive does not have direct or remote hacking access to. If you think your activities are being monitored, they probably are. Abusive people are often controlling and want to know your every move. You don’t need to be a computer programmer or have special skills to monitor someone’s computer and Internet activities – anyone can do it and there are many ways to monitor with programs like Spyware, keystroke loggers and hacking tools.

It is not possible to delete or clear all the “footprints” of your computer or online activities. If you are being monitored, it may be dangerous to change your computer behaviors such as suddenly deleting your entire Internet history if that is not your regular habit. If you think you may be monitored on your home computer, be careful how you use your computer since an abuser might become suspicious. You may want to keep using the monitored computer for normal activities, such as looking up the weather or recipes. Use a safer computer to research an escape plan, look for new jobs or apartments, bus tickets, or ask for help.

Email and Instant/Text Messaging (IM) are not safe or confidential ways to talk to someone about the danger or abuse in your life. If possible, please call a hotline instead. If you use email or IM, please use a safer computer and an account your abuser does not know about. Computers can store a lot of private information about what you look at via the Internet, the emails and instant messages you send, internet-based phone and IP-TTY calls you make, web-based purchases and banking, and many other activities. It might be safer to use a computer in a public library, at a community technology center (CTC), at a trusted friend’s house, or an Internet Café.

VH1's New "Fatherhood" Role Model: Is It Just Me . . .

2008-08-18T16:59:00.000-07:00

By Debbie Schlussel

. . . Or is there something VERY wrong with "2 Live Crew"'s Luther "Luke Skywalker" Campbell's new set-up as a fatherhood role model? That's what VH1 is pimping on America, starting tonight on "Luke's Parental Advisory"--a "family values" show (if you're talkin' John Edwards family values).

Remember him? Luther Campbell is the has-been best known for the grotesque, "Me So Horny," with lyrics, such as "My D-ck So Hard," which they, sadly, played uncensored on MTV and MTV2 (full disgusting lyrics below). Every song by this guy was obscene and basically X-rated, and all of his "albums" (if you can call them that) carried Parental Advisory warnings. Now, Campbell has continued in his path of filth by taking up as a pornography company owner.

Luther Campbell of 2 Live Crew: VH1's New PG-Rated "Fatherhood Role Model"

Oh, and he's debuting tonight on VH1 as the epitome of "fatherhood . . . a role model for his kids." (They don't mention that his two kids we're had out-of-wedlock from a past "relationship.") That's the VH1 press release BS, but in reality, Luther Campbell is one of those rare cases where kids would be better off withOUT their father. In this case, he's a nasty, filthy cesspool of garbage. The only lesson in fatherhood and role-modeling he can teach them is the obvious: "Do as I say, not as I do." VH1 also describes him as a "Constitutional rights activist," because he fought for the right to use a woman's orgasmic scream sound effects from "Full Metal Jacket" in his filthy "Me So Horny." Wow, a bastion of American patriotism, this guy.

By the way, most of the newspaper articles on this show describe Campbell as a "businessman," but they don't say that his "business" is porn. Kudos to the New York Times for at least having the guts to tell the truth in its coverage of this waste of time, trashy show. Sadly, while pointing out what a crummy show it is, even the NYTimes pimps it as a "guilty-pleasure classic":
"Luke's Parental Advisory," belongs to the wild-parent genre of reality family shows . . . . Luther Campbell, who made his name with "Me So Horny" two decades ago and now runs his own pornography production company, tries to keep his teenage son and daughter on the straight and narrow. But he doesn't try all that hard. "You call yourself a player?" he asks upon learning that his 14-year-old son has only one girlfriend.

With its pole-dancing auditions, blustering admonitions ("The girlfriend with the baby, she gotta go") and constant apologias for the family business, "Luke's Parental Advisory" may become a guilty-pleasure classic. The show it is most reminiscent of, in some ways, is "The Sopranos," with Mr. Campbell as a more avuncular Tony, forced by his profession to hang out at strip clubs. [DS: Methinks Tony Soprano is turning over in his pay-cable grave; this show is on regular prime-time cable, where kids can easily tune in.] . . . [There] is a forthright emphasis on cleavage. It's Mr. Campbell's job.

Sorry, but there's a line between "guilty pleasure" and "depraved outrage." Campbell long ago crossed that line. Hard to believe, but this show is only rated TV-PG. Unfortunately, too many Ps won't give the proper G, and a lot of American kids will think the Campbell Family values are the way to go.

I'm not posting the disgusting, orgasmic scream "Me So Horny" video here. But here are the "lyrics"--if you call this crap, "lyrics". With "role models" and "fathers" like this, why doesn't VH1 just do a show, "Bin Laden's Family Values," or "Ron Jeremy: America's New Role Model"? Oops, I just gave them some ideas they might act on.

"Me So Horny" By 2 Live Crew
What'll we get for ten dollars?
Every ting you want
Everything?Everyting
Ooh! don't do that, baby!
ahh!Hold on this!
oh, sock it to me!
aaahh!Ooohh!
Chorus (repeated during breakdowns):
Ahh! me so horny!Me love you long time!
Verse 1: [Brother Marquis]
Sittin at home with my d--k on hard
So I got the black book for a freak to call
Picked up the telephone,
then dialed the 7 digits
Said, yo, this Marquis, baby!
are you down with it?
I arrived at her house,
knocked on the door
Not having no idea of
what the night had in store
I'm like a dog in heat,
a freak without warning
I have an appetite for sex,
'cuz me so horny
Chorus
Ahh! me so horny!
Me love you long time!

etc. etc. etc. (You get the idea)

Yup, America, the man who made this vile filth is the new role model for fatherhood. Awesome.
If you let your kids watch this show, they should sue you for malpractice.

Battered Mothers! Speak Out To America About The Truth Of Family Courts

2008-08-17T16:46:00.000-07:00

Calling out to America... WE NEED TO HEAR YOUR VOICE on the radio:
If you are a protective parent, a battered women/mother or an abused child...or know of an abused mother or an abused child, please call into the show (WKRS RADIO's A Citizens' Voice on Thursday nights from 6-8pm) with your story. America needs to know these "DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS". Fred Flannigan is the host of this show and is giving us the format to expose this travesty of justice.

You can hear the show LIVE on the internet at: www.wkrs.com or
Call into the "A Citizen's Voice" with Fred Flannigan at (847) 244-1220 or
Email Fred with your story and/or thank him for providing us with this venue for sharing these American nightmare stories from our American family Courts at: fred@acitizensvoice.com

WKRS Radio Show-1220 AM
A Citizen's Voice with Fred Flannigan
Thursday Nights from 6-8pm CDT

An interative exchange about the problems with domestic violence and child abuse being ignored and covered-up in America's family court systems

Phone # (847) 244-1220
Email: fred@acitizensvoice.com

Fatherless Child Story

2008-08-17T16:34:00.000-07:00

This child was born in a small town in Pennsylvania in 1745, the fourth child in a family of seven children. His father died when he was six, and so he was sent away to live with his maternal uncle, a Presbyterian minister who had founded a school for children. An exemplary student, he graduated from the College of New Jersey (now known as Princeton) at age 15, and then went on to study medicine, first in Philadelphia, and then London.

On the way to London, he became upset at seeing the conditions on dozens of slave ships in Liverpool Harbor. The impression this made on him would color his views and scholarship for the remainder of his lifeAt age 24, he returned to Philadelphia to practice medicine and teach chemistry at Philadelphia College. During this time, he also started writing articles and treatises on politics and in favor of the abolition of slavery, as well as on his scientific theories. These writings brought him to the attention of revolutionaries such as Thomas Paine, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. And so, in 1776, he was appointed as a delegate from Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress.

During the Revolutionary War, he served as Surgeon-General to the Continental Army until a falling out with General Washington ended his military career. He returned to teaching, writing, and practicing medicine, gaining prominence in the field of medicine. He married a young woman with whom he had 13 children, 9 of whom survived infancy.He became a vocal proponent in favor of women's rights, and the rights of those with mental illnesses, as well as an outspoken opponent against the institution of slavery. He also advocated for universal health care and for education for all. He wrote the first American textbook in chemistry, and he tutored Meriwether Lewis to prepare him for the great Corps of Discovery expedition.A deeply religious man, largely because of his maternal uncle's early influence, he disagreed with the concept of separation of church and state -- he believed that Christianity should be a part of public life as well as taught in the schools. He wrote: "The only foundation for a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments."While many of his ideas, such as the misguided medical practice of bloodletting, have been proved wrong, his thinking in other ways has been considered to have been ahead of his time.

Perhaps his greatest legacy is that of advocating for the advancement of knowledge in all areas of life, and for our government to work for the benefit of all.Today this child is sometimes called the "father of the public school system". And because of his work as a physician on behalf of those with mental disabilities, he also is considered to be a founder of the field of psychiatry.On the seal of the American Psychiatric Association is a silhouette of that founder. The person it belongs to was human rights advocate and signer of the Declaration of Independence,Benjamin Rush, a boy from a "fatherless home."

***************************************

Read other stories from the Fatherless Children series: http://www.thelizlibrary.org/fatherless/

From Newsweek: Why Parents Who Batter Win Custody

2008-08-17T13:10:00.000-07:00

This article was published online last summer, but has roused interest again, being attacked by the FR people again. They have posted very angry comments, making little sense other than to promote their incendiary sites. Here is the article again:

Newsweek article: Fighting Over The Kids.