Fox News 411
It’s a $50 billion a year industry, with more funds flooding in to family courts in the United States than all other court systems combined.
But according to filmmaker Joseph Sorge – who was inspired by his own divorce and custody battles a few years ago – it’s an unregulated mess in which children are ripped from their homes, insulting judges play God with parents’ lives, and unlicensed custody evaluators are more like extortionists.
“Audiences will be surprised to learn just how damaging the family courts process is, people don’t realize a judge can just take the kids away because they don’t like you,” Sorge, who compiled his findings into the expose-style documentary “Divorce Corp,” told FOX411. “People think this can’t happen in America, but it does.”
Narrated by TV personality Dr. Drew Pinsky, the film uses interviews with leading divorce lawyers, mediators, judges, politicians, litigants and journalists to showcase a family court system that doesn’t help families and children move on as they are sanctioned to do, but rather drags cases out for years, igniting a slew of consequences including bankruptcy, foreclosure, violence and even suicide.
“Divorce Corp” also paints a portrait of a system that routinely violates freedom of speech and an individual’s freedom to parent.
Full story: Fox News 411
Showing posts with label divorce industry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label divorce industry. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Thursday, March 19, 2015
Maine - A Case to Deny Re-Appointment of Hon Patricia Worth
The reappointment of a Judge is an important task. Judges are tasked
with interpreting our laws in a fair way and are supposed to be
consistent with their interpretation. Lawyers, Guardians ad litem and
other members of the Divorce Industry are currently tasked with
providing data on the Judge. These are people who work with the Judge
and whose livelihood will be determined by this person in the future.
Complaining about the judges conduct could come back to haunt them. Is
there any incentive to point out a judges flaws by this group or is the
incentive to tread softly?
The public ( Prose ) - who represent 74% of the those who appear in Family Courts are rarely if ever sought after for their opinion. Yet it is this group who bear the weight of a re-appointment of a dysfunctional judge. Today we have a Judge who is one of four Family Court judges who is on the verge of being re-appointed. But - not without a fight by many brave souls who have been victimized by the Family Court in Belfast Maine:
Senator Burns, Representative Hobbins, members of the Judiciary Committee
My name is Jerome Collins, and I am a resident of Kennebunkport.
In addressing the task before you of deciding whether to re-appoint Judge Patricia Worth you face a choice. Do you follow past practice and merely listen to the "all is well" message of the Governor's Judicial Appointment Committee? Or do you heed the cries of the public who have actually appeared before this judge? At one end of the spectrum are professional references from the "legal industry" that she serves. At the other end are the anguished cries from a few brave souls who dare to speak the truth about the abysmal human practices that pervade her court, the cruelty of her decisions, and havoc she wreaks on parents and children.
The Governor's Judicial Appointment Committee does not hear those sad voices. It talks only with members of the legal profession - judges, lawyers, leadership of the Bar, the Overseers of the Bar, and the disciplinary committees of the profession. We all know that the members of any one profession are reticent about being forthright about a colleague’s shortcomings. But that reticence has no place in this process, because the judiciary was not established to insulate and protect itself. It was established to protect the rights of the people. Therefore, the people must be made part of the process.
We believe the reappointment of any judge should include inquiry into the experience of non-lawyers in that courtroom. We are told that 74% of litigants in Maine family courts are ‘pro se’. This is a powerful statistic; it is a glaring majority of unrepresented people, in courts, acting as their own “lawyer”. Their voices also deserve to be part of the process. We know Judge Worth has told pro se litigants “don’t come back to this court without a lawyer”. We are concerned that she feels entitled to unilaterally inflict the financial burden of hiring lawyers upon the citizens of Maine. And we must wonder what other constitutional rights are being violated by her?
As a grass roots group, we suggest some questions that might be raised in a “people-focused” legislative audit of the Judge Worth court. It reflects many issues that were not covered by the Judicial Vetting Committee. In our opinion, this esteemed Judiciary Committee, cannot be fully informed and make well reasoned decisions about Judge Worth (or other judges) without the answers to these questions about the actual nature of a given court.
Judge Worth’s position on the Judicial Responsibility and Disability Committee and her approval by colleagues on the vetting committee makes the answer to the consumer oriented questions below the only way the Judiciary Committee will be able to have fair “oversight” in this matter. We feel that the Judiciary Committee of the Legislature needs to act upon its constitutional oversight power and act to protect the people of Maine. We suggest an audit of the Worth court before any decision is made as to reappointment.
Here are some ideas that might go into such an audit:
POSSIBLE OUTCOMES OF A COURT AUDIT: A range of options for action. These are just ideas/examples some of which are obviously borrowed from other systems evaluating performance of professional workers.
To find out more about how you can bring about change in our Family Court please contact us at MeGALalert@gmail.com or find us on Facebook.
The public ( Prose ) - who represent 74% of the those who appear in Family Courts are rarely if ever sought after for their opinion. Yet it is this group who bear the weight of a re-appointment of a dysfunctional judge. Today we have a Judge who is one of four Family Court judges who is on the verge of being re-appointed. But - not without a fight by many brave souls who have been victimized by the Family Court in Belfast Maine:
Senator Burns, Representative Hobbins, members of the Judiciary Committee
My name is Jerome Collins, and I am a resident of Kennebunkport.
In addressing the task before you of deciding whether to re-appoint Judge Patricia Worth you face a choice. Do you follow past practice and merely listen to the "all is well" message of the Governor's Judicial Appointment Committee? Or do you heed the cries of the public who have actually appeared before this judge? At one end of the spectrum are professional references from the "legal industry" that she serves. At the other end are the anguished cries from a few brave souls who dare to speak the truth about the abysmal human practices that pervade her court, the cruelty of her decisions, and havoc she wreaks on parents and children.
The Governor's Judicial Appointment Committee does not hear those sad voices. It talks only with members of the legal profession - judges, lawyers, leadership of the Bar, the Overseers of the Bar, and the disciplinary committees of the profession. We all know that the members of any one profession are reticent about being forthright about a colleague’s shortcomings. But that reticence has no place in this process, because the judiciary was not established to insulate and protect itself. It was established to protect the rights of the people. Therefore, the people must be made part of the process.
We believe the reappointment of any judge should include inquiry into the experience of non-lawyers in that courtroom. We are told that 74% of litigants in Maine family courts are ‘pro se’. This is a powerful statistic; it is a glaring majority of unrepresented people, in courts, acting as their own “lawyer”. Their voices also deserve to be part of the process. We know Judge Worth has told pro se litigants “don’t come back to this court without a lawyer”. We are concerned that she feels entitled to unilaterally inflict the financial burden of hiring lawyers upon the citizens of Maine. And we must wonder what other constitutional rights are being violated by her?
As a grass roots group, we suggest some questions that might be raised in a “people-focused” legislative audit of the Judge Worth court. It reflects many issues that were not covered by the Judicial Vetting Committee. In our opinion, this esteemed Judiciary Committee, cannot be fully informed and make well reasoned decisions about Judge Worth (or other judges) without the answers to these questions about the actual nature of a given court.
Judge Worth’s position on the Judicial Responsibility and Disability Committee and her approval by colleagues on the vetting committee makes the answer to the consumer oriented questions below the only way the Judiciary Committee will be able to have fair “oversight” in this matter. We feel that the Judiciary Committee of the Legislature needs to act upon its constitutional oversight power and act to protect the people of Maine. We suggest an audit of the Worth court before any decision is made as to reappointment.
Here are some ideas that might go into such an audit:
- How many 'pro se' cases does Judge Worth see in her court?
- How many has she ordered (or the equivalent) not to come back without a lawyer?
- Do family court litigants (pro se and those with lawyers) feel intimidated by this judge?
- Does the judge help 'pro se' litigants, or do they feel harassed and bullied?
- How long does the judge take to render an opinion?
- Are her judicial opinions fractured into components that come out at intervals requiring multiple appeals (and the expense involved) if one disagrees?
- Does she accept as valid reports from Children's Protective, from clinical consultants, or does she offer opinions unrelated to professional opinions? How often? Does she appear to feel she "knows better" than professional consultants? How often are her personal judicial opinions at variance with professional opinions?
- How often do aggressive attorney's appear in her court? How often would they receive a favorable judgment? Are they reprimanded for overly aggressive behavior?
- How does the judge treat litigants, 'pro se' or represented, who oppose aggressive attorney's? Who wins?
- How many appeals have been made to the Supreme Court in opposition to her decisions? Results?
- Does the Judge seem to have solid knowledge about the law and case law concerning Guardians ad litem and family matters? Does she rely on “judicial discretion” instead of law?
- How often does this judge offer suspended "jail" in family matters and for what offenses?
- How does she use supervised visits between parent and child? For what issues, based on what evidence? Does she always have a plan for moving from supervised visits to regular visits and shared parenting?
- Does she show idiosyncratic interpretations of laws and regulations?
- How promptly does she respond to motions for findings of fact and law? How often are these requests dismissed?
- Is she on the Judicial Disability Committee? Other Judicial committees?
- Have complaints been made against her practices as a judge? Does her position on the Judicial Responsibility and Disability Committee have a chilling effect on would-be complainants? Are lawyers and others intimidated?
- Does she have health issues that might impact her judicial functioning? How long has she handled family matter cases? Is she in danger of “burn out”?
- From CANON 3 (B.7) A judge shall accord to every person who has a legal interest in a proceeding, or that person's lawyer, the right to be heard according to law. Does this cannon allow a judge to order a 'pro se' litigant not to ever appear without a lawyer?
- The legislature has stated that unless otherwise warranted the public policy of the state is to assure frequent and continuing parent/child contact after divorce and that the courts should encourage shared rights are responsibilities in child rearing. Does Judge Worth routinely follow that policy?
- How many of Judge Worth’s cases are zero sum games when it comes to children: one parent wins and the other loses? This result would not be consistent with the above legislative intent. And of the winner/loser cases, are most of the “winner” cases handled by the same few lawyers?
- Finally, do parents in family matters before Judge Worth have rights that are equal to or less than parents in Title 22 child protection matters?
POSSIBLE OUTCOMES OF A COURT AUDIT: A range of options for action. These are just ideas/examples some of which are obviously borrowed from other systems evaluating performance of professional workers.
- This court is functioning well and is serving citizens of Maine according to the spirit and letter of the law.
- This court needs more regular oversight from Judicial Branch authorities.
- This court needs regular professional supervision of the judge’s actions to correct some judicial “rough edges”.
- This judge shows deficiencies in the necessary knowledge, skill or experience (or intrusive personal factors) to be a judge. These are in need of correction before continuing as a judge.
- This judge appears to be showing signs of “judicial burnout” or other personal issues and is in need of R&R, transfer to another type of court, further judicial education, mentoring, or a move into some other function within the Judicial Branch system.
- This judge is malfunctioning and should retire or be removed from being a judge.
- Other ideas for corrective action.
To find out more about how you can bring about change in our Family Court please contact us at MeGALalert@gmail.com or find us on Facebook.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Divorce Corp - Backdoor Deals and Cozy Relationships between GALs and Judges
Director Joe Sorge (DivorceCorp) interviews Maine psychiatrist and director of Maine Guardian Ad Litem Alert, Jerry Collins. They discuss the backdoor deals and cozy relationships between the guardian ad litems (GALs) and other family court professionals. Families are forced to pay outrageous fees and often get little for their money.
Learn how Guardians ad litem demand excessive fees and are essentially unregulated in their practice. It is another shocking example of the corrupt practices in US family courts.
DivorceCorp - Family Law Report: Jerry Collins Interview Part1
If you would like more information and become involved email us at NationalGALalert@gmail.com or find us on Facebook.
Learn how Guardians ad litem demand excessive fees and are essentially unregulated in their practice. It is another shocking example of the corrupt practices in US family courts.
DivorceCorp - Family Law Report: Jerry Collins Interview Part1
If you would like more information and become involved email us at NationalGALalert@gmail.com or find us on Facebook.
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Maine - Lawyers, Divorce Industry Like Mike - Should You?
We try to stay clear of partisan politics. After all, children's welfare in divorce and custody shouldn't be a partisan issue. So we try to remain "non-partisan",
BUT ...
Quite frankly, from the perspective of our Family Court, and Guardian ad litem (GAL) reform concerns, we "Don't like Mike" - that is Mike Michaud, one of ( 3 ) candidates running for Governor of Maine. In fact we would say to our GAL and Family Court reform friends, "Vote for anyone else for Governor, but not Mike!"
It's nothing personal, Mike, its your "special interest" lawyer friends, supporters and the fundraisers who we don't like! It is Maine's divorce industry that is "hell bent for election," divorce bar lawyers raising money for "Mike" like it is going out of style and the other, so - called "impartial" divorce industry people silently cheering for "Mike". They are hoping that he wins and that his gratitude for their support will preserve the very lucrative 'status quo' in our creaky, old, dysfunctional, Family Courts.
ASK YOURSELF - WHY DOES THE DIVORCE INDUSTRY SO AVIDLY SUPPORT MIKE MICHAUD? Why are lawyers, law firms and the judicial branch supporting Mike? The financial investment they are making in Mike Michaud is an investment in keeping the family court as we know it. It is an investment in their retirements, their children's education and their way of life.
Take a look at some of Mikes supporters:
Michael Asen Esq (MittelAsen) - has helped fund raise for Mike on several occasions - 07/25/2014; 08/11/2014; 08/14/2014;
Michael Asen Esq has also been quoted by the Portland Press Herald as saying “My highest priority is making sure we don’t have another four years of this governor.” in an August 12, 2014 posting and referring to Gov. Paul LePage. Remember Gov. Paul LePage signed the Dutremble bill LD 872 "An Act To Improve the Quality of Guardian ad Litem Services for the Children and Families of Maine" which the Judicial Branch hated as did lawyers and Guardians ad litem. Michael Asen Esq is also the chair of fund raising for Maine lawyers who like "Mike".
Diane Dusini Esq (MittelAsen) - has helped raise money for Mike on at least one occasion - 08/11/2014. It should be noted that is also the President of the Maine Bar.
WHY DO THEY LIKE "MIKE"? You can bet that it isn't just out of the goodness of their hearts, and it isn't because the divorce bar wants our kind of Family Court or Guardian ad litem reform. They expect that "Mike's" "pay back" for their financial bucks will be strong support for the "divorce bar". Keep lawyer privilege! Keep our family courts as they are - a gold mine for lawyers and the Divorce Industry. Keep consumers out of this unregulated "industry". "Mike" has a political reputation for being an obedient, good, ol boy. The divorce bar and their good friend, Senate President Justin Alfond ( 07/21/2014; 08/11/2014; 09/23/2014 ), are banking on a tight relationship with "Mike". Alfond is reported to have already told Senators in his caucus, enough already with GAL reform; the lawyers don't like it!
WE'D BET THAT MANY WITHIN THE JUDICIAL BRANCH ARE ALSO SILENTLY SUPPORTING "MIKE" TOO (and not just their "prayers and good wishes"!). He is their kind of guy; supporting the interests of the "divorce industry" and will not supporting Family Court or GAL reform - just exactly as they are.
DO YOU SUPPORT THE "DIVORCE INDUSTRY"? A vote for "Mike" supports the divorce industry and perpetuates our victim hood in Family Courts. Use you precious vote thoughtfully, carefully and in the best interest of our children. Your vote can make a difference. Please, friends, anyone but "Mike" for Governor of Maine, please!
We'd also say, check out where our candidates for the Maine Senate and House of Representatives stand on our reform issues. We're splitting our vote on these candidates depending on whether they support our family court and GAL reform positions. For us, it's not about Republican or Democrat; we call ourselves "Childocrats"!
JOIN THE CHILDOCRAT PARTY TOO!
NationalGALert is a grassroots organization and like minded people who have a vested interest in the states Family Court process and reform. Please feel free to contact us at NationalGALalert@gmail.com or find us on Facebook.
BUT ...
Quite frankly, from the perspective of our Family Court, and Guardian ad litem (GAL) reform concerns, we "Don't like Mike" - that is Mike Michaud, one of ( 3 ) candidates running for Governor of Maine. In fact we would say to our GAL and Family Court reform friends, "Vote for anyone else for Governor, but not Mike!"
It's nothing personal, Mike, its your "special interest" lawyer friends, supporters and the fundraisers who we don't like! It is Maine's divorce industry that is "hell bent for election," divorce bar lawyers raising money for "Mike" like it is going out of style and the other, so - called "impartial" divorce industry people silently cheering for "Mike". They are hoping that he wins and that his gratitude for their support will preserve the very lucrative 'status quo' in our creaky, old, dysfunctional, Family Courts.
ASK YOURSELF - WHY DOES THE DIVORCE INDUSTRY SO AVIDLY SUPPORT MIKE MICHAUD? Why are lawyers, law firms and the judicial branch supporting Mike? The financial investment they are making in Mike Michaud is an investment in keeping the family court as we know it. It is an investment in their retirements, their children's education and their way of life.
Take a look at some of Mikes supporters:
Michael Asen Esq (MittelAsen) - has helped fund raise for Mike on several occasions - 07/25/2014; 08/11/2014; 08/14/2014;
Michael Asen Esq has also been quoted by the Portland Press Herald as saying “My highest priority is making sure we don’t have another four years of this governor.” in an August 12, 2014 posting and referring to Gov. Paul LePage. Remember Gov. Paul LePage signed the Dutremble bill LD 872 "An Act To Improve the Quality of Guardian ad Litem Services for the Children and Families of Maine" which the Judicial Branch hated as did lawyers and Guardians ad litem. Michael Asen Esq is also the chair of fund raising for Maine lawyers who like "Mike".
Diane Dusini Esq (MittelAsen) - has helped raise money for Mike on at least one occasion - 08/11/2014. It should be noted that is also the President of the Maine Bar.
WHY DO THEY LIKE "MIKE"? You can bet that it isn't just out of the goodness of their hearts, and it isn't because the divorce bar wants our kind of Family Court or Guardian ad litem reform. They expect that "Mike's" "pay back" for their financial bucks will be strong support for the "divorce bar". Keep lawyer privilege! Keep our family courts as they are - a gold mine for lawyers and the Divorce Industry. Keep consumers out of this unregulated "industry". "Mike" has a political reputation for being an obedient, good, ol boy. The divorce bar and their good friend, Senate President Justin Alfond ( 07/21/2014; 08/11/2014; 09/23/2014 ), are banking on a tight relationship with "Mike". Alfond is reported to have already told Senators in his caucus, enough already with GAL reform; the lawyers don't like it!
WE'D BET THAT MANY WITHIN THE JUDICIAL BRANCH ARE ALSO SILENTLY SUPPORTING "MIKE" TOO (and not just their "prayers and good wishes"!). He is their kind of guy; supporting the interests of the "divorce industry" and will not supporting Family Court or GAL reform - just exactly as they are.
DO YOU SUPPORT THE "DIVORCE INDUSTRY"? A vote for "Mike" supports the divorce industry and perpetuates our victim hood in Family Courts. Use you precious vote thoughtfully, carefully and in the best interest of our children. Your vote can make a difference. Please, friends, anyone but "Mike" for Governor of Maine, please!
We'd also say, check out where our candidates for the Maine Senate and House of Representatives stand on our reform issues. We're splitting our vote on these candidates depending on whether they support our family court and GAL reform positions. For us, it's not about Republican or Democrat; we call ourselves "Childocrats"!
JOIN THE CHILDOCRAT PARTY TOO!
NationalGALert is a grassroots organization and like minded people who have a vested interest in the states Family Court process and reform. Please feel free to contact us at NationalGALalert@gmail.com or find us on Facebook.
Monday, September 1, 2014
Opinion: In Defense Of Self-Represented Litigants
A strong piece on the issues of having Pro Se litigants.
The Connecticut Law Tribune
Despite the economic barriers to justice faced by struggling Connecticut families, rising from the ashes of the highly charged public debates over how to reform the family courts is a shockingly insensitive outcry from court industry insiders demonizing the 85 percent of divorcing parents who have chosen to invest in their families instead of attorneys.
Tauck v. Tauck was perhaps the most inefficient and expensive trial in Connecticut family court history, spanning over five years, 600-plus filings, and ending in an 86-day trial in 2007 that played out before Judge Holly Abery-Wetstone on Middletown's Regional Family Trial Docket. According to the Hartford Courant, the family paid out some $13.3 million in fees to the dozens of legal industry professionals on the case, including $1.3 million paid (without challenge) to attorney Gaetano Ferro, the children's guardian ad litem.
For further reading: The Connecticut Law Tribune
The Connecticut Law Tribune
Despite the economic barriers to justice faced by struggling Connecticut families, rising from the ashes of the highly charged public debates over how to reform the family courts is a shockingly insensitive outcry from court industry insiders demonizing the 85 percent of divorcing parents who have chosen to invest in their families instead of attorneys.
Tauck v. Tauck was perhaps the most inefficient and expensive trial in Connecticut family court history, spanning over five years, 600-plus filings, and ending in an 86-day trial in 2007 that played out before Judge Holly Abery-Wetstone on Middletown's Regional Family Trial Docket. According to the Hartford Courant, the family paid out some $13.3 million in fees to the dozens of legal industry professionals on the case, including $1.3 million paid (without challenge) to attorney Gaetano Ferro, the children's guardian ad litem.
For further reading: The Connecticut Law Tribune
Friday, February 14, 2014
Family Court Abuse - A Parents Perspective
Dear Dr. Collins (et al):
I cannot thank you enough for all that you do for the impoverished, broken, and voiceless.
I thank everyone within the NationalGALalert circles for the pro-active stance that has opened doors once thought closed.
Our family's case is literally "killing" my almost 16 year-old daughter; that was her description - just yesterday - of how the numerous adversarial & prolonged family court procedures have adversely effected her.
At present, she is being held against her will within her dad's home: the Guardian ad litem (GAL) failed to hear her pleas of wanting desperately to move back in with her mother {me}. Additionally, the 2014 court order legally permits her father from allowing her visitation with her mother {me}.
The last GAL failed us on several occasions submitting an 18 page report filled with subjective information - mostly inaccurate & malicious information -- provided to her by my former husband.
The system has failed our family in 2009-2010 and in 2012 to present: both of us parents have considerable legal debt.
I am still in shock over the final judgment given to me just 2 days after I appeared in Portland (01/14/2104) to testify that I have been unable to contact Mary Ann Lynch via email.
I know both myself and my daughter suffer from a form of PTSD as a result of the on-going post-divorce conflict initiated by my former husband but fanned and fueled by those within the divorce industry.
Those who want to point fingers can point to my former husband or to me BUT the truth is, my former husband would not have been able to succeed in financially impoverishing me without the support of the divorce industry.
Collectively, our family has lost so much; the most tragic loss -- something that cannot be replaced -- is my young daughters childhood. Both teens suffer separately and differently from the conflict that results from drawn-out and highly contentious court proceedings.
Conflict is all that she knows / they know; the divorce industry knowingly or unknowing gave my former husband positive reinforcement every time he sought legal counsel to take me back to court -- twice since our original 2006 divorce.
Each consecutive court process took twice as long as the prior and the costs involved doubled from the previous process. I was just getting out of legal debt from the 2009-2010 process when my former took us back to court in 2012. That process lasted 18 plus months and cost me over $20,000 when I only earned $10,000 in 2012 and $12,000 in 2013 (I was a full-time USM student until this past May).
Presently, my debt is so astronomical that that my ability to pay court ordered child support {calculated - mind you - on a salary that I did not actually earn} has been greatly hindered: how is any of this in the best interest of either teen? Or, the Maine tax payers? Or, to our society???
As a result of the collusion between the divorce industry and my former husband, my daughter has fallen deeper and deeper into a depressions; she has twice attempted to end her life {May and September of 2013}.
Maine care has picked up all of the costs for her medical care. Maine tax payers are footing the bill and , we as a society, are potentially losing a once energetic, civic-minded, and highly accomplished student to a major depression and self-harming behaviors both beginning after she was taken out of my home in 2010 and placed in the care of her dad.
I suggest that the mayor and the divorce industry consider a "Truth and Reconciliation Act" in order to acknowledge the pain and suffering that has taken place -- for decades upon decades -- as a result of such a broken system.
Since 2006, I have suffered - as well as the two minors -- enormous losses:
1. Loss of primary home in 2010;
2. Loss of $100,000 equity in that primary home (2012 York, Maine);
3. Loss of all material possessions sold off to pay down legal debt;
4. Loss of family pet as former husband adopted the dog out of the family once he was granted custody of both minors and their dog in 2010.
5. Decrease in credit score by 100 points due to inability to pay mortgage on primary home when former spouse was advised- by his lawyer- to stop making child support payments in order to force me into signing 2010 post-judgment agreement;
6. Loss residential custody of both teens due to loss of primary home (temporarily left homeless);
7. Loss 1/2 retirement fund in 2010 court process to pay GAL, legal fee's and mortgage payments;
8. Loss all of savings to date; accrued credit card debt is now equal to my 2013 annual salary; loss all assets with exception to my vehicle that allows me to travel 3 hours a day to my full-time job;
9. Loss ALL parental rights and responsibilities and all decision making powers due to erroneous GAL report and due to her recommendation that losing all rights would end conflict;
10. Loss visitation rights as all visitation is now up to the discretion of my former husband who has been the instigator for all post-judgment discord;
11. The stress and the conflict has interfered with my work at present, has created ongoing and extensive medical expenses, and has left our daughter suicidal as well as feeling hopeless about her future;
12. The scars left on the hearts of my two teenagers as well as myself may or may not ever heal; time will tell. There is nothing more psychologically harmful than to lose the right to parent: from 1996 until 2014, I gave my life to my children. I intended and strove to raise well-adjusted, law abiding, and well-educated young adults. That right has been taken from me; the family court system partook in that loss of civil liberties.
The time for healing is now.
Please allow those of us who have to live with these court ordered "solutions" to family matters be a part of the solution for creating a system that heals and supports healthy family relations rather than a system that fuels the flames of discord in order to "win" a case; we have a vast amount of anecdotal information that would be an invaluable resource for those who are truly vested in the well-being of Maine's children and in the health and welfare of the state of Maine as a whole.
With sincere gratitude for your time and consideration~
Suzanne
YDC-FM-06-XX
Former resident of York Maine
Present Maine tax payer
Social Justice Advocate
This letter was written to the courts and state government and came about as a result of the post "A Maine Commission to Assess the Impact of Divorce and Custody on Maine Children and Families". To read the letter to Gov. Paul LePage follow this link.
For more information please contact us at NationalGALalert@gmail.com or find us on Facebook.
I cannot thank you enough for all that you do for the impoverished, broken, and voiceless.
I thank everyone within the NationalGALalert circles for the pro-active stance that has opened doors once thought closed.
Our family's case is literally "killing" my almost 16 year-old daughter; that was her description - just yesterday - of how the numerous adversarial & prolonged family court procedures have adversely effected her.
At present, she is being held against her will within her dad's home: the Guardian ad litem (GAL) failed to hear her pleas of wanting desperately to move back in with her mother {me}. Additionally, the 2014 court order legally permits her father from allowing her visitation with her mother {me}.
The last GAL failed us on several occasions submitting an 18 page report filled with subjective information - mostly inaccurate & malicious information -- provided to her by my former husband.
The system has failed our family in 2009-2010 and in 2012 to present: both of us parents have considerable legal debt.
I am still in shock over the final judgment given to me just 2 days after I appeared in Portland (01/14/2104) to testify that I have been unable to contact Mary Ann Lynch via email.
I know both myself and my daughter suffer from a form of PTSD as a result of the on-going post-divorce conflict initiated by my former husband but fanned and fueled by those within the divorce industry.
Those who want to point fingers can point to my former husband or to me BUT the truth is, my former husband would not have been able to succeed in financially impoverishing me without the support of the divorce industry.
Collectively, our family has lost so much; the most tragic loss -- something that cannot be replaced -- is my young daughters childhood. Both teens suffer separately and differently from the conflict that results from drawn-out and highly contentious court proceedings.
Conflict is all that she knows / they know; the divorce industry knowingly or unknowing gave my former husband positive reinforcement every time he sought legal counsel to take me back to court -- twice since our original 2006 divorce.
Each consecutive court process took twice as long as the prior and the costs involved doubled from the previous process. I was just getting out of legal debt from the 2009-2010 process when my former took us back to court in 2012. That process lasted 18 plus months and cost me over $20,000 when I only earned $10,000 in 2012 and $12,000 in 2013 (I was a full-time USM student until this past May).
Presently, my debt is so astronomical that that my ability to pay court ordered child support {calculated - mind you - on a salary that I did not actually earn} has been greatly hindered: how is any of this in the best interest of either teen? Or, the Maine tax payers? Or, to our society???
As a result of the collusion between the divorce industry and my former husband, my daughter has fallen deeper and deeper into a depressions; she has twice attempted to end her life {May and September of 2013}.
Maine care has picked up all of the costs for her medical care. Maine tax payers are footing the bill and , we as a society, are potentially losing a once energetic, civic-minded, and highly accomplished student to a major depression and self-harming behaviors both beginning after she was taken out of my home in 2010 and placed in the care of her dad.
I suggest that the mayor and the divorce industry consider a "Truth and Reconciliation Act" in order to acknowledge the pain and suffering that has taken place -- for decades upon decades -- as a result of such a broken system.
Since 2006, I have suffered - as well as the two minors -- enormous losses:
1. Loss of primary home in 2010;
2. Loss of $100,000 equity in that primary home (2012 York, Maine);
3. Loss of all material possessions sold off to pay down legal debt;
4. Loss of family pet as former husband adopted the dog out of the family once he was granted custody of both minors and their dog in 2010.
5. Decrease in credit score by 100 points due to inability to pay mortgage on primary home when former spouse was advised- by his lawyer- to stop making child support payments in order to force me into signing 2010 post-judgment agreement;
6. Loss residential custody of both teens due to loss of primary home (temporarily left homeless);
7. Loss 1/2 retirement fund in 2010 court process to pay GAL, legal fee's and mortgage payments;
8. Loss all of savings to date; accrued credit card debt is now equal to my 2013 annual salary; loss all assets with exception to my vehicle that allows me to travel 3 hours a day to my full-time job;
9. Loss ALL parental rights and responsibilities and all decision making powers due to erroneous GAL report and due to her recommendation that losing all rights would end conflict;
10. Loss visitation rights as all visitation is now up to the discretion of my former husband who has been the instigator for all post-judgment discord;
11. The stress and the conflict has interfered with my work at present, has created ongoing and extensive medical expenses, and has left our daughter suicidal as well as feeling hopeless about her future;
12. The scars left on the hearts of my two teenagers as well as myself may or may not ever heal; time will tell. There is nothing more psychologically harmful than to lose the right to parent: from 1996 until 2014, I gave my life to my children. I intended and strove to raise well-adjusted, law abiding, and well-educated young adults. That right has been taken from me; the family court system partook in that loss of civil liberties.
The time for healing is now.
Please allow those of us who have to live with these court ordered "solutions" to family matters be a part of the solution for creating a system that heals and supports healthy family relations rather than a system that fuels the flames of discord in order to "win" a case; we have a vast amount of anecdotal information that would be an invaluable resource for those who are truly vested in the well-being of Maine's children and in the health and welfare of the state of Maine as a whole.
With sincere gratitude for your time and consideration~
Suzanne
YDC-FM-06-XX
Former resident of York Maine
Present Maine tax payer
Social Justice Advocate
This letter was written to the courts and state government and came about as a result of the post "A Maine Commission to Assess the Impact of Divorce and Custody on Maine Children and Families". To read the letter to Gov. Paul LePage follow this link.
For more information please contact us at NationalGALalert@gmail.com or find us on Facebook.
Monday, February 10, 2014
Maine - A Maine Commission to Assess the Impact of Divorce and Custody on Maine Children and Families
RE: A Maine Commission to Assess the Impact of Divorce and Custody on Maine Children and Families.
The Governor
State of Maine
Dear Governor LePage,
Divorce in Maine, when child custody is involved, has evolved into an expensive, barbaric, often cruel process. Custody decisions by our courts often seem irrational and participants all too often find it impossible to correct a bad decision or a bad process. At Maine Guardian ad litem Alert, based on the data from our many contacts with people in the terrible throes of divorce, we increasingly feel that there is a need for a Maine Commission aimed at assessing the impact of divorce and custody on Maine children and families- and recommending repairs to a badly broken family court system. 60 % of American marriages are reported to end in divorce, and Maine is no different from the rest of the US. But beyond dry statistics, our experience with hundreds of individuals tells us that there are psychological, social and economic side effects of the family court experience, that wreck the lives of those that have gone through divorce for years to come. It is a shameful record. It calls for action.
Although we would certainly support a broadly focused Commission that took a total systems approach, we would suggest that there are several important areas where a narrower commission might assess serious problems and propose solutions without crossing the boundaries of another branch of government: (a) the economics of divorce and its impact on the present and future of (60%) Maine citizens and on the state itself, (b) the jurisdictional disputes about which of two branches of government has final responsibility for defining and resolving the diagnosis of adult or child abuse in divorce, and (c) problems associated with the family court’s use of and referrals to state sponsored/funded clinics by the Judicial Branch. This includes patient’s right to privacy issues; standards of the types and forms of treatment; court-ordered, mandatory treatment; treatment effectiveness evaluations; confidentiality and the human rights issues of those receiving services.
1.) Economic problems of divorcing in Maine. The short story is that it is very expensive, running to thousands of dollars, with courts putting no limits on the charges to citizens from a growing number of ancillary players, in a growing number of questionably effective peripheral services. The growth of these unevaluated “new” services- often court mandated- have become a part of an very expanded, very expensive “divorce industry”. Families are impoverished. Retirement and college funds are emptied. Homes are mortgaged to the hilt. Credit from relatives and families is exhausted. It is an expense with no boundaries and it grows year by year. We have to ask: Is a booming economic expansion of the “divorce industry” retarding investment in other “industries”? The Judicial Branch keeps virtually no data, our group has some limited financial data. However, there is a need to measure the problem, its growth and to propose solutions. Money drained from our economy by the “divorce industry” is money not available for other more productive investments; homes, education and retirement- just to name a few.
2.) Allegations of child or spousal abuse are all too common in contested divorces. Some allegations are real and serious and require appropriate action; other abuse claims are “strategic”, and need investigation and then labeling as such. At the moment, there is all too often a “turf war” between the Children's Protective program (under Human Services) and the Judicial Branch Guardian ad litem program about which entity has the final say in abuse allegations. There are likewise “turf wars” between GALs and those trained specialist professionals who assess “dangerousness” and other dysfunctional issues. It all too frequently happens that, if opinions of trained professionals do not concur with a GALs opinion, they are frequently ignored in favor of the GAL’s more expensive opinion, a continuing investigation by the GAL. It should be remembered that GALs have only 16-20 hours of training and no supervision when they override the findings of those with more training and supervision. It should also be remembered that continuing to investigate “abuse” generates significant “billable hours” for GALs and burdens families with these costs. More important is the question of whether someone with less knowledge, skill and experience will do a better job of danger evaluation for children and families than someone with specialist education, experience and supervision?
3.) State sponsored or financed services and clinics are frequently used as referral sources by Guardians ad litem and by Maine’s courts. The courts keep no statistics about the number of court referrals, which would help to describe (a) the size of their usage, (b) the problems encountered, (c) the outcomes of treatment- both short and long term. What is the impact of court mandated treatment on children and families? Are these court forced referrals doing any measurable good? How do they help? What are we getting for our public money? Are the services requested by courts- such as various untested, unproved behavior change therapies- scientifically grounded? Is the state paying for “experimental” services on court referred children and adults There is also the ethical/human rights issue of court mandated treatment in non-criminal cases. Confidentiality issues and demand for what should be considered privileged information are troubling and, we are told, don’t follow national standards. There are instances of GALs sharing this clinical information- without “releases”- with other GALs and with unauthorized persons, using the threat of contempt if permission to release information is not granted. It is an area that cries for study and repair.
These are just a few areas that might occupy the scrutiny of a circumscribed Commission to the benefit of our children and families. We would be pleased to discuss further any of these suggested ideas, and we recognize that these suggestions are just conversational openers. It seems important to us to give a more human, rational experience to children and families in divorce, the consumers of service.
Sincerely,
Jerome A Collins, MD
While this is addressed to the Governor of Maine the ideas given here may be applied in any state. Feel free to use the letter and change what needs to be changed to fit the situation of your state.
For more information on what is wrong with Family Courts and Guardians ad litem in the state follow us on Facebook or email us at NationalGALalert@gmail.com
The Governor
State of Maine
Dear Governor LePage,
Divorce in Maine, when child custody is involved, has evolved into an expensive, barbaric, often cruel process. Custody decisions by our courts often seem irrational and participants all too often find it impossible to correct a bad decision or a bad process. At Maine Guardian ad litem Alert, based on the data from our many contacts with people in the terrible throes of divorce, we increasingly feel that there is a need for a Maine Commission aimed at assessing the impact of divorce and custody on Maine children and families- and recommending repairs to a badly broken family court system. 60 % of American marriages are reported to end in divorce, and Maine is no different from the rest of the US. But beyond dry statistics, our experience with hundreds of individuals tells us that there are psychological, social and economic side effects of the family court experience, that wreck the lives of those that have gone through divorce for years to come. It is a shameful record. It calls for action.
Although we would certainly support a broadly focused Commission that took a total systems approach, we would suggest that there are several important areas where a narrower commission might assess serious problems and propose solutions without crossing the boundaries of another branch of government: (a) the economics of divorce and its impact on the present and future of (60%) Maine citizens and on the state itself, (b) the jurisdictional disputes about which of two branches of government has final responsibility for defining and resolving the diagnosis of adult or child abuse in divorce, and (c) problems associated with the family court’s use of and referrals to state sponsored/funded clinics by the Judicial Branch. This includes patient’s right to privacy issues; standards of the types and forms of treatment; court-ordered, mandatory treatment; treatment effectiveness evaluations; confidentiality and the human rights issues of those receiving services.
1.) Economic problems of divorcing in Maine. The short story is that it is very expensive, running to thousands of dollars, with courts putting no limits on the charges to citizens from a growing number of ancillary players, in a growing number of questionably effective peripheral services. The growth of these unevaluated “new” services- often court mandated- have become a part of an very expanded, very expensive “divorce industry”. Families are impoverished. Retirement and college funds are emptied. Homes are mortgaged to the hilt. Credit from relatives and families is exhausted. It is an expense with no boundaries and it grows year by year. We have to ask: Is a booming economic expansion of the “divorce industry” retarding investment in other “industries”? The Judicial Branch keeps virtually no data, our group has some limited financial data. However, there is a need to measure the problem, its growth and to propose solutions. Money drained from our economy by the “divorce industry” is money not available for other more productive investments; homes, education and retirement- just to name a few.
2.) Allegations of child or spousal abuse are all too common in contested divorces. Some allegations are real and serious and require appropriate action; other abuse claims are “strategic”, and need investigation and then labeling as such. At the moment, there is all too often a “turf war” between the Children's Protective program (under Human Services) and the Judicial Branch Guardian ad litem program about which entity has the final say in abuse allegations. There are likewise “turf wars” between GALs and those trained specialist professionals who assess “dangerousness” and other dysfunctional issues. It all too frequently happens that, if opinions of trained professionals do not concur with a GALs opinion, they are frequently ignored in favor of the GAL’s more expensive opinion, a continuing investigation by the GAL. It should be remembered that GALs have only 16-20 hours of training and no supervision when they override the findings of those with more training and supervision. It should also be remembered that continuing to investigate “abuse” generates significant “billable hours” for GALs and burdens families with these costs. More important is the question of whether someone with less knowledge, skill and experience will do a better job of danger evaluation for children and families than someone with specialist education, experience and supervision?
3.) State sponsored or financed services and clinics are frequently used as referral sources by Guardians ad litem and by Maine’s courts. The courts keep no statistics about the number of court referrals, which would help to describe (a) the size of their usage, (b) the problems encountered, (c) the outcomes of treatment- both short and long term. What is the impact of court mandated treatment on children and families? Are these court forced referrals doing any measurable good? How do they help? What are we getting for our public money? Are the services requested by courts- such as various untested, unproved behavior change therapies- scientifically grounded? Is the state paying for “experimental” services on court referred children and adults There is also the ethical/human rights issue of court mandated treatment in non-criminal cases. Confidentiality issues and demand for what should be considered privileged information are troubling and, we are told, don’t follow national standards. There are instances of GALs sharing this clinical information- without “releases”- with other GALs and with unauthorized persons, using the threat of contempt if permission to release information is not granted. It is an area that cries for study and repair.
These are just a few areas that might occupy the scrutiny of a circumscribed Commission to the benefit of our children and families. We would be pleased to discuss further any of these suggested ideas, and we recognize that these suggestions are just conversational openers. It seems important to us to give a more human, rational experience to children and families in divorce, the consumers of service.
Sincerely,
Jerome A Collins, MD
While this is addressed to the Governor of Maine the ideas given here may be applied in any state. Feel free to use the letter and change what needs to be changed to fit the situation of your state.
For more information on what is wrong with Family Courts and Guardians ad litem in the state follow us on Facebook or email us at NationalGALalert@gmail.com
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
National - This is why I am disobeying your order - An open letter to a Judge
Dear Judge,
Two years ago I appeared in your court. I was summoned there with only a few hours notice and appeared without a lawyer. Though no charges were pronounced against me, you legally removed my child from my care and protection, eliminated my right to make any decisions about her, and ordered me to stay away from her most of the time.
From what I have been able to gather about such proceedings, this outcome was nothing out of the ordinary. In fact it quickly became apparent to me that this outcome came very close to being decided in advance. What precisely was said during this brief hearing seems to have made very little difference. As it began, a gentleman who did not know me proceeded to assassinate my character as confidently as if he had personally witnessed each item in his litany of my imperfections. While again, there were no specific charges and nothing legally actionable, it was clear that his role was to translate somewhat vague private grievances against me into a formula that would appear to justify taking away my child.
What struck me at the time was how quickly and effortlessly a child was removed from the care and protection of her parent and her life carved up as if it were the bookings of a holiday cottage. Such and such days she would spend with the non-custodial parent, the rest with the custodial parent. You asked very few questions and sought very little information. The hearing was very brief, and suddenly, I was told, it was over. During the hearing I was allowed to speak very little and interrupted every time I tried. There seemed to be no burden of proof on those who sought to separate me from my child.
I realize that, given the number of similar cases that come before you, you issue these rulings as a matter of routine. I would not be surprised if you have no recollection of this particular case. Nevertheless, for me it was an eye-opening experience and probably the most important thirty minutes or so of my life.
You did not strike me as an unusually malicious or callous person. I am told you are considered among the more favorable judges for parents, and that the time you assigned permitting me to be with my children is relatively generous.
All this may be true. Yet it has also become apparent to me that what I witnessed in your courtroom was a tiny part of a vast system of largely impersonal and unaccountable power that was previously unknown to me, as it still is to most citizens. I am fully aware that you did not create this system and that you yourself may have very little control over it. Nevertheless you are a principal and active participant. So vast and so routine has this power become that you are able, with no background information and in a hearing lasting only a few minutes, to permanently separate a child from a parent without any indication that you were aware of the gravity of what you were doing.
While this central act was disturbing enough, what was again striking were the questions that were not asked, the subjects that were not brought up, the consequences that were not anticipated. You knew that I was accused of no wrongdoing and had agreed to no separation or divorce. You were also aware that I had never lived in this country with my family and that I had neither a residence nor a livelihood here. Yet a number of important matters were never discussed. Did I have a place to live? Did I have a way to get to where my daughter was? Could I work here? Did I have access to a car? Did the hours you permitted me to be with her bear any relation to when I might be able to find or keep employment? What costs would be involved for me or other parties?
You may recall that when my mother attempted to sit in on the hearing she was refused and escorted out. Yet the results of this hearing have profoundly and adversely affected her life. She was forced to take in and support a grown son who was now unemployed. She was forced to cancel the sale of her house so that I would have a place to stay. Her car has been commandeered so that I can see my children and get to work. Did these hardships for her enter into your ruling? They certainly were not brought up in the hearing. It did occur to me at the time, but I was cut off each time I attempted to speak.
What is also noteworthy is that I can recount my recollection of these proceedings without fear of contradiction or inaccuracy, not only because you probably do not remember details of the hearing, but also because no record of it now exists and no impartial witnesses were permitted to be present. In other words, there is nothing and no one to contradict or corroborate my recollection. By the same measure, there is no accountability or recorded reasoning for a ruling that has torn apart the home and world of an innocent child.
In short, it struck me that for the first time in my life I was personally witnessing an instance of what Hannah Arendt called the “banality of evil”: evil that has become so routinized and bureaucratized that otherwise decent people are able to tell themselves they are doing good when they are doing evil. It is profoundly ironic that I should have returned from five years in a post-totalitarian society to be confronted here in the United States with a new and unexpected version of the kind of bureaucratic dictatorship that has been perhaps the most notable feature of the politics of this century.
When we hear about children being forcibly taken from their parents by Nazi doctors or Communist apparatchiks we are filled with the deepest revulsion. In accounts of American slavery the division of slave families pierces deeper into our hearts than even the physical cruelties of that institution. What family court judges such as yourself do as a daily routine is not on the same level of evil. But it is not so completely different that we should classify the one as among the most detestable “crimes against humanity” and accept the other as desirable treatment for our own children. You may think this comparison offensive. But a government which criminalizes ordinary law-abiding citizens for something so basic as exercising their parental responsibilities is itself on the way to becoming a criminal regime. Parents such as I who are accused of nothing routinely have their children removed from their care and protection, are ordered to stay away from them and to pay money to those who have taken them, and are incarcerated if they refuse or are unable. These parents receive fewer constitutional protections for their basic civil rights and liberties than persons accused of vicious crimes. Yet there is no public outcry, no expose by muckraking journalists, no petition of outraged intellectuals, no review by international tribunals, no inquiries by human rights organizations, no voice of opposition.
Whatever may be said in favor of this practice, there is no justification for ordering me or any other innocent parent to stay away from our children in terms of their well-being. This is a practice that exists not for the welfare of children but for the power and enrichment of adults. It is a practice I cannot in conscience accept, and I believe no other parent can either.
The purpose of this letter is to inform you that I no longer consider your order binding on me and that it is my intention to disobey it. From this time forth I will consider myself free to be with my children whenever I or they choose. I will not hesitate to remove them from any institutional care center at which they are being stored. I will consider myself at liberty to go to any residence where they are being kept with the expectation that I will be permitted to be with my children. In short, I will behave as if I have the same right to do what I choose with my children when and where I choose as any other parent or as I had they day my eldest daughter was born, secure in the knowledge that I have done nothing to forfeit that right. All this will be done in the open view of the world.
At no time will I, as I have never done previously, behave in a disorderly manner; much less will I use any physical force. Consistent with what has always been my parental practice, I will quarrel with no one in the presence of my children. Should I be confronted, as I have been in the past, with contention, disrespect, or physical coercion, I will do my utmost not to respond in kind. Should I, as a creature endowed with my share of imperfections, be provoked to an indiscretion in the presence of my children, I will invoke the only tried and true remedy available to any parent in such circumstances, which is to say I will apologize. Witnessing this will do my children no harm and may possibly set an example they are not likely to see elsewhere. But I will also make it clear, as I must now make it clear to you, that I can no longer tolerate forced separation from my children.
I realize this is not the usual and, from your standpoint, preferred method of responding to a court order. I know that I am expected to hire a professional advocate to argue my case in a courtroom. Yet after prolonged and careful consideration, I have decided that I cannot pursue this course.
In the first place, to be brutally practical, I do not have the means. As a direct result of your ruling I was forced to resign my position, leave the only residence my family had ever had, and relocate here in order to be with my children. There is also something I find basically objectionable about any parent having to pay money to see his own children when he has been presented with no grounds for why they were taken in the first place. As with a conventional kidnapping, if I begin to pay money for this purpose, where does it end?
More to the point, it is not clear to me what I would argue in a courtroom, since not only have I have been accused of nothing; I have not accused anyone else of anything. In the absence of charges against me, I cannot and will not cooperate with an inquisition into my family life. It is also not my practice to discuss the shortcomings of members of my family with third parties, let alone to construct legal cases against them. Forcing me to do so as a condition of retaining my rights as a parent strikes me as morally equivalent to staging a cockfight. And again, I fail to see where it would end. Frankly, it appears to me that this entire process is designed less to arrive at any determination relevant to the welfare of my children than to provide business for associations of legal entrepreneurs.
Even more fundamentally, I cannot pursue this course because I cannot accept that you or anyone else has any grounds to intervene in my family and tell me when, where, and under what circumstances I may be with my children or to deny me the right to raise and protect them and make decisions for their welfare. In other words, it is not so much a particular ruling that I cannot accept as an unprovoked and unwarranted assumption of jurisdiction over my family. You may reply that this was solicited by parties that include members of my family. Yet this does not alter the fact that it was done without any grounds whatever. It is equally true to say that some 30 years ago the armies of the Warsaw Pact were “invited” to enter the Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia, but this does not make it any less of any invasion.
I am also aware of the arguments against the alternative course of action I have chosen. No doubt I will be accused of inflicting an unpleasant experience upon my children by going to see them when I have not been authorized to do so. I have considered this at some length. It is this consideration, in part, that prevented me from responding in kind when my child was originally abducted from her home and before I was summoned to your court. I am sure that I was assisted in this restraint by the conviction that this country’s system of justice is fair and that justice would eventually prevail. (Yet I must regretfully note that this restraint seems to have counted nothing in my favor in your courtroom.) I would like to believe that conviction is still justified, though I am now convinced that this is more likely to be the case by refusing to accept your power to arbitrarily keep me from my children than by hiring a professional advocate to quibble over precisely how much you should do so.
I have also come to the conclusion that I cannot submit indefinitely to what amounts to a kind of blackmail, a blackmail rendered all the more heinous for holding as hostages two children and forcing a parent to stay away from them for fear of how others will respond to his presence. I trust you are familiar with the concept of a “heckler’s veto” and with its legal standing.
It is one thing to refrain from contention in the presence of children, which I have always done and will continue to do. It is another to acquiesce indefinitely in a crime committed against them. In fact it is precisely my concern to avoid further contention that leads me to take a public and open stand against this patent injustice rather than participating in a privately litigated battle that I cannot see will be to anything other than the detriment of my family.
The principal trauma being inflicted on my children is the forced destruction of their family and separation from one or both of their parents, a trauma that has been inflicted by your ruling. Given this, I firmly believe that, far from my harming my children, there are certain lessons in this that they need to be made aware of and that it is my responsibility as a parent to teach them. While I believe I have valid reasons as a citizen to disobey the law in this instance, I want to make clear to you that I also have connected but even more imperative ones as a parent.
It is my responsibility to teach my children that the proper course of action when faced with injustice is to resist and oppose it in a peaceful and dignified way. At some point they must learn that there are higher principles and a higher law they must always obey, even when it means they must break the civil law and accept the consequences for doing so. These are not only lessons that they can learn; they are lessons that they must learn and lessons that, in other contexts, we go to considerable lengths to teach them. In Sunday school my eldest daughter has already been exposed to the quiet courage of the Hebrew women, to the defiant stand of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to the public crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. In school she will soon be reading about the teachings and examples of Socrates, Henry David Thoreau, Mohandas Gandhi, and Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. As both a teacher of these ideas myself and a parent, I am acutely aware that there is no point in teaching our children one set of principles as being right in the abstract when we teach them the opposite by our own acts or failure to act precisely at the time when those principles are most needed to confront an injustice. It is perhaps unfortunate, but nevertheless unavoidable, that the circumstances of her life are now such that she must now witness the application of these principles sooner rather than later.
On the other hand, if I do not act I fear that the lessons my children are already learning are far more harmful than witnessing a parent peaceably and openly disobey an unjust court order. Virtually every principle of sound child-rearing is contravened by this immoral practice of forcibly separating children from their parents. For the sake of clarity and emphasis I will list the harmful messages I see them absorbing:
- They are learning that we put our own desires before the needs of others, including those we profess to love such as our own children.
- They are learning that children like themselves are not to be treated as people with needs and rights of their own, but used as tools and weapons in the quest for power and profit by adults.
- They are learning that ordinary family differences and disagreements are to be resolved not with love, understanding, and compromise, but with the courts and police.
- They are learning that the vows of marriage – and by extension all other pledges, promises, commitments, and agreements – mean nothing and can be abrogated when they are no longer to our advantage.
- They are learning that principles and values are something we adhere to only so long as they are convenient, and that we can invent the rules according to our momentary pleasure.
- They are learning that contrition and forgiveness mean nothing and that injuries to others are not to be atoned for and forgiven but nursed as grievances to be revenged when the opportunity presents itself.
- They are learning that when someone disagrees with us or has other ideas or beliefs than ours, we need not listen to him, even within our own family, because now we can use the courts to silence him and have the police keep him away.
- They are learning the methods of the bully, which in other contexts we attempt to discourage and protect them from.
- They are learning that anyone in their family can be eliminated when they fall out of favor – including, perhaps, our children themselves.
- They are learning that the instruments of the state and the justice system are not public tribunals for redressing public wrongs and establishing public justice but rather a system of hired force which we can marshal for private hurts, domestic differences, and personal grievances.
- They are learning that both the family and the state are dictatorships, ruled by an arbitrary power which can be marshaled against private enemies for private injuries.
- They are learning that they need not accept or obey the authority of a parent – and by extension any other authority as well, including their teachers, ministers, parent, and eventually the laws and tribunals of the public state.
- They will learn that the police are not instruments for maintaining public order and protecting the weak, but hired mercenaries that we can marshal against members of our own family when we don’t agree with what they do or say.
- They will learn that the justice system of this country is not based on due process of law but instead rounds up and incarcerates citizens who are accused of no crime and uses the lives of innocent people – including children – for the aggrandizement of its own power.
- They will learn that a citizen of this country need not be charged with any offense that is actionable in a court of law in order to be summoned to one and stripped of his most fundamental constitutional rights.
- They will learn that the Constitution of the United States is a lie, and the Bill of Rights is a meaningless piece of paper that can be ignored by those whose responsibility it is to protect it from abuse by others.
I believe it is these lessons that account for the alienation and the adversarial relationship that so many children – especially the children of divorce – are now developing toward the justice system, the society in which they live, and their own families. I know that so long as these messages are being imparted to my children by those who seek to separate me from them and by the instruments of the public state such as your court (and by me as well so long as I acquiesce in your ruling) any attempt by me to impart contrary messages will be at cross-purposes with forces too massive for me to compete with and prevail against.
I am aware of a more serious objection to this course of action I am taking. This is the possibility that you will punish my disobedience by further reducing access to my children. This has indeed weighed heavily on my mind. The obvious rejoinder – that such an act of judicial bullying would belie any pretense that this process is concerned with “the best interest of the child” – is little comfort to me. As with other objections, this fear prevents most parents from responding as I have.
I certainly do value my time with my children, and am very reluctant to do anything that may jeopardize it. Until now I have tried to work within these constraints to have as much positive influence on my children as possible.
Yet I find I cannot remain content with this choice indefinitely, and in the long run I cannot hold it up to my children as an example worthy for them to follow. For one thing, I observe from the experience of many forcibly separated fathers that their allotted “visitation” is only one factor contributing to the gradual erosion of bonds with their children, and that it is not possible to be an adequate parent to children from whom one is kept separated by the police. Unlike some, I am not convinced that preserving or increasing my legally permitted time with my children, while still preserving the power to dictate the terms under which I may be a parent to them, is likely to make this system any less of an injustice or any less of a detriment to my relationship with my children.
To rest content with this would be to admit that this allotment of time you have decreed for me is really little more than what amounts to a bribe. Those who have more experience with the family judiciary than I inform me that bribery is widespread. I myself have not otherwise observed it first hand, and it is not my purpose here to make accusations. But in this instance I can see – and so can the world – that a kind of bribery has been openly offered and accepted. Vaclav Havel, the Czech former dissident and now president, has said that a truly corrupt system is one where the bribery is so systemic that it extends even to the public. They are bribed with material or other inducements to accept and acquiesce in a system they know to be corrupt and immoral. I believe something similar is at work here. Like many other parents, I have been effectively bribed with enough time with my children to buy my acquiescence in a system that is patently unjust, immoral, and illegal and one that reduces me to the status of something less than a true parent.
While I value time with my children and know it to be important to their well-being, I also know that the benefits it bestows cannot continue indefinitely and under any circumstances. At some point, as my children come to understand the choice their parent has made – that he has made his peace with a system that has robbed them of their most basic rights and needs in order to be permitted to “get along” with his life – the net effect will become more harmful to them than healthy. All the “visitation” and “custody” and “child support” in the world will not provide them with the parent they need if he bends his back and holds his tongue when he had the opportunity to stand upright and speak out.
There is, in other words, something here much more fundamental than disputes over “visitation”, “custody”, “child support”, and the other jargon of your trade. It concerns the unnatural power to take a child away from a parent they love and who loves them, to dictate to a parent who has done nothing wrong when and where he may see his children and what he can say and do with them, to invade and occupy a family and run it by judicial fiat. This is the arrogance of power. No parent can accept this and remain a parent. This is why I am acting.
Yours respectfully,
A Parent
This piece was originally written by Stephen Baskerville several years ago. It addresses the frustration that many parents face in a court system that is broken. It begs the question of how family courts, Guardians ad litem and the divorce industry can live with themselves at the end of the day.
If you have been involved in a divorce/ custody gone bad and for good reason please contact us for support at NationalGALalert@gmail.com or find us on Facebook.
Two years ago I appeared in your court. I was summoned there with only a few hours notice and appeared without a lawyer. Though no charges were pronounced against me, you legally removed my child from my care and protection, eliminated my right to make any decisions about her, and ordered me to stay away from her most of the time.
From what I have been able to gather about such proceedings, this outcome was nothing out of the ordinary. In fact it quickly became apparent to me that this outcome came very close to being decided in advance. What precisely was said during this brief hearing seems to have made very little difference. As it began, a gentleman who did not know me proceeded to assassinate my character as confidently as if he had personally witnessed each item in his litany of my imperfections. While again, there were no specific charges and nothing legally actionable, it was clear that his role was to translate somewhat vague private grievances against me into a formula that would appear to justify taking away my child.
What struck me at the time was how quickly and effortlessly a child was removed from the care and protection of her parent and her life carved up as if it were the bookings of a holiday cottage. Such and such days she would spend with the non-custodial parent, the rest with the custodial parent. You asked very few questions and sought very little information. The hearing was very brief, and suddenly, I was told, it was over. During the hearing I was allowed to speak very little and interrupted every time I tried. There seemed to be no burden of proof on those who sought to separate me from my child.
I realize that, given the number of similar cases that come before you, you issue these rulings as a matter of routine. I would not be surprised if you have no recollection of this particular case. Nevertheless, for me it was an eye-opening experience and probably the most important thirty minutes or so of my life.
You did not strike me as an unusually malicious or callous person. I am told you are considered among the more favorable judges for parents, and that the time you assigned permitting me to be with my children is relatively generous.
All this may be true. Yet it has also become apparent to me that what I witnessed in your courtroom was a tiny part of a vast system of largely impersonal and unaccountable power that was previously unknown to me, as it still is to most citizens. I am fully aware that you did not create this system and that you yourself may have very little control over it. Nevertheless you are a principal and active participant. So vast and so routine has this power become that you are able, with no background information and in a hearing lasting only a few minutes, to permanently separate a child from a parent without any indication that you were aware of the gravity of what you were doing.
While this central act was disturbing enough, what was again striking were the questions that were not asked, the subjects that were not brought up, the consequences that were not anticipated. You knew that I was accused of no wrongdoing and had agreed to no separation or divorce. You were also aware that I had never lived in this country with my family and that I had neither a residence nor a livelihood here. Yet a number of important matters were never discussed. Did I have a place to live? Did I have a way to get to where my daughter was? Could I work here? Did I have access to a car? Did the hours you permitted me to be with her bear any relation to when I might be able to find or keep employment? What costs would be involved for me or other parties?
You may recall that when my mother attempted to sit in on the hearing she was refused and escorted out. Yet the results of this hearing have profoundly and adversely affected her life. She was forced to take in and support a grown son who was now unemployed. She was forced to cancel the sale of her house so that I would have a place to stay. Her car has been commandeered so that I can see my children and get to work. Did these hardships for her enter into your ruling? They certainly were not brought up in the hearing. It did occur to me at the time, but I was cut off each time I attempted to speak.
What is also noteworthy is that I can recount my recollection of these proceedings without fear of contradiction or inaccuracy, not only because you probably do not remember details of the hearing, but also because no record of it now exists and no impartial witnesses were permitted to be present. In other words, there is nothing and no one to contradict or corroborate my recollection. By the same measure, there is no accountability or recorded reasoning for a ruling that has torn apart the home and world of an innocent child.
In short, it struck me that for the first time in my life I was personally witnessing an instance of what Hannah Arendt called the “banality of evil”: evil that has become so routinized and bureaucratized that otherwise decent people are able to tell themselves they are doing good when they are doing evil. It is profoundly ironic that I should have returned from five years in a post-totalitarian society to be confronted here in the United States with a new and unexpected version of the kind of bureaucratic dictatorship that has been perhaps the most notable feature of the politics of this century.
When we hear about children being forcibly taken from their parents by Nazi doctors or Communist apparatchiks we are filled with the deepest revulsion. In accounts of American slavery the division of slave families pierces deeper into our hearts than even the physical cruelties of that institution. What family court judges such as yourself do as a daily routine is not on the same level of evil. But it is not so completely different that we should classify the one as among the most detestable “crimes against humanity” and accept the other as desirable treatment for our own children. You may think this comparison offensive. But a government which criminalizes ordinary law-abiding citizens for something so basic as exercising their parental responsibilities is itself on the way to becoming a criminal regime. Parents such as I who are accused of nothing routinely have their children removed from their care and protection, are ordered to stay away from them and to pay money to those who have taken them, and are incarcerated if they refuse or are unable. These parents receive fewer constitutional protections for their basic civil rights and liberties than persons accused of vicious crimes. Yet there is no public outcry, no expose by muckraking journalists, no petition of outraged intellectuals, no review by international tribunals, no inquiries by human rights organizations, no voice of opposition.
Whatever may be said in favor of this practice, there is no justification for ordering me or any other innocent parent to stay away from our children in terms of their well-being. This is a practice that exists not for the welfare of children but for the power and enrichment of adults. It is a practice I cannot in conscience accept, and I believe no other parent can either.
The purpose of this letter is to inform you that I no longer consider your order binding on me and that it is my intention to disobey it. From this time forth I will consider myself free to be with my children whenever I or they choose. I will not hesitate to remove them from any institutional care center at which they are being stored. I will consider myself at liberty to go to any residence where they are being kept with the expectation that I will be permitted to be with my children. In short, I will behave as if I have the same right to do what I choose with my children when and where I choose as any other parent or as I had they day my eldest daughter was born, secure in the knowledge that I have done nothing to forfeit that right. All this will be done in the open view of the world.
At no time will I, as I have never done previously, behave in a disorderly manner; much less will I use any physical force. Consistent with what has always been my parental practice, I will quarrel with no one in the presence of my children. Should I be confronted, as I have been in the past, with contention, disrespect, or physical coercion, I will do my utmost not to respond in kind. Should I, as a creature endowed with my share of imperfections, be provoked to an indiscretion in the presence of my children, I will invoke the only tried and true remedy available to any parent in such circumstances, which is to say I will apologize. Witnessing this will do my children no harm and may possibly set an example they are not likely to see elsewhere. But I will also make it clear, as I must now make it clear to you, that I can no longer tolerate forced separation from my children.
I realize this is not the usual and, from your standpoint, preferred method of responding to a court order. I know that I am expected to hire a professional advocate to argue my case in a courtroom. Yet after prolonged and careful consideration, I have decided that I cannot pursue this course.
In the first place, to be brutally practical, I do not have the means. As a direct result of your ruling I was forced to resign my position, leave the only residence my family had ever had, and relocate here in order to be with my children. There is also something I find basically objectionable about any parent having to pay money to see his own children when he has been presented with no grounds for why they were taken in the first place. As with a conventional kidnapping, if I begin to pay money for this purpose, where does it end?
More to the point, it is not clear to me what I would argue in a courtroom, since not only have I have been accused of nothing; I have not accused anyone else of anything. In the absence of charges against me, I cannot and will not cooperate with an inquisition into my family life. It is also not my practice to discuss the shortcomings of members of my family with third parties, let alone to construct legal cases against them. Forcing me to do so as a condition of retaining my rights as a parent strikes me as morally equivalent to staging a cockfight. And again, I fail to see where it would end. Frankly, it appears to me that this entire process is designed less to arrive at any determination relevant to the welfare of my children than to provide business for associations of legal entrepreneurs.
Even more fundamentally, I cannot pursue this course because I cannot accept that you or anyone else has any grounds to intervene in my family and tell me when, where, and under what circumstances I may be with my children or to deny me the right to raise and protect them and make decisions for their welfare. In other words, it is not so much a particular ruling that I cannot accept as an unprovoked and unwarranted assumption of jurisdiction over my family. You may reply that this was solicited by parties that include members of my family. Yet this does not alter the fact that it was done without any grounds whatever. It is equally true to say that some 30 years ago the armies of the Warsaw Pact were “invited” to enter the Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia, but this does not make it any less of any invasion.
I am also aware of the arguments against the alternative course of action I have chosen. No doubt I will be accused of inflicting an unpleasant experience upon my children by going to see them when I have not been authorized to do so. I have considered this at some length. It is this consideration, in part, that prevented me from responding in kind when my child was originally abducted from her home and before I was summoned to your court. I am sure that I was assisted in this restraint by the conviction that this country’s system of justice is fair and that justice would eventually prevail. (Yet I must regretfully note that this restraint seems to have counted nothing in my favor in your courtroom.) I would like to believe that conviction is still justified, though I am now convinced that this is more likely to be the case by refusing to accept your power to arbitrarily keep me from my children than by hiring a professional advocate to quibble over precisely how much you should do so.
I have also come to the conclusion that I cannot submit indefinitely to what amounts to a kind of blackmail, a blackmail rendered all the more heinous for holding as hostages two children and forcing a parent to stay away from them for fear of how others will respond to his presence. I trust you are familiar with the concept of a “heckler’s veto” and with its legal standing.
It is one thing to refrain from contention in the presence of children, which I have always done and will continue to do. It is another to acquiesce indefinitely in a crime committed against them. In fact it is precisely my concern to avoid further contention that leads me to take a public and open stand against this patent injustice rather than participating in a privately litigated battle that I cannot see will be to anything other than the detriment of my family.
The principal trauma being inflicted on my children is the forced destruction of their family and separation from one or both of their parents, a trauma that has been inflicted by your ruling. Given this, I firmly believe that, far from my harming my children, there are certain lessons in this that they need to be made aware of and that it is my responsibility as a parent to teach them. While I believe I have valid reasons as a citizen to disobey the law in this instance, I want to make clear to you that I also have connected but even more imperative ones as a parent.
It is my responsibility to teach my children that the proper course of action when faced with injustice is to resist and oppose it in a peaceful and dignified way. At some point they must learn that there are higher principles and a higher law they must always obey, even when it means they must break the civil law and accept the consequences for doing so. These are not only lessons that they can learn; they are lessons that they must learn and lessons that, in other contexts, we go to considerable lengths to teach them. In Sunday school my eldest daughter has already been exposed to the quiet courage of the Hebrew women, to the defiant stand of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to the public crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. In school she will soon be reading about the teachings and examples of Socrates, Henry David Thoreau, Mohandas Gandhi, and Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. As both a teacher of these ideas myself and a parent, I am acutely aware that there is no point in teaching our children one set of principles as being right in the abstract when we teach them the opposite by our own acts or failure to act precisely at the time when those principles are most needed to confront an injustice. It is perhaps unfortunate, but nevertheless unavoidable, that the circumstances of her life are now such that she must now witness the application of these principles sooner rather than later.
On the other hand, if I do not act I fear that the lessons my children are already learning are far more harmful than witnessing a parent peaceably and openly disobey an unjust court order. Virtually every principle of sound child-rearing is contravened by this immoral practice of forcibly separating children from their parents. For the sake of clarity and emphasis I will list the harmful messages I see them absorbing:
- They are learning that we put our own desires before the needs of others, including those we profess to love such as our own children.
- They are learning that children like themselves are not to be treated as people with needs and rights of their own, but used as tools and weapons in the quest for power and profit by adults.
- They are learning that ordinary family differences and disagreements are to be resolved not with love, understanding, and compromise, but with the courts and police.
- They are learning that the vows of marriage – and by extension all other pledges, promises, commitments, and agreements – mean nothing and can be abrogated when they are no longer to our advantage.
- They are learning that principles and values are something we adhere to only so long as they are convenient, and that we can invent the rules according to our momentary pleasure.
- They are learning that contrition and forgiveness mean nothing and that injuries to others are not to be atoned for and forgiven but nursed as grievances to be revenged when the opportunity presents itself.
- They are learning that when someone disagrees with us or has other ideas or beliefs than ours, we need not listen to him, even within our own family, because now we can use the courts to silence him and have the police keep him away.
- They are learning the methods of the bully, which in other contexts we attempt to discourage and protect them from.
- They are learning that anyone in their family can be eliminated when they fall out of favor – including, perhaps, our children themselves.
- They are learning that the instruments of the state and the justice system are not public tribunals for redressing public wrongs and establishing public justice but rather a system of hired force which we can marshal for private hurts, domestic differences, and personal grievances.
- They are learning that both the family and the state are dictatorships, ruled by an arbitrary power which can be marshaled against private enemies for private injuries.
- They are learning that they need not accept or obey the authority of a parent – and by extension any other authority as well, including their teachers, ministers, parent, and eventually the laws and tribunals of the public state.
- They will learn that the police are not instruments for maintaining public order and protecting the weak, but hired mercenaries that we can marshal against members of our own family when we don’t agree with what they do or say.
- They will learn that the justice system of this country is not based on due process of law but instead rounds up and incarcerates citizens who are accused of no crime and uses the lives of innocent people – including children – for the aggrandizement of its own power.
- They will learn that a citizen of this country need not be charged with any offense that is actionable in a court of law in order to be summoned to one and stripped of his most fundamental constitutional rights.
- They will learn that the Constitution of the United States is a lie, and the Bill of Rights is a meaningless piece of paper that can be ignored by those whose responsibility it is to protect it from abuse by others.
I believe it is these lessons that account for the alienation and the adversarial relationship that so many children – especially the children of divorce – are now developing toward the justice system, the society in which they live, and their own families. I know that so long as these messages are being imparted to my children by those who seek to separate me from them and by the instruments of the public state such as your court (and by me as well so long as I acquiesce in your ruling) any attempt by me to impart contrary messages will be at cross-purposes with forces too massive for me to compete with and prevail against.
I am aware of a more serious objection to this course of action I am taking. This is the possibility that you will punish my disobedience by further reducing access to my children. This has indeed weighed heavily on my mind. The obvious rejoinder – that such an act of judicial bullying would belie any pretense that this process is concerned with “the best interest of the child” – is little comfort to me. As with other objections, this fear prevents most parents from responding as I have.
I certainly do value my time with my children, and am very reluctant to do anything that may jeopardize it. Until now I have tried to work within these constraints to have as much positive influence on my children as possible.
Yet I find I cannot remain content with this choice indefinitely, and in the long run I cannot hold it up to my children as an example worthy for them to follow. For one thing, I observe from the experience of many forcibly separated fathers that their allotted “visitation” is only one factor contributing to the gradual erosion of bonds with their children, and that it is not possible to be an adequate parent to children from whom one is kept separated by the police. Unlike some, I am not convinced that preserving or increasing my legally permitted time with my children, while still preserving the power to dictate the terms under which I may be a parent to them, is likely to make this system any less of an injustice or any less of a detriment to my relationship with my children.
To rest content with this would be to admit that this allotment of time you have decreed for me is really little more than what amounts to a bribe. Those who have more experience with the family judiciary than I inform me that bribery is widespread. I myself have not otherwise observed it first hand, and it is not my purpose here to make accusations. But in this instance I can see – and so can the world – that a kind of bribery has been openly offered and accepted. Vaclav Havel, the Czech former dissident and now president, has said that a truly corrupt system is one where the bribery is so systemic that it extends even to the public. They are bribed with material or other inducements to accept and acquiesce in a system they know to be corrupt and immoral. I believe something similar is at work here. Like many other parents, I have been effectively bribed with enough time with my children to buy my acquiescence in a system that is patently unjust, immoral, and illegal and one that reduces me to the status of something less than a true parent.
While I value time with my children and know it to be important to their well-being, I also know that the benefits it bestows cannot continue indefinitely and under any circumstances. At some point, as my children come to understand the choice their parent has made – that he has made his peace with a system that has robbed them of their most basic rights and needs in order to be permitted to “get along” with his life – the net effect will become more harmful to them than healthy. All the “visitation” and “custody” and “child support” in the world will not provide them with the parent they need if he bends his back and holds his tongue when he had the opportunity to stand upright and speak out.
There is, in other words, something here much more fundamental than disputes over “visitation”, “custody”, “child support”, and the other jargon of your trade. It concerns the unnatural power to take a child away from a parent they love and who loves them, to dictate to a parent who has done nothing wrong when and where he may see his children and what he can say and do with them, to invade and occupy a family and run it by judicial fiat. This is the arrogance of power. No parent can accept this and remain a parent. This is why I am acting.
Yours respectfully,
A Parent
This piece was originally written by Stephen Baskerville several years ago. It addresses the frustration that many parents face in a court system that is broken. It begs the question of how family courts, Guardians ad litem and the divorce industry can live with themselves at the end of the day.
If you have been involved in a divorce/ custody gone bad and for good reason please contact us for support at NationalGALalert@gmail.com or find us on Facebook.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Guardians ad litem praised for doing a poor job… and a pat on the back
Maine FLAC or the Maine Family Law Advisory Commission issued their recommendations a month ago. The opening paragraphs are filled with encomiums lauding Guardians ad litem and the work they do. It is hard to understand this high praise after the recent Maine legislative session which proposed significant changes in Maine's out-of-control Guardian ad litem program. The comprehensive changes were made by the legislature (after study) at the request of citizens, who had experienced a disastrous Guardian ad litem system, which, intentionally or not, inflicted great harm on children and families going through divorce and custody. There were extensive hearings, with heart rendering testimony of cruel and unnecessary hardship inflicted on families and outrageous financial charges for Guardian ad litem services. It seems inappropriate at best to laud services that the legislature, the governor, the bureaucracy and the public deemed in need of drastic overhaul. It might suggest to many that the Family Law Advisory Commission " still "doesn't know it doesn't know!"
Furthermore, it perpetuates claims of quality without any data to back these claims. Lacking data and minimizing the seriousness of the legislative study and subsequent mandate strikes us as a bad beginning to a review of Rules for Guardians ad litem. The tired old claim that it is about "disappointed litigants and heightened expectations" simply doesn't cut it with the public, the legislature and the governor. A half year of in depth legislative study, says that no oversight, no supervision, no enforcement of Rules, a non-functional complaint procedure and myriad other STRUCTURAL issues are the root of serious problems in the GAL program. Grass roots disappointment is secondary to a broken structural system that may work for GALs and judges, but it hasn't worked for the public. Failure to recognize this by the likes of the Family Law commission (and others in the Judicial Branch) is a huge piece of the problem! Recovery, they say, starts with admission of the problem - any problem.
A big piece of the problem is the continuing reliance of the Judicial Brach on "stakeholders," members of what we call "the divorce industry", who have a strong financial interest in the 'status quo'. Perpetuating problem solving by "stakeholders" perpetuates blind privilege and out f touch views. It is worth noting that the one "public" member on the commission reviewing "GAL Rules" is a member of Children First, a GAL dominated advocacy group. It is adding another "fox" to the "chicken house security detail"! There is a need for victims on this commission to help the Judicial Branch take a fresh, open look at things from a grass-roots perspective. Right now it appears to be more of the "same old same old" attitude.
Letter from Chief Justice Saufley regarding FLAC.
If you have had issues with a Guardian ad litem, Judge or the court system - please contact NationalGALalert@gmail.com. Or like us on Facebook for up to date issues. If you want to express your opinion on the Guardian ad litem there is an on going survey about Guardian ad litem performance and cost.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
The “Best Interest Police” coming to your divorce
Looked at from a distance, the whole concept of a states Guardian ad litem program is hard to understand from its official description. From what we hear from its users, it doesn't do much-if anything- to help children. It is confusing (and expensive) for families. It is unmanaged and un-supervised and is not accessible to the kind of functional "corrective action" that is available to most public programs. As we see it - operationally, Guardians ad litem have virtually absolute power to act in whatever they choose with divorcing families and children. Compliance with "Rules and Standards for Guardians ad litem" has no enforcement, therefore is purely voluntary on the part of the Guardian ad litem. It is a truly unique institution in democratic America more like the apparatus of a police state.
It might be asked why do non-criminal, non-abusing, divorcing couples need the Best Interest Police to investigate and determine whether their parenting practices and attitudes are in their children's "best interest"? Why aren't all American parents under the surveillance of Guardians ad litem as "best interest police" for their children. In the interests of equal opportunity, shouldn't the parenting practices of all American parents - divorcing and non-divorcing - be watched and evaluated equally carefully for the child's "best interest"? The obvious answer is that a total surveillance of everyone's parenting practices by outside agents of the government, or by whomever, would bring on a violent upheaval that would make the American Revolution seem like a Sunday school picnic. Guardians ad litem in divorces are the "nanny state" on totalitarian steroids.
Conceptually, we would suggest that Guardians ad litem seem to function 'de facto' as "Child's Best Interest Police", empowered by judges to look for the "evil that lurks in the hearts of 'men' (humans)". Watch out as those neighbors, friends of your spouse and others line up to share their thoughts about your parenting skills (and much more) in secret exchanges with a Guardian ad litem. Though there are "Rules and Standards for Guardians ad litem", there is no administrative "oversight" (no enforcement) from the mother organization, the Judicial Branch of state government. Such "oversight" as there might be comes from a feeble complaint process that depends on the courage of consumers to face-off against the "Best Interest Police" in the "Mother house" of all lawyers, the Overseers of the Bar.
It is a situation that is beyond "David and Goliath" to have the courage to complain to the Overseers. It is an all or nothing, winner-take-all situation and the odds against a complainer winning are formidable. Filing a consumer complaint, forces consumers to address both the substance of their Guardian ad litem complaint and the prejudice of the lawyers in the Overseers, who firmly believe that their colleague Guardians ad litem are "wonderful, do good work, help many children", unfounded opinions openly expressed by the Family Law Advisory Commission (and other Judicial Branch officials). How do you tell powerful people who admire and respect Guardians ad litem, that their colleagues, that the people they esteem have "messed up"? Where do you run for cover from a vindicated, vengeful Guardian ad litem when your complaint is dismissed? Where is the protection for a "complainer"?
It may be deemed impertinent for us to ask: "Why has no one ever done any formal program evaluation of this hugely expensive, , much criticized, run-away program? Are Guardians ad litem really "doing good work" or "helping children"? What do families say? What do children say? What do objective child-development evaluators (outside of the sweep of Judicial Branch/Muskie School influence) say? Is the program working for public benefit? Are kids better for having had a Guardian ad litem? After 39 years doesn't it need formal study and, perhaps, a bit of program tweaking? Where's the data? Why is there NO program evaluation data?
We would say that the absence of any well-founded program evaluation after 39 years is itself a public scandal. There are many symptoms of program dysfunction and many witnesses to this dysfunction. Program evaluation needs to move beyond judicial , "feel-good" anecdote.
Please comment here or contact us at NationalGALalert@gmail.com. There is also a Facebook page that is maintained that covers current issues and concerns. If you would like to express your opinion we would encourage you to take our survey on Guardian ad litem performance and or cost.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Putting a HALT to Readdiction and Relapse
Recently we have heard from parents who have gone through divorce and who have secondary custody to a drug addict and/or an alcoholic. Those who have shared their story with us have acknowledged that at times their ex spouse have made the attempt at sobriety with some success but the probability of relapse is extremely high for these individuals.
When a recovering addict has pain and/or sleep issues, medical professionals need to be careful on what it is that the recovering addict can or cannot be prescribed.
Authorities on addiction, like AA and Alanon say that an alcoholic/addict has a sometimes fatal illness that can be arrested but NEVER “cured”. The disease is “incurable”. However, with help, it can go into “remission” (or recovery) and remain in “remission”, if the alcoholic/addict stops drinking/drugging and continuously works a recovery program, such as AA or Alanon, etc
These programs also speak to life dangers that signal a risk of recurrence of the active illness, using the acronym: HALT, as a collection of generic warning signals:
H = HUNGRY A= ANGRY L= LONELY T= TIRED
A recovering addict/alcoholic is at greater risk of a “slip” into addictive activities when any one or more of these single symptoms is present, is unrecognized (denial) and un-dealt with by the recovering addict/alcoholic. There is also the risk of re-addiction by medical persons who don’t fully understand addictions and the terrible risk for a recovering addict when they prescribe sleeping pills, sedatives, tranquilizers, etc. AA/Alanon call it “taking one’s booze in pill form.” Addicts are particularly sensitive to these medications that sedate their brain and make their resolve to live soberly less strong. A “slip” is very common in recovery.
Addiction is one of the toughest diseases to combat. Recovery programs say, stop feeling guilty/ashamed, start going to meetings, stop drugging/drinking and start to live soberly again with AA/Alanon program support.
It isn’t easy to cope with these illnesses, but it is vitally important to the addict and his/her family.
Additional credit to Dr. Jerome Collins
For additional information and support please contact us at NationalGALalert@gmail.com or find us on Facebook.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Reform for guardians ad litem under way
This article came out on April 11, 2013.
Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier
By Tracey Collins
Contributing Writer
BIDDEFORD – Eight years after his divorce, state Sen. David Dutremble (DDistrict 4) is lending his political support and personal experience to reform the laws that govern court-appointed guardians in family matters.
On March 28, Dutremble joined fellow lawmakers and citizens from York County to testify at a public hearing of the Maine State Judicial Committee in Augusta.
“Prior to my divorce I had never entered a courtroom as a defendant. I can assure you, the appointment of a guardian ad litem was one of the worst experiences of my life – and I am a full-time firefighter,” said Dutremble during his testimony.
The guardian appointed during his divorce suggested his work schedule as a veteran firefighter would not be healthy for his children and recommended he change jobs.
Since 1979, guardian ad litems have been appointed by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services under Title 22. In 1994, the statute was extended to include court appointed guardians in Title 19 family law matters. According to the judiciary, as the number of divorces and other stressful family matter cases have increased, so too have the needs for court-appointed parties to represent the best interest of children caught in the crossfire of contentious family matters, such as custody disputes. The problem, said Dutremble, is that the system is skewed to benefit the divorce industry, not the children caught in the middle.
Full story: Courier
Biddeford-Saco-OOB Courier
By Tracey Collins
Contributing Writer
BIDDEFORD – Eight years after his divorce, state Sen. David Dutremble (DDistrict 4) is lending his political support and personal experience to reform the laws that govern court-appointed guardians in family matters.
On March 28, Dutremble joined fellow lawmakers and citizens from York County to testify at a public hearing of the Maine State Judicial Committee in Augusta.
“Prior to my divorce I had never entered a courtroom as a defendant. I can assure you, the appointment of a guardian ad litem was one of the worst experiences of my life – and I am a full-time firefighter,” said Dutremble during his testimony.
The guardian appointed during his divorce suggested his work schedule as a veteran firefighter would not be healthy for his children and recommended he change jobs.
Since 1979, guardian ad litems have been appointed by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services under Title 22. In 1994, the statute was extended to include court appointed guardians in Title 19 family law matters. According to the judiciary, as the number of divorces and other stressful family matter cases have increased, so too have the needs for court-appointed parties to represent the best interest of children caught in the crossfire of contentious family matters, such as custody disputes. The problem, said Dutremble, is that the system is skewed to benefit the divorce industry, not the children caught in the middle.
Full story: Courier
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