Click on the link below to read, as reported in The Dallas Voice, Pearland police say there’s no reason to believe murdered teen Joshua Wilkerson was gay, posted November 22, 2010.
http://www.dallasvoice.com/police-teen-murder-victim-gay-suspect-1053303.html
SOME WISDOM FROM A LITTLE OLD WOMAN
WHO SPENT HER TIME IN THE GUTTER
WITH GOD’S PEOPLE
by Mother Teresa of Calcutta
To Julian Jacob Worrell of Genealogy Saloom, Advice from Your Real Mummy:
I found this “wisdom” in another teacher’s classroom many years ago. I hope this message finds you, kind of like the trail of breadcrumbs that Hansel and Gretel left behind to find their way home in the fairy tale story that Mommy used to read to you. I am so sorry that they are keeping you from me. My dearest julian, you can come home, and you will someday. You were right when you said that you and mommy didn’t do anything wrong. Don’t let anybody tell you anything different, Sweetheart. Mommy is always thinking about you and wishing you were here. I never stop talking about you or fighting for your right to have your real mommy and your real daddy.
You are just little right now, and some people are taking advantage of that. Try not to let others confuse you. Know that you are so loved. Always remember that Jesus loves you, and so does Mommy, so sleep well tonight and be the sweet little boy that I know you are and always have been. God is watching all the time. Nobody can go to court to pay God to avoid the Truth or to do what they want them to do, no matter how awful and cruel. God is the Truth.
P.S. I saw some wild sunflowers the other day and it made me think of how I used to miss you so much when you were at preschool and Mummy was working, so I would stop and pick them in the middle of the day if I happened to see them to give to you at the end of the day when I picked you up. You used to flash this big, bright smile that could light up the whole room and yell “Mommy!” as you came running to give me a big hug and a big kiss at the end of each day when we got to go home from work and preschool.
For the first time in approximately ten years (read Hope v. Pelzer and Groh v. Ramirez, 2003 and 2004) the US Supreme Court reversed a US Circuit Court affirmation of the district court’s decision to grant good faith–“qualified”–“immunity” (and “sovereign” or “absolute” “immunity”) to a police officer. This case arose out of the for the Federal US Southern District of Texas, Houston Division.
The u.S constitutional challenge was pursuant to a Fourth Amendment (US CONST. amendment IV) excessive force claim (related to unreasonable, unlawful search and seizure) combined with an equal protection claim (U.S. CONST. amendment XIV.).
To read the High Court’s landmark opinion in Tolan v. Cotton, 572 U.S. ___ (decided May 05, 2014)(per curiam), click on the link below.
US Supreme Court Decision in Tolan v. Cotton,
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-551_ihdk.pdf;
Plaintiff’s Opening Brief/Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the US Supreme Court for The united States of America
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2949760061724856146&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr
Defendant’s Reply
http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Cotton-Response.pdf
Author of this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and Especially to My Little Julian, is not a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner, therefore, no information contained herein this post and/or blog could be (mis)construed as “legal advice.” Anyone who exercises he/r rights, and private property sometimes called “child” for deceptive, possibly malicious or retaliatory, and profiteering/privateering and in the “best interests” . . . of the “state” Texas General and other Funds at one’s own peril, risk, and/ or self-fulfillment. The choice is yours.
To resolve a Circuit Court split, The US Supreme Court, once again (recall a differently tracked case in 2011–Sacks v. Sacks, on writ of certiorari from Florida) must decide whether or not to decide the rights of parents to stand their ground against unlawful, illegal, thus, wrongful and unreasonable search and seizure of their private property described as “children” against Child Protective Services in collaboration with police officers within the context of Amendment IV (read note 1)and Amendment XIV (read note 2)(interpreted in this context, right to “family integrity”), Federal US Constitution , or, The Constitution for the united States of America, (1776), Bill of Rights ratifies and applies directly to the people through the Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the same, The Constitution for the united States of America (1776), Bill of Rights ratifies and applies directly to the people.
Regarding private property rights, one’s own body, “child” as mentioned by author above, citing natural, God-given and implied rights (US CONST.amendment.IX)(read note 3) and common sense. (read also, (Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923)) ; (Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 232, 32 L. Ed. 2d 15, 92 S. Ct. 1526 (1972)) ; Board of Directors v. Rotary Club, 481 U.S. 537, 545, 107 S. Ct. 1940, 95 L. Ed. 2d 474 (1987)-quoting Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609, 619-20, 104 S. Ct. 3244, 82 L. Ed. 2d 462 (1984)(holding that “The First Amendment protects those relationships, including family relationships, that presuppose deep attachments and commitments to the necessarily few other individuals with whom one shares not only a special community of thoughts, experiences, and beliefs, but also distinctly personal aspects of one’s life”) ; (Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1985))), but not the incorrect Internet versions.
Regarding Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment issues that this case confronts, read also, (Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645 (1972)(holding that “[T]he integrity of the family unit has found protection in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”) ; (Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218 (1973))( Lynumn v. Illinois, 372 U.S. 528, 534 (1963))(holding–holds, that where a mother confessed “only after the police had told her that state financial aid for her infant children would be cut off, and her children taken from her, if she did not ‘cooperate,’” the confession “must be deemed not voluntary, but coerced.” In other words, when the state issues an ultimatum to a parent—cooperate or lose your kids— the parent’s “will has been overborne and his capacity for self-determination critically impaired.” Schneckloth, 412 U.S. at 225)) ; (Croft v. Westmoreland County of Children and Youth Services, 103 F. 3d 1123 (3d Cir.1997))(holding that a CPS investigator’s ultimatum to the father to move out or have his children placed in foster care violated the family’s right to family integrity)([A] state has no interest in protecting children from their parents unless it has some reasonable and articulable evidence giving rise to a reasonable suspicion that a child has been abused or is in imminent danger of abuse.”)) ; (Tolan v. Cotton, 134 S. Ct. 1861, 1866 (2014)(holding that “in cases alleging unreasonable searches or seizures,” courts “must take care not to define a case’s ‘context’ in a manner that imports generally disputed factual propositions” into the clearly established prong of qualified ‘immunity’ when considering a motion for summary judgment ; (Doe v. Heck, 327 F. 3d 492 (7th Cir. 2003))(holding that an unjustified threat by CPS investigators to remove children from the custody of their parents if they failed to cooperate stated a claim under the Fourteenth Amendment).Note that in Doe, the threat was made by phone, not in person at the home with several deputies present ; (Read also, Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 739 (2002))(holding that, “Moreover, officials can still be on notice that their conduct violates established law even in novel factual circumstances.”).
Neither was this a case in which, regarding “exigent circumstances,” CPS investigators/police were not “forced to make a split-second decision in response to a rapidly unfolding chain of events.” (citing Ryburn v. Huff, 132 S. Ct. 987, 992 (2012).
The Home School League Defense Association Team, initially lead by attorney Michael Farris and his crew, have managed to see this case through to the top in what has been what some might describe as a roller-coaster of a ride. The United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, for Arizona, overturned a great ruling by (Hon.) Judge Earl H. Carroll in the case of parents John and Tiffany Loudermilk’s at the trial court level in 2007. The case arose out of Sheriff Joseph/”Joe” Arpaio’s notorious Maricopa County. Click on t he link below to read The Homeschool League Defense’s petition on writ of certiorari below, but for the parents. Notably, each and every such association has consistently failed mothers and their healthy and he/r private property, “child.” Reporters or editing censors for WND and The Houston Chronicle, and now, even The Houston Press, and even Randy Wallace also had the opportunity to pick-up certain stories that it lost, for whatever un-reason. For whatever other reasons, T.S. Radio Show and host, Marti Oakely and he/r NASGA group did pick-up opportunities others evaded their duty to Americans to report the real truth, and all sides, or, “dimensions,” of it.
Reporter for WND, link to story below, neglects to mention that in addition to the Third (3rd) and Seventh (7th) US Circuit Courts’ stance, the US Fifth (5th) Circuit Court of Appeals also decided that “from now on” it is clear that police officers and child protective services workers “will not” ‘receive’ (good faith or “qualified,” nor “absolute”) “immunity,” in the groundbreaking Gates v. Texas Department of Regulatory and Protective Services case (2008), that CPS and police officers would no longer receive qualified or absolute “immunity” for snatching children in collaboration (see “collaborative”–conspiratorial–Memorandum of Understanding/”MOU’s” which are usually required to be signed by individual counties, cities, and municipalities between child protective services and police or code enforcement “peace” officers or “CERTS”). Read Croft v. Westmoreland County of Children and Youth Services, 103 F.3d 1123 (3d Cir. 1997) ; Doe v. Heck, 327 F.3d 492 (7th Cir. 2003).
It is this primarily First, Fourth Amendment , Fifth, Eighth, Ninth, and Thirteenth Amendment u.S Constitutional issue, and also natural and implied guaranteed “inalienable” and “unalienable” rights guaranteed, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” currently presented, on reverse and remand on subject matter jurisdiction, to the Federal US Court for the Southern District of Texas, Houston division in the case possibly mislabeled or entered by clerks as “Saloom v. Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, et al” (4:13-cv-1002, US SDTX; read also USCA 13-20605, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals), currently stayed by order of Texas State Attorney General’s Litigation Division and Texas District and County Clerk’s and Court Reporter/Recorder’s International Association, which has also wrongfully refused to enter police officers as defendants on the same docket on which they are substantively and properly included.
Read also, Federal “civil” and u.S. Constitutional and federal rights, The Civil Rights Act of 1871, re-codified as The Civil Rights Act of 1964, statutes 42 U.S.C., sections 1983 (violation of rights under color of law) , 1985 (conspiracy against rights), 1986 (“neglect to protect,” or, “Good Samaritan” laws), and 1988 (The Civil Rights Attorney’s Fees Award Act of 1976), Privacy Act of 1974, Title V, section 552 (a) and alleged “revised” law, Freedom of Information Act), Federal Criminal law statute, 18 U.S. Code Chapter 96, §§ 1961-1968- RACKETEER INFLUENCED AND CORRUPT ORGANIZATIONS ACT of 1970 (“RICO Act of 1970“).
God bless the real America, and especially the mothers and their private property described as “children” by profiteering “States” and clearly for profit “non-for-profit” “joint public-private” ventures all across America via the Federal Social Security Act, Titles IV-A, B, C, D, and E, and Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Marriage Initiative and Child Support Enforcement/Victim’s Assistance Programs, who, now more than ever, have earned the blessing by anyone’s “objective” standards.
The following cases need also be preserved for the next Nuremberg trials (though some some nunc pro tunc, and already decided):
Amy and little Markel Charron (Harris County, Houston, Texas) Sandra/”Sam” Grazzini-Rucki and teenagers (Dakota County, MN), Kimberly Sperling (Minnesota), Leah Banken-Dannewitz and children (Carver County, Minnesota), Caroline Rice and children (Minnesota), Sunny Kelly and little Max (Connecticut), Lori Handrahan and little Mila (Maine), Sharon and Bill and little Donnelly Keaton Burns (Riverside County, California), Miriam Blank and daughters, Kayla, Gabrielle, Zipporah, Daphna, and Hannah (Harris County, Houston, Texas, transported to Utah with, among others, Norma Willcockson), “Michelle” and Jack and Thomas Murphy (Newnan, Georgia, Coweta County), Rubi and little Lexi Dillon (Orange County, California), rather, “Tammy” and “Jonah” “Rief,” Mary Seguin (Rhode Island), mother of Amy Dye in Kentucky, though Amy is gone, but not forgotten, the real parents of little Alexandria Hill, gone, but not forgotten (Austin, Texas; Travis County; Rockdale, Texas; Milam County), Cherie Safapou and little Saam (Marin County, California), Linda Marie Sacks and he/r two daughters (Ormond Beach, Florida), Robin Carr and Laura and Matthew (Rockwall, TX, Dallas County, a Tyler, Texas substitute judge, and KY state police), Kathy Lee Schlopp and son (Rhode Island and Massachusetts state police), Nancy Kovacic and private property described as ” children” (Cuyahoga County, Ohio; US Sixth Circuit court denied summary judgment to police and cps workers for unlawful “removal”); Andrea Lebow and little Kendall (Amarillo, Texas; Potter County), Maribel Vega (San Antonio, Texas; Bexar County), mother of, now gone, but not forgotten, little girl Logan Marr (Maine), “little angel,” now gone, but not forgotten, Anna Celeste Lowe and he/r mother and brother who survive he/r (Louisiana), Michelle Mammaro and little Daniella (Phillipsburg, New Jersey), Tina Kufner, Theola Nealy and three children, including he/r baby daughter who was given exclusively to reported rapist social worker, Peter Nelson (Milwaukee, Wisconsin), E.J. Perth (US Virgin Islands), “Emily Court” (Minnesota), Kyla Estes, mother of Baby Lance (Maple Valley, Washington; King County; Port Orchard, Washington; Kitsap County), “J. Molly Murphy” and lost little boy (Texas), “Mad Angel,” Angela and he/r children (Washington State), Emily Joy Lake and mother, Lynae Lake, a.k.a. “Anne White” (Portland, Oregon Multnomah County; Michigan), Monika and little Dylan Wesolowski (Virginia, Illinois), Pamela and Will Gaston, daugher, Melissa, and family (Oregon; Marion County), Rebecca McLaughlin (Massachusetts), now passed, but not forgotten, little Buddy Cook and his foster family with Angel Cook and also natural mother (Cleburne, Texas), Rachel Alintoff (Monmouth County, New Jersey), Patricia Pisciotti (Monmouth County, New Jersey), Karin Wolf (Monmouth County, New Jersey), Karen Anderson and child, as reported (Davis, California; Yolo County), Deborah Lynne Connor, as reported (Tarrant County, Texas near Dallas/Fort Worth, Utah, Montana), Connie Bedwell and little Aaliyah (Placer county, California); Jan Pittard (Tarrant County, Texas near Dallas/Fort Worth), Kathy Seidel and Katia (Tarrant County near Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas), Michelle Greaves (Massachusetts, New Jersey), Melissa Harris (Connecticut), Megan and Baby Alexander (Connecticut), Susan Skipp (Connecticut), Marina (Connecticut), Justina Pelletier and family (Massachusetts), Patricia Moodian and he/r sons (Alameda County, California; settled); Johneisha Kemper and baby girl (Los Angeles, California); Misty Lynn Williams (Sallisaw Oklahoma; Sequoyah County; corrected by federal judge in Oklahoma City, lawyer defending, Ty Clevenger ); Deanna Fogarty-Hardwick and he/r two daughers (Seal Beach, California; Orange County; corrected with aid of lawyer, Shawn McMillan); Stacy Lynn and he/r little boy (Fort Collins, Colorado), Linda Wiegand and sons, one of whom is named “Ben” (Connecticut), Jennie Morton and he/r little children (Conroe, Montgomery County, Texas just north of Houston), Maile and little Hayden (California), now passed, but not forgotten, little “Lookie Pookie,” Luke Boruskiewicz and mother and father, Linda Jo Martin and lost child, Yvonne Mason, Connie Valentine, “Mississippi Mom” and lost daughter, Miranda’s mommy, Trish Schaefer (Harris/Montgomery County, Houston, Texas), now gone, but not forgotten, Kendrea Jackson, gone but not forgotten, and also he/r mother and baby brother who survive he/r (Brooklyn Park, Minnesota), mother Lacey Bahr Dryer, who it was recently reported took he/r own life because rogue social workers stole he/r children (Parma, Ohio), so many more, and especially dear to author of this blog’s heart, my little julian-jacob: of family saloom (Pearland, Texas; Brazoria County; Houston, Tomball, Texas; Harris County).
John and Tiffany Loudermilk v. Joe Arpaio, Petition on Writ of Certiorari, June 12, 2015
http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/az/Loudermilkpetition2015.pdf
History of the Homeschool League Defense/Loudermilks’ Case
http://www.hslda.org/legal/cases/loudermilk.asp
For more on this story, read Bob Unruh’s reporting for WND, Supremes Asked to Rein-in-Kid-Grabbing Enforcers, at http://mobile.wnd.com/2015/07/supremes-asked-to-rein-in-kid-grabbing-enforcers/.
Notes
1. The Fourth Amendment guarantees that “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” U.S. CONST. amend. IV.
2. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment provides that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the ‘privileges’ or ‘immunities’ of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” U.S. CONST. amend. XIV.
3. Amendment IX, The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Author of this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and Especially to My Little Julian, is not a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner, therefore, no information contained herein this post and/or blog could be (mis)construed as “legal advice.” Anyone who exercises he/r rights, and private property sometimes called “child” for deceptive, possibly malicious or retaliatory, and profiteering/privateering and in the “best interests” . . . of the “state” Texas General and other Funds at one’s own peril, risk, and/ or self-fulfillment. The choice is yours.
Fri Jul 18, 2014 12:20PM GMT
By Brett Redmayne-Titley
US family courts are stealing children from the loving arms of innocent parents.
In this ongoing exclusive report for Press TV, the previous examples of Ruby Dillon and her daughter Lexi have show that Child Protective Services (CPS) has no interest in “protection” of children. Its sole motivation is personal profit.
No child is safe.
Down the road in San Diego County a young boy is missing, taken by a man who is not the father, not even a parent. Innocent mother Tammy Rief, who is from Georgia and has never lived in California, now sits in a California prison. Despite an Alabama court order keeping the kidnapper away from her child, and another court order giving Tammy, the mother, full custody, a California judge abused his court to steal her son, Jonah, from his home in Georgia and give him to a man documented to have abused her son. [“Tammy” and “Jonah Rief,” https://youtu.be/Ql9vcE29puU];[http://aanirfan.blogspot.com/2015/04/jonah-rief-child-trafficking-satanic.html];[https://honestyisthebestapproach.wordpress.com/tag/tammy-rief/]; [http://stateofthenation2012.com/?p=7015]; [http://judiciallies.blogspot.com/2014/09/jonah-rief-one-of-many-cases-cloaked-in.html]; [ Tammy’s police report, http://www.scribd.com/doc/214078952/Police-Report-in-Tammy-Rief-s-case];[ http://stolenintoterror.blogspot.com/2014/09/jonah-rief-trafficked-to-terrorists.html].
Without Tammy Rief’s knowledge Judge Gregory W. Pollack was working in far away California with the kidnapper, Brian Sullivan, to have the FBI steal her and her son from Georgia.
This short story of injustice and child trafficking, applied to a San Diego Superior Court judge, Gregory W. Pollack, shows the unique, fraudulent and illegal applications of California law in favor of kidnapping.
For Tammy losing her son, Jonah, started silently in an unknown court not in Georgia; California divorce court.
Tammy has never been married. Much less to anyone in California. Tammy had briefly dated the kidnapper, Brian Sullivan, in South Carolina but had not heard from him in over three years before he suddenly attempted to achieve custody of Jonah in her state of residence, Georgia. Tammy proved to the Georgia court that the kidnapper could not be the biological father and that Jonah was at risk to the kidnapper. Hence the judge issued the two restraining orders establishing full custody to Tammy and preventing the kidnapper anywhere near Jonah.
But, that was Alabama.
Undaunted, the kidnapper somehow got a California divorce court judge to award him custody of Jonah although he had never been married to Ruby or taken a paternity test. The California court had no jurisdiction, or legal right, to hear a divorce case or any case that did not have a connection to California law and California residency. Worse, Ruby did not receive notice, per law, of the out-of-state proceedings she had no knowledge of. [https://youtu.be/f21F79cR7ug].
It turns out that California divorce court is also a favorable place to steal children. The judge awarded custody of Jonah to the kidnapper, Brian Sullivan. Armed with this fraudulent California court decision the kidnapper was off to an even more favorable court, that of San Diego’s finest judge Gregory W. Pollack. Using the divorce court decision and his own unsubstantiated, self-administered paternity test the judge secretly gave his client custody of Jonah, despite the Alabama court orders to the contrary.
Like his Orange County brethren judge Pollack threw Tammy’s due process and constitutional rights into the trash. When a jury was selected Judge Pollack allowed the jurors to be selected in a closed court and for some to have direct affiliations with the kidnapper, Brian Sullivan. The judge allowed so many legal violations that there is only one answer to the question why?
Next, an obviously corrupt judge Pollack issued a state warrant and had California Marshals arrest and render Jonah and Ruby from Georgia into his California jurisdiction and control.
Stuck in San Diego by court order, Jonah soon returns from a court ordered weekend visit with his father. Witnesses attest that his mother, upon Jonah’s arrival, saw Jonah had been battered and had rope burns on both wrists and on his ankles. Jonah told his mother that his father had abused him along with several other men.
Every species of mother will fearlessly and selflessly defend their child against anyone and anything. Tammy was no different.
Faced with a virtual Twilight Zone episode of unfathomable facts, she grabbed Jonah and sprinted to the nearest out-of-state hospital. Arizona. Examination showed Jonah had been physically and sexually abused. Arizona police were called in. Reports taken. Witness statements taken. Criminal charges discussed. Evidence prepared.
Then the Arizona police arrested Tammy and Jonah and sent them back to the kidnapper and Judge Pollack who charged Tammy with kidnapping her son. She is now finishing a three-year prison sentence.
Similar stories of court ordered kidnapping have been reported in Detroit, MI, Florida and Oklahoma
Jonah was last reported to have entered Australia some months ago.
FROM WOMB TO TOMB
In a land becoming endemically corrupt, morals in America have no value. Ruby and Lexi’s case follows a familiar plot. It has been repeated again and again. Like all evil plots there are multiple actors, all working as a conspiracy. A conspiracy to traffic children. A conspiracy to create the perfect circle of crime.
If you have assets, and those assets are connected, the plot follows a similar script to Ruby’s and Tammy’s.
A pedophile such as, Mahathep “Mathew” Srikureja, finds a bottom feeding attorney with no morals, like Mathew DeArmey, who has secret and influential contacts with immoral CPS Minor’s Councils, like Harold LaFlamme. The corrupt Minor’s Council has connections to immoral family court judges like Wilson, Waltz, or Salter. The Minor’s council also has contacts with immoral CPS doctors, foster care homes, and child/ parent monitoring companies who, as co-conspirators, do and say what the Minor’s council tells them to do and say.
Together they all collude to fabricate evidence and testimony, exclude evidence from the purview of the court, manipulate the child’s testimony against the abusive criminal parent, and provide “protection”, not to the child, but to criminal parent having the good fortune and money to find an attorney like Mathew DeArmey.
If you are more modest means, however, and CPS knocks on your door be very, very, worried.
THE FOSTER CARE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
California leads the nation with 80,000 children in foster care. Thirty years ago CPS added nine children a month, yet today it takes1600 children per month into custody. The state receives between 125-150,000 thousand dollars per child per year ($12 billion), but the child must be in foster care for more than a year. Intriguingly, the average stay in Los Angeles is twenty months and in San Francisco twenty-nine. Hmm.
L. Wallace Pate is a child rights attorney who has followed CPS and its decline into barbarism for over thirty years. She outlined the CPS plot in a recent KFI-Radio interview.
Children are money. For a “Perverse Financial Incentive,” CPS and their parasitic attorneys, and hirelings need new children and they take them. Infants are the plum target as they are of highest value to adoption agencies that also make out on the deal. The courts have ruled it illegal and inadmissible, yet new mother’s on any social assistance, such as medicaid, are uniformly drug tested. Ms. Pate appropriately calls this, “junk science.”
Although these tests have been proven to be inaccurate in seventy-six percent of sample tests, and hospitals are precluded from providing that info to CPS, mothers who test positive have their infant seized by CPS. If the mother has other children they are taken from her, too.
Only 7% of CPS cases against parents involve sexual abuse and 10% percent are for physical abuse. The remaining eighty-three percent are children taken for any reason CPS can fabricate. The judge will, of course, go along with anything.
Then comes the required trial. Even though a criminal trial has a thirty day deadline, family court is a mere fifteen. But the cases never reach trial, since if there was a trial, the facts would favor the parents and CPS would lose the one-hundred-fifty grand at the base of their empire. Just ask Ruby Dillon.
Corrupt public defenders talk the desperate parents into, “taking a plea,” threatening them with the lie that this the fastest way to get their child back. Almost always they take this advice. If not, the judge simply restricts all evidence.
Now that the child is in the clutches of foster care the parents have almost no rights. Now come the horrors of sexual and physical abuse. Kids in foster care are ten times more likely to be abused and six times more likely to die than the national average. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors commissioned a secret report, until it was leaked to the LA Times (that shelved the story), on existing CPS practices. It’s no wonder they tried to keep it secret.
Five hundred- seventy children died in a recent eighteen month period while under CPS supervision. Two hundred and seventy of these were in CPS custody.
Next. Forced institutional sedation.
Within ninety days 80% of the new child inmates will be forced to take some type of psychotropic drug. A federal study recently showed a huge disparity in the use of these drugs in foster homes verses those prescribed by doctors of loving families. In Texas it was four times the state average. CPS has a convenient reason for this endemic drug use; “Separation Anxiety.”
No shit.
Not coincidentally California leads the nation in prison population with over 600,000 inmates. 70% percent have been in foster care. This creates a steady supply of very cheap prison labor to be used by a privatized prison industry that cares more for its stock dividends than human treatment. This cheap labor saves these manufacturing companies billions of dollars every year.
The final insult comes when the courts requires that the parent, who tried in vain to rescue their son or daughter from CPS, now pay back their court appointed legal fees, and those of CPS as well. Of course, CPS does not have to provide a receipt. The courts, however, will gladly garnish wages, seize tax refunds, and order arrest if these aggrieved parents do not obey.
What?!
PIGS AT A TROUGH
Children’s welfare means little to CPS or their minions who are feeding on limitless taxpayer funds. These funds are spread amongst the old guard insiders network of corruption.
Judges keep high paying jobs. Forty hand-picked law firms in twenty counties have been paid over one billion dollars over the past ten years.
The foster care corporations that warehouse the kidnapped children are paid handsomely, as are the parental monitoring companies.
The pharmaceutical companies get a “captured” clientele of 80,000 artificially, and highly medicated patients and an endless demand for their mind altering drugs.
The adoption companies make millions placing stolen children in homes and even get up to an $8,000 bonus from the state for each child placed. For the un-saleable child many foster homes are promoting a career choice and training; prostitution.
Finally, if this staggering CPS example of the “social safety net” does not work out, there is prison.
The circle of the crime is complete. From womb to tomb.
A HEALTHY DOSE OF MURDER
The power of CPS and their pet courts and judges have been covering their trail of corruption with targeted intimidation and, quite likely, murder. Few reporters are willing to take on the subject. Stories abound of defense attorneys signing on to a custody case only to drop it after a first private meeting with a judge, or dedicated reporters suddenly losing interest.
Some are deceased.
Martin Burns of Fox News/Los Angeles put considerable time into the issue of CPS and Superior Court corruption. He filed several stories for Fox, under his shows title, “Lost In The System.” One show was specifically about Lexi.
Burns boldly confronted Harold LaFlamme, Mathew DeArmey, and the rapist father, Mahathep “Mathew” Srikureja, after a hearing before judge Waltz. He confronted them aggressively in front of the camera, asking questions about their many legal conflicts of interest. As the rapist comically hid his face in DeArmey’s coat tails they fled just as quickly as they could, both collectively shuffling away with the fathers face appropriately joined at DeArmey’s posterior.
Martin Burns was found at the bottom of a ravine near a trail where he liked to walk. Accident? The LA Coroner ruled it a heart attack. So how did he get to the bottom of that cliff thirty feet from the trail?
His counterpart at Fox, “Lori” [Gina] Silva, who had co-written some of Burns’ stories as well as doing research, suddenly lost interest in CPS. She is still at Fox News/LA. She does not return calls.
Georgia State Sen. Nancy Schaefer and her husband of thirty-four years were by all reports loving and inseparable. Ruled a murder/suicide their deaths coincided with the her announcement of the completion of a four-year documentary project she had personally funded to expose names and crimes against children. Following her death, the documentary failed to surface. Its whereabouts is still unknown.
Greed knows no bounds. Greed has no soul. Any court willing to pry a child from the arms of his innocent mother or father has lost any value for life, much less humanity.
World-wide, America has lost all respect for humanity.
Now, it feasts on its own children.
BRT/HSN
Now, it feasts on its own children.
UPDATE on Sentencing of Protective Mom Tammy!
Child Molester Protector D.A. Bonnie Dumanis (through her minion, D.D.A. Jill Lindberg) requested the maximum sentence for Tammi (3 years), and, not surprisingly, Child Molester Protector Judge Kenneth So agreed, while admitting Tammy believed taking Jonah into hiding was necessary for his safety.
This is a contradiction which is obvious to any sane person. NO mother should be prosecuted, much less sentenced, if she goes into hiding because she believes her child is being sexually abused and there is corroborating evidence to confirm it. #DontProsecuteProtectiveMoms
Even so, with time served and other factors, Tammy should be released within a few months. She has a strong case on appeal due to the many violations of Tammi’s and the public’s rights committed by Judge So. Safe Kids will update as we get info.
______________________________________________
San Diego Sex Abuse Scandal Continues Friday with Sentencing of Protective Mom for “Abduction”
Criminal Court Tactics Employed to Cover Up Abuse Exposed
Judge Kenneth So, D.A. Bonnie Dumanis and Public Defender Kristin Scogin all colluded in covering up substantial evidence of sexual abuse in order to secure Protective Mom Tammy’s conviction. Now Judge So will sentence Tammy for the crime of protecting her son.
CourtWatchers documented the many contortions these officials went through in their coordinated effort to cover up the sexual abuse of Little Jonah and convict PM Tammy Rief. This was obviously done to cover up for the family court cover up by the notorious Judges Gregory Pollack and Eugenia Eyherabide, as well as by CPS.
Here is some of the evidence of the cover up compiled:
[Evidence of the sexual abuse: http://bit.ly/JonahsAbuse]
• Public Defender Kristin Scogin only called two of Tammy’s friends as defense witnesses, because they could be dismissed as biased. She refused to call any of the 50 other professional/ objective witnesses Tammy wanted, including law enforcement, CPS workers, M.D.’s and mental health professionals from three different counties who had evidence of the abuse.
• P.D. Scogin refused to call the most important witness in the case: the N.C. detective who Little Jonah disclosed the sexual abuse to when they were caught in hiding. (In contrast, the prosecuting attorney called the N.C. sergeant who made the arrest helping to convict Tammy.) When Safe Kids asked Scogin to comment on why she did not call the detective, she refused.
• Judge So would not allow the N.C. police report which documented these disclosures by Jonah.
• P.D. Scogin called Tammy paranoid at least 10 times in her closing arguments, supporting the view that the abuse did not really happen; it was only in Tammy’s head, i.e. “she’s crazy” used so often in cover ups. The other tactic, “she’s lying/alienating”, could not be used because it had never been used in family court (the prolific “mad or bad” tactic).
• Judge So encouraged the prosecution to use the argument that the abuse has been investigated many times, but never substantiated, supporting the theory that Tammy was paranoid. (Of course, there was never a proper investigation and CPS and family court had colluded in the cover up, as usual.)
• Judge So defined “malicious” (the requirement for conviction) for the jury as anytime somebody does a wrongful act, as opposed to when somebody deliberately does a wrongful act, so as to incriminate Tammy.
• Important evidence by Tammy’s friends was excluded, or simply not included, because Scogin did not ask the proper questions.
• Judge So prevented Tammy’s friends from speaking freely, even under direct examination, keeping much important evidence out. (It is supposed to be opposing counsel that stops the witness through valid objections, not the judge.)
• The jury was rigged. CourtWatchers were excluded from jury selection in violation of Constitutional rights of the public and the defendant to prevent them from witnessing the rigging. Tammy reported that the jury members selected were favorable to the prosecution and Scogin would not allow her to participate at all in the selection. And Judge So sealed the jury selection proceeding and jury names.
• Tammy was kept in jail for almost a year without bond or with a too-high bond, making it difficult for her to get support outside of the corrupt Scogin in preparing her case.
• P.D. Scogin tried to get Tammy declared mentally incompetent. That is when Safe Kids Intl became involved. Our court watch helped convince Judge Brannigan to not rule her incompetent. If she had been, she would have likely been institutionalized and medicated into silence about the sexual abuse.
• Judge So refused Tammy’s Marsden motion to get Scogin off her case. Judge So tricked a courtwatcher into leaving by acting like the hearing was finished and then starting up again after she was gone. He then sealed the Marsden motion with nobody to hear what justification he used to seal it.
• Tammy’s hearings were often not on calendar or were placed there at the last minute to deter court watchers.
• Judge So, Scogin and P.A. Jill Lindberg often went into chambers together for extended periods of time, under the guise of it being a “side bar”, to discuss their strategy off the record.
• Judge So sealed Tammy’s family court file, as it was a record of how long and how hard she had fought to protect Jonah and contained important evidence.
• D.A. Dumanis covered up Jonah’s disclosure to N.C. and the disclosure to CPS after Tammy was arrested and Jonah was back with his identified molester.
COURT WATCH Friday, 8:30 am, San Diego Superior Court, Dept. 55, Judge Kenneth So. 220 Broadway, San Diego, CA.
*You can support Tammy and/or express your outrage at the cover up with comments here. You can also express thanks to the courtwatchers who helped compile all the evidence of the cover up, especially PM Kathy Brown!
NOTE: In the event Tammy is released with time served on Friday, she needs a place to stay in So. Cal., preferably San Diego, for a month or so. If anyone can put her up, please PM Safe Kids. Thanks for supporting a Protective Mom!
Link to event with more info:
https://www.facebook.com/events/265231733654901/
Link to event re: declaring Tammy mentally incompetent:
https://www.facebook.com/events/647720755265517/
*D.A. Bonnie Dumanis is up for re-election. Spread the word that she covers up sexual abuse. She covered up in Damon and Jacob’s case, and Protective Mom Joyce’s case (her ex was later convicted of molesting other children).
Author of this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and Especially to My Little Julian, is not a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner, therefore, no information contained herein this post and/or blog could be (mis)construed as “legal advice.” Anyone who exercises he/r rights, and private property sometimes called “child” for deceptive, possibly malicious or retaliatory, and profiteering/privateering and in the “best interests” . . . of the “state” Texas General and other Funds at one’s own peril, risk, and/ or self-fulfillment. The choice is yours.
http://exposecollincounty.blogspot.com/2011/05/fishy-amber-alert-issued-by-mckinney-pd.html
UPDATE ON MISSING CHILDREN, CLICK HERE TO READ MORE, http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2012/05/mckinney-police-search-for-missing-10-year-old-girl-suspect.html/
I generally do not watch the local news broadcasts, but as I flipped through channels yesterday evening, I caught the tail end of a story about an Amber Alert that had been issued by the McKinney Police. The fragment of the story that I heard said that a woman had “kidnapped” her son during a supervised visit at a McKinney park earlier that day. The police spokesman said the woman was considered dangerous and that they feared the child was in “grave or immediate danger.” I started watching too late in the story to get the full name of the mother and her son, but at the end of the story the reporter described the car that “Muncie” was thought to be driving.
Normally, I would have filed the information away in my mind and kept turning the channels; however, something bothered me about what I had heard. Why was this woman having a “supervised” visit on a Sunday afternoon at a park? Who was supervising the visit and how did they let her “kidnap” her son?
I have become familiar enough with various CPS cases in Collin County to know that if this were a CPS case, the visitation would have been scheduled to occur at the Children’s Advocacy Center (AKA The Temple of Doom). Even in a divorce/custody dispute case, I would expect to hear that the visit was scheduled to occur at a place such as Hannah’s House (one of the many “non-profit” parasite entities sucking the life out of families here in Collin County).
I will admit right now that I was feeling lazy yesterday evening. By the time I heard this story on the news, I had already resigned myself to sitting on the couch for pretty much the rest of the night. But the details of the story kept bothering me. Unwilling to expend too much effort, I came to a compromise with myself…I reached for my iPad (thank you Apple!) and searched for the lat name of “Muncie” and “Amber Alert”, which yielded the following story from the KHOU (Houston) website:
Hunt on for 2-year-old missing in North Texas
http://www.khou.com/news/texas-news/Hunt-on-for-2-year-old-missing-in-North-Texas-121471004.html
by Associated Press
khou.com
Posted on May 8, 2011 at 4:55 PM
Updated yesterday at 4:55 PM
McKINNEY, Texas — An alert has been issued to law enforcement in North Texas and the Ark-La-Tex to be on the lookout for a 2-year-old McKinney boy and a 28-year-old woman he is thought to be with.
A McKinney Police Department statement describes 2-year-old William Jacob Weltzer as a 3-foot-2 white boy weighing 31 pounds with blonde hair, blue eyes and last seen wearing a white polo shirt and royal blue-and-white checkered shorts. Also sought is 28-year-old Brooke Leigh Muncie, a 5-foot-3-inch, 126-pound white woman with brown hair and blue eyes.
The police statement doesn’t say if the two are related, but it says the boy is thought “to be in grave or immediate danger.”
Muncie was last heard from in McKinney driving a blue 2003 Chrysler with a Kentucky plate number 029KRR.
Now my curiosity was piqued enough to make the long walk to the computer in my home office. I was curious if Brooke Muncie was involved in litigation here in Collin County.
A quick search of the court dockets on the Collin County website confirmed my intuition…Brooke Muncie has an open divorce/custody case in the 416th District Court (The Honorable Chris Oldner [cough] presiding). The docket sheet showed the following:
| IN THE MATTER OF | § | IN THE DISTRICT COURT |
| THE MARRIAGE OF | § | |
| § | ||
| BROOKE MUNCIE-WELTZER | § | |
| VS | § | 199TH JUDICIAL DISTRICT |
| WILLIAM BRENT WELTZER | § | |
| § | ||
| AND IN THE INTEREST OF | § | |
| WILLIAM BRENT WELTZER | § | COLLIN COUNTY, TEXAS |
| Petitioner | Muncie-Weltzer, Brooke | Michael R PuhlRetained
972-569-3166(W) |
||
| Respondent | Weltzer, William Brent | Linda RisingerRetained
972-377-0096(W) |
Events & Orders of the Court
| OTHER EVENTS AND HEARINGS | |||
| 07/21/2010 | Original Petition for Divorce (OCA) | ||
| 07/23/2010 | Original Answer | ||
| 07/23/2010 | Counter PetitionOriginal CounterPetition For Divorce | ||
| 08/05/2010 | Order Requiring Completiton of For Kid’s Sake Seminar | ||
| 03/10/2011 | Temporary Orders Hearing (9:00 AM) (Judicial Officer Oldner, Chris) | ||
| 03/10/2011 | General Docket EntryAgreement approved and Order signed | ||
| 03/10/2011 | Temporary Order | ||
| 04/13/2011 | Request for Copies | ||
| 04/18/2011 | Appearance of CounselEntry of Appearance | ||
| 04/18/2011 | Original AnswerPetitioner’s Answer to Respondent’s Original Counterpetition for Divorce
Fair Use and Legal Disclaimer(PROMINENTLY DISPLAYED):
|
As a focus of research, the non-custodial “low- income” [ high education]mother, particularly the mother who has received Aid to Families of Dependent Children, (AFDC) has been virtually ignored. Yet, she is central to many fields of study-foster care, child support enforcement, child maltreatment, and single parents. This article re-ports on 8 re-spondents from a co-hort of 518, urban, AFDC mothers who lost custody of all children during the 17 months following their se-lection in-to t/he study sample.
Fin-d-i-n-g-s re-ve-al t/h-at mos-t -of/ – the – chi-l-d / r-e-n -w-e-r-e- li-vi-n-g W/IT-H/ re-lat-i-v-es;
the major-it-y / of / mother/ s- had lo-n-g- stand-ing M-E-N—T–AL – HE-a-L-t/h-pr-o-b-le-ms; and mos-t of the mothers not o-n-l-y wan/t-ed ‘more’ child-re-n, b-u-t were tr-y-i-n-g to get . . .
. . . p- re -g -n – ant.
Re-c-e-n-t li-te-r-a-t-u-r-e- has pro-vi-d-ed a b-e-ginn-i-n-g u-n-d-er-s-tand-ing of mothers who do not have c-u-stody follow-ing a mar-i-t-al b-re-a-k-up ( Fischer & Cardea, 1981; Greif, 1986; Greif, 1987; Greif & Pabst, 1988; Herrerias, 1984; Paskowicz, 1982 ).
Th-ese stu-d-ies, ho-w-e-ve-r, have fo-c-u-sed on on-l-y o-n-e seg-ment of t/he “non-custodial” mo-t/he/r pop-u-lat-ion w-hi-te, mid-d-le-d -as -s, once mar-r-i-ed, li-k-el-y to h-ave ch-i-l-d-ren who, a -re li-vi-n-g- with t/he-ir- father, and who ma-y have re-li-nqu-i-s/h-ed c-u-s-t-o-d-y
v o-lun-tar-i-l-y.
W/hi-le t/h-is seg-me-n-t of t/he pop-u-lat-ion ma-y be t/he largest, it is no-t t/he onl-y o-ne with w-hich soci-al wo-rk-ers have co-n-t-act.
Child “p-ro-tec-t-i-o-n” and fo-s -t – e-r ca-re c-a-se-wo-rk-er-s pro-vid-e-se-r -vi-c-es to po-p -u,- lat – i-ons pre-dominan-tl-y co-n-s-is-t-i-n-g of “ lo-w -in-co-me, ” [ hi-g-h ed-u-cat-i-on] sin-g-le,
no- ‘n – c-u-st’-o—di-al- mot/he/r-s –w/ho-m/u-s-t’ (m a) n- a-g-e “re- u- n– ‘if’- i [ being t/he ] ‘cat’-i-o-n” with or p-er-man-en-t – se – -par-at -i-o-n f-ro-m t- he- ir – ch-i-l-d--re-n.
*The re-se-arch re-port-ed i-n t/h/is pa-p-er w- as- p – art–i–al-l-y sup- ported by g-ran-t a-ward FPR-000028-01-0 f-r-om t/he Off/ice of Po-p/-u-lat-i-o-n A-ff-airs to Susan Zuravin. 163
The p–
—–u/r-
———–pose of this paper
———— is to fur-the/r under-stand-ing
———————of the noncustodial mother population
——————————served b-y m/a/n-y c-h-i-l-d
————————— we/l/fare
————————————— pro-g-rams b-y
———————————–exami n
————————————————i/n/g
——————–a su b——————————————-
—————————————–p- o- p – u – l -a t —————————————–
—————————- i – o- n -that
……………………….. has not been very well–
…………………………….. stud/i-ed mothe_rs-
———————————————-with ” low-incomes” [ hi-g-h edu-cat-i-o-n ]who may never have
——————been………………………….
———marr
………………i–e-d– may not
……………..be white and have
be/co-me . ……………………..
……………………..non
………………………………………cus-t-odi-al
………………………………………………..fo-l-low-ing con-t-a-ct with child protective services
…………………………………..Eight (8) mothe/ rs who lost custody of all child-ren
………………………………….during the 17-months
…………………………………………………..following their se-lect-ion in-to a/
………………………………………………………….stud-y sample of 518 AF DC mothers
———————–for-m t/he ba-s-I-S four
…………………..o/u/r di-s
….– s –c-u-s –s –i–o—n.
To gather information about low-income, noncustodial mothers, we reviewed five areas of study, all of which have potential for focusing on issues of custody and low-income families. Little information was found. The noncustodial mother literature, as noted above, has almost exdusively focused on the middle-income mother without custody. The recent foster care literature (e.g., Fanshel, 1976; Rzepnicki, 1987) does not, to the best of our knowledge, focus on the needs of noncustodial mothers as differentiated from those of noncustodial fathers or twoparent families.
Moreover, it does not address situations where parents have children living in any of a variety of informal arrangements, i.e., with relatives, spouses, etc. The child support enforcement literature (e.g., Cassety, 1984) predominantly focuses on noncustodial parents whose children are recipients of Aid to Families of Dependent Children (AFDC). However, because the vast majority of AFDC caretakers are single parent mothers, the typical child support enforcement study focuses on noncustodial fathers. The child maltreatment literature (e.g., Parke & Collmer, 1975; Polansky, Hally, & Polansky, 1975; Wolfe, 1985), is peripherally related to custody issues in that some maltreating parents lose custody of one or more children.
It does not, to the best of our knowledge, address noncustodial mothers separate and apart from parents who maintain custody, or parents who lose custody of some but not all of their children. In fact, most studies do not mention whether respondents have lost custody of any children. After analyzing our data and seeing the prevalence of alcohol and drug abuse among these mothers, we reviewed that body Low-Income Mothers Without Custody of literature, too. Loss of child custody as an outcome of drug addition was mentioned in one study (Nurco, Wegner, & Stephenson, 1982); the study reported that children were more likely to be removed from their parent(s) because of neglect rather than abuse.
Based on these reviews, there seems to be no one area of inquiry that daims these mothers as their own. Consequently, we know little about them.
Yet, this little known population may be a fast-growing one for three reasons: (a) the increase in size of the population of single parent, female-headed families with children, many of whom are overburdened with financial and emotional problems; (b) the ever-increasing range of culturally sanctioned roles for women; and (c) the increased attention to and reporting of child maltreatment. Increases in this population have particular import for child welfare, namely an increase in the number of children at high risk for child maltreatment.
Theory (Finkelhor, 1985) as well as empirical findings (Finkelhor, 1980) suggest that children who live away from their natural mothers for periods of time may be at higher risk for sexual abuse than children who always live with their mothers. Studies of child maltreatment in formal, licensed foster care suggest that children living in such homes may be at higher risk for all types of maltreatment than the average child in the population-at-large (Bolton, Laner, & Gai, 1980).
And, if the maltreatment rate is high in licensed foster care-homes that are monitored, even if only on a periodic basis-one can only imagine how high the rate of maltreatment must be for informal care arrangements, i.e., custody arrangements with friends, neighbors, relatives, etc., situations that are not likely to be licensed and if monitored, not very dosely. For most middle-income mothers, concern about maltreatment is not an issue. Greif and Pabst’s survey (1988) of such mothers reveals that more than 90% of their children were living with their fathers.
Conceptual Framework-Characteristics of the Mother Without Custody Lacking specific theory or findings with regard to low-income, noncustodial mothers, we decided to use Belsky’s mo-d-e-l of t/he de-ter-min-an-t-s of pa-r-en-t-ing, “o-ne de-r-i-v-e-d f-r-om re-se-ar-ch on t/he et-i-o-lo-g-y of ch-i-l-d ab-use and n-eglect” (Belsky, 1984, p. 83), as we-l-l a-s v-ar-i-ous h-y-p-o-t/he-se-s and fin-d-i-n-g-s f-ro-m t/he ch-i-l-d mal-treat-men-t and p-s-y-chi-atric li-t-er-a-t-u-re to i-d-ent-if-y a-re-as f-or st-u-d-y.
T/he-se gu-id-e-s a-re par-t-i-c-u–lar-l-y relevant b-e-ca-use o-ur sam-p-l-e in-c-l-u-d-e-s a- l-ar-g-e pro-‘portion’ of ab-us-i-ng and/o-r ne-g-lect-i-n-g fam-i-l-ie-s. The two areas that we decided to explore-mental health problems and future childbearing plans-were selected from an array of potentially important topics on the basis of their relevance for clinical practice.
Rationale – mental health problems
The Belsky model (1984) p-o-s-i-t-s “t/hre-e gen-e-r-al sour-ce-s of i-n-fl-u-en-c-e on par-en-t-al fun-ct-ion-i-ng:
(a) t/he pa-re-nt-s’ o-n-t-o-genic origins and per-son-al p-sy-cho-logi-c-al resources,
(b) t/he chi-l-d-‘s character-i-s-t-i-c-s of in-di-vi-d-u-al-i-t-y, and
(c) co-n-t-e-x-t-u-al s-o-ur-c-e-s – of- s-t-r-e-s-s and s-u-p-p-ort” (p. 83).
Of these t/hree sour-ce-s, par-en-t psy-chol-og-i-c-al re-so-ur-c-es r-e id-ent-if-i-e-d as t/he m-o-s-t in-fl-u-e-n-t-i-a l “no-t si-mp-l-y fo- r t/he-i-r d-i-re-ct e-f-fe-ct o-n par-e-n-t-al u-n-ct-i-o-n-i-n-g b-u-t al-so be-cau-se o-f t/he ro-le t /he/y un-do-ub-t-e-d-l-y p-l-a-y i-n re-c-r-u-i-t-i-n-g co-n-t-ex-t-u-al sup-p-ort” (p. 91).
On t /he bas-i-s of Belsky’s position (1984) regarding the salience of parental psychological resources as well as the large and con-s-is–t-e-nt body of findings from the psychiatric literature which reveal that ma-t-e-r-n-al m-en-t-al health problems (e.g., Colletta, 1983; Longfellow, Zelkowitz, & Saunders, 1981; Susman, Trickett, Iannotti, Hollenbeck, & Zahn-Wexler, 1985; Weissman, Paykel, & Klerman, 1972) have a particularly adverse affect on parenting behaviors, we decided to ex-a-mi-n-e mo-t/he/r’s his/to/r/y of me/n/t/al he-a-l-t-h pro-b-l-e-m-s.
It seemed reasonable to surmise that the prevalence of mental health problems might be highest among mothers without custody. Moreover, on the basis of findings which show that neglectful mothers are more likely to have mental health problems than abusive or nonmaltreating mothers (Friedrich, Tyler, & Clark, 1985; Zuravin, 1988), we reasoned that more neglectful than abusive or control mothers might be noncustodial. Rationale-future childbearing plans The clinical impression of many caseworkers is that mothers who are separated from all of their children are at high risk for Low-Income Mothers Without Custody having another child. On the basis of information about the contracepting patterns of maltreating mothers alone (Zuravin, 1987), this impression seems to be a reasonable one.
— Both abusive and neglectful mothers are likely to use contraceptives less adequately and effectively than comparable control mothers.
— In addition, regardless of the problems non-custodial mothers had with their children, it is likely that these children were meeting some specific need-a need that the mother may well try to fulfill by having another child.
Thus, we reasoned that the non-custodial mothers may [ or may not ] be more likely to want to conceive another child than custodial mothers.
In summary, this presentation of information about [ only ] eight (8) low-income [ high education], single mothers who do not have daily care and custody of any of their children,
— represents a beginning attempt to describe low-income [ high education], non-custodial mothers, particularly those who once received AFDC.
While no claim is being made that these eight mothers are representative of non-custodial, low-income [and/or ] high education mothers, it is our hope that this presentation [ specifically not ‘peer-reviewed’ scientific, statistically (in)significant, biased and based report or real study or experiment] will help to
(a) stimulate interest in this under-studied population group,
(b) generate questions and hypotheses for future study, and
(c) provide the social work practitioner with a beginning description of this population.
(a) to determine the composition of the noncustodial mother group by maltreatment status,
(b) to identify the range of situations in which the children of these mothers live,
(c) to characterize the “mental health problems,” [ or unique personality and character traits open to reasonably expansive interpretation across a variety of ‘spectrums’ or ‘lights’] as well as [ equal to ] the future ‘child-bearing plan[t]s’ of these mothers.
Information for this exploratory, descriptive study of eight [ 8 ] low-income/ [ or high education], non-custodial mothers and their children comes from,
— an extensive set of interview and case record data (Zuravin & Taylor, 1987) on
— 518 individuals,
— low-income,
— urban,
— single
— parent
— mothers.
The original purpose of this data set was to identify ‘personal,’ ‘social,’ and ‘contextual’ factors that increase the low-income child’s risk of being physically abused and/or neglected. Methodological information pertinent to the construction of the data set is detailed in the final report to the funder (Zuravin & Taylor, 1987) and various papers (e.g., Zuravin, 1987; Zuravin, 1988).
Below is a summary of information about the 518 respondents and a description of measures pertinent to the above study objectives.
Study participants
The eight women who are described in this paper come from a group of 518 women [ (wo) man ] who were interviewed in their homes by one of ten trained interviewers sometime during the period ” 9/ 1/84 to 6/30/85.”
These 518 women had five (5) [ one circumstantial ] characteristic(s) in common.
During the study sampling month, January 1984, all were:
(a) residents of Baltimore, Maryland,
(b) single parents (defined as not being legally married),
(c) recipients of financial assistance from the Aid to families of Dependent Children program, (d) had custody of and provided daily care for at least one natural child, and
(e) had at least one natural child 12 years of age or younger even if care and custody of the child was no longer the mother’s responsibility.
The 518 were purposely selected to differ relative to
— how adequately they were known to care for their natural children;
–119 respondents were known to Baltimore City Department of Social Services (BCDSS), Division of Child Protective Services for personally neglecting their children,
— 118 were known to BCDSS for having one or more physically abused children, and
— 281 were not known to BCDSS for having any neglected, physically abused, or sexually abused children.
— The 237 maltreating respondents were selected from a specially constructed sampling frame prepared from the co-hort of 1,744 families who were receiving child “protective” services during the sampling month.
— The 281 control group respondents were selected from a specially constructed sampling frame prepared from the co-hort of 37,158 families who were,
— receiving AFDC,
— but not child protective services during the sampling month.
Measures Information pertinent to objective a-specific custody arrangements for children of the eight women-was obtained during the personal interview.
— Each respondent was asked to identify, by name, age, and relationship, to he/r each member of h/er household.
– During a comprehensive history of each of the mother’s livebirths, the
— interviewer [ doctor/nurse/pediatrician/ physician’s assistant/hospital social worker or administrator/cps/SS caseworker regularly tipped off by the same “interviewer” on duty or manager or director ],
— “checked” the household roster, ” Low-Income Mothers Without Custody,” to
— see if the child in question [ ? ] was currently living with the respondent.
— If the child was not among the household members, the interviewer asked,
— “Where is she/he living now?”
[ Every ] Where possible, information from the interview was corroborated and supplemented by information from the child protective service (CPS) “case record.”
Information pertinent to objective b-mental health problems and childbearing plans-
— was obtained during the personal interview, and, where possible,
— possible [ pre-determined/ profiled/pre-selection bias ] corroborated with information from the case record.
Given the pre valence of depression and substance abuse problems among the population of urban, low-income, young women (Robins, Helzer, Croughan, & Ratcliffe, 1981), information was “obtained” [ intentionally and knowingly “coached” to fathers to falsely and maliciously report, or presumed without actual research, without investigation, probable cause, reliability, or reasonable suspicion based on specific, relevant, articulable evidence that that individual mother . . . ] —
— about current and past “problems with depression, alcohol abuse, and drug abuse.”
— The Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, 1970) was used to assess severity of depressive symptoms,
— on the day of the interview, and
— a variety of questions from the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (Robins, Helzer, et al., 1981)
— were used to “obtain” [ guess to “substantiate” ] information about lifetime incidence of [ falsely reported or maliciously alleged with intent to prosecute and knowingly cause harm and inflict emotional distress, among other crimes and violations ] “depression as well as alcohol and drug problems. Relevant to the women’s future plans with respect to parenting,” two (2) types of information were gathered:
(a) expectations for future pregnancies and family planning strategies around the time of the interview, and
(b) plans for assuming daily care and custody of their children.
To obtain information about future pregnancies and family planning strategies, respondents were asked a series of relevant questions taken from the National Survey of Family Growth, Cycle 3 (National Center for Health Statistics, 1982).
— Information about [ CPS and irresponsible father’s collusive ] plans,
— for return of children’s . . . “daily care and custody” . . . ” to the mothers” . . . was “obtained,”
— where possible, from the child protective service case record narratives.
— Data analysis Because of the small size of the group of women who became noncustodial during the period from sampling to interview, formal statistical comparisons of this group with relevant groups of women who did not lose custody are “not warranted.”
Findings from such analyses would be seriously compromised by statistical conclusion validity problems (Cook & Campbell, 1979).
However, to give the reader a feel for how these women may differ from the other groups of women included in the study,
— we present comparable data “on all measures for the abusive (n = 116), neglectful (n = 113), and control (n = 281) mothers who had custody of at least one child on the day they were ‘interviewed’ for the study [ or unethical, uninformed, non-‘consented’ social experiment or systematic, inhumate re’trauma’tization] .“
To determine the composition of the noncustodial mother group by maltreatment status,
The eight women who are the subjects of this paper became noncustodial sometime during the period 2/1/84 and the day they were interviewed, 7 to 17 months later.
All eight are from the two maltreatment samples. As predicted, the majority, six of the eight (75%), are from the neglect sample.
To identify the range of situations in which the children of study mothers live Inspection of data on the custodians of the 29 children of the noncustodial mothers (see Table 1)
—shows that the majority were not in formal. foster care on the day their mother was interviewed.
The largest proportion, 20 of 29, were with a relative.
The remaining
—nine were in formal foster care,
– -seven in family care and two in group care.
Of the 20 children who were with a relative,
–seven were with their father and
–13 were with either a maternal or paternal relative.
Examining the identity of children’s custodians by mother’s former marital status suggests, as might be expected, that once-married mothers are more likely to have children who live with their fathers than mothers who were never married.
The two mothers who were married have children living with their father (the man to whom the mother was married), whereas only one of the six never married mothers has children living with their father.
Although highly detailed information on the transfer of daily care and custody for all 29 children is not available from the child protection case records, what is available leads to three conclusions:
(a) Child protective service intervention led to the transfers of custody. It is not likely that any of these mothers would have voluntarily on her own sought to make suitable daily care and custody arrangements for any of their children. In many instances, it was necessary to involve juvenile court in the custody transfer.
(b) Caseworkers tended to be extremely conservative about transfers of custody. A concerted effort was made to keep the children with their mother.
Most families received an extensive array of supportive services (i.e., day care, parent aide service, mental health services, parenting programs etc.), none of which they were able to effectively use, prior to removal of all the children.
(c) Every effort was made to keep the children out of formal foster home or group home care by making it a priority to place them with relatives.
Table 1
Proportion of Children Living With Each of Three Types of Custodians and Proportion of Mothers Who Have Children With Each of the Three Types
Children Mothers Custodian (n =29) (n=8)*
Formal foster home or group home care 31% (9) 50% (4)
With childs father 24 (7) 37 (3)
With paternal or maternal relatives 44 (13) 37 (3)
*The number of mothers sums to more than eight because some of the mothers have children in more than one type of placement.
To characterize the mental health problems as well as the future childbearing of low-income mothers without custody of their children Demographic description.
Information about six demographic characteristics (displayed in Table 2) suggests that the eight noncustodial mothers may differ not only from the average control mother but also the average neglectful and abusive mother.
The mean age of the noncustodial mothers during the sampling month (1/84) was 26.1 years, younger than either the average neglectful or average abusive mother.
Four respondents were black and four were white, suggesting that white mothers may be over-represented among noncustodial mothers compared to the groups of abusive, neglectful, and control mothers.
Noncustodial Neglect Abuse Control Characteristics Column Totals (n =8) (n =113) (n =116) (n =281)
Age as of 1/84 26.1 28.3 27.7 25.9
Grade completed 9.1 9.8 10.4 11.1
Number of livebirths 3.6 3.9 3.0 1.9
Race (percent white) 50.0 31.0 23.3 13.5 (4) (35) (27) (38)
Employment (percent never employed)
75.0 50.4 52.6 37.4 (6) (57) (61) (105)
Marital history (percent never married) 75.0 55.8 69.0 73.0 (6) (63) (80) (205)
–Two (25%) of the mothers had been employed,
–and two had been married,
–quite a few less than the other three groups.
They lagged behind the other three groups of mothers relative to educational achievement.
The average number of years of education per mother is 9.1; not one of the eight had graduated from high school.
And finally, the eight mothers had given birth to 29 children, all of whom were still alive at the time of the study.
The number of children per mother ranged from one to seven with the average being 3.6.
Naturally, these mothers also differ from the middle-class, white mothers studied by others in that they
–had less education,
–were less likely to have ever been employed,
–were less likely to have ever been married, and
–had more children.
Also of interest is that the eight mothers all lost custody involuntarily as compared with many of the middle class mothers who, in part, as a response to the women’s movement, relinquished custody voluntarily (Greif & Pabst, 1988). Mental health problems. Inspection of the data in Table 3 suggests, as pre dicted, that
— non-custodial mothers may [ or may not] have more
— “Low-Income” [high education] Mothers Without Custody
Depression, Drinking, andDrug Problems Characteristic of Eight Noncustodial Mothers and Neglectful, Abusive and Non-maltreating Mothers with Custody of One or More Children
Noncustodial Neglect Abuse Control Characteristics (n =8) (n =113) (n =116) (n =281)
Mental health problems 100.0% 85.0% 81.9% 66.9% (8) (96) (95) (188)
Two weeks depression 75.0 69.0 60.3 47.3 (6) (78) (70) (133)
Prenatal depression 62.5 58.4 46.6 35.6 (5) (66) (54) (100)
BDI > 13 62.5 47.8 47.4 23.8 (5) (54) (55) (67)
Drinking problem 62.5 21.2 14.7 6.1 (5) (24) (17) (17)
Hard drugs 25.0 10.6 5.2 2.1 (2) (12) (6) (6)
Differences are–
— most apparent with respect to alcohol and drug problems, and
— least apparent with respect to depression.
Overall,
— the non-custodial mothers differ most from the custodial, non-maltreating mothers, and
— least from custodial neglectful mothers,
— suggesting that perhaps some of the custodial neglectful mothers may be at high risk for losing custody of their children.
All–
— eight (8) of the custodial mothers (100%) reported problems with at least one of three
— “mental health problems”
— -depression, alcohol, and/or drug usage.
— High percentages (87% and 82%)
— of the neglectful and abusive mothers also
— reported one,
— or more
— of these three problems.
— Of the three (3)
— “mental health problems,“
— “depression” [a “state” . . . of mind ] was
— by far [ = ] the most pre valent.
— All eight of the non-custodial mothers
— gave a positive response
— to at least one
— of the three (3)
— “indicators of depressive symptoms:
(a) five (5) (63%) were
— moderately or severely
— de-pressed on the day of the “interview,”
— according to their Beck Depression score (scored 14 or greater) (Beck, 1970);
(b) six (6) (75%) “re-ported” a life-time
— incidence of two or more weeks of depression; and
(c) five (5)(63%) were [ also ] de-pressed after the birth
— of at least one child even
— though the child was “wanted and planned.”
— Of the eight (8)t mothers, five (5) (62.5%)
— had serious enough
— depressive symptoms to
— obtain “formal help: three (3) (37.5%)” had been “hospitalized”
— at least overnight [ for at least the birth delivery in hospital ],
— and two (2)
— had received help
— on an outpatient basis
— from a “mental health professional.”
— Comparison of the non-custodial mothers with the three (3) groups of custodial mothers,
— on the three, depression measures, reveals that they differ, most from the non-maltreating mothers.
— Drinking and drug problems.
— It is with respect to these two (2) problems that the non-custodial mothers differ the most
— from the remaining “abusive and neglectful mothers.”
— “Having periods
— of drinking for a couple of days and [ then ] not,
— being able to sober up”
— was characteristic [ as opposed to a “mental illness” ]
— of 63% of the non-custodial mothers,
— as opposed to
— 24% of the “neglectful,” and
— 15% of the “abusive” mothers. Using hard drugs (cocaine, PCP, heroin, or LSD) for two
— or more weeks [ with “questionable ‘ child'” }
— was characteristic
— of 25% of the non-custodial mothers
— compared to
— 11% of the neglectful, and
— 6% of the abusive mothers.
— Three of the five (60%) women with drinking problems and
— both of the women [ (wo) man }
— with drug problems
— had received some sort of “formal” help “from a mental health professional.”
Unfortunately, this help seemed to have little impact on their serious substance abuse problems. Future childbearing plans.
Just as the non-custodial mothers differed from the custodial mothers with respect to alcohol and drug problems, they also differed with respect to their future childbearing plans.
— Despite the many serious [ series of ?} child,
— care problems experienced by these women and the very high
— incidence of behavioral, physical, and emotional problems characteristic of their children, all six of the women who were not sterile (either because of tubal ligation or hysterectomy) wanted to have at least one more child.
All six (6) answered “yes” to the question, “Looking to the future, do you intend to have another baby at some time” (National Center for Health Statistics, 1982).
–Five wanted one more child and
–one wanted two more children.
So, while
–100% of the noncustodial mothers who could have another child wanted another child,
–only 43% of the neglectful (n = 67),
–54% of the abusive (n = 59), and
–57% of the control mothers (n = 202) wanted another child.
–And, not only did the six women want more children, all six had a steady boyfriend and
–all except one were trying to get pregnant by that boyfriend during the two week period prior to the interview.
In response to the question, “Did you use any method of birth control the last time you had intercourse?” (National Center for Health Statistics, 1982)
–all five answered “no.”
The descriptive statistics provide some information about these eight low-income, noncustodial mothers; however, due to the size of the study group, the picture is an abbreviated one.
To fill in this picture, we dose with a detailed description of ‘Roberta,’ a mother who is’ typical’ of the eight women who form the basis of this study.
The story of Roberta.
Roberta is a 32-year-old, never-married, mother of three children.
All three are living with relatives:
–John, age 14, and Mary, age 12, live with one family while Brenda, age 3, lives with another.
Roberta was first reported to child protective services during 1975 for severe neglect of John and Mary.
Since the time of this report, daily care and custody of these two children has been provided by their maternal aunt.
During 1982, Roberta was reported to child protective services for failure to make appropriate child care arrangements for Brenda, a complaint very similar to the one that had lost her custody of John and Mary.
Several days prior to the complaint, she had been found guilty of shoplifting and required to serve 9 days in city jail.
Rather than make appropriate arrangements for the care of Brenda (two years old at the time), she left Brenda with her current boyfriend, Bobby, a known heroin addict.
Bobby contacted a friend of Roberta’s who not only came and got Brenda but reported the problem to child protective services.
Problems with depression, drinking, and drugs have repeatedly punctuated Roberta’s life. She was positive for all three depression measures:
(a) depressed after the birth of each of her three children even though the first two were planned conceptions,
(b) felt sad, blue, and depressed for at least two consecutive weeks during the six months preceding the interview, and
(c) moderately depressed on the day of the interview, according to her Beck Depression Inventory score. And, as if the problems with depression were not enough, Roberta also had long-standing Welfare ing problems with substance abuse.
As recent as six months prior to the interview she had periods of drinking for a couple of days or more without sobering up and of “shooting herself with heroin.”
The case record narratives describe heroin and alcohol addiction problems dating back as far as 1975-the year when she was first reported for child neglect.
Despite the long-standing mental health problems, the repeated encounters with child protective services for child neglect, and the loss of custody of all her children, Roberta not only planned to have two more children before she reached 35, she was working on getting pregnant.
At last intercourse (the night before the interview), neither she nor Bobby had used any method of birth control.
During the year preceding the interview, they used birth control about half the time.
The data describe these mothers as having more problems than their counterparts either in the low-income [high education] population (maltreators and controls) or in the “non-custodial” mother literature.
1. Overrepresentation of neglect– as opposed to abuse– among the eight non-custodial mother situations directs attention to the adequacy of services for intact neglectful families.
Even though neglectful mothers may suffer more frequently from mental health problems (Freidrich, Tyler, et al., 1985; Zuravin, 1988), it is important to pose the question-are we providing sufficient services, soon enough to these families?
Conceivably, neglectful situations do not receive services until the mother’s mental health problems have deteriorated to the point where they are virtually ‘intractable.’
According to Wolock and Horowitz (1984), “in spite of data showing that neglect is no less severe than physical abuse, there is some evidence that preoccupation with abuse [ or sexual assault, misconduct, or abuse of a child] may have led the protective service worker to view neglect as being of lesser severity, and, in the face of unmanageably high caseloads, to be more likely to screen out neglect cases” (p. 537) (also, see Selinske, 1984).
2. The fact that many of their children are not in formal foster care raises the question of who is caring for these children. Low-Income Mothers Without Custody Are they in adequate placements with relatives or are they as much at risk for maltreatment as they were when living with their mothers?
This takes us back to one of the possible adverse consequences, mentioned earlier in the paper, of an increase in the population of low-income, noncustodial mothers.
We may be seeing a growing number of unmonitored, unattached children, ones that are shuffled from place to place after having been maltreated by their mothers.
Who know what happens to children, who, for example,
–go with one relative, do not fit in there, and then move on to another and another informal placement.
–More than two-thirds of this group of 29 children could be in this situation.
Do these children constitute a large proportion of a rather newly recognized American social problem,
–“runaway children and teenagers?” ? ? ?
3. Most troubling of the facts learned about these eight mothers is that
–the six who have not been sterilized want and are trying to have more children.
–While middle class mothers have also started families again after becoming “non”-custodial (Greif & Pabst, 1988), it appears to occur in a small proportion of cases.
We could, thus hypothesize that having a low income and becoming noncustodial as a result of child protective service intervention are linked to a desire to have more children in a way that may not apply to middle-income non-custodial mothers.
If so, short of mandatory sterilization, what is the “[‘final’] ‘solution?'”
There are at least three directions for future research on non-custodial mothers.
The first direction centers on
–differences between low- and middle-“income”/ [education]/ non-custodial mothers.
For instance,
–“Are non-custodial, low-income mothers, compared to non-custodial, middle-income mothers–
(a) a less prevalent phenomenon?
(b) less likely to voluntarily relinquish custody of their children than middle-income mothers?
(c) more likely to become non-custodial involuntarily because of intractable mental health problems including depression and substance abuse?
(d) more likely to want more children, and
— to try to have more children once they become non-custodial?
The second direction centers on
–differences between low-income mothers who are non-custodial and comparable mothers who have custody of some, but not all, of their children.
–Does a mother lose some children on the way to losing all of her children?
–And, if so, what could be done, preventively, to reverse this cycle?
And, finally,
–the third direction centers on low-income fathers.
How do those fathers who assume daily care and custody of their children differ [maritally and martially, as in, by force of law in times of “domestic ’emergency'”] from those who do not?
Traditionally, foster care literature has focused on and documented the consequences for children of being in formal foster family and group care placements.
It has not, however, to the best of our knowledge, addressed the issue of children who are living in “informal foster care arrangements”, i.e., the child who lives with relatives.
Given the current crisis in the formal foster care system-not enough placements to meet demand-placement of children with relatives is likely to increase. The consequences of these placements need documentation. Is the population of children in “informal foster care” growing?
Are children in “informal foster care” at increased risk for child maltreatment of all types?
Do they constitute a large proportion of the “runaway minor” problem?
We have attempted to show that more research on the lowincome, noncustodial mother is needed.
The study of this population, which has been virtually ignored, can provide a key to unlocking many fields of study relevant to social service policy and social work practice. References Belsky, J. (1984).
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Protecting CPS clients and workers. Public Welfare, 41(3), 30-35. Susman, E., Trickett, P., lannotti, R., Hollenbeck, B., & Zahn-Waxler, C. (1985).
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Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare Zuravin S. (1987).
Unplanned pregnancies, family planning problems, and child maltreatment. Family Relations, 36(2), 135-139. Zuravin, S. (1988).
Child abuse, child neglect, and maternal depression: Are they related? In National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect (Ed.), Child Neglect Monograph: Proceedings from a Symposium (pp. 20- 46). Washington, DC: National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect. Zuravin, S. & Taylor, R. (1987).
Child care adequacy and family planning practices. Final report to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Office of Population Affairs for Grant FPR 000028-02-0.
The research reported in this paper was partially supported by grant award,
— FPR-000028-01-0 from …… Affairs for Grant. FPR 000028-02-0.
Author of this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and Especially to My Little Julian, is not a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner, therefore, no information contained herein this post and/or blog could be (mis)construed as “legal advice.” Anyone who exercises he/r rights, and private property sometimes called “child” for deceptive, possibly malicious or retaliatory, and profiteering/privateering and in the “best interests” . . . of the “state” Texas General and other Funds at one’s own peril, risk, and/ or self-fulfillment. The choice is yours.
The Tissue-Industrial Complex
Click on the link below to read the pellucid translation of what is a black and white matter to some, whereas others call it a fertile gray area. To others still, the article may resonate with a popular film that starred comedy legends actors Steve Martin and Lilly Tomlin (directed by Rob Reiner, 1984, film clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe2JWIvXyN4) and song by the country music artist Willie Nelson titled, “All of Me” (All Of Me” is track #18 on the album The Essential Willie Nelson. It was written by Simons, Seymour / Marks, Gerald, read more at http://www.metrolyrics.com/all-of-me-lyrics-willie-nelson.html ). Remember other classics from the 1970’s and 1980’s like the A-Team (about special Delta forces) and the “Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman” (starring Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner)? Why is it that Hollywood is always light years ahead of the game on the information scene? Have you found yourself with time to ponder what is really going-on? For the skinny as reported by Rebecca Skloot for the New York Times in the following thought-provoking, if not mind-boggling article, Taking the Least of You: The Tissue-Industrial Complex, April 16, 2006, Read-on.
Anna O’Connell couldn’t find Ted. She stood bent at the waist on a frigid afternoon last December, her head and all its fuzzy red hair crammed into an old stand-up freezer that looked like something you get milk from at the corner store: tall, white with a bit of rust and a pull handle. That freezer is the first thing you see when you walk into the Fox Chase CancerCenter laboratory in Philadelphia, where O’Connell has spent decades as a staff scientist. She pushed aside vial after vial. “I know we still have him somewhere,” she yelled, her head still inside the freezer. “We’ve got serum from, like, 450,000 people.”
O’Connell grabbed a ragged cardboard box the size of a paperback book. “This is my treasure box,” she said. “I bet Ted’s in here.” The box held 56 tiny glass vials filled with clear blood serum — some from patients, others from laboratory animals, all taken and kept for hepatitis research. Around each vial, on a thin piece of tape, someone had scribbled information about each sample. “That’s duck,” O’Connell said, raising a vial to eye level. She dropped it and grabbed the next one. “Woodchuck.” She shook her head. “Geez, somebody should organize this.” She lifted vials one at a time, reading labels, dropping them back into the box and muttering, “Duck. . .duck. . .human, not Ted. . .duck. . .woodchuck. . .human, not Ted.. . .”
She looked over her shoulder at me and smiled apologetically. I had traveled many miles to learn about this man, Ted, whose blood was key in the creation of the first-ever hepatitis B vaccine decades earlier. “It’s strange,” O’Connell said, shaking her head. “I used him so much over the years, I usually keep a little bit of him in every freezer.”
Suddenly, she twirled to face me, arm extended, holding one tiny vial, grinning. “Here he is!” she said. “Ted Slavin.”
Though he died 21 years ago, Slavin is worth keeping track of. Not because his cells produced extremely valuable proteins that were important for scientific research. But because Slavin’s relationship to those cells was unique: they weren’t just part of his body; they were his business, his property. Slavin was one of the first people in history to decide that contrary to the way things usually work in science, he would maintain complete control over any blood and tissues removed from his body. He would determine who used them for research, how and, most important to Slavin, who made money from them.
This may not sound like a particularly groundbreaking idea, unless you consider it with a little-known fact: blood samples and other excised human tissues have an afterlife. When you go to the doctor for a routine blood test or mole removal, when you have an appendectomy, tonsillectomy or any other kind of ectomy, the stuff you leave behind doesn’t always get thrown out. Doctors, hospitals and laboratories keep them. Often indefinitely. Some get consent with admission forms that say something like, I give my doctor permission to dispose of my tissues or use them in research. Others don’t.
Today most Americans have their tissue on file somewhere. In 1999 the RAND Corporation published a report (the first and, so far, the last of its kind) with what it called a “conservative estimate” that more than 307 million tissue samples from more than 178 million people were stored in the United States. This number, the report said, was increasing by more than 20 million samples each year. These samples come from routine medical tests, operations, clinical trials and research donations. They sit in lab freezers, on shelves or in industrial vats of liquid nitrogen. They’re stored at military facilities, the F.B.I. and the National Institutes of Health. They’re in biotech companies and most hospitals. Biobanks store everything from appendixes, ovaries and skin to sphincters, testicles and fat. Not to mention blood samples taken from most children born in the United States since the late 60’s, when states started mandating screening newborns for genetic diseases.
Scientists and surgeons use these tissues to develop everything from flu vaccines to penis-enlargement products. They put cells in culture dishes and expose them to radiation, drugs, cosmetics, viruses, household chemicals and biological weapons and then study their responses. They remove DNA to examine it — and therefore the person it came from — gene by gene. Without those tissues, we would have no tests for diseases like hepatitis and H.I.V.; no vaccines for polio, smallpox, measles; none of the new promising drugs forleukemia, breast cancer, colon cancer. And without tissue samples, the developers of those products would be out billions of dollars.
How you should feel about all this isn’t obvious. Scientists aren’t stealing your arm or some vital organ. They’re just using tissue scraps you parted with voluntarily. But still, someone is taking part of you. And people often have a strong sense of ownership when it comes to their bodies. Even tiny scraps of it. Especially when they hear that someone else might be making money off those scraps. Or using them to uncover potentially damaging information about their genes and medical histories.
But a feeling of ownership doesn’t hold up in court. And at this point, the law isn’t clear on whether you have the right to own and control your tissues. When they’re part of your body, they’re clearly yours. Once they’re excised, things get murky.
The scale of tissue research is only getting bigger. “It used to be, some researcher in Florida had 60 samples in his freezer, then another guy in Utah had some in his,” says Kathy Hudson, a molecular biologist who directs the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University. “Now we’re talking about a massive, massive scale.” Within the last year, the National Cancer Institute started gathering what it expects will be millions of tissue samples for mapping cancer genes; the Genographic Project began doing the same to map human migration patterns, as did the N.I.H. to track disease genes.
Many scientists depend on access to tissues without the burden of restrictions that donors might make. (Restrictions like, You can use my tissues for this research, not thatresearch; don’t commercialize them, or do, and give me a cut.) At this point, scientists largely have the access they want. And they hope to keep it that way for fear that restrictions might slow research. But a growing number of activists — ethicists, lawyers, doctors and patients — are arguing cases and pushing for federal regulations that would change the status quo by granting people rights to control their tissues.
These days, their attention is focused on a potentially landmark court case: Washington University is claiming ownership of tissues from 6,000 patients who want their samples removed from the university’s prostate-cancer bank. Hudson, who has conducted focus groups about the public’s feelings on the tissue issue, says she believes that tissue rights have the potential to become a bona fide movement. “I could see a broader mobilization where people start saying, ‘No, you can’t take my tissues,”‘ she told me. “All I can say is, we better deal with the problems now instead of waiting until that happens.”
Anna O’Connell agrees. The day I visited her lab, she rolled a vial of Ted Slavin’s serum in her hand. We sat as she told me she wanted to see this issue settled, but she wanted to make one thing clear: scientists aren’t out to deceive people about their tissues. “We genuinely want to gather as much information as we can to advance research,” she said. “The problem is, in all that excitement, sometimes scientists don’t think about consequences.”
The tissue rights debate began in 1976, with a man named John Moore. He worked 12-hour days, 7 days a week, as a surveyor on the Alaska pipeline. He thought it was killing him. His gums bled; his belly swelled; bruises covered his body. It turned out that he had hairy-cell leukemia, a rare cancer that filled his spleen with malignant blood cells until it bulged like an overfilled inner tube. Moore found David Golde, a prominent cancer researcher at U.C.L.A., who said that removing his spleen was the only way to go. As Moore told it to the courts and the media, he signed a consent form saying that the hospital could “dispose of any severed tissue or member by cremation.” A normal spleen weighs less than a pound; Moore’s weighed 22. After the surgery, at the age of 31, Moore moved to Seattle, became an oyster salesman, went on with his life. But every few months, he flew to Los Angeles for follow-up exams with Golde.
At first, Moore didn’t think much of the trips. But after a few years of flying from Seattle to L.A. so that Golde could take bone marrow, blood and semen, Moore started thinking, Can’t a doctor in Seattle do this? When Moore asked Golde about doing his follow-ups in Seattle, Golde offered to pay for the plane tickets and put him up in style at the ritzy Beverly Wilshire. Moore didn’t start getting suspicious until one day in 1983 — seven years after his surgery — when a nurse handed him a consent form that said, “I (do, do not) voluntarily grant to the University of California all rights I, or my heirs, may have in any cell line or any other potential product which might be developed from the blood and/or bone marrow obtained from me.” At first, Moore circled “do.”
“It’s, like, you don’t want to rock the boat,” Moore told Discover magazine years later. “You think maybe this guy will cut you off, and you’re going to die or something.” But when the nurse gave him an identical form during his next visit, Moore asked whether Golde was doing something commercial with his tissues. According to Moore, Golde said that U.C.L.A. would never do such a thing. But Moore circled “do not,” just in case. That’s when Golde started calling, saying: You must have accidentally mis-signed the consent form. Come back and sign again. “I didn’t feel comfortable confronting him,” Moore said later, “so I said, ‘Gee, Doctor, I don’t know how I could have made that mistake.”‘ But he didn’t go back and sign.
After Moore got home, another consent form appeared in his mailbox with a sticker that said, “Circle I do.” He didn’t. Then Golde sent a letter urging Moore to sign the form. That’s when Moore sent the form to a lawyer. The lawyer did a quick database search and found that weeks before giving Moore the first consent form, Golde filed for a patent on Moore’s cells (the “Mo” cell line) and several valuable proteins those cells produced.
Golde had not licensed the patent to anyone. But according to the lawsuit Moore eventually filed, Golde had entered into agreements with a biotech company that gave him stocks and financing worth more than $3.5 million to “commercially develop” and “scientifically investigate” the cell line. At that point, the market value of the Mo cell line was predicted to reach $3 billion.
Most cells are worth nothing individually, but Moore’s were special. They produced several valuable proteins used to treat infections and cancer and carried a rare virus that might lead to treatments for H.I.V. Drug companies coveted these things, but Moore couldn’t sell or donate them because that would violate Golde’s patent. Technically, you can’t patent anything naturally occurring — like skin or blood. But once you alter something using human ingenuity, patents are fair game. Moore’s cells wouldn’t have survived outside his body unless Golde turned them into a cell line — self-perpetuating clones of one original cell. Hence the patent.
The way Moore saw it, he had been duped. So in 1984 he sued Golde and U.C.L.A. If he had just sued over accusations of deception, his case wouldn’t have been a landmark. But he took it further. He claimed property rights over those tissues and sued Golde for stealing them. He sued on 13 counts, including conversion (using or controlling someone else’s property without permission). With that, Moore became the first person to legally stake claim over his tissue and sue for profits and damages.
Golde, who died several years ago, denied Moore’s charges. And other scientists panicked. If excised tissues — including blood cells — became patients’ property, researchers taking them without detailed consent and explicit transfer of property rights up front would risk theft charges and more. Lawyers warned that a victory for Moore would “create chaos for researchers” and “[sound] the death knell to the university physician-scientist.” One researcher called it “a threat to the sharing of tissue for research purposes”; others worried that patients would hold out for a large cut and destroy the financial incentive to do research.
Round 1: A Los Angeles court said Moore had no case and dismissed it. Round 2: Moore appealed and won. In 1988, the California Court of Appeal ruled that a patient’s blood and tissues remain his property after being removed from his body. The judges pointed to the Protection of Human Subjects in Medical Experimentation Act, a 1978 California statute requiring that research on humans respect “the right of individuals to determine what is done to their own bodies.” They ruled: “A patient must have the ultimate power to control what becomes of his or her tissues. To hold otherwise would open the door to a massive invasion of human privacy and dignity in the name of medical progress.”
Then Golde appealed and won. In 1990, nearly seven years after Moore filed suit, the Supreme Court of California ruled against Moore on 11 counts in what has become the definitive statement on this issue: any ownership you might have in your tissues vanishes when they are removed from your body, with or without consent. When you leave tissues in a doctor’s office or a lab, you abandon them as waste. Anyone can take your garbage and sell it — the same goes for your tissues. Most important, the court said, Moore couldn’t own his cells, because that would conflict with Golde’s patent. Golde had “transformed” those cells into an invention. They were, the ruling said, the product of Golde’s “human ingenuity” and “inventive effort.”
Moore did prevail on two counts (lack of informed consent and breach of fiduciary duty), and the court said that Golde should have disclosed his financial interest in Moore’s tissues. It recognized the lack of regulation concerning consent and ownership and called on legislators to fix the problem. But that didn’t change the court’s decision. The court said that ruling in Moore’s favor might “destroy the economic incentive to conduct important medical research.” It worried that giving patients property rights would “hinder research by restricting access to the necessary raw materials” and create a field where “with every cell sample a researcher purchases a ticket in a litigation lottery.”
Moore appealed to the United States Supreme Court and was turned down. He died in 2001.
The Moore case released a flood of responses. Scientists and ethicists called for new legislation. Congress held tissue-research hearings; its committees uncovered millions of dollars in profits made by the biotechnology industry and concluded that “no single body of law, policy or ethics applies.” In 1995, President Bill Clinton asked his new National Bioethics Advisory Commission to examine the tissue-research controversy and recommend a solution. Four years later, it determined that federal oversight was “inadequate” and “ambiguous.” It recommended specific consent-policy changes but skirted the issue of ownership by simply saying it needed further investigation.
In response to the Moore case and the bioethics commission, some hospitals added lines to their consent forms saying that patients’ tissues might be used in research; others didn’t. Some inserted lines saying that patients waive commercial rights to their cells; others didn’t. But scientists kept using patients’ tissues.
“It’s ironic,” says Lori Andrews, director of the Institute for Science, Law and Technology at the Illinois Institute of Technology. “The Moore court’s concern was, If you gave a person property rights in their tissues, it would slow down research because people might withhold access for money.” According to Andrews — and a dissenting California Supreme Court judge — the ruling didn’t prevent commercialization; it just took patients out of the equation and emboldened scientists to commodify tissues in increasing numbers. Andrews argues that this made scientists less likely to share samples and results, which slows research. “The Moore decision backfired,” she says. “It just handed that commercial value to researchers.”
Lori Andrews’s career has focused almost exclusively on genetic rights and tissue issues. She has written 10 books and more than 100 articles and legal briefs; she has advised Congress, the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health and 14 foreign countries. She speaks regularly at conferences and seminars, writes popular articles and will soon publish a mass-market murder mystery called “Sequence,” which is essentially a 288-page collection of what-if situations illustrating the potential benefits of tissue research, and the potential dangers — like losing health insurance when a tissue test uncovers disease genes (which has happened).
Andrews maintains that people should control their tissues to protect themselves from potential harm. The way Andrews sees it, if someone breaks into your house and looks through your personal belongings, your privacy has been violated, which is illegal. That violation can be psychologically harmful, but it also leaves you vulnerable to someone using your information against you. Some 700 new mothers recently found out that doctors took their placentas without consent to test for abnormalities that might help defend against future lawsuits over birth defects. Then there are the members of the Native American Havasupai Tribe who said they felt violated and stigmatized after supplying samples for diabetes research and then having scientists use them to studyschizophrenia and inbreeding without consent.
Andrews argues that the law protects against even the most abstract harm. “Think about it,” she says. “I decide who gets my money after I die. It wouldn’t harm me if I died and you gave all my money to someone else. But there’s something psychologically beneficial to me as a living person to know I can give my money to whoever I want.” No one can say, She shouldn’t be allowed to do that with her money because that might not be most beneficial to society. But replace the word “money” in that sentence with “tissue,” and you’ve got precisely the logic her opponents use in the tissue debate. “Science is not the highest value in society,” Andrews says, pointing instead to things like autonomy and personal freedom. “Research isn’t a matter of conscription.”
Andrews has worked (pro bono) on the biggest tissue cases, including Moore, and the landmark 1989 York v. Jones trial between an infertile couple and their doctor, who refused to transfer their embryo to a new clinic. (That case set the precedent for people having property rights over their sperm, eggs and embryos.) Her next big case involved a family, the Greenbergs, who volunteered tissue samples and donated money to help a researcher find the gene for their children’s rare disorder, Canavan disease. When the researcher found the gene, according to court documents, he patented it without telling them. They sued for fraudulent concealment of the patent, lack of informed consent and unjust enrichment. As in the Moore case, which set the legal precedent for the Greenberg trial, the court found no grounds for a property claim. But it did find grounds for the Greenbergs’ unjust enrichment claim (because they invested “time and significant resources”). They received an undisclosed settlement, and no one involved can discuss it.
When it comes to patients having rights in tissue research, much to the chagrin of people like Andrews, nothing has ever been bigger than John Moore. “I’m really haunted by the Moore case,” she told me recently. “That case could have changed everything.”
There is one thing that the John Moore story makes clear: At this point, once someone removes tissue from your body, you have no control over what happens to it and no stake in potential profits. But here is one thing the Moore case didn’t address: Those tissues are still yours when attached to your body. If you know this ahead of time and if your tissues turn out to be valuable, you can control them and play the tissue market as well as any biotech company.
Technically it is illegal to sell human organs and tissues for transplants or medical treatments. But there is a thriving market: giving tissues away while charging steep fees for collecting and processing is perfectly legal, as is selling tissues for research, education and art. Industry-specific figures don’t exist, but estimates say that one human body can bring in anywhere from $10,000 to nearly $150,000.
That’s nothing compared with DNA — just one gene can be worth billions. Many companies provide tissues and DNA for research. Sometimes they’re small operations — one guy who picks up tissues at hospitals, then portions them out. Other times they’re huge corporations, like Ardais, which pays an undisclosed amount of money to the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at Harvard, to the Duke University Medical Center and to many others for exclusive access to tissues collected from their patients’ operations, biopsies and blood draws.
Somehow, Ted Slavin saw this market coming decades ago. And he wanted a piece of the action. Slavin was a hemophiliac, and in the mid 1950’s the only treatment was an infusion of clotting factors from donor blood, which wasn’t screened for diseases. That meant that Slavin was exposed to the hepatitis B virus over and over again. But he didn’t know he had been exposed until the 1970’s, when a blood test found extremely high concentrations of valuable hepatitis B antibodies in his blood. And here is what makes Slavin’s case special: His doctor told him about those antibodies, and Slavin realized they were worth a lot of money.
That hepatitis B test — a multibillion-dollar product — required a steady supply of antibodies like Slavin’s. Pharmaceutical companies wanted antibodies to help create the first hepatitis B vaccine. The market was tremendous. And Slavin needed money: he worked, but he would have attacks, become disabled, lose jobs. So he started contacting laboratories and companies and asking if they wanted to buy his antibodies. They said yes in droves.
Slavin started selling his serum for as much as $10 a milliliter — at up to 500 milliliters per order — to anyone who wanted it. But he didn’t stop there: Slavin wanted money, but more than that, he wanted somebody to cure hepatitis B. He called the National Institutes of Health for a printout of every hepatitis B researcher. On that list, he found Baruch Blumberg, a researcher at the Fox Chase Cancer Center, who had won a Nobel Prize for discovering the hepatitis B antigen and who created the blood test that diagnosed Slavin’s disease. Slavin figured that if anybody was going to cure hepatitis B, it would be Blumberg. So he sat down and wrote a letter: Dear Dr. Blumberg, he said, I’d like you to use my tissues to find a cure for hepatitis B. I’ll give you all the antibodies you could need. And I’ll do it free.
That letter started a long partnership between Slavin, Blumberg, Anna O’Connell and others at Fox Chase. Blumberg’s lab used Slavin’s serum to help uncover the link between hepatitis B and liver cancer and to create the first hepatitis B vaccine, which has saved millions of lives. Meanwhile, as Slavin’s antibody business grew, he had an epiphany: he probably wasn’t the only patient out there with valuable blood. So he recruited other similarly endowed people and started a company. He called it Essential Biologicals, which eventually merged to become part of a massive biological-product corporation.
“I don’t see anything wrong in what Ted did,” O’Connell told me, swiveling in her office chair. “I don’t think you should extort money, but if you’re going to contribute to research, and there’s financial value in what you’re contributing, the option should be there if you want to use it.”
O’Connell has a unique perspective on these issues. She reached up, grabbed the rim of her turtleneck and yanked it down below her collar bone. “I’ve got road work,” she said, pointing to a complex mesh of scars covering her throat. “Thyroid cancer. When I was 28.”
Long before Slavin started selling his antibodies, O’Connell discovered that her cells were loaded with even more gold than his. Scientists were in the midst of developing a thyroid test, and O’Connell’s blood had precisely what they needed for it. “My numbers were way higher than Ted’s,” she told me, wiggling her eyebrows. A doctor took one look at her blood and asked for more. “I said, Sure, be my guest,” she said. Those scientists developed a valuable test; she received no money and didn’t think twice about it. She figures that’s what most people would do.
“Sure,” she said, “there are some greedy people who will try to get anything they can, but most people won’t demand money for their tissues unless they really need it, like Ted did.”
Many, like O’Connell, have simply donated valuable tissues. For others, it’s about control: several patient groups have created their own tissue banks so they can control the use of their tissues. Some object to patenting and require that results from research on their tissues remain publicly available; others do the opposite. One woman became a patent holder on the disease gene discovered in her children’s tissues, which lets her determine what research is done on it and how it is licensed. While most haven’t gone after profits, some have. And experts on both sides of the debate worry that profit-seekers might inhibit progress by insisting on unrealistic financial agreements or demanding money for tissues used in noncommercial and nonprofit research. But as long as patients are reasonable and don’t inhibit science, many researchers seem open to the idea of including them.
“Hey, this is a capitalist society,” says Wayne W. Grody, a U.C.L.A. molecular geneticist who has been at the center of this debate for years. “People like Slavin took advantage of that. You know, the way I see it is, If you think of doing that on the front end, more power to you.”
The difference between Ted Slavin and John Moore wasn’t that Slavin owned his tissues and Moore didn’t. (No court ruled that Slavin had the right to control his excised tissues; he just did it.) The difference was information. Someone told Slavin that his tissues were special and that scientists might want them. So he was able to control his tissues by establishing his terms before anything left his body. In other words, he was informed, and he gave consent. In the end, the question isn’t whether people have the ability to control their tissues; it is how much science should be obligated (ethically and legally) to put them in the position to do so.
There is a federal law governing consent in human research. The Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects, aka the Common Rule, requires that scientists tell people if they are participating in research, that the research is voluntary and that they can withdraw at any time without penalty. Consent forms must explain what the research is, how long it will last, any possible risks, whether participants will be compensated and more.
The Common Rule sounds like precisely what tissue rights advocates are fighting for. But it isn’t. The problem is, it was written to govern research on living, breathing humans, not their disembodied tissues. Its basic framework was adopted in 1981 and not updated to address the consent and ownership issues raised by the Moore case. It only covers federally financed research. Samples are exempt if they are anonymous (though assuring anonymity is difficult), “existing” and “publicly available” (though it doesn’t define either term). In the end, much of tissue research is not governed by the Common Rule.
Supporters of the status quo argue that passing new, tissue-specific legislation is unnecessary. They point to science’s internal oversight mechanisms: academic institutions (and many private companies) have institutional review boards that decide whether consent is needed for tissue research. There are many professional guidelines, like the American Medical Association’s code of ethics (which requires doctors to inform patients if their tissue samples might lead to profits). But guidelines aren’t laws; they are suggestions. And many tissue rights supporters say these internal mechanisms don’t work.
At this point, there is no uniformity, no standard and no guidance for how to proceed when it comes to consent and tissue research. Some institutions — like the Fox Chase Cancer Center — ask permission to keep tissues and let patients specify what research their samples will be used for. But others don’t. The norm is still a sentence or two saying leftover blood and tissue can be used for education and research. When it comes to profits, some consent forms come right out and say, “We may give or sell the specimen and certain medical information about you.” Others skip disclosure or say, “You will receive no reimbursement for donating tissue.” Still others admit confusion: “Your sample will be owned by [the university].. . .It is unknown whether you will be able to gain (participate in) any financial compensation (payment) from any benefits gained from this research.”
Ellen Wright Clayton, a physician and lawyer who is a director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University, says that the next step should be a “very public conversation.” Clayton says: “If someone presented a bill in Congress that said, As of today, when you go to the doctor for health care, your medical records and tissue samples can be used for research and nobody has to ask you — if the issue were stated that bluntly so people could really understand what’s happening and say they’re O.K. with it, that would make me more comfortable with what we’re currently doing. Because what’s happening now is not what people think is going on.”
Lori Andrews wants something more drastic: she recently published an article calling for people to get policy makers’ attention through becoming “conscientious objectors in the DNA draft” by refusing to give tissue samples. “This isn’t about trying to get patients a cut of the financial action,” she says. “It’s about allowing people to express their desires.” Clayton agrees. “It’s weird to say everybody gets money except the people providing the raw material,” she says. “But the fundamental problem here isn’t the money; it’s the notion that the people these tissues come from don’t matter.”
David Korn, senior vice president of the Association of American Medical Colleges, agrees that patients matter. But he also argues that tissue consent is shortsighted. “Sure,” he says, “consent feels nice. Letting people decide what’s going to happen with their tissue seems like the right thing to do. But consent diminishes the value of tissue.” To illustrate this, Korn points to the Spanish flu pandemic. In the 1990’s, scientists used stored tissue samples from a soldier who died in 1918 to recreate the virus’s genome and study why it was so deadly, with hopes of uncovering information about the current avian flu. Asking that soldier’s permission to take tissues for future genetic research would have been impossible, Korn says. “Think back to 1918,” he told me. “It was an inconceivable question!”
For Korn, the consent issue is overshadowed by a public responsibility to science: “I think people are morally obligated to allow their bits and pieces to be used to advance knowledge to help others. Since everybody benefits, everybody can accept the small risks of having their tissue scraps used in research.” But he does say that religious beliefs are grounds for exception. “If somebody says being buried without all their pieces will condemn them to wandering forever because they can’t get salvation, that’s legitimate, and people should respect it,” Korn says. (Though he acknowledges that people can’t raise those objections if they don’t understand their tissues are being used in the first place.)
Wayne W. Grody, the U.C.L.A. molecular geneticist, was once a fierce opponent of consent for tissue research. But after years of debating with people like Andrews and Clayton, he has become more moderate. “I’m pretty convinced that we should go the extra mile to have a good and complex consent process,” he told me. Still, he can’t imagine how it will work. “These tissues enter a pipeline of millions of other samples,” he said. “How are you going to distinguish, well, this patient said we can study colon cancer; the next one said we can do anything we want, but we can’t commercialize it. I mean, do they all have to be color-coded? I can’t imagine.” Regardless, Grody stresses that questions of consent should only apply to the collection of future samples, not the millions already stored. (“What are we going to do?” he says, “Throw them out?”)
If the issue of consent isn’t addressed, Robert F. Weir, founder of the biomedical ethics center at the University of Iowa and an author of “The Stored Tissue Issue,” sees only one outcome: “Patients turn to law as a last resort when they don’t see their participation being acknowledged.” Weir favors fewer lawsuits and more disclosure. “Let’s get these things on the table and come up with legal guidelines we can all live with,” he says. “Because going to court is the only other option.”
William Catalona is undeniably one of the top prostate surgeons in the world. He is surgeon to sheiks, to Stan Musial and Joe Torre, as well as thousands of other men. But he’s also a researcher. Which is why he and his patients ended up in a federal courtroom in St. Louis a year ago, in the first case to bring together all the biggest tissue issues: ownership, consent, control and a patient’s right to withdraw from tissue research.
Catalona started collecting prostate-cancer samples in the late 80’s. Today, the collection — one of the largest in the world — fills more than a dozen industrial freezers. It has resulted in some of the most important prostate-cancer advances (among other things, he used it to show that the P.S.A. test can predict most prostate cancer). The collection is vast: more than 4,000 prostate samples and 250,000 blood samples from 36,000 men. Some of these men came to him through newspaper and radio ads he placed seeking donors. Some came from other doctors. But many were his patients.
Catalona was committed to informing his patients: he provided detailed consent forms explaining the research and its risks, and his consent forms said, “Your participation is voluntary, and you may choose not to participate in this research study or withdraw your consent at any time.” He even sent a quarterly newsletter updating them on the studies. The problem was, Catalona and his patients saw things differently from his employer — Washington University.
Several years ago, Washington University took possession of the samples. The collection could be worth more than $15 million. In letters that surfaced in court, a Washington University official complained that Catalona gave free tissue samples to collaborators at a biotech company and that all the university gained in exchange for its support of Catalona was “the potential for Catalona to get a publication,” which it saw as “unacceptable.” (Catalona isn’t business savvy: he never tried to patent his specific use of the P.S.A. test, which could have made millions.) The university invested millions of dollars in developing that collection, it said: money for freezers, lab technicians, the building where he stored them. Some of that money came from multimillion-dollar federal research grants that Catalona brought into the university; some came from his patients. But the university paid Catalona’s salary and his health, malpractice and liability insurance; his contract said it owned his intellectual property. Therefore, the university argued, it owned those tissue samples.
So Catalona quit. He moved his lab to Northwestern University in Chicago and then sent letters to 10,000 patients, saying, “You have entrusted me with your samples, and I have used them for collaborative research that will help in your future medical care and in the care of others for years to come.” To continue this work, he wrote, “I need your assistance and your permission.” He enclosed a form for them to sign that said: “Please release all of my samples to Dr. Catalona at Northwestern University upon his request. I have entrusted these samples to Dr. Catalona to be used only at his direction and with his express consent for research purposes.” Within weeks, 6,000 patients signed and returned those forms. But Washington University denied their requests. The university, it turned out, had distributed samples to scientists for research that the patients didn’t know about.
“I just wanted to help Dr. Catalona cure prostate cancer,” one of his patients, Tom McGurk, told me when I met with him not long ago. “Now who knows what’s going on with that stuff?” He shook his head. “My DNA’s in those samples — that’s my kid’s and my grandkid’s DNA, too. Who’s looking at that stuff? What are they doing with it?” For another patient, Richard Ward, the implications are concrete. His cancer ranked 8 on a 10-point malignancy scale — if it comes back, his best chance for survival is treatment based on analysis of his tumor sample. He also worries about the genetics of the disease, which is hereditary. “Washington University is saying they own part of our bodies,” he told me. “They’re trying to preserve their financial interest over our lives and our kids’ lives. . .just thinking about that makes me crazy.”
Their consent forms said, “I have donated a tissue and/or blood sample for Doctor William Catalona’s research studies.” They didn’t mention giving them to Washington University. So when Washington University refused to transfer their samples, several patients asked that their tissues be removed from the collection, since their consent forms said they could withdraw from the research any time. The university refused; it read that provision of the consent form to mean that if asked, the university would take a person’s identifying information off the sample but keep using the tissue anonymously.
In August 2003, Washington University sued Catalona to establish ownership of the collection. The suit said Catalona had, among other things, “improperly accessed the university’s patient list” and asserted “an unsupported claim of personal ownership and/or control over” the samples. Catalona countered that neither he nor the university could own the samples, because they belonged to the patients. The judge asked for patient testimony. So Catalona began contacting his patients. And they did more than testify; several petitioned to join the lawsuit as intervenors — parties who, despite not being named in a lawsuit, voluntarily enter a suit to protect their interests.
Catalona cannot talk specifics about the case, but he has plenty to say about the issues involved. “The truth,” he told me, “is that the interests of patients and science often conflict with the interests of the university. And sometimes universities protect their interests to the detriment of the patients.” The only solution, he said, is disclosure: “If you’re honest with patients, and they understand what you’re doing, they’ll let you use their tissues — they want to advance science as much as we do. But they have to understand the deal going in.” The problem is, Catalona’s patients thought they knew the deal going in, but Washington University disagreed. Don Clayton, a university spokesman, said that if patients are able to “reclaim” or “redirect” their blood and tissues, biobanks will become “impossible to manage” and “so burdensome that scientists will be handcuffed.”
For Ellen Wright Clayton, from the Vanderbilt biomedical ethics center, this case comes down to defining the Common Rule in the way its authors intended. She took the stand as an expert witness to argue that though the Common Rule doesn’t specifically say patients can withdraw their tissues from research, that’s only because it was written before tissues were an issue. But given the spirit of the rule — protecting patients from becoming unwilling research participants — what else, she argued, could it mean? Anonymizing tissues and continuing to use them in research against the wishes of the patients, she said, “completely eviscerates the right to withdraw.” It also diminishes their usefulness to research and the patient’s future medical care.
The Catalona case is the first of its kind to make it to trial. (Other disagreements over tissue collections have surfaced, but they were settled.) Catalona’s patients have no intention of settling; they want to set a precedent. Theirs will be the first case to define a patient’s right to withdraw from tissue research (which may or may not give people the right to remove their samples from research at any time). It is also the first to question patients’ property rights in basic stored tissues. Unlike the Moore case, in which the ownership issue was complicated by the fact that Golde “transformed” Moore’s samples, the Catalona case is stark, because Washington University didn’t do anything innovative to those samples. It simply stored them. Which means Catalona is the first to deal with pure raw materials and the question of who owns them.
It has been a year since the Catalona hearing, and the judge still has not ruled. The losing side will probably appeal. The case could eventually reach the Supreme Court, but that could take a decade, maybe longer. This means that the world’s biggest prostate-cancer collection will be tied up in a lawsuit instead of advancing science, which infuriates the patients, Catalona and everyone else involved, including Lori Andrews, who advised the patients’ attorney. “Those patients donated tissues to facilitate research on prostate cancer,” she told me, “not to bring it to a halt because of questions about the university’s profits.”
There is one point that comes up again and again in discussions of Slavin and Moore and Catalona: like it or not, we live in a market-driven society, and science is part of that market. For Baruch Blumberg, the researcher who used Ted Slavin’s antibodies in his hepatitis B research, that is a reality that science is still learning to navigate.
During my visits to the Fox Chase Cancer Center to meet with O’Connell and learn about Slavin, I drove around Philadelphia with Blumberg, who is now 80. After decades of hepatitis B research, he needed a break from focusing on so much illness, suffering and death, and so he spent a few years working with NASA, studying the origin of life forms.
In the car one evening, I asked Blumberg what he thought about the debate over tissue ownership. Instead of answering, he told me how the technology for air bags came from medical devices designed by NASA. I asked again, and he pointed out Venus and Mars, which were bright and hovering above us. Finally, after my third try, he turned to me and sighed. “Whether you think the commercialization of medical research is good or bad depends on how into capitalism you are,” he said. On the whole, Blumberg said, commercialization is good — how else would we get the drugs and diagnostic tests we need? Still, he sees a downside. “I think it’s fair to say it’s interfered with science,” he told me, gazing up at the sky. “It’s changed the spirits.” Now there are patents and proprietary information where there was free information flow, he said.
“Researchers have become entrepreneurs,” he went on. “That’s really boomed our economy and created incentives to do research. But it’s also brought problems, like secrecy and arguments over who owns what.” He worries about similar changes in patients. “I had tremendous respect for Ted’s attitude,” Blumberg said, staring out the window. “He needed to make a living, so he took his blood, which had been his great disaster in life, and turned it into his fortune.” But Slavin didn’t get rich off his antibodies. “He donated much of them to science for free,” Blumberg said. “He didn’t have to do that.”
Slavin and Blumberg never used consent forms or ownership transfer agreements; Slavin just held up his arm and gave samples. “We lived in a different ethical and commercial age,” Blumberg said. He imagines patients might be less likely to donate now: “They probably want to maximize their commercial possibilities just like everyone else.” Blumberg is concerned about profits inhibiting science from either side of the scientific equation: researchers or patients.
All that important research he has done over the years — the hepatitis test and vaccine, discovering the link between the virus and cancer — it all depended on free and unlimited access to tissues. Blumberg says he doesn’t think keeping patients in the dark is the way to get that access, and he has a unique point of reference: Ted Slavin. “For somebody like Ted,” he told me, “who really needed that money to survive, it would have been wrong to say scientists could commercialize those antibodies but he couldn’t. You know, if someone was going to make money off his antibodies, why shouldn’t he have a say in that?”
An article on Page 38 of The Times Magazine today about human tissue includes an outdated reference to a lawsuit between Washington University and Dr. William J. Catalona over ownership of samples that he collected while employed there. On Friday, after the magazine had gone to press, the presiding judge ruled that the university “owns all biological materials, including but not limited to blood, tissue and DNA samples” that it stores.
Author of this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and Especially to My Little Julian, is not a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner, therefore, no information contained herein this post and/or blog could be (mis)construed as “legal advice.” Anyone who exercises he/r rights, and private property sometimes called “child” for deceptive, possibly malicious or retaliatory, and profiteering/privateering and in the “best interests” . . . of the “state” Texas General and other Funds at one’s own peril, risk, and/ or self-fulfillment. The choice is yours.
“julian jacob worrell” of family, saloom
ABDUCTED UNDER THE COLOR OF LAW BY THE WORRELL FAMILY,
Last Seen with/by: Father, Matthew James Worrell; Nancy G. Worrell, Tomball, Texas (Harris County, Precinct 4 Constable on Cypresswood Drive in Spring, Texas); Diane M. Worrell, Houston, Texas (Harris County); complicit, John Kenneth Worrell; Brian and Carey Worrell (League City, Texas, Harris or Galveston County), on knowledge, belief, and strong “demonstrative” and circumstantial evidence with direct testimony
ABDUCTED NEAR HOUSTON, TEXAS
PEARLAND, TEXAS IN BRAZORIA COUNTY
MISSING FROM HIS LOVING MOTHER, “joni faith saloom, “SINCE: MAY 08, 2012
Author of this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and Especially to My Little Julian, is not a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner, therefore, no information contained herein this post and/or blog could be (mis)construed as “legal advice.” Anyone who exercises he/r rights, and private property sometimes called “child” for deceptive, possibly malicious or retaliatory, and profiteering/privateering and in the “best interests” . . . of the “state” Texas General and other Funds at one’s own peril, risk, and/ or self-fulfillment. The choice is yours.
read also https://jonisaloom.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/30184-aa-v-riverside-complaint.pdf, Class Action Complaint filed by Ankcorn Law Firm, San Diego, California
Lawsuit: ‘Thousands’ of Babies Kidnapped By County CPS
Image Credits: Runar Pedersen Holkestad / Flickr.
by MIKAEL THALEN | INFOWARS.COM | DECEMBER 17, 2014
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A federal class action lawsuit filed out of Southern California states that the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services has kidnapped “thousands” of children without warrant or reason.
According to the suit, which makes mention of several social workers and investigators, Riverside’s operation “makes a habit” of kidnapping young children.
Speaking with the Courthouse News Service, the Plaintiffs’ attorney, Shawn McMillan, said that he “uncovered an alarming trend” when investigating similar cases in the area the year prior.
“County child welfare agencies regularly subvert the constitutional rights of parents and children by seizing children from their parents when there is no danger to the child, and in fact no need to seize the child at all,” McMillan told Courthouse News. “The class action is designed to address a procedural problem. They [Riverside County social workers] as a matter of course don’t get warrants before seizing kids.”
The suit spawned from a specific case in which a three day old baby, referred to as “A.A.,” was taken from its mother without warrant as the pair laid in a hospital bed.
“In February 2013, when she was three days old, plaintiff A.A. was snatched by an employee of the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services literally from the breast of her mother as they lay in the hospital recuperating from a successful, safe delivery,” the lawsuit says, also noting that A.A.’s four siblings had been taken months prior without justification.
The suit also mentions the mother’s history, which includes no “drug, alcohol, or tobacco use nor any history of psychiatric treatment.”
“Despite these facts, and solely because there had been an earlier dependency petition filed regarding plaintiffs’ siblings, Torres seized the newborn baby plaintiff from her mother’s care and custody,” the lawsuit adds.
Thankfully, although most children are taken for more than a year, A.A. was returned to her family less than two weeks later.
McMillan’s research indicated that social workers are utilizing two statewide database systems in order to find potential children.
“If you appear on one of them, you have an immediate black mark against you. The CWS/CMS system is largely kept a secret so that children, as they age into adulthood, and parents may not even know they are listed,” McMillan said. “In any event, the databases are largely accessible to hospital and social workers and the like.”
To make matters worse, county officials are reportedly ignoring the corruption altogether .
“The real problem here is that the county itself is at fault for not adequately training its workers and supervising them,” McMillan said. “In addition, the county has failed – for years, if not decades, to implement any policies or procedures to protect the 4th Amendment rights of children and the 14th Amendment rights of parents in circumstances similar to those presented in the present lawsuit.”
“For this reason, we anticipate that the discovery process will reveal the individually named workers were each involved in dozens, if not hundreds of unwarranted child seizures.”
McMillan says the outcome of his suit could very well change the face of Child Protective Services if successful.
“Riverside is a test bed. The idea is to see what happens and to what extent we can establish accountability,” McMillan said. “This has the potential to affect the entire state.”
The case covered by McMillan is only one of countless across the country as thousands of children are harvested by Child Protective Services for financial gain.
Studies have found that children in state custody are up to 600 percent more likely to be tortured, neglected and murdered and up to 10 times more likely to be abused than a child living at home.
Even worse, children abducted by the state are almost always administered a dangerous cocktail of pharmaceutical drugs while being kept in deplorable conditions.
Alex Jones broke down a similar incident in 2013 when a child mysteriously died in CPS custody.
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“Modus vivendi is a Latin phrase signifying an agreement between those whose opinions differ, such that they agree to disagree.
Modus means mode, way (or method, manner). Vivendi means of living. Together, way of living, implies an accommodation between disputing parties to allow life to go on. It usually describes informal and temporary arrangements in political affairs. For example, where two sides reach a modus vivendi regarding disputed territories, despite political, historical or cultural incompatibilities, an accommodation of their respective differences is established for the sake of contingency. This sense of the term has been used as a keystone in the political philosophy of John Gray.
In diplomacy, a modus vivendi is an instrument for establishing an international accord of a temporary or provisional nature, intended to be replaced by a more substantial and thorough agreement, such as a treaty.[1] It is usually fashioned informally, and so never requires legislative ratification. Typically armistices and instruments of surrender are modus vivendi.”
For anyone who has the misfortune to have experienced what others may strategically refer to as “legal abuse” via continuous harassing, fraudulent, and malicious CPS and police visits with the goal of kidnapping your only property sometimes called “child” by the “State” for, inter alia, federal funding and grant steering R.I.C.O. court cons, incrementally, to later ratify permanently “sealed,” secret deals that sometimes involve $20,000-$30,000 flat fee judicial campaign contributions such, before or after one has been been dragged into family “civil”/ “CPS Cluster Courts East Texas” on the well-known groundless, statutorily required fraudulent and false allegations–sworn– phenomenon termed in Texas, the emergency “ex parte motion” for “ex parte emergency temporary restraining order (‘TRO’) and emergency “order” to “modify” any “suit affecting the parent child relationship,” in many unnecessarily “high conflict” narcissistic grabs for power and control involve wealthy fathers and families and the militant groups which fuel their fire–BAR members–call-in “secret” favors for life-crippling , case sabotaging, peculiarly prescient “DIRTY ASSAULTS,” or “DIRTY DWI/DUI’S,” which shall or may always be extended by statute as a matter of routine protocol whether accusations be groundless or not and without a single shred of “articulable” evidence required pursuant to any and all definitions of due process of law and equal protections of the law beyond the fourteen (14) days to indefinite ‘no-contact’ orders that constitute an unlawful, but illegal, u.S. unconstitutional presumption that one is never “allowed” “access or ‘visitation'” with one’s private property-“children”–until one can bribe his or he/r “one child, one judge-for-life ‘collaborative’ law associate judge.” Before the temporary restraining order, however, the Nazi death panel that has has already been executed without a lawful judge’s CPS supervisor’s (as their offices are right in the courts, Child Protective Services’) autograph and entered into a secret “child abuse or neglect” national, state, local, and inter-agency/international and National Centers for Missing and Exploited Children, all “ABC”-agency and Department of Highway and Transportation and Safety databases–the “digital plantation”– for “ongoing ‘investigations'” of the non-child or child sexual abuser who, in eighty to ninety percent of these cases according to research by the National Leadership Council and the Arizona Coalition’s Project, become the “sole ‘managing’ ‘conservator'” to the product of your womb, making you a non-consenting retroactive slave via surrogate motherhood–absent “due compensation” pursuant to the Fifth Amendment (Amendment V) to the Federal, u.S. Constitution and its “incorporated” Bill of Rights ratifies and applies directly to the people through the Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV)(former “Thirteenth” Amendment, and researched or conned, anyway) to the u.S Constitution.
“Termination of parental rights” is engineered even through regular jury panels that the judge in family “civil” court has pre-selected, at least, this is the case in Texas. This is common and widely accepted–through experience and utter Orwellian nightmares of so many families, targeted single and young mothers even if their “social-economic security” for the “state” is and has been stable, many times, in fact, successful and without any intervention of imaginary “child ‘welfare” that is non-existent in Texas and many states, anyway, through TANF waivers (“Temporary Assistance to ‘Needy Families'”) (see Federal Personal Responsibility and Right to Work Act” signed or autographed in 1996) by the states who “opt-out,” and always have where the money is diverted to pro-father’s rights attorneys who serve only millionaire, clinically psychopathic “responsible” criminal fathers–but never mothers as a policy and see Texas Attorney General website and Office of Support Enforcement/”Crime Victim’s Assistance Fund”/”gatekeeping” monopoly on the “TEXAS GENERAL FUND CHILD SURPLUS REPORT”-enforcing joint public-private venture agency for “economic and social security” of the military enclave or zone (martial/marital law in times of crisis or “domestic emergency”) with ready-made wives pre-selected for the same “healthy marriage initiative” grant to adopt–a stranger’s “child.”
These “orders” are completely unlawful and void ab initio–null and void as a matter of fact and law before one even “appears” due to implicit and explicit fraud upon the court and total lack of any and all due process of law, both procedural and substantive pursuant to the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments (Amendments V, XIV) to the Federal, u.S. Constitution and its “incorporated” Bill of Rights ratifies and applies directly to the people, being individuals, through the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal, u.S. Constitution.
Below, others, properly cited, without regard to their revealing support and design of and for the same evil crimes of hate and racism–demographic research and Eugenics, or, racial and ethnic cleansing–social Darwinism–chronicle the pernicious past and modern roots, the reason that the family/CPS Tuesday docket and “CPS Cluster Courts East Texas”/juvenile dependency courts were initiated and formed for the same common goal referred to by Adolf Hitler and the SS as “the Final Solution.”
Children’s Aid Societies and “pauper’s courts” (for the poor and those who “can’t help themselves” in society) were the precursors to the modern family CPS “health and human services” professional services corporations or joint public-private county and “state” courts of inferior jurisdiction–don’t let the state code–statutes such as Texas Family Code, but not necessarily u.S. Constitutionally compliant, superior, and natural God-given and implied law (see the Ninth Amendment to the Federal, u.S. Constitution and its “incorporate” Bill of Rights ratifies and applies directly to the people through the Fourteenth Amendment (some may refer to it as the original Thirteenth Amendment) to the Federal, u.S. Constitution, fool into buying into their unilateral “general” jurisdiction. After all, this is just another example of semantic art and deception–paradox– ” _ _ _ _ _ _ _ reversal.”
Even more frightening to author of this blog–“julian’s Real mummy,” Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children who Want to Come Home, and especially to my little julian–is that there are now mandatory genetic counselors on staff or for on-call referral at hospitals, and especially for young mothers or mothers with no other private property the “state” prefers to call “child”/”MINOR”/”ward of the court”/presumed “mentally incompetent” or “high conflict”/ “high risk”/ “helicopter moms”/”protective mothers”/”vigilant” moms/”PTSD Mommies”/”controlling”–“maltreating”–“alcoholic,” “drug-addicted,” “abusive or neglectful” parent property owners/”senior citizens” or “Alzheimers” and dementia candidates deemed “threats” to the public health, welfare, and “national security” for racketeering and organized crime purposes.
“Voluntary euthanasia,” “troubled teen” facilities, “pre-determined outcomes” or “trauma-informed, ‘evidence-based’ research” (CPS and Texas Public “Policy Priorities”)– forward-looking surgical and medical “accidents”/”complications,” and even involuntary abortions and involuntary–forced–adoptions “donate” daily for research funded genetic grant studies (with no information, no knowledge, no sufficient knowledge, no “due compensation” for confiscating private property for public use, and without “‘voluntary’ ‘consent'” or procedural/efficient/administrative/collaborative law/unified courts due process of law–substantive, meaningful due process, but not “processing,” as at an “in-take/in-tank” facility or institution. Historically, certain (test population) vaccinations and public transport were also mandatory to enter scholastic aptitude labs, and also to and to measure I.Q. and physical education/gym class for “normal” bell curve comparative research and Nazi youth re-education encampments.
Hospital may derive from the Society of “hospitaliers,” or the Red Cross Society–Knights of the Red Cross. It is difficult to know whether or not there were more cases of swapped-babies, stolen babies, “Tubal ligation,” involuntary, non-informed, non-consented “miscarriages,” and, without due compensation, tissue samples and “complications in surgery” for “charitable” organ “donation” in the past or in the present or future. Clearly, forced adoptions with “‘voluntary’ consent” have been public policy priorities in states like Texas for the past quarter of a decade. Author queries when we shall finally get to know which test or control group we have been a part of . . .in the future present. ? ? ? When may [ or may not] do we find out what is really happening with [ or without ]our “voluntary consent?”
Seemingly harmless polls and surveys have also been commonly conducted for other purposes or public policy/policing/profiling priorities.
The authors and researchers cited and their work “summarized,” below:
PERSPECTIVE
In democratic societies, the needs of public health sometimes require citizens to make sacrifices for the greater good, but in Nazi Germany, national or public health — Volksgesundheit — took complete precedence over individual health care. Physicians and medically trained academics, many of whom were proponents of “racial hygiene,” or eugenics, legitimized and helped to implement Nazi policies aiming to “cleanse” German society of people viewed as biologic threats to the nation’s health. Racial-hygiene measures began with the mass sterilization of the “genetically diseased” and ended with the near-annihilation of European Jewry. The concept of racial hygiene had deep roots in Germany.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, growing numbers of medical and public health professionals decried Germany’s declining birth rate and the perceived biologic “degeneration” of the nation and proposed reforms to improve the quantity and quality of the population.
Rapid industrialization and urbanization had created overcrowded cities, with attendant conditions of extensive poverty and crime; the spread of tuberculosis, syphilis, gonorrhea, and other contagious diseases; and expanding numbers of persons identified by psychiatrists as mentally ill or retarded, who required special care.
These changes coincided with a blossoming of medical research and the establishment of dozens of new institutes and laboratories. Breakthroughs in bacteriology and the emerging field of genetics — the publication of August Weismann’s theory of immutable germ-plasm in the 1890s and the “rediscovery” of Gregor Mendel’s laws of heredity in 1900 — seemed to promise biologic or medical solutions to Germany’s problems. Physicians and medical researchers began to view themselves as the guides to a healthy, moral, industrious Germany.
1 The loss of nearly 2 million German men in World War I exacerbated fears about population and spurred new interest in genetics and eugenics as the path to salvation. Under the postwar Weimar Republic, two government-sponsored research institutes opened, one focusing on psychiatry, and the other on anthropology, human heredity, and eugenics. In the 1920s, many German medical students took courses in genetics that integrated the subject of racial hygiene.
Before 1933, eugenics proposals, such as the sterilization of mentally retarded and ill persons, failed to win wide support, but the Nazi “revolution,” beginning that year with Adolf Hitler’s assumption of power, upset the status quo. Political opposition to eugenics was swept aside, giving way to an unfettered, coercive, and racist Nazi variety. In Mein Kampf, Hitler wrote that “the national state . . . must see to it that only the healthy beget children” using “modern medical means.” The Nazi drive to create a healthy German people was tied to ultranationalistic and militaristic goals: many more fit workers, farmers, and soldiers were needed for Germany to expand its territory and become a dominant world power.
Some physicians and biologists who supported eugenics had to accommodate themselves to Nazism’s rabid anti-Semitism.
But in return for accepting the persecution of Jews as a source of biologic degeneration, many in the medical community welcomed the new emphasis on biology and heredity, increased research funding, and new career opportunities — including openings created eugenics by the purge of Jews and leftists from the medical and public health fields. In the Name of Public Health — Nazi Racial Hygiene Susan Bachrach, Ph.D. Figure
1. Conducting Twin Studies at the Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics in Berlin, February 1928. Geneticist Otmar von Verschuer examined hundreds of pairs of twins to study hereditary links to criminality, mental retardation, tuberculosis, and cancer.
2 Senior, influential members of the first generation of racial hygienists collaborated with the Nazi regime.
Ernst Rüdin, director of the Munich psychiatric institute and internationally known for his work using genealogical data banks to study the prognosis of psychiatric illnesses, helped to draft the regime’s 1933 compulsory sterilization law.
Eugen Fischer, the medically trained director of the Berlin eugenics institute, and Otmar von Verschuer, a geneticist known for his research on twins (see Figure 1) and the mentor of Dr. Josef Mengele (who later became notorious for research on twins conducted at Auschwitz–Birkenau), served as medical judges on new Hereditary Health Courts.
They and hundreds of other medical and psychiatric specialists allowed the courts to present evidence supporting the state’s case for sterilization, such as family genealogies tracking purported inherited taints and intelligence tests containing educationbased questions.
By 1945, some 400,000 Germans had been forcibly sterilized. The highly elastic diagnosis of “feeblemindedness” provided legal grounds in most cases; the diagnosis of schizophrenia accounted for the second-largest group. Other illnesses covered under the 1933 law were manic–depressive disorder, genetic epilepsy, Huntington’s chorea, genetic blindness, genetic deafness, severe physical deformity, and chronic alcoholism.
Severing of the fallopian tubes was the typical method of sterilizing women, and vasectomy was the common procedure for men. As many as 5,000 persons died as a result of the surgery, most of them women.3 To build public support for this coercive program, posters, documentary films, and high-school biology textbooks (see Figure 2) argued the case for sterilization: “an easy surgical procedure, a humane means by which the nation can be protected from boundless misery.”
The propaganda campaign portrayed its targets as less than fully human. Although more strident in tone, its content mirrored health pamphlets, displays, and films produced during the 1920s in other countries where ideas about “race betterment” had spread, from Great Britain, the United States, Sweden, and Denmark to the Soviet Union, Brazil, and Japan. Proponents of eugenics in the early 20th century argued that modern medicine interfered with Darwinian natural selection by keeping the weak alive; that mentally “re _ _ _ _ _ _” and ill persons were reproducing at a much faster rate than valuable, productive persons; and that costs were escalating for maintaining “defectives” in special homes, hospitals, schools, and prisons.
4 In the United States, eugenicists helped to pass sterilization laws in many states, and before 1933, German racial hygienists cited this experience to buttress their own proposals for a sterilization law. Between 1907 and 1945, 40,000 eugenic sterilization operations were recorded in the United States, half of them in California, where patients in state mental hospitals were the main targets. Sterilization laws were also introduced in the western Canadian provinces, certain Swiss cantons, and Scandinavia.
But nowhere did the number of sterilizations approach that in Germany. The Nazi sterilization effort was integrated into Figure 2. “You Also Bear the Burden!” A Nazi-era high-school biology book warns that “a hereditarily ill person costs 50,000 reichsmarks on average up to the age of sixty.” From the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. In the Name of Public Health — Nazi Racial Hygiene Copyright © 2004 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved. n engl j med 351;5 http://www.nejm.org july 29, 2004 419
PERSPECTIVE
a comprehensive program of racial hygiene. Other key elements included the banning of marriages between “hereditarily healthy” Germans and persons deemed genetically unfit or infected with tuberculosis or venereal diseases and between Jews and non-Jews. Propaganda posters announcing the new crime of “racial defilement” portrayed Jews as black, and German officials often mentioned U.S. antimiscegenation laws in defense of their own discriminatory legislation.
To enforce its racialhygiene measures, the Hitler regime established hundreds of “hereditary and racial care clinics” that examined people’s family histories. Staffed by thousands of physicians and assistant physicians, the clinics operated under the aegis of regional public health offices and created vast hereditary data banks for the regime’s future use. Echoing old fears about the declining German birth rate, officials also implemented “positive” eugenic measures, promoting large (“child-rich”) families for the Aryan fit, setting aside houses in new subdivisions for eugenically qualified families, and issuing the Honor Cross of German Motherhood to healthy, “German-blooded” women who had at least four children (see Figure 3).
Public health campaigns advised pregnant women to eschew alcohol and nicotine and other “genetic poisons” that were harmful to the fetus.
After German forces invaded Poland in 1939, Nazi racial hygiene took a radical turn, from controlling reproduction and marriage to the mass murder of persons regarded as biologic threats. Between 1939 and 1945, an estimated 200,000 Germans — ranging from infants born with Down’s syndrome and other birth defects to elderly psychiatric patients judged to be “incurably ill” — were killed in “euthanasia” programs.
Lethal doses of drugs, starvation, and gassing were the methods of killing, administered by physicians and nurses.5 The use of gas chambers disguised as showers provided the model for the mass murder of Jews, which began in 1942 at the Nazi camps in Poland.6 The war, and the lowering of moral barriers in a time of conflict and chaos, provided the opportunity to enlist medical professionals in conducting these murderous programs in the name of the regeneration of the Fatherland.
In 1946 and 1947, the American military tribunal at Nuremberg tried 20 German physicians and 3 lay accomplices for medical experiments using prisoners of Nazi concentration camps. But most of the German scientists and physicians who had helped to legitimize and implement Nazi racialhygiene policies were not prosecuted or called to a moral accounting of any kind, and many went on with their careers. Verschuer, for example, established one of West Germany’s largest genetic research centers.
The neuropathologist Julius Hallervorden, who had used the children’s euthanasia program as an opportunity to amass new specimens for study, resumed his brain research.
Globally, the Holocaust helped to discredit eugenics, and the term itself became taboo in the scientific community. Even so, the sterilization of mentally retarded and ill persons continued in some parts of Scandinavia and Canada after the war, and sterilization remained part of social policy in Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia into the 1970s. Figure 3. Bronze Honor Cross of German Motherhood.
The Nazi regime awarded bronze medals to “fit” Germanic women who had four or five children, silver medals to those who had six or seven, and gold medals to those with eight or more. From the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C. In the Name of Public Health —
Nazi Racial Hygiene Massachusetts Medical Society, 420 n engl j med 351;5, july 29, 2004
Copyright © 2004
All rights reserved.
PERSPECTIVE
Over the past six decades, the science of human heredity has advanced greatly, from knowledge of the operation of DNA to the mapping of the human genome. Such progress holds great promise for medical advances but also inspires new, utopian visions of perfecting humankind. The history of Nazi racial-hygiene policies and eugenics reminds us of the importance of maintaining democratic checks and balances in the application of biomedical research and of always guarding against the use of genetics for the purpose of discriminating against persons or groups.
From the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C., where a special exhibition, “Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race,” will be open through October 16, 2005. The exhibition examines the critical role German physicians, public health officials, and academic experts played in supporting and implementing the Nazis’ program of racial eugenics, which culminated in the Holocaust.
1. Weindling P. Health, race, and German politics between national unification and Nazism, 1870-1945. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1989:1-10.
2. Proctor R. Racial hygiene: medicine under the Nazis. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988.
3. Bock G. Nazi sterilization and reproductive policies. In: Kuntz D, Bachrach S, eds. Deadly medicine: creating the master race. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004:61- 87.
4. Kevles DJ. In the name of eugenics: genetics and the uses of human heredity. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985.
5. Burleigh M. Death and deliverance: euthanasia in Germany c.1900-1945. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
6. Friedlander H. The origins of Nazi genocide: from euthanasia to the final solution. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.
SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW JOURNAL
Eugenics is an old word and an old idea, but because of its historical role it demands attention in this Symposium issue on legal and cultural responses to disability.
Francis Galton’s formal definition of eugenics in 1883 created a field that would study and advocate for “well-born” children, emphasize heredity, and exert a powerful impact on social policies.
1 Lawmakers were seduced by the idea that people are marked with the genetic residue of their ancestors.
Government, they said, could sort the fit and the unfit and decide which citizens are worthy to have children.
But history shows that instead of improving society, eugenics merely provided a cover for abusing the poor and the disabled.
Many eugenicists shared a fear of people with mental disabilities and a desire to rid the world of them.
As Henry Goddard proposed in 1927, “[p]erhaps our ideal should be to eventually eliminate all the lower grades of intelligence and have no one who is not above the twelve-year old intelligence level.”
2 This article should serve as a reminder that the eugenics movement was rightfully notorious for its pointed stigmatization of people with disabilities—particularly those with mental disorders. One of the key focal points of eugenic contempt was the ill-defined trait of “feeblemindedness.”
3 According to Massachusetts physician Walter Fernald, those defined as feebleminded endured “all degrees and types of * Paul A. Lombardo, Ph.D., J.D., is a Professor of Law at the Georgia State University College of Law in Atlanta, Georgia.
1. FRANCIS GALTON, INQUIRIES INTO HUMAN FACULTY AND ITS DEVELOPMENT 17 n.1 (1883).
2. Henry H. Goddard, Who Is A Moron?, 24 SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY 41, 45 (1927); see also HENRY HERBERT GODDARD, FEEBLE-MINDEDNESS: ITS CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES 573-74 (1914) (arguing that people with lower intelligence should be placed in a special environment separate from the rest of society).
3. Walter E. Fernald, The History of the Treatment of the Feeble-Minded, in PROCEEDINGS OF THE NAT’L CONFERENCE OF CHARITIES AND CORRECTION 203, 211-13 (Isabel C. Barrows ed., 1893).SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 58 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF HEALTH LAW & POLICY [Vol. 2:57 congenital defect”.
4 The feebleminded ranged from “the simply backward boy or girl . . . to the profound idiot, a help-less, speechless, disgusting burden, . . . “.
5 Or as Charles Davenport, the dean of American eugenics, said, “[o]ne may even view with satisfaction the high death rate in an institution for low grade feeble-minded.”
6 Feeblemindedness was also linked to feeble inhibitions,7 and every manner of disability, from a man’s premature decline caused by syphilis, to his son’s blindness and his daughter’s withered limb.
These conditions were bundled as if all of a piece—results of immoral living, evidence of an intergenerational curse that cascaded through families from parents to children as part of an hereditary legacy.
The feebleminded were regularly described by eugenicists as a menace to society, considered to include the “great mass of defectiveness” in institutions, and marked for genetic prophylaxis though the process of sterilization.
8 The dark history of eugenics makes it tempting, in our hurry to distance ourselves from its shadow, to couple the word “eugenics” exclusively with attitudes that most of us would find unacceptable today.
But I will argue instead that we should be careful how we invoke eugenic history—and parsimonious in the way we use the very term “eugenics.” [???]
Some combatants in the ongoing “culture war” that pits the world views of people on different ends of the political spectrum against each other are attempting to manipulate and reshape our understanding of the history of eugenics and the word itself.
In this article I will show how that manipulation has developed in the press and within popular culture, and explore how the picture it fosters is at odds with the any accurate history of eugenics.
If we use the term solely as a rhetorical weapon within a political debate, we flirt with deceit and demagoguery, and run the risk of divorcing eugenics from the historical context in which it developed. When we intentionally debase history, we forfeit whatever opportunities there are for learning from it.
4. Id. at 213. 5. Id. 6. Charles B. Davenport, Presidential Address Before the Third International Congress of Eugenics, August 22, 1932, 17 EUGENICAL NEWS 89, 92.
7. See CHARLES B. DAVENPORT, THE FEEBLY INHIBITED: NOMADISM, OR THE WANDERING IMPULSE, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO HEREDITY 24-25 (1915).
8. H. H. Laughlin, Calculations on the Working Out of a Proposed Program of Sterilization, in PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIRST NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON RACE BETTERMENT 478, 478 (1914). SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 2008] DISABILITY, EUGENICS, AND THE CULTURE WARS 59
II. EUGENIC HISTORY
What is the history of eugenics? Every account of the origins of the field starts with Francis Galton, who coined the term “eugenics” in 1883.
9 His science of the “well-born” would focus study on “ . . . all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had.”
10 Galton’s ideas were eventually assimilated into a movement that also relied on the laws of heredity formulated in the 1860’s by Gregor Mendel.
11 Mendel’s discoveries remained an obscure episode in the history of science until after his death, and were only widely noticed after Mendel’s work was translated in the first decade of the 20th Century.
12 Galtonian eugenics flourished in England and focused on using statistical tools to quantify biological insights.
13 The field of biometrics grew out of Galton’s early work on statistics,
14 with further development by his disciple Karl Pearson.
15 In America, eugenics developed with more attention to Mendelian genetics, and this difference prompted sometimes raucous disagreements between the transatlantic eugenic camps.
16 When eugenics finally took root in America, the ideas that it was founded upon led to a national movement that had many diverse facets. There was what could be called the happy face of eugenics, shown to the public as “Better Baby Contests,” which claimed to identify particularly gifted tots and in some rare cases actually arrange a future marriage between them.
9. GALTON, supra note 1. 10. Id.
11. See generally GREGOR MENDEL, FUNDAMENTA GENETICA (Jaroslav Krizenecky ed. & trans., 1965). 12. DONALD PICKENS, EUGENICS AND THE PROGRESSIVES 46-48 (1968).
13. See DANIEL J. KEVLES, IN THE NAME OF EUGENICS: GENETICS AND THE USES OF HUMAN HEREDITY 37-40 (1985) (discussing the eugenics movement in England); see also NICHOLAS WRIGHT GILLHAM, A LIFE OF SIR FRANCIS GALTON: FROM AFRICAN EXPLORATION TO THE BIRTH OF EUGENICS 251 (2001) (explaining Galton’s use of statistics to determine whether “regression toward the mean applied in people as well as in sweet peas.”).
14. GILLHAM, supra, note 13, at 258 (noting that the science of biometrics grew out of Galton’s statistical analysis of heredity). ]
15. Id. at 263 (Karl Pearson’s formula, named Galton’s Law of Ancestral Heredity, was the result of Galton’s initial efforts in biometrics).
16. Hamish G. Spencer & Diane B. Paul, The Failure of a Scientific Critique: David Heron, Karl Pearson and Mendelian Eugenics, 31 BRIT. J. FOR HIST. SCI. 441, 441 (1998).
An extensive public debate between the biometricians and the Mendelians broke out in both the lay and scientific press.
See David Heron, English Expert Attacks American Eugenic Work, N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 9, 1913, at SM2;
Charles B. Davenport, American Work Strongly Defended, N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 9, 1913, at SM2;
Chas. B. Davenport, A Reply to Dr. Heron’s Strictures, 38 SCIENCE 773, 773-74 (1913);
David Heron, A Rejoinder to Dr. Davenport, 39 SCIENCE 24, 24-25; see generally C. B. DAVENPORT & A.J. ROSANOFF, REPLY TO THE CRITICISM OF RECENT AMERICAN WORK BY DR. HERON OF THE GALTON LABORATORY, EUGENICS RECORD OFFICE BULLETIN NO. 11 (1914);
David Heron, English Eugenics Expert Again Attacks Davenport, N.Y. TIMES, Jan. 4, 1914, at SM14. SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 60 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF HEALTH LAW & POLICY [Vol. 2:57
17 A later iteration of a similar contest sought “Fitter Families for Future Firesides.”
18 These contests eventually morphed into a vehicle of the official eugenics movement, as they were designed to identify the bearers of prized “germ plasm,” the eugenicists’ term for what is now known as DNA.
19 The darker, more negative side of eugenics has been explored extensively by historians, and as a result is more widely known.
20 The energies devoted to negative eugenics often found an expression in the law. There were, for example, immigration restrictions based on the supposed genetic superiority of some ethnic and racial groups and the inferiority of others,
21 and “racial integrity” laws to prevent interracial marriage.
22 We should also recall that taking care of disabled people was expensive, and the economic motive for many eugenic laws was never far from the surface—better breeding through tax cuts was a common eugenic mantra.
23 There was even a small group of supporters for eugenic euthanasia, who argued that “defective” newborns should simply be killed.
24 A powerful feature of eugenic ideology was contained in the mythologies of the so-called problem families—the Jukes and the Kallikaks—told via popular books to generations of school-age children and
17. Steven Selden, Transforming Better Babies into Fitter Families: Archival Resources and the History of the American Eugenics Movement, 1908–1930, 149 PROC. AM. PHIL. SOC’Y 199, 206-10 (2005) [hereinafter Selden, Transforming Better Babies into Fitter Families]; see also Editorial, Perfect Babies to Mate for Good of the Race, L.A. TIMES, Mar. 13, 1915, at 1.
18. STEVEN SELDEN, INHERITING SHAME: THE STORY OF EUGENICS AND RACISM IN AMERICA 30- 33 fig.2.5 (1999).19. See id.
20. See, e.g., MARK H. HALLER, EUGENICS: HEREDITARIAN ATTITUDES IN AMERICAN THOUGHT 111 (1963); KENNETH M. LUDMERER, GENETICS AND AMERICAN SOCIETY: A HISTORICAL APPRAISAL 7, 19-20 (1972);
ALLAN CHASE, THE LEGACY OF MALTHUS: THE SOCIAL COSTS OF THE NEW SCIENTIFIC RACISM 2-6 (2d ed. 1980) (1977);
KEVLES, supra note 13, at 46-48.
21. See, e.g., JOHN HIGHAM, STRANGERS IN THE LAND: PATTERNS OF AMERICAN NATIVISM, 1860-1925, at 97-116 (1955).
22. Paul A. Lombardo, Miscegenation, Eugenics, and Racism: Historical Footnotes to Loving v. Virginia, 21 U.C. DAVIS L. REV. 421, 423 (1988) (hereinafter Lombardo, Miscegenation, Eugenics, and Racism).
23. See SELDEN, supra note 18, at 27 (noting that during a Fitter Families Contest, the advocates of eugenics circulated propaganda claiming that “every 11 seconds crime cost [sic] America $100,000. And of those who are committed to jail—one every 50 seconds—very few were found to be normal.”);
Scrutator, Breeding Better Folks Held Way to Lower Taxes, CHI. DAILY TRIB., Dec. 30, 1923, at A10; Harper Leech,Sees in Eugenics Way to Cut Cost of Government, CHI. DAILY TRIB., Sept. 14, 1926, at 24. 24.
See MARTIN S. PERNICK, THE BLACK STORK: EUGENICS AND THE DEATH OF “DEFECTIVE” BABIES IN AMERICAN MEDICINE AND MOTION PICTURES SINCE 1915, at 23 (1996);
IAN DOWBIGGIN, A MERCIFUL END: THE EUTHANASIA MOVEMENT IN MODERN AMERICA 17-18 (2003).
61 college students as parables of the generational curse heredity could transmit in the form of criminality, poverty, mental defect, and general moral decay.
25 The Jukes and the Kallikaks were depicted as a lower species of humankind.
26 They were thought to be the products of hereditary degeneracy, and portrayed in scientific pedigrees that highlighted feeble-mindedness and sexual excesses.
27 Eugenic propagandists proclaimed that all such characteristics could be “bred out” of the population if marriages were eugenic. Marriage restriction laws were adopted to enforce this sentiment.
28 But the most popular vehicle for cleaning up the gene pool, and the one with the most widespread legal mandate in the United States, was eugenic sterilization.
III. UNLUCKY SEVENS: EUGENIC CENTENNIAL (2007), THE INDIANA STERILIZATION LAW (1907), BUCK V. BELL (1927), THE GEORGIA STERILIZATION LAW (1937), AND THE TRIAL OF THE NAZI DOCTORS (1947)
We recently had an opportunity to reflect on the history of eugenics during the centennial of the first eugenical sterilization law in America.
29 Its strongest proponents were Dr. Harry Sharp, physician to the Indiana State Reformatory,
30 and his colleague, public health reformer John N. Hurty, a seven time secretary of the Indiana State Board of Health and one time President of the American Public Health Association.
31 Together they engineered the first eugenic sterilization law in America in 1907.
32 Dr. Sharp’s surgeries were controversial, and for twenty years during which about a dozen other states passed their own eugenic laws,33 a legal
25. See ROBERT L. DUGDALE, THE JUKES: A STUDY IN CRIME, PAUPERISM, DISEASE, AND HEREDITY 8, 13-23 (4th ed. 1910) (1884);
HENRY HERBERT GODDARD, THE KALLIKAK FAMILY: A STUDY OF THE HEREDITY OF FEEBLE-MINDEDNESS (1912);
NICOLE HAHN RAFTER, WHITE TRASH: THE EUGENIC FAMILY STUDIES, 1877-1919, at 1-2 (1988) (collecting several of the other early family stories).
26. See RAFTER, supra note 25, at 1.
27. Id.
28. Molly Ladd-Taylor, Eugenics, Sterilisation and Modern Marriage in the USA: The Strange Career of Paul Popenoe, 13 GENDER & HIST. 298, 301 (2001).
29. IND. CODE ANN. § 22-4-2232 (1908) (repealed 1974); see also Richard Feldman & Jeff Bennett, The Most Useful Citizen of Indiana: John Hurty and the Public Health Movement, TRACES OF INDIANA AND MIDWESTERN HISTORY, Summer 2000, at 34, 42.
30. See Feldman & Bennett, supra note 29, at 42.
31. Indiana Dep’t of Env’t Mgmt., John N. Hurty Award, at www.in.gov/idem/5146.htm (last visited Feb. 3, 2009);
see Am. Pub. Health Ass’n, APHA Past Presidents, at http://www.apha.org/about/aphapastpresidents.html (last visited Feb. 3, 2009);
see also Feldman & Bennett, supra note 29, at 42. 32. IND. CODE ANN. § 22-4-2232 (1908) (repealed 1974)
. 33. See HARRY HAMILTON LAUGHLIN, EUGENICAL STERILIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES ch.1, SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 62 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF HEALTH LAW & POLICY [Vol. 2:57 question hovered over sterilization: could eugenic surgery be a tool of constitutional statecraft?
That question was answered in 1927 in the case of Buck v. Bell, 34 which reminded us that 2007 was not only an anniversary year with reference to the pioneering Indiana legislation, but it seemed to echo as the last of a strange coincidence with years ending in seven.
Carrie Buck was the subject of a Supreme Court case that tested a Virginia sterilization law.
35 In Buck, the theory that poverty, disease, and unruly sexuality could be wiped out by state mandated surgery was applied to a young Virginia woman, whose family history was represented in court by the evidence captured in a pedigree showing hereditary moral degeneracy and illicit sex, as well as mental defect reappearing through three generations of her family.
36 What resulted was one of the most shameful Supreme Court opinions ever written.
Said Senior Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.: It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.
The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.
37 As I have argued elsewhere, the real story of the Bucks was much more complex:
Carrie herself had been raped, her daughter Vivian was perfectly normal, and the case itself was a fraud.
38 Nevertheless, in 32 states, there were more than 65,000 surgeries in the U.S. alone from 1907 until at least 1979.
39 It took ten years after Buck before the nation’s last sterilization law was passed in the state of Georgia in 1937.
40 Agitation for a sterilization law in Georgia, like in many states, revolved around the cost of supporting institutionalized populations.
41 Sterilization was sold in Georgia as it had at 15-31 (1922) (summarizing sterilization laws enacted prior to 1922 in Indiana, Washington, California, Connecticut, Nevada, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Michigan, Kansas, and Wisconsin).
34. Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927).
35. Id.; see 1924 Va. Acts 569 (repealed by Act of Apr. 2, 1974, ch. 296).
36. HARRY H. LAUGHLIN, THE LEGAL STATUS OF EUGENICAL STERILIZATION 18 (1930) (chart showing the history of feeblemindedness in Buck’s family).
37. Buck, 274 U.S. at 207 (citations omitted).
38. PAUL A. LOMBARDO, THREE GENERATIONS, NO IMBECILES: EUGENICS, THE SUPREME COURT AND BUCK V. BELL 104, 116 (2008).
39. See id. at 294 app. c (Laws and Sterilizations by State). 40. 1937 Ga. Laws 414 (repealed 1970).
41. See, e.g., ANNE MOORE, THE FEEBLE MINDED IN NEW YORK: A REPORT PREPARED FOR THE PUB. EDUC. ASS’N OF NEW YORK 86 (1911) (“To support a feeble-minded person in one of the state institutions costs the state, on the average, $161.20 a year.”). SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 2008] DISABILITY, EUGENICS, AND THE CULTURE WARS
63 been in other states, as a prudent part of state budget management and a step on the road to lower taxes.
42 In the depths of the Great Depression, civic leaders pressed for a medical solution that would rid the state of people deemed “generally defective in any way.”
43 In 1934 the Chairman of the State Board of Control for Charitable Institutions announced a twenty-five percent reduction in the budget appropriation—based on reduced state revenues—and maintained that “insanity and mental deficiency appear to be rapidly increasing.”
44 His remedy for this rapid increase in insanity was sterilization.
45 Supporters of sterilization applauded the Nazis, whose own eugenic policy was already in operation.
46 They judged Hitler’s project as “a step in the right direction.”
47 The proposed Georgia law targeted anyone with a “physical, mental, or nervous disease or deficiency” who might have children with similar problems, and created a state board of eugenics that directed superintendents of state asylums to name candidates for sterilization surgery.
48 Chain gang wardens could also recommend cases.
49 When Georgia’s law passed through the legislature, the press declared that sterilization appealed to “the common sense and reason of the people.”
50 The bill was vetoed by the Georgia governor, but it reappeared, was again passed in the legislature, and was signed by a new governor following the 1937 legislative session.
51 Some 3,300 Georgians endured surgery under this law until its repeal in 1974.
52 Between Indiana’s 1907 sterilization statute and Georgia’s 1937 act, thirty other states adopted laws that would 42. See Lindsey Urges Sterilization as Insanity Ban, ATLANTA CONST., Mar. 29, 1934, at 1A [hereinafter Lindsey].
43. Atlanta Doctors to Drive for Sterilization Bill, ATLANTA CONST., Feb. 4, 1934, at 1A [hereinafter Atlanta Doctors]. 44. Lindsey, supra note 42. 45. Id.
46. The German sterilization law of 1933 resulted in approximately 400,000 sterilizations by 1945. Over 5,000 deaths resulted from the surgeries that were directed towards “feeblemindedness,” schizophrenia, genetic epilepsy, genetic blindness, and severe deformity, among others. Susan Bachrach, In the Name of Public Health—Nazi Racial Hygiene, 351 NEW ENG. J. MED. 417, 418 (2004).
47. Atlanta Doctors, supra note 43.
48. 1937 Ga. Laws 415 (repealed 1970); House Approves Sterilization Bill, ATLANTA CONST., Feb. 10, 1937, at 11.
49. House Approves Sterilization Bill, supra note
48; Edward Larson, Belated Progress: The Enactment of Eugenic Legislation in Georgia, J. HIST. OF MED. & ALLIED SCI. 44, 54-59 (1991) [hereinafter Belated Progress].
50. Sterilization Bill Passes the House, ATLANTA CONST, March 9, 1935; Belated Progress, supra note 49, at 59-63.
51. Edward J. Larson, Breeding Better Georgians, 1 GA. J. S. LEGAL HIST.53, 66-70 (1991).
52. Belated Progress, supra note 49, at 44. SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 64 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF HEALTH LAW & POLICY [Vol. 2:57 eventually lead to surgery for more than 65,000 people.
53 Different states chose to eliminate childbirth in different kinds of people. Some named the “crippled, blind, degenerate, and deficient,”
54 while others picked “paupers and the criminalistic.”
55 But in all states those most likely to be sterilized were poor people living in state institutions.56 From the end of World War II until the law was repealed in 1970, more operations were performed in Georgia than any state except North Carolina.
57 Even though the law was in force for fewer years than any other state, the 3,300 operations made Georgia fifth in the U.S. in the number of eugenic surgeries.
58 The economic motive for sterilization also resonated in other countries. As one of the first acts of the new Nazi government, Germans adopted an expansive sterilization law that went into effect in 1933.
59 Propaganda in Germany focused on the lifelong costs of supporting any “genetically ill” person.”
60 The German law eventually provided the legal justification for over 400,000 sterilizations.61 In 1946, the Nuremburg war trials were convened.62 While prosecutors at Nuremberg were hesitant to condemn German sterilizations that occurred under the rubric of domestic law, they
53. LOMBARDO, supra note 38, at 294 app. c (Laws and Sterilizations by State).
54. See, e.g., 1921 Wash. Sess. Laws 162 (statute targeting the “feeble minded, insane, epileptic, habitual criminals, moral degenerates, and sexual perverts….”); 1913 N.D. Laws 63 (where the statute targets “[c]onfirmed criminals, [i]nsane, [i]diots, [d]efectives and [r]apists”). 55. See e.g., 1917 S.D. Sess. Laws 378 (where the law focuses on the “[i]diot, [i]mbeciles and [f]eeble-[m]inded persons. . . . ”).
56. Alexandra Minna Stern, Sterilized in the Name of Public Health, 95 AM. J. PUB. HEALTH 1128, 1131-32 (2005) (explaining that most of those sterilized in California were “either working class or lower middle class.”).
57. S. Res. 247, 149th Gen. Assemb. (Ga. 2007); see also LOMBARDO, supra note 38 at 294 app. c (Laws and Sterilizations by State).
58. LOMBARDO, supra note 38 at 294 app. c (Laws and Sterilizations by State). Another Georgia eugenic law involved race. See 1927 Ga. Laws 272.
In 1927, the language of “racial integrity” was borrowed from states with laws that prohibited interracial marriage. See Comment, Intermarriage with Negroes. A Survey of State Statutes, 36 YALE L.J. 858, 858-60, 862-63 (1927) (discussing state laws prohibiting intermarriage between Caucasians and African-Americans, current in twenty-nine of the states in 1927); Lombardo, Miscegenation, Eugenics, and Racism, supra note 22, at 423.
Under the pretense that it was acting with scientific precision, the state tried to define the purity of a white bloodline, marking “negroes, mulattoes, mestizos,” and those with “African, West Indian, or Asiatic Indian blood in their veins” as unfit. 1927 Ga. Laws 272 (“An Act to define who are persons of color and who are white persons, to prohibit and prevent the intermarriage of such persons[.]”).
59. See ROBERT J. LIFTON, THE NAZI DOCTORS 23-27 (2000) (1986).
60. See ROBERT PROCTOR, RACIAL HYGIENE: MEDICINE UNDER THE NAZIS 182-83, figs.36-37 (1988).
61. Bachrach, supra note 46, at 418.
62. See generally TRIALS OF WAR CRIMINALS BEFORE THE NUERNBERG MILITARY TRIBUNALS UNDER CONTROL COUNCIL LAW NO. 10 (U.S. Gov. Prtg. Office 1949) [hereinafter TRIALS OF WAR CRIMINALS].
did choose to pursue concentration camp doctors and others for performing sterilizations on camp prisoners.63 Those procedures were often done using experimental means, such as caustic chemicals or radiation, and were condemned as torture that occurred under the guise of medical research.64 Thus, a full four decades after the 1907 “Indiana Experiment,”
65 the international community condemned experimental sterilization as a war crime.
In 2002, in an attempt to highlight one of the more notorious episodes of eugenic history that has special significance for disability advocates, a marker was erected to commemorate the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Buck case in Carrie Buck’s hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia.
67 In 2007, scholars gathered with public officials in Indianapolis, Indiana to put up a second marker as a permanent remembrance of the one hundred year old Indiana sterilization law.
68 After a public symposium that explored the history of eugenics,69 the marker was unveiled by Linda Sparkman, who had herself been a litigant in a Supreme Court case that challenged the judge who ordered her sterilization.
70 The Indiana marker now sits outside of the
63. See PROCTOR, supra note 60, at 117.
64. See TRIALS OF WAR CRIMINALS, supra note 62, at 37, 48-50.
65. See R. Newton Crane, Experiments in Eugenics by American State Legislatures, 10 J. SOC’Y COMP. LEGIS. 120, 122 (1909).
66. See generally TRIALS OF WAR CRIMINALS supra note 62, at 37.
67. Paul A. Lombardo, Taking Eugenics Seriously: Three Generations of ??? are Enough?, 30 FLA. ST. U. L. REV. 191, 199-201, & n.56 (2003) (hereinafter Lombardo, Taking Eugenics Seriously).
68. 1907 Ind. Acts 377; see also Indiana Historical Bureau, 1907 Indiana Eugenics Law, at http://www.in.gov/history/markers/524.htm (last visited Feb. 3, 2009).
69. See Indiana Eugenics: History and Legacy, 100th Anniversary Symposium (Apr. 12, 2007), at www.iupui.edu/~eugenics/events.htm (last visited Feb. 3, 2009) (symposium schedule); Press Release, Indiana University School of Medicine, Symposium and Exhibit Recognize 100 Year Anniversary of Indiana Eugenics Legislation: Hoosier State Led World in Enactment of Involuntary Sterilization Laws (Feb. 28, 2007), at http://medicine.indiana.edu/ news_releases/viewRelease.php4?art=646 (last visited Feb. 3, 2009). 70. See generally Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349 (1978); Shari Rudavsky, Looking at the History of Eugenics in Indiana, INDIANAPOLIS STAR, Apr. 13, 2007, at Metro & State 1. SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 66 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF HEALTH LAW & POLICY [Vol. 2:57 state capitol, where a resolution denouncing eugenics was passed, based on the Virginia model.71
71. The text of the Indiana resolution read: A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION to mark the centennial of Indiana’s 1907 eugenical sterilization law and to express the regret of the Senate and House of Representatives of the 115th Indiana General Assembly for Indiana’s experience with eugenics.
Whereas, On April 27, 1907, Indiana enacted our nation’s first eugenical sterilization law, which mandated the sterilization of persons who were physically or developmentally disabled, mentally ill, or who had committed crimes;
Whereas, The goal of the now-discredited eugenics movement was to provide a simple solution to the complex issues of physical disorders, mental illness, developmental disabilities, and changing social conditions by eliminating what the movement’s supporters considered to be hereditary flaws through selective reproduction;
Whereas, In the 1921 case of Smith v. Williams, the Indiana Supreme Court declared the state’s 1907 law unconstitutional;
Whereas, In a landmark 1927 decision, the United States Supreme Court upheld Virginia’s involuntary sterilization statute in an opinion by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes;
Whereas, Following the U.S. Supreme Court precedent, Indiana enacted a new sterilization law in 1927 authorizing the compulsory sterilization of persons living in a state institution;
Whereas, Indiana involuntarily sterilized some 2,500 people, while more than 65,000 people were sterilized under similar laws in 30 other states during the same period;
Whereas, Eugenics legislation devalued the sanctity of human life, placed claims of scientific benefit over human dignity, and denied the inalienable rights recognized by our Founding Fathers;
Whereas, Eugenics legislation targeted the most vulnerable among us, including the poor and racial minorities, wrongly dehumanizing them under the authority of law and for the claimed purpose of public health and the good of the people;
Whereas, In the past five years, several other states, including Virginia, Oregon, North Carolina, and California, have publicly repudiated their involvement in the eugenics movement; and Whereas, 2007 marks the centennial of Indiana’s eugenical sterilization law, the first such law in the United States:
Therefore, Be it resolved by the Senate of the General Assembly of the State of Indiana, the House of Representatives concurring:
SECTION 1. That the Indiana General Assembly hereby expresses its regret over Indiana’s role in the eugenics movement in this country and the injustices done under eugenic laws.
SECTION 2. That the General Assembly urges the citizens of Indiana to become familiar with the history of the eugenics movement in the belief that a more educated and enlightened population will repudiate the many laws passed in the name of eugenics and reject any such laws in the future. S. Con. Res. 91, 115th Gen. Assemb., 1st Reg. Sess. (Ind. 2007) (enacted). SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 2008] DISABILITY, EUGENICS, AND THE CULTURE WARS
67 About the same time as the Indiana events were taking place, Georgia State Representative Mary Margaret Oliver introduced a resolution condemning her state’s involvement with eugenics.
72 Similarly, North and South Carolina had already officially repudiated eugenics.
73 Virginia, Oregon, and California had done so as well.
74 A legislative statement from Georgia would put the last state to pass a sterilization law on the record renouncing eugenics.75
72. See Mary Margaret Oliver, MMO Third Email Newsletter – 2007 General Assembly Session, Feb. 12, 2007, at marymargaretoliver.org/media.html (last visited Feb. 3, 2009);
see also Jeremy Redmon, Apology Asked for Sterilizations State Required, ATLANTA JOURNALCONST., Feb. 2, 2007, at 1A [hereinafter Redmon, Apology Asked for Sterilizations]; Jeremy Redmon, Legislature Considers Apology for State’s Role in Eugenics Movement, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONST., Feb. 1, 2007, at www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/ajc/georgia/ entries/2007/02/01/legislature_con.html (last visited Feb. 3, 2009) [hereinafter Redmon, Legislature Considers Apology].
73. See Kevin Begos et al., Easley Apologizes to Sterilization Victims, WINSTON-SALEM J., Dec. 13, 2002, at A1; Tim Smith, Hodges Offers Apology to Sterilization Victims, GREENVILLE NEWS, Jan. 9, 2003, at 2B.
74. See Paul A. Lombardo, Facing Carrie Buck, HASTINGS CTR. REP., Mar.-Apr. 2003, at 14, 16, 17 & nn.19-20; Lombardo, Taking Eugenics Seriously, supra note 67, at 200 & n.56 (quoting the text of Virginia Governor Mark Warner’s apology).
75. The text of the original eugenics apology introduced by Representative Oliver read:
A RESOLUTION Expressing profound regret for Georgia´s participation in the eugenics movement in the United States and marking the centennial of eugenic sterilization in the United States; and for other purposes.
WHEREAS, in the early 20th century, a pseudo-scientific movement called eugenics gained popularity in the United States and advocated the improvement of the human race by using selective breeding to eliminate supposed hereditary flaws such as mental disability and physical deformity; and
WHEREAS, in 1907, Indiana became the first state to enact a eugenics based sterilization law, mandating the sterilization of “confirmed criminals, idiots, rapists, and imbeciles”; and
WHEREAS, eventually more than 30 states enacted similar compulsory sterilization laws resulting in the involuntary sterilization of more than 65,000 individuals in the United States; and WHEREAS, the Supreme Court sanctioned the practice of compulsory sterilization in an infamous 1927 decision by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in which the court upheld Virginia´s sterilization of a young woman in a mental health facility on the grounds that “three generations of imbeciles [were] enough”; and
WHEREAS, in 1937, Georgia created a State Board of Eugenics and authorized the involuntary sterilization of Georgia´s patients in state mental health facilities, as well as Georgia inmates in state prisons and reformatories; and
WHEREAS, even though Georgia was the last state to enact a sterilization law, it performed the fifth largest number of sterilizations in the nation, sterilizing approximately 3,300 of its citizens between 1937 and 1970, the year the law was repealed; and The Atlanta Journal Constitution joined in the public education on eugenics with a series of articles surveying the history of eugenics in Georgia.SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 68 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF HEALTH LAW & POLICY [Vol. 2:57
76 Cynthia Tucker, who won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, supported the legislative measure in one of her columns.
77 But the resolution hit a snag when partisan considerations surfaced.
78 Sharon Cooper, the Republican chair of the Georgia House of Representatives committee to which the resolution was referred, announced that she would not hold hearings nor take a vote on the eugenics measure, WHEREAS, more compulsory sterilizations were performed in Georgia between 1937 and 1970 than in any other state in the nation except North Carolina; and
WHEREAS, in addition to compulsory sterilization, Georgia and many other states enacted eugenics related legislation that attempted to preserve “racial integrity” by banning interracial marriage; and
WHEREAS, Georgia prohibited interracial marriages for 40 years, from 1927, when it enacted its antimiscegenation law, to 1967, when the Supreme Court invalidated all such laws in its landmark Loving v. Virginia decision; and
WHEREAS, eugenics legislation targeted the most vulnerable populations in the United States, including the disabled, the incarcerated, the poor, the members of racial and ethnic minorities, and all others viewed as “genetically unfit” and provided a false scientific rationale for discriminatory and racist practices; and
WHEREAS, despite the harm done to many thousands of Americans in the name of eugenics, the eugenics movement is largely forgotten today; and
WHEREAS, in the past five years, several other states, including Virginia, Oregon, North Carolina, and California, have publicly repudiated their involvement in the eugenics movement; and WHEREAS, the year 2007 marks the centennial of eugenic sterilization in the United States and the 70th anniversary of the passage of Georgia´s sterilization law.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES that the members of this body express their profound regret for Georgia´s participation in the eugenics movement and the injustices done under eugenics laws, including the involuntary sterilization of Georgia citizens.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the members of this body hereby support the full education of Georgia citizens about the eugenics movement in order to ensure that a more enlightened population repudiates the intolerance and bigotry that formed the basis of American eugenics laws and rejects similar laws in the future.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Clerk of the House of Representatives is authorized and directed to transmit an appropriate copy of this resolution to the public and the press. H.R. Res. 122, 149th Gen. Assemb., Reg. Sess. (Ga. 2007).
76. See, e.g., Gayle White, The Horror of Forced Sterilization, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONST., Feb. 4, 2007, at Metro. 77. Cynthia Tucker, Editorial, Apology for Sterilizations Is Necessary, ATLANTA JOURNALCONST., Feb. 7, 2007, at 15A. 78. Redmon, Apology Asked for Sterilizations, supra note 72; Redmon, Legislature Considers Apology, supra note 72. SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 2008] DISABILITY, EUGENICS, AND THE CULTURE WARS
69 and that the measure would likely die in committee.
79 In fact, most bills authored by Democrats like Oliver stood a poor chance of making it through the Republican dominated legislature.
80 But before public discussion of the eugenics resolution had settled, Republican Senator David Shafer decided to join the campaign to highlight Georgia’s eugenic history.
81 His resolution repeated much of the same historical information that Oliver’s bill had contained, with two interesting differences.
82 First, Shafer eliminated any mention of the then eighty year old Georgia law that outlawed interracial marriage on eugenic grounds.
83 More surprising yet was the background information that Shafer chose to emphasize in his measure. He highlighted the origins of eugenic theory as an “outgrowth of Darwinian evolutionary theory” crafted by Darwin’s relative, Francis Galton.
84 The eugenicists crafted methods to eliminate unwanted people in future generations, Shafer claimed, including “selective breeding and birth control”.
85 Building on the Darwin/Galton link, Shafer then emphasized what he called “the application of Darwinian principles” as a hallmark of eugenic advocacy, and faulted “so-called ‘progressive’ academicians, scientists, politicians, and newspaper editors” for lending their endorsement to eugenic legislation.
86 Eugenic legislation was often
79. See Redmon, Apology Asked for Sterilizations, supra note 72; Redmon, Legislature Considers Apology, supra note 72. 80. See, e.g., Legislature 2007: Legislative Briefs, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONST., Feb. 7, 2007, at 4B; 149th General Assembly of the State of Georgia (showing that the legislature was sixty-one percent Republican).
81. Jeremy Redmon, Legislature 2007: Resolution ‘Regrets’ Role in Sterilization, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONST., Feb. 20, 2007, at 5B.
82. S. Res. 247, 149th Gen. Assemb., Reg. Sess. (Ga. 2007).
83. Compare H.R. Res. 122, 149th Gen. Assemb., Reg. Sess. (Ga. 2007)
(“WHEREAS, in addition to compulsory sterilization, Georgia and many other states enacted eugenics related legislation that attempted to preserve ‘racial integrity’ by banning interracial marriage; and
WHEREAS, Georgia prohibited interracial marriages for 40 years, from 1927, when it enacted its anti-miscegenation law, to 1967, when the Supreme Court invalidated all such laws in its landmark Loving v. Virginia decision”); with S. Res. 247, 149th Gen. Assemb., Reg. Sess. (Ga. 2007) (Shafer’s Resolution, which only discusses Georgia’s sterilization law).
84. S. Res. 247, 149th Gen. Assem., Reg. Sess. (Ga. 2007)
(“WHEREAS, the so-called science of eugenics emerged in the late 19th century as an outgrowth of Darwinian evolutionary theory, first advanced by anthropologist and geneticist Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin…”).
85. Id.
(“WHEREAS, in the early 20th century, this pseudo-scientific movement gained popularity in the United States and advocated the improvement of the human race by the application of Darwinian principles to eliminate supposed hereditary flaws such as mental disability and physical deformity and to alleviate human suffering through selective breeding and birth control . . . ”). 86. Id.
(“WHEREAS, in the early 20th century, this pseudo-scientific movement gained popularity in the United States and advocated the improvement of the human race by the SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 70 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF HEALTH LAW & POLICY [Vol. 2:57 adopted, Shafer noted, despite “religious objections that such matters ‘ought to be left to God’”.
87 Critics emerged to dispute Shafer’s concentration on Darwin as the fount of eugenic motives.88 Blaming eugenics almost entirely on Darwin seemed historically simplistic, and ignored the many ways that the eugenics movement became popular by borrowing from existing lines of thought, including nativism, racism, the temperance movement, the anti-prostitution movement, or even religious sentiment.
89 But Shafer’s language won the support of his colleagues in the Georgia Senate and was adopted in a 2007 resolution.
90 application of Darwinian principles to eliminate supposed hereditary flaws such as mental disability and physical deformity and to alleviate human suffering through selective breeding and birth control; and WHEREAS, eugenics was endorsed by so-called ‘progressive’ academicians, scientists, politicians, and newspaper editors, often over religious objections that such matters ‘ought to be left to God’…”).
87. Id. (“WHEREAS, eugenics was endorsed by so-called ‘progressive’ academicians, scientists, politicians, and newspaper editors, often over religious objections that such matters ‘ought to be left to God’…”).
88. See, e.g., Lee Raudonis, Editorial, Slavery Apology: Slap at Charles Darwin Goes Way Out on a Limb, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONST., Mar. 13, 2007, at 11A.
89. It was common, for example, for eugenicists to quote the Bible as a justification for eugenic laws, saying that the declaration from the Book of Exodus that the sins of the father are visited upon the children was a perfect summary of how bad heredity created generations of faulty families. See Exodus 34:6-7 (“[6]Thus the Lord passed before him and cried out, “The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity, [7] continuing his kindness for a thousand generations, and forgiving wickedness and crime and sin; yet not declaring the guilty guiltless, but punishing children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation for their fathers’ wickedness!”).
According to Dennis L. Durst, Edith Smith Davis, Superintendent of The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) Scientific Temperance Department, declared: “[t]hat there is nothing new under the sun receives confirmation in the fact that the law of Moses is the law of Eugenics—that the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.
Likewise the children shall have health and happiness whose parents have lived according to the law of life which is the law of God.” Dennis L. Durst, Evangelical Engagements with Eugenics, 1900- 1940, ETHICS & MEDICINE, Summer 2002, at 52 n.6 (quoting EDITH SMITH DAVIS, A COMPENDIUM OF TEMPERANCE TRUTH 116 (1916)).
90. Senator Shafer’s Eugenics Resolution, as passed by the Georgia Senate on Mar. 27, 2007:
A RESOLUTION Expressing profound regret for Georgia´s participation in the eugenics movement in the United States and marking the centennial of the first eugenic sterilization law in the United States; and for other purposes.
WHEREAS, the so-called science of eugenics emerged in the late 19th century as an outgrowth of Darwinian evolutionary theory, first advanced by anthropologist and geneticist Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin;
and
WHEREAS, in the early 20th century, this pseudo-scientific movement gained popularity in the United States and advocated the improvement of the human race by the application of Darwinian principles to eliminate supposed hereditary flaws such as mental disability and physical deformity and to alleviate human suffering through selective breeding and birth control; and
WHEREAS, eugenics was endorsed by so-called “progressive” academicians, scientists, politicians, and newspaper editors, often over religious objections that such matters “ought to be left to God”; and
WHEREAS, in 1907, Indiana became the first state to enact a eugenics based sterilization law, mandating the sterilization of “confirmed criminals, idiots, rapists, and imbeciles”; and
WHEREAS, eventually more than 30 states enacted similar compulsory sterilization laws, resulting in the forced sterilization of more than 65,000 individuals in the United States; and
WHEREAS, the Supreme Court sanctioned the practice of compulsory sterilization in the infamous 1927 decision by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in which the court upheld Virginia´s sterilization of a young woman in a mental health facility on the grounds that “three generations of imbeciles [were] enough”; and WHEREAS, with the editorial support of The Atlanta Constitution, the Georgia General Assembly passed a eugenics law in 1935, but that law was vetoed by Governor Eugene Talmadge; and
WHEREAS, in 1937, after Governor Talmadge had left office, Georgia enacted a new law creating the State Board of Eugenics and authorizing the compulsory sterilization of Georgia´s patients in state mental health facilities as well as Georgia inmates in state prisons and reformatories; and
WHEREAS, Georgia´s eugenics law remained on the books until 1970; and
WHEREAS, more compulsory sterilizations were performed in Georgia between 1937 and 1970 than in any other state in the nation except North Carolina; and
WHEREAS, eugenics legislation devalued the sanctity of human life, placed claimed scientific benefit over basic human dignity, and denied the God given rights recognized by our Founding Fathers; and
WHEREAS, eugenics legislation targeted the most vulnerable among us, including the poor and racial minorities, wrongly dehumanizing them under the color of law and for the claimed purposes of public health and good; and
WHEREAS, in the past five years, several other states, including Virginia, Oregon, North Carolina, and California, have publicly repudiated their involvement in the eugenics movement; and
WHEREAS, the year 2007 marks the centennial of the first eugenic sterilization in the United States and the 70th anniversary of the passage of Georgia´s sterilization law.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE that the members of this body express their profound regret for Georgia´s participation in the eugenics movement and the injustices done under eugenics laws, including the forced sterilization of Georgia citizens.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the members of this body hereby support the full education of Georgia citizens about the eugenics movement in order to foster a respect for the fundamental dignity of human life and the God given rights recognized by our Founding Fathers.
Senator Shafer’s focus on Darwin was not an isolated event. Close attention to internet commentary during this time revealed an interesting trend. One feature of that trend is represented by the writing of John G. West, former professor of political science and now Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle.
91 West’s book, Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science, is an attempt to link proponents of the Darwinian theory of evolution with eugenics and many other modern ills, such as abortion.
92 West’s argument describes Darwin as the source of modernist “materialism,” which excludes the spiritual from the public sphere and pits evolution against “creation science” and theories of intelligent design.
93 West also credits early 20th Century Progressive movement with much that was wrong with eugenics.
94 West attacks the use of Darwinism as the wellspring of eugenics, and he regularly invokes the case of Buck v. Bell as a dramatic example of how the eugenics movement employed evolutionary theory to achieve horrific ends.
95 In early 2008, West discussed the Buck case during a lecture at the Washington, D.C. Family Research Council on Darwinian Fundamentalism.
96 He described the Buck case as an “example of Darwin’s theories applied destructively,” and repeated the sordid details of the case, including Carrie Buck’s early life in foster care, her mother’s institutionalization, her rape, and her subsequent diagnosis as “feeble-minded.”
97 One sympathetic reviewer summarized West’s presentation, noting how he offered “numerous illustrations of how
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Secretary of the Senate is authorized and directed to transmit an appropriate copy of this resolution to the public and the media. S. Res. 247, 149th Gen. Assemb., Reg. Sess. (Ga. 2007);
for status history and information on voting, see SR 247 – Eugenics; Express Profound Regret for Georgia’s Participation, at www.legis.ga.gov/legis/2007_08/search/sr247.htm (last visited Feb. 3, 2009). 91. See generally Darwin Day in America – About the Author, Biography of John West, at http://www.darwindayinamerica.com/author/ (last visited Feb. 3, 2009);
Discovery Institute, About Discovery, at www.discovery.org/about.php (last visited Feb. 3, 2009); Center for Science and Culture, Top Questions, at www.discovery.org/csc/topQuestions.php (last visited Feb. 3, 2009).
92. See JOHN G. WEST, DARWIN DAY IN AMERICA: HOW OUR POLITICS AND CULTURE HAVE BEEN DEHUMANIZED IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE 128-33, 156-60 (2007). 93. Id. at xiv-xvii, 225-30, 234-38. 94. Id. at 123-26. 95. Id. at 137-39;
Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927).
96. 7John G. West, Darwin Day in America? Witherspoon Lecture at the Family Research Council (Feb. 12, 2008) [Hereinafter Darwin Day], webcast at http://www.frcblog.com/2008/ 02/video_of_john_g_wests_lecture_1.html (last visited Jan. 16 2009).
97. West, Darwin Day, supra note 96; see also WEST, supra note 92, at 137-39 (describing the plight of Carrie Buck). SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 2008] DISABILITY, EUGENICS, AND THE CULTURE WARS 73
Darwinian advocates, such as former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., have taken Darwin’s theories and applied them over the years to situations they did not necessarily relate to.”
98 The recent Ben Stein documentary film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, a polemic on the purported exclusion of the so-called “intelligent design” perspective and other religious viewpoints from public debate, provided another vehicle for tying Darwin to the origins of eugenics.
99 Conservative activist and one-time Presidential candidate Gary Bauer100 noted that [t]he most compelling part of ‘Expelled’ is its investigation into the historical and intellectual link between Darwinism and the eugenics movement. Eugenics attempts to ‘assist’ evolution in order to move the human race forward into a new and improved world.
Central to social Darwinism are the ideas of natural selection and survival of the fittest, which eugenicists believe can be helped along by controlling birth patterns. Stein offers a striking reminder of where such utilitarian thinking can lead when he visits a death camp in Hadamar, Germany, where thousands of disabled people and other ‘undesirables’ or ‘useless eaters’ were exterminated during the Nazi regime.
101 Comments like Bauer’s typify a pattern of argument that relies on several simple declarations to link Darwin with everything evil.
First, it is said, Charles Darwin believed in a godless creation, and his theory of evolution is the foundation of an atheistic ideology.
102 Second, his likeminded cousin, Francis Galton, launched the eugenics movement from a Darwinian perspective. Third, others like Margaret Sanger supported eugenics and tried to force birth control onto the poor and disabled as a
98. Katherine Kipp, Author Critiques Darwin’s ‘Terrible Ideas’, FLORIDA BAPTIST WITNESS, Feb. 14, 2008, at www.floridabaptistwitness.com/8431.article (last visited Feb. 3, 2009).
99. EXPELLED: NO INTELLIGENCE ALLOWED (Premise Media Corporation 2008).
100. Gary L. Bauer is the president of American Values. The American Values website describes the organization as ”a non-profit organization committed to uniting the American people around the vision of our Founding Fathers. . . . American Values serves to remind the public of the conservative principles that are so fundamental to the survival of our nation and to bring support and ideas to policy makers and empower our elected officials to have the support they need to do what is right, noble and good. . . .
American Values is deeply committed to defending life, traditional marriage and equipping our children with the values necessary to stand against liberal education and cultural forces.” American Values, About American Values, at http://www.amvalues.org/about.php (last visited Feb. 3, 2009). 101. Gary Bauer, Intelligence ‘Expelled’ from Evolution Debate, HUMAN EVENTS.COM, Feb. 18, 2008, at www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=25046 (last visited Feb. 3, 2009).
For a dramatically contrasting review of Expelled by movie critic Roger Ebert, see Win Ben Stein’s Mind, http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/12/win_ben_steins_mind.html (Dec. 3, 2008, 12:25 CST). 102. See, e.g., WEST, supra note 92, at 37-41. SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 74 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF HEALTH LAW & POLICY [Vol. 2:57 way of carrying out eugenic aims. Finally, Hitler also believed in eugenics. Thus, the argument in a nutshell is that the ideas of Darwinian evolution led, via eugenics, to the Holocaust.
Moreover, a new eugenics movement has yielded a second Holocaust in the form of pro-abortion politics that are an outgrowth of Sanger’s eugenic propensities and other Progressive era trends that emphasize science over religion.
This attempt at a thesis is clearly based on a selective memory of the past and a distorted account of eugenic history. This brief essay does not permit a more extensive refutation of the line of argument I have described, but a few examples of what is absent from this account will suggest how deficient it is.
For example, the anti-Darwinians could have pointed out that the first six presidents of the twentieth century—Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover—all had taken positions supporting some kind of eugenic policy.
103 Coolidge signed a federal statute that remained in place for over forty years, limiting immigration of Jews and southern Europeans on eugenic grounds.
104 American laws limiting immigration on “racial” grounds were praised by Hitler in his book, Mein Kampf.
105 And Herbert Hoover was one of the most prominent supporters of the 1921 Second International Congress of Eugenics.
106 But whatever other shortcomings they may have had, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover are hardly responsible for the Holocaust.
107 103. See Paul A. Lombardo, Medicine, Eugenics, and the Supreme Court: From Coercive Sterilization to Reproductive Freedom, 13 J. CONTEMP. HEALTH L. & POL’Y 1, 1 & n.1 (1996);
see, e.g., THOMAS F. GOSSETT, RACE: THE HISTORY OF AN IDEA IN AMERICA 404-05 (1965) (discussing Harding’s 1920 campaign speech enunciating racial differences in the context of immigration restriction laws, and Coolidge’s popular 1921 article, when he was VicePresident, where he argued “that Nordics deteriorate when mixed with other races.”);
JAMES W. TRENT, JR., INVENTING THE FEEBLE MIND: A HISTORY OF MENTAL RETARDATION IN THE UNITED STATES 173 (1994) (discussing then New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson’s enthusiastic support of the legislature’s authorization of mandatory eugenic sterilization for “certain categories of adult feeble minds.”);
Lombardo, Taking Eugenics Seriously, supra note 67, at 208-09, n.114 (discussing an article written by Roosevelt embracing eugenics); CHASE, supra note 20, at 19-20 (discussing then Secretary of Commerce Hoover’s involvement with the Second International Congress of Eugenics, held in New York in 1921).
104. Immigration Act of 1924, ch. 190, 43 Stat. 153 (1924);
see CHASE, supra note 20, at 300-01.
105. Hitler railed against automatic citizenship for “every Jewish or Polish, African or Asiatic child” born in Germany as “thoughtless” and “hare-brained”. ADOLF HITLER, MEIN KAMPF 438-39 (Ralph Manheim trans., 1943) (1925).
America’s policy of “excluding certain races from naturalization” was a law that Hitler could endorse. Id. at 440.
106. CHASE, supra note 20, at 19-20 (discussing then Secretary of Commerce Hoover’s involvement with the Second International Congress of Eugenics, held in New York in 1921).
107. Charles Darwin’s son Leonard Darwin was on the sponsoring committee of the Second International Congress of Eugenics in New York City in 1921. See CHASE, supra note
75 Theodore Roosevelt’s eugenic sentiments are well documented and he agreed with the leaders of the movement that “society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind.”
108 But there is no call among the anti-Darwinians for chiseling his face from Mount Rushmore.
Psychologists like Louis Terman, Robert Yerkes, and Leta Hollingworth argued for using the tools of psychometrics such as IQ tests to sort school students, and all three were well know as advocates of eugenics.
109 But the anti-Darwinians are not heard to argue that the mental testing movement was the gateway to the Holocaust.
110 What the anti-Darwinians didn’t say was that Herbert Spencer, not Darwin, coined the terms “survival of the fittest” and “Social Darwinism.”1
11 Nor did they note that the proponents of sterilization in the Buck case did not rely once on Darwin in their arguments in court, but repeatedly invoked the theories of heredity outlined first by Gregor Mendel, a Roman Catholic monk.
112. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., author of the Buck opinion, based his eugenic sentiments not on Darwin, but on the writings of Thomas 20, at 277.
The committee also included then secretary of commerce and later President Herbert Hoover, who presided over the stock market crash on “Black Monday” that ushered in the Depression. See id.
West, Bauer, and their colleagues might have said that these associations prove that Darwin was responsible for the Great Depression, but that would have been similarly inaccurate.
108. Letter from Theodore Roosevelt to Charles Davenport (Jan. 3, 1913), at http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/image_header.pl?id=1242&detailed=1 (last visited Feb. 3, 2009).
109. See, e.g., LEWIS M. TERMAN, THE MEASUREMENT OF INTELLIGENCE: AN EXPLANATION OF AND COMPLETE GUIDE FOR THE USE OF THE STANFORD REVISION AND THE EXTENSION OF THE BINETSIMON INTELLIGENCE SCALE (1916); LEWIS M. TERMAN, THE INTELLIGENCE OF SCHOOL CHILDREN: HOW CHILDREN DIFFER IN ABILITY, THE USE OF MENTAL TESTS IN SCHOOL GRADING, AND THE PROPER EDUCATION OF EXCEPTIONAL CHILDREN (1919);
Robert M. Yerkes, A Point Scale for Measuring Mental Ability, 1 PROC. NAT’L ACAD. SCI. 114 (1915); Robert M. Yerkes, The Benet Versus the Point Scale Method of Measuring Intelligence, 1 J. APP. PSYCHOL. 111 (1917);
LEON J. KAMIN, THE SCIENCE AND POLITICS OF IQ 10 (1974) (noting that Lewis Terman and Robert Yerkes were both pioneers of the Mental Testing Movement and supporters of the Eugenics Movement);
LETA S. HOLLINGWORTH, GIFTED CHILDREN: THEIR NATURE AND NURTURE (1926); LETA S. HOLLINGWORTH, CHILDREN ABOVE 180 IQ (1942);
Selden, Transforming Better Babies into Fitter Families, supra note 17, at 204-05 (noting how “Hollingworth framed the causes of varying levels of student performance in eugenic terms”).
110. The federal No Child Left Behind legislation, for example, is also based on extensive reliance on testing, yet that legislation is not condemned by the anti-Darwinians. See No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, Pub. L. No. 107-110 § 1116, 115 Stat. 1425, 1478 (2002) (detailing the academic assessment procedures required under the Act).
111. HERBERT SPENCER, THE PRINCIPLES OF BIOLOGY 530-31 (1910) (1864); see WEST, supra note 92, at 106-07.
112. Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927);
see generally MENDEL, supra note 11. [Vol. 2:57
Malthus,113 who complained a century before Darwin that imprudent charity was a drag on civilization.
114 An accurate account of U.S. eugenics could also have quoted Frederick Winslow Taylor, whose ideas of industrial efficiency were extremely important to the Progressive era and were often recited as justification for eugenic measures.
115.Blaming Margaret Sanger for the eugenics movement is similarly misleading. Certainly Sanger supported some eugenic aims, and was not above voicing her contempt for the poor, disabled and minorities
116 But she never held a leadership post within the eugenics movement, because leaders like Charles Davenport
117 were fearful of associating with someone so radical, and for years had argued strenuously against her primary objective: widespread availability of birth control.
118 Moreover, identifying eugenics with abortion ignores the near complete absence of support for abortion among leaders in the eugenics movement.
Charles Davenport himself, in one of first and most widely read texts of the eugenics movement, Heredity in Relation to Eugenics, explained unequivocally that while his eugenic program encompassed “control by the state of the propagation of the mentally incompetent”, it also ruled out the “destruction of the unfit either before or after birth.”
119 Harry Laughlin, Davenport’s first lieutenant in the eugenics cause, and author of the Model Sterilization Act that provided the foundation for the law upheld in Buck v. Bell, voiced similar sentiments. “Preventing the procreation of defectives rather than destroying them before birth, or in infancy, or in the later periods
113. Holmes told his friend Harold Laski: “I am a devout Malthusian as you know.” Letter from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. to Harold J. Laski (Sept. 16, 1924), in HOLMES-LASKI LETTERS: THE CORRESPONDENCE OF MR. JUSTICE HOLMES AND HAROLD J. LASKI, 1916-1935, 658, 658 (Mark DeWolfe Howe ed., 1953).
114. See generally T. R. MALTHUS, AN ESSAY ON THE PRINCIPLE OF POPULATION (1992) (1798); CHASE, supra note 20, at 74-77.
115. See FREDERICK WINSLOW TAYLOR, THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT (1915) (1911);
see also Amy L. Fairchild, Policies of Inclusion: Immigrants, Disease, Dependency, and American Immigration Policy at the Dawn and Dusk of the 20th Century, 94 AM. J. PUB. HEALTH 528, 529-30 (2004).
116. For example, Sanger states that “the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the overfertility of the mentally and physically defective.”
Margaret Sanger, The Eugenic Value of Birth Control Propaganda, BIRTH CONTROL REV., Oct. 1921, at 5, reprinted in THE SELECTED PAPERS OF MARGARET SANGER, VOLUME 1: THE WOMAN REBEL, 1900-1928, at 321 (Esther Katz ed., 2003).
117. See generally CHASE, supra note 20, at 114-18. 118. Id. at 55 (noting that Davenport declined Sanger’s formal invitation to participate as vice-president in 1925’s Birth Control Conference, not wishing to appear as a supporter of the Birth Control League or the conference, lest it confuse the distinction between eugenics and birth control).
119. Charles Benedict Davenport, Heredity in Relation to Eugenics 4 (1915) (1911).
77 of life, must be the aim of modern eugenics” said Laughlin.
120 Harvey Jordan, an acolyte of Davenport’s, argued strenuously for eugenic sterilization, with no less vehemence and contempt for the poor and disabled than Sanger.
121 Yet Jordan also argued just as strongly against eugenic euthanasia,
122 and Jordan never spoke out in favor of abortion.
123 Claiming that all who put on the mantle of eugenics are responsible for social movements that crystallized long after they were dead requires a cramped idea of eugenics and asks us to believe that anyone who was identified as a “eugenist” was equivalent to everyone else who welcomed that label. Such an assertion is clearly false. But focusing on Darwin, Galton, and Margaret Sanger is more useful for the anti-Darwinians. That focus allows them to link evolution, abortion, and eugenics and taunt liberals who adopt the reform posture of old Progressives.
124 We need to remember that although it is true that Margaret Sanger spoke in favor of eugenics, echoing eugenic themes was also a ploy of evangelist preacher Billy Sunday, who at one point was described at a particularly successful revival, having spent so much time on the influences of heredity that talk of science “almost overshadowed the denunciations of sin.”
125 Neither Sanger nor Sunday can be blamed for the historical footprint left by Hitler.
120. Henry H. Laughlin, Report of the Committee to Study and to Report on the Best Practical Means of Cutting off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the American Population, EUGENICS REC. OFF. BULL. NO. 10A, at 55 (1914);
HENRY HAMILTON LAUGHLIN, EUGENICAL STERILIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES 446-51 (1922) (detailing the Model Eugenical Sterilization Law).
121. Jordan believed that those “grossly and obviously unfit” should not be able to reproduce. See, e.g., Plan Nation-Wide Eugenics Society, N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 16, 1913, at 15 (quoting Harvey E. Jordan during the American Association for the Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality (AASPIM) 1913 organizational meeting in Washington, D.C.).
Jordan’s extensive eugenical writings included: Harvey Ernest Jordan, Eugenics: Its Data, Scope and Promise, as Seen by the Anatomist, in EUGENICS: TWELVE UNIVERSITY LECTURES 107 (1914); H.E. Jordan, The Eugenical Aspect of Venereal Disease, 3 TRANSACTIONS AM. ASS’N FOR STUDY & PREVENTION INFANT MORTALITY 156 (1912-1913); H.E. Jordan, The Place of Eugenics in the Medical Curriculum, in PROBLEMS IN EUGENICS: PAPERS COMMUNICATED TO THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL EUGENICS CONGRESS 396 (1912); H.E. Jordan, Heredity as a Factor in the Improvement of Social Conditions, 2 AM. BREEDERS’ MAG. 246 (1911).
122. See Plan Nation-Wide Eugenics Society, supra note 121 (quoting Harvey E. Jordan as stating that “[e]very child born into the world . . . must be saved, if possible” during the AASPIM 1913 organizational meeting in Washington, D.C.).
123. H.E. Jordan, Eugenics: The Rearing of the Human Thoroughbred, 12 CLEV. MED. J. 875 (1912).
124. See, e.g., WEST, supra note 92, at 120-22. 125. 35,000 Hear Sunday Talk to Men Only, N.Y. TIMES, Apr. 30, 1917, at 20; see Rev. Wm. A. Sunday, Sermon: Chickens Come Home to Roost (Apr. 29, 1917). SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 78 SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF HEALTH LAW & POLICY [Vol. 2:57
VI. CONCLUSION
We have had occasion in recent years to rediscover the history of eugenics, and it is an ugly history. The history of eugenics reminds us how fear and greed and hate can be exploited to enable bigotry to flourish against the poor, the disabled, and the merely different—and in some of the worst cases bigotry can be delivered at the point of a surgeon’s scalpel or in a death camp gas chamber. Studying that history has also made it possible to revisit some of the mistakes of the past and make amends—to repudiate unjust laws once used against disabled people, and to apologize to some of the victims of those laws.
Thus it is appropriate to argue for increased sensitivity to the history of disability and to point out troubling trends today suggesting that some of that history is not yet past. We may, at such times, have occasion to invoke the dark shadow of eugenics or even Hitler himself. But particularly when we are acting in service of what we would hope are our own most noble motives, we should be careful that we are not distorting history merely to make debating points, or redefining eugenics as a bludgeon to be used in crushing the political opposition. There is a danger when we take that rediscovered history and cynically manipulate the facts it provides us with in order to run up the rhetorical score.
It is possible to have reasoned arguments and heated debates about topics as controversial as race, abortion, crime, and religion—those arguments are not likely to go away any time soon. But in the ocean of ideas, eugenics was a bottom feeder, taking whatever it needed to make the case against social welfare programs, expensive institutions, and the people who lived in them. Many ideas were swept into the mix, none of them alone sufficient to account for the laws passed to advance the eugenic cause, or to explain the crimes committed in the name of eugenics.
There is no inevitable link between Darwin, Sanger, or even Galton and the Holocaust, any more than there is a simple causal relationship between support for immigration restriction, sterilization, or I.Q. testing and the worst crimes of the Nazis. The moment we begin intentionally distorting historical fact to get an edge in the ongoing culture wars, we risk repeating the tactics of some master manipulators of the past.
When someone wants too glibly to shout the name of Hitler as the epithet of choice with which to tar all opponents, we should remember that Hitler’s own propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels,126 was the author of many such big lies, and the man who did the most in the twentieth century to rewrite history to fit his own agenda was Joseph Stalin.
Treating eugenics merely as one of history’s dirty words, without accurately exploring the context in which it came to be used, or the variety of ideas that played a part in its career, can lead to a debasement of 126. See, e.g., PROCTOR, supra note 60, at 79. SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW 2008] DISABILITY, EUGENICS, AND THE CULTURE WARS 79 history itself.
Such a strategy yields no long term benefit to people with disabilities or to those who would advocate for them.
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Eugenics Past and Present
Remembering Buck v. Bell
“Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
Michael J. Berson and Bárbara Cruz
At the end of the nineteenth century, as Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution were making their way to all levels of society, scientists and the general public began to consider how selective breeding could improve a species’s chance of survival. The theories were applied to the human species as well. A number of selective breeding enthusiasts asked: to eliminate undesirable characteristics in humans, should some people be considered so “defective” or “inferior” that they should not be allowed to reproduce?
Out of this climate the eugenics movement grew. First coined by Sir Francis Galton, the term is derived from the Greek word meaning well-born or good in birth. Galton, a cousin of Darwin, incorporated the Darwinian idea of survival of the fittest into his notion of eugenics. The goal of eugenics was the improvement of the human species through the careful selection of parents. Galton identified two primary processes to achieve this end.
Positive eugenics encouraged individuals who were above average both mentally and physically to produce more offspring. Negative eugenics proposed that individuals who were below average should have fewer or no children. This second proposal could be achieved through institutional segregation, marriage restrictions, or sterilization.
Who were the early eugenicists? Some scholars believe that they were well intentioned and progressive, concerned with bettering humanity.1 After all, this was the Progressive Era, a time of hope and reform. Gerald Grob points out that eugenics advocates were persuaded that they were acting on behalf of a noble cause that would benefit humanity. They believed that medical and scientific knowledge, combined with a new technology, had reached a point in time in which the eradication of inherited defects was possible.2
Despite these idealistic beginnings, the eugenics movement had devastating—and in some cases lasting—worldwide effects. The most obvious and extreme example is the use of eugenics in Nazi Germany. Other, perhaps less known, practices include those in Great Britain, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, Austria, Brazil, Japan, Canada, and China.
The movement had substantial support in the United States as well, from citizen and charity groups, politicians, physicians, scientists, and mental health professionals. Proposed policies ranged from segregation laws to marriage prohibitions to immigration restrictions to sterilization, culminating in the Supreme Court case of Buck v. Bell.
The upcoming seventy-fifth anniversary of this momentous legal case presents an occasion to introduce students to the history of eugenics, its practice in the United States and throughout the world, and its lasting legacy. Although the topic is tempting to ignore, instructors should welcome the opportunity to familiarize students with a movement that reminds us that our quest for improvement can never be divorced from ethical questions underlying those ideals.
Eugenics in the United States
The U.S. eugenics movement was most active between the 1870s and World War I. In addition to Darwin’s and Galton’s influences, the movement benefited from the 1877 publication of Richard Dugdale’s study examining the criminality, insanity, and poverty of a family nicknamed “the Jukes.” While interviewing prisoners during an inspection of a jail, Dugdale realized that six prisoners were related. He eventually tracked down 709 relatives who were related, either by marriage or by blood, through five generations.
Although Dugdale’s study stressed that the Jukes’s misfortune could be blamed as much on environmental factors as on heredity, it facilitated inaccurate beliefs that behaviors are genetically inherited. Many people concluded that crime, poverty, and disease were both innate and closely associated with sexual promiscuity, mental illness, and idiocy.3 At the time, scholars overlooked the fact that Dugdale’s findings included only one case of mental retardation out of 709 subjects.
During the years following the study, eugenicists offered a variety of solutions for what they saw as the problems of inherited criminality, harlotry, mental retardation, and feeblemindedness. One solution was the institutional internment and segregation of people with cognitive or emotional impairments. Another was the prohibition of marriage between people with developmental delays or social maladjustments.
In 1895, Connecticut became the first state to ban marriage between “defective” persons. Eventually, forty-one other states ratified comparable legislation. But the marriage laws proved difficult to enforce, and eugenicists turned to other, more drastic measures.4
The medical profession introduced new possibilities for eradicating “the problem.” Eugenicists had already touted castration as a means of protecting institutionalized patients from the evils of sexual promiscuity and ensuring that they had no offspring.5
In 1897, the first reported vasectomy in the United States offered a seemingly less extreme method of sterilization. Five years after its first use to treat prostatitis, a surgeon publicized the procedure as a type of eugenic sterilization. His patients felt and behaved better as a result of the surgery, he reported—an assertion that proponents used for the next forty years.6
Armed with seemingly scientific and medical explanations, eugenicists wanted to make sterilization legal. By 1910, genetic statutes had been enacted in Washington, California, and Connecticut, and by the end of the 1920s, twenty-four states had passed involuntary sterilization laws.7
A major force behind this increase in eugenics legislation was Harry Laughlin, superintendent of the Eugenics Record Office (ERO). In 1922, Laughlin authored a model sterilization law that became the prototype for similar laws enacted in the United States. By January 1935, approximately 20,000 involuntary eugenic sterilizations had been performed in the United States, half of which were conducted in California.8
What was the public’s response?
For his service to eugenics and his efforts to cleanse humanity of defective genes, Laughlin received an honorary doctoral degree from Heidelberg University in Nazi Germany in 1936. Other supporters of eugenics included John D. Rockefeller, Winston Churchill, Edward Thorndike, Alexander Graham Bell, G. Stanley Hall, George Bernard Shaw, John H. Kellogg, H. G. Wells, Aldous Huxley, John Maynard Keynes, Margaret Sanger, and Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt once admonished, “Some day we will realize that the prime duty, the inescapable duty, of the good citizen of the right type is to leave his or her blood behind him in the world.”9
Another major motivation for eugenics was the heavy immigration—and its attendant xenophia—that the United States experienced around the turn of the century. Many psychiatrists warned that if better medical inspections of immigrants were not performed, the consequences would be deportation or sterilization. Eugenicists’ testimony before Congress helped pass the exclusionary 1924 Immigration Act. The economic depression of the 1920s and 1930s, with its high unemployment and poverty rates, further contributed to the public’s tolerance for eugenic sterilization.
The eugenicists were anxious to see how the statutes would hold up legally and constitutionally at the federal level. In effect, supporters welcomed Buck v. Bell as a test case to legitimize the position once and for all. When the superintendent of Virginia’s State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded Persons challenged the Virginia sterilization statute, the practice was finally brought before the U.S. Supreme Court. The case, Buck v. Bell, would have far-reaching implications for public opinion and social policy.
In April 1927, the Supreme Court, under Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, heard testimony on Buck v. Bell. The appeal involved Carrie Buck, a young woman who, at seventeen, was deemed a “moral imbecile” and was committed to the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded Persons. The state argued that Buck was the daughter of a “feebleminded” mother in the same institution and the mother of a seven-month-old child of subnormal intelligence. Although Harry Laughlin never examined the Buck family for the original court case, he summarized the state’s position: “These people belong to the shiftless, ignorant, and worthless class of anti-social whites of the South.”10
Smith and Nelson’s 1989 book The Sterilization of Carrie Buck provides a fascinating and tragic account of Carrie Buck’s story. At age three, Carrie was taken away from her biological mother, Emma Buck, who was interned in the colony in 1920. Carrie progressed normally in school and was recommended for promotion by her last teacher.
But her adoptive family, the Dobbs, treated Carrie differently than their own children, burdening her with extra chores and requiring her to do housework for other families. During one of the family’s out-of-town trips, Carrie was raped by one of the Dobbs’s nephews.
When Carrie told her adoptive parents, the Dobbs blamed her. Once they discovered that Carrie was pregnant, they wanted to rid themselves of her to protect their family’s reputation. In 1923, the family asked a local court to certify her “feebleminded” and to have her admitted to the same institution as her mother. Despite unconvincing and conflicting testimony from the Dobbs, the judge ruled that Carrie was a suitable candidate for the colony. In 1924, after the birth of her own child, seventeen-year-old Carrie was admitted. Carrie’s baby was taken in by the Dobbs family.
The colony’s superintendent, Albert Priddy—a medical doctor who performed dozens of legally questionable eugenic sterilizations—insisted that Carrie needed sterilization or she would have to be confined “both for her protection and the protection of society . . . until her childbearing age [was] past.”11 Priddy’s top priority was to sterilize “feebleminded” women who could work outside the colony.12
As in other states, Virginia had enacted a law that allowed the sterilization of individuals who were thought to carry defective genes. The law was approved on March 20, 1924, and was cited later in Buck v. Bell:
The health of the patient and the welfare of society may be promoted in certain cases by sterilization of mental defectives under careful safeguards, act; that sterilization may be effected in males by vasectomy and females by salpingectomy, without serious pain or substantial danger to life; the commonwealth is supporting in various institutions many defective persons who if now discharged would become a menace but if incapable of procreating might be discharged with safety and self-supporting with benefit to themselves and society; and the experience has shown that heredity plays an important part in the transmission of insanity, imbecility.13
Under this law, the colony proposed that it was in the best interest of the patient and society that Carrie be sexually sterilized because she had a hereditary form of feeblemindedness.
Carrie’s attorney argued that in no case could involuntary sterilization be justified. In addition, the attorney said that the Virginia statute violated the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and that sterilization was cruel and unusual punishment. Unfortunately for Carrie, her defense attorney, Irving Whitehead, was a eugenics supporter and board member of the colony.14 Legal scholars are certain that Whitehead conspired with his opponents and that his “suspiciously weak defense” failed to provide a suitable challenge to the statute.15
Of the nine-member court, only one judge dissented. On May 2, 1927, the eighty-six-year-old Justice Holmes delivered the majority opinion of the court, upholding the public welfare over the rights of individuals:
It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover the Fallopian tubes [Jacobsen v. Massachusetts 197 U.S. 11]. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.16
Thus, the court found that the statute did not violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Holmes also noted that sterilization could not be considered cruel and unusual punishment because it was not a punishment; it was a means to help Carrie Buck return to the community. Consequently, Carrie Buck was sterilized by Dr. Bell for the “good of herself” and society in October 1927.17 Carrie’s sister, also institutionalized, was later brought into the hospital for appendicitis and was sterilized.
From Virginia to Germany
Naturally, eugenicists rejoiced at the outcome of Buck v. Bell. The judgment prompted other states to pass and enact sterilization laws of their own, initiating a tenfold increase in the number of annual involuntary sterilizations.18
More than 27,000 sterilizations were performed within ten years of the verdict.19 In fact, some scholars believe that up to 100,000 Americans may have been forcibly sterilized.20Curiously, the Buck v. Bell decision did not seem to attract much attention from the general public and received only cursory treatment in the press.21
But the case was followed closely overseas by a country eager to institute a national policy of eugenics: Nazi Germany. Adopted in 1933, the Eugenic Sterilization Law sanctioned the involuntary sterilization of German citizens who possessed hereditary afflictions (such as blindness), epilepsy, mental illnesses (such as schizophrenia), and physical handicaps.
The edict was based on and even borrowed language from Laughlin’s prototype sterilization law. Within one year, more than 56,000 Germans had been deemed “defective” and were sterilized;22 throughout the 1930s, the Reich sterilized some 450,000 people.23Although the legislation began with involuntary sterilization and segregation, it eventually included euthanasia. The policy soon targeted Jews and other “undesirables,” escalating into genocide and the Holocaust.
As the atrocities of the Nazi concentration camps were publicized and entered into the public consciousness, eugenics in the United States began to fall into disfavor. Critics argued that such social ills as poverty, prostitution, and homelessness were not genetically determined but were the result of dire economic and social conditions. Therefore, eugenic sterilization was not only unjust, it was also ineffective.
Modern-Day Movements
Although the simple view of human inheritance has been displaced by a more comprehensive understanding of genetics, people continue to link specific genes to particular human traits and behaviors. Recent studies have attempted to link a number of human characteristics—ranging from alcoholism to homosexuality to aggression to criminality—to genetic markers. But linking complex human traits and behaviors to genetics and heredity is not only erroneous, it can also be dangerous.
The publication of Herrnstein and Murray’s The Bell Curve in 1994 renewed the debate linking intelligence with ethnicity and social class. The book’s central thesis proposed that the significant disparity in intelligence among different ethnic groups could not be eliminated by government programs or legislation intended to improve and equalize economic, social, and educational opportunities.24 Most experts immediately condemned this misguided thinking, but the book appealed to policymakers, segments of the general public, and even some academics.
Two years later, Richard Lynn, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland, published Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration of Modern Populations, which connected human genetics, social class, and intelligence. His central thesis—that improvements in health care and welfare allow people of low intelligence to have more children—led him to conclude that society is experiencing a general decline in the quality of civilized life:
Natural selection has broken down. In centuries past, it did the job for us of weeding out those with low moral character or low intelligence. There was a high mortality rate. Now the underclass survive and have children. Obviously, some measures need to be taken.25
Strains of the eugenics movements also exist in other countries. China’s one-child policy is a well-known example. It was introduced in 1979 as a voluntary program, but within two years, economic and social incentives, coupled with intense community pressure, had a measurable effect on the birth rate—but the program also incited controversy. In a culture where male heirs are prized, the policy has resulted in some selective abortions in favor of boys, abandonment of baby girls, infanticide, and forced sterilizations. Parents who pledge to have one child but have a second must pay back all the one-child compensation they had received, as well as receive additional financial penalties. The State Family Planning Commission announced that the strict family planning regulation would continue until at least 2003, the end of the current government’s term of office (see Figure 1).26
In Singapore, the government embraced a dual-message approach: encouraging the wealthy and educated to have children while offering incentives to the poor and unschooled to be sterilized after having one or two children. Under the program, the children of university-educated parents received tax discounts and a preference in school selection. Disincentives for poor, single mothers included higher hospital fees for having a third child and cash incentives to be sterilized after the first or second child. But because of Singapore’s overall declining birthrate, the government has begun to offer a lucrative “Baby Bonus”—savings account deposits and fully paid maternity leave—in hopes of persuading the wealthy and educated population to multiply.27
In Sweden, where more than 60,000 people were sterilized under the Swedish Sterilization Act, recent controversy regarding the prevention of reproduction among the country’s “socially inferior” citizens has resurfaced. Between 1935 and 1976, the government’s eugenics program was designed to eliminate social undesirables while simultaneously improving the Nordic racial stock. In 1997, Swedish journalist Maciej Zaremba disclosed a forty-year history of adolescent girls who were involuntarily and arbitrarily sterilized for being sexually promiscuous, unintelligent, or antisocial.28 Other reports revealed that some “undesirable” Swedes were sterilized for having bad eyesight, being of mixed race, or having “unmistakable Gypsy features.”29
After the revelations in Sweden, citizens’ groups in Japan demanded formal apologies and compensation from the government for involuntary sterilizations carried out in their country between 1949 and 1995. With the aim of improving the Japanese people, a law permitted doctors to sterilize people without their consent if they were deemed mentally or physically handicapped or had certain hereditary diseases. The Japanese government refused to apologize or pay compensation, arguing that the procedures were legal and a matter of public record.30
Finally, in North America, Canada and the United States share a similar history with respect to eugenics. In Canada, eugenic sterilization, which was legal between 1929 and 1972, was performed on thousands of people; years later, seven hundred of those sterilized without their consent filed suit in Alberta and received compensation.31 Although the movement fell out of favor in much the same way that it did in the United States, a recent survey of medical professionals has led some health law experts to point to a revival of a Canadian eugenics movement.32
An Ethical Future?
Some critics warn that aspects of current genetic research are eerily reminiscent of a eugenics philosophy in modern medicine. Through programs such as the Human Genome Project, an effort to map the entire human genetic makeup, we now have more information than ever about genes, chromosomes, DNA, and particular medical conditions and diseases. Although we cannot fault modern science for finding biological markers for certain medical conditions, teachers must help students understand how linking complex human traits and behaviors to heredity is erroneous and may lead to unjust social policies.
Some historians worry that contemporary economic and social problems can give rise to a new eugenics movement. Given the perennial struggle over limited resources, we can expect eugenic proposals to resurface from time to time. The story of Carrie Buck provides a point of departure for discussing and understanding these multifaceted issues. Let us hope that educating present and future generations will avert another “disgraceful chapter of American legal history.”33
Notes
1. Paul Gray, “Cursed by Eugenics,” New York (11 January 1999): 84-85.
2. Gerald Grob, “Introduction,” in The Surgical Solution: A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United States, ed. Phillip R. Reilly (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), xi.
3. Ruth Macklin and Willard Gaylin, eds., Mental Retardation and Sterilization: A Problem of Competency and Paternalism (New York: Plenum Press, 1981).
4. Phillip R. Reilly, The Surgical Solution: A History of Involuntary Sterilization in the United States (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991).
5. Macklin and Gaylin, Mental Retardation.
6. Ian Robert Dowbiggin, Keeping America Sane: Psychiatry and Eugenics in the United States, 1880-1940 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press).
7. Daniel J. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985).
8. Stephen Jay Gould, The Flamingo’s Smile: Reflections in Natural History (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1985).
9. Matt Ridley, “The New Eugenics,” The National Review (31 July 2000): 34-36.
10. David J. Smith, “The Bell Curve and Carrie Buck: Eugenics Revisited,” Mental Retardation (February 1995): 61.
11. David J. Smith and K. Ray Nelson, The Sterilization of Carrie Buck (Fair Hills, N.J.: New Horizon Press, 1989), 47.
12. Paul A. Lombardo, “Three Generations, No Imbeciles: New Light on Buck v. Bell,” New York University Law Review (April 1985): 30-62.
13. Buck v. Bell. 274 U.S. 200, 47 S. Ct. 584 (1927).
14. Steven Selden, Inheriting Shame: The Story of Eugenics and Racism in America (New York: Teachers College Press, 1999).
15. Lombardo, “Three Generations,” 31.
16. United States Supreme Court, United States Reports 274 (1927), 207.
17. After Priddy’s death in 1925, Dr. J. H. Bell headed the Colony—hence the case name.
18. Dowbiggin, Keeping America Sane.
19. Smith and Nelson, The Sterilization of Carrie Buck.
20. “Swedes Resent Scapegoat Role in Eugenics Controversy,” The Financial Times (6 September 1997): 2.
21. Smith and Nelson, The Sterilization of Carrie Buck.
22. Samuel Holmes, Human Genetics and Its Social Import (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1936).
23. Robert Fox and Ben Fenton, “Eugenics: The Skeleton in the Liberals’ Cupboard,” The Daily Telegraph (29 August 1997): 4.
24. Dowbiggin, Keeping America Sane.
25. As quoted in Luke Harding, “Academic Defends Underclass Claim,” The Guardian (23 December 1996): 7.
26. David Rennie, “Chinese Told One Child Is Rule to 2003,” The Daily Telegraph (London) (20 December 2000):13.
27. Richard Beeston, “Singapore Pays Parents to Have More Children,” The Times (London) (22 August 2000): 14.
28. Paul Gallagher, “The Man Who Told the Secret,” Columbia Journalism Review (January/February 1998): 65-66.
29. Associated Press, “Four Decades of Sterilizing Own Citizens Haunts Sweden,” The Post and Courier (26 August 1997): 8A.
30. Associated Press, “Japan Refuses to Admit Error Over Sterilization of Women,” The Post and Courier (18 September 1997): 11A.
31. Catherine Ford, “Alberta’s Sterilization Debate,” The Gazette (Montreal) (16 March 1998): B3.
32. Marily Moysa, “Eugenics Movement Revival? Evidence of Resurgence Reflected in Response to Medical Survey,” The Gazette (Montreal) (31 December 1995): A5.
33. Lombardo, “Three Generations,” 45.
Teaching Resources
Bajema, Carl J., ed. Eugenics: Then and Now. Stroudsburg, Penn.: Dowden, Hutchinson & Ross, 1976. This collection of historical documents on eugenics includes essays by Galton, Darwin, and Schockley. Laughlin’s “Model Eugenical Sterilization Law” and transcripts from Buck v. Bell are also included.
Ginsburg, Faye D., and Rayna Rapp, eds. The New World Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. The collection of essays investigates reproduction policies around the world.
Paul, Diane B. The Politics of Heredity: Essays on Eugenics, Biomedicine, and the Nature-Nurture Debate. New York: SUNY Press, 1998. Ten essays explore the connections among science, social power, and public policy.
Paul, Diane B. Controlling Human Heredity. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1995. By tracing the history of eugenics, Paul analyzes what events shaped its development and how eugenics became so widely appealing. The book also explores the impact of eugenics on modern-day genetic medicine.
Selden, Steven. Inheriting Shame: The Story of Eugenics and Racism in America. New York: Teachers College Press, 1999. Selden offers a concise history of American eugenics, its impact on public schools, and ethical issues concerning contemporary genetic programs.
Smith, J. David, and K. Ray Nelson. The Sterilization of Carrie Buck. Fair Hills, N.J.: New Horizon Press, 1989. This thorough and accessible book recounts Carrie Buck’s life, the trial, and Buck’s subsequent sterilization.
Websites
Eugenics Bibliography
www.ilppp.Virginia.edu/ilppp/eugenics.html
The Institute of Law, Psychiatry, and Public Policy at the University of Virginia developed a thorough reference list on the history of the eugenics movement in the United States.
Eugenics: To Be or Not To Be? www.homepages.tig.com.au/~kalon/eugenics/frame1.html
Created by a group of students at the University of New South Wales, this site offers a history, working definitions, and discussions of legal and moral issues surrounding eugenics.
Eugenics and the Misuse of Genetic Information to Restrict Reproductive Freedom
www.faseb.org/genetics/ashg/policy/pol-30.htm
Teachers can use this official statement, approved by the Board of Directors of the American Society of Human Genetics in October 1998, as a primary source document to stimulate class discussion.
The Image Archives on the American Eugenics Movement
vector.cshl.org/eugenics
This website provides a fascinating and troubling record of more than 1,200 photographs, charts, reports, medical documents, posters, and other images on eugenics in the United States.
Legal Information Institute
supct.law.cornell.edu/supct
The Legal Information Institute houses a collection of historic decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. Users have access to the full decision of Buck v. Bell.
PBS People and Discoveries
www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/dh23eu.html
This data bank of twentieth century scientists and their biographies provides links to Charles Davenport, William Shockley, and other luminaries in the field.
Michael J. Berson and Bárbara Cruz are associate professors in the Department of Secondary Education, College of Education, University of South Florida.
See also: https://muse.jhu.edu/books/9780801898815/
Teaching Tips
The history of eugenics and the Buck v. Bell case provide a number of opportunities for instruction, reflection, and debate. Far from an exhaustive list, the following instructional strategies can help teachers begin exploring this little-known event and its far-reaching consequences.
Timeline
Have students construct a timeline of the eugenics movement, noting early theories of heredity and social Darwinism, key sterilization legislation, the Buck v. Bell case, World War II, and modern-day movements. A sample timeline is included in this article.
Role-Play
After students research the Buck v. Bell case, the class may conduct a role-play of the event. Some of the roles could include Carrie Buck, the Supreme Court Justices, the prosecution and defense attorneys, the Colony’s chief, and the Dobbs family. Students can retry the case either as if they were living in Buck’s time or according to today’s standards. Have the justices discuss the trial, come to an agreement about the outcome, and explain their decision to the rest of the class.
Carrie Buck’s Daughter
Justice Holmes’s reference to “three generations of imbeciles” included Carrie Buck’s daughter, Vivian. Although the child was diagnosed as mentally deficient at six months, school records and other evidence indicate that the child was normal and even bright by many standards. Ask students to read the chapter “Carrie Buck’s Daughter,” in Stephen Jay Gould’s The Flamingo’s Smile. Discuss this interesting, if tragic, postscript to this often-forgotten character in the Buck saga. Have students generate questions that they would ask Vivian in an interview. As a creative writing exercise, ask students to imagine that they are Vivian Buck and, in her voice, write about how it felt to be mislabeled and misjudged.
Debate on Involuntary Sterilization
Have students divide into groups and debate the following topics:
Patients’ Rights
When, fifty years later, reporters asked Carrie Buck about her sterilization, she replied, “They just told me I had to have an operation, that was all.” Indeed, thousands of people who were sterilized in North America had the procedure done without their knowledge or consent. Lead a class discussion on patients’ rights. Under what circumstances might a doctor or a hospital have the right to make a decision for a patient? Have students create a Code of Ethical Standards for a hospital in their community.
Case Study
In Breeding Better Vermonters: The Eugenics Project in the Green Mountain State (Boston, Mass.: University Press of New England, 1999), historian Nancy Gallagher provides a fascinating account of Vermont’s sterilization program, which attempted to breed out poor health and bad character. One of the main targets, the Abenaki Indians, claimed that the program was part of a larger government scheme to eradicate their group. Have students investigate other examples of targeting racial and ethnic groups through eugenics. Students can use resources from their school library, the public library, and the Internet.
Discussion of Bioethics
Modern genetic and reproductive technologies have led to bioethical issues, such as sperm banks, in-vitro fertilization, cloning, artificial wombs, genetic screening, sex selection, “designer embryos,” and the purposeful creation of babies for the future harvesting of organs. Ask students when these technologies might be justifiable? What is the potential for abuse?
Using Genetic Screenings
Public debates in the United Kingdom have focused on whether insurance companies should be allowed to use genetic screenings when underwriting life or health insurance. Heated discussions continue in the United States as to whether employers should use genetic information in hiring and firing practices. After studying and debating the issue, have students write a position paper supporting their viewpoints.
Cross-Cultural Issues
Copy and distribute Figure 1 to the class or make an overhead transparency. After informing students about China’s one-child policy and its ramifications for genetic testing, lead a discussion on cultural values and mores. A related topic for discussion is population growth and involuntary sterilization. Should the United States limit trading with China to punish the government for their population growth programs?
Figure 1
What Do Geneticists Think?
| Percent agreeing with the statement | China | Britain | United States |
| Couples who are both carriers of a genetic disease should not have children | 92 | 34 | 44 |
| Genetic testing should be included in pre-employment physical examinations | 86 | 46 | 59 |
| Governments should require premarital carrier tests | 86 | 4 | 5 |
| A woman’s abortion decision should be her own | 40 | 68 | 85 |
Source: Andy Coghlan, “Perfect People’s Republic,” New Scientist (24 October 1998): 18.
Eugenic Sterilization LawsPaul Lombardo, University of Virginia
While some eugenicists privately supported practices such as euthanasia or even genocide, legally-mandated sterilization was the most radical policy supported by the American eugenics movement. A number of American physicians performed sterilizations even before the surgery was legally approved, though no reliable accounting of the practice exists prior to passage of sterilization laws. Indiana enacted the first law allowing sterilization on eugenic grounds in 1907, with Connecticut following soon after. Despite these early statutes, sterilization did not gain widespread popular approval until the late 1920s.
Advocacy in favor of sterilization was one of Harry Laughlin’s first major projects at the Eugenics Record Office. In 1914, he published a Model Eugenical Sterilization Law that proposed to authorize sterilization of the “socially inadequate” – people supported in institutions or “maintained wholly or in part by public expense. The law encompassed the “feebleminded, insane, criminalistic, epileptic, inebriate, diseased, blind, deaf; deformed; and dependent” – including “orphans, ne’er-do-wells, tramps, the homeless and paupers.” By the time the Model Law was published in 1914, twelve states had enacted sterilization laws.
By 1924, approximately 3,000 people had been involuntarily sterilized in America; the vast majority (2,500) in California. That year Virginia passed a Eugenical Sterilization Act based on Laughlin’s Model Law. It was adopted as part of a cost-saving strategy to relieve the tax burden in a state where public facilities for the “insane” and “feebleminded” had experienced rapid growth. The law was also written to protect physicians who performed sterilizing operations from malpractice lawsuits. Virginia’s law asserted that “heredity plays an important part in the transmission of insanity, idiocy, imbecility, epilepsy and crime…” It focused on “defective persons” whose reproduction represented “a menace to society.”
Carrie Buck, a seventeen-year-old girl from Charlottesville, Virginia, was picked as the first person to be sterilized. Carrie had a child, but was not married. Her mother Emma was already a resident at an asylum, the Virginia Colony for the Epileptic and the Feebleminded. Officials at the Virginia Colony said that Carrie and her mother shared the hereditary traits of “feeblemindedness” and sexually promiscuity. To those who believed that such traits were genetically transmitted, Carrie fit the law’s description as a “probable potential parent of socially inadequate offspring.” A legal challenge was arranged on Carrie’s behalf to test the constitutional validity of the law.
At her trial, several witnesses offered evidence of Carrie’s inherited “defects” and those of her mother Emma. Colony Superintendent Dr. Albert Priddy testified that Emma Buck had “a record of immorality, prostitution, untruthfulness and syphilis.” His opinion of the Buck family more generally was: “These people belong to the shiftless, ignorant, and worthless class of anti-social whites of the South.” Although Harry Laughlin never met Carrie, he sent a written deposition echoing Priddy’s conclusions about Carrie’s “feeblemind-edness” and “moral delinquency.”
Sociologist Arthur Estabrook, of the Eugenics Record Office, traveled to Virginia to testify against Carrie. He and a Red Cross nurse examined Carrie’s baby Vivian and concluded that she was “below average” and “not quite normal.” Relying on these comments, the judge concluded that Carrie should be sterilized to prevent the birth of other “defective” children.
The decision was appealed to United States Supreme Court. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., himself a student of eugenics, wrote the formal opinion for the Court in the case of Buck v. Bell (1927). His opinion repeated the “facts” in Carrie’s case, concluding that a “deficient” mother, daughter, and granddaughter justified the need for sterilization. The decision includes the now infamous words: It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind…Three generations of imbeciles are enough.
Recent scholarship has shown that Carrie Buck’s sterilization was based on a false “diagnosis” and her defense lawyer conspired with the lawyer for the Virginia Colony to guarantee that the sterilization law would be upheld in court. Carrie’s illegitimate child was not the result of promiscuity; she had been raped by a relative of her foster parents. School records also prove that Vivian was not “feebleminded.” Her 1st grade report card showed that Vivian was a solid “B” student, received an “A” in deportment, and had been on the honor roll.
Nevertheless, Buck v. Bell supplied a precedent for the eventual sterilization of approximately 8,300 Virginians. Borrowing from Laughlin’s Model Law, the German Nazi government adopted a law in 1933 that provided the legal basis for sterilizing more than 350,000 people. Laughlin proudly published a translation of the German Law for the Prevention of Defective Progeny in The Eugenical News. In 1936, Laughlin was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Heidelberg as a tribute for his work in “the science of racial cleansing.”
The second Supreme Court case generated by the eugenics movement tested a 1935 Oklahoma law that prescribed involuntary sexual sterilization for repeat criminals. Jack Skinner was chosen to test the law’s constitutionality. He was a three-time felon, guilty of stealing chickens at age nineteen, and convicted twice in later years for armed robbery. By the time his case was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, in 1942 some 13 states had laws specifically permitting sterilization of criminals.
The opinion striking down the sterilization law in the case of Skinner v. Oklahoma (1942) was written by Justice William O. Douglas. He highlighted the inequity of Oklahoma’s law by noting that a three-time chicken thief could be sterilized while a three-time embezzler could not. Said Douglas: “We have not the slightest basis for inferring that … the inheritability of criminal traits follows the neat legal distinctions which the law has marked between those two offenses.”
Despite the Skinner case, sterilization of people in institutions for the mentally ill and mentally retarded continued through the mid-1970’s. At one time or another, 33 states had statutes under which more than 60,000 Americans endured involuntary sterilization. The Buck v. Bell precedent allowing sterilization of the so-called “feebleminded” has never been overruled.
To learn more from an interesting source, click on the links below:
THE ERRANT SOVEREIGN’S HANDBOOK
by Augustus Blackstone
https://www.1215.org/lawnotes/sovereignty/errant-sovereign-handbook.pdf
The Sovereign, The System: The Interface The Errant Sovereign’s Handbook,
Volume II,
Augustus Blackstone
https://giftoftruth.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/the_errant_sovereigns_handbook-vol-2.pdf
Read, also,
AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION
by Augustus Blackstone
http://www.healthfreedom.info/bar%20association.htm
THE FINAL SOLUTION TO PROPERTY TAX
BY JOE STEVENS, DECEASED
REVISED & REVIVED
BY AUGUSTUS BLACKSTONE
http://freedom-school.com/land_patents-allodial_title.pdf, supplemental, http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=10147
In 1920, Indiana’s Division of Infant and Child Hygiene inaugurated its first Better Babies Contest at the state fair. For the next 12 years, these contests were the centerpiece of a dynamic infant and maternal welfare program that took shape in Indiana during the decade of the federal Sheppard–Towner act. More than just a lively spectacle for fairgoers, these contests brought public health, “race betterment,” and animal breeding together in a unique manner.
This article describes one of the most popular expressions of public health and race betterment in rural America. It also raises questions about the intersections between hereditarian and medical conceptions of human improvement during the early 20th century, especially with respect to child breeding and rearing.
BY 8 AM ON THE MORNING OF September 3, 1929, dozens of mothers were lined up in front of the Better Babies Building at the Indiana State Fair, eagerly waiting for the doors to open.1 Since 1920, and in increasing numbers, babies from nearly every Indiana county had been weighed, measured, and tested at the state fair by physicians and psychologists affiliated with the State Board of Health’s Division of Infant and Child Hygiene.
During the 1920s, this division launched a multifaceted program of “child saving” and maternal education, which included radio talks, mother’s classes, the screening of hygiene films, statistical reports, and consultation clinics. The Better Babies Contest, however, was by far the division’s most spectacular and beloved event, drawing hundreds of young entrants and thousands of curious onlookers to the state fairgrounds during the week of Labor Day.
Each year, more and more Hoosiers—as Indianans like to refer to themselves—crowded into the Better Baby facilities. They watched nurses demonstrate infant feeding techniques, collected free pamphlets such as the Indiana Mother’s Baby Book, or perused displays about nutrition and the virtues of sterilized and sparkling bathrooms and kitchens. While individual girls and boys, twins, and triplets competed for blue ribbons and cash prizes, tired mothers could find refuge at the rest tent and noncontestant children could romp in the playground or nap peacefully in the nursery. According to many physicians, the Indianapolis News, and the promotional newsletterThe Hub of the Universe, the Better Babies Contest was one of Indiana’s most anticipated yearly events.2
At the helm of the better babies program was Dr Ada E. Schweitzer. Over the course of little more than a decade, Schweitzer, appointed director of the newly created Division of Infant and Child Hygiene in 1919, assembled one of the most vibrant public health agencies in the nation. Immediately before she was ousted and the division was disbanded in 1933, Schweitzer counted 4 physicians, 4 nurses, and 5 assistants on her core staff.3
During her 14-year reign, Schweitzer worked sedulously to lower infant and maternal death rates and convince Indianans of the importance of scientific motherhood and child rearing. She lectured to hundreds of neighborhood and civic associations, penned voluminous articles and poems, assessed the physical condition of babies in every one of the state’s 92 counties, and fastidiously managed the affairs of her industrious division. Seemingly unfazed by a taxing travel schedule, Schweitzer could frequently be found adding miles to the division’s child hygiene mobile, which had been equipped with a generator to project movies and lantern slides in remote towns and villages. She was even known to take to the air in a 2-seater airplane to arrive punctually for speaking engagements.
4 In part owing to Schweitzer’s efforts, Indiana’s infant mortality dropped by one third, from 8.2% in 1920 to 5.7% in 1930.
5In this article, I explore not only Schweitzer’s better baby crusade but also the particular circumstances that gave rise to such a dynamic child welfare project in Indiana from 1919 to 1933.
6 This work flourished because of the state’s concern with public health and eugenics. By 1907, for example, Indiana had a pure food statute and a vital statistics act on the books and, furthermore, had passed the country’s first eugenic sterilization law. In 1915, the Indiana State Board of Health was ranked sixth nationwide, in terms of effectiveness, by the American Medical Association.
7During this period many Indiana health reformers, including Schweitzer, frightened by what they perceived to be an escalating menace of the feeble-minded, joined the Indiana State Mental Hygiene Association.
8 Through legal and educational means, Indiana Progressives sought to control procreation and endorsed only the birth of the “best” and healthiest babies. For many Hoosiers, born and raised as farmers, breeding superior children was just a step away from producing heartier corn, pigs, and cattle.
9The activities of the Division of Infant and Child Hygiene multiplied markedly in the 1920s owing to the resources made available by the federal Sheppard–Towner Act, passed in 1921.
10 Administered by the US Children’s Bureau, this act provided matching funds to states that approved “enabling legislation” and established agencies devoted to infant and maternal welfare. Schweitzer, who had preexisting ties to the Children’s Bureau, astutely took advantage of the support granted by Sheppard– Towner. With Schweitzer serving as the intermediary, the convergence of state and federal infant and maternal hygiene programs proved exceptionally efficacious in Indiana.
The success of the Division of Infant and Child Hygiene was also facilitated by Indiana’s demography and topography. In 1920, the state’s population hovered at close to 3 million residents, 95% of whom were native-born and 97% of whom were White. The bulk of Indiana’s African American and immigrant communities lived a marginalized and segregated existence in the cities of Indianapolis, Gary, and East Chicago.
11 Unlike Progressive reformers in diverse, multilingual states such as New York, Illinois, and California, Schweitzer and other Indiana child savers did not need to translate their message into foreign languages or tailor their “Americanization” campaigns for Polish, Italian, or Mexican newcomers.
12 Instead, the primary targets of public health and race betterment efforts in Indiana were poor and working-class Whites, especially impoverished farm dwellers living beyond the orbit of urbanization and industrialization.
Despite Indiana’s unusual makeup, it has often been characterized as the quintessentially American state, a reputation most decidedly earned by the 1929 publication of Robert and Helen Lynd’s Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture, which examined the city of Muncie.
13 If Middletown encapsulated the values of America as idealized in the 1920s, then tracing the emergence of its better babies movement should reveal a great deal about the largely understudied interplay between public health and race betterment in the country as a whole during the first half of the 20th century.14
The Indiana Child Creed (sidebar) entered the Hoosier vernacular in 1915 when it debuted as the epigraph of the Indiana Mothers’ Baby Book.
15 Published by the State Board of Health, this advice manual was distributed free of charge, along with a letter of introduction, to every mother who registered her newborn with the state.
16 Over the subsequent 2 decades this creed, an awkward patchwork of eugenic, public health, Protestant, and Progressive ideas, would be printed in hundreds of articles and tracts and recited resolutely by the state’s health advocates. Although it is impossible to gauge how many Hoosiers absorbed or heeded the child creed, its appearance signified the inception of better baby work in Indiana.
Promoted on 3 interconnected levels—local, state, and federal—child welfare programs took shape and began to coalesce in the Hoosier heartland in the late 1910s and early 1920s.
Indiana’s burgeoning interest in infant hygiene reflected broader trends at the turn of the century, as reformers from coast to coast began to embrace the doctrine of “progressive maternalism.”
17 According to Molly Ladd-Taylor, progressive maternalists occupied the middle ground between feminists and proponents of sentimental motherhood. Whereas the former waged a fierce battle for sex equality on the streets and in the halls of Congress, the latter saw no place for women outside the home. Progressive maternalists combined and tempered these 2 perspectives, asserting that the biological and social experience of motherhood endowed women with a heightened sense of moral duty that was beneficial to both family and nation. They politicized maternity by arguing that female citizens, who carried the well-being of future generations in their wombs, were entitled to suffrage as well as leadership roles in society and government.
This logic was employed by suffragettes who asserted that New Zealand’s low infant mortality rate was a direct result of more than 20 years of female enfranchisement. One leaflet issued by the National Woman Suffrage Publishing Company, for instance, portrayed a toddler looking warily at a door that was barely ajar and swarming with deadly microbes. The accompanying caption read: “I wish my mother had a vote—to keep the germs away.”
18 Linking the language of bacteriology and biology, progressive maternalists charted an agenda for the country in which national strength, better babies, and the political visibility of women went hand in hand.
On a national scale, the ethos of progressive maternalism was best exemplified by the US Children’s Bureau. Established in 1912 by Progressives long committed to immigrant and infant welfare, the Children’s Bureau was the first government agency directed by a woman, Julia Lathrop, who in 1921 was succeeded by Grace Abbott. Both were veterans of Chicago’s Hull House, one of the first immigrant settlement homes in the United States.
19 Immediately after taking charge of the Children’s Bureau, Lathrop settled on the reduction of infant mortality as the agency’s cardinal objective. In 1910, between 100 and 200 of every 1000 infants born in the United States perished, a figure that had been lowered discernibly since 1900 but still exceeded rates in New Zealand and a handful of European countries.
20Although the Bureau interpreted the manifold problems of children through the prism of public health and medicine, few members of its staff were physicians. The preliminary composition and outlook of the bureau were altered substantially over time, however, as doctors—many of whom were male—began to claim jurisdiction over most arenas of children’s health. One of the historical ironies is that by professionalizing infant and maternal welfare and urging mothers to consult private pediatricians, the Children’s Bureau enhanced the authority of doctors and bolstered the notion that private primary care was the most creditable mode of child health.
21 The development of better baby work in Indiana emulated this pattern, arising in large part from a groundswell of women’s volunteerism in the first decade of the 20th century but thoroughly controlled by male pediatricians by the mid 1930s. Much to her dismay, Schweitzer, a physician and a progressive maternalist, paved the way for this gendered transfer of power in the Hoosier heartland.
Just 2 years after its founding, the Children’s Bureau initiated what would blossom into a fruitful relationship with the Indiana State Board of Health when it dispatched its designated exhibit expert, Dr Anne Louise Strong, to Indianapolis to preside over an upcoming child welfare display.22 Two years later, in January 1916, the Children’s Bureau returned to Indiana. This time, however, the agency came for 4 months, to lay the foundations for a comprehensive infant and maternal hygiene program. During the second decade of the 20th century, the Children’s Bureau rotated its field agents throughout the country to galvanize child welfare initiatives.23 To rural Indiana, it sent Florence Brown Sherbon, a Kansas physician who in the 1920s became a member of the American Eugenics Society and one of the most vocal exponents of “fitter families” contests at agricultural fairs.24 She was later joined by Mary Mills West, author of the acclaimed Children’s Bureau tracts Infant Care and Prenatal Care, and Elizabeth Moore, who had helped Strong with the child welfare exhibit less than 2 years earlier.
25During the winter and spring of 1916, Sherbon, Moore, and West preached the gospel of child saving throughout Indiana. In places often inaccessible by rail or asphalt, they showed movies; handed out pamphlets; examined the eyes, ears, and mouths of children; illustrated infant feeding techniques; and dispensed scales of normal development and nutrition charts, all the while compiling birth and death statistics.
26 Following on the heels of American Farm Bureau agents, who had begun canvassing the countryside at the turn of the century to further modern agriculture, Sherbon and her team used the language of crops and breeding to persuade Hoosiers to apply scientific knowledge to the procreation and bringing up of children.
27 They implored farmers to shed superstition for science, vowing that if they heeded their instructions about milk sterilization, nourishment, and parturition, their sons and daughters would “grow up strong and well.”
28INDIANA CHILD CREED
The crux of the Children’s Bureau mission in Indiana, however, was the “babies’ health conferences” Sherbon and her colleagues orchestrated in towns and cities such as Lagrange, Butler, Kendalville, Petersburg, and Washington. According to the informational brochure, the aim of these gatherings was to “show the physical condition of the children examined and indicate the points at which their health and vigor may be improved by the efforts of the parents.”
29 Spending 4 days in each locale, bureau representatives inspected children younger than 6 years and exposed Hoosiers to films, written materials, and visual aids.
30Aside from ushering in innovative notions about child rearing, one of the topmost goals of these conferences was to expedite the continuation of better baby work in Indiana. In every town on their itinerary, Sherbon and her team scrutinized the feasibility of follow-up efforts among local women’s clubs and medical groups, many of which had independently begun grassroots campaigns.
These activities sparked moderate interest in child hygiene but certainly did not bring about the sweeping program envisioned by the Children’s Bureau. The seeds for a more far-reaching plan were planted at the babies’ health conference held in conjunction with Indiana University’s Extension University in Bloomington in March 1916.
31Sherbon and her colleagues were convinced that the movement would be guaranteed “a much better chance for permanent survival” if it were housed in a state division, not scattered among local groups. Hence, at that meeting they broached the possibilities for such a public health unit with John N. Hurty, director of the Indiana State Board of Health from 1896 to 1922 and an ardent eugenicist and outspoken supporter of the sterilization and marriage laws.
32Not surprisingly, given his concerns with race betterment and child saving, Hurty responded enthusiastically and, in spite of an immediate lack of funds, conveyed his willingness to submit a proposal in the next legislative cycle.
33Three years after these conversations and the Children’s Bureau babies’ health conferences, the Indiana State Board of Health’s Division of the Child and Infant Hygiene was created and Schweitzer was appointed its director.
34Schweitzer’s relationship with Hurty and the Board of Health began in 1906, when she was hired as an assistant bacteriologist at the state laboratory. Born in 1873 in the northern town of Lagrange, Schweitzer grew up on a farm where her Scottish-Irish mother and German father raised mint and purebred poultry. After attending Lima High School, she left Indiana to obtain her baccalaureate at Michigan State Normal College, returning permanently in 1902 to pursue her medical degree at Indiana Medical College.
While in school, Schweitzer conducted bacteriological studies at the state laboratory, concentrating on the prevalence and morbidity of children’s epidemics such as measles, diphtheria, and typhoid.35 Inspired by ideas of progressive maternalism and Hurty’s principles of racial uplift, Schweitzer soon became Indiana’s leading champion of infant hygiene, and by the second decade of the 20th century she was spearheading child welfare projects. In 1916, for example, she represented the State Board of Health at the Children’s Bureau conference in her hometown of Lagrange, delivering 2 talks titled “Personal Hygiene” and “Sanitation in the Home.”36
In 1918 she was elected chairwoman of the Indiana branch of the American Association for the Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality.37 That same year she authored a survey of infant mortality in Gary on special assignment for the Children’s Bureau. In the fall of 1918 she traveled to the South to realize a similar investigation but soon was attending to the crisis engendered by the influenza outbreak. As she was vacating her temporary post in Georgia, Schweitzer received word of Hurty’s invitation to become director of the Division of Infant and Child Hygiene.38
When the division’s starting appropriation of $10 000 became available in October 1919, Schweitzer and her staff of 3—a nurse, a chauffeur, and a stenographer—swung into action.
39 In a detailed letter, Hurty boasted to Lathrop about the extensive and trailblazing endeavors of Schweitzer and her underlings. Hurty explained that Schweitzer was “carrying the news into the rural regions beyond the railways” and venturing “deep into the country” to find areas that had scarcely been reached by health officials or the Indiana Mothers’ Baby Book. Above all, Hurty was proud of the division’s child mobile, a Dodge truck outfitted with “a Delco electric apparatus” that lit up “country school houses or churches” and activated the “stereopticon and moving picture machine.”
In most towns, Schweitzer’s entrance behind the wheel of the mobile—customarily adorned with flags—was a festive event always “announced by a bugle.” In town after town the routine was repeated: “Mothers are invited to bring their babies for physical examination. Advice and circulars are given to them, and then the Division moves on to the next stand, which as said, is always advertised beforehand.”
40As she launched Indiana’s better baby movement, Schweitzer reenergized the mission of the Children’s Bureau. Crisscrossing Indiana from county to county, Schweitzer and her corps handed out pamphlets, mounted exhibits, delivered lectures, screened films, and demonstrated techniques for nursing and preparing formula. Each month, Schweitzer personally scrutinized the health of hundreds of children—assessing their teeth, height, weight, vision, hearing, tonsils, adenoids, possible infections, defects, eating habits, hours of sleep, access to fresh air, and home surroundings.
41Schweitzer’s 1920 annual report revealed that the division had convened conferences in 27 counties, examined 8000 children, and presented lectures or films in 290 towns. Continually striving for lay involvement, the division had collaborated with 476 local, 53 state, and 63 national organizations on joint projects.
42 Furthermore, by 1921, many Indiana mothers, worried about the health of their babies, had sent “Dear Dr Schweitzer” letters to the division’s headquarters at the State House.
43If the division grew steadily in the early 1920s, it expanded exponentially after the passage of the federal Maternity and Infancy, or Sheppard–Towner, Act. Although the Indiana State Medical Association—like its parent the American Medical Association—loudly opposed Sheppard–Towner and labeled it intrusive state medicine, Hurty’s national prestige and Indiana’s entrenched eugenic and public health programs guaranteed endorsement of the necessary “enabling legislation” by the state assembly.
44 With a budget 3 times her original one, in 1923 Schweitzer substantially broadened and reconfigured the division. She hired additional nurses and assistants, amplified the radius of the child health conferences, founded maternal and infancy centers, augmented public nursing efforts, and realized increasingly ambitious statistical and clinical studies.
45 As in similar agencies across the country, the bulk of her staff were female nonphysicians, an arrangement that provoked the ire of a vocal segment of Indiana’s predominantly male medical establishment.
During this period Schweitzer initiated mothers’ classes to teach pregnant women the fundamentals of prenatal and baby care.
46 In addition to inculcating scientific motherhood and basic precepts of public hygiene, these courses also furnished a venue for Schweitzer to expound on the virtues of Indiana’s eugenic marriage and sterilization laws, which she believed ensured the robustness of Hoosier babies.
47 In 1925, 16 649 women—more than 50% of all attendees nationwide—took mothers’ classes in Indiana under the aegis of the Division of Infant and Child Hygiene.
48That same year, Schweitzer wrote to the Children’s Bureau, “[O]ur work is growing so fast that it is difficult to plan so far ahead.”
49 By 1926, the division’s operating funds had climbed to $60 000 and it counted more than 20 full-time and temporary employees.
50 Moreover, according to the census, Indiana’s infant mortality rates had fallen to the fourth lowest in the country, a decrease due to several intertwined factors, including the division’s campaigns.
51After one decade, the division had examined the health of 77 584 children, enrolled 55 171 mothers in instructional classes, shown health films to 606 364 viewers, and reached almost half of the state’s population of 3 million through the distribution of 1 216 577 pamphlets.
52Schweitzer’s crusade indubitably altered attitudes about health, maternity, and childhood in Indiana. In Muncie, for example, the Lynds found that mothers were voracious readers of pamphlets and installment books on prenatal and infant care, always on the lookout for “every available resource for help in training their children.”
53Moreover, according to the Lynds, most Muncie parents readily embraced the latest pediatric advice.Some, however, were bewildered by this avalanche of new instructional materials and were averse to renouncing tried and true practices that had been handed down from generation to generation through female relatives. Like the Children’s Bureau during its 1916 tour of Indiana, since 1919 the Division of Infant and Child Hygiene had sought to persuade inhabitants of Muncie and the rest of Indiana of the imperative of the rules of scientific motherhood and child rearing. From the perspective of Schweitzer and other reformers, the integrity of Hoosier health and citizenship depended the mass adaptation of infant and maternal hygiene. As Schweitzer was fond of saying, only this would enable Indiana to become a good parent.
The centerpiece of Schweitzer’s quest to groom Indiana into an enlightened guardian of Hoosier children were the better babies contests, inaugurated in 1920 and, until their discontinuation in 1932, one of the most popular events at the state fair. The significance of the contests was layered and complex. As manifestations of the state fair in miniature, each year the better babies contest served as a venue for Hoosiers to negotiate past and present, nostalgia and modernity.
55 They acquainted Indianans with the most up-to-date opinions of child specialists, thereby reinforcing emergent pediatric norms and imbuing university-trained experts with ultimate authority over matters pertaining to the biology, physiology, and psychology of children.
The contests also commercialized this process, through advertising in and sponsorship by the Indianapolis News, by soliciting patronage from businesses such as the Hoosier Fence Company and the Weber Milk Company, and by fostering a competitive climate in which the winner received cash prizes and a trophy.
56 Finally, while the contests bolstered professionalized child medicine and brand name consumerism, they simultaneously depicted babyhood as a time of innocence and purity that was under assault by 20th-century urbanization and industrialization.
57Moreover, by excluding African American children, the contests reinforced patterns of segregation in Indiana and promoted the idea that only White babies could achieve perfection and symbolize the Hoosier state.
58 Schweitzer reportedly ordained the contest “a school of education in eugenics” and countenanced the use of categories that made “some allowance for familial and racial types.”59 More implicitly than overtly, she furthered Indiana’s racial divisions as she strove to improve the overall health of Hoosier children and modernize rural mothers through science.
Despite their immense popularity at the state fair, better babies contests did not originate in Indiana. Adumbrated by 19th-century beauty pageants, the contests began at the Iowa State Fair in 1911 when clubwoman Mary T. Watts asked, “You are raising better cattle, better horses, and better hogs, why don’t you raise better babies?”60To judge infants like livestock, Watts and another rural reformer, Margaret Clark, devised scorecards that tallied level of physical health, anthropometric traits, and mental development. Soon thereafter, the widely read magazineWoman’s Home Companion embarked on its Better Baby Campaign by sending one of its editors, Anna Steese Richardson, to Colorado to advance the contests.61 Soon they were all the rage, and by 1914, Woman’s Home Companion claimed “that contests had been held in every state except West Virginia, New Hamsphire, and Utah, and that more than 100 000 children had been examined.”62
With its field workers already dispersed around the country taking part in local infant hygiene efforts, the Children’s Bureau became involved in the contests as well. Lathrop, however, while supporting the educational aspect of the contests, was disturbed by the competitiveness they fostered, the commercialism they endorsed, and their glaring lack of a standardized scoring system. Thus, she arranged for the Bureau to join forces with the American Medical Association to develop a scorecard acceptable to the pediatric establishment and also began to sponsor an alternative, the children’s health conferences, which contained most of the elements of the better babies contests without numerical rankings. Indeed, during Sherbon’s reconnoitering of Indiana in 1916, she and her colleagues complained in several towns about crowded, confusing, and ill-managed contests that had been inspired by Woman’s Home Companion.63 They hoped that the children’s health conference would “successfully demonstrate a different method.”64
Given her close ties to the Children’s Bureau, Schweitzer was initially reluctant to incorporate better babies contests into her division’s activities. Hence in 1920, when Charles F. Kennedy, then secretary of the State Board of Agriculture, proposed that she oversee a contest at the state fair that year, she evinced skepticism. Kennedy, who had conducted a similar contest in Grand Rapids, Mich, was convinced it would be a wonderful addition to the fair.
65 Schweitzer was soon swayed by Kennedy’s petition and in 1920 presided over one of the fair’s most crowd-pleasing features.
66 Within no time, she was a fervent defender of the contests, justifying them as completely professional endeavors, guided by the firm principles of pediatrics and child psychology. Explaining her decision to avidly back the contests at the state fair, Schweitzer wrote to Dr. Talafierro Clark of the US Public Health Service, “I had numerous consultations with men skilled in pediatrics and specialists” as “we needed to place the contest on as high a plane as possible, in order to free it as near as could be from objectionable features.”
67 Schweitzer consistently distinguished the state fair contest from its makeshift and unregulated imitations in small rural towns and villages. Schweitzer wanted all of Indiana’s baby contests to be directed solely by the division and regularly pleaded with rural reformers to erect an alternative, the baby rest tent, where toddlers would be shielded from dust, crowds, possible exploitation, and the disappointment of losing in an amateur competition.
68 To meet the benchmark of professionalism, she used a scorecard based directly on the template formulated by the American Medical Association and the Children’s Bureau.
69By the mid-1920s, Schweitzer was showcasing the better babies contests on the radio and in articles in theMonthly Bulletin of the ISBH and the Hub of the Universe. She contended that the value of the contests resided in the fact that they “set the best standards of health before the parents that they may compare these with the actual condition of their child.”
70 For the most part, Schweitzer believed that better babies contests provided a level playing field on which infants could be judged according on their own merits.
While Schweitzer certainly viewed the contests as a facet of a more extensive race betterment project, she alleged that the “gates of heredity” were closed after the baby left the womb. It was essential to first restrict birth to only the most fit, through marriage and sterilization laws, and then create only the most desirable children through scientific child rearing and motherhood. Reflecting her particular blend of eugenics and public health, Schweitzer told one Muncie reformer, “You can not make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, neither can we make a citizen out of an idiot or any person who is not well born.”71
Schweitzer frequently extolled the benefits of the contests, claiming, for example, that the lessons taught by the contests had helped to lower the percentage of underweight contestant babies from 10% in 1920 to 2% in 1929.72 To publicize this annual September event, she wrote announcements, published fact sheets, and explained scoring procedures in laborious detail.
73 With each passing year, the contests became more popular among Indianans. In 1920, for example, 78 babies were examined; by 1925 this number had risen more than 10-fold, to 885, and in 1930 when 1301 young entrants were counted, enthusiasm was so overwhelming that Schweitzer opted to cap the number of entrants at 1200 the following year.
74In 1923 the Indianapolis News began to sponsor the contest, giving it a big boost; not only did the paper devote more space to articles, but it also began to print full-length pages with individual photos of hundreds of contestant babies whose mothers had sent in their registration forms by the deadline.
75 In 1924 the contest grounds were enlarged when a window-paneled Better Babies Building was erected, thanks to a $10 000 donation from J. E. Oliver of Oliver Chilled Plow Works. This new edifice housed exhibits, examinations of noncontestant babies, and demonstrations.
76 In 1927, the contests themselves were moved from a partition of the Woman’s Building, where they had been held faithfully since 1920, to a brand-new Better Babies Contest Building. Constructed as part of the state fair’s Diamond Jubilee, this building was financed by a special $5000 appropriation from the State Board of Agriculture and the legislature
.77As the contest grew under Schweitzer’s commanding presence, it also became more streamlined and efficient. For the week-long event, she contracted a general pediatrician—almost always Dr James C. Carter—as well as an optometrist, an otorhinolaryngologist, and several extra nurses and orderlies. In addition, assistance was provided by the Girl and Boy Scouts, who escorted mothers from station to station.
The contest procedure was well honed. Before the event began, the registered infants were divided into groups based on age (12–24 months or 24–36 months), sex, and place of residence. Those categorized as city babies lived in places with 10 000 inhabitants or more; the others were considered rural. With their children classified, parents—usually mothers—arrived at the better babies complex at the state fair at a designated time. As the mothers entered the building they submitted their enrollment form to a female attendant, who recorded the name of the mother and child. Then the baby was whisked away to the next booth, where its overall health history was taken by a nurse.
Mental tests—distinct for each age group—followed. Psychologists observed whether the children could stand, walk, and speak; how they manipulated blocks and balls; and how they responded to questions such as “How does the doggie do?” and “Who is the baby in the mirror?”78 Mental tests completed, the babies were undressed and their clothes placed in a paper bag with an identifying number. Identically robed in flannel togas, the babies were weighed and measured. From here each baby passed from the optometrist to the general pediatrician and finally to the otorhinolaryngologist. After being weighed and measured a second time, each baby was dressed in his or her own clothing and bedecked with a bronze medal on a blue ribbon, courtesy of the Indianapolis News.
Scores were calculated along the way. From a starting score of 1000, deductions were calculated for a wide host of physical defects including unevenness of the head, scaly skin, ill deportment, delayed teething, abnormal ear size or shape, and enlarged glands. Slow reactions to the mental tests or perceived lack of muscular coordination lowered a child’s score, as did deviations from the national standards for height and weight (based on age) and weight-to-height ratio. Tabulated results from the contests indicate that Schweitzer instructed her team to subtract the most infinitesimal of figures for each defect—most likely to maintain high results for every baby, thus diluting the rivalrous nature of the contests. The victor generally scored above 990; Alma Louise Strohmeyer, a 1-year-old Indianapolis girl, triumphed with 999.92813 points in 1923.79
In spite of their professed formality and orderliness, the contests were both crowded and noisy. In 1928, for example, 67 000 people streamed through the better babies complex, watching the psychological tests, spending time at the rest tent and nursery, and taking in the infant and maternal care dioramas.
80 As thousands made their way through the contest rooms, babies howled as they were unclothed, squealed when prodded by the stethoscope, or cooed delightedly when given their blue ribbon.
81 In 1925, the News described the chaos as a packed room filled to overflowing with the “noisy accompaniment of more than 200 child voices. The perfection of the lungs of the babies examined Monday could scarcely be doubted, and if there are not future opera singers and booming voiced orators of the group, many of the attendants and onlookers are exceedingly poor prophets.”
82While the impact of the contests is difficult to gauge, it is not unreasonable to accept Schweitzer’s contention that they played a part in effectively reducing infant mortality rates and prompting mothers to safeguard against the bacterial infection of milk and food. The contests also provided a platform for the commercialization of public health as well as the incorporation of the “better baby” into advertising—a newborn icon that figured regularly in the 1920s, selling products such as condensed milk and infant formula.
Schweitzer’s correspondence, furthermore, reveals that not only did many Hoosiers regularly send her general inquiries about child rearing, but many mothers—of varying degrees of literacy—were concerned enough about their children’s contest scores to contact the division.
In 1922 one parent wrote to Schweitzer anxious to know her daughter’s “failing points” and to find out “in what way she failed a perfect score.”
83 That same year, Schweitzer received a letter from another set of fretful parents: “We are so anxious to know her defects and in what way she was lacking.”
84 These and numerous additional letters demonstrate the extent to which Indianans from every inch of the state viewed Schweitzer as a trusted expert who could direct, or at least make recommendations about, local child-saving events. They also suggest that for those who attended the division’s many conferences, workshops, and classes, the line between public health and eugenics was nebulous or nonexistent.
On one hand, Schweitzer implored Hoosiers to adhere to the state’s marriage laws and spoke out consistently in favor of the state’s sterilization restrictions, which were based on a Mendelian understanding of hereditary transmission.
On the other, she was just as beholden to the gospels of private hygiene, pure milk, vaccination programs, and clean air and sunshine.
For Schweitzer and hundreds of other reformers, particularly the progressive maternalists, these multiple and seemingly paradoxical aspects of infant welfare and scientific motherhood coexisted quite comfortably on a wide continuum of race betterment.
In 1932 the last better babies contest was held, attracting thousands of spectators. In the early 1930s, the Depression, the resentment of Indiana’s male pediatricians, and the election of new Democratic administration converged, setting the stage for the end of the Division of Infant and Child Hygiene. Intent on centralizing his New Deal plan and distancing himself from his Republican predecessors, in 1933 Governor Paul V. McNutt abruptly dismissed Schweitzer and transferred the newly named Department of Child Health and Maternal Welfare to the Indiana University School of Medicine.
Of the division’s more than 20 employees, only Dr James C. Carter—the pediatrician Schweitzer hired each year to examine better babies—was retained to serve on a committee charged with designing a new blueprint for child welfare in Indiana.
85 None of the female physicians or nurses who had so faithfully staffed Schweitzer’s division for more than a decade were asked to join McNutt’s revamped department, which emphasized clinical pediatric teaching instead of hands-on infant and maternal hygiene projects. Nonetheless, Schweitzer’s legacy was felt in 1936 when McNutt oversaw the passage of legislation to receive Title V funds through the Social Security Act and partially revived the division. A Bureau of Maternal and Child Health, both federally and state financed in a manner akin to Sheppard–Towner, was founded, and a male physician closely affiliated with the Indiana State Medical Association was named its director.
86 Many historians of 20th-century America conceptualize public health and eugenics as antithetical movements separated by the conceptual gulf between environment and heredity.
87 Schweitzer’s work in Indiana, and better babies contests across the country more generally, illustrate that race betterment was an expansive rubric with a great deal of space for overlapping ideas and practices. The Division of Infant and Child Hygiene’s experiment demonstrates the active leadership of female reformers in infant and maternal welfare in the 1920s as well as the problematic racial and class implications of making babies better in Indiana.
Research for this article was greatly facilitated by the expertise and good cheer of Vicki Casteel of the Indiana State Archives. I would like to thank the 4 anonymous reviewers who offered helpful and incisive criticism, as well as the following individuals for their insights and historical knowledge: Howard Markel, Janet Tarolli, and James Madison.
Author of this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and Especially to My Little Julian, is not a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner, therefore, no information contained herein this post and/or blog could be (mis)construed as “legal advice.” Anyone who exercises he/r rights, and private property sometimes called “child” for deceptive, possibly malicious or retaliatory, and profiteering/privateering and in the “best interests” . . . of the “state” Texas General and other Funds at one’s own peril, risk, and/ or self-fulfillment. The choice is yours.
English PDF (12.74Mb)
Ed Truncellito, a Texas Lawyer, is bringing a RICO claim for 7.5 BILLION dollars to expose the ORGANIZED CRIME of the Bar Association. Read these excerpts and then forward this to EVERY NEWSGROUP, E-GROUP, and EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!
EXPOSE THE ORGANIZED CRIMINAL BAR ASSOCIATION.
THIS IS CLEAR EVIDENCE THAT STATE BARS AND FAMILY LAWYERS AROUND THE COUNTRY ARE CONSCIOUSLY, VICIOUSLY, AND WILLINGLY DESTROYING THIS COUNTRY AND UNDERMINING ITS SOCIAL FABRIC AS WELL AS ERODING THE CONSTITUTION…
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Plaintiff, CASUALTIES OF NO-FAULT DIVORCE FRAUD (ASSUMED NAME FOR EDWARD TRUNCELLITO), an individual who is a resident of Texas, on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated, brings this class action suit for $7,500,000,000.00 against the State Bar of Texas, for violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), 18 USC §1962, for fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and extortion.
(Note: Plaintiff is publicizing this action at web site http://www.no-one-is-married.com.)
SBOT No-Fault Divorce Fraud is a cover-up, like Big Tobacco
7/16/00, Houston Chronicle, p. 17A, “Punitive Damages is memo to industry,” quoting Leighton Finegan, jury foreman of the $145,000,000,000.00 tobacco punitive damages verdict:
a.. “I hope it sends a strong message for all companies in America that they can’t fraudulently represent anything to the public,” he said. “This case was not about choosing to smoke,” Chwast said. “It’s about if you know you’re making a defective product, and these companies knew that.”
Lawyer insider exposes SBOT [State Bar of Texas] No-Fault Divorce Fraud
b.. As an insider to Texas law, Truncellito now blows the whistle on an immense criminal Family Law racket being concealed by the State Bar of Texas, “SBOT.”
c.. Truncellito has discovered, and explains in allegations below-at the peril of fortune and possibly life-that SBOT’s Family Law System was deliberately designed to destroy helpless Texas families for the profit of its own lawyers.
d.. In his 11/24/99 letter, Truncellito informed SBOT that he uncovered massive SBOT corruption causing a family holocaust. An excerpt: “At my own expense I have spent over 1,000 hours researching the law . And my personal investment has not been in vain.
I have uncovered scandalous corruption in Texas family law and in the Texas Family Bar. Texas marriages are being systematically and recklessly destroyed through unlawful adversarial practices of the Texas Family Bar.
But further, in this huge research effort, I have not just uncovered problems. I also have developed reasonable and realistic – though far-reaching – judicial solutions that will substantially remedy those problems at their root.
However, at the same time that marriages are saved, divorces will decline dramatically. Consequently, the revenues of the Family Bar, as the practice exists today, will be dramatically reduced.
The Family Bar lawyers stand to lose a fortune .”
1.. The day after receiving the letter, SBOT, through their agents, Joseph Indelicato and Stephen Statham, began “disability” proceedings to suspend Truncellito’s license to practice law. Mr. Statham explained that Mr. Truncellito’s letter showed “a lot of passion.”
2.. Mr. Truncellito, a teetotaler since 1988, is an honors graduate in computer science who worked eight years as a programmer for the law firm of Baker & Botts. Mr. Truncellito scored in the top one percent on the Law School Admission Test, went to law school at night, at the University of Houston, and graduated in 1995.
3.. On 6/12/00, Mr. Truncellito presented his 220 page “Motion for Rehearing En Banc” to the First Court of Appeals, accusing the First Court’s staff of criminal misconduct in their refusal to interpret the Texas no-fault divorce law (see section below about their “4/20/00 Opinion.”)
1.. The First Court of Appeals denied Mr. Truncellito a fifteen minute hearing on appeal after they knew he invested (by then) fifteen hundred hours in Texas Family Law research.
1.. SBOT Corruption Cover-up Agency-“The Commission” 1.. Only by Divine Providence has Truncellito avoided-thus far-being silenced by the “The Commission” (“Commission for Lawyer Discipline”), SBOT’s secret police, whose rules are designed to conceal SBOT crime and corruption from the public.
2.. “The Commission” (and BODA, the Board of Disciplinary Appeals), is heart of SBOT’s organized crime.
3.. “The Commission” keeps “the profession” from falling into disrepute, much as “The Godfather” keeps “The Family” from falling into disrepute.
4.. SBOT legal corruption is carefully disguised to appear reasonable to untrained eyes, and “The Commission” uses totally secret procedures to silence insider lawyers who have training to recognize the criminal scams when they stumble into them. The Commission even has power to imprison lawyers who reveal that they have been subpoenaed to appear at some of “The Commission’s” secret hearings.
5.. “The Commission” silences whistle-blowers with secret proceedings, using their “disability” rule, which is like a blank check, which reads: “a mental or emotional condition that results in the inability to practice law.”
6.. A license suspension itself results in the “inability to practice law,” and then “The Commission” can name any emotion to fulfill the condition of their rule. The net result: for any or no reason, “The Commission” can suspend a lawyer’s license-and all the lawyer’s earnings.
7.. “The Commission” can have anyone be the initial accuser of “disability.” Then, they appoint their own psychiatrist, prosecutor, witnesses, judge, and jury, to “further consider the issue of ‘disability.'”
8.. Their tribunals have absolute discretion-“The Commission’s” term for absolute power-and absolute secrecy. The Commission knows that absolute tyranny is necessary to enforce absolute silence from whistle-blowers. 1.. All of SBOT is in disorder, but Family Law especially Go To Table of Contents
By the time lawyers graduate from law school and begin to suspect criminal realities in SBOT, they are dependent on their incomes from lawyering, and they cannot afford to make waves.
1.. Some lawyers are in areas of law less prone to the criminal frauds, and their naïveté, and freedom from those schemes, helps protect the image of “the profession.”
2.. Other lawyers either join up with the corruption-or they look the other way and keep silent, because otherwise, dissenters are quickly taught their lesson by “The Commission.”
3.. By the time a lawyer has substantial influence with any breadth, the lawyer knows what must not be inquired into-for wisdom’s sake.
Law schools, by their complex curriculums, assist SBOT’s criminal designs by increasing the cost of entry into “the profession.”
1.. U. of Houston Professor David Crump points out the absurdity of the law school teaching approach, comparing it to learning about baseball by watching a game through a knothole in the fence.
2.. Yet these brilliant doctors of law leave such an antiquated teaching system in place knowing that the barrier to entry helps protect the image-and monopoly-of “the profession.”
1.. 1.. When it comes to disciplining outsiders for “unauthorized practice of law,” any lawyer whatsoever can prosecute a lawsuit against the outsider,” for swift and effective enforcement.
2.. However, for disciplining insiders, for ethical misconduct, the only way a lawyer can be disciplined, is by “The Commission.”
3.. “The Commission’s” disciplinary system requires secrecy unless “The Commission” decides to publish. So any of “The Commission’s” enemies, or lawyers whose misdeeds cannot be concealed, can be exposed for misconduct, while at the same time, criminal rackets can be protected.
2.. The justice system’s present corruption, in Family Law, however, is extraordinary in the scope of its social destructiveness.
3.. Family Law corruption affects the entire population and has destroyed, not only the sacredness of marriage, but the very right to “marry” itself, as marriage has always been known, where spouses must try to stay together peaceably, at least reasonably try to keep their vows, before a divorce can be granted.
4.. Family Law corruption is the focus of this lawsuit. No-Fault Divorce Fraud: Family Hospital deteriorated into a Family Morgue
e.. Letting SBOT’s Divorce Lawyers implement No-Fault divorce laws was like letting morticians implement hospital emergency room procedures. They engineered an assembly line straight to the family morgue.
f.. Divorce Lawyers implemented no-fault divorce only partially with legislation, but then added loopholes primarily within the procedures, ethics, and evidence rules, which are controlled exclusively by SBOT.
1.. The regulatory control for these aspects of the legal machinery is given to the Texas Supreme Court, and nothing gets through to the Supreme Court for consideration unless it passes committees standing guard to protect SBOT self-interests.
2.. No legislation is enforceable except through courts controlled by SBOT-developed rules of procedure, ethics, and evidence. 1.. 1.. 2.. Medicine, in contrast to law, has advanced by great strides, because they have lawyers looking over their shoulders, to compel real accountability with consequences for successes-and failures.
1.. This is one reason why law is so little taught in the grade schools, because the unfairness of legal methods quickly becomes evident even to grade school children; 1.. So by the time young adults become married, they owe fiduciary loyalty to their spouses, but they cannot even pronounce it. g.. Marriage law is an emotionally-charged subject. It is easy for lawyers in legislative committees to play on special interests but for a pretense, and hide self-protection and profit motives.
h.. The fraudulent no-fault implementation channeled money from troubled families to divorce lawyers, now at hourly rates in three digits, in exchange for dividing children and property. Moneys were not directed into reconciliation systems. The court’s officers were hired and paid to terminate marriages, not to save them.
i.. The fraudulent no-fault implementation abolished the fundamental right to true marriage. Fraudulent no-fault took away the legal protection for the once-irrevocable trust established by marriage vows. Instead, SBOT lawyers protect the solemn vows that lawyers make between themselves and an SBOT judge.
j.. The fraudulent no-fault implementation did not train spouses to discover or solve any of the disputes at the heart of marital discord. The fraudulent implementation simply–and grievously–empowered SBOT lawyers to settle all marital disputes for spouses, in one grand sweep, by divorce, no matter how whimsical or trivial the disagreement.
k.. The driving purpose of divorce reform in the 1960’s was women’s equality. But the fraudulent no-fault implementation did not elevate the status of wives as co-equal family managers. It subjected both spouses to overreaching legal domination by SBOT lawyers who became the family managers with the first spouse’s visit and thereafter managed the spouses through their children with custody battles and orders.
l.. More often than not, spouses go to a divorce lawyer, not because they want a divorce but for relief from spouses who are not trained as good husbands and wives. However, pressured by SBOT, in these traumatic personal circumstances, in the unfamiliar legal setting, spouses acquiesce to the lawyers’ lead, and the spouses are unduly influenced to rise up against their own beloved families and children, unknowingly spurred by the ignorance, pride, and greed of unaccountable SBOT lawyers who learn how to inflame even minor irritations into deadly animosities.
But when one-sided, incontestable “divorce on demand,” was opened up by court misinterpretation, suddenly every faithless partner got control of the family, always holding the threat of divorce over the faithful partner’s head. That doubled the divorce rate in about ten years, by about 1980, because beforehand, that other half of the population’s marriages were dominated by the faithful partner-and those marriages weathered the storms.
m.. Fraudulent no-fault divorce implementation was led by Joseph McKnight, who was appointed director of SBOT’s Family Code Project in 1966 and stayed in the role at least until 1974.
n.. McKnight’s 1970 Texas Bar Journal article showed he understood that Texas no-fault divorce was intended for divorces where there was no contest. o.. p.. Then, in 1973, to further the fraud, McKnight perjured himself before the House Committee on the Judiciary, by omission, while representing the State Bar of Texas, in his official capacity as Director of the Family Code Project, 1.. McKnight’s perjury is found on tapes from Hearings on Tex. H.B. 103 Before the House Committee on the Judiciary, 63rd Legislature, R.S., Meeting 11, (March 13, 1973) (from Cassette Audio Tape 3 available from House Committee Services, Legislative Reference Library, Austin, TX 78711; (512) 463-0920).
1.. Testimony shows Rep. Hale’s alerted suspicion of the McKnight’s major overhaul of the entire multiple-subject Family Code Title I, and he was misled by McKnight about the technical significance of the imbedded divorce evidence requirement in §3.64, and it’s unmentioned connection to the change in §3.52 pleadings, though Hale finally acquiesced to then-SMU Professor McKnight’s assurance about sponsorship by the trustee, SBOT.
2.. McKnight carefully worded a half-truth, intending to mislead-while under oath to tell the whole truth-that there were persons (unnamed divorce-at-will advocates) who thought that §3.64 “full and satisfactory evidence” requirement for divorce was “superfluous” and “it didn’t serve any useful purpose,” failing to mention that the change would render the “no-fault insupportability” statute, which was already ambiguous, into incontestable “divorce at will.”
2.. McKnight, as Director of the Family Code Project was well aware, at the time he testified in 1973, of the pertinent case law which showed the “full and satisfactory evidence” provision and the pleading requirements were the mainstays of Texas government’s protection of marriage. q.. No one in the legislature had any idea that the legal protection of marriage was losing a fundamental attribute, and that the fraud of divorce on demand, already begun, would thereafter be unstoppable to implement. McKnight further covered up, in his 1974 Texas Tech. Law Review article, where he said there was “no defense” to a no-fault divorce, although he knew fully well that Texas no-fault divorce was never meant to be defended, but it was only to be used where there was no contest over the divorce.
1.. McKnight, Commentary on Sec. 3.64, 5 Tex.Tech L.Rev. 281, 342 (1974) contains misrepresentations that the burden of proof had not changed, by going from full and satisfactory evidence to ordinary preponderance standard. The article further misleads by complaining of misuse of the evidence standard, an isolated case, while failing to mention its proper use and rationale as had been established for over 100 years by renowned Texas jurists, including Supreme Court Justices.
2.. McKnight, Commentary on Sec. 3.52, 5 Tex.Tech L.Rev. 281, 328 (1974) misleads by assuring everyone that marriages could still be defended by getting facts through discovery, though after 25 years of CLE, discovery is now totally denied at trial, as illustrated in 1999 Amarillo Richards case and now the 2000 Houston First Court Truncellito case, with grounds of divorce ruled irrelevant for discovery, by trial courts, while the courts of appeal uphold these unlawfully-granted divorces. McKnight’s article further misleads by failing to mention the true role of fact pleadings and evidence in strengthening the defenses against contested divorce, defenses which discourage divorce and encourage reconciliations. Removing the right to demand pleadings of fact hindered the ability to defend at trial and on appeal, but McKnight omitted any such comment.
The practicing lawyers deceive marriage partners, and the marriage partners and their children are thereby injured.
1999 No-defense, no Jury: In re Marriage of Richards, 991 S.W.2d 32 (Tex. App.-Amarillo 1999, pet. dism’d w.o.j.). Richards case absurd but true meaning: “A contested no-fault divorce shall be affirmed on procedural technicalities, through misapplication of the Szczepanik case, where the Collora case applies, even if there is no discovery, even if a properly requested jury is denied, and even if the judge announced the verdict before hearing any evidence, declaring “there is no defense to no fault divorce.”
1.. High Court Fraud: First Court of Appeals 4/20/00 Truncellito case opinion 1.. Having sanctioned the Truncellito appeal as frivolous, $4,500, after the First Court denied 1,500 hours of preparation a 15-minute oral argument, there must have been some ulterior motive. The 4/20/00 opinion cannot be explained by reason of honorable judging.
2.. The 4/20/00 opinion does not address the contentions in Appellant’s brief, repeats the opponents misconstructions, and capriciously disregards the facts and the law of this case. Intent to defraud, to decide the case apart from its merits, is evidenced in that the 4/20/00 opinion:
3.. The 4/20/00 opinion is a fraud to prevent a fair presentation of the case on the merits, and to prevent rendering a considered opinion of the Court on the substantive law and facts of this case.
In this fraudulent 4/20/00 opinion:
1.. The Court knew it was effectively denying the constitutional right to a fair review.
1.. It knew of the hurdles to overcome the Court’s discretion to deny rehearing, which could be exercised as easily as its first denial of a hearing.
2.. It knew of the difficulty of bringing a no-fault divorce challenge to the Supreme Court of Texas for discretionary review.
2.. The Court knew the 4/20/00 opinion’s deceit would be virtually impossible to rebut because its vagueness leaves so many escape routes.
3.. The Court knew that it owed explicit rationales, so a rebuttal does not have to analyze exhaustively all the various legal paths the Court might have traveled to arrive at its conclusion.
The Court knew that, with undisclosed reasoning, any formal, written rebuttal would face yet one more clever misconstruction to evade again, by adding a few more words of legal ambiguity, again to overwhelm and wear down the beneficiary-challenger with the same endless and futile task-of trying to defeat a prejudiced tribunal with a reasoned argument on the merits.
1.. It knew that a dishonorable, but experienced, legal authority can easily place an impossible burden on its petitioners, through an unending variety of evasive ambiguities, with just one more twist on the kaleidoscope of legal fraud.
It knew that petitioners, the beneficiaries of the public’s Judicial Trust, are helpless to defend themselves against prejudiced tribunals; and, The 4/20/00 opinion avoids consideration of no-fault divorce reform that the case earnestly proposed to the Court to end the family holocaust, and as a result, the SBOT agents within the First Court of Appeals attempted to protect SBOT’s criminal racketeering interests and its systematic destruction of families.
It is absurd to suggest that anyone bright enough to ascend to a professional post at an appellate court, even a new briefing attorney, could seat themselves in an ivory tower, face a 1,000 page record and 1,500 hours research, lower a dome of silence, waive issues by overlooking their validity in the record, dispose of the case on the disingenuous presumption of the meaning of a single-word quasi-admission, and meanwhile profess that justice was being served.
r.. A preliminary survey of the Texas Penal Code suggests that the 4/20/00 opinion, with the record of this case, which it distorts, furnishes prima facie evidence to warrant investigation of Tina Snelling, Peter Steinmann, Joseph Indelicato, Stephen Statham, the First Court of Appeals staff and Justices, and other members of SBOT who have become involved, for perpetrating and/or conspiring to perpetrate the following offenses, some classified as felonies:
1.. Ch. 15: Preparatory Offenses.
1.. §15.02 Criminal Conspiracy
2.. Ch. 36: Bribery & Corrupt Influence
1.. §36.02 Bribery
2.. §36.04 Improper Influence
3.. §36.06 Obstruction Or Retaliation
3.. Ch. 37: Perjury & Other falsification
1.. §37.10 Tampering With Governmental Record
Ch. 39: Abuse of Office
1.. §39.02 Abuse Of Official Capacity
2.. §39.03 Official Oppression
1.. Other SBOT abuses of Families 1.. “The Commission” routinely refuses to respond or to investigate complaints, at least from fathers, for two supposed reasons. First, they characterize complaints as unreasonable dissatisfaction with a fair result. Second, there are too many to keep up with.
1.. The Bar refused to return the telephone calls to Rep Holzhouser’s office for over three months with the Rep’s office calling and writing regularly, on this subject.
Because of three-digit hourly rates of the lawyers, granting interim fees during divorce prosecution is marriage quicksand: the harder the Respondent tries to save the marriage, in a contest, the faster they sink.
1.. either the Respondent will be forced to pay the expenses, thereby crushing Respondent’s will to resist, and crippling Respondent’s ability to defend; or,
2.. Petitioner will be required to pay the expenses, further inciting Petitioner to unwarranted hatred against Respondent, framed by the adversarial gamesmanship of Petitioner’s attorney, contrary to ADR law.
3.. Either way, the family is attacked by Petitioner’s attorney who confidently expects enormous personal profit at the family’s expense.
SBOT knows that divorce clients are easy to exploit, and so lawyers instruct the clients to follow the lawyer’s own purposes, but then they claim that the clients are directing them, for example, into adversarial maneuvers. James R. Elkins, “A Counseling Model for Lawyering in Divorce Cases,” 53 Notre Dame Lawyer 229, at P. 237, footnote 39, comments about the well-known phenomenon: ” . One extremely manipulative attorney has explained how the dependent victim in the rescue game is managed by the attorney. . The same often happens in matrimonial cases. Merely by indicating there is going to be rejection, a lawyer can get a client to do anything he wants him to.” R. Felder, Divorce 69 (1971).
s.. SBOT makes money by divorce, because that is what divorce lawyers have been trained to do, via CLE. Therefore, destroy marriages is what they do.
t.. SBOT has adamantly refused to discipline its lawyers, finding every way to cloud the issues, so it can indulge their lawyers rather than re-train them. SBOT even indulges their criminal exploitation of helpless spouses, via cover-ups in “The Commission,” where it should and could place positive controls on divorce lawyers, to prevent them from instigating strife between couples. Thereby, SBOT hinders implementation of ADR and no-fault divorce.
SBOT in this way conspires to restrain trade unreasonably, to restrict competition in marriage reconciliation & restoration market, choosing their methods of family destruction to make money.
u.. SBOT’s system cultivates hatred, to justify destroying victims’ lives, and it perpetuates itself through greed, by allowing the plunder of the victims’ fortunes.
v.. SBOT lawyers cultivate gender hatred against spouses. Then the two lawyers cross-fire that hatred back on the helpless and emotionally confused opposite spouses, who then wrongly blame their spouse for the attack-or they blame the judge-and then the lawyers play golf together on Friday afternoons.
Each state has similar enterprises which are affiliated through the American Bar Association.
Subject: RICO Suit Against Bar Results In Disbarment Proceedings
Date:Sat, 19 Aug 2000 15:06:31
From: "jail4judges"
<jail4judges@mindspring.com>
JAIL News Journal Los Angeles - August 19, 2000
Listen to HotSeat4Judges daily on Internet Radio M - F, 6-7 pm P.T.
(On or about 6/30/00 a Mr. Ed Truncellito called JAIL and talked
with Mr. Branson. Branson noted him to be a very positive upbeat person
that sounded like a radio announcer. However, Ed unhesitantly responded
that he had absolutely no radio experience. Mr. Branson responded with
the words, "All you need is a microphone, that's all." Well, there was
one little factor that Ed omitted from his conversation with Mr.
Branson, and that was that he was an attorney, a fact of which he just
found out through an email sent to JAIL. He is now in the media
lime-light as a whistle-blower of the Texas State Bar. The TSB is now
attempting to disbar Ed from the practice of law because he had the
gall to expose TSB fraud involvement. Does anyone smell a conflict of
interest somewhere in this? Maybe Mr. Ed would like a little radio time
on HotSeat4Judges to talk about this.) For Immediate Release:
Contact: Ed Truncellito, Atty. no_one_is_married@juno.com August 17,
2000. (281) 354-5869
TEXAS STATE BAR ATTEMPTS TO SILENCE WHISTLEBLOWER TO COVER UP NO-FAULT DIVORCE FRAUD
http://houstonfamilylawcorruption.com/blog/2011/02/15/welcome-to-my-blog/
Houston attorney, Ed Truncellito, was called before the Disciplinary Committee of the State Bar of Texas today, in order to undergo examination about his competency to practice law. Yesterday, Truncellito filed a $7.5 billion lawsuit against the State Bar of Texas on behalf of families harmed by Texas' no-fault divorce law fraud. One of the claims in the lawsuit,
entitled Casualties of No- Fault Divorce Fraud vs. State Bar of Texas, is that the wording of the 1969 law caused it to be implemented contrary to legislative intent. It also claims that the State Bar was well-aware of the problem but covered up, just like Big Tobacco covered up awareness of the harmfulness of its product. When a Texas' spouse hires an attorney, a divorce has been all-but-assured for the past 30 years. Such 'unilateral divorce' or 'divorce-on-demand' is not what the Texas legislature had in mind when the original no-fault law was enacted. In Texas, the law was meant for 'uncontested-only' cases - those divorces where both spouses agreed to the divorce. Enactment of the no-fault law was meant to eliminate the false charges and angry allegations that too-often erupted in courtroom proceedings. When both spouses agreed to the divorce, there was no reason to make allegations. But in cases where only one of the spouses wished to divorce, and the other spouse did not, Texas law still allowed the partner dissenting the divorce to request reasons or 'grounds' for the divorce, along with 'clear and convincing evidence.' Truncellito maintains that, by reducing acrimony, Texas no-fault was enacted to also allow greater likelihood of reconciliation. But common attorney-practice includes the destruction of any remaining vestiges of marital good-will through hostile language in the legal paperwork and in the courtroom, eliminating any resistance from the objecting spouse. Turning divorce attorneys into 'marriage terminators' is not what Texas legislators had in mind when the original no-fault law was implemented, 30 years ago. But then again, attorneys are paid for divorce work, not peacemaking or reconciliation. And the result of greater hostilities results not only in attorney-assurance of a divorce but also further lucrative litigation after the divorce, in ongoing child custody battles and other fights. Truncellito's RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) lawsuit makes claims of systematic influencing and outright corruption in the State Bar, resulting in undue harm to families in court proceedings. Today, the State Bar examined Truncellito in closed session, in what is known as a 'disability hearing.' These confidential examinations are the way the State Bar deals with sticky problems, like alcohol or drug abuse. But because the sessions are not open to outside scrutiny, they can also be used to deal with other thorny issues, like criticism of State Bar practices. Truncellito will be called back in 90 days to hear the committee's ruling on whether he is fit to practice law, after he has been examined by an appointed psychiatrist.
The RICO lawsuit can be viewed on his web site - www.no-one-is-married.com - which also includes a copy of his Texas Supreme Court 'Petition for Review' of the no-fault divorce law, filed August 7th. J.A.I.L. is an acronym for (Judicial Accountability Initiative Law) JAIL's very informative website is found at www.jail4judges.org JAIL proposes a unique new addition to our form of government. JAIL is powerful! JAIL is dynamic! JAIL is America's ONLY hope! JAIL's is spreading across America like a fast moving wildfire!
JAIL is making headroads into Congress for federal accountability!
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http://www.no-one-is-married.com/theme.html Why No One Is Married View Related Articles and Documents Marriage today is no more than "registered cohabitation" because no-fault divorce was misinterpreted as "no cause & no proof" divorce. If you can divorce without true cause--then you were not truly married in the first place. You were merely cohabiting, as in ages past, regardless what name it's called. You could always walk away from a disagreeable cohabitation, but marriage was defined in its protection by law.
You couldn't get out of a marriage just because you wanted out. You had to have true cause: abuse, adultery, abandonment, or the like. And not only cause, but genuine proof of it.
When the well-meaning no-faulters tried to take adversarialism out of the divorce process, to make it friendly, it failed. The door swung wide open to "no cause & no proof" divorce. Meanwhile, adversarialism went right back into the property and custody battles.
The old "fault" laws needed overhaul to bring spousal equality, and to make the system friendlier, but no-fault's "no cause & no proof" divorce, administered by warring lawyers, was the wrong implementation. The law should have required that spouses be taught how, and helped, to settle differences as co-equals, to deliberate justly and fairly, with self-control, while honoring their partner and the vows they made for a permanent union. Beforehand, almost any man could rule his wife and settle disputes by physical force.
But spousal equality demands at least a little education, a working knowledge of civilized diplomacy and reasoned compromise--for both genders. The no-fault laws did not train the partners to solve any problems. The laws simply--and grievously--empowered the courts to settle all their disputes for them, in one grand sweep, by divorce, no matter how whimsical or trivial the disagreement.
No-fault did not elevate the status of wives as co-equal family managers. It lowered the status of both spouses, while it elevated the courts as the new, and not-so-charitable, family managers. The no-fault divorce system, as implemented, funded divorce. It channeled money from troubled families to divorce lawyers, now at hourly rates in three digits, in exchange for dividing children and property. The court's officers were hired and paid to terminate marriages, not to save them. The no-fault legal system, as envisioned, was to be a family hospital, to comfort the hurting spouses and bandage the wounded marriages.
Instead, it became a family morgue. It promised to give relief from the former hostilities of the "fault" legal system, but it became more hostile than ever. Reconciliation dollars, facilities, and assistance were promised, but they never materialized. A generation and a half later, we know that the experiment did not work as planned. In truth, our no-fault laws, as implemented, abolished true marriage. After many years of no-fault, we no longer even respect the solemn covenants that partners make between themselves and God.
Instead, we respect the solemn covenants that lawyers make between themselves and a judge. Although cohabitation is handicapped in many ways, it unfortunately has one important advantage: ordinary cohabitation keeps government out of the home. In contrast, the registered cohabitation that we still call marriage invokes the jurisdiction of government officers. They receive authority to manage the lives of both spouses and their children with legal force. No wonder people cohabit.
No wonder we have so many broken homes. Partners can walk away from the slightest inconvenience, at any time, with court assistance. They don't ever have to conciliate, or swallow their pride and say they are sorry, or try to please anyone but themselves. When divorce was made into a guaranteed certainty, it became an easy way out of hard times. Partners knew they would no longer be pressed by embarrassing questions about covenants and faithfulness, as they moved on to their next cohabitation. Nor could they be stopped. The fundamental attribute, the unique defining characteristic, the earmark, that always distinguished true marriage from cohabitation, is legal security--protection by law--protection by divorce law. Today, that protection is gone.
Genuine proof of true cause was always required for divorce, and anything else--but that--should have changed in an overhaul of divorce law. It is one thing to let spouses decide, without intrusion, for their own private reasons, whether to live together, or to live apart indefinitely. But it is another thing altogether, for government not to question the cause, when government has already intervened, when government is asked to destroy a marriage, totally and permanently. The legal security of true marriage cannot be a chain. But neither can it be a thread. It must be a sturdy fabric, a flexible but tough canvas, to weather the gales of life. That's why true marriage is so secure and stable for mates.
When spouses cannot easily shake off their yoke, they soften it by mutual accommodation. In other words: spouses don't stay together because they get along; they get along because they stay together. And that's why true marriage is so secure and stable for children. True marriage is underwritten by law. Children can rest assured that no passing storm will carry either of their parents away. They know that the whole force of government stands as a benevolent guard to protect their homes and both of their providers. We are not in the midst of a divorce crisis. It is a marriage crisis.
No one is married, and no one can marry. The right to marry was taken away. The happy voices of the bride and the bridegroom are gone from our land.
Article By Ed Truncellito, JD, April, 2000; revised 8/4/00.
Ed Truncellito
4582-E Kingwood Dr. #214
Kingwood, TX 77345
Phone: 281-354-5869;
fax: 281-354-4829 Contact Ed Truncellit
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Smartmarriages © cmfce at smartmarriages.com Mon Aug 7 12:01:38 EDT 2000
subject: Texas Divorce Activist Targets No-Fault Intent
from: Smart Marriages
Note: This is not a press release issued by CMFCE/Smart Marriages.
I recieved this today and am forwarding it to you because
of it's interesting angle on "no fault divorce". -diane sollee
> Truncellito claims that no one is married because the
>misinterpretation of the no-fault law took away all the previous
>protections of marriage, turning marriage into nothing more than
>"registered cohabitation."
>For 30 years, up to now, "unilateral
>divorce on demand" has been the practice in Texas courts. According to
>Truncellito, that was not Texas legislative intent.
P R E S S R E L E A S E
For Immediate Release, August 5, 2000
This month a Houston attorney, Ed Truncellito, is petitioning the Texas
Supreme Court to review the "no-fault" divorce laws, enacted 30 years
ago.
Two years ago, Truncellito objected to the "no-fault" divorce filed by
his wife in Harris County's 246th District Court, but the divorce was
granted anyway. His shock and frustration over that ruling set in motion
Truncellito's subsequent 1500-hour investigation into Texas divorce laws.
In his research, he uncovered substantial problems with both the
language of the law and its implementation in the courtrooms. He is now
asking the high court to sort out the confusion surrounding Texas
"no-fault" divorce law, which was enacted in 1969.
Truncellito believes that the law was meant for "uncontested-only" cases,
saying that this is clearly shown by all the commentary surrounding the
law's enactment. In May, 1999, he appealed his divorce to the First
Court of Appeals in Houston, but they would not even discuss the no-fault
law. Instead, they denied him a 15-minute hearing and then penalized him
$4,500 for appealing. He claims that their unpublished decision, handed
down this April, is a sham.
While the Texas Supreme Court does not have to grant Truncellito his
requested hearing, they may find it hard to refuse. He is inviting
others concerned about this problem to blanket the high court with pleas
to grant his petition-for-review.
Two weeks ago, Truncellito set up a web site with information on how
others can get involved or how they can appeal their own divorces at
www.no-one-is-married.com. He claims that no one is married because the
misinterpretation of the no-fault law took away all the previous
protections of marriage, turning marriage into nothing more than
"registered cohabitation."
Truncellito, along with other supporters, will be stationed outside
Harris County's Family Law Center at 1115 Congress, starting Tuesday
morning, August 8, handing out information to couples headed for divorce
court. He is hoping to solicit interest in his project from spouses who
wish to stop their own divorces. For 30 years, up to now, "unilateral
divorce on demand" has been the practice in Texas courts. According to
Truncellito, that was not Texas legislative intent.
The following week of August 14, Truncellito plans to file a $7.5 billion
lawsuit against the State Bar of Texas, alleging that they covered up
like Big Tobacco, who knew they had a destructive product. He insists
that the State Bar knew all along that the no-fault law was being
misapplied, but they covered it up for financial gain. Divorce attorneys
could guarantee divorce for their clients after the payment of the
requisite retainer fee. Then the divorce would frequently spawn
additional legal fees from future custody disputes, at three-digit hourly
rates.
With today's no-fault divorce practice in Texas, when one spouse says
it's over, the other spouse has no choice. Truncellito claims this is
mistaken, that no-fault was enacted for divorces only where both spouses
agree that divorce was needed, and that the Texas Legislature gave
spouses the right to refuse a no-fault divorce and demand proof of
grounds, such as abuse, adultery, or abandonment. However, because the
State Bar of Texas covered up, no one has listened.
Contact: Ed Truncellito - 281-354-5869
# # #
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Author of this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and Especially to My Little Julian, is not a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner, therefore, no information contained herein this post and/or blog could be (mis)construed as “legal advice.” Anyone who exercises he/r rights, and private property sometimes called “child” for deceptive, possibly malicious or retaliatory, and profiteering/privateering and in the “best interests” . . . of the “state” Texas General and other Funds at one’s own peril, risk, and/ or self-fulfillment. The choice is yours.
http://www.hiddenmysteries.org/themagazine/vol11/articles/wiegand.shtml
Recently, I stayed in CONNECTICUT for two weeks to support the efforts of BO GRITZ to help LINDA WIEGAND regain custody of her children.
How does a rational person explain the national media’s frenzy with the OJ SIMPSON trial, or the JON BENET RAMSAY murder investigation, and its concentrated effort to ignore the BO GRITZ trial in CONNECTICUT as if it were a BILDERBERGER meeting? Could it be there Is there a conspiracy to manage the news in the USA?
Was there an organized effort by the FBI to ‘get’ BO GRITZ, an icon of the patriot movement? Has the media done what it did in NEBRASKA when former state senator, JOHN DECAMP, tried to expose the involvement of people in high places in a homosexual prostitution ring?
There are many disturbing parallels between NEBRASKA and CONNECTICUT in this regard, not the least of which was the $1 million civil judgment in early 1999 against LARRY KING, JR for the satanic ritual abuse of PAUL BONNACCI when he was a child.
LARRY KING (not the radio show host!) moved in the same political circle as PRESIDENT REAGAN and then VICE PRESIDENT BUSH.
THE VERDICT
The acquittal of BO GRITZ and SHELDON ROBINSON for the attempted second degree kidnapping of LINDA WIEGAND’s oldest boy opens the way for this mother to return to the state of CONNECTICUT and fight for custody of her two boys. She remains a ‘fugitive from injustice’: her side of the story can be found on the INTERNET at:
http://www.angelfire.com/tx/reachme
THE PRESS
The national media has deliberately ignored this story while the local media dominated by the HARTFORD COURANT has until recently portrayed LINDA as a liar and manipulator of the legal system. What changed all that?
THE MASSAMENO REPORT
On FEB 17, 2000 in the midst of the ongoing GRITZ trial, PROSECUTOR MALONE released to the defendants the heretofore sealed report of the STATE ATTORNEY’s investigation into LINDA WIEGAND’s allegations of satanic ritual and sex abuse of her two boys by her ex-husband, TOM WILKINSON. The report had been sealed in 1998 after an 18 month investigation by Assistant STATE ATTORNEY JOHN MASSAMENO.
JUDGE NICOLA RUBINOW, who was curiously assigned to her first criminal case after having previously ruled for TOM WILKINSON in an earliar child custody issue, quickly sealed the report again so the jury could not see it and instructed the defendants not to release it to anyone.
However, now it can be read on the INTERNET at:
http://members.tripod.com/~larryschulz/massameno.htm, or otherwise at
http://members.tripod.com/~larryschultz/SAVE-JON-BEN-PAGE.html
THE CREDIBILITY ISSUE
The significance of this report is twofold: It concludes that LINDA had ‘reasonable cause’ to believe her children were being sexually abused, thus exonerating her for taking them out of state to NEVADA to protect them. She was just being a good mother. Yet with that report sealed PROSECUTOR MALONE continued to mock her allegations of satanic ritual abuse and judicial abuse of power to support his conspiracy theory.
Furthermore, the sealing of this report is consistent with her allegations that evidence of sexual abuse was being suppressed. For example, the 30 taped interviews of the boys with court appointed psychiatrist DR. ROBSON have been sealed by the court. Why? – in ROBSON’s own words, “because they contain the boys allegations of sex abuse.”
The issue of credibility has always been the focus of THE HARTFORD CURANT in its presentation of the custody battle between WIEGAND and WILKINSON. Until the release of the MASSAMENO REPORT, this newspaper repeatedly misrepresented her as a liar despite my repeated efforts to correct their distortions.
The MASSAMENO REPORT comes to a very different conclusion, and no doubt, that is why it has been repeatedly sealed. It concludes WILKINSON ‘s “probable deception”, and notes this psych evaluation revealed psychopathological tendencies consistent with a child abuser. In regard to LINDA WIEGAND, it notes that she passed a lie detector test when she denied ‘coaching’ the two boys. Her credibility was greater, according to this report, but its recommendation to prosecute TOM WILKINSON was ignored.
THE COVER UP CONTINUES
According to LINDA, an employee within the ENFIELD courthouse revealed that this report was kept suppressed until the statute of limitations had expired on the child abuse allegations against TOM WILKINSON effective JANUARY 2000. MR. MASSAMENO confirmed to me that TW could only be prosecuted for current charges.
How and why could one man receive protection from the judicial system of a state that proudly proclaims itself to be THE CONSTITUTION STATE? Is it possible the links of his family and lawyer are linked to the BUSH family and political machine that dominates CONNECTICUT politics?
Despite being bankrupted by his three and a half year legal ordeal/persecution, BO GRITZ told reporters after his victory: “This has never been about me. It is about intimidating court tactics, and a constipated state bureaucracy” that fails to protect victims of sexual abuse.
LINDA WIEGAND SPEAKS OUT
Hours after this acquittal in a telephone interview with ENFIELD’s ‘JOURNAL INQUIRER’, LINDA said she will surrender to law enforcement officials sometime “within the next two weeks”, surely to face criminal charges, but also to begin fighting again to regain custody of the two boys she claims are being abused by her former husband.
Meanwhile, TOM WILKINSON lives in SUFFIELD only seven miles from the MASSACHUSETTS border strategically positioned to flee the jurisdiction of CONNECTICUT courts in this custody battle. Not too far north, his best friend PROF. ARTHUR ZAJONC teaches physics at AMHERST COLLEGE.
NEW WORLD ORDER CONNECTIONS
ZAJONC is the President of THE ANTHROPOSOPHICAL SOCIETY in the USA. It is WILKINSON’s membership in this organization that has been the center of WIEGAND’s allegations of satanic ritual abuse. According to LINDA, he claimed that BEN was his wife in a previous lifetime. His father, the former general counsel for ALLSTATE, is also intimately involved with this group’s church activities.
Since the insurance industry rules HARTFORD, the center of CONNECTICUT’s political life, is there any evidence to suggest the judges who ruled against WIEGAND and consistently violated her civil rights are in any way beholding to the politicians who appointed them to protect the interests of the ESTABLISHMENT in CONNECTICUT? Thus far, it is only circumstantial
My gut feeling has always been that once all the dots are connected, as in the FRANKLIN COVER UP in NEBRASKA, the evidence will point to the BUSH family political machine. My investigation is still ongoing, but I believe it is no coincidence that TOM WILKINSON and GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH share the same birthplace: MILTON, MASSACHUSETTS.
The deeper you dig into this story, the more dirt comes to the surface: for example, THE LINDISFARNE ASSOCIATION, the political arm of the ANTHROPOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, was sponsored in part by LAURENCE ROCKEFELLER, and is now funded in part by Canadian billionaire, MAURICE STRONG.
STRONG is a former head of the ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION, the organizer of the RIO CONFERENCE in BRAZIL, a major force in the UNITED NATIONS, an advocate of free trade with CHINA, and a man very active in the NEW WORLD ORDER conspiracy to create a one world religion. In testimony before the UN, he called for laws to regulate human behavior and its effect on the EARTH that would have the same effect as the moral code given by MOSES.
FBI: GET BO GRITZ
Yes, it seems likely that TOM WILKINSON has friends in high places and that would partly explain the vicious attacks against LINDA WIEGAND and the FBI’s attempt to ‘get’ BO GRITZ in CONNECTICUT using the perjured testimony of militia leader JOHN TROCHMANN to prove an outrageous conspiracy theory.
Even PERSECUTOR MALONE was forced to acknowledge in his closing argument that TROCHMANN and his wife “may have been mistaken” when they placed WIEGAND and GRITZ together six months earlier than their alleged first meeting in SEPTEMBER 1996 shortly before GRITZ was arrested. Other witnesses and evidence contradicted his testimony, but JUDGE RUBINOW was so intent on a conviction that she did not permit defense attorneys to cross-examine them!
She claimed they had traveled so far cross-country that they need to go home and rest. Never mind the fact that BO GRITZ was forced to travel from NEVADA 17 times for his court appearances while evidence was being fabricated against him. Why else did it take three years to bring him to trial?
Already a major battle is shaping up between various elements of the patriot/militia community over what I call THE LINDA WIEGAND CASE. Who will be left standing proud and tall? The real patriots or the paid FBI agents? The outcome could affect the Presidential election of 2000.
Patrick Flaherty
<br
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Author found the document below which appears to have been authored by the “National Association of School Psychologists” ( http://www.nasponline.org/advocacy/School_Discipline_Congressional_Briefing.pdf). The Eugenicists, Social Darwinists, racial and ethnic cleansers or “hygienicists” and professional managerial and directorial level misogynists have landed. Now Iauthor of this post understands what all the teachers were talking about when they reported that most all of the new teachers right out of college were being pushed out of the profession and discouraged from continuing before their careers even started. That was just after the new millenium kicked-off.
One might even go so far as to call them professional con/tract killers.
Read between lines –certain words are written, or, “coded,” to mean the opposite of their intended meaning or perceived meaning by the average American layperson or the general public.
Caveat Emptor (“Buyer Beware”).
Supporting Student Learning
Effective school discipline is critical to promoting students’ successful learning and well-being. Effective practices ensure the safety and dignity of all students and staff, preserve the integrity of the learning environment [ or judicial, legal, “helping,” “protecting,” and law enforcement systems for “sustainable” until the age-end-at 21/Agenda 21 con tract expires and the federal state block grant funding, or “water fawcett” keeps flowing for the “school-to-prison pipeline“], and address the causes of a student’s misbehavior in order to improve positive behavioral skills and long-term outcomes.
Specifically, effective school discipline:
is viewed within the context of a learning opportunity and seeks to teach and reinforce positive behaviors to replace negative behaviors;
is clear, consistent, and equitably applied to all students;
employs culturally competent practices;
safeguards the well-being of all students and staff;
keeps students in school and out of the juvenile justice system; and
incorporates family involvement.
In contrast, purely punitive “get tough” approaches such as zero tolerance policies do not work.
They simply suppress unwanted behavior temporarily while increasing negative consequences, such as reduced perceptions of safety and connectedness among students and the perpetuation of the school-to-prison pipeline.
While the robust research on the negative effects of overly harsh discipline has grown exponentially in recent years, it has been known for decades.
1 . One “evidence-based” approach that has demonstrated broad success in many different school contexts across the country is positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS).
The PBIS approach operates within a multitiered system of supports (MTSS) framework that encompasses universal prevention and skills building, early identification and intervention, and targeted supports for learning and behavioral concerns.
This approach has proven instrumental in enabling schools to shift from ineffective punitive discipline to more effective positive discipline that functions in concert with efforts to support students’ mental health and promote positive school climate and safety.
Legislative Priorities School safety, positive school climate, and effective discipline practices are key components of a successful school.
One of the most important investments we can make in improving student outcomes and stopping the school-to-prison pipeline is to support public policies that:
promote a shift to more effective positive discipline;
ensure safe, supportive conditions for learning;
provide comprehensive and coordinated learning supports to address student social–emotional wellness, positive behavior, and academic achievement;
provide training and support for teachers and other school personnel; and
ensure access to specialized instructional support personnel.
Several pieces of legislation have been introduced in the 113th Congress directly address these policy priorities. Mental Health Awareness and Improvement Act of 2013 S. 689.
This bill would allow states to use Title I [historically and generally known or purported to a funding program for parent participation in the schools in defined low income areas]funds to expand the use of positive behavioral interventions and supports and early intervening services to improve student academic achievement and behavior. 2
Safe Schools Improvement Act of 2013, H.R. 1199 & S. 403.
This bill establishes policies that prohibit bullying and harassment in schools. It also encourages the use of positive and preventative approaches to school discipline that minimize students’ removal from instruction.
Partnerships for Achieving Student Success Act (Introduced April 16).
This bill would authorize grant funding for university–school district partnerships to increase the number of school psychologists, counselors, and social workers in schools.
Student Support Act, H.R. 320.
Allows for grants to increase the number of school mental health services providers—like school psychologists, social workers, and counselors—in order to provide more early intervention and prevention services.
Youth PROMISE Act, H.R. 1318. Enables communities, in collaboration with schools, social services, mental health providers, and other community stakeholders, to develop coordinated prevention and intervention strategies to target students at risk of entering the juvenile justice system. Selected Supporting Research Fair and Consistent Discipline
Consistent enforcement of school discipline and the availability of caring adults are associated with less bullying and victimization, suggesting that discipline practices should not be polarized into a “get tough” versus “give support” debate because both contribute to adolescents’ healthy functioning2 .
Students who perceive greater fairness and clarity of rules in their schools exhibit less delinquent behavior and experience less student victimization3,4 .
Students view teachers as reacting to classroom misbehavior by increasing coercive discipline, which inhibits the development of responsibility in students
5 . More school rules and higher perceived strictness predict more disruptive behavior in school—not less, and more severe punishments generate defiance among certain youth
6 . Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports
School-wide behavior management that is implemented by supportive leadership and dedicated and collegial staff can help minimize the risks for youth delinquency7 .
Positive behavioral interventions and supports have been shown to significantly reduce student suspensions, office discipline referrals
8 , tardiness, unexcused absences
9 , bullying, and feelings of rejection among students
10 , while improving academic performance
11,12.
School-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports are associated with more equitable discipline practices among students from all racial and ethnic backgrounds13 .
The more family and community involvement activities are implemented, the fewer students are disciplined by being sent to principals’ offices or given detention or in-school suspension.
Thus, creating more connections [ as in, The Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008, Re-Authorized 2010]and greater cooperation among the school, family, and community contexts helps schools to improve student behavior and school discipline
14 . Social and Emotional Development
Students who participate in school-based social and emotional learning programs show significant improvement in social and emotional skills, caring attitudes, and positive social behaviors, and a decline in disruptive behavior and emotional distress15 .3
Social and emotional learning programs have significant preventive effects on rates of aggression, social competence, and academic engagement in the elementary school years
16 . School-Based Mental Health Services
School-based mental health services are integral to students’ success because mental health directly affects children’s learning and development17 .
School-based mental health services in elementary schools have been found to reduce special education referrals and improve aspects of the school climate18 .
Reduced absences, discipline referrals
19, and conduct problems are evident in children with severe emotional and behavioral difficulties when school-based mental health services are available
20 . School-Employed Specialized Instructional Support Personnel
21, lack of student motivation22, and issues with work place conditions or the administration as reasons for leaving the profession—issues that specialized instructional support personnel are trained to address23.
School psychologists work with teachers and administrators to collect and analyze data on risk and protective factors related to student outcomes24, and there is evidence that addressing these factors in schools promotes children’s well-being and resilience25 .
Data from nearly 500 studies indicate that the impact of promotion and prevention interventions is at least two to three times higher when programs are carefully implemented by qualified personnel who have expert knowledge of the relevant issues being addressed26 .
Zero Tolerance Policies
Zero tolerance policies strengthen the link between schools and prisons
27,28, and they negatively impact a disproportionately large number of minority students 29 .
Empirical evidence has not shown zero tolerance policies to be effective in reducing violence or promoting learning. In fact, they can inhibit academic achievement and increase problem behaviors and dropout rates among middle and secondary school students30,31 .
Zero tolerance policies ignore adolescents’ lapses in judgment—a normal part of their development, potentially resulting in more severe punishment than is warranted and exacerbating the normal challenges of adolescence32,33 . Suspension, Expulsion, and Office Disciplinary Referrals [veiled threat not to step out-of-line with the other Nazi SS followers and criminal psychopaths who are “just doing their job,” or, “trying to support their family.”]
Student discipline is increasingly viewed by American schools as a crime control issue34, with many states criminalizing student misbehavior and referring students to the juvenile justice system for infractions that were once handled in the schools 35,36,37 .
In Texas, more than 275,000 nontraffic tickets are issued to juveniles each year, the vast majority for common school-related misbehavior
38. And tens of thousands of Texas students have been placed at least once in juvenile justice alternative education programs39 .
Suspension and expulsion are often administered unfairly and they increase the likelihood of students’ poor academic performance and dropping out of school40, while having no measurable deterrent effect or academic benefit
41. Even worse, there is a direct link between suspension and expulsion and the likelihood of being sentenced to prison42 . 4
More than 3,328,000 students were suspended and more than 102,000 expelled from public elementary and secondary schools in 200643. Overall, more than 29% of all public school students in grades 9–12 in 2007 had ever been suspended or expelled.
Referring students to the juvenile justice system can actually increase their involvement in serious delinquency44 .
Disciplinary actions are harsher and employed more frequently with minority students. In 2007, 49% of Black students and 27% of Hispanic students were suspended or expelled, compared to 15% of White students
45 . Black students are also more than twice as likely in elementary school and nearly four times as likely in middle school, . . . to be referred to the principal’s office for problem behaviors.46 .
Endnotes
1 Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and human behavior. New York, NY: Free Press. 2 Gregory, A., Cornell, D., Fan, X., Sheras, P., Shih, T.-H., & Huang, F. (2010).
Authoritative school discipline: High school practices associated with lower bullying and victimization. Journal of Educational Psychology, 102, 483–496. 3 Gottfredson, G. D., Gottfredson, D. C., Payne, A. A., & Gottfredson, N. C. (2005).
School climate predictors of school disorder: Results from a national study of delinquency prevention in schools. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 42, 412–444. 4 Stewart, E. A. (2003).
School social bonds, school climate, and school misbehavior: A multilevel analysis. Justice Quarterly, 20, 575–604. 5 Lewis, T. J., Jones, S. E. L., Horner, R. H., & Sugai, G. (2010).
School-wide positive behavior support and students with emotional/behavioral disorders: Implications for prevention, identification and intervention. Exceptionality: A Special Education Journal, 18, 82–93. 6 Way, S. M. (2011).
School discipline and disruptive classroom behavior: The moderating effects of student perceptions. The Sociological Quarterly, 52, 346–375. 7 Christie, C., Jolivette, K., & Nelson, D. M. (2005).
Breaking the school to prison pipeline: Identifying school risk and protective factors for youth delinquency. Exceptionality: A Special Education Journal, 13, 69–88. 8 Bradshaw, C. P., Mitchell, M. M., & Leaf, P. J. (2010).
Examining the effects of schoolwide positive behavioral interventions and supports on student outcomes: Results from a randomized controlled effectiveness trial in elementary schools. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 12, 133–148. 9 Caldarella, P., Shatzer, R. H., Gray, K. M., Young, K. R. & Young, E. L. (2011).
The effects of school-wide positive behavior support on middle school climate and student outcomes. Research in Middle Level Education Online, 35(4), 1–14. 10 Waasdorp, T. E., Bradshaw, C. P., & Leaf, P. J. (2012).
The impact of schoolwide positive behavioral interventions and supports on bullying and peer rejection. Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, 166, 149–156. 11 Luiselli, J. K., Putnam, R. F., Handler, M. W., & Feinberg, A. B. (2005).
Whole-school positive behavior support: Effects on student discipline problems and academic performance. Educational Psychology, 25, 183–198. 12 Nelson, J. R., Martella, R. M., & Marchand-Martella, N. (2002).
Maximizing student learning: The effects of a comprehensive school-based program for preventing problem behaviors. Journal of Emotional and Behavior Disorders, 10, 136–148. 13 Vincent, C. G., Swain-Bradway, J., Tobin, T. J., & May, S. (2011).
Disciplinary referrals for culturally and linguistically diverse students with and without disabilities: Patterns resulting from school-wide positive behavior support. Exceptionality: A Special Education Journal, 19, 175–190. 14 Sheldon, S. B., & Epstein, J. L. (2002).
Improving student behavior and school discipline with family and community involvement. Education and Urban Society, 35, 4–26. 15 Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D., & Schellinger, K. B. (2011).
The impact of enhancing students’ social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Development, 82, 405–432. 16 Bierman, K. L., Coie, J. D., Dodge, K. A., Greenberg, M. T., Lochman, J. E., McMahon, R. J., & Pinderhughes, E. (2010).
The effects of a multiyear universal social-emotional learning program: The role of student and school characteristics. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 78, 156–168. 17 Fleming, C. B., Haggerty, K. P., Brown, E. C., Catalano, R. F., Harachi, T. W., Mazza, J. J., & Gruman, D. H. (2005).
Do social and behavioral characteristics targeted by preventive interventions predict standardized test scores and grades? Journal of School Health, 75, 342–349. 18 Bruns, E. J., Walrath, C., Glass-Siegel, M., & Weist, M. D. (2004).
School-based mental health services in Baltimore: Association with school climate and special education referrals. Behavior Modification, 28, 491–512. 19 Jennings, J., Pearson, G., & Harris, M. (2000).
Implementing and maintaining school–based mental health services in a large, urban school district. Journal of School Health, 70, 201–205. 20 Hussey, D., & Guo, S. (2003).
Measuring behavior change in young children receiving intensive school-based mental health services. Journal of Community Psychology, 31, 629–639. 5 21 Ingersoll, R. M. (2001).
Teacher turnover, teacher shortages, and the organization of schools. Seattle, WA: Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy, University of Washington. 22 Ingersoll, R. M. (2001).
Teacher turnover, teacher shortages, and the organization of schools. Seattle, WA: Center for the Study of Teaching and Policy, University of Washington. 23 Marvel, J., Lyter, D., Peltola, P., Strizek, G. A., Morton, B. A., & Rowland, R. (2007).
Teacher attrition and mobility: Results from the 2004-05 Teacher Follow-up Survey (National Center for Education Statistics Report #2007-307). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. 24 National Association of School Psychologists. (2010).
Model for comprehensive and integrated school psychological services. Bethesda, MD: Author. 25 Baker, J. A. (2008).
Assessing school risk and protective factors. In B. Doll & J. A. Cummings (Eds.), Transforming school mental health services: Population-based approaches to promoting the competency and wellness of children (pp. 43–65). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press and the National Association of School Psychologists. 26 Durlak, J. A., & Dupre, E. P. (2008).
Implementation matters: A review of research on the influence of implementation on program outcomes and the factors affecting implementation. American Journal of Community Psychology, 41, 327–350. 27 Casella, R. (2003).
Zero tolerance policy in school: Rationale, consequences, and alternatives. Teachers College Record, 105, 872–892. 28 Cassella, R. (2003).
Punishing dangerousness through preventive detention: Illustrating the institutional link between school and prison. New Directions for Youth Development, 99, 55–70. 29 American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force. (2008).
Are zero tolerance policies effective in schools? An evidentiary review and recommendations. American Psychologist, 63, 852–862. 30Skiba, R. J. (2004).
Zero tolerance: The assumptions and the facts [Education Policy Brief]. Bloomington, IN: Center for Evaluation & Education Policy, Indiana University. 31 American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force. (2008). Are zero tolerance policies effective in schools? An evidentiary review and recommendations. American Psychologist, 63, 852–862. 32 Ibid. 33 Gregory, A., & Cornell, D. (2009).
Tolerating adolescent needs: Moving beyond zero tolerance policies in high school. Theory into Practice, 48, 106–113. 34 Hirschfield, P. J. (2008).
Preparing for prison?: The criminalization of school discipline in the USA. Theoretical Criminology, 12, 79–101. 35 Turner, R. K. & Goodner, M. (2010).
Passing the paddle: Nondisclosure of children’s criminal cases. Austin, TX: State Bar of Texas. 36 American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force. (2008).
Are zero tolerance policies effective in schools? An evidentiary review and recommendations. American Psychologist, 63, 852–862 37 Fowler, D. (2011).
School discipline feeds the “pipeline to prison.” Phi Delta Kappan, 93(2), 14–19. 38 Fowler, D. (2010).
Texas’ school to prison pipeline: Ticketing, arrest, and use of force in schools. Austin, TX: Texas Appleseed. 39 Council of State Governments Justice Center and Texas A&M University Public Policy Research Institute. (2011).
Breaking schools’ rules: A statewide study of how school discipline relates to students’ success and juvenile justice involvement. New York, NY: Council of State Governments Justice Center. 40 Maag, J. W. (2012).
School-wide discipline and the intransigency of exclusion. Children and Youth Services Review, 34, 2094–2100. 41 Mendez, L. M. R. (2003).
Predictors of suspension and negative school outcomes: A longitudinal investigation. New Directions for Youth Development, 99, 17–33. 42 Fenning, P., & Rose, J. (2007).
Overrepresentation of African American students in exclusionary discipline: The role of school policy. Urban Education, 42, 536–579. 43 Planty, M., Hussar, W., Snyder, T., Kena, G., Kewal-Ramani, A., Kemp, J., Bianco, K., & Dinkes, R. (2009).
The condition of education 2009 (NCES 2009-081).
Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. 44 Bernburg, J. G., Krohn, M. D., & Rivera, C. J. (2006).
Official labeling, criminal embeddedness, and subsequent delinquency: A longitudinal test of labeling theory. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 43, 67–88. 45 Aud, S., Kewal-Ramani, A., & Frohlich, L. (2011). America’s youth: Transitions to adulthood (NCES 2012-026).
Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. 46 Skiba, R. J., Horner, R. H., Chung, C.-G., Rausch, M. K., May, S. L., & Tobin, T. (2011).
Race is not neutral: A national investigation of African American and Latino disproportionality in school discipline. School Psychology Review, 40, 85–107.
© 2013, National Association of School Psychologists, 4340 East West Highway Suite 402, Bethesda, MD 20814, (301) 657-0270
Published on April 08, 2013 at 4:28PM CST
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: 212-549-2666; media@aclu.org
DETROIT – A federal judge ruled today that claims against a Wayne County Family Court judge could proceed in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan on behalf of an Ann Arbor family whose 7-year-old son was placed in foster care after his father mistakenly gave him a Mike’s Hard Lemonade at a Detroit Tigers game in 2008.
Through depositions, the ACLU of Michigan discovered the boy was removed from his parents even though Family Court Judge Judy A. Hartsfield had not made a determination that the child was in danger. Instead the judge had a practice of providing pre-signed child removal orders for the on-duty desk clerk to be filled out after hours based on police allegations. Neither the judge nor a probation officer scrutinized the claims of the police.
“Today’s ruling is a victory for all those who believe that the government should not be taking children from their parents unless a judge finds the parents pose an immediate danger to their kids,” said Michael J. Steinberg, legal director of the ACLU of Michigan. “The Wayne County Family Court’s practice of instructing clerks to simply fill out pre-signed child removal orders based on the say-so of a police officer violates all notions of due process and common sense.”
In allowing the case to proceed, Judge Avern Cohn ruled that if the allegations are true, the practice of pre-signing orders violated the parent and child’s fundamental right to family integrity and the “clearly established” rights of parents to notice and a hearing before the removal of their child, unless emergency circumstances exist. Furthermore, Judge Cohn ruled that the family court judge was not entitled to judicial immunity because in pre-signing the orders, she was not exercising her judicial discretion, but rather acting in an administrative capacity.
Judge Cohn also dismissed the ACLU’s claims against two Department of Human Services supervisors who, according to the judge, were relying on what they believed to be a valid court order when they placed Leo in foster care. Finally, the claims against Detroit police officers have been put on hold pending the bankruptcy proceedings in Detroit.
The lawsuit stems from an April 2008 incident, in which Leo Ratté, then 7 years old, attended a Detroit Tigers game with his father, Christopher Ratté, a professor of classical archaeology at the University of Michigan. Christopher accidently purchased what he thought was lemonade from a stand advertising “Mike’s Lemonade,” and, not knowing that it contained alcohol, gave it to his son. A security guard saw the beverage in the boy’s possession and turned the matter over to the police even though Christopher insisted he did not know it was an alcoholic drink.
While Christopher was being questioned by police, Comerica Park medical staff examined Leo and gave him a clean bill of health. Nonetheless, Leo was taken to Children’s Hospital in Detroit, where he was examined again and found to have no alcohol in his blood. Despite the fact that he was cleared to go home, he was taken into custody by Wayne County Children’s Protective Services (CPS), a division of the state Department of Human Services.
CPS refused to release Leo into the custody of his mother, Claire Zimmerman, who was not at the game, or to his aunts – one of whom is a social worker and licensed foster parent. The first night, Leo slept on a couch in the CPS building with his parents waiting outside on the sidewalk. The next day, he was sent to a foster home.
Several days after the incident, with the assistance of the University of Michigan Child Advocacy Clinic, Leo was finally released into his mother’s custody after Christopher agreed to move out of the house and only have supervised contact with Leo. Soon after, the case was dismissed and Christopher was allowed back into his home.
In filing the lawsuit, the ACLU of Michigan argued that the state’s standard for the emergency removal of children was unconstitutional as it did not require state officials to prove that the child is in immediate danger. After their experience, the Ratté family was instrumental in amending the law to conform more closely to constitutional standards.
Though the law was amended, the ACLU of Michigan argues that the new law fails to adequately protect the rights of innocent parents like Leo Ratté’s mother. The federal judge is expected to rule soon on the ACLU of Michigan’s request to declare that Claire’s constitutional rights were violated when her son was removed from her custody even though she was not present at the ballpark and had nothing to do with the Mike’s Hard Lemonade mistake.
In addition to Steinberg, the Ratté family is represented by ACLU Cooperating Attorneys Matthew Lund, Robert Ludolf, Adam Wolfe and Andrea Hayden of the law firm Pepper Hamilton LLP and Amy Sankaran.
Key News and Documents
Read opinion at:
www.aclumich.org/sites/default/files/2013_Ratte_MikeHardLemonade_Opinion.pdf
Read the amended complaint at:
www.aclumich.org/sites/default/files/2013_Ratte_MikeHardLemonade_Complaint.pd
Author of this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and Especially to My Little Julian, is not a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner, therefore, no information contained herein this post and/or blog could be (mis)construed as “legal advice.” Anyone who exercises he/r rights, and private property sometimes called “child” for deceptive, possibly malicious or retaliatory, and profiteering/privateering and in the “best interests” . . . of the “state” Texas General and other Funds at one’s own peril, risk, and/ or self-fulfillment. The choice is yours.
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Judge Anne Diggs Taylor, Holding Eavesdropping is (U.S.) unconstitutional read story here, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/18/washington/18nsa.html?pagewanted=all, New York Times, Judge Finds Wiretap Acts Violate the Law, Adam Liptak and Eric Lichtblau, August 18, 2006
Many people these days use all sorts of methods to spy on ex-lovers and the mothers of their children, . . . even if this little boy who is now eight years old was abducted and kidnapped under the color of authority of law in Pearland, Texas, Brazoria County CPS, complicit cops for City of Pearland and Harris County in Houston three years ago on May 8th and handed over to the “Responsible,” Recently “Married,” father–one who always threatened to do exactly what they did, and protected by the usual ring and is still being secreted and kept away from his mother.
Apparently, some psychopaths of the compulsive lying genre enjoy stalking and employing professional and government stalkers to professionally harass, legally abuse, malign, trying to intimdidate, gang-stalking, cyber-bullying, hacking, spying on phone calls of the mother and he/r friends and family, lying, perjuring, bearing false witness in a court of law which he cannot seem to get enough of, but to a criminal degree, bribing judge and court, on knowledge, belief, strong circumstantial evidence, and eyewitnesses to such, and generally and actually blocking Julian’s Real Mommy not only from using using he/r education and professional skills, but also from all employment.
The documentary that captures the essence of “Protective” Mother, Holly Collins and he/r children’s plight when they were granted political asylum in The Netherlands described this systematic neutralization campaign to maternally and materially bankrupt and render homeless those this social pandemic of child trafficking, and worse, throught the New Mafia family courts of fraud, abuse, harmful deception with malice, and the affiliated dimensions and clusters of personality traits and habits of those who keep little children winning “Teddy” Bears (think rail cars and “transportation”) at the carnival in “joint public-private” business–“No Way Out But One,” the title of Garland Waller’s award-winning film.
Those of us “protective” mothers, mostly with peculiarly high education and/or career levels, who are left behind to survive the unbelievable pain, torture, distress, generally, psychological warfare and for profit, 100% non transparent by law, “non-for profit” and state BAR engineered systematic re-victimization, in at least fifty percent, as reported by one source, are routinely, without fail in most every “State” in America, forced to claw our way out of the depths of Sheol with literally nothing but the clothes on our backs and the singular drive to get to our children with the hope that a police officer might actually have the capacity to comprehend that the father’s “court ‘orders”” are void ab initio, null and void, as if they never existed in such circumstances, without even a “special” appearance due to implicit and explicit fraud upon the court, lack of actual jurisdiction, and absolutely no due process of law, procedural or substantive (not to mention bribery and conspiracy against Federally “protected,” US Constitutionally secure rights), still worse is the the Stigmata that is our permanent record (and what company does not do a background check for multiple employer insurance schmes or purposes these days?), such records being the result of false imprisonment during paternity establishment or divorce or custody or even mediation/arbitration proceedings.
How do these fathers swing these sweet “pre-determined,” “trauma-based” and “evidence based” outcomes?This question, of course, factors- in n (of court) the hel p of their often times deluded or intentionally deceived and manipulated wives of convenience with a pack of their own children (by another man in whose home they live and receive thousands a month in child support on top of their lavish lifestyle while us mothers are “assigned,” or,” “charged,” wrongfully, maliciously with retaliation and fear of exposure, unreasonably, illegally, criminally, and unconstitutionally, with child support . . . to, oftentimes, literal millionaires who will stop at nothing to keep trying to “put ‘Mommy’ in jail” because “Daddy says ‘Mommy’ can’t afford a lawyer.'”
Almost a decade of legal abuse, legal stalking, legal, but unlawful, US unconstitutional kidnapping, secreting an infant and toddler, a $650/hr. plus attorney who gives continuing learning education seminars with the judge, a $20,000 “Damon 10,000 Screw” (quoting former FBI agent, Ted Gunderson)and abusing from afar whilst using one’s mother to frivolously and incessantly phone police and child protective services (with the bold-faced effrontery to leave the threats and a follow-up to the fact on Julian’s Real Mommy’s cell phone, in front of clients and at child’s pre-school with “eye” witnesses with “ears to hear”) will do to a mother, that is, before he/r only son was violently and mercilessly ripped away from he/r in an elaborate and sophisticated cover-up, alternatively, poor legal, but unlawuful (because US Unconstitutional and felonious), ad vice still couldn’t destroy the unconditional love and happiness, the miracle of my only private property sometimes called “child” for “state” reasons, for whom I will always, be glad I met my son’s father, and for whom I actually used to regret not ever having the chance to get to know him or be a part of mine and my son’s life (right up until the day he decided to start showing up for his bought “joint managing, non-primary ‘conservatorship'” to take my five year old to a private play therapist –think Marcia Kleinman’s coaching regarding alleged sexual abuse– Kimberly A. Abernethy in North Houston, Texas. So in the end, after six long hard years of holding my own and providing for my son in a relatively very high quality of living with a home office (that, of course, was robbed in 2010–they took most everyting out of the beautiful, spacious house I rented . . . which is a few doors down from where my son now lives and breathes, where I am, for no known reason and absent zero findings of fact or conclusions of law, denied the right to go near my son’s home, school (though I am a former educator, my life’s passion since I was three years old teaching the neighbors how to spell on my green easel and chalkboard and my blackboard using old math books my grandmother’s teacher friend who taught Bible school with used to supply me with), and even extracurricular activities (no “access or ‘visitation’).
Julian’s Real Mommy’s son’s father is under the delusion, pursuant to a null and void non-contract deceptively sold or administrated in the “form” deceptively mislabeled, “final order,” that he is the “sole managing ‘conservator,’ now, and Judge Lisa A. Millard and associate Judge Conrad Moren of the 310th Court in Harris County, Texas, that is, after Brazoria County CPS supervisor Cheryl Harvick, retaliating for failing to take my son’s case as serious as it was and because I busted them in their R.I.C.O. con spiracy, delivered on her violent threat that I would “never see [my] son again” for calling the Office of Consumer Affairs on “one of hers [caseworker, Lesley Damian-Murray, spelling as documented]. Then there is Officer Paul Elton of teh Pearland Police Department for City of Pearland (in Brazoria County), Region 6 CPS, who, though he knew there was an open police investigation on the father, yet still denied my good faith effort to allow the father supervised visitation on May 03, 2012, the day after my son and I were informed by his pediatrician that we were going to have to make a report by calling the CPS Statewide Hotline in Austin, Texas because he (my son’s then doctor while I was Julians’ only consistent and “primary” caregiver his entire life) was obligated to do so by law after speaking to my son.
We did exactly what each professional at the doctor’s office, CPS hotline, Pearland Police officers (but not the ones who helped Cheryl Harvick kidnap my son in a R.I.C.O. conspiracy against our US Constitutional First, Fourth, Fifth Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights Rights with invidous retaliation and discrimination and malice with unbelievable deception to lure us to the CPS office (or otherwise be arrested for not cooperating with our own reported (non)investigation as the Harris County police report and investigations was immediately shut-down by Brazoria County CPS supervisor, promoted to director, on knowledge and belief) under the carefully planned ruse and direct lie on May 07, 2012 that they “needed [my] ‘help'” to “make an arrest” on Julian’s father, leading me to believe that they had actually investigated. The ensuing ambush the following day when we arrived at the Pearland CPS office on May 08, 2012, just one day after I eagerly took Julian to pre-registration/”Kindergarten Round-up” in preparation for his first year of “big school” for which we had read and prepared and practiced writing for so many years together.
In the end, that’s how a man I never wanted as an enemy in the first place finally delivered on his ominous and “terroristic” threat that he and his “family” would “ruin” me if I didn’t show up to terminate the pregnancy with our only child where he had, without my knowledge and without consent, paid for the “termination” over the public Internet. The receipt in which Julian’s Real Mommy’s name is misspelled in three places can be found on this blog under, “How Harris and Brazoria County Protected a Mother and a Child.” I had no idea . . . three years, yet time has stood still for me. I wonder what my little Julian Jacob Worrell of Genealogy Saloom is thinking and doing on this beautiful, sunny Sunday. Is he playing soccer? attending church ? playing the Nintendo Wii?, watching television? reading? swimming? Does he ever think of his Real Mommy?
It is my hope that at least one readers who has read this far and is in a similar situation or knows someone who is going through this peculiarly unreported, yet all too common paralyzing pain and torture as a direct result of the same terroristic tactics, that you will find useful the following information and delight in the quick, but enlightening and highly useful general knowledge/academic research and/or entertainment which follows by Attorney Theodore “Sliwinski” of New Jersey (citing “Fair Use” and Legal Disclaimer, 17 U.S.C., section 107).
Practice Areas: Divorce
East Brunswick, New Jersey
http://www.divorcenet.com/states/new_jersey/spying_on_your_spouse
Hidden cameras, listening devices, or GPS tracking systems allow you to monitor your spouse’s activities. Specific software can even record your spouse’s computer use and online presence.
But most people aren’t aware that using spying equipment on your spouse could be illegal. These folks may find themselves in a thorny legal mess unless they know the federal and local (New Jersey) laws that apply to spying.
Congress enacted the Federal Wiretap Act in 1968 to protect wire and oral communications from being intercepted. A lot has changed since 1968. New Jersey quickly followed suit and enacted an identical law called the New Jersey Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Control Act. Today, communications aren’t just wire or oral; they’re transmitted by all manner of devices – electronic, digital, and video. Both Congress and state legislatures have been trying to keep up with the fact pace of new technology.
In 1986, Congress enacted the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which updated Federal protections to match the dramatic changes in technology and to protect the privacy and security of communications transmitted by new forms of technology (e.g., emails).
Although the laws are virtually identical, the penalties may be different. If you’re accused of violating either of these acts, you should definitely contact a local attorney for help.
Spying on your spouse by, for example, hacking into email accounts or monitoring computer usage could also constitute an invasion of your spouse’s right to privacy. New Jersey recognizes each person’s right to privacy, and if it’s invaded, injured spouses may bring a civil lawsuit against a spying spouse, just as they could if someone other than a spouse, say a neighbor, invaded their privacy.
A civil lawsuit for invasion of privacy carries with it various potential damages, including monetary fines. In addition, any information gathered as a result of the invasion of privacy is generally inadmissible in a divorce proceeding (or any other court action).
For example, if you hacked into your spouse’s email account to get copies of lurid emails you believe prove your spouse is an unfit parent, and a court finds that the hacking was an invasion of privacy, a judge will probably decide that the emails can’t be used as evidence in the custody case.
Invasion of of privacy laws are somewhat complex. If you have questions about them, you should contact a local attorney for advice.
There are hundreds of spyware programs and gadgets that enable a person to retrieve emails. These days, viewing a spouse’s stored emails or online messages is the most common way to discover an affair.
There is no easy answer to the question of whether it’s legal to do this kind of spying. If the computer is located in the marital home, then (in most cases) the interception of emails will not constitute a violation of wiretapping laws. However, if the emails were password protected, or they were stored on your spouse’s work computer, trying to retrieve them could be a violation.
In one New Jersey case, a wife tried to use emails between her husband and his girlfriend as evidence in a custody dispute between the parents. The husband asked the court to reject the emails based on his right to privacy.
In this case, the emails were stored in an AOL folder located right on on family computer hard drive, and the wife didn’t have to use a password or even access her husband’s email account to get them. Moreover, the computer was kept in the family room.
Because they were easily accessible, the court found the husband didn’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy to the emails, and they were admissible. The court also held that although the New Jersey Wire Tap act applies to “unauthorized access” of electronic communications of spouses, there was no violation of that provision either.
For the full text of this important court decision, see White v. White, 344 N.J. Super. 211 (Ch. Div. 2001).
If you learn things about your spouse’s actions by hacking into a computer, you may find the information useful on a personal level if it confirms your suspicions about adultery or other wrongdoing. However, as stated above, any evidence that’s obtained by wiretapping or hacking can’t always be used as leverage in a divorce case—it may backfire in the form of a civil lawsuit or other retaliation, and it may not be admissible in court.
Video surveillance conducted in the marital home is generally permissible and not considered an invasion of privacy. However, in the outside world, an argument can be made that video surveillance is an invasion of privacy; the key issue is where the surveillance occurs.
The New Jersey Wiretap Act prohibits spouses from illegally recording the communications of the other spouse. However, there appears to be an exception to this general rule; it is not unlawful for a person to intercept a wire, electronic, or oral communication, where such person is a party to the communication So, it may be ok to record a conversation, but only if the person that’s doing the recording is a party to the conversation. (See N.J.S.A. 2A:156A-4 (d).) There is no exception for recording conversations between your spouse and someone else. Recording those conversations is a violation of wiretap laws.
New Jersey’s wiretap statute defines a wire communication to include “any electronic storage of such communication, and the radio portion of a cordless telephone communication that is transmitted between the cordless telephone handset and the base unit.” Thus, under New Jersey law, cell phone communications are treated the same as landline (phone) communications.
For the full text of the New Jersey decision on the use of GPS to spy on your spouse, see Villanova v. Innovative Investigations, Inc., 420 N.J.Super. 353 (App. Div. 2011).
For the complete text of the New Jersey Wiretap Act, see N.J.S.A. 2A:156A-1 et seq.
For the complete text of the Federal Wiretap Act, see 18 U.S.C. § 2510 et seq.
ILLEGALLY OBTAINED EVIDENCE (Wiretapping, Interception of Electronic Communication, Surveillance, Private Investigators, and the Attorney/Client Privilege)
WARREN COLE KRISTI WIDNER
Piro and Lilly, L.L.P.
1400 Post Oak Blvd., Suite 600
Houston, Texas 77056-3008
warcole@piro-lilly.com
(713) 966-4444
State Bar of Texas
29TH ANNUAL ADVANCED FAMILY LAW COURSE
August 18-21, 2003
San Antonio
CHAPTER 54,
INTERCEPTION OF
COMMUNICATION §§ 123.001.
Definitions In this chapter:
(1) “Communication” means speech uttered by a person or information including speech that is transmitted in whole or in part with the aid of a wire or cable.
(2) “Interception” means the aural acquisition of the contents of a communication through the use of an electronic, mechanical, or other device that is made without the consent of a party to the communication, but does not include the ordinary use of:
(A) a telephone or telegraph instrument or facility or telephone and telegraph equipment;
(B) a hearing aid designed to correct subnormal hearing to not better than normal;
(C) a radio, television, or other wireless receiver; or
(D) a cable system that relays a public wireless broadcast from a common antenna to a receiver.
(a) A party to a communication may sue a person who:
(1) intercepts, attempts to intercept, or employs or obtains another to intercept or attempt to intercept the communication;
(2) uses or divulges information that he knows or reasonably should know was obtained by interception of the communication; or
(3) as a landlord, building operator, or communication common carrier, either personally or through an agent or employee, aids or knowingly permits interception or attempted interception of the communication.
(b) This section does not apply to a party to a communication if an interception or attempted interception of the communication is authorized by Title 18, United States Code, Section 2516. §§ 123.003.
Defense
(a) A switchboard operator or an officer, employee, or agent of a communication common carrier whose facilities are used in the transmission of a wire communication may intercept, disclose, or use a communication in the normal course of employment if engaged in an activity that is necessary to service or for the protection of the carrier’s rights or property.
A communication common carrier may not use service observation or random monitoring except for mechanical or service quality control checks.
(b) It is a defense to an action under Section 123.002 that an interception, disclosure, or use of a communication is permitted by this section.
(c) A defendant must establish by a preponderance of the evidence a defense raised under this section.
§§ 123.004. Damages
A person who establishes a cause of action under this chapter is entitled to:
(1) an injunction prohibiting a further interception, attempted interception, or divulgence or use of information obtained by an interception;
(2) statutory damages of $10,000 for each occurrence;
(3) all actual damages in excess of $10,000;
(4) punitive damages in an amount determined by the court or jury; and
(5) reasonable attorney’s fees and costs.
TEXAS PENAL CODE CHAPTER 16
. CRIMINAL INSTRUMENTS, INTERCEPTION OF WIRE OR ORAL COMMUNICATION, AND INSTALLATION OF TRACKING DEVICE §§ 16.01. Unlawful Use of Criminal Instrument
(a) A person commits an offense if:
(1) he possesses a criminal instrument with intent to use it in the commission of an offense; or
(2) with knowledge of its character and with intent to use or aid or permit another to use in the commission of an offense, he manufactures, adapts, sells, installs, or sets up a criminal instrument . (b) For the purpose of this section, “criminalinstrument” means anything, the possession, manufacture, or sale of which is not otherwise an offense, that is specially designed, made, or adapted for use in the commission of an offense. (c) An offense under Subsection (a)(1) is one category lower than the offense intended. An offense under Subsection (a)(2) is a state jail felony.
effective until Sept. 1, 2005
(a) In this section, “computer trespasser,””covert entry,” “communication common carrier,” “contents,” “electronic communication,“ “electronic, mechanical, or other device,” “immediate life-threatening situation,” “intercept,” “investigative or law enforcement officer,” “member of a law enforcement unit specially trained to respond to and deal with life-threatening situations,” “oral communication,” “protected computer,” [“electronic communication,”] “readily accessible to the general public,” and “wire communication” have the meanings given those terms in Article 18.20, Code of Criminal Procedure.
(b) A person commits an offense if the person:
(1) intentionally intercepts, endeavors to intercept, or procures another person to intercept or endeavor to intercept a wire, oral, or electronic communication;
(2) intentionally discloses or endeavors to disclose to another person the contents of a wire, oral, or electronic communication if the person knows or has reason to know the information was obtained through the interception of a wire, oral, or electronic communication in violation of this subsection;
(3) intentionally uses or endeavors to use the contents of a wire, oral, or electronic communic ation if the person knows or is reckless about whether the information was obtained through the interception of a wire, oral, or electronic communication in violation of this subsection;
(4) knowingly or intentionally effects a covert entry for the purpose of intercepting wire, oral, or electronic communications without court order or authorization; or
(5) intentionally uses, endeavors to use, or procures any other person to use or endeavor to use any electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept any oral communication when the device:
(A) is affixed to, or otherwise transmits a signal through a wire, cable, or other connection used in wire communications; or
(B) transmits communications by radio or interferes with the transmission of communications by radio. (c) It is an affirmative defense to prosecution under Subsection (b) that:
(1) an operator of a switchboard or an officer, employee, or agent of a communication common carrier whose facilities are used in the transmission of a wire or electronic communication intercepts a communication or discloses or uses an intercepted communication in the normal course of employment while engaged in an activity that is a necessary incident to the rendition of service or to the protection of the rights or property of the carrier of the communication, unless the interception results from the communication common carrier’s use of service observing or random monitoring for purposes other than mechanical or service quality control checks;
(2) an officer, employee, or agent of a communication common carrier provides information, facilities, or technical assistance to an investigative or law enforcement offic er who is authorized as provided by this section [article] to intercept a wire, oral, or electronic communication;
(3) a person acting under color of law intercepts:
(A) a wire, oral, or electronic communication, if the person is a party to the communication or if one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to the interception;
(B) a wire, oral, or electronic communication, if the person is acting under the authority of Article 18.20,Code of Criminal Procedure; or
(C) a wire or electronic communication made by a computer trespasser and transmitted to, through, or from a protected computer, if:
(i) the interception did not acquire a communication other than one transmitted to or from the computer trespasser;
(ii) the owner of the protected computer consented to the interception of the computer trespasser’s communications on the protected computer; and
(iii) actor was lawfully engaged in an ongoing criminal investigation and the actor had reasonable suspicion to believe that the contents of the computer trespasser’s communications likely to be obtained would be material to the investigation;
(4) a person not acting under color of law intercepts a wire, oral, or electronic communication, if:
(A) the person is a party to the communication; or
(B) [if] one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to the interception, unless the communication is intercepted for the purpose of committing an unlawful [any criminal or tortious act in violation of the constitution or laws of the United States or of this state or for the purpose of committing any other injurious] act;
(5) a person acting under color of law intercepts a wire, oral, or electronic communication if:
(A) oral or written consent for the interception is given by a magistrate before the interception;
(B) an immediate life-threatening situation exists;
(C) the person is a member of a law enforcement unit specially trained to:
(i) respond to and deal with lifethreatening situations; or
(ii) install electronic, mechanical, or other devices; and
(D) the interception ceases immediately on termination of the life-threatening situation;
(6) an officer, employee, or agent of the Federal Communications Commission intercepts a communication transmitted by radio or discloses or uses an intercepted communication in the normal course of employment and in the discharge of the monitoring responsibilities exercised by the Federal Communications Commission in the enforcement of Chapter 5, Title 47, United States Code;
(7) a person intercepts or obtains access to an electronic communication that was made through an electronic communication system that is configured to permit the communication to be readily accessible to the general public;
(8) a person intercepts radio communication, other than a cordless telephone communication that is transmitted between a cordless telephone handset and a base unit, that is transmitted:
(A) by a station for the use of the general public;
(B) to ships, aircraft, vehicles, or persons in distress;
(C) by a governmental, law enforcement, civil defense, private land mobile, or public safety communications system that is readily accessible to the general public, unless the radio communication is transmitted by a law enforcement representative to or from a mobile data terminal;
(D) by a station operating on an authorized frequency within the bands allocated to the amateur, citizens band, or general mobile radio services; or
(E) by a marine or aeronautical communications system;
(9) a person intercepts a wire or electronic c ommunication the transmission of which causes harmful interference to a lawfully operating station or consumer electronic equipment, to the extent necessary to identify the source of the interference;
(10) a user of the same frequency intercepts a radio communication made through a system that uses frequencies monitored by individuals engaged in the provision or the use of the system, if the communication is not scrambled or encrypted; or
(11) a provider of electronic communications service records the fact that a wire or electronic communication was initiated or completed in order to protect the provider, another provider furnishing service towards the completion of the communication, or a user of that service from fraudulent, unlawful, or abusive use of the service.
(d) A person commits an offense if the person:
(1) intentionally manufactures, assembles, possesses, or sells an electronic, mechanical, or other device knowing or having reason to know that the device is designed primarily for nonconsensual interception of wire, electronic, or oral communications and that the device or a component of the device has been or will be used for an unlawful purpose; or
(2) places in a newspaper, magazine, handbill, or other publication an advertisement of an electronic, mechanical, or other device:
(A) knowing or having reason to know that the device is designed primarily for nonconsensual interception of wire, electronic, or oral communications;
(B) promoting the use of the device for the purpose of nonconsensual interception of wire, electronic, or oral communications; or
(C) knowing or having reason to know that the advertisement will promote the use of the device for the purpose of nonconsensual interception of wire, electronic, or oral communications.
(e) It is an affirmative defense to prosecution under Subsection (d) that the manufacture, assembly, possession, or sale of an electronic, mechanical, or other device that is designed primarily for the purpose of nonconsensual interception of wire, electronic, or oral communication is by:
(1) a communication common carrier or a provider of wire or electronic communications service or an officer, agent, or employee of or a person under contract with a communication common carrier or provider acting in the normal course of the provider’s or communication carrier’s business;
(2) an officer, agent, or employee of a person under contract with, bidding on contracts with, or doing business with the United States or this state acting in the normal course cof the activities of the United States or this state;
(3) a member of the Department of Public Safety who is specifically trained to install wire, oral, or electronic communications intercept equipment; or
(4) a member of a local law enforcement agency that has an established unit specifically designated to respond to and deal with life threatening situations.
(f) An offense under this section is a felony of the second degree, unless the offense is committed under Subsection (d) or (g), in which event the offense is a state jail felony.
(g) A person commits an offense if, knowing that a government attorney or an investigative or law enforcement officer has been authorized or has applied for authorization to intercept wire, electronic, or oral communications, the person obstructs, impedes, prevents, gives notice to another of, or attempts to give notice to another of the interception.
(h) This section expires September 1, 2005, and shall not be in force on and after that date. Added by Acts 1981, 67th Leg., p. 738, ch. 275, §§ 2, eff. Aug. 31, 1981. Amended by Acts 1983, 68th Leg., p. 4878, ch. 864, §§§§ 1 to 3, eff. June 19, 1983; Acts 1989, 71st Leg., ch. 1166, §§ 16, eff. Sept. 1, 1989; Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 790, §§ 16, eff. Sept. 1, 1993; Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 900, §§ 1.01, eff. Sept. 1, 1994. Amended by Acts 1997, 75th Leg., ch. 1051, §§ 9, eff. Sept. 1, 1997; Amended by Acts 2001, 77th Leg., ch. 1270, §§ 11, eff. Sept. 1, 2001. Sections 16.02(a) and (c) Amended by Acts 2003, 78th Leg.,eff. Sept. 1, 2003.
§§ 16.03. Unlawful Use of Pen Register or Trap and Trace Device
(a) A person commits an offense if the person knowingly installs or uses a pen register or trap and trace device to record or decode electronic or other impulses for the purpose of identifying telephone numbers dialed or otherwise transmitted on a telephone line.
(b) In this section, “authorized peace officer,” “communications common carrier,” “pen register,” and “trap and trace device” have the meanings assigned by Article 18.21, Code of Criminal Procedure.
(c) It is an affirmative defense to prosecution under Subsection (a) that the actor is:
(1) an officer, employee, or agent of a communications common carrier and the actor installs or uses a device or equipment to record a number dialed from or to a telephone instrument in the normal course of business of the carrier for purposes of:
(A) protecting property or services provided by the carrier; or
(B) assisting another who the actor reasonably believes to be a peace officer authorized to install or use a pen register or trap and trace device under Article 18.21, Code of Criminal Procedure;
(2) an officer, employee, or agent of a lawful enterprise and the actor installs or uses a device or equipment while engaged in an activity that:
(A) is a necessary incident to the rendition of service or to the protection of property of or services provided by the enterprise; and
(B) is not made for the purpose of gathering information for a law enforcement agency or private investigative agency, other than information related to the theft of communication or information services provided by the enterprise; or
(3) a person authorized to install or use a pen register or trap and trace device under Article 18.21, Code of Criminal Procedure.
(d) An offense under this section is a state jail felony.
(a) In this section, “electronic communication,” “electronic storage,” “user,” and “wire communication” have the meanings assigned to those terms in Article 18.21, Code of Criminal Procedure.
(b) A person commits an offense if the person obtains, alters, or prevents authorized access to a wire or electronic communication while the communication is in electronic storage by:
(1) intentionally obtaining access without authorization to a facility through which a wire or electronic communications service is provided; or
(2) intentionally exceeding an authorization for access to a facility through which a wire or electronic communications service is provided.
(c) Except as provided by Subsection (d), an offense under Subsection (b) is a Class A misdemeanor.
(d) If committed to obtain a benefit or to harm another, an offense is a state jail felony.
(e) It is an affirmative defense to prosecution under Subsection (b) that the conduct was authorized by:
(1) the provider of the wire or electronic communications service;
(2) the user of the wire or electronic communications service;
(3) the addressee or intended recipient of the wire or electronic communication; or
(4) Article 18.21, Code of Criminal Procedure.
§§ 16.05. Illegal Divulgence of Public Communications
(a) In this section, “electronic communication,” “electronic communications service,” and “electronic communications system” have the meanings given those terms in Article 18.20, Code of Criminal Procedure.
(b) A person who provides electronic communications service to the public commits an offense if the person knowingly divulges the contents of a communication to another who is not the intended recipient of the communication.
(c) It is an affirmative defense to prosecution under Subsection (b) that the actor divulged the contents of the communication:
(1) as authorized by federal or state law;
(2) to a person employed, authorized, or whose facilities are used to forward the communication to the communication’s destination; or
(3) to a law enforcement agency if the contents reasonably appear to pertain to the commission of a crime.
(d) Except as provided by Subsection (e), an offense under Subsection (b) that involves a scrambled or encrypted radio communication is a state jail felony.
(e) If committed for a tortious or illegal purpose or to gain a benefit, an offense under Subsection (b) that involves a radio communication that is not scrambled or encrypted:
(1) is a Class A misdemeanor if the communication is not a public land mobile radio service communication or a paging service communication; or is a Class C misdemeanor if the communication is a public land mobile radio service communication or a paging service communication.
(f) Repealed by Acts 1997, 75th Leg., ch. 1051, §§ 13, eff. Sept. 1, 1997. §§ 16.06.
Unlawful Installation of Tracking Device
(a) In this section:
(1) “Electronic or mechanical tracking device” means a device capable of emitting an electronic frequency or other signal that may be used by a person to identify, monitor, or record the location of another person or object. (2) “Motor vehicle” has the meaning assigned by Section 501.002, Transportation Code.
(b) A person commits an offense if the person knowingly installs an electronic or mechanical tracking device on a motor vehicle owned or leased by another person.
(c) An offense under this section is a Class A misdemeanor.
(d) It is an affirmative defense to prosecution under this section that the person:
(1) obtained the effective consent of the owner or lessee of the motor vehicle before the electronic or mechanical tracking device was installed;
(2) was a peace officer who installed the device in the course of a criminal investigation or pursuant to an order of a court to gather information for a law enforcement agency;
(3) assisted another whom the person reasonably believed to be a peace officer authorized to install the device in the course of a criminal investigation or pursuant to an order of a court to gather information for a law enforcement agency; or
(4) was a private investigator licensed under Chapter 1702, Occupations Code, who installed the device:
(A) with written consent:
(i) to install the device given by the owner or lessee of the motor vehicle; and
(ii) to enter private residential property, if that entry was necess ary to install the device, given by the owner or lessee of the property; or
(B) pursuant to an order of or other authorization from a court to gather information.
As used in this chapter –
(1) ”wire communication’‘ means any aural transfer made in whole or in part through the use of facilities for the transmission of communications by the aid of wire, cable, or other like connection between the point of origin and the point of reception (including the use of such connection in a switching station) furnished or operated by any person engaged in providing or operating such facilities for the transmission of interstate or foreign communications or communications affecting interstate or foreign commerce;
(2) ”oral communication” means any oral communic ation uttered by a person exhibiting an expectation that such communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying such expectation, but such term does not include any electronic communication;
(3) ”State” means any State of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and any territory or possession of the United States;
(4) ”intercept” means the aural or other acquisition of the contents of any wire, electronic, or oral communication through the use of any electronic, mechanical, or other device.
(5) ”electronic, mechanical, or other device’‘ means any device or apparatus which can be used to intercept a wire, oral, or electronic communication other than –
(a) any telephone or telegraph instrument, equipment or facility, or any component thereof,
(i) furnished to the subscriber or user by a provider of wire or electronic communication service in the ordinary course of its business and being used by the subscriber or user in the ordinary course of its business or furnished by such subscriber or user for connection to the facilities of such service and used in the ordinary course of its business; or
(ii) being used by a provider of wire or electronic communication service in the ordinary course of its business, or by an investigative or law enforcement officer in the ordinary course of his duties;
(b) a hearing aid or similar device being used to correct subnormal hearing to not better than normal;
(6) ”person” means any employee, or agent of the United States or any State or political subdivision thereof, and any individual, partnership, association, joint stock company, trust, or corporation;
(7) ”Investigative or law enforcement officer” means any officer of the United States or of a State or political subdivision thereof, who is empowered by law to conduct investigations of or to make arrests for offenses enumerated in this chapter, and any attorney authorized by law to prosecute or participate in the prosecution of such offenses;
(8) ”contents,” when used with respect to any wire, oral, or electronic communication, includes any information concerning the substance, purport, or meaning of that communication;
(9) ”Judge of competent jurisdiction” means –
(a) a judge of a United States district court or a United States court of appeals; and
(b) a judge of any court of general criminal jurisdiction of a State who is authorized by a statute of that State to enter orders authorizing interceptions of wire, oral, or electronic communications;
(10) ”communication common carrier” shall have the same meaning which is given the term ”common carrier” by section 153(h) [2] of title 47 of the United States Code;
(11) ”aggrieved person” means a person who was a party to any intercepted wire, oral, or electronic communication or a person against whom the interception was directed;
(12) ‘ ‘electronic communication” means any transfer of signs, signals, writing, images, sounds, data, or intelligence of any nature transmitted in whole or in part by a wire, radio, electromagnetic, photoelectronic or photooptical system that affects interstate or foreign commerce, but does not include –
(A) any wire or oral communication;
(B) any communication made through a tone-only paging device;
(C) any communication from a tracking device (as defined in section 3117 of this title); or
(D) electronic funds transfer information stored by a financial institution in a communications system used for the electronic storage and transfer of funds;
(13) ”user” means any person or entity who –
(A) uses an electronic communication service; and
(B) is duly authorized by the provider of such service to engage in such use;
(14) ”electronic communications system” means any wire, radio, electromagnetic, photooptical or photoelectronic facilities for the transmission of wire or electronic communications, and any computer facilities or related electronic equipment for the electronic storage of such communications;
(15) ”electronic communication service” means any service which provides to users thereof the ability to send or receive wire or electronic communications;
(16) ”readily accessible to the general public” means, with respect to a radio communication, that such communication is not –
(A) scrambled or encrypted;
(B) transmitted using modulation techniques whose essential parameters have been withheld from the public with the intention of preserving the privacy of such communication;
(C) carried on a subcarrier or other signal subsidiary to a radio transmission;
(D) transmitted over a communication system provided by a common carrier, unless the communication is a tone only paging system communication; or
(E) transmitted on frequencies allocated under part 25, subpart D, E, or F of part 74, or part 94 of the Rules of the Federal Communications Commission, unless, in the case of a communication transmitted on a frequency allocated under part 74 that is not exclusively allocated to broadcast auxiliary services, the communication is a two-way voice communication by radio
(17) ”electronic storage” means –
(A) any temporary, intermediate storage of a wire or electronic communication incidental to the electronic transmission thereof; and
(B) any storage of such communication by an electronic communication service for purposes of backup protection of such communication;
(18) ”aural transfer” means a transfer containing the human voice at any point between and including the point of origin and the point of reception;
(19) ”foreign intelligence information,” for purposes of section 2517(6) of this title, means –
(A) information, whether or not concerning a United States person, that relates to the ability of the United States to protect against –
(i) actual or potential attack or other grave hostile acts of a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power;
(ii) sabotage or international terrorism by a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power; or
(iii) clandestine intelligence activities by an intelligence service or network of a foreign power or by an agent of a foreign power; or
(B) information, whether or not concerning a United States person, with respect to a foreign power or foreign territory that relates to –
(i) the national defense or the security of the United States; or
(ii) the conduct of the foreign affairs of the United States;
(20) ”protected computer” has the meaning set forth in section 1030; and
(21) ”computer trespasser” –
(A) means a person who accesses a protected computer without authorization and thus has no reasonable expectation of privacy in any communication transmitted to, through, or from the protected computer; and (B) does not include a person known by the owner or operator of the protected computer to have an existing contractual relationship with the owner or operator of the protected computer for access to all or part of the protected computer.
Sec. 2511. –
Interception and disclosure of wire, oral, or electronic communications prohibited
(1) Except as otherwise specifically provided in this chapter any person who –
(a) intentionally intercepts, endeavors to intercept, or procures any other person to intercept or endeavor to intercept, any wire, oral, or electronic communication; (b) intentionally uses, endeavors to use, or procures any other person to use or endeavor to use any electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept any oral communication when –
(i) such device is affixed to, or otherwise transmits a signal through, a wire, cable, or other like connection used in wire communication; or
(ii) such device transmits communications by radio, or interferes with the transmission of such communication; or
(iii) such person knows, or has reason to know, that such device or any component thereof has been sent through the mail or transported in interstate or foreign commerce; or
(iv) such use or endeavor to use
(A) takes place on the premises of any business or other commercial establishment the operations of which affect interstate or foreign commerce; or
(B) obtains or is for the purpose of obtaining information relating to the operations of any business or other commercial establishment the operations of which affect interstate or foreign commerce; or
(v) such person acts in the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or any territory or possession of the United States;
(c) intentionally discloses, or endeavors to disclose, to any other person the contents of any wire, oral, or electronic communication, knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through the interception of a wire, oral, or electronic communication in violation of this subsection;
(d) intentionally uses, or endeavors to use, the contents of any wire, oral, or electronic communication, knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through the interception of a wire, oral, or electronic communication in violation of this subsection; or
(e)(i) intentionally discloses, or endeavors to disclose, to any other person the contents of any wire, oral, or electronic communication, intercepted by means authorized by sections 2511(2)(a)(ii), 2511(2)(b)-(c), 2511(2)(e), 2516, and 2518 of this chapter,
(ii) knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through the interception of such a communication in connection with a criminal investigation,
(iii) having obtained or received the information in connection with a criminal investigation, and
(iv) with intent to improperly obstruct, impede, or interfere with a duly authorized criminal investigation, shall be punished as provided in subsection
(4) or shall be subject to suit as provided in subsection (5).
(2) (a)(i) It shall not be unlawful under this chapter for an operator of a switchboard, or an officer, employee, or agent of a provider of wire or electronic communication service, whose facilities are used in the transmission of a wire or electronic communication, to intercept, disclose, or use that communication in the normal course of his employment while engaged in any activity which is a necessary incident to the rendition of his service or to the protection of the rights or property of the provider of that service, except that a provider of wire communication service to the public shall not utilize service observing or random monitoring except for mechanical or service quality control checks.
(ii) Notwithstanding any other law, providers of wire or electronic communication service, their officers, employees, and agents, landlords, custodians, or other persons, are authorized to provide information, facilities, or technical assistance to persons authorized by law to intercept wire, oral, or electronic communications or to conduct electronic surveillance, as defined in section 101 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, if such provider, its officers, employees, or agents, landlord, custodian, or other specified person, has been provided with –
(A) a court order directing such assistance signed by the authorizing judge, or
(B) a certification in writing by a person specified in section 2518(7) of this title or the Attorney General of the United States that no warrant or court order is required by law, that all statutory requirements have been met, and that the specified assistance is required, setting forth the period of time during which the provision of the information, facilities, or technical assistance is authorized and specifying the information, facilities, or technical assistance required.
No provider of wire or electronic communication service, officer, employee, or agent thereof, or landlord, custodian, or other specified person shall disclose the existence of any interception or surveillance or the device used to accomplish the interception or surveillance with respect to which the person has been furnished a court order or certification under this chapter, except as may otherwise be required by legal process and then only after prior notification to the Attorney General or to the principal prosecuting attorney of a State or any political subdivision of a State, as may be appropriate.
Any such disclosure, shall render such person liable for the civil damages provided for in section 2520. No cause of action shall lie in any court against any provider of wire or electronic communication service, its officers, employees, or agents, landlord, custodian, or other specified person for providing information, facilities, or assistance in accordance with the terms of a court order or certification under this chapter.
(b) It shall not be unlawful under this chapter for an officer, employee, or agent of the Federal Communications Commission, in the normal course of his employment and in discharge of the monitoring responsibilities exercised by the Commission in the enforcement of chapter 5 of title 47 of the United States Code, to intercept a wire or electronic communication, or oral communication transmitted by radio, or to disclose or use the information thereby obtained.
(c) It shall not be unlawful under this chapter for a person acting under color of law to intercept a wire, oral, or electronic communication, where such person is a party to the communication or one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception.
(d) It shall not be unlawful under this chapter for a person not acting under color of law to intercept a wire, oral, or electronic communication where such person is a party to the communication or where one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception unless such communication is intercepted for the purpose of committing any criminal or tortious act in violation of the(U.S.) Constitution or laws of the United States or of any State.
(e) Notwithstanding any other provision of this title or section 705 or 706 of the Communications Act of 1934, it shall not be unlawful for an officer, employee, or agent of the United States in the normal course of his official duty to conduct electronic surveillance, as defined in section 101 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, as authorized by that Act.
(f) Nothing contained in this chapter or chapter 121 or 206 of this title, or section 705 of the Communications Act of 1934, shall be deemed to affect the acquisition by the United States Government of foreign intelligence information from international or foreign communications, or foreign intelligence activities conducted in accordance with otherwise applicable Federal law involving a foreign electronic communications system, utilizing a means other than electronic surveillance as defined in section 101 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, and procedures in this chapter or chapter 121 and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 shall be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance, as defined in section 101 of such Act, and the interception of domestic wire, oral, and electronic communications may be conducted.
(g) It shall not be unlawful under this chapter or chapter 121 of this title for any person –
(i) to intercept or access an electronic communication made through an electronic communication system that is configured so that such electronic communication is readily accessible to the general public;
(ii) to intercept any radio communication which is transmitted –
(I) by any station for the use of the general public, or that relates to ships, aircraft, vehicles, or persons in distress;
(II) by any governmental, law enforcement, civil defense, private land mobile, or public safety communications system, including police and fire, readily accessible to the general public;
(III) by a station operating on an authorized frequency within the bands allocated to the amateur, citizens band, or general mobile radio services; or
(IV) by any marine or aeronautical communications system;
(iii) to engage in any conduct which –
(I) is prohibited by section 633 of the Communications Act of 1934; or
(II) is excepted from the application of section 705(a) of the Communications Act of 1934 by section 705(b) of that Act;
(iv) to intercept any wire or electronic c ommunication the transmission of which is causing harmful interference to any lawfully operating station or consumer electronic equipment, to the extent necessary to identify the source of such interference; or
(v) for other users of the same frequency to intercept any radio communication made through a system that utilizes frequencies monitored by individuals engaged in the provision or the use of such system, if such communication is not scrambled or encrypted.
(h) It shall not be unlawful under this chapter –
(i) to use a pen register or a trap and trace device (as those terms are defined for the purposes of chapter 206 (relating to pen registers and trap and trace devices) of this title); or
(ii) for a provider of electronic communication s ervice to record the fact that a wire or electronic communication was initiated or completed in order to protect such provider, another provider furnishing service toward the completion of the wire or electronic communication, or a user of that service, from fraudulent, unlawful or abusive use of such service.
(i) It shall not be unlawful under this chapter for a person acting under color of law to intercept the wire or electronic communications of a computer trespasser transmitted to, through, or from the protected computer, if –
(I) the owner or operator of the protected computer authorizes the interception of the computer trespasser’s communications on the protected computer;
(II) the person acting under color of law is lawfully engaged in an investigation;
(III) the person acting under color of law has reasonable grounds to believe that the contents of the computer trespasser’s communications will be relevant to the investigation; and
(IV) such interception does not acquire communications other than those transmitted to or from the computer trespasser.
(3)(a) Except as provided in paragraph (b) of this subsection, a person or entity providing an electronic communication service to the public shall not intentionally divulge the contents of any communication (other than one to such person or entity, or an agent thereof) while in transmission on that service to any person or entity other than an addressee or intended recipient of such communication or an agent of such addressee or intended recipient.
(b) A person or entity providing electronic communication service to the public may divulge the contents of any such communication –
(i) as otherwise authorized in section 2511(2)(a) or 2517 of this title;
(ii) with the lawful consent of the originator or any addressee or intended recipient of such communication;
(iii) to a person employed or authorized, or whose facilities are used, to forward such communication to its destination; or
(iv) which were inadvertently obtained by the service provider and which appear to pertain to the commission of a crime, if such divulgence is made to a law enforcement agency.
(4)(a) Except as provided in paragraph (b) of this subsection or in subsection (5), whoever violates subsection (1) of this section shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
(b) If the offense is a first offense under paragraph (a) of this subsection and is not for a tortious or illegal purpose or for purposes of direct or indirect commercial advantage or private commercial gain, and the wire or electronic communication with respect to which the offense under paragraph (a) is a radio communication that is not scrambled, encrypted, or transmitted using modulation techniques the essential parameters of which have been withheld from the public with the intention of preserving the privacy of such communication, then –
(i) if the communication is not the radio portion of a cellular telephone communication, a cordless telephone communication that is transmitted between the cordless telephone handset and the base unit, a public land mobile radio service communication or a paging service communication, and the conduct is not that described in subsection (5), the offender shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and
(ii) if the communication is the radio portion of a cellular telephone communication, a cordless telephone communication that is transmitted between the cordless telephone handset and the base unit, a public land mobile radio service communication or a paging service communication, the offender shall be fined under this title.
(c) Conduct otherwise an offense under this subsection that consists of or relates to the interception of a satellite transmission that is not encrypted or scrambled and that is transmitted –
(i) to a broadcasting station for purposes of retransmission to the general public; or
(ii) as an audio subcarrier intended for redistribution to facilities open to the public, but not including data transmissions or telephone calls, is not an offense under this subsection unless the conduct is for the purposes of direct or indirect commercial advantage or private financial gain.
(5)(a) (i) If the communication is –
(A) a private satellite video communication that is not scrambled or encrypted and the conduct in violation of this chapter is the private viewing of that communication and is not for a tortious or illegal purpose or for purposes of direct or indirect commercial advantage or private commercial gain; or
(B) a radio communication that is transmitted on frequencies allocated under subpart D of part 74 of the rules of the Federal Communications Commission that is not scrambled or encrypted and the conduct in violation of this chapter is not for a tortious or illegal purpose or for purposes of direct or indirect commercial advantage or private commercial gain, then the person who engages in such conduct shall be subject to suit by the Federal Government in a court of competent jurisdiction.
(ii) In an action under this subsection –
(A) if the violation of this chapter is a first offense for the person under paragraph (a) of subsection (4) and such person has not been found liable in a civil action under section 2520 of this title, the Federal Government shall be entitled to appropriate injunctive relief; and
(B) if the violation of this chapter is a second or subsequent offense under paragraph (a) of subsection (4) or such person has been found liable in any prior civil action under section 2520, the person shall be subject to a mandatory $500 civil fine.
(b) The court may use any means within its authority to enforce an injunction issued under paragraph (ii)(A), and shall impose a civil fine of not less than $500 for each violation of such an injunction.
Sec. 2512. –
Manufacture, distribution, possession, and advertising of wire, oral, or electronic communication intercepting devices prohibited
(1) Except as otherwise specifically provided in this chapter, any person who intentionally –
(a) sends through the mail, or sends or carries in interstate or foreign commerce, any electronic, mechanical, or other device, knowing or having reason to know that the design of such device renders it primarily useful for the purpose of the surreptitious interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications;
(b) manufactures, assembles, possesses, or sells any electronic, mechanical, or other device, knowing or having reason to know that the design of such device renders it primarily useful for the purpose of the surreptitious interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications, and that such device or any component thereof has been or will be sent through the mail or transported in interstate or foreign commerce; or
(c) places in any newspaper, magazine, handbill, or other publication any advertisement of –
(i) any electronic, mechanical, or other device knowing or having reason to know that the design of such device renders it primarily useful for the purpose of the surreptitious interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications; or
(ii) any other electronic, mechanical, or other device, where such advertisement promotes the use of such device for the purpose of the surreptitious interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications, knowing or having reason to know that such advertisement will be sent through the mail or transported in interstate or foreign commerce, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
(2) It shall not be unlawful under this section for –
(a) a provider of wire or electronic communication service or an officer, agent, or employee of, or a person under contract with, such a provider, in the normal course of the business of providing that wire or electronic communication service, or
(b) an officer, agent, or employee of, or a person under contract with, the United States, a State, or a political subdivision thereof, in the normal course of the activities of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision thereof, to send through the mail, send or carry in interstate or foreign commerce, or manufacture, assemble, possess, or sell any electronic, mechanical, or other device knowing or having reason to know that the design of such device renders it primarily useful for the purpose of the surreptitious interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications.
(3) It shall not be unlawful under this section to advertise for sale a device described in subsection (1) of this section if the advertisement is mailed, sent, or carried in interstate or foreign commerce solely to a domestic provider of wire or electronic communication service or to an agency of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision thereof which is duly authorized to use such device.
Any electronic, mechanical, or other device used, sent, carried, manufactured, assembled, possessed, sold, or advertised in violation of section 2511 or section 2512 of this chapter may be seized and forfeited to the United States. All provisions of law relating to
(1) the seizure, summary and judicial forfeiture, and condemnation of vessels, vehicles, merchandise, and baggage for violations of the customs laws contained in title 19 of the United States Code,
(2) the disposition of such vessels, vehicles, merchandise, and baggage or the proceeds from the sale thereof,
(3) the remission or mitigation of such forfeiture,
(4) the compromise of claims, and
(5) the award of compensation to informers in respect of such forfeitures, shall apply to seizures and forfeitures incurred, or alleged to have been incurred, under the provisions of this section, insofar as applicable and not inconsistent with the provisions of this section; except that such duties as are imposed upon the collector of customs or any other person with respect to the seizure and forfeiture of vessels, vehicles, merchandise, and baggage under the provisions of the customs laws contained in title 19 of the United States Code shall be performed with respect to seizure and forfeiture of electronic, mechanical, or other intercepting devices under this section by such officers, agents, or other persons as may be authorized or designated for that purpose by the Attorney General.
Sec. 2515. – Prohibition of use as evidence of intercepted wire or oral communications
Whenever any wire or oral communication has been intercepted, no part of the contents of such communication and no evidence derived therefrom may be received in evidence in any trial, hearing, or other proceeding in or before any court, grand jury, department, officer, agency, regulatory body, legislative committee, or other authority of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision thereof if the disclosure of that information would be in violation of this chapter.
Sec. 2520. – Recovery of civil damages authorized
(a) In General.
Except as provided in section 2511(2)(a)(ii), any person whose wire, oral, or electronic communication is intercepted, disclosed, or intentionally used in violation of this chapter may in a civil action recover from the person or entity, other than the United States, which engaged in that violation such relief as may be appropriate.
In an action under this section, appropriate relief includes –
(1) such preliminary and other equitable or declaratory relief as may be appropriate;
(2) damages under subsection (c) and punitive damages in appropriate cases; and
(3) a reasonable attorney’s fee and other litigation costs reasonably incurred.
(1) In an action under this section, if the conduct in violation of this chapter is the private viewing of a private satellite video communication that is not scrambled or encrypted or if the communication is a radio communication that is transmitted on frequencies allocated under subpart D of part 74 of the rules of the Federal Communications Commission that is not scrambled or encrypted and the conduct is not for a tortious or illegal purpose or for purposes of direct or indirect commercial advantage or private commercial gain, then the court shall assess damages as follows:
(A) If the person who engaged in that conduct has not previously been enjoined under section 2511(5) and has not been found liable in a prior civil action under this section, the court shall assess the greater of the sum of actual damages suffered by the plaintiff, or statutory damages of not less than $50 and not more than $500.
(B) If, on one prior occasion, the person who engaged in that conduct has been enjoined under section 2511(5) or has been found liable in a civil action under this section, the court shall assess the greater of the sum of actual damages suffered by the plaintiff, or statutory damages of not less than $100 and not more than $1000.
(2) In any other action under this section, the court may assess as damages whichever is the greater of – (A) the sum of the actual damages suffered by the plaintiff and any profits made by the violator as a result of the violation; or
(B) statutory damages of whichever is the greater of $100 a day for each day of violation or $10,000.
If a court or appropriate department or agency determines that the United States or any of its departments or agencies has violated any provision of this chapter, and the court or appropriate department or agency finds that the circumstances surrounding the violation raise serious questions about whether or not an officer or employee of the United States acted willfully or intentionally with respect to the violation, the department or agency shall, upon receipt of a true and correct copy of the decision and findings of the court or appropriate department or agency promptly initiate a proceeding to determine whether disciplinary action against the officer or employee is warranted. If the head of the department or agency involved determines that disciplinary action is not warranted, he or she shall notify the Inspector General with jurisdiction over the department or agency concerned and shall provide the Inspector General with the reasons for such determination.
(g) Improper Disclosure Is Violation.
Any willful disclosure or use by an investigative or law enforcement office or governmental entity of information beyond the extent permitted by section 2517 is a violation of this chapter for purposes of section 2520
(a) SELECTED EXCERPTS FROM THE ELECTRONICS COMMUNICATIONS PRIVACY ACT (ECPA) – TITLE 18 U.SC., Sec. 2701. –
Unlawful access to stored communications (a) Offense. Except as provided in subsection (c) of this section whoever –
(1) intentionally accesses without authorization a facility through which an electronic communication service is provided; or
(2) intentionally exceeds an authorization to access that facility; and thereby obtains, alters, or prevents authorized access to a wire or electronic communication while it is in electronic storage in such system shall be punished as provided in subsection (b) of this section.
(b) Punishment.
The punishment for an offense under subsection (a) of this section is –
(1) if the offense is committed for purposes of commercial advantage, malicious destruction or damage, or private commercial gain –
(A) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both, in the case of a first offense under this subparagraph; and
(B) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than two years, or both, for any subsequent offense under this subparagraph; and a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than six months, or both, in any other case.
Subsection (a) of this section does not apply with respect to conduct authorized –
(1) by the person or entity providing a wire or electronic communications service;
(2) by a user of that service with respect to a communication of or intended for that user; or
(3) in section 2703, 2704 or 2518 of this title
Sec. 2702. – Voluntary disclosure of customer communications or records
Except as provided in subsection (b), (1) a person or entity providing an electronic communication service to the public shall not knowingly divulge to any person or entity the contents of a communication while in electronic storage by that service; and
(2) a person or entity providing remote computing service to the public shall not knowingly divulge to any person or entity the contents of any communication which is carried or maintained on that service –
(A) on behalf of, and received by means of electronic transmission from (or created by means of computer processing of communications received by means of electronic transmission from), a subscriber or customer of such service;
(B) solely for the purpose of providing storage or computer processing services to such subscriber or customer, if the provider is not authorized to access the contents of any such communications for purposes of providing any services other than storage or computer processing; and
(3) a provider of remote computing service or electronic communication service to the public shall not knowingly divulge a record or other information pertaining to a subscriber to or customer of such service (not including the contents of communications covered by paragraph (1) or (2)) to any governmental entity.
(b) Exceptions for disclosure of communications.
A provider described in subsection
(a) may divulge the contents of a communication –
(1) to an addressee or intended recipient of such communication or an agent of such addressee or intended recipient;
(2) as otherwise authorized in section 2517, 2511(2)(a), or 2703 of this title;
(3) with the lawful consent of the originator or an addressee or intended recipient of such communication, or the subscriber in the case of remote computing service; (
4) to a person employed or authorized or whose facilities are used to forward such communication to its destination;
(5) as may be necessarily incident to the rendition of the service or to the protection of the rights or property of the provider of that service; or
(6) to a law enforcement agency –
(A) if the contents –
(i) were inadvertently obtained by the service provider; and (ii) appear to pertain to the commission of a crime;
(B) if required by section 227 of the Crime Control Act of 1990; or
(C) if the provider reasonably believes that an emergency involving immediate danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure of the information without delay.
(c) Exceptions for Disclosure of Customer Records. –
A provider described in subsection (a) may divulge a record or other information pertaining to a subscriber to or customer of such service (not including the contents of communications covered by subsection (a)(1) or (a)(2)) – (1) as otherwise authorized in section 2703;
(2) with the lawful consent of the customer or subscriber;
(3) as may be necessarily incident to the rendition of the service or to the protection of the rights or property of the provider of that service;
(4) to a governmental entity, if the provider reasonably believes that an emergency involving immediate danger of death or serious physical injury to any person justifies disclosure of the information; or
(5) to any person other than a governmental entity.
Except as provided in section 2703(e), any provider of electronic communication service, subscriber, or other person aggrieved by any violation of this chapter in which the conduct constituting the violation is engaged in with a knowing or intentional state of mind may, in a civil action, recover from the person or entity, other than the United States, which engaged in that violation such relief as may be appropriate.
In a civil action under this section, appropriate relief includes –
(1) such preliminary and other equitable or declaratory relief as may be appropriate;
(2) damages under subsection (c); and
(3) a reasonable attorney’s fee and other litigation costs reasonably incurred.
The court may assess as damages in a civil action under this section the sum of the actual damages suffered by the plaintiff and any profits made by the violator as a result of the violation, but in no case shall a person entitled to recover receive less than the sum of $1,000. If the violation is willful or intentional, the court may assess punitive damages. In the case of a successful action to enforce liability under this section, the court may assess the costs of the action, together with reasonable attorney fees determined by the court.
(d) Administrative Discipline.
If a court or appropriate department or agency determines that the United States or any of its departments or agencies has violated any provision of this chapter, and the court or appropriate department or agency finds that the circumstances surrounding the violation raise serious questions about whether or not an officer or employee of the United States acted willfully or intentionally with respect to the violation, the department or agency shall, upon receipt of a true and correct copy of the decision and findings of the court or appropriate department or agency promptly initiate a proceeding to determine whether disciplinary action against the officer or employee is warranted. If the head of the department or agency involved determines that disciplinary action is not warranted, he or she shall notify the Inspector General with jurisdiction over the department or agency concerned and shall provide the Inspector General with the reasons for such determination.
Any willful disclosure of a ”record”, as that term is defined in section 552a(a) of title 5, United States Code, obtained by an investigative or law enforcement officer, or a governmental entity, pursuant to section 2703 of this title, or from a device installed pursuant to section 3123 or 3125 of this title, that is not a disclosure made in the proper performance of the official functions of the officer or governmental entity making the disclosure, is a violation of this chapter. This provision shall not apply to information previously lawfully disclosed (prior to the commencement of any civil or administrative proceeding under this chapter) to the public by a Federal, State, or local governmental entity or by the plaintiff in a civil action under this chapter.
While the topic of spoliation of evidence is somewhat beyond the scope of this article, the author feels that a brief understanding of the differences and affects is mandated.
It has been defined as the intentional destruction, mutilation, alteration, or concealment of evidence, usually a document. Black’s Law Dictionary, 7 th Ed., 1999.
At this time no independent tort exists against someone who commits an act covered by the definition. Trevino v. Ortega, 969 S.W.2d 950, 952 (Tex. 1998).
The question of whether one is guilty of spoliation and the appropriate action to be taken is a question of law for the judge, not one of fact for the jury. Id. at 954.
The first question which must be answered is whether the alleged spoliator has a duty to preserve the destroyed evidence.
Such a duty aries only when a party knows or reasonably should know that there is a substantial chance that a claim will be filed and that evidence in its possession or control will be material and relevant to the claim. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Johnson, ____S.W.3d____ (Tex. 2003) (2002 WL 32098152).
If there is a statutory requirement that certain records be maintained and preserved, the answer to this inquiry is clear.
However, how this would be applied in a family law matter is uncertain .
Does it arise at the first cry of “I want a divorce”; the filing of the petition; or service of process?
2. Has There Been a Breach of the Duty?
The next prong is for the Court to determine whether a breach of the duty has occurred. Trevino holds that the person responsible should be held accountable for negligence, as well as, intentional acts. 969 S.W.2d at 957. In essence the entire burden is placed on the culpable spoliating party since they are in the best position to provide an explanation. Id..
3. Prejudice to the Innocent Party.
Even if spoliation is found to have occurred, it doesn’t automatically mean that the nonspoliating party is entitled to a remedy. Id. at 955. The more relevant the destroyed evidence, the more harm to the nonspoliating party. Id. at 958. If the evidence was destroyed intentionally or in bad faith, then the court should find thatthe destroyed evidence was relevant and harmful to the spoliating party’s case. Id.
If the evidence was negligently destroyed, then the nonspoliating party should offer some proof about what the destroyed evidence would show. Id. The spoilating party is certainly entitled to show that the missing evidence would have been cumulative of other competent evidence that can be used in place of the destroyed evidence. Id.
C. Remedies to Spoliation.
1. Rule 215 Sanctions.
Depending upon when the destruction occurs, the court has wide discretion in remedying the situation. If the relevant evidence is destroyed during the discovery phase of the litigation, the court can impose any sanctions authorized und Tex. R. Civ. P. 215, including death the penalty sanction resulting in a default judgment against the spoliating party or preclusion of the introduction of evidence. Id. at 959.
These sanctions are to be applied on a case by case basis. Id.
The court has its choice of two spoliation instructions.
The most severe is a rebuttable presumption and is used when the nonspoliating party cannot prove its prima facie case without the destroyed evidence. Id. at 960.
The jury is instructed that they should presume that the destroyed evidence was unfavorable to the spoliating party and that the spoliating party bears the burden of disproving the presumed fact or issue. Id.
Depending on the exact wording of the instruction, it could relieve the nonspoliating party of the burden of proving each element of their case. Id.
The second type of presumption merely instructs the jury that the evidence would have been unfavorable to the spoliating party. It does not relieve the nonspoliating party of proving each element of their case. Id. at 961.
The Pitfalls of Illegal Eavesdropping; Criminal, Civil, Ethical…Where Does it End”, Poole, R., Advanced Family Law Course, State Bar of Texas, 1999
Dealing with Illegally Obtained Evidence, Rivers, R., Advanced Family Law Course, State Bar of Texas, 2001
Invasion of Privacy – Illegally Obtained Evidence, Lewis, M., Marriage Dissolution Institute, State Bar of Texas, 1999
Using Private Investigators-Privileges and Problems, Lewis, M., Advanced Family Law Course, State Bar of Texas, 2002
Spoliation of Evidence, Vick, T., Advanced Family Law Course, State Bar of Texas, 2001
Author of this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and Especially to My Little Julian, is not a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner, therefore, no information contained herein this post and/or blog could be (mis)construed as “legal advice.” Anyone who exercises he/r rights, and private property sometimes called “child” for deceptive, possibly malicious or retaliatory, and profiteering/privateering and in the “best interests” . . . of the “state” Texas General and other Funds at one’s own peril, risk, and/ or self-fulfillment. The choice is yours.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT
EDWARD TAUPIER,
Plaintiff,
v.
ANDREW KATRENYA, DANIEL DEJESUS and VICTORIA MELCHIORRE,
Defendants.
Civil Action No. 3:15 CV 0319
MARCH 4, 2015
COMPLAINT
1. This is an action to redress the deprivation of rights secured to the Plaintiff by the Constitution and laws of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the State of Connecticut.
2. Jurisdiction of this court is invoked under the provisions of Sections 1331, 1343(3) and 1367(a) of Title 28 and Sections 1983 and 1988 of Title 42 of the United States Code.
3. The Plaintiff, Edward Taupier, is an adult citizen of the United States of America who resides at, and is the owner of, 6 Douglas Drive, Cromwell, Connecticut.
4. The Defendant, Andrew Katrenya (“Katrenya”), is a State Trooper employed by the State of Connecticut. He was acting as such at all times herein mentioned, but he is sued only in his individual capacity.
5. The Defendant, Daniel DeJesus (“DeJesus”), is a State Trooper employed by the State of Connecticut. He was acting as such at all times herein mentioned, but he is sued only in his individual capacity.
6. The Defendant, Victoria Melchiorre (“Melchiorre”), is an attorney admitted to the practice of law in the State of Connecticut and employee of the Office of the State’s Attorney. She was acting as such at all times herein mentioned, but she is sued only in her individual capacity.
7. During all times mentioned in this Complaint, the defendants were acting under color of law, that is, under color of the Constitution, statutes, laws, rules, regulations, customs and usages of the State of Connecticut.
8. During the times mentioned herein, the Defendants acted jointly and in concert with each other and other employees of the Office of the State’s Attorney (“OSA”), the Connecticut State Police (“CSP”) and the Cromwell Police Department (“CPD”) whose identities are presently unknown to the Plaintiff.
9. The Defendants had the duty and the opportunity to protect the Plaintiff from the unlawful actions of each other and the other unidentified employees of OSA, CSP and CPD but the Defendants failed and refused to perform such duty, thereby proximately causing the injuries herein complained of.
10. The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that no warrant shall issue unless signed by a neutral magistrate. The neutral magistrate requirement applies to arrest warrants and search and seizure warrants, including so-called “risk warrants” which are authorized by Conn. Gen. Stat. §29-38c.
11. The Fourteenth Amendment provides that no person shall be deprived of property or liberty without due process of law.
12. Defendants Katrenya and DeJesus signed a warrant for the arrest of the Plaintiff and dated the arrest warrant on August 29, 2014 in which they swore under oath that they believed probable cause existed that the Plaintiff had committed the crime of threatening on or about August 22, 2014 when he sent an email to six individuals. Defendant Melchiorre signed the arrest warrant as the prosecuting authority.
13. On the same day, Defendant Katrenya and DeJesus signed a “risk warrant” under oath to search the Plaintiff’s home and seize all of his lawfully owned and properly registered firearms on August 29, 2014.
14. Although Defendant Melchiorre did not sign the risk warrant nor was she required to do so, upon information and belief the presentation of the arrest warrant and the risk warrant to the judge was coordinated by Defendant Melchiorre.
15. Despite the Defendants’ oath, neither the arrest warrant nor the risk warrant was supported by probable cause at the time presented to the judicial authority and never would have been signed by a neutral magistrate.
The Defendants did not apply for a search and seizure warrant that sought legal authority to search and seize evidence of that the Plaintiff had allegedly committed a because they knew they lacked probable cause for such an application; no reasonable officer would have believed that the lawfully owned and properly registered firearms were evidence of the alleged crime or probative evidence of the charges as none of the firearms ultimately seized were mentioned in the August 22, 2014 email.
17. When executing an arrest warrant, law enforcement officers are limited to the doctrine of searches incident to arrest. The Defendants and their conspirators employed by OSA, CSP and CPD would never been able to search the Plaintiff’s home or seize any of his lawfully owned and properly registered firearms as such items were well outside the zone permitted by a lawful search incident to an arrest.
18. Because the Defendants lacked probable cause to obtain a search warrant for his home, the only way that the Defendants were able to accomplish the arrest of the Plaintiff and the unlawful search of his home and seize of his firearms was to present the applications for the arrest warrant and the risk warrant to a judicial authority who was not neutral and, instead, who was openly, actually and publicly hostile to and biased against the individual right to firearm ownership. Case 3:15-cv-00319 Document 1 Filed 03/04/15 . Defendants Katrenya, DeJesus and Melchiorre presented the arrest warrant and risk warrant in question to a judge of the superior court whom they knew was not a “neutral” magistrate.
20. Prior to August 29, 2014, the judge of the superior court who signed both the arrest and risk warrant had made his hostility to and bias against individual firearm ownership well known to the public, members of the legal community and law enforcement officers, including the Defendants.
21. Prior to August 29, 2014, this judge’s open, actual and public hostility to and bias against the individual right of firearms ownership was widely reported by the news media.
22. According to the arrest warrant and the risk warrant, the judge signed both on August 28, 2014, the day before the warrants were allegedly signed under oath by the Defendants.
23. At the time the risk warrant was signed under oath by Defendants Katrenya and DeJesus, the risk warrant did not describe firearms and/or ammunition of the Plaintiff; the risk warrant identified firearms and/or ammunition of some other, unknown person who was the subject of some earlier investigation.
24. At the time the risk warrant was signed by the judge of the superior court after it was signed under oath by Defendants Katrenya and DeJesus, the risk warrant did not describe firearms and/or ammunition of the Plaintiff; the risk warrant identified firearms and/or ammunition of some other, unknown person who was the subject of some earlier investigation.
25. At the time the risk warrant was served and executed by agents of the CSP and CPD and at the time agents of the CSP and CPD illegally entered and searched the Plaintiff’s home and unlawfully seized the Plaintiff’s lawfully owned and properly registered firearms, the risk warrant did not describe firearms and/or ammunition of the Plaintiff; the risk warrant identified firearms and/or ammunition of some other, unknown person who was the subject of some earlier investigation.
26. At some point after the agents of the CSP and CPD illegally entered and searched the Plaintiff’s home and unlawfully seized the Plaintiff’s lawfully owned and properly registered firearms, CSP Sgt. Rafael Medina discovered that the risk warrant did not describe the firearms and/or ammunition belonging to the Plaintiff.
27. Rather than return the Plaintiff’s firearms illegally seized after the unlawful entry and search of the Plaintiff’s home, CSP Sgt. Medina altered the risk warrant to obliterate the name that was originally present when the risk warrant was signed by the judge of the superior court. CSP Sgt. Medina’s redaction and alteration was not made under oath, was not in the presence of a judicial authority and was wholly unauthorized by law.
28. When he redacted and altered the risk warrant from what it was when it was served and executed, CSP Sgt. Medina made no indication that would allow someone reading the risk warrant to know that the redaction and alteration was made after the risk warrant was served and executed.
29. The judge of the superior court who originally signed the risk warrant and Defendant Melchiorre ratified CSP Sgt. Medina’s conduct to redact and alter the risk warrant.
30. The ratification by the judge of the superior court of the improper and unsworn redaction and alteration of the risk warrant by CSP Sgt. Medina is further evidence that the judicial authority who signed the risk warrant was not a neutral magistrate as required by law.
31. Defendant Melchiorre’s concurrence and ratification of CSP Sgt. Medina’s conduct is further evidence that she knew the judicial authority who signed the risk warrant was not a neutral magistrate as required by law.
32. No reasonable law enforcement officer would have presented to this judge either the arrest warrant or the risk warrant in a matter that involved the individual ownership of firearms given this judge’s open, actual and public hostility to and bias against the individual right of firearm ownership.
33. The risk warrant was served at the same time as the arrest warrant on August 29, 2014 and the risk warrant allowed the police to search the Plaintiff’s home after the Plaintiff was secured and in custody, something that would not have been permitted if the CSP and CPD only were armed with a mere warrant for the Plaintiff’s arrest.
34. Additionally, the risk warrant allowed the CSP and CPD seize the Plaintiff’s lawfully owned and properly registered firearms despite the fact that the Plaintiff had committed no crime relative to the firearms.
35. The risk warrant was part of the Defendants’ scheme to illegally enter the Plaintiff’s home to unlawfully search and seize firearms when they knew that no judicial authority would have signed a search warrant based on the allegations of the warrant for the plaintiff’s arrest.
36. The Defendants were assured of the success in their scheme and accomplished their unlawful conduct by presenting the risk warrant to a judicial authority who had exhibited open, actual and public hostility to and bias against the individual right of firearm ownership.
37. At the time the arrest warrant and risk warrant were presented to the judicial authority, the Defendants knew that none of the seized firearms or property seized on August 29, 2014 was referenced in the August 22, 2014 email.
38. At the time the arrest warrant and risk warrant were presented to the judicial authority, the Defendants knew that that none of the firearms or property seized on August 29, 2014 was probative evidence of the charges based on the August 22, 2014 email. Armed with the arrest and risk warrants, the Defendants caused and participated in a paramilitary raid on the Plaintiff’s home in Cromwell, Connecticut on August 29, 2014.
40. In the criminal case, the Plaintiff’s defense counsel filed a motion to challenge to court’s jurisdiction in the risk warrant matter. Tellingly, the State did not proceed on the hearing to justify their conduct and abandoned the risk warrant entirely, already having achieved their illegal and unlawful goals – the illicit entry into the Plaintiff’s home and the illegal search and seizure of his lawfully owned and properly registered firearms. With their scheme complete, the OSA, CSP and their agents were now poised to use the firearms against the Plaintiff in the criminal prosecution.
41. In February 2015, the State indicated that it planned to enter the photos and firearms into evidence at the Plaintiff’s criminal trial on the charge of threatening arising from the August 22, 2014 email. But for the illegal risk warrant, none of the photos and firearms would have been available for the State to offer as evidence of the crime charged. ]
42. As a result of the Defendants’ conduct, the Plaintiff’s home was illegally searched.
43. As a result of the Defendants’ conduct, the Plaintiff’s possessions, including lawfully owned and properly registered firearms, were illegally seized. With the illegal search and seizure of the firearms by way of the risk warrant, the Defendants and their co-conspirators circumvented the rights secured to the Plaintiff by the federal constitution, by the state constitution and have abused the process of law, all to the Plaintiff’s detriment.
45. As a result, the Plaintiff has suffered and in the future has and will continue to suffer emotional distress and economic losses.
46. In the manner described above, the Defendants violated the Plaintiff’s right to be free from false arrest, malicious prosecution, abuse of process, unreasonable searches and seizures, which rights are secured to the plaintiff by the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution as enforced through Sections 1983 and 1988 of Title 42 of the United States Code, and the Connecticut Constitution.
47. In the manner described above, the Defendants violated the Plaintiff’s rights to procedural and substantive due process, which right is secured to the plaintiff by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution as enforced through Sections 1983 and 1988 of Title 42 of the United States Code, and the Connecticut Constitution.
48. In the manner described above, the Defendants committed the state law torts of malicious prosecution, abuse of process, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
WHEREFORE, the plaintiff claims judgment against the defendants for compensatory damages, punitive damages, attorney fees and costs and any other relief in law or equity that may appertain.
THE PLAINTIFF CLAIMS TRIAL BY JURY.
THE PLAINTIFF, EDWARD TAUPIER _____________________________
John J. Radshaw III, Esq. (ct19882)
900 Chapel Street, Suite 620
New Haven, CT 06510
203.654.9695 203.721.6182
– F http://www.jjr-esq.com | jjr@jjr-esq.com
http://ctgunrights.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/03.04-Federal-Complaint.pdf
Author of this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and Especially to My Little Julian, is not a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner, therefore, no information contained herein this post and/or blog could be (mis)construed as “legal advice.” Anyone who exercises he/r rights, and private property sometimes called “child” for deceptive, possibly malicious or retaliatory, and profiteering/privateering and in the “best interests” . . . of the “state” Texas General and other Funds at one’s own peril, risk, and/ or self-fulfillment. The choice is yours.
by Dr. Carl Bernofsky
Fearful of a growing backlash from the public against arbitrary, prejudiced, and even malicious judgments that are protected by judicial immunity, judges have banded together under government sponsorship to devise means of defending themselves from aggrieved and increasingly militant pro-se litigants. Continuing Education Credit Prejudices JudgesJUNE WISNIEWSKIMy name is June Wisniewski. I live in Reno, Nevada, about two miles from the National Judicial College, the non-profit organization that trains judges, and grew up in Linden, New Jersey.Here is John Boyle, the judge who went on Fox News twice and talked about my case,In the Matter of Joseph Wisniewski, Sr., Docket No. J-1733. Judge John Boyle called me a quack, a loser, and a mental case, but admitted that I had money due and owning me in a civil case.On another videotape, Boyle stated that his father introduced him to the Mafia when he was twelve years old, and made sure that he did not have his picture taken with any Mafia leader. Boyle went into detail on how money was confiscated from poor persons, and stated that the Mafia was all about the money, and not about the fellowship.Judge John M. Boyle accepted a bribe in the case, In the Matter of the Estate of Joseph Wisniewski, Sr., and fradulently concealed over $140,000 improperly paid to the attorney, Walter A. Kipp, of Rutherford, NJ. Boyle arranged with the Administrator of the estate, Joe Wisniewski, Jr., of McLean, VA, and his attorney, Kipp, to substitute $250,000 worth of bogus, bankrupt, junk bonds that were not part of my father’s estate instead of cash or actual assets. The State of New Jersey supports the fradulent concealment of estate assets in selected cases.http://judicialterrorism.blogspot.com/2009/07/here-is-judge-who-went-on-fox-news.htmlThis book, along with Dealing With Common Law Courts: A Model Curriculum for Judges and Court Staff, published in 1997 by NCSC, was developed from an Institute for Course Management (ICM) course on dealing with common law courts, held in Scottsdale, Arizona, February 5-7, 1997.
The curriculum and manuals for this course were prepared with a grant from the State Justice Institute: Award No. SJI-96-02B-B-159, “The Rise of Common Law Courts in the United States: An Examination of the Movement, the Potential Impact on the Judiciary, and How the States Could Respond.”
The State Justice Institute (SJI) is a non-profit, 501C(3) corporation that was started in 1986 and funded by Congress to develop courses and training manuals for state courts and judicial training organizations.This course and training manuals were developed by a group of 27 judges, court clerks, court administrators, and prosecutors in Arizona who examined the history and procedures of the Common Law Court Movement (CLC) and created the training curriculum and responses that courts, judges, and court administrators can use when dealing with common law courts in their own jurisdictions.
My contact at the conference said that one of its goals was to identify ways the courts can make preemptive strikes against the CLC movement.Some of the keynote speakers who helped produce the CLC course in Arizona were Chief Justice Thomas Moyer of Columbus, Ohio, T.C. Brown of Columbus, Ohio (a reporter for theCleveland Plain Dealer), and Jonathan Mozzochi, Executive Director of the Coalition for Human Dignity in Seattle, Washington. Mozzochi, who distributed Guns and Gavels, a publication of the Coalition, was listed as “a nationally recognized expert on militias and hate group activity.”
The Coalition is like a west coast version of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).I originally found out about this course by watching a videotaped session of the 1996 combined conference of the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ) and the Conference of State Court Administrators (COSCA), held in Nashville, Tennessee in the summer of 1996 and called “Impact of the Common Law Court Movement on the Courts.”
More than 50 state supreme court justices and state court administrators attended the Tennessee conference. The CLC session was taped with a grant from SJI. Keynote speakers were Michael Reynolds, senior intelligence analyst for the SPLC, and James Reynolds, chief of the Terrorism and Violent Crime Section, U.S. Department of Justice.
The panel discussion included Susan Hansen, senior reporter with American Lawyer, Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Moyer (past president of CCJ), Utah Supreme Court Justice Michael Zimmerman, and Judges Jeffrey Langton and Gregory Mohr from Montana.
The taped session was more than three hours long. At the end of the session, one of the speakers mentioned that there was funding for additional CLC conferences. I immediately called ICM, located at NCSC in Virginia, and asked about the additional CLC conferences. My contact told me that a Scottsdale conference was going to take place in about three days. Since those two conferences, there have been additional conferences sponsored by SJI with other organizations.
SJI sponsored a conference with the American Judicature Society in Scottsdale, Arizona in November, 1999 that was closed to the public and the press. There will also be an ICM course in Orlando, Florida on February 5-7, 2001 called “Increasing Access to Justice for pro-se Litigants,” with that organization’s perception of what “access” means.
“Constitutionalists in Court” was held in the St. Paul-Minneapolis, Minnesota area in the summer of 2000 by the National Judicial College (NJC) of Reno, Nevada, and the same course was held again November 13-14, 2000, also at NJC in Reno. This course discusses the history of protest movements affecting the judiciary, identifies typical challenges and ways to handle them, anticipates courtroom security needs, and plans solutions and strategies.
NJC, together with the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), conducted a survey, developed material for their courses from SJI materials and grants, and published a brief report called “Right-Wing Extremist Challenges to the Authority and Jurisdiction of the Court” in 1998.
This course and report contains a preemptive plan against pro-se litigants and others who may disagree with the court, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Native American protest groups, religious organizations, and anyone else who may take issue with a court decision. The information from NJC is so controversial that NJC has banned its course and conference materials from the public, but their library and the SJI repository is open to the public.
I originally started researching judicial training organizations in 1996 after I was denied an inheritance by the New Jersey court system when my parents died and was also denied entrance to a conference and course materials at NJC in May, 1996, called “The National Conference on the Media and the Courts: Working Together to Serve the American People.”
The media conference was closed to the public. Only one New Jersey judge, Martin Kravarick, attended that conference. Judge Kravarick was elected president of the American Judges Association (AJA), a judge’s organization under NCSC. AJA publishes a quarterly journal called Court Review, available in your local law library, by subscription, or through interlibrary loan.
I first found out about the judicial movement against pro-se litigants and the CLC movement by reading Kravarick’s “President’s Message” in the Fall, 1996 issue of Court Review. I called Judge Kravarick for more information on what the CLC movement was all about, and he gave me some additional contact information. I called Mike Reynolds of SPLC, and he told me there were four conference proceedings and that the conference was taped.
I waited over three months to get a copy of the tape, “Impact of the Common Law Movement on the Courts.” That tape is available through interlibrary loan from NCSC along with the training manuals mentioned above.Each state has an SJI repository for all publications put out by the organizations they have funded. For example, the repository in Nevada is at NJC in Reno.
In New Jersey, the SJI repository is at the New Jersey State Library in Trenton. You can check out these training manuals with a New Jersey library card. You can also find out where your SJI repository is by looking it up on the Internet at http://www.statejustice.org, by calling SJI at 703-684-6100, or by writing to the State Justice Institute, 1650 King street, Alexandria, VA 22314.SJI is funded by Congress with your tax dollars.
If you don’t like the courses and materials they are funding, you can write to your senator or congressman, or directly to SJI and ask them to stop funding these materials. SJI gets very few letters from the public, and I’m sure they would love to hear from you. When you get to their Web site, read and download the newsletters. Most of their new grants are in their newsletters.The National Center for State Courts is an umbrella organization for several judges’ organizations such as the National College of Probate judges (NCPJ), AJA, CCJ, COSCA, ICM and others.
I have been a member of NCPJ since 1996 and have attended four judges’ conferences. The most controversial and harmful material against the public is coming from NJC and NCSC materials, two agencies that compete with each other for SJI and federal government funding.In the training manuals mentioned above, there are two sections in each book where the writers advise judges and court personnel such as court clerks and guards on how to handle pro-se litigants using a step-by-step process. The writers of these manuals reveal a court that is biased and has a dangerous point of view about justice and equal access in the court system.
Copyright © 2001 June Wisniewski
The Author: June Wisniewski is a legal researcher and journalist in Reno, Nevada, and can be reached at renojune@judicialterrorism.com. She has written a number of articles on judicial subjects and is author of the book, The Coffin Chasers: An Aggrieved Litigant’s Journey Through the Corrupt World of Probate. The source of this article is the January 5, 2001 issue of the Idaho Observer (http://proliberty.com/observer/20010105.htm).
The text has been modified by reformating and other nonconsequential editing and is noted as such at the request of the author. The subject matter is the basis of another book by Wisniewski, Unequal Justice: The Inside Story of the National Judicial College.Note 1: The vulnerability of pro se’s to the hostility of judges is exemplified by the fate of Elena Sassower in 2004. See also: Sherman Skolnick’s Big Court Fix.
Note 2: In 2006, the American Bar Association issued a manual, Countering the Critics; Q&E Guide [PDF], that instructs judges on how to respond to complaints about the lack of accountability and other “hot-button” issues they are likely encounter from critics of the American court system.
Note 3: On March 11, 2008 the Judicial Conference of the United States adopted a new set of rules for processing misconduct complaints against federal judges [PDF]. This document also contains instructions for filing complaints against judges.
Hellman, Arthur D., Proposed Amendments to the Federal Judicial Misconduct Rules: Comments and Suggestions (January 23, 2015).
Hearing Before the Judicial Conference of the United States — Committee on Judicial Conduct and Disability, October 30, 2014; U. of Pittsburgh Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2015-10. Available at SSRN:http://ssrn.com/abstract=2554596
Most of the amendments in the published draft involve clarification or emphasis. But I have identified six revisions that do reflect changes of policy from the 2008 Rules. Five of the six reflect sound policy; they will serve to enhance transparency and strengthen procedural regularity. However, one proposed revision – an amendment that would allow tie votes in the Conduct Committee on petitions for review – is unwise. I urge the Committee to reconsider it.
Part IV addresses a variety of issues raised by the proposed draft and the Rules as originally adopted. These include: the chief judge’s obligation to “identify” a complaint based on public reports suggesting that a judge may have engaged in misconduct; judicial council authority to impose sanctions on complainants who abuse the process; disqualification of judges from proceedings under the 1980 Act; and making the Rules more user-friendly. The most detailed discussion involves two issues raised by the misconduct complaint against former District Judge Richard Cebull of Montana: judicial-council authority to conclude a proceeding and disclosure of judicial-council orders that have been vacated or modified.
Keywords: Federal Judicial Misconduct Statutes, Breyer Committee Report, Judicial Conduct, Judicial Misconduct, Federal Judges, Judicial Ethics, National Commission on Judicial Discipline and Removal, Rulemaking, United States Code Chapter 16, Reform, Judicial System, Federal Courts, Judicial Discipline
http://www.uscourts.gov/judges-judgeships/code-conduct-united-states-judges
The Code of Conduct for United States Judges includes the ethical canons that apply to federal judges and provides guidance on their performance of official duties and engagement in a variety of outside activities.
Introduction
Canon 1: A Judge Should Uphold the Integrity and Independence of the Judiciary
Canon 2: A Judge Should Avoid Impropriety and the Appearance of Impropriety in All Activities
Canon 3: A Judge Should Perform the Duties of the Office Fairly, Impartially and Diligently
Canon 4: A Judge May Engage in Extrajudicial Activities That are Consistent With the Obligations of Judicial Office
Canon 5: A Judge Should Refrain From Political Activity
Compliance with the Code of Conduct
Applicable Date of Compliance
The Code of Conduct for United States Judges was initially adopted by the Judicial Conference on April 5, 1973, and was known as the “Code of Judicial Conduct for United States Judges.”
See: JCUS-APR 73, pp. 9-11. Since then, the Judicial Conference has made the following changes to the Code:
This Code applies to United States circuit judges, district judges, Court of International Trade judges, Court of Federal Claims judges, bankruptcy judges, and magistrate judges.
Certain provisions of this Code apply to special masters and commissioners as indicated in the “Compliance” section.
The Tax Court, Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, and Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces have adopted this Code.
The Judicial Conference has authorized its Committee on Codes of Conduct to render advisory opinions about this Code only when requested by a judge to whom this Code applies.
Requests for opinions and other questions concerning this Code and its applicability should be addressed to the Chair of the Committee on Codes of Conduct by email or as follows:
Chair, Committee on Codes of Conduct
c/o General Counsel
Administrative Office of the United States Courts
Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building
One Columbus Circle, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20544
202-502-1100
Procedural questions may be addressed to:
Office of the General Counsel
Administrative Office of the United States Courts
Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building
One Columbus Circle, N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20544
202-502-1100
Canon 1: A Judge Should Uphold the Integrity and Independence of the Judiciary
An independent and honorable judiciary is indispensable to justice in our society. A judge should maintain and enforce high standards of conduct and should personally observe those standards, so that the integrity and independence of the judiciary may be preserved. The provisions of this Code should be construed and applied to further that objective.
COMMENTARY
Deference to the judgments and rulings of courts depends on public confidence in the integrity and independence of judges.
The integrity and independence of judges depend in turn on their acting without fear or favor. Although judges should be independent, they must comply with the law and should comply with this Code. Adherence to this responsibility helps to maintain public confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary. Conversely, violation of this Code diminishes public confidence in the judiciary and injures our system of government under law.
The Canons are rules of reason. They should be applied consistently with constitutional requirements, statutes, other court rules and decisional law, and in the context of all relevant circumstances.
The Code is to be construed so it does not impinge on the essential independence of judges in making judicial decisions.
The Code is designed to provide guidance to judges and nominees for judicial office.
It may also provide standards of conduct for application in proceedings under the Judicial Councils Reform and Judicial Conduct and Disability Act of 1980 (28 U.S.C. §§ 332(d)(1), 351-364).
Not every violation of the Code should lead to disciplinary action. Whether disciplinary action is appropriate, and the degree of discipline, should be determined through a reasonable application of the text and should depend on such factors as the seriousness of the improper activity, the intent of the judge, whether there is a pattern of improper activity, and the effect of the improper activity on others or on the judicial system.
Many of the restrictions in the Code are necessarily cast in general terms, and judges may reasonably differ in their interpretation. Furthermore, the Code is not designed or intended as a basis for civil liability or criminal prosecution. Finally, the Code is not intended to be used for tactical advantage.
Canon 2: A Judge Should Avoid Impropriety and the Appearance of Impropriety in all Activities
(A) Respect for Law. A judge should respect and comply with the law and should act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.
(B) Outside Influence.
A judge should not allow family, social, political, financial, or other relationships to influence judicial conduct or judgment.
A judge should neither lend the prestige of the judicial office to advance the private interests of the judge or others nor convey or permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence the judge.
A judge should not testify voluntarily as a character witness.
(C) Nondiscriminatory Membership.
A judge should not hold membership in any organization that practices invidious discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, or national origin.
COMMENTARY
Canon 2A.
An appearance of impropriety occurs when reasonable minds, with knowledge of all the relevant circumstances disclosed by a reasonable inquiry, would conclude that the judge’s honesty, integrity, impartiality, temperament, or fitness to serve as a judge is impaired. Public confidence in the judiciary is eroded by irresponsible or improper conduct by judges. A judge must avoid all impropriety and appearance of impropriety. This prohibition applies to both professional and personal conduct.
A judge must expect to be the subject of constant public scrutiny and accept freely and willingly restrictions that might be viewed as burdensome by the ordinary citizen.
Because it is not practicable to list all prohibited acts, the prohibition is necessarily cast in general terms that extend to conduct by judges that is harmful although not specifically mentioned in the Code.
Actual improprieties under this standard include violations of law, court rules, or other specific provisions of this Code.
Canon 2B. Testimony as a character witness injects the prestige of the judicial office into the proceeding in which the judge testifies and may be perceived as an official testimonial.
A judge should discourage a party from requiring the judge to testify as a character witness except in unusual circumstances when the demands of justice require.
This Canon does not create a privilege against testifying in response to an official summons.
A judge should avoid lending the prestige of judicial office to advance the private interests of the judge or others.
For example, a judge should not use the judge’s judicial position or title to gain advantage in litigation involving a friend or a member of the judge’s family.
In contracts for publication of a judge’s writings, a judge should retain control over the advertising to avoid exploitation of the judge’s office.
A judge should be sensitive to possible abuse of the prestige of office.
A judge should not initiate communications to a sentencing judge or a probation or corrections officer but may provide information to such persons in response to a formal request.
Judges may participate in the process of judicial selection by cooperating with appointing authorities and screening committees seeking names for consideration and by responding to official inquiries concerning a person being considered for a judgeship.
Canon 2C. Membership of a judge in an organization that practices invidious discrimination gives rise to perceptions that the judge’s impartiality is impaired.
Canon 2C refers to the current practices of the organization. Whether an organization practices invidious discrimination is often a complex question to which judges should be sensitive.
The answer cannot be determined from a mere examination of an organization’s current membership rolls but rather depends on how the organization selects members and other relevant factors, such as that the organization is dedicated to the preservation of religious, ethnic or cultural values of legitimate common interest to its members, or that it is in fact and effect an intimate, purely private organization whose membership limitations could not be constitutionally prohibited. See New York State Club Ass’n. Inc. v. City of New York, 487 U.S. 1, 108 S. Ct. 2225, 101 L. Ed. 2d 1 (1988); Board of Directors of Rotary International v. Rotary Club of Duarte, 481 U.S. 537, 107 S. Ct. 1940, 95 L. Ed. 2d 474 (1987); Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U.S. 609, 104 S. Ct. 3244, 82 L. Ed. 2d 462 (1984).
Other relevant factors include the size and nature of the organization and the diversity of persons in the locale who might reasonably be considered potential members.
Thus the mere absence of diverse membership does not by itself demonstrate a violation unless reasonable persons with knowledge of all the relevant circumstances would expect that the membership would be diverse in the absence of invidious discrimination.
Absent such factors, an organization is generally said to discriminate invidiously if it arbitrarily excludes from membership on the basis of race, religion, sex, or national origin persons who would otherwise be admitted to membership.
Although Canon 2C relates only to membership in organizations that invidiously discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion or national origin, a judge’s membership in an organization that engages in any invidiously discriminatory membership practices prohibited by applicable law violates Canons 2 and 2A and gives the appearance of impropriety.
In addition, it would be a violation of Canons 2 and 2A for a judge to arrange a meeting at a club that the judge knows practices invidious discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, or national origin in its membership or other policies, or for the judge to use such a club regularly.
Moreover, public manifestation by a judge of the judge’s knowing approval of invidious discrimination on any basis gives the appearance of impropriety under Canon 2 and diminishes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary, in violation of Canon 2A.
When a judge determines that an organization to which the judge belongs engages in invidious discrimination that would preclude membership under Canon 2C or under Canons 2 and 2A, the judge is permitted, in lieu of resigning, to make immediate and continuous efforts to have the organization discontinue its invidiously discriminatory practices.
If the organization fails to discontinue its invidiously discriminatory practices as promptly as possible (and in all events within two years of the judge’s first learning of the practices), the judge should resign immediately from the organization.
Canon 3: A Judge Should Perform the Duties of the Office Fairly, Impartially and Diligently
The duties of judicial office take precedence over all other activities. In performing the duties prescribed by law, the judge should adhere to the following standards:
(A) Adjudicative Responsibilities.
(1) A judge should be faithful to, and maintain professional competence in, the law and should not be swayed by partisan interests, public clamor, or fear of criticism.
(2) A judge should hear and decide matters assigned, unless disqualified, and should maintain order and decorum in all judicial proceedings.
(3) A judge should be patient, dignified, respectful, and courteous to litigants, jurors, witnesses, lawyers, and others with whom the judge deals in an official capacity.
A judge should require similar conduct of those subject to the judge’s control, including lawyers to the extent consistent with their role in the adversary process.
(4) A judge should accord to every person who has a legal interest in a proceeding, and that person’s lawyer, the full right to be heard according to law.
Except as set out below, a judge should not initiate, permit, or consider ex parte communications or consider other communications concerning a pending or impending matter that are made outside the presence of the parties or their lawyers.
If a judge receives an unauthorized ex parte communication bearing on the substance of a matter, the judge should promptly notify the parties of the subject matter of the communication and allow the parties an opportunity to respond, if requested.
A judge may:
(a) initiate, permit, or consider ex parte communications as authorized by law;
(b) when circumstances require it, permit ex parte communication for scheduling, administrative, or emergency purposes, but only if the ex parte communication does not address substantive matters and the judge reasonably believes that no party will gain a procedural, substantive, or tactical advantage as a result of the ex parte communication;
(c) obtain the written advice of a disinterested expert on the law, but only after giving advance notice to the parties of the person to be consulted and the subject matter of the advice and affording the parties reasonable opportunity to object and respond to the notice and to the advice received; or
(d) with the consent of the parties, confer separately with the parties and their counsel in an effort to mediate or settle pending matters.
(5) A judge should dispose promptly of the business of the court.
(6) A judge should not make public comment on the merits of a matter pending or impending in any court.
A judge should require similar restraint by court personnel subject to the judge’s direction and control.
The prohibition on public comment on the merits does not extend to public statements made in the course of the judge’s official duties, to explanations of court procedures, or to scholarly presentations made for purposes of legal education.
(B) Administrative Responsibilities.
(1) A judge should diligently discharge administrative responsibilities, maintain professional competence in judicial administration, and facilitate the performance of the administrative responsibilities of other judges and court personnel.
(2) A judge should not direct court personnel to engage in conduct on the judge’s behalf or as the judge’s representative when that conduct would contravene the Code if undertaken by the judge.
(3) A judge should exercise the power of appointment fairly and only on the basis of merit, avoiding unnecessary appointments, nepotism, and favoritism. A judge should not approve compensation of appointees beyond the fair value of services rendered.
(4) A judge with supervisory authority over other judges should take reasonable measures to ensure that they perform their duties timely and effectively.
(5) A judge should take appropriate action upon learning of reliable evidence indicating the likelihood that a judge’s conduct contravened this Code or a lawyer violated applicable rules of professional conduct.
(C) Disqualification.
(1) A judge shall disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned, including but not limited to instances in which:
(a) the judge has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceeding;
(b) the judge served as a lawyer in the matter in controversy, or a lawyer with whom the judge previously practiced law served during such association as a lawyer concerning the matter, or the judge or lawyer has been a material witness;
(c) the judge knows that the judge, individually or as a fiduciary, or the judge’s spouse or minor child residing in the judge’s household, has a financial interest in the subject matter in controversy or in a party to the proceeding, or any other interest that could be affected substantially by the outcome of the proceeding;
(d) the judge or the judge’s spouse, or a person related to either within the third degree of relationship, or the spouse of such a person is:
(i) a party to the proceeding, or an officer, director, or trustee of a party;
(ii) acting as a lawyer in the proceeding;
(iii) known by the judge to have an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding; or
(iv) to the judge’s knowledge likely to be a material witness in the proceeding;
(e) the judge has served in governmental employment and in that capacity participated as a judge (in a previous judicial position), counsel, advisor, or material witness concerning the proceeding or has expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy.
(2) A judge should keep informed about the judge’s personal and fiduciary financial interests and make a reasonable effort to keep informed about the personal financial interests of the judge’s spouse and minor children residing in the judge’s household.
(3) For the purposes of this section:
(a) the degree of relationship is calculated according to the civil law system; the following relatives are within the third degree of relationship: parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, great grandparent, great grandchild, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, niece, and nephew; the listed relatives include whole and half blood relatives and most step relatives;
(b) “fiduciary” includes such relationships as executor, administrator, trustee, and guardian;
(c) “financial interest” means ownership of a legal or equitable interest, however small, or a relationship as director, advisor, or other active participant in the affairs of a party, except that:
( i) ownership in a mutual or common investment fund that holds securities is not a “financial interest” in such securities unless the judge participates in the management of the fund;
(ii) an office in an educational, religious, charitable, fraternal, or civic organization is not a “financial interest” in securities held by the organization;
(iii) the proprietary interest of a policyholder in a mutual insurance company, or a depositor in a mutual savings association, or a similar proprietary interest, is a “financial interest” in the organization only if the outcome of the proceeding could substantially affect the value of the interest;
(iv) ownership of government securities is a “financial interest” in the issuer only if the outcome of the proceeding could substantially affect the value of the securities;
(d) “proceeding” includes pretrial, trial, appellate review, or other stages of litigation.
(4) Notwithstanding the preceding provisions of this Canon, if a judge would be disqualified because of a financial interest in a party (other than an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome), disqualification is not required if the judge (or the judge’s spouse or minor child) divests the interest that provides the grounds for disqualification.
(D) Remittal of Disqualification.
Instead of withdrawing from the proceeding, a judge disqualified by Canon 3C(1) may, except in the circumstances specifically set out in subsections (a) through (e), disclose on the record the basis of disqualification.
The judge may participate in the proceeding if, after that disclosure, the parties and their lawyers have an opportunity to confer outside the presence of the judge, all agree in writing or on the record that the judge should not be disqualified, and the judge is then willing to participate.
The agreement should be incorporated in the record of the proceeding.
COMMENTARY
Canon 3A(3).
The duty to hear all proceedings fairly and with patience is not inconsistent with the duty to dispose promptly of the business of the court.
Courts can be efficient and businesslike while being patient and deliberate.
The duty under Canon 2 to act in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary applies to all the judge’s activities, including the discharge of the judge’s adjudicative and administrative responsibilities.
The duty to be respectful includes the responsibility to avoid comment or behavior that could reasonably be interpreted as harassment, prejudice or bias.
Canon 3A(4).
The restriction on ex parte communications concerning a proceeding includes communications from lawyers, law teachers, and others who are not participants in the proceeding.
A judge may consult with other judges or with court personnel whose function is to aid the judge in carrying out adjudicative responsibilities.
A judge should make reasonable efforts to ensure that law clerks and other court personnel comply with this provision.
A judge may encourage and seek to facilitate settlement but should not act in a manner that coerces any party into surrendering the right to have the controversy resolved by the courts.
Canon 3A(5).
In disposing of matters promptly, efficiently, and fairly, a judge must demonstrate due regard for the rights of the parties to be heard and to have issues resolved without unnecessary cost or delay.
A judge should monitor and supervise cases to reduce or eliminate dilatory practices, avoidable delays, and unnecessary costs.
Prompt disposition of the court’s business requires a judge to devote adequate time to judicial duties, to be punctual in attending court and expeditious in determining matters under submission, and to take reasonable measures to ensure that court personnel, litigants, and their lawyers cooperate with the judge to that end.
Canon 3A(6).
The admonition against public comment about the merits of a pending or impending matter continues until the appellate process is complete.
If the public comment involves a case from the judge’s own court, the judge should take particular care so that the comment does not denigrate public confidence in the judiciary’s integrity and impartiality, which would violate Canon 2A.
A judge may comment publicly on proceedings in which the judge is a litigant in a personal capacity, but not on mandamus proceedings when the judge is a litigant in an official capacity (but the judge may respond in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 21(b)).https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frap/rule_21 (Rule 21 (b))
Canon 3B(3).
A judge’s appointees include assigned counsel, officials such as referees, commissioners, special masters, receivers, guardians, and personnel such as law clerks, secretaries, and judicial assistants. Consent by the parties to an appointment or an award of compensation does not relieve the judge of the obligation prescribed by this subsection.
Canon 3B(5).
Appropriate action may include direct communication with the judge or lawyer, other direct action if available, reporting the conduct to the appropriate authorities, or, when the judge believes that a judge’s or lawyer’s conduct is caused by drugs, alcohol, or a medical condition, making a confidential referral to an assistance program.
Appropriate action may also include responding to a subpoena to testify or otherwise participating in judicial or lawyer disciplinary proceedings; a judge should be candid and honest with disciplinary authorities.
Canon 3C.
Recusal considerations applicable to a judge’s spouse should also be considered with respect to a person other than a spouse with whom the judge maintains both a household and an intimate relationship.
Canon 3C(1)(c).
In a criminal proceeding, a victim entitled to restitution is not, within the meaning of this Canon, a party to the proceeding or the subject matter in controversy.
A judge who has a financial interest in the victim of a crime is not required by Canon 3C(1)(c) to disqualify from the criminal proceeding, but the judge must do so if the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned under Canon 3C(1) or if the judge has an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding under Canon 3C(1)(d)(iii).
Canon 3C(1)(d)(ii).
The fact that a lawyer in a proceeding is affiliated with a law firm with which a relative of the judge is affiliated does not of itself disqualify the judge.
However, if “the judge’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned” under Canon 3C(1), or the relative is known by the judge to have an interest in the law firm that could be “substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding” under Canon 3C(1)(d)(iii), the judge’s disqualification is required.
Canon 4: A Judge May Engage in Extrajudicial Activities that are Consistent with the Obligations of Judicial Office
A judge may engage in extrajudicial activities, including law-related pursuits and civic, charitable, educational, religious, social, financial, fiduciary, and governmental activities, and may speak, write, lecture, and teach on both law-related and nonlegal subjects.
However, a judge should not participate in extrajudicial activities that detract from the dignity of the judge’s office, interfere with the performance of the judge’s official duties, reflect adversely on the judge’s impartiality, lead to frequent disqualification, or violate the limitations set forth below.
(A) Law-related Activities.
(1) Speaking, Writing, and Teaching.
A judge may speak, write, lecture, teach, and participate in other activities concerning the law, the legal system, and the administration of justice
(2) Consultation.
A judge may consult with or appear at a public hearing before an executive or legislative body or official:
(a) on matters concerning the law, the legal system, or the administration of justice;
(b) to the extent that it would generally be perceived that a judge’s judicial experience provides special expertise in the area; or
(c) when the judge is acting pro se in a matter involving the judge or the judge’s interest.
(3) Organizations.
A judge may participate in and serve as a member, officer, director, trustee, or nonlegal advisor of a nonprofit organization devoted to the law, the legal system, or the administration of justice and may assist such an organization in the management and investment of funds.
A judge may make recommendations to public and private fund-granting agencies about projects and programs concerning the law, the legal system, and the administration of justice.
(4) Arbitration and Mediation.
A judge should not act as an arbitrator or mediator or otherwise perform judicial functions apart from the judge’s official duties unless expressly authorized by law.
(5) Practice of Law.
A judge should not practice law and should not serve as a family member’s lawyer in any forum.
A judge may, however, act pro se and may, without compensation, give legal advice to and draft or review documents for a member of the judge’s family.
(B) Civic and Charitable Activities. A judge may participate in and serve as an officer, director, trustee, or nonlegal advisor of a nonprofit civic, charitable, educational, religious, or social organization, subject to the following limitations:
(1) A judge should not serve if it is likely that the organization will either be engaged in proceedings that would ordinarily come before the judge or be regularly engaged in adversary proceedings in any court.
(2) A judge should not give investment advice to such an organization but may serve on its board of directors or trustees even though it has the responsibility for approving investment decisions.
(C) Fund Raising. A judge may assist nonprofit law-related, civic, charitable, educational, religious, or social organizations in planning fund-raising activities and may be listed as an officer, director, or trustee. A judge may solicit funds for such an organization from judges over whom the judge does not exercise supervisory or appellate authority and from members of the judge’s family. Otherwise, a judge should not personally participate in fund-raising activities, solicit funds for any organization, or use or permit the use of the prestige of judicial office for that purpose. A judge should not personally participate in membership solicitation if the solicitation might reasonably be perceived as coercive or is essentially a fund-raising mechanism.
(D) Financial Activities.
(1) A judge may hold and manage investments, including real estate, and engage in other remunerative activity, but should refrain from financial and business dealings that exploit the judicial position or involve the judge in frequent transactions or continuing business relationships with lawyers or other persons likely to come before the court on which the judge serves.
(2) A judge may serve as an officer, director, active partner, manager, advisor, or employee of a business only if the business is closely held and controlled by members of the judge’s family. For this purpose, “members of the judge’s family” means persons related to the judge or the judge’s spouse within the third degree of relationship as defined in Canon 3C(3)(a), any other relative with whom the judge or the judge’s spouse maintains a close familial relationship, and the spouse of any of the foregoing.
(3) As soon as the judge can do so without serious financial detriment, the judge should divest investments and other financial interests that might require frequent disqualification.
(4) A judge should comply with the restrictions on acceptance of gifts and the prohibition on solicitation of gifts set forth in the Judicial Conference Gift Regulations.
A judge should endeavor to prevent any member of the judge’s family residing in the household from soliciting or accepting a gift except to the extent that a judge would be permitted to do so by the Judicial Conference Gift Regulations.
A “member of the judge’s family” means any relative of a judge by blood, adoption, or marriage, or any person treated by a judge as a member of the judge’s family.
(5) A judge should not disclose or use nonpublic information acquired in a judicial capacity for any purpose unrelated to the judge’s official duties.
(E) Fiduciary Activities.
A judge may serve as the executor, administrator, trustee, guardian, or other fiduciary only for the estate, trust, or person of a member of the judge’s family as defined in Canon 4D(4).
As a family fiduciary a judge is subject to the following restrictions:
(1) The judge should not serve if it is likely that as a fiduciary the judge would be engaged in proceedings that would ordinarily come before the judge or if the estate, trust, or ward becomes involved in adversary proceedings in the court on which the judge serves or one under its appellate jurisdiction.
(2) While acting as a fiduciary, a judge is subject to the same restrictions on financial activities that apply to the judge in a personal capacity.
(F) Governmental Appointments.
A judge may accept appointment to a governmental committee, commission, or other position only if it is one that concerns the law, the legal system, or the administration of justice, or if appointment of a judge is required by federal statute.
A judge should not, in any event, accept such an appointment if the judge’s governmental duties would tend to undermine the public confidence in the integrity, impartiality, or independence of the judiciary. A judge may represent the judge’s country, state, or locality on ceremonial occasions or in connection with historical, educational, and cultural activities.
(G) Chambers, Resources, and Staff.
A judge should not to any substantial degree use judicial chambers, resources, or staff to engage in extrajudicial activities permitted by this Canon.
(H) Compensation, Reimbursement, and Financial Reporting.
A judge may accept compensation and reimbursement of expenses for the law-related and extrajudicial activities permitted by this Code if the source of the payments does not give the appearance of influencing the judge in the judge’s judicial duties or otherwise give the appearance of impropriety, subject to the following restrictions:
(1) Compensation should not exceed a reasonable amount nor should it exceed what a person who is not a judge would receive for the same activity.
(2) Expense reimbursement should be limited to the actual costs of travel, food, and lodging reasonably incurred by the judge and, where appropriate to the occasion, by the judge’s spouse or relative. Any additional payment is compensation.
(3) A judge should make required financial disclosures, including disclosures of gifts and other things of value, in compliance with applicable statutes and Judicial Conference regulations and directives.
COMMENTARY
Canon 4.
Complete separation of a judge from extrajudicial activities is neither possible nor wise; a judge should not become isolated from the society in which the judge lives. As a judicial officer and a person specially learned in the law, a judge is in a unique position to contribute to the law, the legal system, and the administration of justice, including revising substantive and procedural law and improving criminal and juvenile justice.
To the extent that the judge’s time permits and impartiality is not compromised, the judge is encouraged to do so, either independently or through a bar association, judicial conference, or other organization dedicated to the law. Subject to the same limitations, judges may also engage in a wide range of non-law-related activities.
Within the boundaries of applicable law (see, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 953) a judge may express opposition to the persecution of lawyers and judges anywhere in the world if the judge has ascertained, after reasonable inquiry, that the persecution is occasioned by conflict between the professional responsibilities of the persecuted judge or lawyer and the policies or practices of the relevant government.
A person other than a spouse with whom the judge maintains both a household and an intimate relationship should be considered a member of the judge’s family for purposes of legal assistance under Canon 4A(5), fund raising under Canon 4C, and family business activities under Canon 4D(2).
Canon 4A.
Teaching and serving on the board of a law school are permissible, but in the case of a for-profit law school, board service is limited to a non-governing advisory board.
Consistent with this Canon, a judge may encourage lawyers to provide pro bono legal services.
Canon 4A(4).
This Canon generally prohibits a judge from mediating a state court matter, except in unusual circumstances (e.g., when a judge is mediating a federal matter that cannot be resolved effectively without addressing the related state court matter).
Canon 4A(5).
A judge may act pro se in all legal matters, including matters involving litigation and matters involving appearances before or other dealings with governmental bodies.
In so doing, a judge must not abuse the prestige of office to advance the interests of the judge or the judge’s family.
Canon 4B.
The changing nature of some organizations and their exposure to litigation make it necessary for a judge regularly to reexamine the activities of each organization with which the judge is affiliated to determine if the judge’s continued association is appropriate.
For example, in many jurisdictions, charitable hospitals are in court more often now than in the past.
Canon 4C.
A judge may attend fund-raising events of law-related and other organizations although the judge may not be a speaker, a guest of honor, or featured on the program of such an event. Use of a judge’s name, position in the organization, and judicial designation on an organization’s letterhead, including when used for fund raising or soliciting members, does not violate Canon 4C if comparable information and designations are listed for others.
Canon 4D(1), (2), and (3).
Canon 3 requires disqualification of a judge in any proceeding in which the judge has a financial interest, however small. Canon 4D requires a judge to refrain from engaging in business and from financial activities that might interfere with the impartial performance of the judge’s judicial duties. Canon 4H requires a judge to report compensation received for activities outside the judicial office.
A judge has the rights of an ordinary citizen with respect to financial affairs, except for limitations required to safeguard the proper performance of the judge’s duties. A judge’s participation in a closely held family business, while generally permissible, may be prohibited if it takes too much time or involves misuse of judicial prestige or if the business is likely to come before the court on which the judge serves. Owning and receiving income from investments do not as such affect the performance of a judge’s duties.
Canon 4D(5).
The restriction on using nonpublic information is not intended to affect a judge’s ability to act on information as necessary to protect the health or safety of the judge or a member of a judge’s family, court personnel, or other judicial officers if consistent with other provisions of this Code.
Canon 4E.
Mere residence in the judge’s household does not by itself make a person a member of the judge’s family for purposes of this Canon.
The person must be treated by the judge as a member of the judge’s family.
The Applicable Date of Compliance provision of this Code addresses continued service as a fiduciary.
A judge’s obligation under this Code and the judge’s obligation as a fiduciary may come into conflict.
For example, a judge should resign as a trustee if it would result in detriment to the trust to divest holdings whose retention would require frequent disqualification of the judge in violation of Canon 4D(3).
Canon 4F.
The appropriateness of accepting extrajudicial assignments must be assessed in light of the demands on judicial resources and the need to protect the courts from involvement in matters that may prove to be controversial.
Judges should not accept governmental appointments that could interfere with the effectiveness and independence of the judiciary, interfere with the performance of the judge’s judicial responsibilities, or tend to undermine public confidence in the judiciary.
Canon 4H.
A judge is not required by this Code to disclose income, debts, or investments, except as provided in this Canon. The Ethics Reform Act of 1989 and implementing regulations promulgated by the Judicial Conference impose additional restrictions on judges’ receipt of compensation.
That Act and those regulations should be consulted before a judge enters into any arrangement involving the receipt of compensation.
The restrictions so imposed include but are not limited to:
(1) a prohibition against receiving “honoraria” (defined as anything of value received for a speech, appearance, or article),
(2) a prohibition against receiving compensation for service as a director, trustee, or officer of a profit or nonprofit organization, (3) a requirement that compensated teaching activities receive prior approval, and (4) a limitation on the receipt of “outside earned income.”
Canon 5: A Judge Should Refrain from Political Activity
(A) General Prohibitions. A judge should not:
(1) act as a leader or hold any office in a political organization;
(2) make speeches for a political organization or candidate, or publicly endorse or oppose a candidate for public office; or
(3) solicit funds for, pay an assessment to, or make a contribution to a political organization or candidate, or attend or purchase a ticket for a dinner or other event sponsored by a political organization or candidate.
(B) Resignation upon Candidacy. A judge should resign the judicial office if the judge becomes a candidate in a primary or general election for any office.
(C) Other Political Activity. A judge should not engage in any other political activity. This provision does not prevent a judge from engaging in activities described in Canon 4.
COMMENTARY
The term “political organization” refers to a political party, a group affiliated with a political party or candidate for public office, or an entity whose principal purpose is to advocate for or against political candidates or parties in connection with elections for public office.
Compliance with the Code of Conduct
Anyone who is an officer of the federal judicial system authorized to perform judicial functions is a judge for the purpose of this Code.
All judges should comply with this Code except as provided below.
(A) Part-time Judge
A part-time judge is a judge who serves part-time, whether continuously or periodically, but is permitted by law to devote time to some other profession or occupation and whose compensation for that reason is less than that of a full-time judge.
A part-time judge:
(1) is not required to comply with Canons 4A(4), 4A(5), 4D(2), 4E, 4F, or 4H(3);
(2) except as provided in the Conflict-of-Interest Rules for Part-time Magistrate Judges, should not practice law in the court on which the judge serves or in any court subject to that court’s appellate jurisdiction, or act as a lawyer in a proceeding in which the judge has served as a judge or in any related proceeding.
(B) Judge Pro Tempore
A judge pro tempore is a person who is appointed to act temporarily as a judge or as a special master.
(1) While acting in this capacity, a judge pro tempore is not required to comply with Canons 4A(4), 4A(5), 4D(2), 4D(3), 4E, 4F, or 4H(3); further, one who acts solely as a special master is not required to comply with Canons 4A(3), 4B, 4C, 4D(4), or 5.
(2) A person who has been a judge pro tempore should not act as a lawyer in a proceeding in which the judge has served as a judge or in any related proceeding.
(C) Retired Judge
A judge who is retired under 28 U.S.C. § 371(b) or § 372(a) (applicable to Article III judges), or who is subject to recall under § 178(d) (applicable to judges on the Court of Federal Claims), or who is recalled to judicial service, should comply with all the provisions of this Code except Canon 4F, but the judge should refrain from judicial service during the period of extrajudicial appointment not sanctioned by Canon 4F.
All other retired judges who are eligible for recall to judicial service (except those in U.S. territories and possessions) should comply with the provisions of this Code governing part-time judges.
However, bankruptcy judges and magistrate judges who are eligible for recall but who have notified the Administrative Office of the United States Courts that they will not consent to recall are not obligated to comply with the provisions of this Code governing part-time judges.
Such notification may be made at any time after retirement, and is irrevocable. A senior judge in the territories and possessions must comply with this Code as prescribed by 28 U.S.C. § 373(c)(5) and (d).
COMMENTARY
The 2014 amendment to the Compliance section, regarding retired bankruptcy judges and magistrate judges and exempting those judges from compliance with the Code as part-time judges if they notify the Administrative Office of the United States Courts that they will not consent to recall, was not intended to alter those judges’ statutory entitlements to annuities, cost-of-living adjustments, or any other retirement benefits.
Persons to whom this Code applies should arrange their financial and fiduciary affairs as soon as reasonably possible to comply with it and should do so in any event within one year after appointment.
If, however, the demands on the person’s time and the possibility of conflicts of interest are not substantial, such a person may continue to act, without compensation, as an executor, administrator, trustee, or other fiduciary for the estate or person of one who is not a member of the person’s family if terminating the relationship would unnecessarily jeopardize any substantial interest of the estate or person and if the judicial council of the circuit approves.
Last revised (Transmittal 02-016) March 20, 2014
http://www.tulanelink.com/tulanelink/revoltingjudges_03a.htm
attorneyhttp://www.tulanelink.com/tulanelink/innsofcourt_box.htm
http://www.tulanelink.com/audio/macci_06a.swf
Lisa Macci may be contacted by email at: lisamacci@msn.com.
Her Web site is at: http://www.lisamacci.com.
http://www.tulanelink.com/audio/burley_06A.swf
D’Anne Burley may be contacted at: (630) 477-0860 or (630) 441-0548.
See video about Dr. Bernofsky’s case against Tulane University. Click on image.
(1) For the purposes of this section the following words or phrases shall have the meaning indicated: (a) “Proceeding” includes pretrial, trial, appellate review, or other stages of litigation; (b) “Fiduciary” includes such relationships as executor, administrator, conservator, trustee, and guardian; (c) “Financial interest” means ownership of a legal or equitable interest, however small, or a relationship as director, adviser, or other active participant in the affairs of a party, except that:
1. Ownership in a mutual or common investment fund that holds securities, or a proprietary interest of a policyholder in a mutual insurance company, of a depositor in a mutual savings association, or a similar proprietary interest, or ownership of government securities is a “financial interest” only if the outcome of the proceeding could substantially affect the value of the interest;
2. An office in an educational, religious, charitable, fraternal, or civic organization is not a “financial interest” in securities held by the organization.
(2) Any justice or judge of the Court of Justice or master commissioner shall disqualify himself in any proceeding:
(a) Where he has a personal bias or prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed evidentiary facts concerning the proceedings, or has expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the proceeding;
(b) Where in private practice or government service he served as a lawyer or rendered a legal opinion in the matter in controversy, or a lawyer with whom he previously practiced law served during such association as a lawyer concerning the matter in controversy, or the judge, master commissioner or such lawyer has been a material witness concerning the matter in controversy;
(c) Where he knows that he, individually or as a fiduciary, or his spouse or minor child residing in his household, has a pecuniary or proprietary interest in the subject matter in controversy or in a party to the proceeding;
(d) Where he or his spouse, or a person within the third degree of relationship to either of them, or the spouse of such a person:
1. Is a party to the proceeding, or an officer, director, or trustee of a party;
2. Is acting as a lawyer in the proceeding and the disqualification is not waived by stipulation of counsel in the proceeding filed therein;
3. Is known by the judge or master commissioner to have an interest that could be substantially affected by the outcome of the proceeding;
4. Is to the knowledge of the judge or master commissioner likely to be a material witness in the proceeding.
(e) Where he has knowledge of any other circumstances in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.
(3) (a) Any justice or judge of the Court of Justice disqualified under the provisions of this section shall be replaced by the Chief Justice.
(b) Any master commissioner disqualified under the provisions of this section or unable to discharge the duties of his office for any other reason shall be replaced by a special commissioner who shall be appointed by the judge of the court before whom the action is pending.
The special commissioner shall meet the same qualifications as a master commissioner and shall take an oath and execute a bond as the regular commissioner is required to do.
Effective: July 1, 1982 History: Amended 1982 Ky. Acts ch. 141, sec. 41, effective July 1, 1982. — Created 1976 (1st Extra. Sess.) Ky. Acts ch. 22, sec. 4. Note: 1980 Ky. Acts ch. 396, sec. 44 would have amended this section effective July 1, 1982. However, 1980 Ky. Acts ch. 396 was repealed by 1982 Ky. Acts ch. 141, sec. 146, also effective July 1, 1982.
Author of this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and Especially to My Little Julian, is not a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner, therefore, no information contained herein this post and/or blog could be (mis)construed as “legal advice.” Anyone who exercises he/r rights, and private property sometimes called “child” for deceptive, possibly malicious or retaliatory, and profiteering/privateering and in the “best interests” . . . of the “state” Texas General and other Funds at one’s own peril, risk, and/ or self-fulfillment. The choice is yours.
President Theodore Roosevelt
“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government, owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.”
—President Theodore Roosevelt (1858 – 1919), An Autobiography, 1913
In 1922, John Hylan, Mayor of New York City from 1918 – 1925, said in a speech:
The warning of Theodore Roosevelt has much timeliness today, for the real menace of our republic is this invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy length over City, State, and nation… It seizes in its long and powerful tentacles our executive officers, our legislative bodies, our schools, our courts, our newspapers, and every agency created for the public protection.
…They practically control both parties, write political platforms, make catspaws of party leaders, use the leading men of private organizations, and resort to every device to place in nomination for high public office only such candidates as will be amenable to the dictates of corrupt big business.
These… interests control the majority of the newspapers and magazines in this country. They use the columns of these papers to club into submission or drive out of office public officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques which compose the invisible government.”
—Wikipedia
The 28th President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, wrote:
Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the U.S.
“Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.”
—Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom, 1913
Edward Bernays, the so-called “Father of Public Relations,” wrote:
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country… We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.”
—Edward Bernays, Propaganda, 1928
John Edgar Hoover
“The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. The American mind simply has not come to a realization of the evil which has been introduced into our midst. It rejects even the assumption that human creatures could espouse a philosophy which must ultimately destroy all that is good and decent.”
John Edgar Hoover (1895 – 1972), the first director of the FBI of the United States, said:
—J. Edgar Hoover, The Elks Magazine, 1956
In order to fully comprehend the CAPTA Citizen’s Review presented below, it is probably necessary to begin by reading the original and subsequent Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment (“CAPTA”), and subsequent “An Acts” by clicking on the links provided here:
The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-88/pdf/STATUTE-88-Pg4.pdf
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/capta2010.pdf (CAPTA Act of 2010)
Here is a sanitizized recap of CAPTA. http://nlihc.org/article/40-years-ago-child-abuse-prevention-and-treatment-act-passed
2013 Texas Citizen Review Team Report
Texas Citizen Review Teams
The State must submit a copy of the annual report(s) from the citizen review panels and a copy of the State agency’s most recent response(s) to the panels and State and local child protective services agencies, as required by section 106(c)(6) of CAPTA.
Background
There are twelve Citizen Review Teams as established by the Texas Family Code (TFC §261.312).
Five (5) of these teams are designated as meeting the requirements of Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, Appendix I.
This report consists of information concerning the issues addressed only by the five (5) Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) teams. They are located in Edinburg (Region 11), Houston (Region 6 – two teams), Austin (Region 7) and Fort Worth (Region 3).
One of the Houston teams focuses on issues concerning disproportionality. These sites represent a mixture of urban and rural communities, and reflect the broad range of issues encountered by Child Protective Services statewide.
Structure As required, all Citizen Review Team members, including those of the CAPTA Citizen Review Teams, are volunteers who represent a broad spectrum of their communities. The members are nominated locally and approved by the DFPS Commissioner.
CPS state office staff provide assistance in the areas of coordination, team development, training and statewide distribution of team reviews and recommendations.
Local CPS staff facilitate the exchange of case-specific information, ensure that confidentiality is maintained, perform the required background checks on nominated members, and arrange for meeting space and clerical support. Reporting Process To coincide with the federal fiscal year reporting period, this report covers the period from October 2011 to September 2012. Information presented consists of data gathered by the CAPTA Citizens Review Teams. The teams utilize the Citizen Review Team Reporting form, a standardized form that was developed by CPS state office for the teams and modified in December 2012.
Agency Response Citizen Review Team recommendations are placed on the DFPS Web site after approval of each Annual Program and Services Report. In addition to the recommendations from the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) teams, it is anticipated that the recommendations and concerns expressed by other, non-CAPTA teams will be published on the website in the next fiscal year.
The Web page for recommendations contains a Citizen Review Team specific mailbox that the public can use to comment on the recommendations.
That Web page is: http://www.dfps.state.tx.us/Child_Protection/CRT/.
State office program staff review Citizen Review Team recommendations and those recommendations are considered in policy development, training and procedures. The CAPTA teams often present recommendations for local CPS direct delivery staff about actions they would like to see taken on a particular case.
These case-specific recommendations are communicated during the Citizen Review Team meeting to the CPS representatives who are present, and are recorded on the standardized reporting form.
Actions on case-specific recommendations are handled at the regional level.
Panel Activities In August 2012, a consultant with the National Resource Center for Child Protective Services met with fourteen (14) coordinators of Texas Citizen Review Teams.
Two of the coordinators are currently in the process of rebuilding their teams. Their teams have not been active and were not counted in the total number of teams. The group discussed the history of the Citizen Review Teams and also the findings from a survey of the Citizen Review Team members, completed by the resource center.
During initial consultations and the onsite visit, one of the most significant challenges identified was that although CPS was providing the Citizen Review Teams individual, anecdotal case data, teams were being asked to make broad, systemic recommendations.
Each of the teams was identifying cases at random and therefore the sample size for the anecdotal reviews was extremely small. Given the size and diversity of Texas, the teams did not have enough information to determine systemic issues and/or develop effective recommendations.
As such, the department was having a difficult time responding to or implementing many of the recommendations, as they were based on limited data, often limited to a specific case and not supported by systemic data, not specific, or generally not actionable.
During the site visit, a new process was developed in order to enhance the Texas Citizen Review Teams. More specifically, technical assistance from the resource center assisted the participants in determining that a better process would be to identify a critical systemic issue that all teams would focus on and that CPS state office personnel would provide data beyond case data.
This would provide teams with a wide range of data from which to build their recommendations. For fiscal year 2013 the Citizen Review Teams are focusing on child welfare cases that involve domestic violence and improving policy, practice and outcomes for such cases. Teams are being provided state and regional quantitative data comparing domestic violence cases that had reentry from those that did not in order to identify trends by age, ethnicity, income, and other variables.
Teams are provided current domestic violence policies and will be assisting in the development of new domestic violence policies. Teams are encouraged to engage in additional activities in order to make their recommendations including, but not limited to: community focus groups to assess domestic violence dynamics/services, interviews with domestic violence survivors, and reviews of other best practice materials. It is anticipated that this change in practice while result in broader recommendations from the teams. Due to this transition in practice, during the current 2013 fiscal year, two of the CAPTA teams met quarterly in compliance with the requirements. The other teams were unable to meet quarterly, but anticipate meeting this requirement in the next federal fiscal year.
The coordinators are CPS staff assigned to this project. The Citizen Review Team coordinators work to establish local and statewide strategic planning, frequent and regular meetings of active teams, and formation of new teams. The Citizen Review Team coordinators meet regularly with state office program staff to discuss better ways to engage the community in the review process. A Citizen Review Team coordinator’s manual has been developed and is available as a resource for each team. The five CAPTA Citizen Review Teams met as follows from October 2011 through September 2012:
October 18, 2011; April 23, 2012; and June 19, 2012.
Region 06 (Houston/Harris County):
October 9, 2011; May 23, 2012, and September 19. 2012.
This team meets monthly. October 12, 2011, November 9, 2011, January 11, 2012, February 8, 2012, March 14, 2012, April 11, 2012, June 13, 2012, July 11, 2012, August 8, 2012, September 29, 2012. • Region 07 (Austin/Travis County): July 11, 2012 and August 8, 2012.
October 28, 2011, March 9, 2012, April 13, 2012, July 27, 2012, and September 19, 2012 The CAPTA Citizens Review Team coordinators continue to work with their communities to engage and encourage volunteers to become involved in efforts to gain feedback from the public.
Summary of Findings
The findings of the CAPTA Citizen Review Teams that have statewide implications (compared to recommendations aimed at local procedures and issues) are summarized below.
CPS Protection Initiatives
The following chart describes CPS responses that relate to the CAPTA Citizen Review Team identified issues.
Each initiative reflects CPS efforts to respond to and improve the quality of the services it provides to the children and families of Texas. Other recommendations made by the teams were case specific and referred to regional management.
Region Issue
Addressed Recommendation CPS Response Region 3
The team questioned what training is available in the community regarding reporting child abuse or neglect. The team asked why the CPS continued to provide services to the family after multiple cases had in the past also provided services and no substantial changes had been made by the family.
CPS should ask reporters to make reports immediately on abuse/neglect because once an investigator sees the child the injury may have healed. Making unannounced home visits is best practice as making an appointment alerts the family of the visit.
CPS should limit the services they give to the family and see what initiative the parents take on their own. Community Engagement staff conduct community presentations to educate the public about how to report child abuse or neglect. Ensuring timely reporting is emphasized.
Schools and social service providers who are likely to see children are prioritized populations for the trainings, but CPS staff provide training when requested.
There is also information about the statutory requirement to report child abuse and neglect within 72 hours and 48 hours for professional reporters on the DFPS website, as well as an online training module available educating the community about reporting child abuse and neglect.
County Child Welfare Boards across the state distribute informational giveaways with the number to report printed on the item and encourage all Texans to report child abuse and neglect. [QUOTA?]
Many of the parents seen by CPS have experienced long-term trauma and are in substantial crisis when they enter CPS. Given that research shows that it is in children’s best interest to safely live with their birth families, the CPS philosophy is to assist birth families in need by linking them to critical services that will address the problems that led to child abuse/neglect.
Client motivation is considered throughout the process, but navigating the service infrastructure could be challenging for parents to do in isolation, and would likely lead to worse outcomes for the children.
For this reason, CPS makes every reasonable attempt to assist families in being successful and having a safe environment.
Region 6
The team would like to see additional training for caseworkers on working with children with special health care needs. The team would like training developed for investigative staff on how to handle reports on families with medically fragile children.
A tip sheet should be developed for investigation workers to use when they are assigned an In January 2012, CPS published policy targeted specifically toward working with children with special health care needs. investigation involving a medically fragile child.
Region 6
Due to the limitations of the agency’s finances, many families do not receive the intensive level of services needed to break cycles of violence and abuse. [LITERAL TIPS, LIKE CASH ONLY “SAFE” ACCESS AND VISITATION . . . ON SATURDAYS?]
More funding for resources such as therapy is a need. CPS is in the process of strengthening relationships with community partners to increase the resources that are available. The goal is to create a community supported child protective system. There has been an interest by numerous foundations that will potentially increase the amount of resources available to CPS for families in need.
Region 6 (Disproportional ity)
The team recognized that training in cultural issues led to better safety decision making. All staff, not just management, should attend cultural diversity training. “Knowing Who You Are” training is provided to all new CPS caseworkers during Basic Skills Development Training. It is now a mandatory course for all CPS direct delivery staff.
Individuals in DFPS support positions, the community, and external partners are also invited to participate in the “Knowing Who You Are” workshops.
Facilitators include staff from the Center for Learning and Organizational Excellence, program staff, and Disproportionality staff. In addition to “Knowing Who You Are”, DFPS offers additional cultural competency courses as part of the Caseworker and Supervisor Certification Process.
These courses are offered online and in classroom settings. The courses are taught by the Center for Learning and Organizational Excellence staff and external contractors.
Region 11
The team was concerned that lack of training contributes to CPS caseworkers not recognizing when a child is safe.
The team recommended that CPS caseworkers receive training on physical home environment safety issues such as, hazardous materials, proper storage and disposal of chemicals, poison control, and other general protective issues.
CPS should provide education to parents about maintaining a safe home environment. Child safety remains the priority for Texas as DFPS continues to build and reinforce a family focused, community based approach to working with families. [FISCAL PRIORITY—MAJORITY OF TEXAS MONEY COMES FROM LEGAL KINDAPPING, UNLAWFULLY, UNCONSTITUTIONALLY, US UNCONSTITUTIONALLY]
Enhanced Family-Centered Safety Decision Making remains a continuous quality improvement initiative that will help staff:
Conclusion
The Citizen Review Teams are an important component of the Texas child welfare system as CPS continues to improve outcomes and services for children, youth and families. Members voluntarily take time to review the cases with care in order to continue to hold CPS to high investigation standards. By considering innovative ways the community can work together with CPS for child protection, members have shown that improvement of the system is needed and possible. The issues identified and recommendations made by the CAPTA Citizen Review Teams are critical to identifying opportunities for statewide improvements in CPS policy, practice and training
Author of this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and Especially to My Little Julian, is not a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner, therefore, no information contained herein this post and/or blog could be (mis)construed as “legal advice.” Anyone who exercises he/r rights, and private property sometimes called “child” for deceptive, possibly malicious or retaliatory, and profiteering/privateering and in the “best interests” . . . of the “state” Texas General and other Funds at one’s own peril, risk, and/ or self-fulfillment. The choice is yours.
Texas Family Code 109, Appeals, statute/code, but not necessarily US Constitutionally compliant law, Chapter 109, is another problematic “programmatic” issue that plagues the “‘state of Texas'” and its families because those of us who have been coerced and forced (initiation) through legal abuse, or otherwise, into the family court fraud /CPS/adoption/foster care scheme–The Texas Family Code (the bible of these racial hygiene and ethnic cleansing courts for Eugenics and imported Nazi and masonic racists and misogynistic criminal psychopaths in charge, and the “responsible” fathers and stepmothers that support them along with the “no fault divorce” family managing State Bar of Texas (“SBOT”))–do not “under stand” that indigent parents are rarely afforded the right and are routinely blocked from all hope of appeal of clearly legal (but unlawful) official custom, policy, and ratification.
We also do not under stand that one cannot appeal without an attorney, list of appellate points, and without findings of fact or conclusions of law, and certainly without any record or transcript of proceedings which are also routinely denied (and were to author of this blog, Julian’s Real Mommy, by the perniciously retaliatory, malicious 310th court and sundry personnel, Judge Lisa Millard, associate Judge Conrad Moren, CPS-appointed guardian ad litem, Donna Everson, and official court “recorder,” Benjamin A. Alva).
This reads as yet another extortion method in the proverbial toolbox of the “CPS Cluster Courts” of East Texas and adoption and foster care R.I.C.O. court con industry.
That includes you, bribed Judge Lisa A. Millard and associate Judge Conrad Moren of the 310th court in Houston, Texas (Harris County), but only after Cheryl Harvick, Brazoria County CPS supervisor in Pearland first permanently terminated my “possessory conservatorship” rights on May 08, 2012 before I was compelled and conned into your courtroom. May others be saved by reading your tactics, and also from your judicial prostitution ring which expands the meaning of child/human trafficking from Florida, Georgia, and Texas (quoting Greg Todd, investigator).
TEXAS FAMILY CODE
TITLE 5. THE PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIP AND THE SUIT AFFECTING THE PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIP
SUBTITLE A. GENERAL PROVISIONS
CHAPTER 109. APPEALS
Sec. 109.001. TEMPORARY ORDERS DURING PENDENCY OF APPEAL. (a) Not later than the 30th day after the date an appeal is perfected, on the motion of any party or on the court’s own motion and after notice and hearing, the court may make any order necessary to preserve and protect the safety and welfare of the child during the pendency of the appeal as the court may deem necessary and equitable. In addition to other matters, an order may:
(1) appoint temporary conservators for the child and provide for possession of the child;
(2) require the temporary support of the child by a party;
(3) restrain a party from molesting or disturbing the peace of the child or another party;
(4) prohibit a person from removing the child beyond a geographical area identified by the court;
(5) require payment of reasonable attorney’s fees and expenses; or
(6) suspend the operation of the order or judgment that is being appealed.
(b) A court retains jurisdiction to enforce its orders rendered under this section unless the appellate court, on a proper showing, supersedes the court’s order.
(c) A temporary order rendered under this section is not subject to interlocutory appeal.
(d) The court may not suspend under Subsection (a)(6) the operation of an order or judgment terminating the parent-child relationship in a suit brought by the state or a political subdivision of the state permitted by law to bring the suit.
Added by Acts 1995, 74th Leg., ch. 20, Sec. 1, eff. April 20, 1995. Amended by Acts 2001, 77th Leg., ch. 539, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 2001.
Sec. 109.002. APPEAL.
(a) An appeal from a final order rendered in a suit, when allowed under this section or under other provisions of law, shall be as in civil cases generally under the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure.
An appeal in a suit in which termination of the parent-child relationship is in issue shall be given precedence over other civil cases and shall be accelerated by the appellate courts.
The procedures for an accelerated appeal under the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure apply to an appeal in which the termination of the parent-child relationship is in issue.
(b) An appeal may be taken by any party to a suit from a final order rendered under this title.
(c) An appeal from a final order, with or without a supersedeas bond, does not suspend the order unless suspension is ordered by the court rendering the order.
The appellate court, on a proper showing, may permit the order to be suspended, unless the order provides for the termination of the parent-child relationship in a suit brought by the state or a political subdivision of the state permitted by law to bring the suit.
(d) On the motion of the parties or on the court’s own motion, the appellate court in its opinion may identify the parties by fictitious names or by their initials only.
Added by Acts 1995, 74th Leg., ch. 20, Sec. 1, eff. April 20, 1995. Amended by Acts 1999, 76th Leg., ch. 62, Sec. 6.17, eff. Sept. 1, 1999; Acts 2001, 77th Leg., ch. 421, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 2001; Acts 2001, 77th Leg., ch. 539, Sec. 2, eff. Sept. 1, 2001.
Amended by:
Acts 2011, 82nd Leg., R.S., Ch. 75 (H.B. 906), Sec. 3, eff. September 1, 2011.
Sec. 109.003. PAYMENT FOR STATEMENT OF FACTS.
(a) If the party requesting a statement of facts in an appeal of a suit has filed an affidavit stating the party’s inability to pay costs as provided by Rule 20, Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure, and the affidavit is approved by the trial court, the trial court may order the county in which the trial was held to pay the costs of preparing the statement of facts.
(b) Nothing in this section shall be construed to permit an official court reporter to be paid more than once for the preparation of the statement of facts.
Added by Acts 1995, 74th Leg., ch. 20, Sec. 1, eff. April 20, 1995. Amended by Acts 1995, 74th Leg., ch. 472, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1995; Acts 2001, 77th Leg., ch. 1420, Sec. 5.0025, eff. Sept. 1, 2001.
Author of this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and Especially to My Little Julian, is not a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner, therefore, no information contained herein this post and/or blog could be (mis)construed as “legal advice.” Anyone who exercises he/r rights, and private property sometimes called “child” for deceptive, possibly malicious or retaliatory, and profiteering/privateering and in the “best interests” . . . of the “state” Texas General and other Funds at one’s own peril, risk, and/ or self-fulfillment. The choice is yours.
As usual, the only media or press allowed against Department of Family and Protective Services and the local CPS County Boards responsible for unconstitutional, illegal, and completely irrational “child” kidnappings–“removals”–supports the Texas General Fund. Thus, another adoption/foster care fraud case, among others of the family court fraud and R.I.C.O. scam genre plaguing this nation engaged in a silent war follows, below:
RE-Blogged, Below
The Tutt Case, Texas Home School Association article, letter link below
http://www.thsc.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/2014-01-27-tutt-dfps.pdf
JANUARY 28, 2014 BY TIM LAMBERT
The Tutt case continues, so we are issuing this update and a call to action. While some of the Tutts’ children have been returned to their home, they have been traumatized by their removal. Some of them were told while in CPS custody that they could not refer to their adopted parents as “mom and dad” but only by their first names. The children are still in public school, and the academic assessment of the children ordered by the judge has not been done, nor has the order to psychologically examine Mrs. Tutt been scheduled. Another child remains in foster care. Three weeks after the order by the judge, and nothing has been done! It appears that no one in the judicial or CPS system is interested in bringing this family back together.
THSC has written a letter to the Texas commissioner of the Department of Family and Protective Services, the department that oversees CPS, and is demanding an investigation into the caseworker and her supervisor who facilitated this travesty. You can read that DPS letter here. We are asking for those who would like to help the Tutts get all their children back and be allowed to resume their home education to help us by contacting Governor Perry’s office and the Texas legislators who make up theSenate Health and Human Services Committee and the House Human Services Committee, committees which oversee CPS. Urge them to contact DFPS and to launch an immediate investigation of the CPS caseworker (Ms. Shan Robinson) and her supervisor (Ms. Diana Etheridge).
These CPS officials facilitated the illegal removal of the Tutt children. For background, see my previous posts on the Tutt case. The bottom line is that a CPS worker investigated an incident and initially said all was well but a month later demanded a psychological evaluation and parenting classes. When Mrs. Tutt pointed out that classes had been taken and that she had a certificate from her physician noting she was physically and mentally fit to care for children, the caseworker said she would consult with her supervisor to see if that would be sufficient.
With no further communication with the family, the caseworker sought a court order to force Mrs. Tutt to have a psychological evaluation. This evaluation was sought in a November 15, 2013, ex parte hearing, of which the family was not notified nor represented and at which the caseworker was not present.
The caseworker stated that Judge Graciela Olvera refused to sign the order and “recommended that the children be removed from the home and placed in custody due to neglectful supervision and also the pattern of CPS referrals during the year.” She also stated, “Judge Olvera expressed concern about the mental state of the parents.”
In other words, the judge who professed to be “concerned about the mental state of the parents” refused to sign an order requiring a psychological evaluation but did sign an order to remove the children based on two of the children wandering away briefly and also on a pattern of CPS allegations, all of which had been ruled unfounded.
The caseworker stated in the presence of Mrs. Tutt and her 25 year-old daughter that she knew there was no cause for removal but that she had to come up with something to satisfy the judge who had issued the order for removal.
This is judicial abuse that was facilitated by CPS officials, and they must be held accountable. Please call Governor Perry’s office at (512) 463-2000 as well as the legislators who oversee CPS (listed in the links above) and demand an investigation into the CPS officials who followed the illegal ruling of Judge Olvera.
THSC will be hosting a press conference to publicize this issue and to demand an investigation into CPS and Judge Olvera on January 29 at 1:30 p.m. at the Dallas County Courthouse. Please join us and friends of the family in support of the Tutts as we publicly call for justice for this family and the return of their children and their freedom to resume home schooling. It is important that we have as many people as possible there in order to draw attention to this travesty. Please spread the word and join us in Dallas on Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. at the Dallas County Courthouse. Old Red Courthouse building at 100 S. Houston Street, Dallas, TX 75202
Governor Rick Perry – (512) 463-2000 – Main Switchboard
Send a message.
Committee Chair:
Jane Nelson
(817) 424-3446 – Grapevine
Send an email.
Vice Chair:
Bob Deuell
(972) 279-1800 – Mesquite
(903) 450-9797 – Greenville
Send an email.
Committee Members:
Joan Huffman
(281) 980-3500 – Houston
Send an email.
Robert Nichols
(903) 589-3003 – Jacksonville
(936) 588-7391 – Montgomery
(936) 564-4252 – Nacogdoches
(936) 699-4988 – Lufkin
Send an email.
Charles Schwertner
(979) 776-0222
(512) 863-8456
Send an email.
Larry Taylor
(281) 485-9800 – Pearland
(281) 332-0003 – League City
Send an email.
Carlos I. Uresti
(210) 932-2568 – San Antonio
(830) 758-0294 – Eagle Pass
(432) 447-0270 – Pecos
Send an email.
Royce West
(214) 467-0123 – Dallas
(214) 741-0123 – Dallas
Send an email.
Judith Zaffirini
(956) 722-2293 – Laredo
Send an email.
Committee Chair:
Richard Peña
(956) 753-7722 – Laredo
Send an email.
Vice Chair:
Naomi Gonzalez
(915) 775-9937 – El Paso
Send an email.
Committee Members:
Pat Fallon
(469) 362-0500 – Little Elm
Send an email.
Stephanie Klick
(817)281-0079 – North Richland Hills
Send an email.
Elliott Naishtat
(512) 463-0668 – Austin
Send an email.
Toni Rose
(214) 371-3300 – Dallas
Send an email.
Scott Sanford
(972) 548-7500 – McKinney
Send an email.
Scott Turner
(972) 722-7887 – Rockwall County
(972) 987-1447 – Collin County
Send an email.
John Zerwas
(281) 533-9042 – Simonton
Send an email.
FILED UNDER: PARENTAL RIGHTS, TUTT FAMILY
Tim Lambert, president of Texas Home School Coalition (the state home school support organization since 1986), has been involved in home school leadership in Texas since 1984. He and his wife Lyndsay taught their four now-grown children at home for 16 years, graduating the last two in 2000. As the head of the organization for the leading home school state in the country, Tim is recognized as an authority on home education issues in Texas. In this capacity, he has testified before numerous Texas legislative committees on issues related to home schooling. He often deals with state government agencies, including the Texas Education Agency and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, on home education issues and has served as an expert witness on home education in a number of court cases. He has also addressed such conferences as the Texas Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissi
Author of this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and Especially to My Little Julian, is not a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner, therefore, no information contained herein this post and/or blog could be (mis)construed as “legal advice.” Anyone who exercises he/r rights, and private property sometimes called “child” for deceptive, possibly malicious or retaliatory, and profiteering/privateering and in the “best interests” . . . of the “state” Texas General and other Funds at one’s own peril, risk, and/ or self-fulfillment. The choice is yours.
ons Officers on the topic.
Tim holds a B.A. in political science from Texas Tech University and is active in the political arena, having served eight years as Republican National Committeeman for Texas. He is committed to serving the home schooling community and to protecting parents’ right to choose the method of education of their children.
MURPHY v. MURPHY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAyJYvaUCYY&feature=youtu.be&list=PLkGLyQMm3lZhUPJN6wXqjV9LfED2VeK3h
CHIEF JUDGE QUILLAIN A. BALDWIN, credit to author of MURPHY V. MURPHY; Newnan, GA (Coweta County Superior Court)
MURPHY v. MURPHY.
No. A13A0206.
Decided: July 12, 2013
Nancy Michelle Murphy appeals an interlocutory order denying her motion to recuse the trial court judge in this change-of-custody case. Because we lack jurisdiction, we dismiss the appeal.
Nancy Murphy and John Murphy were divorced in 2006. In 2012, John Murphy filed this action, seeking to modify the child custody provisions of the parties’ divorce decree.
– See more at: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ga-court-of-appeals/1638666.html#sthash.3tJZiiOs.dpuf
IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF TROUP COUNTY STATE OF GEORGIA
Nancy Michelle Murphy,
Plaintiff,
vs.
Civil Action No. 15-CV0109
Nan Freeman and Freeman Reporting, Inc., Defendants [Only two Defendants remaining after Fulton Superior Court transfer] The Summary Judgment should be Denied and the Demand for a Jury Trial by twelve persons should be Granted Nancy Michelle Murphy’s Response to the Uniform Superior Court Rule 6.5 Theories of Recovery and Statement of Material Facts of Nan Freeman and Freeman Reporting, Inc.
This case involves Nan Freeman, who is an official court reporter engaging in illegal conduct. Nancy Michelle Murphy (or “Michelle Murphy”) responds here to the Uniform Superior Court Rule 6.5, purported Theory of Recovery and purported Statement of Material Facts of Nan Freeman and Freeman Reporting, Inc. (or, “Nan Freeman,” collectively or individually).
A substantial portion of Nan Freeman’s Uniform Superior Court Rule 6.5 purported Statement of Material Facts reflects the vindictiveness of those opposing Michelle Murphy for exposing the illegal conduct of Judge Baldwin and those, such as Nan Freeman, who attempted to conceal the illegal conduct of Judge Baldwin.
This is to state that Nan Freeman is assisted by persons attempting to support the illegal conduct of Judge Baldwin, who have either benefited from the conduct of Judge Baldwin, or who seek to obtain future benefit derived from supporting Judge Baldwin and/or financial benefits derived from John Harold Murphy and Renee L. Haugerud.
The information contained in the March 14, 2014 Motion to Disqualify Nan Freeman in Murphy v. Murphy, in the Superior Court of Coweta County, Civil Action No. 12V-413 (or, “Murphy v. Murphy”) is incorporated and made a part of this introduction, as Attachment 7.
Nan Freeman’s Motion for Summary Judgment attempts to demean Michelle Murphy and to use the tactics of John Harold Murphy and Judge Baldwin in an attempt to defend Nan Freeman’s illegal conduct and the illegal conduct of Judge Baldwin in not adhering to the Uniform Superior Court Rule 3.1 mandated case management plan.
Nan Freeman’s Motion for Summary Judgment identifies, as much as anything, the bias of Nan Freeman and that the illegal conduct of Nan Freeman was not that of an innocent court reporter who made a few errors, but that of a person engaging in a pattern of illegal conduct allowing her to obtain illegal compensation and job security by protecting the conduct of Judge Baldwin, whose judicial authority should have been vacated by the regulatory authorities.
The e-mails copied and exchanged among those working in Judge Baldwin’s office and Nan Freeman using either the nickname, “Nanny” or “Nan” do not depict Nan Freeman as an independent, unbiased official court report covering matters relating to Judge Baldwin.
These exchanges, produced in discovery after the deposition of Nan Freeman, are attached to the Affidavit of Kenneth Gordon as “Exhibit D,” and are incorporated here.
When Judge Baldwin eventually recused himself after twenty or more attempts by Michelle Murphy to disqualify him by all legal means, Judge Baldwin obtained a position for Nan Freeman, as an official court reporter with the newly appointed Coweta Judicial Circuit Superior Court Judge W. Travis Sakrison, the son-in-law of Congressman Lynn Westmoreland.
The recusal Orders of the judges in the Coweta Judicial Circuit in Murphy v. Murphy and the replacement judge are included as Attachment 8.
No separate response is required to the Theory of Recovery of Nan Freeman and Freeman Reporting, Inc. (or, “Nan Freeman”, collectively or individually )
The response of Michelle Murphy to Nan Freeman’s purported Statement of Rule 6.5 Facts Memorandum of Law is incorporated in the Introduction to the Response to Nan Freeman’s Theory of Recovery.
Just as a heads up — counsel for Nan Freeman filed her motion for summary judgment before Michelle Murphy’s First Amended Complaint was filed and therefore Nan Freeman’s issues in her current motion for summary have become stale and mostly legally immaterial before the allotted time for Michelle Murphy to respond.
An official court reporter, as was and is Nan Freeman, cannot legally design a template, as she did around 1996, and use it in each of her official court reporting’s contractual fulfilments until she is caught producing illegal transcripts with that template in 2014 and then creditably urge the defense of “mistake” — the law burdens Nan Freeman, as a condition of qualifying and being compensated, as an official court reporter, both to learn and to comply with the legally permissible fees and the legal requirements for the preparation of transcripts pursuant to the Fee Schedule mandated by the Judicial Council of Georgia and OCGA § 15-14- 5.
Returning compensation which was illegally taken does not absolve one of the consequences of violating the law. Nan Freeman held a position of trust that required both her competence and integrity that she breached to the detriment of Michelle Murphy, that consumed Michelle Murphy’s financial resources and created an enhanced level of prejudice against Michelle Murphy’s effort to obtain custody of J. M. and T. M., her children.
It is relevant to understand that Judge Baldwin was the exclusive trier of fact in Murphy v. Murphy.
Michelle Murphy could not obtain a jury trial in that case The fees and the conditions upon which an official court reporter in the State of Georgia can obtain compensation is mandated by the Judicial Council of Georgia.
Nan Freeman was required by law to charge only the Judicial Council of Georgia authorized fees to persons who wished, or were required, to purchase transcripts from her in her capacity as an official court reporter for the Coweta Judicial Circuit.
The fees follow that were allowable for Nan Freeman to charge for legally prepared transcripts in the Superior Court of Coweta County case of Murphy v Murphy.
Nan Freeman did not comply with the certificate requirements, which were legally imposed upon her by the OCGA § 15-14-5, Duty to transcribe statute — Nan Freeman used an abbreviated, incomplete version of the required certificate. OCGA § 15-14-5. Duty to transcribe; certificate.
It shall be the duty of each court reporter to transcribe the evidence and other proceedings of which he has taken notes as provided by law whenever requested so to do by counsel for any party to such case and upon being paid the legal fees for such transcripts.
The reporter, upon delivering the transcript to such counsel, shall affix thereto a certificate signed by him reciting that the transcript is true, complete, and correct.
Subject only to the right of the trial judge to change or require the correction of the transcript, the transcript so certified shall be presumed to be true, complete, and correct. emphasis supplied
Nan Freeman, as a part and parcel of her habitual violations of the laws of Georgia, did not provide Michelle Murphy’s transcripts with an OCGA § 5-14-5 required certificate containing the certification that the transcript is “true, complete and correct” as required by OCGA § 5-14-5 — — The transcripts provided and paid for by Michelle Murphy were not true, complete or correct. Nan Freeman has never provided to Michelle Murphy, or other litigants, the required certificate that is an indication of the pattern of her illegal conduct.
The habitual violations of the OCGA § 15-14-5 requirements and the authorized fees is relevant to identify that Nan Freeman did not just make a onetime error, but instead engaged in a pattern of illegal conduct, including overcharging and not including the required certificate.
Nan Freeman was therefore not entitled to any compensation, as she prepared no transcript meeting the OCGA § 15-14-5 requirements. If she had complied, the following fees, with which she also did not comply, govern.
Nan Freeman, by using a template that consistently produced a transcript that did not comply with OCGA § 15-14-5, and using a template that consistently allowed her to collect more compensation than she was permitted to receive under the law, engaged in illegal conduct and actionable fraud, negligent misrepresentation of facts, theft by taking, breach of contract, unjust enrichment and conversion.
The laws of Georgia do not deprive Michelle Murphy from obtaining damages from an official court reporter who engaged in the illegal conduct in which Nan Freeman engaged.
Procedural Background
Michelle Murphy, through counsel, first, informally and very politely, sought the audio recording of the May 27, 2014 proceedings from Nan Freeman, the official court reporter in Murphy v. Murphy— counsel approached Nan Freeman while she was still sitting at her court reporting station.
The audio recordings were initially sought by counsel to provide to regulatory authorities to report the Code of Judicial Conduct violations by Judge Baldwin that had just occurred.
The report of the conduct of Judge Baldwin was appropriate, as his violations of the Code of Judicial Conduct were prevalent on several earlier occasions, but none were as monstrous as Judge Baldwin’s mental blowout on May 27, 2014.
The audio was relevant to obtaining the removal of Judge Baldwin from Murphy v. Murphy.
Nan Freeman initially refused the literal begging of counsel to purchase the audio recording for Michelle Murphy’s use — counsel then, to no avail, sought the audio recording with a Georgia Open Records Act request to Troup County, Coweta County and Nan Freeman.
The Open Records Act request is Plaintiff’s Exhibit 6 to the Deposition of Nan Freeman, and is Attachment 6 to this response. Counsel sought assistance from the Board of Court Reporting, with first an informal request for help, followed by a formal complaint.
Counsel for Michelle Murphy was refused assistance in obtaining the audio recordings for Michelle Murphy until after an action was filed against the Board of Court Reporting, Nan Freeman and Freeman Reporting, Inc., that, with other efforts and concessions, resulted in Michelle Murphy obtaining the audio recordings.
It was a review of the audio recording that supported the illegal conduct of Nan Freeman.
Nan Freeman, over an extended period of time, thought to have begun on, or before, 1996, engaged in illegal court reporting that counsel for Michelle Murphy discovered and documented at the initial cost of in excess of $10,000.
The Answer of Nan Freeman to the original complaint against her by Michelle Murphy is included as Attachment 1.
That Answer, as well as the complete record of the original case, are now in the records of the Superior Court of Troup County and are relied upon in support of this response. The litigious nature of Nan Freeman in not fulfilling her contract with Michelle Murphy, by engaging in false, demeaning depictions of Michelle Murphy, in this Motion for Summary Judgment and elsewhere, qualifies Nan Freeman’s breach of contract for an award of attorney fees and punitive damages.
A video recording and official copy of the transcript and video deposition of Nan Freeman are in the record of the Superior Court of Troup County.
Nan Freeman’s attorney attached a copy of that transcript, without Exhibits, of Nan Freeman’s deposition to Nan Freeman’s motion for summary judgment.
It is relevant to distinguish between the stringent requirements for an official court reporter to receive compensation, from the requirements of a court reporter, who, for example, reports at depositions.
In order to obtain the audio recordings of the May 27, 2014 hearing and to have transcribed omitted portions of the transcripts that were thought available with the audio recordings, the Georgia Open Records Act requests were filed by counsel for Michelle Murphy. See Attachment 6 hereto, and Exhibit 6 to the deposition of Nan Freeman includes the Georgia Open Records Act requests to the Counties of Troup and Coweta, and to Nan Freeman.
After the Board of Court Reporting members were dismissed as defendants from the Superior Court of Fulton County portion of this case, Nan Freeman, on her motion, was successful in having the case transferred to the Superior Court of Troup County.
The original complaint, upon which the motion for summary judgment relies, was amended before the response Michelle Murphy to this motion for summary judgment was due.
The Complaint against Nan Freeman contains issues that are embedded within each of the causes of action that affects the damages that should be awarded against Nan Freeman.
The embedded issues in each cause of action are
(1) the proportion of the tortious conduct by Nan Freeman that can be attributed to her violation of protections provided to litigants by the Code of Judicial Conduct, OCGA §15-14-5, the Uniform Superior Court Rules, the Constitutional provisions of the United States and the State of Georgia equivalent, First Amendment, Equal Protection, Due Process protections, statutes, decisional law, Georgia Code of Professional Conduct, the Court Reporter Code of Professional Ethics (or, collectively, or separately, “LAW*”).
Nan Freeman’s intentional participation in the illegal conduct of Judge Baldwin in order to deprive Michelle Murphy and her children of their protections under the LAW* by Nan Freeman’s reckless and wanton disregard of consequences, evinced an intention to inflict injury upon Michelle Murphy —
(2) the proportion of Nan Freeman’s tortious conduct that is attributed to her intent to obtain illegal financial and employment benefits for herself —
(3) the proportion of Nan Freeman’s tortious wrongdoing that is attributed to her fraud and negligent misrepresentation; and —
(4) the damages caused to Michelle Murphy as the result of Nan Freeman’s illegal and unethical conduct that included Nan Freeman’s participation in attempting to secret and otherwise participate in the illegal conduct and other violations of the Code of Judicial Conduct by Judge A. Quillian Baldwin, Jr. Response to the Individual Statement of Purported Facts relied upon by Nan Freeman in support of her motion for summary judgment. [The purported statement of fact by Nan Freeman is first quoted in an italicized font, then the response follows.]
Response to Nan Freeman’s Purported Statement of Material Facts for Summary Judgment Page 12 of 28 1.
Since 2012, Ms. Freeman has served as the court reporter for Chief Judge A. Quillian Baldwin, Jr. of the Coweta County Superior Court. Dep. of Nan Freeman at 8:19-9:12. A copy of the transcript of Ms. Freeman’ s Deposition is attached to the Affidavit of Kenneth Lamar Gordon (“Gordon Affidavit”) as Exhibit A. Response to No. 1
Nan Freeman has been an official court reporter in the Coweta Judicial Circuit since approximately 1999, and a court reporter since approximately 1996 (Freeman Dep. p. 8).
During that time, she has been the official court reporter first for Judge Keeble, then Judge Baldwin, and, now, the newly appointed Judge W. Travis Sakrison. At all times excepting August 13, 2013, when another reporter, Alice Moore, was assigned to the case for that one hearing, Nan Freeman was the official court reporter during the Murphy v. Murphy case.
The official transcript of the deposition of Nan Freeman is filed in the Superior Court of Troup County.
Counsel for Nan Freeman did not attach the exhibits to the deposition of Nan Freeman, which are relevant to the testimony contained in the transcript.
The exhibits are attached to the official transcript filed with the Clerk of the Superior Court of Troup County. 2.
From April 2012 until February 2015, (other than a brief period of time in which the case had been transferred to another judge) Judge Baldwin presided over child custody litigation between Plaintiff and her ex-husband, John Murphy (the “Child Custody Litigation”) See Murphy v. Murphy, No. 2012-cv-413 (Ga. Super. Ct., Coweta Cnty. filed Apr. 11, 2012). Response to No. 2
After Michelle Murphy filed extensive challenges to the absence of a Uniform Superior Court Rule 3.1 case management plan with disqualification motions and otherwise in the Superior Court of Coweta County, a Rule 3.1 mandated case Response to Nan Freeman’s Purported Statement of Material Facts for Summary Judgment Page 13 of 28 management plan was implemented by the Coweta Judicial Circuit.
Under that plan, Judge Dennis Blackmon was assigned the Murphy v. Murphy case, as confirmed by the Clerk of the Superior Court of Coweta County. Judge Baldwin, through a process that did not comply with the LAW*, obtained the case from Judge Blackmon.
There were continuous pleas to the jurisdiction of Judge Baldwin presiding after Judge Blackmon’s Rule 3.1 case management plan assignment. The Murphy v. Murphy case was a modification of custody, or in the Alternative, Parenting Time of John Harold Murphy that also involved a modification of child support.
John Harold Murphy initiated the litigation that resulted in Counterclaims against John Harold Murphy and a Third Party Complaint against Renee L. Haugerud, his spouse, who is a hedge fund operator. At that time, the case in the Superior Court of Coweta County was styled as follows.
John Harold Murphy, Plaintiff vs. Civil Action No. 12V-413 Nancy Michelle Murphy, Defendant/Third Party Plaintiff vs. A Jury Trial is Requested on the Child Support Issues, the Counterclaim and the Third Party Complaint Renee Haugerud, Third Party Defendant The hedge fund operator, third party defendant was dismissed by Judge Baldwin without allowing a hearing.
Judge Baldwin refused counsel for Michelle Response to Nan Freeman’s Purported Statement of Material Facts for Summary Judgment Page 14 of 28 Murphy the right to depose Renee L. Haugerud or to call her as a witness at any time, despite numerous requests. 3.
On April 1, 2014, Judge Baldwin issued an Order in the Child Custody Litigation (a) requiring Plaintiff to submit to a psychological examination pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 9-11-35;
(b) setting a compliance hearing for May 27, 2014; and
(c) warning Plaintiff that the issue of temporary custody of the children would be considered at the compliance hearing, if necessary.
A copy of the April 1, 2014 Order in the Child Custody Litigation is attached to the Gordon Affidavit as Exhibit B. Response to No. 3
On April 1, 2014, Judge Baldwin filed an Order in Murphy v Murphy, that is incorporated as Attachment 2.
The Attachment is the representation of the designation of the content of the Order, as Michelle Murphy is opposed to the characterization of the litigation and the characterization of the Order contained in the No. 3 statement of purported fact of Nan Freeman.
4. On May 27, 2014, Judge Baldwin conducted the compliance hearing in the Child Custody Litigation.
Following Plaintiff’s admission on the stand that she had failed to comply with the Rule 35 psychological examination, Judge Baldwin awarded temporary custody of the children to Plaintiff’s ex-husband, John Murphy. Response to No. 4 Judge Baldwin, on May 27, 2014 did not conduct a hearing that provided Michelle Murphy her Due Process rights, as Judge Baldwin presided at a proceeding that violated the Code of Judicial Conduct, as evidenced by his recusal. Attachment 8, p. 1 is incorporated here.
On May 27, 2014, Judge Baldwin commenced what was scheduled to be a hearing in the case of Murphy v. Murphy.
Judge Baldwin would not allow any of Michelle Murphy’s witnesses to testify and would not even allow direct examination of Michelle Murphy by her counsel, while Judge Baldwin, in attempting to examine Michelle Murphy, violated the Code of Judicial Conduct as well as the protections that the law provided to Michelle Murphy.
Judge Baldwin abruptly refused to allow Michelle Murphy even to explain her answers to questions that he posed, or questions posed by opposing counsel. Judge Baldwin apparently predetermined that he was going to use his judicial authority to abuse Michelle Murphy. Judge Baldwin, by illegal and unethical conduct, attempted to and did prevent Michelle Murphy from presenting her justifiable defense.
Judge Baldwin would not allow Michelle Murphy, through her testimony, or through her witnesses’ testimony, to present her defenses.
The characterization of the litigation and the purpose of the proceeding is inaccurate, and is accurately explained in the Affidavit of Michelle Murphy, Attachment 3.
Nan Freeman’s illegal conduct deprived Michelle Murphy of a verbatim transcription or even a complete and accurate audio version of the May 27, 2014 proceeding, explained in the First Amended Complaint against Nan Freeman as follows.
Nan Freeman, intentionally or through negligence engaged in a deceptive physical appearance at the May 27, 2014 proceeding that Response to Nan Freeman’s Purported Statement of Material Facts for Summary Judgment Page 16 of 28 gave Michelle Murphy and her counsel the appearance that she was fulfilling her legal obligations in the courtroom, as an official court reporter under contract to Michelle Murphy, including being located at her reporting station with her equipment, that was a scheme or an artifice to defraud Michelle Murphy and thereby her counsel and the appellate courts and all other courts.
On May 27, 2014, Nan Freeman failed to take down, audio record, accurately and completely transcribe Judge Baldwin’s Order and assurance to Michelle Murphy, her children and her counsel that the children would be allowed to testify at the May 27, 2014 proceeding, and, thereby, deceptively engaged in actionable fraud and/or alternatively, negligent misrepresentation conduct, creating damages sought in the First Amended Complaint against Nan Freeman by Michelle Murphy. See, Affidavit of Millard Farmer attached to this Response.
At the time of the May 27, 2014 proceeding, Nan Freeman was a person known to Michelle Murphy and her counsel as the official court reporter who was assigned to the case as the official reporter whom Michelle Murphy, through her counsel, contracted to report and transcribe the proceeding on May 27, 2014.
Nan Freeman, as a part of her fraud and/or alternatively, negligent misrepresentation conduct, requested that Michelle Murphy make payment to her for work which Nan Freeman deceptively failed to perform while appearing to perform as required by the Board of Response to Nan Freeman’s Purported Statement of Material Facts for Summary Judgment Page 17 of 28 Court Reporting Rules and Regulations.
Nan Freeman charged, and Michelle Murphy paid for pages of the transcript that did not meet the legal requirements of being page eligible to be included in the fee charged and collected by Nan Freeman.
In addition to not recording and transcribing the first part of the proceedings, while deceptively appearing to be recording the court proceedings, Nan Freeman, as a part of her fraud and/or alternatively, negligent misrepresentation, provided Michelle Murphy, opposing counsel and the Court a certificate stating that the transcript of the May 27, 2014 proceedings provided to the parties, which Nan Freeman was compensated to produce, was a “true” record of the proceedings. (Freeman Dep., Exhibit 5)
Not only was the certificate not legal, but Nan Freeman had illegally charged for ineligible pages and omitted portions of the proceedings.
Nan Freeman, who personally transcribed the transcript from a recording that she produced, (Freeman Dep. p. 7) as a part of her fraud and/or alternatively, negligent misrepresentation conduct, in addition to omitting the beginning of the proceeding, omitted the four pages of Judge Baldwin’s massive temper tantrum at the end of the proceeding that no human in attendance could forget.
Nan Freeman engaged in fraud and/or alternatively, negligent misrepresentation conduct by attempting to have Judge Baldwin use his authority as the presiding Judge to influence counsel for Michelle Murphy not to bring an action against Nan Freeman that ultimately provided counsel for Michelle Murphy the information to learn of a substantial portion of the fraud and/or alternatively negligent misrepresentation conduct of Nan Freeman, much of which was verified during the deposition of Nan Freeman, where she continued to conceal her fraud and/or alternatively negligent misrepresentation, by first making false statements and frequently feigning that she did not remember.
5. After issuing this ruling, Judge Baldwin stated ”that’s the end of this hearing today” and left the bench. Compl., Attach. 7, at 41. Response to No. 5 Purported Statement 5 is deceptive, as it attempts to imply the end of the proceeding. Instead, Judge Baldwin stood up, but did not leave the bench, and immediately was engaged by counsel and responded with his monstrous temper tantrum, contained in the omitted pages of the “true record” transcript involving the “Blame Yourself,” “Blame Yourself,” Blame Yourself,” of Judge Baldwin that is included in the Addendum, accompanied with the “indicating” comment and the statement of Larry King to Judge Baldwin that is also included in the Addendum to the May 27, 2014 transcript of Nan Freeman. (Attachment 4)
Even if Judge Baldwin accosted counsel, as he had during the monstrous temper tantrum, after a hearing, and Nan Freeman had the recorded audio of that conduct, she was equally required to transcribe the conduct of Judge Baldwin in order that the relevance of the conduct could be weighed by the regulatory authorities and an appellate court.
Purported Statement 5 of Nan Freeman mischaracterizes the type of deceptive conduct in which Nan Freeman engaged when she took money that did not belongto her for preparation of numerous transcripts. See, OCGA §15-14-5; Court Reporters’ Fee Schedule of the Judicial Council of Georgia. It also raises the issue of what conduct and testimony was omitted from the transcripts of other litigants for whom she was contracted to provide transcripts.
6. Despite Judge Baldwin having ended the hearing, one of Plaintiff’s attorneys in the Child Custody Litigation continued to argue, prompting Judge Baldwin to return to the courtroom and direct Ms. Freeman to “[s]top taking down.” Compl., Attach. 8, at 4.
Response to No. 6 Purported Statement 6 continues to mischaracterize the litigation and the conduct of counsel for Michelle Murphy, and the location of Judge Baldwin in the courtroom.
At a point in time, at the end of the proceeding’s omitted pages of the certified as “true” transcript, Judge Baldwin, while remaining in the courtroom, did direct Nan Freeman to stop taking down the statements of counsel to Judge Baldwin.
This occurred at the very end, after the omissions of Nan Freeman that she, after being caught, included in the Addendum. Attachment 4, p. 4.
On June 5, 2014, Judge Baldwin entered an Order in the Child Custody Litigation regarding his award of temporary custody of the children to Plaintiff’s ex-husband. A copy of the June 5, 2014 Order in the Child Custody Litigation is attached to the Gordon Affidavit as Exhibit C. Response to No. 7 The June 5, 2014 Order in Murphy v. Murphy is attached to the Gordon Affidavit as Exhibit C.
There are problems with the veracity of the content of Orders of Judge Baldwin. It is the opinion of counsel that the false statements contained in the Orders of Judge Baldwin are most predictably derived from persons other than Judge Baldwin. Counsel for Michelle Murphy observed that Michael Williams Warner, a young Glover & Davis lawyer, made a false swearing to the Magistrate Court of Coweta County that other Glover & Davis counsel acquiesced in Michael William Warner’s using.
This case against Nan Freeman does not include the illegal conduct of persons other than Nan Freeman, although the illegal conduct of persons other than Nan Freeman is identified, as Nan Freeman attempts to demean Michelle Murphy and her counsel.
Having observed the legal ability of Judge Baldwin during this litigation, counsel for Michelle Murphy has the opinion that Judge Baldwin did not write the June 5, 2014 Order, but that a person undisclosed to counsel for Michelle Murphy, either presented the Order to Judge Baldwin’s law clerk, or to Judge Baldwin for Judge Baldwin’s signature.
The June 5, 2014 Order contains false statements not supported by evidence that comports with Due Process requirements, or obtained while Judge Baldwin was conducting a proceeding within the requirements of the Code of Judicial Conduct.
Nan Freeman, upon their request, earlier provided the Glover & Davis lawyers a copy of the last portion of her transcript, which she certified as “true” and which she filed with the Court that did not include the Addendum. It was that early provided portion of the transcript that was used for the drafter of the June 5, 2014 Order signed by Judge Baldwin, most likely, again, without him reading the Order before he signed it.
The Addendum was not produced by Nan Freeman until June 11, 2014. See Attachment
9. Judge Baldwin has signed Orders prepared by the Glover & Davis lawyers in the Murphy v. Murphy case without reading them on at least two other occasions during that litigation. This comports with Judge Baldwin’s signing without invoices presented by Nan Freeman to authorize payment by the Counties for her services as official court reporters, without checking to see that she is in compliance with the law. (Freeman Dep. pp. 34-35)
8. At the request of Plaintiff’s attorneys in the Child Custody Litigation, Ms. Freeman prepared and filed an “Addendum” to the transcript of the May 27, 2014 hearing.
The “Addendum” included the additional statements made by Plaintiff’s counsel after Judge Baldwin had terminated the hearing. Compl., Attach. 8. Response to No. 8 Nan Freeman, initially in her purported statement mischaracterizes the litigation issues in Murphy v. Murphy, most likely as counsel for Nan Freeman and those opposing Michelle Murphy wish to continue concealing the fact that Nan Freeman assisted Judge Baldwin in attempting to conceal his misconduct.
The statements by Larry King and Millard Farmer toward the end of the proceeding that are included in the Addendum were made before Judge Baldwin terminated the hearing. Judge Baldwin did not terminate the hearing until the end of the Addendum.
A copy of the May 27, 2014 Addendum, as provided to us by Nan Freeman, is included as Attachment 4.
9. On June 10, 2014, one of Plaintiff’s lawyers in the Child Custody Litigation sent an Open Records Request to Ms. Freeman seeking, inter alia, the audio recording of the May 27 hearing. Compl., Attach.
5. Response to No. 9 Again, Nan Freeman, initially in her purported statement mischaracterizes the litigation issues in Murphy v. Murphy. Attachment 6 and Exhibit 6 to the deposition of Nan Freeman contain the Georgia Open Records Act request sent to the Counties of Troup and Coweta and to Nan Freeman. The audio recordings were sought.
10. On June 26, 2014, Ms. Freeman and Judge Baldwin forwarded CDs of the audio recording of the May 27 hearing to Plaintiff’s counsel. Gordon Aff., Exhibit D, at 16. Response to No. 10 The events relating to obtaining the audio disk forwarded on June 26, 2014 occurred as follows. On June 18, 2014 Nan Freeman communicated that she would file a copy of the audio recording in the Clerk of Court’s file. Exhibit D, p. 18 to Affidavit of Kenneth Gordon.
On June 19, 2014 Judge Baldwin sent a letter to Millard Farmer; the copy of this letter which Nan Freeman provided to counsel contains on the right side of the page a note in the handwriting of Nan Freeman as follows, “This email is not altogether accurate, but it of course is what he sent to MF.” Exhibit D, p. 25 to Affidavit of Kenneth Gordon.
On June 24, 2014, The Board of Court Reporting dismissed the Complaint that was filed for Michelle Murphy against Nan Freeman. Attachment 5 On June 25, 2014, after the dismissal of the Complaint by the Board of Court Reporting, Michelle Murphy filed the civil action against Nan Freeman, et. al. that included as defendants members of the Board of Court Reporting in the Superior Court of Fulton County.
On June 26, 2014, the CD containing the audio recording of the May 27, 2015 proceeding was forwarded to counsel for Michelle Murphy.
11. In March 2014, Plaintiff filed a grievance with the Board of Court Reporting challenging Ms. Freeman’s refusal to provide an audio recording of an earlier hearing. Plaintiff alleges that she later amended her grievance to include allegations that Ms. Freeman overcharged for certain transcripts due to the number of spaces per line in the transcripts. The Board of Court Reporting has not issued a decision on Plaintiff’s complaint. Compl. 1.3.1, 1.4.9. Response to No. 11 The Board of Court Reporting had issued a decision on June 24, 2014, as described above in Response to
10. Attachment 5. Response to Nan Freeman’s Purported Statement of Material Facts for Summary Judgment Page 24 of 28 12.
Before Plaintiff raised the “spaces per line” issue, Ms. Freeman was not aware of any error in the number of spaces per line in her transcripts. Ms. Freeman testified that, when she initially set up the word processing program for her court reporting software, she “remember[ed] counting spaces, “but that “at some point,” the spaces per line in her transcript “inadvertently [ ] changed from 63 to 61,”possibly a result of changes in the different versions of Microsoft Word. Freeman Dep. (Gordon Aff. Exhibit A) at 31:2-8. Response to No. 12 Nan Freeman does not create a defense by maintaining that she did not know the law — in fact as an official court reporter, Nan Freeman concedes both her liability and her absence of understanding of her computer program.
13. As soon as Ms. Freeman learned of the “spaces per line” issue, she immediately corrected her transcript program and recalculated the cost of Plaintiff’s transcripts to determine if the error had resulted in any overcharges. Ms. Freeman determined that, over the entirety of the Child Custody Litigation, the spaces per line issue had resulted in only $45 of overcharges to Plaintiff.
Freeman Dep. at 28:21-29:24, 31:4-9, 33:5-9, 86:24-87:7. Response to No. 13 An official court reporter, as Nan Freeman, cannot personally design a template, as she did around 1996, and use it in each of her official court reporter’s contractual fulfilments until she is caught in 2014 and then legally urge the defense of mistake — the law burdens Nan Freeman, as a condition of qualifying and being compensated, as an official court reporter, to both learn and comply with the legally permissible fees and the legal requirements for the preparation of transcripts that qualify for the fees legally obtainable as an official court reporter.
Nan Freeman stated at her deposition that she produced her transcripts and did not have an assistant do her transcriptions. (Freeman Dep. p.6) Returning compensation illegally taken does not absolve one of the consequence of violating the law.
14. Shortly after Ms. Freeman’s deposition, Mrs. Freeman’ s attorney, Ken Gordon, tendered Plaintiff a check for $50 to cover any overcharge.
Gordon Aff.ii7, Exhibit E. Response to No. 14 Nan Freeman’s check in the amount of $50 to cover any overcharge did not cover the liabilities of Nan Freeman.
For further response, the response to purported Statement 13 is incorporated and included here.
The fees and the conditions upon which an official court reporter in the State of Georgia can obtain compensation is mandated by the Judicial Council of Georgia.
Nan Freeman was required by law to charge only the Judicial Counsel of Georgia authorized fees to persons whom wished, or were required to purchase transcripts from her in her capacity as an official court reporter for the Coweta Judicial.
The fees follow that were allowable for Nan Freeman to charge for legally prepared transcripts in the Superior Court of Coweta County case of John Harold Murphy v. Michelle Murphy, and related Counterclaim, Third Party action Civil Action No. 12V-413 (or, “Murphy v Murphy.”)
Nan Freeman did not comply with the certificate requirements legally imposed upon her by the OCGA § 15-14-5, Duty to transcribe statute — Nan Freeman used an abbreviated, incomplete version of the required certificate.
OCGA § 15-14-5.
Duty to transcribe; certificate. It shall be the duty of each court reporter to transcribe the evidence and other proceedings of which he has taken notes as provided by law whenever requested so to do by counsel for any party to such case and upon being paid the legal fees for such transcripts. The reporter, upon delivering the transcript to such counsel, shall affix thereto a certificate signed by him reciting that the transcript is true, complete, and correct.
Subject only to the right of the trial judge to change or require the correction of the transcript, the transcript so certified shall be presumed to be true, complete, and correct. [emphasis supplied]
Nan Freeman, as a part and parcel of her habitual violations of the laws of Georgia, did not provide Michelle Murphy’s transcripts with an OCGA § 5-14-5 required certificate containing the certification that the transcript is “true, complete and correct. . ” as required by OCGA § 5-14-5 — — The transcripts provided and paid for by Michelle Murphy was not true or complete or correct.
Nan Freeman has never provided to Michelle Murphy, or other litigants, the required certificate that is an indication of the pattern of her illegal conduct.
The habitual violations of the OCGA § 15-14-5 requirements and the authorized fees is relevant to identify that Nan Freeman did not just make an one time error,
Read the rest of this document at
Author of this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and Especially to My Little Julian, is not a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner, therefore, no information contained herein this post and/or blog could be (mis)construed as “legal advice.” Anyone who exercises he/r rights, and private property sometimes called “child” for deceptive, possibly malicious or retaliatory, and profiteering/privateering and in the “best interests” . . . of the “state” Texas General and other Funds at one’s own peril, risk, and/ or self-fulfillment. The choice is yours.
S.B. No. 434
AN ACT
relating to the establishment of a task force to address the relationship between domestic violence and child abuse and neglect.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
SECTION 1.
Chapter 531, Government Code, is amended by adding Subchapter W to read as follows:
SUBCHAPTER W.
TASK FORCE TO ADDRESS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT
Sec.531.951. DEFINITIONS.
In this subchapter:
(1) “Department” means the Department of Family and Protective Services.
(2) “Task force” means the .fective Intervention in Domestic Violence & Child Maltreatment Cases: Guidelines for Policy and Practice”; and
(2) examine the key con cepts regarding child safety plans and decision making found in the 2009 edition of the American Bar Association ’s “Child Safety: A Guide for Judges and Attorneys.”
(c) The task force shall prepare a report that includes:
(1) a description of the activities of the task force;
(2) the findings and recommendations of the task force, including the proposed policy recommendations and guidelines required by Subsection (a)(2); and
(3) any legislation or other matter that the task force considers appropriate.
(d) Not later than September 1, 2012, the task force shall submit to the governor, the lieutenant governor, the speaker of the house of representatives, and the appropriate committees of the senate and the house of representatives the report required by Subsection (c).
Sec. 531.958. ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT.
The commission shall provide reasonably necessary administrative and technical support for task force activities.
Sec.531.959. RULEMAKING ASSISTANCE
The department shall seek the assistance of the task force if the department proposes to adopt or amend a rule as the result of the work done by the task force.
Sec.531.960. APPLICABILITY OF ADVISORY COMMITTEE LAW.
Chapter 2110 does not apply to the task force.
Sec.531.961.ABOLITION OF TASK FORCE; EXPIRATION OF SUBCHAPTER.
The task force is abolished and this subchapter expires September 1, 2013.
SECTION 2.
As soon as practicable after the effective date of this Act, the appropriate persons shall appoint the members of the Task Force to Address the Relationship Between Domestic Violence and Child Abuse and Neglect created by this Act.
SECTION 3.
This Act takes effect immediately if it receives a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each house, as provided by Section 39, Article III, Texas Constitution.
If this Act does not receive the vote necessary for immediate effect, this Act takes effect September 1, 2011.
___________________ President of the Senate
__________________Speaker of the House
I hereby certify that S.B. No. 434 passed the Senate on April 20, 2011, by the following vote:
Yeas 31, 0 Nays.
______________________________ Secretary of the Senate
I hereby certify that S.B. No. 434 passed the House on May 19, 2011 following vote:
Yeas 148, Nays 0 , one present not voting.
______________________________
Chief Clerk of the House Approved: ______________________________
Date ______________________________
Governor Signature______________________________________
Author of this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children who Want to Come Home, and Especially to My Little Julian, is not a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner, therefore, no information contained herein this post and/or blog could be (mis)construed as “legal advice.” Anyone who exercises he/r rights, and private property sometimes called “child” for deceptive, possibly malicious or retaliatory, and profiteering/privateering and in the “best interests” . . . of the “state” Texas General and other Funds at one’s own peril, risk, and/ or self-fulfillment. The choice is yours.”
(1) This post is made in GOOD FAITH and for deterrent purposes against child abusers, alleged child abusers, and those who would maternally alienate fit, loving mothers and children from one another.
(2) Content in this post is protected by Julian’s Real Mummy’s First Amendment ( Amendment I) herein claimed rights as a natural-born American, “sovereign,” “elect” citizen pursuant to the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights made applicable to the states via ratification and application of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal, US Constitution and incorporated Bill of Rights, under the freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom to peaceably assemble, and freedom to speech.
(3) All content in this post is also protected pursuant to the Federal statute 17 U.S.C., section 107 (“Fair Use”) as this content is solely intended for general knowledge, academic research, and/or entertainment purposes.
(4) If anyone should desire, require, or demand a retraction or modification in part or in full, you must contact the author of this blog for fair notice to correct, pursuant to reasonable and lawfully obtained evidence supported by all legal and factual bases for your desire, demand, and/or requirement/demand, then contact Author of this blog immediately as fair notice and due diligence requires so that Author shall act lawfully and reasonably with expedience pursuant to any supplemental knowledge.
Elonis v. United States, No. 13-983, 575 U.S. ___ (June 1, 2015)
Does a conviction of threatening another person under 18 U. S. C. §875(c) require proof of the defendant’s subjective intent to threaten?
The US Supreme Court appears to have taken one small step toward restoring the real America’s (US)Constitution and “incorporated” Bill of Rights as ratified and directly applied to the people through the Fourteenth Amendment when, on June 01, 2015, in an 8-1 ruling, which this real mommy distinguishes sharply from a “recommendation,” Chief Justice John Roberts shot down procedurally absurd facial interpretations that landed appellant-plaintiff, Anthony Elonis, in jail on criminal charges. ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which SCALIA, KENNEDY, GINSBURG, BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined. ALITO, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion. The reversal and remand to the Third Circuit challenges Judges Aldisert, Scirica, and Hardiman’s previous ruling which Anthony Elonis appealed via Writ of Certiorari
The US High Court aimed to resolve a Circuit Court split on whether or not a conviction for threatening another person in interstate communications, here, on Facebook, require proof of the defendant’s subjective intent to threaten and, if not, does the First Amendment prevent a conviction based only on a showing that a reasonable person would regard the statement as threatening?
Hopefully, this decision rife with First Amendment US Constitutional free speech import, though the perhaps strategically manufactured or maneuvered political or ideological case went out of its way to avoid its own ruling on a case that ironically stemmed from an interstate Facebook post sends the message to the most prudent inferior and state court district jurists and panelists, over zealous committees to include CPS Cluster “family ‘civil'” and juvenile courts and collaborative, unified “joint public-private” NGO’s, foreign jurisdictions, corporations, for profit “non-for-profit” lobbyists, judicial campaign donors, and affiliated agencies and state bar and district and county clerks and court recorders/reporters’ international associations, and let us not forget the American Inns of Family Court, that form–procedure–must never be elevated over substance.
The Facts
In May 2010, Anthony Elonis’s wife of seven years left him, taking their two kids with her.7 The following October, Elonis was fired from his job at Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom, an amusement park in Allentown, Pennsylvania, because of a photograph he had posted on Facebook taken during his office’s Halloween party.8 The photo showed Elonis in a costume, holding a knife to a coworker’s throat with the caption, “I wish.”
His boss saw the post and fired him that same day.10 Two days after he was fired, Elonis took to Facebook. He first posted about his former employer, Dorney Park,11 imagining the fear his former coworkers must feel not knowing whether he still had keys to the gates.
He also posted about his estranged wife: “[i]f I only knew then what I know now, I would have smothered your ass with a pillow, dumped your body in the back seat, dropped you off in Toad Creek, and made it look like a rape and murder.” He posted more about his wife in comments on her sister’s status updates.
For example, when his wife’s sister posted about going Halloween costume shopping with his children, Elonis commented, “Tell [my son] he should dress up as matricide for Halloween. I don’t know what his costume would entail though. Maybe [my wife’s] head on a stick?”15
He also posted in October 2010:16
“There’s one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you. I’m not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts. Hurry up and die, bitch, so I can bust this nut all over your corpse from atop your shallow grave.
I used to be a nice guy but then you became a slut. Guess it’s not your fault you liked your daddy raped you.
So hurry up and die, bitch, so I can forgive you.17
As a result of these statements, a state court issued Elonis’s wife a restraining order against him on November 4, 2010.18
In response, Elonis posted again on November 7, this time an adaptation of the Whitest Kids U’ Know sketch “It’s Illegal to Say. . .”:19
Did you know that it’s illegal for me to say I want to kill my wife?
It’s illegal. It’s indirect criminal contempt.
It’s one of the only sentences that I’m not allowed to say.
Now it was okay for me to say it right then because I was just telling you that it’s illegal for me to say I want to kill my wife.
I’m not actually saying it. I’m just letting you know that it’s illegal for me to say that.
It’s kind of like a public service. I’m letting you know so that you don’t accidently go out and say something like that.
Um, what’s interesting is that it’s very illegal to say I really, really think someone out there should kill my wife.
That’s illegal. Very, very illegal.
But not illegal to say with a mortar launcher.”
The Ruling
The jury was instructed that the Government need prove only that a reasonable person would regard Elonis’s communications as threats, and that was error. Federal criminal liability generally does not turn solely on the results of an act without considering the defendant’s mental state. That understanding “took deep and early root in American soil” and Congress left it intact here: Under Section 875(c), “wrongdoing must be conscious to be criminal.” Morissette, 342 U. S., at 252.
There is no dispute that the mental state requirement in Section 875(c) is satisfied if the defendant transmits a communication for the purpose of issuing a threat, or with knowledge that the communication will be viewed as a threat. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 25, 56. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Watch a short video by clicking on the following link,
http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/01/politics/supreme-court-elonis-vs-u-s-free-speech/
Link to
Regarding perhaps strategic plants and cases, Divorce in Connecticut blogger, Catharine Sloper wrote an interesting piece regarding the case of Edward/”Ted” Taupier who appears to be a lighting rod for controversy. I highly recommend the read at http://divorceinconnecticut.blogspot.com/search/label/TED%20TAUPIER.
Monday, June 8, 2015
Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court.
Federal law makes it a crime to transmit in interstate commerce “any communication containing any threat . . . to injure the person of another.” 18 U.S. C. §875(c). Petitioner was convicted of violating this provision under instructions that required the jury to find that he communicated what a reasonable person would regard as a threat. The question is whether the statute also requires that the defendant be aware of the threatening nature of the communication, and—if not—whether the First Amendment requires such a showing.
I
A
Anthony Douglas Elonis was an active user of the social networking Web site Facebook.… In May 2010, Elonis’s wife of nearly seven years left him, taking with her their two young children. Elonis began “listening to more violent music” and posting self-styled “rap” lyrics inspired by the music. … The lyrics Elonis posted [on Facebook] … included graphically violent language and imagery. This material was often interspersed with disclaimers that the lyrics were “fictitious,” with no intentional “resemblance to real persons.” [App.] 331, 329. Elonis posted an explanation to another Facebook user that “I’m doing this for me. My writing is therapeutic.” Id., at 329; see also id., at 205 (testifying that it “helps me to deal with the pain”).
Elonis’s co-workers and friends viewed the posts in a different light.…
B
A grand jury indicted Elonis for making threats to injure patrons and employees [at his former place of employment], his estranged wife, police officers, a kindergarten class, and an FBI agent, all in violation of 18 U.S. C. §875(c). … In the District Court, Elonis moved to dismiss the indictment for failing to allege that he had intended to threaten anyone. The District Court denied the motion, holding that Third Circuit precedent required only that Elonis “intentionally made the communication, not that he intended to make a threat.” … At trial, Elonis testified that his posts emulated the rap lyrics of the well-known performer Eminem, some of which involve fantasies about killing his ex-wife. … In Elonis’s view, he had posted “nothing . . . that hasn’t been said already.” … The Government presented as witnesses Elonis’s wife and co-workers, all of whom said they felt afraid and viewed Elonis’s posts as serious threats. …
Elonis requested a jury instruction that “the government must prove that he intended to communicate a true threat.” Id., at 21. See also id., at 267–269, 303. The District Court denied that request. The jury instructions instead informed the jury that
“A statement is a true threat when a defendant intentionally makes a statement in a context or under such circumstances wherein a reasonable person would foresee that the statement would be interpreted by those to whom the maker communicates the statement as a serious expression of an intention to inflict bodily injury or take the life of an individual.” Id., at 301.
The Government’s closing argument emphasized that it was irrelevant whether Elonis intended the postings to be threats—“it doesn’t matter what he thinks.” Id., at 286. A jury convicted Elonis on four of the five counts against him….
Elonis renewed his challenge to the jury instructions in the Court of Appeals, contending that the jury should have been required to find that he intended his posts to be threats. The Court of Appeals disagreed, holding that the intent required by Section 875(c) is only the intent to communicate words that the defendant understands, and that a reasonable person would view as a threat. 730 F. 3d 321, 332 (CA3 2013).
We granted certiorari. 573 U.S. ___ (2014).
II
A
An individual who “transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another” is guilty of a felony and faces up to five years’ imprisonment. 18 U.S. C. §875(c). This statute requires that a communication be transmitted and that the communication contain a threat. It does not specify that the defendant must have any mental state with respect to these elements. In particular, it does not indicate whether the defendant must intend that his communication contain a threat.
….
B
The fact that the statute does not specify any required mental state, however, does not mean that none exists. We have repeatedly held that “mere omission from a criminal enactment of any mention of criminal intent” should not be read “as dispensing with it.” Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 250 (1952). This rule of construction reflects the basic principle that “wrongdoing must be conscious to be criminal.”Id., at 252. … Although there are exceptions, the “general rule” is that a guilty mind is “a necessary element in the indictment and proof of every crime.” United States v. Balint, 258 U.S. 250, 251 (1922). We therefore generally “interpret[] criminal statutes to include broadly applicable scienter requirements, even where the statute by its terms does not contain them.” United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U.S. 64, 70 (1994).
….
When interpreting federal criminal statutes that are silent on the required mental state, we read into the statute “only that mens rea which is necessary to separate wrongful conduct from ‘otherwise innocent conduct.’” Carter v. United States, 530 U.S. 255, 269 (2000) (quoting X-Citement Video, 513 U.S., at 72). In some cases, a general requirement that a defendant act knowingly is itself an adequate safeguard. … In other instances, however, requiring only that the defendant act knowingly “would fail to protect the innocent actor.” …
C
Section 875(c), as noted, requires proof that a communication was transmitted and that it contained a threat. The “presumption in favor of a scienter requirement should apply to each of the statutory elements that criminalize otherwise innocent conduct.” X-Citement Video, 513 U.S., at 72 (emphasis added). The parties agree that a defendant under Section 875(c) must know that he is transmitting a communication. But communicating something is not what makes the conduct “wrongful.” Here “the crucial element separating legal innocence from wrongful conduct” is the threatening nature of the communication. Id., at 73. The mental state requirement must therefore apply to the fact that the communication contains a threat.
Elonis’s conviction, however, was premised solely on how his posts would be understood by a reasonable person. Such a “reasonable person” standard is a familiar feature of civil liability in tort law, but is inconsistent with “the conventional requirement for criminal conduct— awareness of some wrongdoing.”Staples [v. United States], 511 U.S. [600,] 606–607 [(1994)] (quoting United States v. Dotterweich, 320 U.S. 277, 281 (1943); emphasis added). Having liability turn on whether a “reasonable person” regards the communication as a threat—regardless of what the defendant thinks— “reduces culpability on the all-important element of the crime to negligence,” Jeffries, 692 F. 3d, at 484 (Sutton, J., dubitante), and we “have long been reluctant to infer that a negligence standard was intended in criminal statutes,” Rogers v. United States, 422 U.S. 35, 47 (1975) (Marshall, J., concurring) (citing Morissette, 342 U.S. 246). See 1 C. Torcia, Wharton’s Criminal Law §27, pp. 171–172 (15th ed. 1993); Cochran v. United States, 157 U.S. 286, 294 (1895) (defendant could face “liability in a civil action for negligence, but he could only be held criminally for an evil intent actually existing in his mind”). Under these principles, “what [Elonis] thinks” does matter. App. 286.
….
* * *
In light of the foregoing, Elonis’s conviction cannot stand. The jury was instructed that the Government need prove only that a reasonable person would regard Elonis’s communications as threats, and that was error. Federal criminal liability generally does not turn solely on the results of an act without considering the defendant’s mental state. That understanding “took deep and early root in American soil” and Congress left it intact here: Under Section 875(c), “wrongdoing must be conscious to be criminal.” Morissette, 342 U.S., at 252.
There is no dispute that the mental state requirement in Section 875(c) is satisfied if the defendant transmits a communication for the purpose of issuing a threat, or with knowledge that the communication will be viewed as a threat. … In response to a question at oral argument, Elonis stated that a finding of recklessness would not be sufficient. … Neither Elonis nor the Government has briefed or argued that point, and we accordingly decline to address it. See Department of Treasury, IRS v. FLRA, 494 U.S. 922, 933 (1990) (this Court is “poorly situated” to address an argument the Court of Appeals did not consider, the parties did not brief, and counsel addressed in “only the most cursory fashion at oral argument”). Given our disposition, it is not necessary to consider any First Amendment issues.
Both Justice Alito and Justice Thomas complain about our not deciding whether recklessness suffices for liability under Section 875(c). … Justice Alito contends that each party “argued” this issue, post, at 2, but they did not address it at all until oral argument, and even then only briefly. …
Justice Alito also suggests that we have not clarified confusion in the lower courts. That is wrong. Our holding makes clear that negligence is not sufficient to support a conviction under Section 875(c), contrary to the view of nine Courts of Appeals. Pet. for Cert. 17. There was and is no circuit conflict over the question Justice Alito and Justice Thomas would have us decide—whether recklessness suffices for liability under Section 875(c). No Court of Appeals has even addressed that question. We think that is more than sufficient “justification,” … for us to decline to be the first appellate tribunal to do so.
….
The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Alito, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
In Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803), the Court famously proclaimed: “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” Today, the Court announces: It is emphatically the prerogative of this Court to say only what the law is not.
The Court’s disposition of this case is certain to cause confusion and serious problems. Attorneys and judges need to know which mental state is required for conviction under 18 U.S. C. §875(c), an important criminal statute. This case squarely presents that issue, but the Court provides only a partial answer. The Court holds that the jury instructions in this case were defective because they required only negligence in conveying a threat. But the Court refuses to explain what type of intent was necessary. Did the jury need to find that Elonis had the purpose of conveying a true threat? Was it enough if he knew that his words conveyed such a threat? Would recklessness suffice? The Court declines to say. Attorneys and judges are left to guess.
….
I
….
… In my view, the term “threat” in §875(c) can fairly be defined as a statement that is reasonably interpreted as “an expression of an intention to inflict evil, injury, or damage on another.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 2382 (1976). Conviction under §875(c) demands proof that the defendant’s transmission was in fact a threat, i.e., that it is reasonable to interpret the transmission as an expression of an intent to harm another. In addition, it must be shown that the defendant was at least reckless as to whether the transmission met that requirement.
Why is recklessness enough? My analysis of the mens rea issue follows the same track as the Court’s, as far as it goes. I agree with the Court that we should presume that criminal statutes require some sort ofmens rea for conviction. See ante, at 9–13. To be sure, this presumption marks a departure from the way in which we generally interpret statutes. We “ordinarily resist reading words or elements into a statute that do not appear on its face.” Bates v. United States, 522 U.S. 23, 29 (1997). But this step is justified by a well-established pattern in our criminal laws. “For several centuries (at least since 1600) the different common law crimes have been so defined as to require, for guilt, that the defendant’s acts or omissions be accompanied by one or more of the various types of fault (intention, knowledge, recklessness or—more rarely— negligence).” 1 W. LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law §5.5, p. 381 (2003). Based on these “background rules of the common law, in which the requirement of some mens rea for a crime is firmly embedded,” we require “some indication of congressional intent, express or implied, . . . to dispense withmens rea as an element of a crime.” Staples v. United States, 511 U.S. 600, 605–606 (1994).
For a similar reason, I agree with the Court that we should presume that an offense like that created by §875(c) requires more than negligence with respect to a critical element like the one at issue here. …
Once we have passed negligence, however, no further presumptions are defensible. In the hierarchy of mental states that may be required as a condition for criminal liability, the mens rea just above negligence is recklessness. Negligence requires only that the defendant “should [have] be[en] aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk,” ALI, Model Penal Code §2.02(2)(d), p. 226 (1985), while recklessness exists “when a person disregards a risk of harm of which he is aware,” Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 837 (1994); Model Penal Code §2.02(2)(c). And when Congress does not specify a mens rea in a criminal statute, we have no justification for inferring that anything more than recklessness is needed. It is quite unusual for us to interpret a statute to contain a requirement that is nowhere set out in the text. Once we have reached recklessness, we have gone as far as we can without stepping over the line that separates interpretation from amendment.
There can be no real dispute that recklessness regarding a risk of serious harm is wrongful conduct. In a wide variety of contexts, we have described reckless conduct as morally culpable. See, e.g., Farmer, supra, at 835–836 (deliberate indifference to an inmate’s harm); Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 64, 75 (1964) (criminal libel); New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 279–280 (1964) (civil libel). Indeed, this Court has held that “reckless disregard for human life” may justify the death penalty. Tison v. Arizona, 481 U.S. 137, 157 (1987). Someone who acts recklessly with respect to conveying a threat necessarily grasps that he is not engaged in innocent conduct. He is not merely careless. He is aware that others could regard his statements as a threat, but he delivers them anyway.
Accordingly, I would hold that a defendant may be convicted under §875(c) if he or she consciously disregards the risk that the communication transmitted will be interpreted as a true threat. Nothing in the Court’s noncommittal opinion prevents lower courts from adopting that standard.
II
There remains the question whether interpreting §875(c) to require no more than recklessness with respect to the element at issue here would violate the First Amendment. Elonis contends that it would. I would reject that argument.
It is settled that the Constitution does not protect true threats. See Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343, 359–360 (2003); R.A.V. v. St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 388 (1992); Watts [v. United States], 394 U.S. [705,] 707–708 [(1969) (per curiam)]. And there are good reasons for that rule: True threats inflict great harm and have little if any social value. A threat may cause serious emotional stress for the person threatened and those who care about that person, and a threat may lead to a violent confrontation. It is true that a communication containing a threat may include other statements that have value and are entitled to protection. But that does not justify constitutional protection for the threat itself.
….
It can be argued that §875(c), if not limited to threats made with the intent to harm, will chill statements that do not qualify as true threats, e.g., statements that may be literally threatening but are plainly not meant to be taken seriously. We have sometimes cautioned that it is necessary to “exten[d] a measure of strategic protection” to otherwise unprotected false statements of fact in order to ensure enough “‘breathing space’” for protected speech. Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 342 (1974) (quoting NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 433 (1963)). A similar argument might be made with respect to threats. But we have also held that the law provides adequate breathing space when it requires proof that false statements were made with reckless disregard of their falsity. See New York Times, 376 U.S., at 279–280 (civil liability);Garrison, 379 U.S., at 74–75 (criminal liability). Requiring proof of recklessness is similarly sufficient here.
III
Finally, because the jury instructions in this case did not require proof of recklessness, I would vacate the judgment below and remand for the Court of Appeals to decide in the first instance whether Elonis’s conviction could be upheld under a recklessness standard.
….
Justice Thomas, dissenting.
We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict in the lower courts over the appropriate mental state for threat prosecutions under 18 U.S. C. §875(c). Save two, every Circuit to have considered the issue—11 in total—has held that this provision demands proof only of general intent, which here requires no more than that a defendant knew he transmitted a communication, knew the words used in that communication, and understood the ordinary meaning of those words in the relevant context. The outliers are the Ninth and Tenth Circuits, which have concluded that proof of an intent to threaten was necessary for conviction. Adopting the minority position, Elonis urges us to hold that §875(c) and the First Amendment require proof of an intent to threaten. The Government in turn advocates a general-intent approach.
Rather than resolve the conflict, the Court casts aside the approach used in nine Circuits and leaves nothing in its place. Lower courts are thus left to guess at the appropriate mental state for §875(c). All they know after today’s decision is that a requirement of general intent will not do. But they can safely infer that a majority of this Court would not adopt an intent-to-threaten requirement, as the opinion carefully leaves open the possibility that recklessness may be enough. See ante, at 16–17.
This failure to decide throws everyone from appellate judges to everyday Facebook users into a state of uncertainty. This uncertainty could have been avoided had we simply adhered to the background rule of the common law favoring general intent. Although I am sympathetic to my colleagues’ policy concerns about the risks associated with threat prosecutions, the answer to such fears is not to discard our traditional approach to state-of-mind requirements in criminal law. Because the Court of Appeals properly applied the general-intent standard, and because the communications transmitted by Elonis were “true threats” unprotected by the First Amendment, I would affirm the judgment below.
….
I
A
….
Our default rule in favor of general intent applies with full force to criminal statutes addressing speech. Well over 100 years ago, this Court considered a conviction under a federal obscenity statute that punished anyone “‘who shall knowingly deposit, or cause to be deposited, for mailing or delivery,’” any “‘obscene, lewd, or lascivious book, pamphlet, picture, paper, writing, print, or other publication of an indecent character.’” Rosen v. United States, 161 U.S. 29, 30 (1896) (quoting Rev. Stat. §3893). In that case, as here, the defendant argued that, even if “he may have had . . . actual knowledge or notice of [the paper’s] contents” when he put it in the mail, he could not “be convicted of the offence . . . unless he knew or believed that such paper could be properly or justly characterized as obscene, lewd, and lascivious.” 161 U.S., at 41. The Court rejected that theory, concluding that if the material was actually obscene and “deposited in the mail by one who knew or had notice at the time of its contents, the offence is complete, although the defendant himself did not regard the paper as one that the statute forbade to be carried in the mails.” Ibid. As the Court explained, “Congress did not intend that the question as to the character of the paper should depend upon the opinion or belief of the person who, with knowledge or notice of [the paper’s] contents, assumed the responsibility of putting it in the mails of the United States,” because “[e]very one who uses the mails of the United States for carrying papers or publications must take notice of . . . what must be deemed obscene, lewd, and lascivious.” Id., at 41–42.
….
B
Applying ordinary rules of statutory construction, I would read §875(c) to require proof of general intent. To “know the facts that make his conduct illegal” under §875(c), see Staples, 511 U.S., at 605, a defendant must know that he transmitted a communication in interstate or foreign commerce that contained a threat. Knowing that the communication contains a “threat”—a serious expression of an intention to engage in unlawful physical violence—does not, however, require knowing that a jury will conclude that the communication contains a threat as a matter of law. Instead, like one who mails an “obscene” publication and is prosecuted under the federal obscenity statute, a defendant prosecuted under §875(c) must know only the words used in that communication, along with their ordinary meaning in context.
….
C
The majority refuses to apply these ordinary background principles. Instead, it casts my application of general intent as a negligence standard disfavored in the criminal law. Ante, at 13–16. But that characterization misses the mark. Requiring general intent in this context is not the same as requiring mere negligence. Like the mental-state requirements adopted in many of the cases cited by the Court, general intent under §875(c) prevents a defendant from being convicted on the basis of any fact beyond his awareness. See, e.g., United States v. XCitement Video, Inc., 513 U.S. 64, 73 (1994) (knowledge of age of persons depicted in explicit materials); Staples, supra, at 614–615 (knowledge of firing capability of weapon); Morissette v. United States, 342 U.S. 246, 270– 271 (1952) (knowledge that property belonged to another). In other words, the defendant must know—not merely be reckless or negligent with respect to the fact—that he is committing the acts that constitute the actus reus of the offense.
But general intent requires no mental state (not even a negligent one) concerning the “fact” that certain words meet the legal definition of a threat. That approach is particularly appropriate where, as here, that legal status is determined by a jury’s application of the legal standard of a “threat” to the contents of a communication. And convicting a defendant despite his ignorance of the legal— or objective—status of his conduct does not mean that he is being punished for negligent conduct. …
II
In light of my conclusion that Elonis was properly convicted under the requirements of §875(c), I must address his argument that his threatening posts were nevertheless protected by the First Amendment.
A
Elonis does not contend that threats are constitutionally protected speech, nor could he: “From 1791 to the present, . . . our society . . . has permitted restrictions upon the content of speech in a few limited areas,” true threats being one of them. R.A.V. v. St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 382– 383 (1992); see id., at 388. Instead, Elonis claims that only intentional threats fall within this particular historical exception.
If it were clear that intentional threats alone have been punished in our Nation since 1791, I would be inclined to agree. But that is the not the case. Although the Federal Government apparently did not get into the business of regulating threats until 1917, the States have been doing so since the late 18th and early 19th centuries. [Citations omitted.] And that practice continued even after the States amended their constitutions to include speech protections similar to those in the First Amendment. [Citations omitted.] State practice thus provides at least some evidence of the original meaning of the phrase “freedom of speech” in the First Amendment. [Citation omitted.]
….
… In short, there is good reason to believe that States bound by their own Constitutions to protect freedom of speech long ago enacted general-intent threat statutes.
….
Elonis also insists that our precedents require a mental state of intent when it comes to threat prosecutions under §875(c), primarily relying on Watts, 394 U.S. 705, and Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343 (2003). Neither of those decisions, however, addresses whether the First Amendment requires a particular mental state for threat prosecutions.
As Elonis admits, Watts expressly declined to address the mental state required under the First Amendment for a “true threat.” See 394 U.S., at 707–708. True, the Court in Watts noted “grave doubts” about Raganksy [v. United States, 253 F. 643 (7th Cir. 1918)]’s construction of “willfully” in the presidential threats statute. 394 U.S., at 707–708. But “grave doubts” do not make a holding, and that stray statement in Watts is entitled to no precedential force. If anything, Watts continued the long tradition of focusing on objective criteria in evaluating the mental requirement. See ibid.
….
In addition to requiring a departure from our precedents, adopting Elonis’ view would make threats one of the most protected categories of unprotected speech, thereby sowing tension throughout our First Amendment doctrine. We generally have not required a heightened mental state under the First Amendment for historically unprotected categories of speech. For instance, the Court has indicated that a legislature may constitutionally prohibit “‘fighting words,’ those personally abusive epithets which, when addressed to the ordinary citizen, are, as a matter of common knowledge, inherently likely to provoke violent reaction,” Cohen v. California, 403 U.S. 15, 20 (1971)—without proof of an intent to provoke a violent reaction. Because the definition of “fighting words” turns on how the “ordinary citizen” would react to the language, ibid., this Court has observed that a defendant may be guilty of a breach of the peace if he “makes statements likely to provoke violence and disturbance of good order, even though no such eventuality be intended,” and that the punishment of such statements “as a criminal act would raise no question under [the Constitution],” Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 309–310 (1940); see alsoChaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 572– 573 (1942) (rejecting a First Amendment challenge to a general-intent construction of a state statute punishing “‘fighting’ words”); State v. Chaplinsky, 91 N. H. 310, 318, 18 A. 2d 754, 758 (1941) (“[T]he only intent required for conviction . . . was an intent to speak the words”). The Court has similarly held that a defendant may be convicted of mailing obscenity under the First Amendment without proof that he knew the materials were legally obscene. Hamling [v. United States], 418 U.S. [87,] 120–124 [(1974)]. And our precedents allow liability in tort for false statements about private persons on matters of private concern even if the speaker acted negligently with respect to the falsity of those statements. See Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps, 475 U.S. 767, 770, 773–775 (1986). I see no reason why we should give threats pride of place among unprotected speech.
….
words, the defendant must know—not merely be reckless or negligent with respect to the fact—that he is committing the acts that constitute the actus reus of the offense.
But general intent requires no mental state (not even a negligent one) concerning the “fact” that certain words meet the legal definition of a threat. That approach is particularly appropriate where, as here, that legal status is determined by a jury’s application of the legal standard of a “threat” to the contents of a communication. And convicting a defendant despite his ignorance of the legal— or objective—status of his conduct does not mean that he is being punished for negligent conduct. …
II
In light of my conclusion that Elonis was properly convicted under the requirements of §875(c), I must address his argument that his threatening posts were nevertheless protected by the First Amendment.
A
Elonis does not contend that threats are constitutionally protected speech, nor could he: “From 1791 to the present, . . . our society . . . has permitted restrictions upon the content of speech in a few limited areas,” true threats being one of them. R.A.V. v. St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 382– 383 (1992); see id., at 388. Instead, Elonis claims that only intentional threats fall within this particular historical exception.
If it were clear that intentional threats alone have been punished in our Nation since 1791, I would be inclined to agree. But that is the not the case. Although the Federal Government apparently did not get into the business of regulating threats until 1917, the States have been doing so since the late 18th and early 19th centuries. [Citations omitted.] And that practice continued even after the States amended their constitutions to include speech protections similar to those in the First Amendment. [Citations omitted.] State practice thus provides at least some evidence of the original meaning of the phrase “freedom of speech” in the First Amendm
I respectfully dissent.
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321 .
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
elonis v. united states
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the third circuit
No. 13–983. Argued December 1, 2014—Decided June 1, 2015
After his wife left him, petitioner Anthony Douglas Elonis, under the pseudonym “Tone Dougie,” used the social networking Web site Facebook to post self-styled rap lyrics containing graphically violent language and imagery concerning his wife, co-workers, a kindergarten class, and state and federal law enforcement. These posts were often interspersed with disclaimers that the lyrics were “fictitious” and not intended to depict real persons, and with statements that Elonis was exercising his First Amendment rights. Many who knew him saw his posts as threatening, however, including his boss, who fired him for threatening co-workers, and his wife, who sought and was granted a state court protection-from-abuse order against him.
When Elonis’s former employer informed the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the posts, the agency began monitoring Elonis’s Face-book activity and eventually arrested him. He was charged with five counts of violating 18 U. S. C. §875(c), which makes it a federal crime to transmit in interstate commerce “any communication containing any threat . . . to injure the person of another.” At trial, Elonis requested a jury instruction that the Government was required to prove that he intended to communicate a “true threat.” Instead, the District Court told the jury that Elonis could be found guilty if a reasonable person would foresee that his statements would be interpreted as a threat. Elonis was convicted on four of the five counts and renewed his jury instruction challenge on appeal. The Third Circuit affirmed, holding that Section 875(c) requires only the intent to communicate words that the defendant understands, and that a reasonable person would view as a threat.
Held: The Third Circuit’s instruction, requiring only negligence with respect to the communication of a threat, is not sufficient to support a conviction under Section 875(c). Pp. 7–17.
(a) Section 875(c) does not indicate whether the defendant must intend that the communication contain a threat, and the parties can show no indication of a particular mental state requirement in the statute’s text. Elonis claims that the word “threat,” by definition, conveys the intent to inflict harm. But common definitions of “threat” speak to what the statement conveys—not to the author’s mental state. The Government argues that the express “intent to extort” requirements in neighboring Sections 875(b) and (d) should preclude courts from implying an unexpressed “intent to threaten” requirement in Section 875(c). The most that can be concluded from such a comparison, however, is that Congress did not mean to confine Section 875(c) to crimes of extortion, not that it meant to exclude a mental state requirement. Pp. 7–9.
(b) The Court does not regard “mere omission from a criminal enactment of any mention of criminal intent” as dispensing with such a requirement. Morissette v. United States, 342 U. S. 246 . This rule of construction reflects the basic principle that “wrongdoing must be conscious to be criminal,” and that a defendant must be “blameworthy in mind” before he can be found guilty. Id., at 252. The “general rule” is that a guilty mind is “a necessary element in the indictment and proof of every crime.” United States v. Balint, 258 U. S. 250 . Thus, criminal statutes are generally interpreted “to include broadly applicable scienter requirements, even where the statute . . . does not contain them.” United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc., 513 U. S. 64 . This does not mean that a defendant must know that his conduct is illegal, but a defendant must have knowledge of “the facts that make his conduct fit the definition of the offense.” Staples v. United States, 511 U. S. 600 , n. 3. Federal criminal statutes that are silent on the required mental state should be read to include “only that mens reawhich is necessary to separate” wrongful from innocent conduct. Carter v. United States, 530 U. S. 255 . In some cases, a general requirement that a defendant act knowingly is sufficient, but where such a requirement “would fail to protect the innocent actor,” the statute “would need to be read to require . . . specific intent.” Ibid. Pp. 9–13.
(c) The “presumption in favor of a scienter requirement should apply to each of the statutory elements that criminalize otherwise innocent conduct.” X-Citement Video, 513 U. S., at 72. In the context of Section 875(c), that requires proof that a communication was transmitted and that it contained a threat. And because “the crucial element separating legal innocence from wrongful conduct,” id., at 73, is the threatening nature of the communication, the mental state requirement must apply to the fact that the communication contains a threat. Elonis’s conviction was premised solely on how his posts would be viewed by a reasonable person, a standard feature of civil liability in tort law inconsistent with the conventional criminal conduct requirement of “awareness of some wrongdoing,” Staples, 511 U. S., at 606–607. This Court “ha[s] long been reluctant to infer that a negligence standard was intended in criminal statutes.” Rogers v. United States, 422 U. S. 35 (Marshall, J., concurring). And the Government fails to show that the instructions in this case required more than a mental state of negligence. Hamling v. United States, 418 U. S. 87 , distinguished. Section 875(c)’s mental state requirement is satisfied if the defendant transmits a communication for the purpose of issuing a threat or with knowledge that the communication will be viewed as a threat. The Court declines to address whether a mental state of recklessness would also suffice. Given the disposition here, it is unnecessary to consider any First Amendment issues. Pp. 13–17.
730 F. 3d. 321, reversed and remanded.
Roberts, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Scalia, Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Alito, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion.
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Author of this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and Especially to My Little Julian, is not a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner, therefore, no information contained herein this post and/or blog could be (mis)construed as “legal advice.” Anyone who exercises he/r rights, and private property sometimes called “child” for deceptive, possibly malicious or retaliatory, and profiteering/privateering and in the “best interests” . . . of the “state” Texas General and other Funds at one’s own peril, risk, and/ or self-fulfillment. The choice is yours.”
www.open-public-records.com/court/california-15435091.htm
| Defendant: | Bonnie Breeze, Birute Bruzas-Ranes, John Cate, Howard Chang, Jessica Chlebowski, Grace Coleman, County of Orange, Matthew De Armey, Does, Sheryl Edgar, Kristen Eitner, Rosanne Froeberg, David Glidden, Danise Johnson, Harold LaFlamme, Elizabeth Ramirez Lockmer, Maureen Maganuma, D Alicia Marron-Taylor, Robert Munoz, Patricia Nash, Orange Superior Court, P.A. Nash & Associates, Jennifer Palmquist, Sunday Petrie, Tony Rackauckas, Eva Srikureja, Mahathap Srikureja, Pravit Srikureja, State of California, Carol Stewart, Alan Stokke and C. J. Wilkinson |
|---|---|
| Plaintiff: | Ruby Dillon |
| Case Number: | 2:2015cv01468 |
|---|---|
| Filed: | February 27, 2015 |
| Court: | California Central District Court |
|---|
| Nature of Suit: | Civil Rights: Other |
|---|
Use the links below to access additional information about this
| Court | California Central District Court |
| Nature of Suit | Civil Rights – Other Civil Rights |
| Cause | 42:1983 Civil Rights Act |
| Case # | 2:15-cv-01468 |
| Filed | Feb 27, 2015 |
| Terminated | Mar 02, 2015 |
| last updated: Saturday May 16, 2015 12:05 AM PDT | |
| Monday, March 02, 2015 | |
| 2 |  NOTICE RE INTRA-DISTRICT TRANSFER by Clerk of Court due to New Case Number 8:15-cv-00339 DFM. (esa) |
| Friday, February 27, 2015 | |
| 1 | COMPLAINT Receipt No: 0973-15290912 – Fee: $400, filed by PLAINTIFF Ruby Dillon. (Attorney Patricia J Barry added to party Ruby Dillon(pty:pla))(Barry, Patricia) |
| Att: 1 Civil Cover Sheet, |
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| Att: 2 Supplement Attachmt to civ cov sht |
|
www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/7099997/Ruby_Dillon_v_Harold_LaFlamme_et_al
www.dockets.justia.com/docket/california/cacdce/2:2015cv01468/611896
http://www.storyleak.com/orange-county-california-places-abused-child-with-sexually-abusive-parent/
by Michael Thomas
June 21st, 2014
Updated 06/21/2014 at 10:06 am
Investigation Shows Pattern Of California Neglect Of Child Abuse And State-Mandated Protections
Something is very wrong with the ‘Child Welfare System’ in California. The story of Lexi Dillon graphically represents so much of what will, and has, gone very wrong in the case of sexually abused children.
What follows are two excerpts[1] from an article which illustrate the terrible injustices that one family has been tortured by over the past couple of years. As shocking as these official court-ordered actions appeared to be, the relevant public records in Orange County, California will substantiate every one of them.
They concern the very unfortunate predicament of a young girl named Lexi Dillon. Her mother, Ruby Dillon, has been working triple time to free her from an abusive father who the State of California has given implausible protection to. Incredible though it may sound, the sexually abusive father in this case has been treated as though he is the injured party. Here is the timeline of the stunning response by the Orange County Child Welfare System, as well as by the concerned courts assigned to the legal proceedings.
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In August 2012, based on probable cause of suspected sexual abuse, the City of Tustin Police Department removed Dr. Ruby Dillon’s minor daughter from the home of the father and took her into protective custody out of fear that she may be in danger. CPS ordered the child returned to the father, the alleged abuser.
Thus, not only did CPS choose not to rescue the minor from her dangerous condition; it also created a dangerous condition when, by returning the minor to her abuser, CPS placed the minor at risk of further sexual abuse.
Second, a duty to rescue also arises if there exists a “special relationship” between the defendant and the victim. “Special relationships” arise when one party assumes responsibility for another; like a parent for a minor child, or a doctor for his patient. In law, the “special relationship” most at issue is the one between emergency response personnel and any member of the community that requires their assistance.
In early March 2011, CPS received a signed affidavit under penalty of perjury from the minor’s teacher (a mandated reporter) confirming the minor’s accusations of sexual abuse. CPS failed to interview the teacher.
In January 2012, the father lost his job and the minor tells law enforcement and CPS that the abuse is occurring almost every time she is at her father’s house. CPS insisted the minor should remain with her father.
On November 7, 2012, the Court appointed therapist (as a mandated reporter) contacted the child abuse registry to report a new allegation of sexual abuse by the father. The Tustin PD immediately sent an Officer to the minor’s school to interview her and removed her from her home into protective custody. CPS dismissed the reporting and had the child sent back to the father.
CPS was specifically created to rescue minors from dangerous situation. Their duty is to respond to reports of suspected child abuse and to act accordingly; that is, CPS are mandated by law to assume responsibility for minors at risk of abuse. Thus, a “special relationship” exists between CPS and Dr. Rubin Dillon’s daughter. In the three instances above, CPS failed to interview the minor’s teacher, ignored the minor’s allegations and dismissed reports by the Tustin Police. Therefore, CPS breached its duty to rescue Dr. Rubin Dillon’s minor daughter.
Another exception to the general rule that there is no duty to rescue is that if one takes a step towards rescue, he then has the responsibility to take reasonable care in conducting his act of rescue. All that the law asks is for the rescuer to do what a reasonable person would do under similar circumstances. In other words, there must be a breach of the duty of care for liability to rise, and if the defendant has acted reasonably, there is no breach and thus no negligence.
On February 25, 2011, Dr. Ruby Dillon took her daughter to the emergency room at Hoag Hospital. Despite medical records documenting “non-accidental” trauma consistent with sexual abuse, workers at CPS failed to (1) interview the ER physician, (2) conduct a forensic exam, (3) contact law enforcement, (4) conduct a CAST interview of the minor child, and (5) conduct an interview of the suspected abuser: her father.
When CPS accepted the medical records from Hoag Hospital they had taken their Postsfirst step towards rescue of the minor. However, CPS did not act like a “reasonable person” when it then failed to interview the ER physician or the father, conduct any exams of its own or contact law enforcement. Thus, CPS breached their duty to rescue.
To summarize, CPS dishonored the law in at least three ways: (1) CPS created a dangerous condition that placed the minor at risk, (2) CPS violated its “special relationship” with the victim, and (3) CPS failed to take reasonable care in their attempt to rescue of the minor.
LEXI DILLON
As unbelievable as these facts are, some of these developments have recently occurred under the scrutiny of the alternative new media. And yet the appointed judge continues to act with complete impunity. The actions of the court have put a young child directly in harm’s way and yet the State of California has done nothing to short-circuit a process gone completely awry.
What follows is another timeline of events which further delineates this state-sponsored crime spree executed against a powerless child citizen.
Author of this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and Especially to My Little Julian, is not a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner, therefore, no information contained herein this post and/or blog could be (mis)construed as “legal advice.” Anyone who exercises he/r rights, and private property sometimes called “child” for deceptive, possibly malicious or retaliatory, and profiteering/privateering and in the “best interests” . . . of the “state” Texas General and other Funds at one’s own peril, risk, and/ or self-fulfillment. The choice is yours.
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| AN ACT | ||||||||||||
| relating to the flexible response system for investigations of | ||||||||||||
| child abuse or neglect reports by the Department of Family and | ||||||||||||
| Protective Services. | ||||||||||||
| BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS: | ||||||||||||
| SECTION 1. Section 261.3015, Family Code, is amended to | ||||||||||||
| read as follows: | ||||||||||||
| Sec. 261.3015. FLEXIBLE RESPONSE SYSTEM. (a) In assigning | ||||||||||||
| priorities and prescribing investigative procedures based on the | ||||||||||||
| severity and immediacy of the alleged harm to a child under Section | ||||||||||||
| 261.301(d), the department shall establish a flexible response | ||||||||||||
| system to allow the department to make the most effective use of | ||||||||||||
| resources to investigate and respond to reported [ |
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| (b) Notwithstanding Section 261.301, the department may, in | ||||||||||||
| accordance with this section and department rules, conduct an | ||||||||||||
| alternative response to a report of abuse or neglect if the report | ||||||||||||
| does not: | ||||||||||||
| (1) allege sexual abuse of a child; | ||||||||||||
| (2) allege abuse or neglect that caused the death of a | ||||||||||||
| child; or | ||||||||||||
| (3) indicate a risk of serious physical injury or | ||||||||||||
| immediate serious harm to a child. | ||||||||||||
| (c) The department may administratively close a reported | ||||||||||||
| case of abuse or neglect without completing the investigation or | ||||||||||||
| alternative response and without providing services or making a | ||||||||||||
| referral to another entity for assistance [ |
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| determines, after contacting a professional or other credible | ||||||||||||
| source, that the child’s safety can be assured without further | ||||||||||||
| investigation, response, services, or assistance. | ||||||||||||
| (d) In determining how to classify a reported case of abuse | ||||||||||||
| or neglect under the flexible response system, the child’s safety | ||||||||||||
| is the primary concern [ |
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| [ |
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| [ |
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| (e) An alternative response to a report of abuse or neglect | ||||||||||||
| must include: | ||||||||||||
| (1) a safety assessment of the child who is the subject | ||||||||||||
| of the report; | ||||||||||||
| (2) an assessment of the child’s family; and | ||||||||||||
| (3) in collaboration with the child’s family, | ||||||||||||
| identification of any necessary and appropriate service or support | ||||||||||||
| to reduce the risk of future harm to the child. | ||||||||||||
| (f) An alternative response to a report of abuse or neglect | ||||||||||||
| may not include a formal determination of whether the alleged abuse | ||||||||||||
| or neglect occurred. | ||||||||||||
| (g) [ |
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| [ |
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| administrative regions before implementing the system statewide | ||||||||||||
| [ |
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| system in the regions where the system has been implemented | ||||||||||||
| [ |
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| statewide. | ||||||||||||
| SECTION 2. Not later than December 1, 2013, the executive | ||||||||||||
| commissioner of the Health and Human Services Commission shall | ||||||||||||
| adopt the rules necessary to implement Section 261.3015, Family | ||||||||||||
| Code, as amended by this Act. | ||||||||||||
| SECTION 3. This Act takes effect September 1, 2013. | ||||||||||||
| ______________________________ | ______________________________ | |||||||||||
| President of the Senate | Speaker of the House | |||||||||||
| I hereby certify that S.B. No. 423 passed the Senate on | ||||||||||||
| April 4, 2013, by the following vote: Yeas 30, Nays 0. | ||||||||||||
| ______________________________ | ||||||||||||
| Secretary of the Senate | ||||||||||||
| I hereby certify that S.B. No. 423 passed the House on | ||||||||||||
| May 15, 2013, by the following vote: Yeas 145, Nays 0, two | ||||||||||||
| present not voting. | ||||||||||||
| ______________________________ | ||||||||||||
| Chief Clerk of the House | ||||||||||||
| Approved: | ||||||||||||
| ______________________________ | ||||||||||||
| Date | ||||||||||||
| ______________________________ | ||||||||||||
Robin Karr with Baby Laura and Matthew Duckworth near Rockwall, Texas (near Fort Worth/Dallas, Texas)
(SMITH COUNTY)
January 2000 – Present (15 years 4 months)State of Texas (Region I)
Family, Civil, Criminal
The haunting melody of the nostalgic voice of the untimely, tragically gone, but not forgotten songstress, Karen Carpenter’s recording of “Yesterday Once More” is the soundtrack for the paralyzing feeling that what all of us mommies who are still reading so strongly knew we were surely “imagining,” but could not be, the rote rehearsal style routine practice and patterned protocol and procedure suborned and commissions pre-packaged, pre-priced, pre-screened, pre-determined outcomes, the levels funding based kidnappings of our sweet little healthy, happy, adoptable children by the family courts in Texas, below:
This picture of Laura was taken at a supervised visit in June 1999 at Motel 8 in Rockwall Texas.
Judge Kent ordered these visits to take place over the weekend after she continued my final custody/divorce hearing from the previous week. I think she must have been hoping to gain more “evidence” to use against me. The supervisor furiously took notes during the entire visit.(Visitation notes to come…)
Tish Verde (CASA) supervised; charging me $60 an hour (remember this was in 1998). By the way, Ms. Verde is the same supervisor who previously refused to supervise my visitation and stated she was afaid of me. Click here to read an article about that. I sobbed when I was told I couldn’t see my children (not even supervised) as any mother would. Then, I was promptly arrested and jailed. Curiously, the “official” charge was criminal trespass. Click here to read about my arrest.
Matthew and Laura were so sad when I saw them. Just look at their little faces… My precious children had been separated from me and living in abuse since November 1998 at the time of this visit.
Click here to see an earlier picture taken at a supervised visit in January 1999.
Matthew and Laura do not even know their one and only mother. Judge Kent stole their birthright. Every child has both a God-given and Constitutional right to know their own mother.
It goes without saying that Judge Kent trampled my God-given and Constitutional rights. A parent’s right to care for and have the companionship of his or her own children is so fundamental as to be guaranteed under the First, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments.
Parent’s rights have been recognized as being “essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free man.” Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 US 390; 43 S Ct 625, (1923)
Read below to learn more about Judge Kent’s final custody ruling. Click here to read what Judge Kent has to say about herself.
Below is a letter written by a non-profit organization (CALP), whose Co-Founder and Vice President Derek Sunderman witnessed the many hearings in my case. The letter was written to the judge summarizing all the many irregularities regarding my case. Note: The letter below was directed to Judge Kent because she ruled over my final divorce/custody hearing in place of Judge Pirtle.
CHILDREN AND LOVING PARENTS .,
(CALP}
Robin Karr’s son, Matthew Duckworth, Second Christmas near Rockwall, Texas
Laura Duckworth, Matthew Duckworth, and brother Chris Karr near Rockwall, Texas (photo by their Real Mommy, Robin Karr)
Click on the link below to watch and listen to Robin’s story by WFAA,
WFAA (Dallas Texas ABC affiliate) investigates the use of court-appointed psychologists in custody cases.
NOTE: You can read more about what happened to me and my children on my website here http://motherswithoutcustodyworld.com
January 5, 2000
Judge Cynthia Kent
c/o Elaine Holmes
RE: Cause No. 1-98-435 (382nd District Court, Rockwall County, Texas)
IN THE MATTER OF THE MARRIAGE OF EDWARD NEIL DUCKWORTH AND
ROBIN LEE DUCKWORTH AND THE INTEREST OF MATTHEW NAKAI
DUCKWORTH AND LAURA DANIELLE DUCKWORTH MINOR CHILDREN
Dear Judge Kent,
I am the co-founder of Children And Loving Parents (CALP)-a chartered non-profit organization located near Rockwall Texas. I am writing in an effort, to appeal to your knowledge, your wisdom, your faith, and your conscious. I am writing on behalf of Robin Duckworth, however, I am not writing at her request. This letter serves two purposes:
1) To serve as evidence in the Duckworth file that CALP is very concerned about the integrity of both the judicial system’s actions and the actions of CASA and CPS in Robin’s case, and;
2) to bring to surface a few facts that you may have never known at the time you rendered your verdict.
We believe that the Duckworth case has been filled with trickery, deceit, mockery, and cruelty -none of which are desirable attributes for our legal and judicial systems.
I am sure that you agree. Unfortunately, the one’s who have suffered are the innocent children and their grieving mother.
We attended many of the hearings regarding this case, including the last part of the final hearing that you presided over. I couldn’t help but notice your references to family and the importance of parents in the lives of their children.
Without a doubt, CALP agrees with you- if the parent is a safe and good influence upon the children. Yet, we are perplexed and saddened at the many successful attempts to thwart Robin Duckworth’s good intentions.
Even worse, we are upset that he court system has not recognized these ‘tricks’ used by Ed Duckworth and his attorney to intentionally make Robin’s life miserable.
My question is this. What would you do as a mother to protect your children if you thought they were living in an unstable and unsafe environment?
Even a stubborn, proud, ‘never ask for help’ man would humble himself to ask every available person for help – again and again. You and I probably wouldn’t do this for ourselves, but we would for our children. Isn’t this exactly what Robin has done? Is this so wrong?
At what point did Robin act so inappropriate that she deserved to have her children kept from her. Did she break the law? No. (She was put in jail for crying and not leaving the courtroom when Judge Pirtle and Trish Verde refused to advise her as to when she could have her next visitation. Is this really ‘irrational’ when a mother hasn’t seen or held her children in a very long time?
By the way, why was she arrested for criminal trespass when there were still many other people in the courthouse? Why weren’t the other people that were present arrested for trespassing?)
Does Robin have a history of running away with the children? No. Does she have a history of hurting the children? No. Does she have a history of disobeying the courts? No. (Ed’s attorney stated that Robin had told the Kentucky court that she would not abide by the visitation decree from her first marriage. She may or may not have said that .. but, what did she do? She abided by the visitation decree very well. She even notified, in writing, the Kentucky court within 2 weeks of when she moved to Houston. We are in possession of that letter. Unbelievably, Judge Pirtle did not allow that letter to be submitted into evidence.)
Now let’s compare the history of Ed and Robin. Robin graduated high school and college with honors. Ed barely passed high school. After almost 6 years in college he dropped out with a GP A below 2.0. Who held a job and supported the family?
Robin did. She worked at Dillard’s and excelled as a departmental manager. Ed failed to hold a job, including one stint as a car salesman. When they moved to Kentucky, Robin continued working at another clothing store. Ed attempted a gig as a local police officer, however he quit when faced with being tired for shooting and killing a chained dog.
While living in Kentucky Ed filed for divorce. In his affidavit to the court Ed stated Robin should be named the fit and proper caretaker of the children! He never alleged Robin of being unfit in any way as a mother.
However, wanting to salvage their marriage, Robin replied to the court that she did not believe their marriage to be beyond repair. (Wouldn’t anyone that takes their vows before God in a serious manner do all they could to save the marriage? Robin did – Ed didn’t.) Just think if Robin had given up as easily as Ed had, she would be the managing conservator of Matthew and Laura at this time.
Instead, Ed, his attorney, and the Texas judicial system have raked Robin over the coals and treated her like a criminally insane parent. Robin has always been the reliable provider for the children, yet she has been punished and ridiculed for her faith.
The reason: Supposedly she said something to Ed on a tape that was later played to Melody East, an unlicensed social worker with CASA. Melody East then recommended to Judge Pirtle that Robin have only supervised visitation because she expressed ‘alarming’ religious beliefs and had made ‘alarming’ remarks.
One such remark was, “I hope God takes your lives if you continue to harm the children.” How did this statement start ridiculous allegations that Robin might harm her children?
Personally, I also wish that God would remove all child abusers from the earth. Does this make me a danger to children? No. It doesn’t make Robin a danger to her children either.
Also, Melody East never completed the social study. She never interviewed Robin’s mother or Robin’s other references. Incredulously Melody never spoke to the number one witness Christopher Karr. Christopher is Robin’s son from her first marriage.
Christopher witnessed Earnest Duckworth’s (Ed’s father) verbal, mental and physical abuse first hand. In fact, Christopher had written several letters to friends about the abuse well before Robin moved out of the Duckworth house.
Wouldn’t these letters be undeniable evidence that abuse was taking place? Wouldn’t Christopher’s testimony have been the most important evidence in this case?
Yet, Melody East never spoke to Christopher or Robin’s other witnesses. In addition, Judge Pirtle would not allow Christopher’s letters into evidence.
Even mare appalling- Robin’s witnesses were never allowed to testify. All of her witnesses came to trial on Feb. 26, 1999. Robin had at least 4 witnesses including her mother, one cousin, Christopher, and a close friend from Houston who had known Robin and Ed when they lived there. Robin’s witnesses traveled a combined distance of almost 3000 miles.
Unbelievably, Judge Pirtle made no offer to let Robin’s witnesses testify since they had come such a great distance. Instead, Judge Pirtle allowed Ed’s attorney, Charles Schuerenburg, to ask questions (stall for time) to Melody East, Tish Verde, and others. Judge Pirtle knew that Robin could not afford to fly her witnesses down a second time.
We believe that Judge Pirtle knowingly and purposefully hindered Robin’s right to a fair trial by not giving her witnesses the opportunity to testify. Judge Pirtle even scheduled the second half of the trial nearly two weeks away, instead of the following Monday, insuring that Robin’s witnesses would not testify.
In addition, sanctions were imposed against Robin and her attorney for filing a supposedly ‘frivolous’ report to CPS and requesting a Protective Order concerning abuse that Robin felt had occurred at the hands of Ed’s father. (Perhaps, Judge Kent, you were not knowledgeable of all the facts when you sanctioned Robin. That is what we hope.)
Doesn’t state law require that a person must report confirmed or suspected abuse to a child?
Mr. Duckworth’s attorney tried to make Robin look like a liar, because she didn’t report the abuse at the time it happened. Instead, he stated that she was now conveniently making it up since there was a battle for the children. How absurd!
The facts show that Robin and Ed were living in the home of Mr. Duckworth at that believe they can protect their children until they can develop an escape plan away from the abuse. Once again, the facts show that Robin moved back to Kentucky shortly after the abuse.
Doesn’t the fact that every time Robin saw her children with substantial bruises (I have pictures.) and reoccurring sickness during each visitation also give cause for concern, suspicion and reporting?
Doesn’t the fact that the two children have been to the doctor and/or hospital 31 times in 10 months give rise to concern and suspicion? Doesn’t the fact that she witnessed abuse while living with Ed’s parents cause concern?
Doesn’t the fact that Christopher, Robin’s oldest son, wrote letters concerning the abuse to friends before the court case started (I have copies) give cause for concern and suspicion?
Doesn’t the fact that Christopher also signed an affidavit confirming the abuse give cause for concern and suspicion?
Betty Hable, director of the Ombudsman’s office, has even confirmed that CPS has concerns that the paternal grandfather was physically abusive toward Matthew.
We are very troubled that you fined and penalized Robin for reporting suspected abuse when she was faced with disobeying the law if she didn’t report her suspicions! We are even more upset with the fact that Robin is reprimanded from making any other allegations of suspected or confirmed abuse. I ask, is this justice?
How could this happen? How did Robin get fined for doing what is right? I know we all make mistakes. I’m willing to admit that I do. I hope that you too are willing to admit that you made a mistake in your judgements against Robin. I hope even more that you will do all you can in your judicial authority to correct this wrong and make it right. Robin is not an insane mother making improper allegations. She is a protective, caring, loving mother that wants to see her children in a safe, nurturing environment. Once again I ask. what would you do .. not as a judge – but as a Christian and a mother?
Now Robin faces yet another obstacle – meeting the demands of a visitation decree that is both confusing and extremely burdensome. In your judgement you stated that you believed Robin had a medical problem that required medication. Then, being sure of your evaluation, you based the decree upon Robin seeing a psychiatrist and taking the medicine that they would prescribe her. But what was to happen when Robin’s nationally acclaimed psychiatrist did not find Robin to be in need of medication- but only finds her to be severely depressed due to missing her children (a natural response for a concerned, loving mother)?
In addition, you required Robin to line up a psychiatrist within a month. Finding a psychologist is relatively easy but a psychiatrist can take months! (My wife and I have been searching for a psychiatrist to evaluate our daughter’s ADHD. The shortest waiting list we found was 5 months!)
It took Robin a month to line up her psychiatrist. ‘This automatically made her miss the first date (July 1) you had based her visitation rights upon.
However, since acquiring a psychiatrist she has tried to do everything stated concerning her psychiatric evaluations.
However, Ed’s attorney has written a letter stating that they will seek to have her thrown in jail for not following the order. In addition. Robin has not been able to afford trips to Texas to see her children.
She has another son that she must take care of. His father has not been paying child support, which makes things even more difficult for Robin. With the psychiatrist and expenses she has been forced to rely only upon phone calls to stay in her children’s lives.
But this has been made even more difficult due to the fact that Ed will not answer the phone and has turned off his answering machine – all in an effort to distance Robin’s children from her.
However, through all of this, Robin saved enough money to buy birthday and Christmas gifts and a plane ticket to Dallas during November. Once again, Robin did everything she thought she was supposed to do according to the visitation decree.
She sent letters to Ed and the District Clerk. by Nov. 1, 1999, concerning her psychiatric evaluation(s) so that she could see her children on Nov. 13·14.
She sent all letters certified mail. She took 4 days off work to come to Rockwall to see her children, even though Ed’s attorney, Charles Schuerenberg, threatened to get a bench warrant for her arrest if she came to Rockwall.
Despite all this, she still came to see her babies. If that’s not true love I don’t know what is. Upon arriving in Rockwall, Robin gave my wife and I a notarized statement to act as the competent adults to pick up the children -just as stated in the decree. We felt this would
definitely be better for the children since it would avoid any possible conflicts between Ed and Robin. Upon arriving at Ed’s house, Ed absolutely refused to hand over the children.
Ed then ran back into his house and called the police. When the police arrived Ed fabricated a lie and told the officers that he had spoken to Robin’s psychiatrist the day before and that her psychiatrist was sending a second letter forbidding Robin to see the children! We then asked the officers to ask Ed if he would allow Robin to see the children for a supervised visitation the next day.
The officers told my wife and I that Ed made it clear to them that he would never let Robin see the children again no matter what! The officers then advised us that we needed to keep a good paper trail of what had occurred. We were then told that Robin needed to go to the police station and file “Interference with Child Custody”, which is what she did.
Robin was never allowed to see her babies. Can you believe she has never been allowed to celebrate either of Laura’s birthdays? She has never celebrated Christmas with her either.
How discouraged would this make you feel as a mother? Yet, Robin somehow finds the courage and desire to hang in there. Robin loves and misses her children deeply.
Now Robin’s good intentions are once again being turned against her. Charles Schuerenberg has written Robin to threaten her again. He is using the visitation decree that he wrote, against her.
He stated that he intends to have her thrown in jail. I believe this is revenge for Robin filing “Interference with Child Custody” against Ed. What Ed did was wrong and downright mean!
Robin came 1200 miles to see her children, hold them, love them, and give them gifts.
Your honor, please listen to your heart on this matter. Robin is really doing her best. If shemoves here from Kentucky, her older son can’t see his dad. Either way, she gets slammed.
So she does her best. You even stated in your final words of the hearing that the order periods of possession would “be subject to very definitely financial ability.”
This tells me that you were trying to recognize Robin’s peril in paying for psychiatric sessions, making expensive trips to Texas, taking off from work, and juggling all the issues.
We are asking that you reconsider your order. We don’t believe that you ever meant to say Robin could not see her children in November if she didn’t get every psychiatric report completed in July.
It seems to us that you were saying Robin’s visitations were to be based upon her complying with her psychiatrist’s orders then submitting that compliancy letter from the psychiatrist before she attempted visitation.
If your order were interpreted in any other way then Robin’s inability to see a psychiatrist by July 1, 1999 would prohibit her from ever seeing her children again.
I do not believe that you is what you intended. However, Ed’s attorney is trying to have Robin thrown in jail based upon his manipulation of the visitation decree.
Robin had no choice but to file “Interference with Child Custody” against Ed. His actions as dictated by Texas state law are a criminal act, not a civil act.
Therefore, Robin had aresponsibility to file a report even though she did not obtain leave of court to do so. Robin’s report to the Rockwall police was not merely a ‘complaint’ but was a witness’ statement to a felony crime. The police made the choice to ask the D.A. ‘s office to bring charges against Ed.
We hope and pray that you will see things the same and not allow your instinct as a mother, a Christian, and a parent, to be clouded by your judicial experience in today’s corrupt society.
Sincerely,
Derek S.
Co-Founder and V.P.
Read also, http://janiemcqueen.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Judgee-Pirtle-Wanted-for-Kidnapping.pdf
1. Click on the link below to read mother and author, Robin Karr’s provocative case supported by strong evidence against, generally, but not limited to, “‘state’ of Texas,” and also on behalf of all maternally deprived mothers and children, being natural (wo)man and individuals,
http://www.motherswithoutcustodyworld.com
2. Click on the link below to read Kentucky Senator Virgil Moore’s scathing letter against and addressed to, among other public officials, “state” and local Texas and social services and county officials on behalf of parents Doug and Kathie Harliss and their “business or commercial assets,”
Laura only weeks before she was taken from us in November 1998. Click on picture to enlarge.
Robin Karr’s Baby Laura, Sixteen Years Later, Found Picture on Facebook.com
I I pray and hope with all ;my heart and real mommy of little Julian’s soul that you, Laura have come home to Mommy, whatever age.
From one to another mother whose child bought and sold just shall surely find them out.
Author of this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and Especially to My Little Julian, is not a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner, therefore, no information contained herein this post and/or blog could be (mis)construed as “legal advice.” Anyone who exercises he/r rights, and private property sometimes called “child” for deceptive, possibly malicious or retaliatory, and profiteering/privateering and in the “best interests” . . . of the “state” Texas General and other Funds at one’s own peril, risk, and/ or self-fulfillment. The choice is yours.
HOPE FOR PROTECTIVE MOTHERS
On November 26th 2014, after 8 years of struggle both in the US and in France, the Quimper Family Court Judge gave me custody of my daughter, Noluenn, in France. Her father will be allowed to meet her 2 hours every two weeks in a supervised setting in Quimper, but right now, his visitations are suspended.”
Protective Mom, Nelly
Nelly and Noluenn’s story fits the Pattern of most Court Licensed Abuse cases: Child discloses sexual abuse; evidence disregarded; biased judge finds mom to be alienating; judge grants father full custody.
But Nelly fled the U.S. to France after which the biased and corrupt CLA Judge issued an arrest warrant.
Fortunately this story has a happy ending.
Congratulations to Nelly and Noluenn who are both safe in France!
Nelly, Never Without her Daughter
To read the English version, click on the first link below, or otherwise cut-and-paste into your browser or enter manually.
http://mothersoflostchildren.org/2014/11/after-american-court-fails-mother-france-provides-justice/
En Francaise,
http://www.letelegramme.fr/bretagne/enfance-nelly-jamais-sans-sa-fille-27-05-2014-10184147.php
See also, case of actress Kelly Rutherford’s case in which children have been taken to France by wealthy father, a case recently taken on by lawyer Wendy Murphy:
Fair Use and Legal Disclaimer (PROMINENTLY DISPLAYED):
Author of this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and Especially to My Little Julian, is not a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner, therefore, no information contained herein this post and/or blog could be (mis)construed as “legal advice.” Anyone who exercises he/r rights, and private property sometimes called “child” for deceptive, possibly malicious or retaliatory, and profiteering/privateering and in the “best interests” . . . of the “state” Texas General and other Funds at one’s own peril, risk, and/ or self-fulfillment. The choice is yours.
This story is about grave injustices that endanger millions of children around the world. There is an epidemic of family court judges deliberately disregarding and covering up physical violence and sexual abuse and granting custody to abusive fathers. Meanwhile good, protective mothers and children are being torn apart, deprived of any meaningful, sometimes any, relationship with each other.
Following is my own story, one of thousands. Despite my abusive “ex” admitting that he went after the boys to hurt me, the judge disregarded all the evidence of his violence and gave him custody. My children are now not only being abused, but also being lied to, manipulated and turned against me. I have been rendered powerless in a system that appears to be designed to prioritize fathers’ rights over children’s safety. I would never have believed this could happen in the United States in the third millennium.
October 2009 I left my abuser, Stan. My sons (David 9 and Connor 9 at the time) and I moved to our own home in West Springfield, Massachusetts. Stan escalated so much that I frequently needed police assistance. He harassed us and continued to hit the children. Department of Children and Families became involved January 2009 when the first filing of abuse was filed and substantiated. At the advice of the police, I secured a restraining order in December. It was a temporary order and I went back to court December 30 to have it extended. I told the judge he did everything to me but hit me and he hit my sons. She scared me and my ex glared at me; judge did not extend it.
In retaliation (during restraining order) Stan filed for custody and used the courts to intimidate and control. Lawyers were assigned to my sons who became manipulated by Stan. I filed for divorce June 2010 and the case was transferred to a divorce track. Stan’s abuse continued and he escalated more by August. DCF sent me to probate court to talk with a domestic violence advocate who helped me file for a restraining order. Judge would not give it consideration; it was a waste of her time.
September 13, 2011 we divorced by agreement; I had full physical custody of children and we had shared custody. He held me hostage by demanding a detailed visitation schedule. November 1 my sons and I went to a domestic violence shelter in the Boston, Massachusetts area 90 miles away from West Springfield. November 3 my friend Helen called me to report that Stan was looking for us: called her reportedly and showed up at her workplace. She secured a prevention of harassment from him (judge has a copy). The same day I called the social worker to inform her that we were out of the area in a safe house in the eastern part of the state; she called Stan the same day and gave him the information.
Stan filed an emergency Habeas Corpus claiming “[I] was distraught since the death of my dad and that my sons were not safe with me.” My dad died October 15 and I was affected very little for I had very little to do with him. Stan gave false information reporting that he showed up at the school November 7 to pick up boys for his visit per court order and that “he did not know we were out of the area.”
Despite Stan’s lies the judge ordered my sons handed over to him (while in the court room) for an extended visit. She vacated our divorce and gave him temporary custody. Her reason: claiming I needed permission of court to move (only needed if move out of state), that only West Springfield could administer Connor’s IEP (by law all school systems must administer an IEP), and that he needed to be near his therapist (that I took him to and Stan did not). My sons and I were shattered. They did not want to live with Stan.
By law the judge is to conduct an evaluation at 90 days when there is a change of custody; judge never did one. Within 3 weeks Stan assaulted Connor and a filing of abuse was filed. Connor filed his own police report. Connor’s attorney withheld the report and Department of Children and Families (“DCF”) refused to look at it.
December 3, 2012 was a divorce trial. I was pro se and did not know what I was doing. Legal Aide would not take the case and did not tell me until 3 weeks before the trial. The legal advocate at the “domestic violence” shelter did not meet with me until a week before the trial. Advantage I had was that I knew what to ask Stan since I know him so well. At the trial, Stan, my “ex” testified to being abusive and neglectful, showing up at the DV shelter so I would lose my housing and more. I testified of assault by Stan to my sons and me. I reminded the court that I have always been primary care giver of boys. Court ordered evaluation states that Stan is abusive and cannot parent for more than a few days at a time and that there should not be a change in custody (boys were in my custody at the time).
Divorce judgment gave Stan full custody of boys, able to claim both boys on taxes. I have to pay child support. Communication is to be primarily by email (only thing I got). Division of pensions did not equally divide assets. Judge’s reason: that I was erratic (going to a DV shelter and judge cited a case where a mother kidnapped her kids and fled to Lebanon). I filed an appeal and it went before the panel October 6, 2014 and they affirmed judge’s decision. October 20 I submitted a letter requesting a hearing.
October 2013 I filed three contempt charges against Stan: withholding information about service providers for boys, not communicating primarily by email but harassing me on the phone instead and for not completing the DRO. He admitted to being guilty to all charges. Judge’s response to the first: you got information eventually, didn’t you? Response to the second: do you have proof? (Never mind he admitted to the contempt.) The third: he was found guilty but he was not given a consequence. The percentage in the divorce judgment did not equally distribute his pension and I reported this. Judge’s response, “You are doing an appeal, include it.”
January 2014 DCF placed David in a residential program that day after Stan assaulted him. Forty-five (45) days later David was placed back with Stan. June Stan filed a CRA against David in juvenile court when there are no grounds for it. David is not a behavior problem. Police Sargeant even states that Stan is a bully who hates anyone who stands up to him. I have raised my sons to be confident. Stan gave DCF temporary custody of David in June when he extended the CRA (out of spite). As long as I don’t have custody Stan wins and I lose. He admitted he went after the boys to hurt me.
Connor is morbidly obese, at risk of being over medicated and at a special school for his intense individualized education plan, or, “IEP” pursuant to the Federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, revised as ADAA. Both boys have symptoms of “PTSD” and depression. They are over serviced. Judge ignores these facts. She only focuses on Stan’s parental rights and ignores mine and the safety of my sons.
June I filed an emergency modification for custody of my sons due to continued abuse and David being placed in four foster homes and a residential program in the course of five days in June. David was at the residential program for another three (3) months. Modification went before judge July 10th. I had in hand evidence of the abuse and professionals stating that boys cannot thrive in his custody. Judge wouldn’t listen to it. She scheduled a pretrial for October 22. Last week she scheduled another pretrial for February.
While Stan has had custody of David and Connor he has continued to abuse them. They are now afraid to speak up and Stan has alienated me from my sons, doing his best to destroy our relationship. It is baffling to me that DCF, screens out all filings of abuse against Stan, especially when there is evidence. I have become vilified and I do not know why. I have not been found to be abusive.
Nothing contained in this post or on this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and and especially for my little Julian, could be (mis)construed as “legal advice” of any kind as author of this post is expressly NOT a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner.
Little Angel, Buddy Cook
Click on the link below to view and listen to Buddy’s Mommy, Angel Cook, give her impassioned opinion and facts about the real cps caseworkers for Department of Family and Protective Services for “‘state’ of Texas'”/”DFPS” and their real purpose in kidnapping, or, wrongfully “removing” children from fit, healthy, happy, loving families for money, promotion, pride, prejudice, personal promotion and gain, points to monthly quota, “removal” bonus,’ disabled child bonuses, adoption kickbacks and commissions, referrals for “strategic ‘community partners’ and ‘stakeholders,’ and quite frequently for ignorant, petty, juvenile, and psychotic retaliation evidenced by the fact your story keeps getting taken off this blog:
Angel Post CPS Hearing Statement, Posted by Angel Eyes Over Texas, on Youtube.com on October 05, 2014, click below
Below, Cook Family vs. CPS, posted to Youtube.com by startelegramvideo on December 12, 2014,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=s5xb7wEAoVk
Angel Cook proves Cps corruption in Tx, uploaded to Youtube.com by familyinjustice on August 30, 2014 below,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=evvxVMWqNks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=vJSvAmBGU6c
Angel’s Response to DFPS letter, Published on Aug 23, 2014, posted to Youtube.com by Angel Eyes Over Texas,
Angel’s response to the letter issued by the Tx department of family and protective services 8-22-2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=H6zE0PdwwxA
Below, Angel and son’s testimony to Texas Sunset Commission in Austin, Texas where former (Hon.) Judge, present Commissioner John J. Specia, Jr., head of Department of Family and Protective Services for “state of Texas” makes an appearance along with Texas Senator Jane Nelson (posted June 28, 2014 on Youtube.com by John Schafer).–the doctored version DFPS, CPS division wants you to see and hear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=3TxQcDJVW3c
We Stand with you, real Mommy Angel Cook, and also for the tragedy that must have been Buddy’s natural mother’s life and whatever happened to he/r, and we certainly Stand with your family in your tears and mourning over the life of a beautiful, vivacious little boy who had a good and happy future. This audience knows all too well the commonplace lies, malicious prosecution, and public corruption and breach of fiduciary duty and dishonest services fraud, bribery, and subornation of perjury, among other horrid crimes these CPS social workers and policy-makers and their protectors and traffickers have made you endure. Our stories may be different, yet they are all the same. A harm to one of us is a harm to all of us, and vice versa. I am so sorry for your loss, from one real Mommy to another, and also for Buddy’s natural mother whose pain and guilt and shame must be almost too much to bear. This is a tragedy on so many levels. However, thank you to the media who actually reported this, as this is a blessing all too rare, if not one in a million. Buddy was special. His presence in this life was heard and felt, and made a difference. Not too many people can say that.
For more information, click on the links below to read about this devastating story:
http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/local/2014/09/02/adoptive-parents-cleared-wesley-cook/15001007/
I am not sure if they are still taking donations, and I hesitate to even bring it up at the peak of hucksters, crooks,’ and cheap hustling cons’ hey day they have been having wreaking havoc on good Americans since, well, especially since around 2008 A.D., but I would feel like I was cheating the Cook’s if I didn’t mention the site I found (that I have nothing to do with and absolutely cannot vouch for or give any credibility to whatsoever), https://www.giveforward.com/fundraiser/4qw3. Author of this blog is not responsible for any potentially negative experiences with this site or anyone with whom it is affiliated. Expressly, no recommendation could be made seeing as how I have not investigated or researched this site or anyone responsible (sad we have to make these apologies for an outwardly appearing good cause these days). I would think if someone were blessed enough financially to donate, they might just deal directly with the Cooks, but I am just trying to be helpful. Likewise, Author certainly means no disrespect or offense toward the donation site or those affiliated.
Thomas M. Burton via pro hac vice
Utah Bar No. 00518
California Bar No. 035856
P.O. Box 1619
Salt Lake City, Utah 84110
Tel: (801) 918-1656
Thomasburtonlaw@aol.com
ATTORNEYS FOR GABRIELLE NUSZEN
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
IN AND FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS
______________________________________________________________
GABRIELLE NUSZEN, an individual and Guardian ad Litem for her minor sisters,
H.N., K.N., D.N. and Z.N., Minors,
Plaintiffs,
vs.
JACK NUSZEN; SHANNON ORAND NUSZEN; KAREN GOLLAHER; JAY BEVAN; GUARDIANS OF HOPE, a Texas Corporation; NORMA WILLCOCKSON; DOE DEFENDANTS I through X, inclusive; and DOE DEFENDANTS XI through XX, inclusive.
Defendants.
Case No. _________________________
COMPLAINT FOR PERSONAL INJURY,
FALSE IMPRISONMENT;
INTENTIONAL INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS;
NEGLIGENT INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS;
INVASION OF PRIVACY;
NEGLIGENCE; BREACH OF FIDUCIARY DUTY;
STRICT LIABILITY OF CARRIER;
CHILD ABUSE;
INJUNCTIVE RELIEF;
HABEAS CORPUS
COME NOW, the Plaintiffs, GABRIELLE NUSZEN individually and as Guardian ad Litem for her minor sisters, H.N., K.N., D.N. and Z.N.
This is a case brought by all five daughters of Defendant, JACK NUSZEN (hereinafter “JACK”), their physically and emotionally abusive biological father, seeking protection from him notwithstanding physical custody that Harris County has negligently bestowed upon him in defiance of medical reports of serious and repetitive physical and emotional abuse that he has visited upon them. JACK has been able to buy immunity from prosecution for child abuse in the family courts of Harris County, and has defied a Harris County custody order with impunity. Harris County agencies charged with protecting the Plaintiffs from JACK suffer from extreme laxity of duty and neglect of care, forcing the Plaintiffs to resort to this Court to protect their freedom and their constitutional rights.
1. Plaintiff, GABRIELLE NUSZEN, (hereinafter “Gabrielle”), is a citizen of the State of [CONFIDENTIAL].
2. Plaintiff H.N. has been held captive against her will and without her consent at several Utah licensed residential treatment centers — Aspen Assessment Center in Syracuse, Utah and New Haven Academy in Saratoga Springs, Utah for over a year, and has thus been forced to become a citizen of Utah.
3. Plaintiffs, K.N., D.N. and Z.N., are minor citizens of the State of Texas, who have endured years of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of the Defendants, particularly JACK and SHANNON (referenced to below).
4. Defendant, JACK NUSZEN, is the biological father of Gabrielle Nuszen and her minor sisters, H.N, K.N., D.N., and Z.N., and is a citizen of Texas.
5. Defendant, SHANNON ORAND NUSZEN, is the wife of JACK and step-mother of Gabrielle and her minor sisters, H.N, K.N., D.N., and Z.N., and is a citizen of Texas.
6. Defendant, KAREN GOLLAHER, is a psychologist appointed by the Harris County District Court and has failed and refused to protect any and all of the Plaintiffs.
7. Defendant, JAY BEVAN, is a therapist appointed by Harris County and has failed and refused to protect any and all of the Plaintiffs.
8. Defendant, GUARDIANS OF HOPE, is a Texas corporation that is an escort service that JACK paid to take H.N. from her school and transport her across State lines from Texas to Utah to leave her stranded against her will and without her consent.
9. Defendant, NORMA WILLCOCKSON, is a Texas resident who owns and operates Guardians of Hope.
10. Doe Defendants I through X are citizens of the State of Texas and employees of Harris County, Texas or affiliated with it who, at all times material, were acting within the course and scope of their employment, or authorization, as agents for the other named Defendants.
11. Doe Defendants XI through XX were government agencies having regulatory powers and responsibilities over the safety of the Plaintiffs, and the employees of said agencies, who at all times material were acting either within the course and scope of their employment and authorization, or else as individuals, but in either case as agents for the other named Defendants.
12. Jurisdiction of this Court is invoked pursuant to: (a) 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a), (b), and (c); and (d) . The amount in controversy exceeds the sum of Seventy Five Thousand Dollars.
13. Venue is appropriate in this Court pursuant to the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 1391(a), (b) and (c).
14. After Miriam Nuszen divorced JACK he thereafter manipulated Harris County into giving him primary custody of all five of his daughters.
15. In that position JACK promoted, by a frequent and consistent pattern of false representations and suppressions of fact, that Miriam was afflicted with several levels of mental and emotional illness that adversely affected each and all of the Plaintiff children. He many times reported her and the children to The Department of Child and Family Services as part of a strategy to have them removed from their home with her, and to be placed with him for eventual shipment out of state in further retribution for the divorce.
16. JACK established a pattern and practice of telling Harris County psychologists, counselors, judges, attorneys, police officers, and any and all other officials having anything to do with child care that Miriam was an inept and incompetent mother psychologically unfit to raise his daughters.
Contrary to fact, Miriam is a brilliant health care industry employee whom each and all of the daughters dearly love and wish to be with.
17. Miriam filed a police report, on or about two years ago, alleging that JACK threatened to kill her and their children. However, the Court refused to listen to such evidence and testimony, and failed to take such a report into consideration in rendering the custody order. In fact, JACK has sexually and physically abused Miriam during the course of their marriage, as well as abuse the children on repeated occasions.
18. JACK, however, is a sociopathic liar and abuser of his children. For this reason, he hired Defendant NORMA WILLCOCKSON, and her escort service to remove H.N. without warning and against her will and consent from her Texas high school where she was a very excellent student of sound character.
19. JACK sent H.N. to Island View Academy in Syracuse, Utah.
Humana Provider Demographic Report Rendering Provider Name with Address. Island View’s philosophy is to deprive its participants of all contact with the outside world, to treat them with rudeness and hostility, and to punish them for disobedience by deprivation and physical abuse. Island View has been and continues to be the subject of much litigation and controversy over its mistreatment of the captive children under its supervision and control.
The tuition costs are enormous for a program run by amateurs who have no concept of proper health care administration or behavior. It has received much notoriety and adverse comment on survivor sites for its maltreatment of adolescents kept captive in its care.
20. The state of Utah licenses such places as “residential treatment centers,” but there is no transparency, no accountability and minimal regulation, mostly by low level social workers aided by minimum wage enforcers of mindless rules measured by forced behavior of mostly truants thrown together without discrimination about who needs what treatment and why.
21. There was never any screening or adjudication that H.N. needed any type of behavior modification. H.N. was taken without warning and has been forced to survive at Island View Academy. It is now upon new information and belief that H.N. has been moved to New Haven Academy without anyone accounting for her welfare or condition, either physical or mental.
FIRST CAUSE OF ACTION: PERSONAL INJURY
22. Plaintiffs incorporate by this reference the foregoing paragraphs as if stated in full.
23. JACK, as father and custodian of H.N., had a duty to protect her, care for her, and keep her safe. JACK, however, breached his duty:
a. By failing to notify H.N. that he was going to send her out of state to Utah to be confined for the indefinite future at Island View Academy.
b. By failing to obtain H.N.’s informed consent to be confined at Island View Academy.
c. By failing to inform himself that Island View Academy was not a school, but a rigorous and punitive behavior modification technique reformatory, to which H.N. was not accustomed, and by failing to have determined by an independent physician or psychologist that there was any legitimate need to send H.N. to Island View in Utah for such harsh treatment that typically in adolescents causes post-traumatic stress disorder.
d. By failing to understand that H.N. would be put in the company of many young women who were truant, addicted to drugs, promiscuous, convicted of criminal behavior, and that they were at Island View not for recreation, education, or counseling, but for severe behavior modification.
e. By failing to consider whether H.N’s association with such individuals needing severe obedience training, often by rough handling and rude treatment, and that she would be there as well as the others under the overall assumption that everyone enrolled was truant, defiant, drug addicted, and sexually active, would be an appropriate placement for H.N. who was none of the above, but who would be likely contaminated by those who were.
f. By making a placement that would deprive, for an indefinite period, H.N. of any association and communication with her mother and sisters whom she dearly loves.
g. By instructing Island View Academy to prohibit H.N’s mother from having any contact with H.N., and not informing H.N. that she had not been abandoned by her mother and sisters, and that their not contacting her was due to their father’s prohibition carried out by the academies.
h. By keeping H.N. separate from her sisters with whom she has had no contact whatsoever for over a year.
24. Miriam Blank, H.N.’s mother, along with her sisters, had a close, warm and loving relationship with H.N. As a proximate result of the described separation, JACK deliberately damaged and harmed H.N., her sisters and their mother.
25. JACK’s conduct was malicious, wanton and in reckless disregard of H.N.’s health, safety and welfare, by reason of which she and her sisters are entitled to recover punitive damages.
26. Plaintiffs pray that this Court order JACK to release H.N. from Island View Academy or New Haven Academy or wherever else he is hiding her, and return her to her sister and Guardian ad Litem, Gabrielle, in [CONFIDENTIAL].
SECOND CAUSE OF ACTION: FALSE IMPRISONMENT
27. Plaintiffs incorporate by this reference the foregoing paragraphs as if stated in full.
28. H.N. learned upon arrival at Island View Academy that its operation was designed to imprison her against her will and without her consent, and that she had no recourse by communicating with her mother to free her from the benighted treatment to which she was hopelessly subject. She sought to leave the program, but Island View restrained her from any contact with the outside world, and refused her request to return to her mother.
29. JACK’s confinement of H.N. at Island View in Utah wrongfully violated the Texas custody order that governed his care and keeping of H.N. He knew that his daughter, H.N., was of an age where she had federal and state constitutional rights to due process and a liberty interest not to be unlawfully confined by any parent, with or without custody, in a punitive, isolated, foreign venue with no recourse or contact with family members or legal assistance to gain release. JACK also knew full well that Island View, in keeping H.N. captive and isolated, would cause H.N. to suffer severe emotional distress due to the punitive treatment she would receive and the absence from her mother and the Plaintiffs that she would suffer.
30. JACK’s conduct was malicious, wanton and in reckless disregard of H.N.’s health, safety and welfare, by reason of which she is entitled to recover punitive damages against him.
31. Plaintiffs pray for judgment as hereafter stated.
THIRD CAUSE OF ACTION: INTENTIONAL INFLICTION
OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS
32. Plaintiffs incorporate by this reference the foregoing paragraphs as if stated in full.
33. JACK’s sordid history of physically hurting H.N. and locking her away from family, friends, teachers, coaches, and home without warning, and in a brusque, public, humiliating manner, as if she were a person severely mentally ill or highly truant, caused her grievous mental and emotional distress.
34. JACK’s conduct was outrageous, malicious, wanton and in reckless disregard of H.N.’s health, safety and welfare, by reason of which she is entitled to recover punitive damages.
35. Plaintiffs pray for judgment as hereafter stated.
FOURTH CAUSE OF ACTION: NEGLIGENT INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS
36. Plaintiffs incorporate by this reference the foregoing paragraphs as if stated in full.
37. JACK had a duty to safeguard H.N. from demented hazing, denigration, isolation, confinement, and deprivation at his sole pleasure, and also not to inflict emotional distress on her sisters by depriving each and all of them from having contact with H.N. and she with them.
38. JACK violated his duty to H.N. and her sisters by keeping them not only apart, but also in secret silence from each other, and their mother.
39. JACK’s conduct was in reckless disregard of H.N.’s and her sisters’ health, safety and welfare, by reason of which Plaintiffs are entitled to recover punitive damages.
40. Plaintiffs pray for judgment as hereafter stated.
FIFTH CAUSE OF ACTION: INVASION OF PRIVACY
41. Plaintiffs incorporate by this reference the foregoing paragraphs as if stated in full.
42. By having H.N. suddenly taken in broad daylight from her high school and in front of her peers by an escort service, and put in a Utah punitive behavior modification program totally isolated and silenced from all contact with family and friends, JACK cast H.N. in a false light as having done something so horribly wrong so that she was not fit to be trusted in normal society, including her own family.
43. JACK’s conduct has caused Plaintiffs great mental and emotional distress.
44. JACK’s conduct was malicious, wanton and in reckless disregard of H.N. and her sisters’ health, safety and welfare, by reason of which the Plaintiffs are entitled to recover punitive damages.
45. Plaintiffs pray for judgment as hereafter stated.
SIXTH CAUSE OF ACTION: NEGLIGENCE
46. Plaintiffs incorporate by this reference the foregoing paragraphs as if stated in full.
47. JACK had a father’s duty to treat her with dignity, respect, and tenderness. He, however, negligently conceived, supervised, maintained and controlled H.N.’s negligent imprisonment at Island View Academy and New Haven Academy in the particulars set out above.
48. JACK’s conduct proximately caused personal injury and emotional distress to H.N. for all of 2014, and there is every indication, unless this Court intervenes, that he will continue to keep her away from the Plaintiffs and her mother until her majority two years hence.
49. JACK’s conduct is in reckless disregard of H.N.’s health, safety and welfare, by reason of which Plaintiffs are entitled to recover punitive damages.
50. Plaintiffs pray for judgment as hereafter stated.
SEVENTH CAUSE OF ACTION: BREACH OF FIDUCIARY DUTY
51. Plaintiffs incorporate by this reference the foregoing paragraphs as if stated in full.
52. By enrolling H.N. at Island View Academy and New Haven Academy in Utah, JACK cavalierly transferred his fiduciary duty as custodian of H.N. to surrogate strangers of no known merit in a foreign state who would, in turn, take H.N. into an unknown isolated, inhospitable and unforgiving area in a captive situation. JACK signed a power of attorney, giving custody of H.N. to Aspen and New Haven, which is evidenced in the contract between JACK and the residential treatment centers.
53. Island View and New Haven breached their transferred fiduciary duties as surrogates to act in H.N.’s best interest, which proximately caused H.N. to sustain great pain, suffering, bodily injury and feelings of abandonment, and the Plaintiffs to suffer grievous mental and emotional distress over the needless suffering and isolation of their sister.
54. The conduct of JACK in abandoning his duties under Title 5, Section 151.001(a)(2) and (3) of the Texas Family Code in favor of unknown Utah surrogates of no merit and dubious reputation was malicious, wanton and in reckless disregard of his fiduciary duty to care for H.N.’s health, safety and welfare, by reason of which Plaintiffs are entitled to recover both general and punitive damages against JACK, their father, for splitting them up and sending H.N. away, never to be seen or heard from again, a likely destiny for the remaining younger sisters unless this Court intervenes to prevent such a prospect.
55. Plaintiffs pray for judgment as hereafter stated.
EIGHTH CAUSE OF ACTION: STRICT LIABILITY OF CARRIER
56. Plaintiffs incorporate by this reference the foregoing paragraphs as if stated in full.
57. JACK, in hiring NORMA WILLCOCKSON, to transport H.N. from Houston, Texas into Syracuse, Utah had a duty to use utmost care and diligence for H.N’s safe carriage, and was under the obligations to provide everything necessary for that purpose and to exercise to that end a reasonable degree of skill.
58. For the reasons above stated, NORMA WILLCOCKSON failed to use utmost care
and diligence for the safe carriage of H.N., but followed JACK’s instructions to take H.N., whose mother also had custody, from her to an undisclosed location, and to take her suddenly without warning, and against her will and without her consent, knowing full well that such transport had to do with minors who have constitutional rights not to be kidnapped by one parent from another, both of whom have custodial rights and duties to be with their children, and they with them.
59. NORMA WILLCOCKSON does this transporting of young people across state lines as a lucrative business without checking to see whether or not the transportation is regulated by interstate compact, and knows that her cargo is going to be confined in lock-down captivity without due process or any way to escape.
60. The conduct of NORMA WILLCOCKSON was in reckless disregard of H.N.’s, health, safety and welfare, by reason of which both H.N. and her sisters are entitled to recover punitive damages.
61. Plaintiffs pray for judgment as hereafter stated.
NINTH CAUSE OF ACTION: CHILD ABUSE
62. Plaintiffs incorporate by this reference the foregoing paragraphs as if stated in full.
63. JACK, while having the care, custody and control of H.N., isolated her from her mother in an unfamiliar area of the Utah desert at Island View and New Haven academies, and did so in order to:
a. Subject H.N. to conditions and circumstances likely to produce great bodily and emotional harm;
b. Cause her to suffer, and negligently allowed to be inflicted upon her unjustifiable physical pain and mental suffering;
c. Cause or permit her to be injured; and
d. Cause or permit her to be placed in such a situation that her health would be endangered.
64. Before H.N. was sent to Utah, JACK physically abused both H.N., Gabrielle, and all of her sisters as their individual affidavits will show. Gabrielle has endured abuse from her father; as noted in a physician’s statement regarding Gabrielle’s injury in 2010, “dad hit…in face…abrasion to inside of bottom lip.[Gabrielle] has bruise to lower back and 2 fingerprint marks to L. [left] side of neck. [Gabrielle] states dad held her under water…”
See Exhibit B: Physician’s Statement Regarding Injury to Gabrielle Nuszen;
see also Exhibit C: Gabrielle Nuszen’s Affidavit, dated September 29, 2013; also see Exhibit D: Physician’s Statement Regarding Injury to Kayla Nuszen.
65. JACK’s cruel and reckless conduct toward these choice young girls is inexcusable and warrants this Court’s removal of JACK’s custody of and contact with his children hereinafter and forever.
66. This Court has a duty to order a complete independent psychological assessment of JACK in order to ascertain whether or not he is a sociopath, in addition to having a narcissistic personality disorder or other mental health defects that need treatment, supervision and restraint from contact with his children.
WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs pray for judgment as follows:
1. A Writ of Habeas Corpus producing H.N. before this Court to be examined as to her present circumstances and as to whether or not she has the right to be released from Island View, Aspen, or New Haven in Utah and returned to her sister, Gabrielle, in [CONFIDENTIAL].
2. Injunctive relief in the form of an Order enjoining further possession of H.N. by any aforesaid venue in Utah, and immediately releasing H.N. and transferring legal and physical custody to her sister, Gabrielle, so that she may provide for H.N.’s education at legitimate schools in the State of [CONFIDENTIAL] or elsewhere, before H.N. falls further behind academically.
3. General damages according to proof, but in no event lower than $100,000.
4. Punitive damages according to proof.
5. Costs of suit.
6. Such other and further relief that the Court deems just.
Dated: March 12, 2015
Respectfully Submitted,
/s/ Thomas M. Burton
Thomas M. Burton via pro hac vice
Utah Bar No. 00518
California Bar No. 035856
P.O. Box 1619
Salt Lake City, Utah 84110
Tel: (801) 918-1656
Thomasburtonlaw@aol.com
/s/ Christina Wanies-Guirgis
Christina Wanies-Guirgis
Texas Bar No. 24084772
9555 W. Sam Houston Pkwy S., Suite 130
Houston, Texas 77099
Tel: (832) 582-8331
Fax: (832) 379-7490
Christinaw@waniesguirgispllc.com\
Nothing contained in this post or on this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and and especially for my little Julian, could be (mis)construed as “legal advice” of any kind as author of this post is expressly NOT a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=s5xb7wEAoVk
Texas CPS accused Angel and David Cook of child abuse and murder in the death of adopted son Buddy. Their children were put in foster care. They were cleared of the charges but they are still trying to pick up the pieces. Here is their story. Fort Worth Star-Telegram/Rodger Mallison
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=PvZCm1BnLsU
BUT FIRST, A FEW WORDS OF CAUTION: GOOD LUCK GETTING A HARRIS COUNTY (HOUSTON), TEXAS D.A. OR SURROUNDING AREAS OR “TEST/DEMONSTRATION SITES”–PROFIT CENTERS– AND LOCAL POLICE DEPARTMENTS FOR THE MUNICIPALITIES, CITIES, AND COUNTIES TO TAKE A POLICE REPORT AS IT IS THEIR POLICY NOT TO ACCEPT THEM FROM (WO)MAN WITH SMALL, CUTE, HEALTHY, ADOPTABLE, CHILDREN WHO HAPPEN TO BE UNMARRIED WHERE PREVIOUSLY ABSENTEE FATHERS RECENTLY MARRIED, OR NOT, TERRORIZE MOTHER AND CHILD, EVEN IF FROM AFAR. If a police officer does respond, who is at the command of a completely unqualified dispatcher most likely without a college degree and no children of her own who is most likely, pursuant to C.I.T./CAT grants from the government, trained by Nazi Socialist government pro-father’s rights sadists and their BAR member attorneys and judges needing to fill new Kids-for-Cash jails, kiddie prisons, over which the family court judges in Harris County preside as Board members (and the Harris County Commissioner’s Court for the Texas Supreme Court’s Children’s Commission), and the new “mental health ward” in the prison (experimentation tank) on the second floor, state-of-the-art, with a retina scanner, they will most likely call CPS and an on-duty “mental healthy deputy” and come out with a paddy wagon for those “delusional,” “borderline,” “protective,” hysterical, “lying” mothers and their private property–“children.” So, for all those who propose that the “solution” to CPS abuse is to avoid them by calling police–Californians–you are wrong as the police are told they cannot make a report, but must instead call CPS pursuant to “Collaborative,” Memorandum of Understanding whereby everybody, police officer “vendors,” city, “mental health deputies,” CPS, county commissioners, judges, sheriffs, local children’s assessment centers who do the cover-up job that no sexual abuse or child abuse occurred, or even investigation to clear mother and child even where these allegations are not made, share in the “commission”–“stakeholders,” “community partners.” Just find your city plan on line, compliments of I.C.L.E.I. an Agenda 21 and “Model” Cities and “unified” court and “holistic” systems–inherently, conspiratorial or collusive in nature and spirit of the word, and actually in effect.
For those of you who are of the action-oriented, “social activist” ilk who gets angry, rather strangely in my opinion, at others assuming that this is somehow their responsibility, pick up a book, start reading, do your homework, and demand that your alleged lawmakers (ha-ha-ha, as if we even have any as they aren’t even allowed to read the bills that “pass” without being read, signed, or voted on) decline to sign these inter-agency, coerced, incentiviezed Memorandum of Understanding that give police, “mental health deputies,” and state CPS licensed counselors and courts and judges and CPS scoundrel “throwaways,” themselves being the “inferior” beings (as that’s why they were chosen for their jobs) money and pensions and bonuses to STEAL OUR PRIVATE PROPERTY, AND MOST LIKELY YOURS SOMEDAY.
(a) A person commits an offense if the person agrees, for remuneration or the promise of remuneration, to abduct a child younger than 18 years of age by force, threat of force, misrepresentation, stealth, or unlawful entry, knowing that the child is under the care and control of a person having custody or physical possession of the child under a court order, including a temporary order, or under the care and control of another person who is exercising care and control with the consent of a person having custody or physical possession under a court order, including a temporary order.
(b) An offense under this section is a state jail felony.
Added by Acts 1987, 70th Leg., ch. 444, Sec. 3, eff. Sept. 1, 1987. Amended by Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 900, Sec. 1.01, eff. Sept. 1, 1994. Amended by: Acts 2007, 80th Leg., R.S., Ch. 272 (H.B. 95), Sec. 2, eff. September 1, 2007.
(a) A person commits an offense if the person takes or retains a child younger than 18 years of age:
(1) when the person knows that the person’s taking or retention violates the express terms of a judgment or order, including a temporary order, of a court disposing of the child’s custody;
(2) when the person has not been awarded custody of the child by a court of competent jurisdiction, knows that a suit for divorce or a civil suit or application for habeas corpus to dispose of the child’s custody has been filed, and takes the child out of the geographic area of the counties composing the judicial district if the court is a district court or the county if the court is a statutory county court, without the permission of the court and with the intent to deprive the court of authority over the child; or
(3) outside of the United States with the intent to deprive a person entitled to possession of or access to the child of that possession or access and without the permission of that person.
(b) A noncustodial parent commits an offense if, with the intent to interfere with the lawful custody of a child younger than 18 years, the noncustodial parent knowingly entices or persuades the child to leave the custody of the custodial parent, guardian, or person standing in the stead of the custodial parent or guardian of the child.
(c) It is a defense to prosecution under Subsection (a)(2) that the actor returned the child to the geographic area of the counties composing the judicial district if the court is a district court or the county if the court is a statutory county court, within three days after the date of the commission of the offense.
(c-1) It is an affirmative defense to prosecution under Subsection (a)(3) that:
(1) the taking or retention of the child was pursuant to a valid order providing for possession of or access to the child; or
(2) notwithstanding any violation of a valid order providing for possession of or access to the child, the actor’s retention of the child was due only to circumstances beyond the actor’s control and the actor promptly provided notice or made reasonable attempts to provide notice of those circumstances to the other person entitled to possession of or access to the child.
(c-2) Subsection (a)(3) does not apply if, at the time of the offense, the person taking or retaining the child:
(1) was entitled to possession of or access to the child; and
(2) was fleeing the commission or attempted commission of family violence, as defined by Section 71.004, Family Code, against the child or the person.
(d) An offense under this section is a state jail felony.
Acts 1973, 63rd Leg., p. 883, ch. 399, Sec. 1, eff. Jan. 1, 1974. Amended by Acts 1979, 66th Leg., p. 1111, ch. 527, Sec. 1, eff. Aug. 27, 1979; Acts 1987, 70th Leg., ch. 444, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1987; Acts 1989, 71st Leg., ch. 830, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1989; Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 900, Sec. 1.01, eff. Sept. 1, 1994; Acts 2001, 77th Leg., ch. 332, Sec. 1, eff. May 24, 2001. Amended by: Acts 2007, 80th Leg., R.S., Ch. 272 (H.B. 95), Sec. 1, eff. September 1, 2007.Acts 2011, 82nd Leg., R.S., Ch. 840 (H.B. 3439), Sec. 2, eff. September 1, 2011. Acts 2011, 82nd Leg., R.S., Ch. 1100 (S.B. 1551), Sec. 3, eff. September 1, 2011.
(a) A person commits an offense if, with the intent to interfere with the lawful custody of a child younger than 18 years, he knowingly entices, persuades, or takes the child from the custody of the parent or guardian or person standing in the stead of the parent or guardian of such child.
(b) An offense under this section is a Class B misdemeanor, unless it is shown on the trial of the offense that the actor intended to commit a felony against the child, in which event an offense under this section is a felony of the third degree.
Acts 1973, 63rd Leg., p. 883, ch. 399, Sec. 1, eff. Jan. 1, 1974. Amended by Acts 1993, 73rd Leg., ch. 900, Sec. 1.01, eff. Sept. 1, 1994; Acts 1999, 76th Leg., ch. 685, Sec. 7, eff. Sept. 1, 1999.
Nothing contained in this post or on this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and and especially for my little Julian, could be (mis)construed as “legal advice” of any kind as author of this post is expressly NOT a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner.
Please Share. Another parent takes her own life after having children stolen by Social Services.
THIS BEAUTIFUL PERSON Lacie Dryer committed suicide this morning in her home. Heartbroken from her children being taken away by CPS. She was one awesome mom sister friend and loved everyone. How could someone so strong… I can’t believe this happened. Suicide is never the answer ppl. I miss her already. Please keep her family in your prayers.
Source: Facebook memorial
Source: obituary
RE-POSTING, RE-POSTING, RE-POSTING
CHILDREN’S SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS UNIT
Published: Feb. 12, 2013
Fair Use and Legal Disclaimer (PROMINENTLY DISPLAYED):
Some of these cases were outlined in the May 2012 Conscious Being Alliance story A Life Sentence. The summary of cases spans the past 20 years, with older and newer cases, and where many cases
PHOTO:
MAX LIBERTI. (See: LIBERTI V. LIBERTI summary.)
Written by: keith harmon snow
Categories: United States, VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND CHILDREN
Tags: Dr. Kenneth Robson, Judge Lynda B. Munro, judicial abuse, Liberti v. Liberti, Parental Alienation Syndrome, PAS
melissa harris | January 29, 2013 2:57 PM
This has happened to me I would like to be part of this also where do I file complaints against lawyers n family service division I reported to the mediators supervision but nothing . So I want to file above the court .my case was in Hartford ct. Thank u for your time sincerely Melissa Harris 860-977-3941 cell or home 860-206-9208 Donna yanofsky I give full permission to talk to her on my behalf
adrienne mcglone | February 12, 2013 5:31 PM
• Give a gift of your signature as support in the battle to stop the corruption in probate and family courts that harm and destory our children and families. Join the Petition Signature-A-Thon.
http://www.change.org/petitions/the-governor-of-ma-help-get-child-home
http://www.alexissneedshelp.blogspot.com/
Amy Andersen | February 14, 2013 1:39 PM
Exactly this happened to me also!! I lost custody of my daughter to my abusive ex husband for one reason ONLY,, HE IS VERY WEALTHY! I never so much as received a parking ticket. What happened to my daughter and I was COMPLETELY ILLEGAL IN EVERY WAY! I want very much to be part of this, but I do not know where to start or who to contact. Melissa, I would like to speak with you also if you are willing. Maby we can share information because we both are going through the same nightmare! Please call me and let me know what I can do and where I can start.
Respectfully,
Amy Andersen (203) 269-6114
Jodi Baker | February 24, 2013 4:33 PM
The same situation happened to me. I am looking to make changes in the CT family court system especially New Haven County.
Kendra | April 26, 2013 7:33 PM
Below is a proposed class action lawsuit we can file at 95 Washington Street. Melissa, do you want to take the lead?
SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT
COUNTY OF HARTFORD
————————————————————-x VERIFIED COMPLAINT
JANE DOE 1- XXX
Plaintiff, Index No.:
-against-
Dr. Howard Krieger; Dr. Kenneth Robson,
Dr. Sidney Horowitz; Atty. Steven Dembo;
Atty. Noah Eisenhandler, Jane Does 1-IV and
John Does I-IV.
Defendants
—————————————————————x
SIRS:
The Plaintiffs complaining of the Dr. Howard Krieger; Dr. Kenneth Robson; Dr. Sidney Horowitz; Atty. Steven Dembo; Atty. Noah Eisenhandler; Jane Does 1-IV and John Does I-IV (hereinafter “Defendants”), sets forth and alleges upon information and belief as follows:
1. That at all times hereinafter mentioned Plaintiffs are normal, healthy parents who have endured abnormal and unfathomable circumstances in child custody proceedings.
2. That at all times hereinafter mentioned Defendants intentionally inflicted emotional suffering on Plaintiffs and defamed Plaintiffs for the benefit of increasing conflict in child custody disputes for financial gain and/or job security.
FIRST CAUSE OF ACTION IN INTENTIONAL INFLICTION
OF EMOTIONAL SUFFERING
3. Plaintiff repeats, reiterates and re-alleges the allegations listed in paragraphs “1” through “2” as though more fully alleged herein.
4. That at all relevant times prior to April 26, 2013, Defendants emotionally abused Plaintiffs via heinous conduct beyond the standards of civilized decency.
5. That at all relevant times prior to April 26, 2013, Defendants advocated and endorsed the use of domestic abuse and domestic discipline in child custody proceedings.
6. That at all relevant times prior to April 26, 2013, Defendants aided and abetted fathers in feigning allegations to place plaintiffs under supervised visitation or otherwise reduce their access to children, alleging “mental illness”, “emotional abuse” or “parental alienation”.
7. That at all times relevant times prior to April 26, 2013 Defendants slandered, abused, ridiculed, harassed, ignored, humiliated, threatened, attacked and/or financially devastated Plaintiffs.
8. That at all relevant times prior to April 26, 2013 Defendants blatantly disregarded the rules, manipulated information, falsified evidence, harassed and bullied Plaintiffs.
9. That at all times relevant times prior to April 26, 2013 Defendants financial, emotional and legal abuse of Plaintiffs was intentional, deliberate and/or reckless.
10. That at all relevant times prior to April 26, 2013 Defendants used the fruits of their abuse to claim that Plaintiffs were “erratic, unstable and unpredictable”.
11. That at all relevant times prior to April 26, 2013 Defendants endorsed the wealthier parent as primary parents to keep their revenue steam coming via fathers contesting custody of children against stay at home mothers.
12. That at all relevant times prior to April 26, 2013, Plaintiffs sustained severe emotional damages and loss of custody of their children in monetary amounts in excess of all of the jurisdictional limits of the lower courts.
SECOND CAUSE OF ACTION IN UNJUST ENRICHMENT
13. Plaintiff repeats reiterates and re-alleges the allegations contained in paragraphs “1” though “12” as though more fully set forth herein.
14. That at all times relevant times prior to April 26, 2013 Defendants increased conflict in custody disputes for the benefit of their professional fees, job security and/or revenue stream.
15. That at all relevant times prior to April 26, 2013 Defendants were unjustly enriched by receiving professional fees, income or expenses on account of their improper conduct.
16. That prior to April 26, 2013, Defendants Dr. Howard Krieger and Dr. Sidney Horowitz were sanctioned for committing insurance fraud against Aetna Insurance.
17. Plaintiffs seek restitution of attorney fees and expert fees incurred as a result of defendants’ unjust enrichment, which is in excess of all of the jurisdictional limits of the lower courts.
THIRD CAUSE OF ACTION IN DEFAMATION OF CHARACTER
18. Plaintiff repeats reiterates and re-alleges the allegations contained in paragraphs “1” though “17” as though more fully set forth herein.
19. That at all times relevant times prior to April 26, 2013 Defendants published false statements about Plaintiffs.
20. That at all times relevant times prior to April 26, 2013 Defendants’ false statements lowered the characters of Plaintiffs in the eyes of others.
21. That at all relevant time prior to April 26, 2013 Defendants slandered, abused, ridiculed, harassed, ignored, humiliated, threatened, attacked and/or financially devastated Plaintiffs in an attempt to substantiate their false statements.
22. That Defendants intentionally inflicted emotional harm on Plaintiffs by facing them with an abusive ex-husband, fear of their children being harmed or removed and a bombardment of medico-legal allegations to substantiate their allegations of “erratic, unstable and unpredictable” behaviors.
23. That Plaintiffs’ were damaged by Defendants’ false statements and intentional infliction of emotional suffering in amounts in excess of the jurisdictional limits of the lower courts.
FOURTH CAUSE OF ACTION IN DISCRIMINATION
24. Plaintiffs repeat reiterate and re-allege the allegations contained in paragraphs “1” though “23” as though more fully set forth herein.
25. That Plaintiffs have been discriminated against on account of being stay at home mothers prior to the commencement of litigation. Defendants sided with the parent who had the most money to purchase their children.
26. That Plaintiffs sustained damages in excess of the jurisdictional limits of the lower courts on account of this unlawful socio-economic discrimination.
PRAYER FOR RELIEF
WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs respectfully requests that this Court enter an award:
(a) Enjoining and permanently restraining Defendants from intentionally inflicting emotional suffering, discriminating against and defaming the characters of Plaintiffs;
(b) Awarding Plaintiffs’ damages in excess of twenty (20) million dollars;
(c) Awarding Plaintiffs’ attorney fees and expert fees involved in pressing this action;
(d) Granting such other and further relief as the Court deems necessary and proper.
Yours etc
________________________________
VERIFICATION
STATE OF CONNECTICUT )
) ss.:
COUNTY OF HARTFORD )
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
being duly sworn, deposes and says: We are the plaintiffs in the within action; We have read the foregoing complaint and know the contents thereof; the same is true to my knowledge, except as to the matters stated therein to be alleged on information and belief, and as to those matters we believe them to be true.
__________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Sworn to before me on this
day of April 2013
Notary Public, State of Connecticut
___________________
T. Moore | April 27, 2013 10:05 AM
My case is still pending … I’m ready to keep up the battle and win the war … it’s been years and I refuse to just walk away – I’ve been w/one of the above Dr. during “Special Masters” …
kendra | April 27, 2013 11:47 AM
Attorneys with a strategy which involves inflicting emotional and financial pain on mothers to make them “erratic, unstable and unpredictable” should be reported to the Grievance Committee so that they are disbarred for a violation of Rule 8.4 (4) for conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice. The precedence their strategy sets is that a man is encouraged to abuse the mother of his children so that the attorneys can keep their revenue stream going despite the impact this has on mothers and resultantly on their children. Grievance forms can be found here:
http://www.jud.ct.gov/webforms/forms/gc006.pdf
Kendra | April 27, 2013 12:01 PM
Kendra | April 27, 2013 12:02 PM
Kendra | April 27, 2013 12:03 PM
Colleen Kerwick | June 1, 2013 3:52 PM
Here is a link to my Confessions of a Stepford Wife blog. Feel free to check into my path as I find the silver lining from my journey through the Connecticut Court System. Whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger so I’m hoping that this will be a happy story of transformation and growth.
Colleen | June 1, 2013 3:54 PM
…and again http://www.colleenkerwick.info
Sara Burns | June 28, 2013 8:00 PM
I have a significant background in Business Communications and PR and would like to contribute my files for case … amazing how many people can abuse the system for years with a documented list of offenses and still be able to misuse the system to their private advances.
Concerned Mother | August 23, 2013 9:41 PM
A person is guilty under 2011 Connecticut Code Title 53 Crimes Chapter 939
Sec. 53-21 (3) if they “permanently transfer the legal or physical custody of a child under the age of sixteen years to another person for money or other valuable consideration”… such person “shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of which five years of the sentence imposed may not be suspended or reduced by the court”. Has anyone asked the DA to issue a warrant for the arrest of some members of the custody business?
Mothers and Fathers 4 justice | October 6, 2013 3:45 AM
please sign for equal access to the courts: http://www.change.org/petitions/please-help-us-stop-the-laws-designed-to-protect-women-being-used-against-women
Ron | July 19, 2014 11:38 AM
Keith, This is information which is tragically in sync with what I’ve read from other researchers regarding pedophilia rings and subsequent cover-ups occurring WORLDWIDE. Have you read Dave McGowan’s work entitled “Pedophocracy”? It’s not surprising one bit to learn that the courts are involved in the corruption as are politicans—ETC. I am reminded also of the late Ted Gunderson, former FBI agent who became Aware, shall we say–are you aware of his investigations regarding child abuse? What is bad, evil in society is vigorously protected and encouraged by the System.
Fair Use and Legal Disclaimer (PROMINENTLY DISPLAYED):
Nothing contained in this post or on this blog, Dedicated to the Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America, and our Children Who Want to Come Home, and and especially for my little Julian, could be (mis)construed as “legal advice” of any kind as author of this post is expressly NOT a lawyer, attorney, or legal practitioner.
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http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jun/07/letter-to-babys-absent-father
Maja is now six weeks old. A seemingly never-ending pregnancy and a day’s worth of labour are slowly fading away and I find myself here with a baby with delicate bones, fine features and blue eyes, who – especially asleep, when she’s at her most beautiful – looks exactly like you. It wasn’t until the day after the delivery that I noticed the striking resemblance, the fine movements of the lips, the almond-shaped eyes, the one dimple on her right cheek. In the 42 days I’ve spent with her, I still find this resemblance strangely, unsettlingly painful.
Of course, you wouldn’t know because you’re never going to see her. As part of your solution to the problem, you have chosen to take no real notice of any of what you ingeniously called “the situation”, to which I was reluctant to find a “solution” – abortion, that is, which you never once called by its proper name. To my repeated questions, offers and suggestions all you could say was that “it” would “complicate your life beyond belief”, complication being yet another word that conceals more than it reveals. This is the first thing I wanted to tell you – how inadequate I found your entire vocabulary related to the most private and most cherished aspect of my life: my developing child.
I have pondered endlessly on issues of ownership and responsibility. As a philosophy graduate, it was almost irresistible to go through my readings of Kant, Heidegger and Sartre in my mind. Choice. The being I choose myself to be. Me, in the making of my choices. And yes, I am afraid I must agree with you, inasmuch as it is my “problem”, to have carried, delivered, and now raise this child, as it was I who chose to do these things, in the full knowledge that you would not be involved in this process.
But despite all reason, I am still struck by the matter-of-fact nature of your tone (which I took for unfeeling coldness). I am still surprised by your silence, crushed by the sadness of not being asked my baby’s sex or name and by the solitude of what it means to raise a child alone. I was meaning to ask you this: Does the fact that I chose myself, and I chose freely, rid you of all responsibility? I asked you once, and you wisely didn’t respond.
I am left with a myriad of secret longings, which I would, of course, never tell you about. I would like to see pictures of you as a baby, a toddler, a schoolboy and pictures of your female relatives – to look for Maja’s features in their faces. I would like to visit the place where you come from, drink wine with your parents, to draw myself a sketch of something I didn’t get the chance to have a closer look at.
I imagine you waking up beside that other woman, whoever she might be; she will never find out about this one aspect of your life. I find it hard to picture you, as I don’t know your apartment, but I imagine you waking up in it, flat on your back, elbow tucked beneath your head, thinking of your baby, a boy or a girl, one or the other, somewhere, with someone else, hundreds of miles away. For a few minutes every once in a while, more rarely each year, and too briefly anyway.
I guess that what I have been summoning up the courage to tell you is the most ordinary of things: it hurts.
Anonymous
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6lCpBwDt1o&feature=player_detailpage
Posted by: Mamasuntwinkle on Youtube.com, April 15, 2010
Fighting for a Disabled Mother’s Right to See Her Children; After a Mother’s Brain Injury Following Childbirth, Her Family Fights for Her to See Her Triplets. April 14, 2010, ABC news. Growing up, Abbie Dorn always dreamed of becoming a mother. Now, at age 34, she is the mother of three healthy toddlers. Her home is filled with pictures of the children, triplets named Esti, Reuvi and Yossi.
But in the 4 years since her children were born, Dorn has not been able to talk to them. She can’t hold them or watch them play. That’s because Dorn endured severe brain damage following their birth.
Now, while her children run and play in their Los Angeles home, Dorn’s family, more than 2,500 miles away in Myrtle Beach, S.C., is locked in a legal battle with the children’s father to grant Dorn the right to see her children.
The family’s lawsuit, which could make its way to a courtroom by May, could become a landmark in defining what it means to be a parent, especially when that parent is disabled.
After graduating from college in Ohio and becoming a chiropractor in Atlanta, she married Dan Dorn, a devoutly religious man who shared her beliefs in Orthodox Judaism. They settled in Los Angeles near his family, and began to plan a family of their own. But Dorn struggled to conceive. After turning to fertility treatments, she finally received word in the fall of 2005 that she was expecting triplets. “She was so excited to be pregnant, she was beginning to say, ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever get to be a mother,'” Dorn’s mother, Susan Cohen, said.
Happiness turned to heartbreak after Dorn delivered the three children. What happened in the hospital in the hours after the triplets were born is not clear. And the case was eventually settled out of court for more than $7 million. What the family does know is that Dorn began bleeding internally. Her injury was not caught soon enough, and after a series of missteps, Dorn’s brain was deprived of oxygen, leaving her severely brain damaged. Since the day her three children were born, Dorn has required around-the-clock care. She can’t speak or move on her own, and she remains in bed unless one of her caretakers moves her to a chair. Dorn spent nearly a year in hospital and rehabilitation care in California near her children.
On the anniversary of his wife’s injury, Dan called Dorn’s parents. “He said, ‘Well I need to move on,'” said Paul Cohen. Dorn’s husband eventually divorced her in 2007. In court documents, his attorney said he was “faced with the necessity of beginning to rebuild his life.”
Since the divorce, Abbie Dorn has been moved to her parents’ home in Myrtle Beach, where she undergoes a daily regime of therapies and rehab.
Dorn’s now ex-husband has refused to bring the children to see her. They said he refuses to send videos or to allow Dorn to see the children via webcam.
Dan’s attorneys argue that exposing the children to their severely disabled mother would traumatize them. Medical experts hired by his attorneys to review her records said she would never recover.
But Dorn’s parents say Dan Dorn’s experts are looking at old records, and that after years of rehabilitation, it is clear she has brain function, can understand when people talk to her and can read short passages. Having devoted the past five years to her rehabilitation, Susan and Paul Cohen believe their daughter communicates through her eyes. They say when Dorn has one long blink it means “yes.” When she is in pain, she cries out. When she is happy, they say, she can smile. Her eyes follow movements in the room. Her caretakers say several times a day she will say “yeah” or “no” in response to direct questions.
Legal Battle Over Children of a Disabled Parent
ABC News spent a day with Dorn and watched her undergo therapy. When asked if seeing her children was important to her, Dorn replied with a long blink.
“A mother needs to see her children, she gave them life,” Paul Cohen said. “Her blood is in their veins. These children need to know they have a mommy and she needs to know her children are growing.”
The family’s lawyer argues that Dorn has rights that have been ignored. “Abbie has a right, a constitutional, legal right to have her parents, her own representatives, to request visitation on her behalf,” Lisa Helfend, an attorney for Dorn and her parents, said.
Dorn’s mother believes her daughter is still “there,” saying Dorn cries, smirks and even smiles. “I know that Abbie is there … it’s well beyond a mother’s love,” Susan Cohen said.
“If all she can say to them is one or two words and show in her eyes how much she loves them, I think that will mean a great deal to those children,” Susan Cohen said.
ABC News’ requests for an interview with Dan Dorn were declined.
Fair Use and Legal Disclaimer (PROMINENTLY DISPLAYED):
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/brain-injur…
Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation
http://www.terrisfight.org/
Real Mommies and Daddies of the Real America and our Children who Want to Come Home 
scott clemens said,
March 22, 2011 at 7:28 am
Sounds like I have a similar case, in Dallas County Court, 303rd and been a victim of the corruption since January ’05. Let me read more before I comment further, I am presently case organizing fro U.S. Attorney Generals’ Office…found deaf ears at Texas Attorney General, Texas State Bar, etc have all IGNORED my pleas and requests as “lawyers” and “judges”, both associate and other continue their abuse.
Aaron said,
June 8, 2011 at 12:59 am
Dear Steven,
I am an attorney in the Houston area and would like to talk to you. There are a lot of attorneys who share your same viewpoints about the judges. It hurts the justice system as a whole when there are rogues running amuck. I have some ideas as to fight back against the system.
Ironically this systematic injustice that exists downtown is a repeat of this book
http://www.amazon.com/Women-CourtWatch-Reforming-Corrupt-Family/dp/0292709587
Please email me at your earliest convience!
Stan Rains said,
September 5, 2011 at 7:53 pm
Look up the efforts of former Houston attny Edward Truncellito. If it will open, here is an archived article,http://familyrightsassociation.com/bin/why_no_one_is_married.htm
Ed was disbarred for standing up to the bar.
A friend and attorney who stood up for me has been a repeated target of a small group of family law attorneys in Corpus Christi.
I have more than a few stories to tell on these battles.
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Sonia said,
September 20, 2011 at 7:14 pm
hi Aaron,
I would like to contact you as well. What is the best way to do so.
S
Sonia said,
September 20, 2011 at 7:15 pm
Steven,
I am waiting for your blog entries. I lost faith in common sense within family court system. Hope to find motivation and inspiration through your posts.
Sincerely,
S
Janet said,
September 26, 2011 at 10:44 pm
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Montparnasse said,
September 26, 2011 at 11:11 pm
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September 28, 2011 at 7:00 pm
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Tony said,
October 11, 2011 at 12:39 am
Currently, I am proceeding pro se in a Fort Bend County District Court (family court) and have been subjected to malicious prosecution and prolonged economic duress both intrinsic and extrinsic to the proceedings and lack the economic resources to hire an attorney. I do not meet the legal threshold for Indigency. (thank goodness) However, I live paycheck to paycheck and most of my time and resources are exhausted in an attempt to maintaining a loving relationship with my children. This is no trivial task, when faced with an ex that has a pathological need to destroy such relations.
I firmly believe that after reasonable inquiry into the facts and circumstances of my case a reasonable and prudent person would conclude that the trial court has without good cause aligned itself against me, and has actively engaged in a course of conduct constituting a pervasive pattern of artful manipulation, baiting and bullying me and my prior attorneys, selective or inconsistent application and enforcement of the law, the rules of evidence, and the rules civil procedure; and such conduct is designed and intended to achieve the trial court’s self-serving goals or desired outcome.
Additionally, the trial judge has maliciously altered portions of active legal instruments that has substantially deprived me of due possess of law and is clearly in violation of Sec. 37.10.of the Texas Penal Code, (TAMPERING WITH GOVERNMENTAL RECORD) and may constitute violations under Title 18, U.S.C., Section 242 Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law and Title 18, U.S.C., Section 241 Conspiracy Against Rights. Moreover, there are many less flagrant violations that collectively show a pervasive pattern of intentional deprivation of rights that couldn’t have occurred by chance or without intelligent design and purpose. Its not just Houston/Harris County family courts.
One of these days they are going to get tired of kicking my butt. Maybe then I will find some justice. Stay strong and never give up.
Amanda said,
November 2, 2011 at 7:46 pm
I am in the middle of a custody case in the 247 court and have never seen such corruption in my life!!! My Ex filed for custody because I got remarried. His sleezy $500 and hour Lawyers were in the associate Judges back pocket. I could not afford that kind of lawyer so I got the best I could, to no avail. My ex had a case built on lies, the same lies he used during my divorce and he lost everything in the divorce. Why is it now, he gets this big expensive attorney who is padding the judges pockets, she rules in his favor, with absolutely -0- proof!!!! This judge treated me like a mother who is on drugs and abuses and neglects my children. In fact, she stated in the temporary orders that “the court has found proof” there was no proof!! Ive never done a drug in my life, I am a hard working stand up citizen. In fact she ordered me to do several costly test and evaluations. I passed them all with flying colors, in fact the results state the I have no issue with any substances and furthermore, was diagnosed with PTSD, from my abusive ex husband. My lawyer and everyone else was floored at her decision!! She took my kids away. I am still fighting this battle, I dont know where to begin I could use some good advice on what steps I should take to overturn this ruling.
SAM CINO said,
December 13, 2011 at 1:40 pm
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Miguel Pappolla said,
December 29, 2011 at 3:35 am
The curruption in family courts is rampant in Texas. If have have an Y chromosome (meaning you are a male) you have no constitutional rights in Texas Family Law Courts. I went through a divorce in which I was falsely acused of abusing alcohol (shown to be false after forensic testing), then of abusing drugs (shown to be bogus after extensive and sophisticated forensic testing). I had to spend about $300.000 in legal fees in order to see my child. The attorney for my spouse, Lindsey Short, Jr. extinguished my then 6 year old child’s educational account (which before the divorce was approximately $90,000 to a current value of $ 0.00) in legal fees, in a case supposedly being “in the interest of the child”. All of this while I was not the bad character of the story. No history of abuse of any kind in my household or anything improper. My child and myself (the father) were punished for no reason. Family Law in Texas is a circus mounted for the financial gain of the attorneys and corrupt culture of the judges. THIS IS THE PATTERN IN TEXAS. SHAME ON YOU, Texas Family Courts.
Red Gown said,
January 30, 2012 at 4:00 pm
I read your blog on Bonnie Hellums yesterday. I was not surprised in the least and I absolutely know there are hundreds more who have witnessed their children suffer because of this poisonous woman.
I also dealt with her and personally witnessed her violating every one of the canons that define judicial misconduct. She is completely unethical, thoroughly dishonest, and lacking in intelligence and humanity. To say that her court is run based on personal relationships is a vast understatement. Attempting to get her superior, Judge Olen Underwood, to address the issue is completely futile. He has literally received scores of complaints and valid requests for her recusal and turns a blind eye and deaf ear… and he is a football buddy (Houston Oilers teammates 1967-9) of Hellums’ husband, Carel Stith. Her husband, Stith, by the way, attempted to silence a displeased client (yes, he is now a family law amicus attorney) by warning him that his wife was a family law judge and would “get him.”
I, too, read Courtwatch and was appalled to read Hellums touted as a reformer in the book. Her behavior as a judge is not just immoral, it is illegal. I have heard lawyers and other judges alike refer to her as “crazy” and am horrified and amazed that she still holds a seat. Something is terribly broken in the Harris County Family Court system. The FBI investigated it once and I believe it should be brought it again.
Those who read this blog in order to protect Hellums have chosen personal gain over the interests of the children they have sworn to protect and I hope to see them all experience justice….real justice. We should work toward that end.
Red Gown said,
February 1, 2012 at 4:03 am
I read your blog on Bonnie Hellums yesterday. I was not surprised in the least and I absolutely know there are hundreds more who have witnessed their children suffer because of this poisonous woman.
I also dealt with her and personally witnessed her violating every one of the canons that define judicial misconduct. She is completely unethical, thoroughly dishonest, and lacking in intelligence and humanity. To say that her court is run based on personal relationships is a vast understatement. Attempting to get her superior, Judge Olen Underwood, to address the issue is completely futile. He has literally received scores of complaints and valid requests for her recusal and turns a blind eye and deaf ear… and he is a football buddy (Houston Oilers teammates 1967-9) of Hellums’ husband, Carel Stith. Her husband, Stith, by the way, attempted to silence a displeased client (yes, he is now a family law amicus attorney) by warning him that his wife was a family law judge and would “get him.”
I, too, read Courtwatch and was appalled to read Hellums touted as a reformer in the book. Her behavior as a judge is not just immoral, it is illegal. I have heard lawyers and other judges alike refer to her as “crazy” and am horrified and amazed that she still holds a seat. Something is terribly broken in the Harris County Family Court system. The FBI investigated it once and I believe it should be brought it again.
Those who read this blog in order to protect Hellums have chosen personal gain over the interests of the children they have sworn to protect and I hope to see them all experience justice….real justice. We should work toward that end.
Rosalie said,
March 8, 2012 at 7:44 pm
The 247th Familly Court – Judge Bonnie Hellums – ruined my faith in the legal system. She repreatedly ignored the evidence across two and half years of hearings, violated my parental rights to my son’s records, discriminated against me because I had the mistfortune to lose my job and get cancer, and conducted herself in the most unprofessional manner from the bench, sarcastic, belittling and threatening. As an example of the many , she sneered “cancer comes back and did I want my son to go through all that.”
I wished I had had a video-camera everytime I was in her court. (I always order transcripts.) If my attorney and I were not being the brunt of her venom, then I would see before my hearing all the parents that were not represented by Hellums’ favorite attorneys. My mother followed a mom out of the courtroom to console her one time because Hellums had given the three toddlers to the father who did not want them, because the mom’s attorney failed to tell her about the parenting class. When the mom cried, Hellums shouted “crying won’t get you anywhere” as if the mom had thought it would.
In my case, my son’s father literally marked through the right to determine residency, and wrote in that the “father had the right to determine residency” in our divorce decree in 2002, after Judge Hellums had approved the decree, but before it was filed with the Clerk. In 2009 when my son wanted to live with me, I appeard before Judege Hellums. In the court records, there uninitialed by my attorney and my initials were written in by my ex-husband, was a clear evidence of fraud. However, Judge Hellums rewarded the fraud, she ignored it. Then, Hellums claimed that had no bearing on the case before her.
In more recent hearings, she denies my right for my son’s records (I have joint custody and conservatorship) even though his father’s team has them and relies on them for expert evidence. There is not case law presented by my Ex, his initimate friend the therapist, and their attorneys. Hellums just denies it because she can. She answers to no one.
I finally asked for a jury trial, but then I settled in mediation but the Hellums court has left a cruel mark on my son.
Administrator said,
March 9, 2012 at 5:14 pm
Rosalie – I’m very sorry for injustice and harm that Judge Hellums has caused you through her actions during your case. I have experienced many more instances in the 5 years that my case was pending other than what is provided on my website in which Judge Hellums based her deciisons, not on the law, but on who her favorite attorney was for that day or who had the better smile… Whatever the case, her and her court court is not interested in the slighted in doing what is in the best interests of our very young children. Instead, she and her flock of favorite attorneys cover for each other’s wrongdoings. I know for a fact that attorneys will illegally communicate (unilaterally) with Judge Hellums regarding a pending case in her court. These are called ex parte communications and are strongly prohibited because they can unfairly influence the judge. Instead of refusng to rerspond to these communications and providing a copy to all other attorneys on the case in accordance with the rules and Judicial Ethics Opinions, Judge Hellums deletes the commnunciations so that there is no evdience of her or the attorney’s wrongdoing and denies ever receiving the communications in open court. Just unbelievable. I have a civil lawsuit pending against a very big name attorney here in Houston, Wendy Burgower, for her malicious actions based in part on the improper influence of her ex parte communciations with Judge Hellums and the resulting order that was signed by Judge Hellums due to the improper influence. What is sad is that no one in the court system will do anything to stop it, even after evidence of wrongdoing is presented.
Again, I’m sorry for your experience with Judge Hellums and I wish you much luck and happiness with your son… God bless….
Marina said,
April 1, 2012 at 2:00 am
Dan,
You have got a good thing going on here on this page. If we do not speak out somewhere, nobody is interested in hearing our individual stories unless they are repeated cases of corruption, and prejudiced judicial system.
Judge Carolyn Marks Johnson who gets paid by me with my tax dollars told me to go and spend more of my hard earned money and come to court with an attorney.
She enforced the fudged MSA bc she cannot stand an independent and intelligent woman in front of her.
http://houstondwidefender.com/2010/02/what-is-wrong-with-montgomery-county/
As for Wendy Burgower, beware if you come across as more intelligent than her. She is a diva in her mind and told me off with the following words: ” who do you think you are to go to court on your own? What? You think you are smarter than me? Because I know you are just bitter because your husband left you.”
No class, classless, an old crow with peacock up her culo.
Sam said,
August 13, 2012 at 3:32 am
http://www.scribd.com/doc/93542774/Reply-to-Response-to-Motion-for-Sanctions
What is it with 309th? Same lawyers Mary olga Lovett, Robert Kuehm, and Judge Dean. Weird. Too weird to be coincidence.
Administrator said,
August 14, 2012 at 2:43 am
Sam,
Wow – no surprise though. Robert Kuehm and Mary Olga Lovett were masters of deceit and corruption evidenced by their many violations of the Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct when they were a team on my case. Mary Olga said at my trial that she would never work a family law case again – yeah right. I guess there is just too much opportunity to break the rules in the family law courts…
Thanks for sharing…
Lynn said,
September 11, 2012 at 9:45 pm
Judge Hellums worked in the best interest of my ex husband and his family of lawyers and in the worst interest of my children twelve years ago when she presided over my divorce and chose the custodial parent of my children to be a man who left the house at 5 am and left three children, ages 12, 10 and 8 to fend for themselves to wake, ready, and get to school on their own or with an evil woman who started their day by speaking badly of their mother on their way to school. He had nothing but negativeTwo of the three were able to get through challenging years with therapy and God and staying positive through the negative lifestyle they had to endure. The third is now a victim of Bonnie Hellums and her “interest of the child” ruling, back in the court system due to alcohol and drug abuse, in an effort to “escape” the life Bonnie Hellums chose for him. Her words in the courtroom, after checking her watch over and over and seeming bored with character witnesses for myself (at least 10), but listening quite attentively to the one character witness for my ex, his sister, who happens to be a lawyer, “I’ve made my decision….the children will stay in the home with the father and the mother has between 6 and 8pm to remove her belongings”. That was certainly not in the best interest of my children, but no one was listening, especially not the Judge. We owned two homes and I walked out of the courtroom with no home. Shameful that our court system has the power to ruin young lives to favor lawyers–WRONG.
Sam said,
September 22, 2012 at 6:58 pm
http://www.facebook.com/events/228667450589061/?ref=nf
International protest for the love of children
Here in Houston on september 27th.
ENRIQUE said,
October 10, 2012 at 8:49 pm
A judge in the 247th district court would not even listen to my side of the story even though I have documented video, audio, text messages, paper work that proves the facts of my case. The apposing lawyer postponed the case so long that the amicus representing the case went on his side to slander me and make me seem like all I wanted was child support money when that wasn’t the case at all. My ex spouse kept my son out of school for 2 1/2 months and would not take him to get medical help when he needed it and all I wanted was temporary custody to get him back in school and get him medical attention. They made it into an all out custody battle which was never intended.
Jo said,
November 13, 2012 at 9:45 pm
How did you find an atty to file a civil suit? Who is the atty, and would this person be willing to file class action suit?
Dorothea Laster said,
February 10, 2013 at 3:23 am
Corruption exists in the world. However, a lot of times what appears to be corruption to a lay person is just a lack of information about how the judicial system works–usually a lack of knowledge about procedural rules. That’s what attorneys know that you don’t when you represent yourself–and the process is not geared toward slowing down and explaining it to you. That said–there are implied findings in a Judge’s ruling from the bench. Clearly a Judge cannot recite 40 pages of text that a divorce decree or other order will end up being. Guidance about short cut phrases about what rights a Joint Managing Conservator will have, for example, is in the Family Code in detail. If you don’t know that, the order you get may be a surprise. Also, attorneys or pro se parties draft orders in Texas State Courts–the Judges typically don’t.
Judges do not have time to read each proposed decree word for word–if at all. If you have an issue with a proposed order because you don’t think it reflects the Court’s ruling the burden is upon you to come up with your own judgment within the time frame, and file a motion to enter your order/judgment and set it for hearing. If the other side’s inaccurate order got entered without being provided to you first, you can file a timely motion to set aside or correct that order (or call it a motion for new trial), and again submit what you think is the correct judgment language and have a hearing on it. Time limits do matter. You can be right as rain–but if you didn’t file your motion to correct the judgment in a timely manner a Judge lacks the power to correct it. I dislike lawyer and judge slamming. Lawyers studied long and hard and representation of a party to a lawsuit is not as easy as it looks. It makes me mad sometimes–I don’t go to your job an assume I can do what you do without training–why do you assume you can do mine? If you have to represent yourself–assume that there are things (especially deadlines) that you don’t know and try to familiarize yourself with procedural deadlines. If you get an adverse ruling promptly get a cpoy of the transcript of what the Judge said and/or take detailed notes of what the Judge said. That can help any subsequent lawyer trying to help to tell you where you went wrong, and what to do next, or if this really is a rare case of improper judicial conduct. Look in your phone book for low income legal services like legal aid. I hope that helps. This is not intended to be a substitute for legal advice–just an observation.
Sam cino said,
February 23, 2013 at 8:06 pm
Politicians have made it legal for Nazi jugdes , lawyers and the children aid socities to kidnapped our children so that they can be bruttally raped and pillaged by them.. with no accountablity !!!! … isn;t democracy beautiful!!!!!
policticians , jugdes, lawyers , family phsycologist and children aid societies cannot raise their own children but our going to tell me and yuou how to raise ours???????
my believe ;; if judges are above the law
therefore they must be God
i suggest they get nailed to the cross
and see if they can rise again from the dead.
Stop the Corruption said,
April 5, 2013 at 4:21 pm
I am interested in writing a story about corruption in Harris County Family Court. Please contact me by email at stopthecorruptioninharris@gmail.comso that you can share your part of the story. Thank you. I hope to hear from you soon.
jacket said,
May 25, 2013 at 2:53 am
Please call me asap. I have a girlfriend going
Through HELL. This could be a big lawsuit. For anyone who’s been ruined.
Please. 2103283283
Jackie
Andrea said,
July 1, 2013 at 8:01 am
If you want to write about the Harris County Family Court then you need to hear my entire story that is STILL going on after 15 years and over half a million in attorneys fees. What I can say is that I was lucky to find Wally Mahoney in 1999 because in Harris County every attorney you know will be happy to ask for at least $5,000 to “help you” and if they suck, then they will also be happy to put a lein against your assets to get paid. Wally won for me as long as I followed his rules. And he is a big part of that group of attorneys, and it’s not Wally, it’s just how you have to operate to win in Harris County. I do not advocate Robert Keuhm and would rather see him shipped to practice in Mexico since he was instrumental in removing my children from me after my ex-husband attempted to kidnap my children out of the country. He got mad about my not being able to pay his bills and that’s the way it works.
Wally isn’t like that, but you have to pay. After years of fighting, and winning and losing and rehiring and firing attorneys – Wally the most (and that takes character to get fired and be re-hired by the same person) I will tell you. Get a prenup. There were great judges when I started my case in 1999, but my Judge is now on the Texas State Supreme Court and the same old groups are running the show. And the judges make you hire Dr. Silverman, and Dr. Silverman or their shrink of choise, and the Judge will put you at risk and ensure you live with your soon to be ex unless you get beat up and gain a protective order. Then you have to leave the home with no property or money until you can get the judge to have you very FAIR ex husband to allow a FRIEND OR NEIGHBOR to come get the THINGS HE chooses to disclose that he has – despite all this father’s rights crap – there are no winners in this situation and the father’s rights advocates have ruined the system.
There should be no bias on gender per our constitution. Right? Please avoid that father’s rights crap – for those women whom have lost their rights but don’t have a Political Action Committee backing them. Let’s call it even. I know the Harris County Family Court Judges tried to right a long-time wrong of father’s not gaining custody but it was OVERKILL. And it literally did kill. I know more than one mtoher that has been stalked and killed. I know children that have committed suicide. And I know one father that gained custody from a dedicated mother that had a wonderful job and gave her two children wonderful lives, but I had a brain aneurysm. When I got out of hte hospital alive, I had lost my kids and was ordered to pay child support. I’ve never recovered from that, nor has Wally I am sure. But there was an Ad Litem name Robert Keuhm that could have made a difference.
There were many others involved in my case which listen PEOPLE involves a Mexcian National that flies for Continenatl Airlines, dresses like a woman most of the time, and is holding my children hostage – he frightens me, threatens to hurt them and I just wait for them to turn 18. That is all I can do after all the money, and the sincere threat of their disappearance to Mexico or Germany. Count your blessings Dads, and remember there are women tat have suffered the same injustices. If I could, and I will. I will write my book when I am sure my children will not be hurt any more than they do now, since if I even attempt to visit them, he serves me for any unnecessary thing. And his attorney is a woman. How about that? Don’t hesitate to call me and I can refer you all over town tot the right attorneys, do not ask your neighbor, your boss, your friend. Ask someone that knows and has spent hours upon hours in the 409,
jo said,
July 13, 2013 at 4:09 pm
Aaron, you are an atty. You had some ideas. I would like to talk to you. How can you be reached? My grandson would like to take action, and I would like to help him if possible. Oh,Truncellito is dirty, He was part of the corruption. His office address is non existant, and he is now working for the federal Govt. He is and was involved in this crud. Not only was there an FBI investigation(stopped by Don Clark who went to work for the O’Quinn law firm), there was a US Justice dept investigation. The women and men who protested this coruption almost got them, but they killed several of them including Donna Ringoringo, and another man. These were good people. They also fired the US investigator. The dirty people won. These people are organized criminals. they need to be stopped.
Darla said,
November 18, 2013 at 8:59 pm
If you google The Enos Law Firm Newsletter there is an article that reads Judge Bonnie Hellums must change her illegal policies. This judge Bonnie Hellums in court 247th must enjoy taking kids away from their mothers. This judge gave my son’s father custody after he failed 2 drug tests that were court ordered and he is a convicted felon. All because he had a better lawyer that knows the judge. The decision was made before I even went to court. I did not get a fair trial and I lost my son just because I had moved out of state and had to move back. My son’s father denied me of many visitations but I still have to pay him child support. I have lost my son all thanks to this judge. Please vote someone else in before more children are taken from their mothers for no good reason.
Victor rojas said,
January 13, 2014 at 8:12 pm
My name is victor rojas , me and my daughter are victims of this evil women Bonnie hellums . On 2002 I went to court just for a costedy arrangement . My ex had a really good lawyer mine not so good . My ex lied her eyes out I out me that I was a drunk , I did drugs , I beat her , I tryed to kill my daughter which was two years old at the time . And judge Bonnie hellums belived everything she said , and my ex had abselutly no proof or records of these thing she said happend . But I belive because I’m of Mexican descend and my ex is white the judge belived her . So after all that the Judge sent me to a drug and alchole assesment center and nothing negative came out . Then I did a year at safe program they gave me good reviews , a hair drug test came back negative for drugs . Sent me to her clinical sycoligist he said I had no anger issues and there was nothing wrong with me . I was thrown in jail because I was like three months late on child support . But I did pay my ex every late payment when she took me to court . The story gose on and on . I fought her for about 8 years and I still have not seen my child . I don’t understand how some horrible person can sit there and deside to ruin someone’s life and nothing can be done about it . At least I know when she dies she will be judged for everything she did to us .
Attorney CS said,
January 18, 2014 at 9:00 am
I am an attorney and uncovered wide spread corruption. It is not just in the family law courts, it is in all of the courts. It involves the clerks, the lawyers, the DA’s, and more. It is not a friendship deal, it is all financial (payoffs). It is a system of criminal lawyers and judges, who have a criminal system to defraud unsuspecting persons. They love when the unsuspecting party does not know what is going on. They all put on a show. And even the lawyer for the unsuspecting victim, determined at the start of the case, knows what us going on. The only one who does not know is the litigant with the bad label. It is sick and evil. But it is not only family law. They will target a business to take over, a person with money to steal from and they come from all sides. They use the same scams over and over and the same tricks over and over. I have been fighting the corruption for years and I think I will publish a book with the top 100 tricks they all use to cheat. Then, they use the state bar of Texas to attack the lawyers who speak out, which is what I am going through. It is a constant fight. The system is very sick and almost, if not, hopeless. A lot of arrests and a lot of changes need to take place to change this corrupt system before we fall like Rome. It is just as bad here as any third world country, and if you do not believe it, that is because you do not see it.
Attorney CS said,
January 18, 2014 at 9:06 am
This in on the FBI’s website and this is what is going on all over the place. If you want to know what is happening, read this.
“Public Corruption: Courtroom for Sale Judge Gets Jail Time in Racketeering Case”
Frank Bustoz said,
February 17, 2014 at 8:08 pm
In Austin….dealing with my ex’s unethical dirty scoundral of a lawyer…he and her are hell bent on minimizing my time with my son. Anyone with any advice or recommendations ….I appreciate any help!!?? I currently have a SAPCR final Order…she violated it for six months under the advice and urging of her attorney….I need to know how to file sanctions on opposing counsel…MOtion to Disqualify…as well a a civil suit if this is possible ….
Frank Bustoz said,
February 17, 2014 at 8:10 pm
Hello, In Austin….dealing with my ex’s unethical dirty scoundral of a lawyer…he and her are hell bent on minimizing my time with my son. Anyone with any advice or recommendations ….I appreciate any help!!?? I currently have a SAPCR final Order…she violated it for six months under the advice and urging of her attorney….I need to know how to file sanctions on opposing counsel…MOtion to Disqualify…as well a a civil suit if this is possible ….
Richard Letty said,
September 18, 2014 at 4:08 pm
Bonnie Crane Hellums has breached her judiciary responsibilities as judge in the 247th District Court by engaging in such practices as tampering with transcripts, engaging in exparte communications with opposing counsel, and extending legally inconsistent rulings for the benefit of favored attorneys. We, the citizens of Texas, petition the State of Texas to deny Judge Hellums any and all benefits that may accrue to her from the State of Texas and Harris County.
Without you, the citizens of Harris County, justice cannot be served for the children and families who have suffered because of Judge Hellums’ alleged bias and violations of law. Until now, the stories and voices of those affected have not been heard. Today, a chance for change is possible and we all have a voice that can be heard across the world-wide web. Sign the petition at http://www.nomorehellums.org for “No More HELLums” and justice for our children.
Priscella said,
December 30, 2014 at 12:50 pm
I am also a victim of court 247. my kids were forced to live with their dad one year ago. It broke me emotionally and my children too. I’m beginning to feel strong again and would like to tell my story and I’m seeking people who will be willing to help me. My children are 10 and 7. They were 7 and 5 when our world’s were thrown into a tornado. They cry and wish so much to have their old lives back. I’m not even sure if that is possible. But I am willing to at least try. I love my children and I would never give up on them.
Sara said,
February 2, 2015 at 6:23 am
can a RIGHTEOUS attorney within a state AS BIG AS TEXAS simply STEP UP ?
this is UNREAL that no one can get a word in edgewise inside these kangaroo courts and OUR FAMILIES ARE DESTROYED.
and folks ? this ALSO APPLIES to the subhumans within the probate /guardianship AND THEY ARE CPS ON STEROIDS.
Instead of your under age 18 children disappeared, our adult aged DISABLED and elderly ARE DISAPPEARED.
SOME GET LUCKY and PAY THOUSANDS to make their own disabled adults WARD OF THESE COURTS as that’s ALL A GUARDIANSHIP DOES, it makes THEM WARDS OF THE COURT and goolygeeeez,THEY THEN ALLOW YOU TO POSSESS THE WARD….bbbbut as THEIR WARD and you all are on a lifetime of PROBATION reporting to the COURT.
plus in MOST CASES there are no charges or crimes or even APS involved….just THEIR SACRED WORD against YOUR FACTUAL TRUTHS.
sound familiar ? same script different stage and actors.
why is there NO ONE to take authentic, VERIFIED CASES regarding JUDICIAL ABUSE = constitutional violations ?
WE need to UNITE AND FIGHT NONSTOP and sue them out of business.
Camilla said,
February 7, 2015 at 6:45 am
Corpus Christi – is there any accountability in family law court for arrogant spouses who break all temporary orders or for attorneys who seem to turn a blind eye to the needs of their own client? While I won’t claim to have been the best spouse, I entered into the legal process of divorce with respect and intention to allow the law to settle our differences but I am the only party involved who is. What recourse do I have if my spouse closed over 200 thousand dollars worth of accounts, made criminal accusations to an employer, gave my dog away, changed the locks on our home, refused to give me the paycheck my employer mailed to said home and refused to show at mediation? My paid in full attorney hasn’t answered my questions and because of the in access to my own money, I can’t hire another!
Suggestions? (thank you)
Michael said,
February 18, 2015 at 4:47 pm
It was just brought to my attention that an attorney that is appointed as an amicus out of this court is married to a convicted child sex offender with a long history for drugs. The attorney is Shannon Boudreaux and she is married to a guy names Richard David Crow. I can’t believe these judges would appoint someone as an amicus for the children who is married to a person convicted of a sexual offense against a child.
http://houstonfamilylawcorruption.com/blog/2011/02/15/welcome-to-my-blog/