The Guardian Ad Litem Scandals - Legislative Reforms Needed

The Guardian Ad Litem Scandals - Legislative Reforms Needed

Posted in Uncategorized by americanmotherspoliticalparty

Posted with permissions from: Montana Public Radio, KUFM, which ran on their news broadcast 10-5-2010.

Interview with Assistant News Director Edward O'Brien and Kathleen Russell of the www.CenterForJudicialExcellence.org about the cottage industry of Guardian Ad Litems aka GAL's and the much needed State to State Reforms to pull their Immunity from accountability and prosecution for sending children to live with abusers in Disputed Child Custody Cases.

Remember that therapeutic jurisprudence COSTS money, and prolongs litigation. It costs nothing to abrogate their immunity and/or to get rid of them. See, http://www.thelizlibrary.org/therapeutic-jurisprudence/TheDetectives.html

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Hague (US) The Hague Domestic Violence Project – Final Report

US report here:  http://www.haguedv.org/reports/finalreport.pdf

The Hague Domestic Violence Project

• Home  Mothers   Advocates  Attorneys   Judges   Project Reports   Contact Us

International Child Abduction and Domestic Violence

Hague Permanent Bureau Publishes Paper on Domestic Violence and Hague Cases

The Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference has published a new paper titled Domestic and Family Violence and the Article 13 “Grave Risk” Exception in the Operation of the Hague Convention of 21980 on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction: A Reflection Paper in preparation for the upcoming meetings at The Hague, The Netherlands.

Final Report and Presentation Now Available

Our final report to the National Institute of Justice has been approved for release. Our presentation at the National Institute of Justice is also online. Please go to our Reports page to listen to the presentation and download our report for free.

Time Magazine covers Hague DV study

Time Magazine ran a story on our research on the homepage of its website on Human Rights Day 2010. Read the story titled Protecting Kids: Rethinking the Hague Convention on Time's website. The study was also covered in recent press releases by the University of Minnesota and the University of Washington.

On-Demand Continuing Education Available from Thomson Reuters

The HagueDV Project offered a live, global webcast on Human Rights Day 2010. Actors from the world renown Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis performed staged readings of battered mothers' stories as told to us in our recently completed NIJ-funded study on Hague Convention cases. These readings were interspersed with commentary by leading scholars in law and social science about how Hague hearings should consider domestic violence. Earn either 2.5 Law CLE or 2.5 Social Work CEU credits. You can attend and earn credits for FREE through your computer anywhere in the world online thanks to our partnership with West Legal Edcenter and the Guthrie Theatre and with generous support from the law firm of Robins, Kaplan, Miller and Ciresi, LLP and Greater Twin Cities United Way.

On-Demand Recording Now Available. West Legal Edcenter has now made a delayed on-demand broadcast of the Guthrie Theater CLE/CEU available for the next several months. It remains a free event. Please go the West Legal Edcenter to register and participate in the two and a half hour continuing education.

ECHR Says Hague Rulings Must Consider Child's Best Interests

The European Court of Human Rights ruled in the case of NEULINGER AND SHURUK v. SWITZERLAND that the best interest standard applies to decisions on return of a child and that full consideration must be given to the merits of claims that the child will be at risk under Article 13(b) of the Convention. This decision is persuasive authority for countries around the world because the Court has argued that international human rights standards arising from the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Declaration of the Rights of the Child and regional human rights instruments require that when risk is assessed under Article 13(b) reference to 'best interest of children' means that the interest of an individual child before the court must be taken into account and be paramount.

Providing Assistance to Individuals Involved in Hague Convention Cases

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction is an international treaty that requires countries to work together to quickly return an abducted child back to his or her home country. Although the treaty was created to protect children, the results are often the opposite when domestic violence is involved. The Hague Domestic Violence Project focuses on providing a comprehensive resource to assist individuals involved in a Hague Convention case where domestic violence is an issue.

Hague Convention Cases are Time and Fact Sensitive

Whether you are a woman seeking safety, an attorney facing your first Hague Convention case, a judge hearing a Hague Convention case for the first time, or an advocate seeking to assist a battered woman and her children, you are likely facing strict deadlines and confusion about what steps you need to take. This site is meant to help guide you through the system.

• For domestic violence victims, we provide resources to assist you in obtaining legal aid and other forms of assistance.
• For attorneys, we have compiled databases with cases, legal briefs and other useful documentation to assist you in preparing for court hearings.
• For judges, we have created bench guides and provide access to our case database to assist you in presiding over Hague Convention disputes.
• For advocates for battered women, we are compiling expert testimony and other useful resources to guide you in providing aid to victims.

Meet the Members of the Hague Domestic Violence Project

We are a team of individuals from various professional backgrounds who are dedicated to creating a comprehensive resource that will enable mothers, attorneys, judges and advocates for battered women to better prepare themselves for Hague Convention cases in the United States' legal system. To learn more about our dedicated team, visit our page on Our Staff and Volunteers.

We are Always Looking for Ways to Better Help You

We at The Hague Domestic Violence Project are constantly updating this Web site to provide you with the information you need to handle your situation effectively and efficiently. If you cannot find what you are looking for on this site, please let us know. We are continuously looking for more information and ways to improve this site.

Why this Project?

We are a team of individuals from various professional backgrounds who are dedicated to creating a comprehensive resource that will enable mothers, advocates for battered women, attorneys and judges to better prepare themselves for Hague Convention cases in the United States' legal system.

• NEW: Final Report of HagueDV research findings.
• Pointed questions on the Hague and DV at the U.S. Supreme Court
• DV-LEAP Brief in the Supreme Court case
• NCJFCJ story on UCAPA and DV by Weiner & Mitchell
• Law review article on Hague solutions by Prof. M.H. Weiner

• Searchable case database
• Country-specific resources
• Comprehensive bibliography
• Bibliography archive
• National and International Publications
• more...

This project is affiliated with the University of Minnesota and the University of Washington and is funded by the National Institute of Justice.See disclaimer.

Toll free: (866) 820-4599
E-mail Us

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

Judicial Guide

End the Silence of Domestic Violence in Child Custody Cases - Dr. Phil Show

Great Job Steve Burdo and the Center For Judicial Excellence!!!

End the Silence of Domestic Violence in Child Custody Cases

Dr. Phil: Stats show that in Domestic Violence Families children are abused 50% times more often than non Domestic Violence Families. So Why Are We giving Abusers and Pedophiles and killer daddy's custody of these same children?

 

fromwww.drphil.com

Steve Burdo is the lead advocacy consultant for the Center for Judicial Excellence. “Women are just not being believed or listened to in family court, where the majority of these cases are being tried,” he says. “Oftentimes, they are being blamed and punished. Only in family court do we see a situation where the victim is the person who has to present the case against the abuser. If it’s in criminal court, it would be a DA or a prosecutor who would present the case for the victim, but if a woman is the victim of domestic violence, and can’t afford an attorney, then she has to go into court and present that case, and it’s extremely intimidating facing your abuser in the first place, but being able to go about the more technical or litigious aspects of presenting a case. In our criminal courts, we will make sure that our most heinous murderers have adequate legal representation. However, a mother who’s trying to protect herself or her child and can’t afford an attorney in family court, she’s thrown to the courts like a lamb to the slaughter.”

“How do we change that?” Dr. Phil asks.

“We need to completely rethink the way we handle domestic violence cases, and that means having all the right people involved, not just the legislators, not just the courts,” Steve says. “You need a domestic violence community, you need domestic violence victims at that table, talking about how to change the way we handle these cases, and it’s something that’s just not happening right now.”

“It doesn’t seem to me, from my involvement in this, that we have all the entities communicating,” Dr. Phil says. “If CPS is involved, a criminal court may not know that. If there’s a custody battle, CPS may assume that the family court is looking at this, so they’re not going to start an investigation, because they think it would be redundant, when in fact they might have resources that the family court doesn’t have, particularly with our budget cuts. Why do we not have family court, criminal court people talking to each other?”

“With the hundreds of calls we get each month at the Center for Judicial Excellence, our experience is that we see it’s more of an issue of CPS not communicating with the family courts,” Steve says.

“When CPS is investigating allegations of abuse, and they see that there’s a custody dispute also, they will just close the case as inconclusive. It’ll then go to the family courts. The family courts will look at it and go, ‘Oh, this was closed as inconclusive. There’s no abuse,’ and they’ll just take that as a final verdict.”

Civil and family attorney Areva Martin and the National Network to End Domestic Violence have child custody precautions every mother needs to know before leaving an abusive relationship. See their tips here!

Read more at www.drphil.com

Politics

http://www.drphil.com/shows/video/?XMLPath=%2Fvideo.xml%2F%3FShowID%3D1666%26Type%3DUncensored

Peter Jamison: Parental Alienation: A 'Mythical Legal Argument'- PAS: Mad Science?

 

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2011/05/parental_alienation_syndrome_d.php

California family courts

Parental Alienation: A 'Mythical Legal Argument'

By Peter Jamison, Thu., May 19 2011 @ 2:18PM

Categories: California family courts, Crime, Law & Order, Science

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PAS: Mad science?

​Slate published an excellent story this week on the battle over whether to include the theory of "Parental Alienation Syndrome" in the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Like almost every other informed and disinterested observer who has assessed the validity of PAS, Slate senior editor Dahlia Lithwick takes a very dim view of the theory.

She also gracefully articulates the many reasons that the theory, as currently used as "scientific evidence" in family courts across the country, is pernicious. In a March cover story, SF Weekly described how PAS -- and its virtually identical variant, "Parental Alienation" or PA -- can be used by abusive fathers to win custody of children from protective mothers.

The theory of Parental Alienation, a term coined by the late pedophilia apologist Richard Gardner, posits that mothers maliciously brainwash their children to hold delusions of sexual abuse at the hands of an estranged father. As described by its adherents, PAS is probably the only supposed psychiatric condition that arises solely in the context of divorce proceedings, one of many reasons that reputable scientific and medical organizations such as the American Medical Association don't recognize it.

As Lithwick puts it:

... no hypothesis so rooted in gender bias should be credited by medical science. And because evidence of PAS is so frequently offered to counter maternal allegations of abuse, the experts testifying about PAS can be aiding and abetting a system that takes children from abused mothers and hands them right back to abusive fathers. Once again, this doesn't mean that some parents don't alienate their children in a divorce. It means that PAS is now used to discredit women whenever they claim abuse.

Of course, despite its tenuous scientific credentials, PAS has become the dominant psychological paradigm of the family-court system. The word "syndrome" is often deliberately omitted so that litigants arguing that the condition exists can avoid the unsavory connotations of the theory's origins, and most particularly its founder, Gardner, who argued that "pedophilia has been considered the norm by the vast majority of individuals in the history of the world."
Lithwick's conclusion: "While nobody was looking, a mythical legal argument known as parental alienation may have already taken over family courts."
Follow us on Twitter at @SFWeekly and @TheSnitchSF

Tags:

child molester, Dahlia Lithwick, evidence admissibility, family court evaluators, family courts, Parental Alienation Syndrome, pedophilia, Richard Gardner, Slate

Domestic Violence and Divorce - The Epidemic Facing Battered Mothers in Family Court

Dr. Jeanne King, Ph.D

Battered mothers in divorce court often look like "swine flu" survivors that haven't realized they are part of an epidemic. These women are in awe over what is "happening" or has "happened" to them and their children.

They go into court expecting "justice" and walk out thinking they missed the boat or those on their ship merely kicked them off. And from here, they franticly reach out merely trying to stay afloat in the wake. They are perplexed as to why and how they end up with supervised visitation and no custodial rights.

The Reality of Family Court

Divorce court is not the place to go to get justice for domestic violence; rather it's the place to go to get a divorce. You are there to seek assistance in splitting up the family estate and tend to the issues pertaining to child custody and visitation.

Now, some people will argue saying that their particular state has laws to protect victims of domestic abuse. Such laws may include statutes that assert a presumption regarding best interest of the children in the context of court-documented domestic violence.

However, even in these states, litigants are granted the right to litigate. And when one plays their hand cleverly, they can jockey custody via the use of the common and customary ploys involving legal domestic and legal psychiatric abuse.

Battered Mothers and the Swine Flu

I liken baffled battered mothers blindly hit by legal domestic and legal psychiatric abuse to uninformed swine flu survivors in the trenches of their flu symptoms. What they have in common is that both of these groups may be living a nightmare and not even realize the epidemic proportions of their condition.

If battered mothers knew of the trends in family court before they stood on the threshold of their proceedings or at a minimum while navigating the system, they could better protect themselves from becoming another statistic...just like those inflicted with the swine flu may have prevented their ordeal with some knowledge of prevention and early care to avoid becoming another H1N1 statistic.

Conclusions for Domestic Violence Survivors in Family Court

You must know the larger picture of domestic violence divorce in addition to your individual vignettes and concerns. You see, this picture is much bigger than you and your children. Appreciate that in order for you to best navigate your proceedings, you will need to be informed about domestic violence divorce, legal domestic abuse and legal psychiatric abuse.

For more information about domestic violence and divorce, visithttp://www.preventabusiverelationships.com/legal_domestic_ab use.php . Dr. Jeanne King, Ph.D. helps people nationwide prevent and remedy legal domestic and legal psychiatric abuse. Copyright 2010 Jeanne King, Ph.D. - Domestic Violence Prevention and Intervention

Judicial Abuse

Judicial Abuse

Introduction

Judicial abuse occurs when the effects of law itself are damaging to the person access to justice. In the most severe forms, Judicial abuse often occurs involving the most vulnerable members of our world: Children.

For some time, judicial abuse has occurred across systems and mostly against mothers and children. Considering that it was not that long ago that both women and children were seen and not heard, just as things were improving it seemed as though humanity was finally valuing each and every precious human life.

Out in the public, such things would and do cause enough outrage for a sense of "natural justice". Away from the public eye, these human rights atrocities occur almost unseen and unheard like a thief in the night.

Secrecy

There are laws that prevent survivors from speaking out about their experiences. Whilst it is "for the children", children are not allowed to speak about the proceedings either. The media have written too few articles on the family court.

To bring the case to the media, participants must seek permission from the court itself or face imprisonment. Controversially, fathers rights groups were allowed to heavily voice their stories of "no contact", "falsely accused of child abuse and domestic violence" and few were allowed to challenge that except in utilizing generalist terms and evidence based research.

We are aware that most of these stories are not the case at all but are withheld by law to bring the public the truth.

Family Court

In the process of seeking more time with children and promoting what appears to be the most noble cause, has entrenched the rights of mothers and children in their ability to seek safety from violence.

Heads have been quoted in the media for stating that "family violence is our core business". The propaganda that is spread about the voices of children and their access to justice promotes the profitability in manufacturing child abuse and domestic violence.

They can do something about it, but it is not within their best economical advantage to do so. This will continue until something is done.

Petition:

We, the undersigned, call to the UN to eliminate judicial abuse globally.

Sign the petition

The Stop Judicial Abuse petition to USA, Australia, UK, Canada and all other participating Family Courts that engage in judicial abuse was written by Anonymum and is hosted free of charge at GoPetition.