4.30.2009

Use of Parental Alienation Syndrome Soon to Be Outlawed in California….

 

Family Court Crisis; Our Children at Risk

www.CenterForJudicialExcellence.org

http://blip.tv/file/1199654/

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Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis/GH) Testifies About Personal Ordeal

By Michele Dargan | Monday, April 27, 2009, 10:46 PM

An interesting press release arrived today that I thought I’d share with you.

When I saw Nancy Lee Grahn’s name in the headline, it immediately got my attention.

And as I read on, it became even more interesting.

As a soap fan, I have - for years - enjoyed Nancy Lee Grahn’s portrayal of the strong, smart, ever-so-efficient attorney Alexis Davis.

But I had no idea that she was involved in a court battle regarding her child.

According to this release, Grahn is testifying Tuesday at the California Assembly Judiciary Committee Hearing on behalf of Bill AB 612. If passed, the bill would outlaw the use of Parental Alienation Syndrome to gain custody of children in divorce situations.

The syndrome describes behavior where one parent turns a child against the other by convincing the child the parent has treated him or her badly, even when they have not. Many call it “junk science” and are trying to get it banned from being used to gain custody in divorce cases.

Below is the press release which describes Grahn’s participation in these hearings and her support for this bill.

T.V. Star Nancy Lee Grahn to Join Dozens of Family Court Victims to Urge Passage of Assemblyman Jim Beall’s AB 612

What: Pre-Hearing Press Conference

Who: Daytime TV Celebrity Nancy Lee Grahn & dozens of family court victims & court reform advocates

When: 8:30AM on Tuesday, April 28 - Press Conference; 9:00AM Hearing in Room 4202

Where: State Capitol- Room 444

Acclaimed television star Nancy Lee Grahn will address reporters tomorrow about her personal family court ordeal before she testifies on behalf of AB 612 at the California Assembly Judiciary Committee Hearing. Grahn will join dozens of parents and children to speak about the ravages of Parental Alienation Syndrome, or PAS, on their lives, and the desperate need for family court reform.

Like thousands of parents in California’s family courts, Grahn was falsely accused of alienating her child against her father, yet she eventually prevailed in her protecting her child. AB 612 would outlaw the use of this unscientific theory that is typically responsible for placing more than 58,000 children per year in the U.S. into dangerous homes with parents the children have identified as their molesters and abusers (Leadership Council on Child Abuse & Interpersonal Violence). Beall’s bill is just one of a handful of measures addressing the need for family court reform in California this year.

PAS is a controversial, unscientific theory that does not meet legal evidentiary standards, yet it is commonly used in family courts everywhere. PAS and related alienation theories are not accepted or endorsed by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, American Psychological Association, American Prosecutors Research Institute, National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse, and nearly all credible researchers on the subject.

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Newark protesters rally against family court system for alleged bias against battered women

Newark protesters rally against family court system for alleged bias against battered women

by Paul Brubaker/The Star-Ledger

Monday April 27, 2009, 6:55 PM

More than 50 people rallied in Newark for reform in the family court system with chants, protest signs and speeches alleging there is a national crisis of judges awarding child custody to violent, even sexually abusive, fathers.

But Essex County's top judge defended the local family courts as a meticulously careful system that acts in the best interests of children, even if it means terminating someone's parental rights.

Ed Murray/The Star-LedgerA husband and wife sit in front of a Newark family court judge in 2003. Protesters today demonstrated in front of the Wilentz Justice Complex against judges awarding child custody to violent and/or sexually abusive fathers.

In front of the Wilentz Justice Complex on Washington Street, which houses Essex County's family courts, speakers targeted the system as being biased against battered women and holding archaic attitudes that domestic violence and sexual abuse were private problems.

"A mother's basic instinct is to protect her children. She should not be punished for it," said Maretta Short of East Orange, president of the state's chapter of the National Organization for Women.

"In the last 30 years, every institution in this society has changed its views toward domestic violence," said Evan Stark, a professor at Rutgers University's School of Public Affairs and Administration. "Only in the family court do the obsolete beliefs that were discredited everywhere else in society still prevail."

Stark said part of the problem is that state laws require judges to detail their decisions for not awarding child custody to an abusive parent. The result is that judges avoid the issue by not admitting evidence of domestic abuse into the hearings, Stark said.

Later, Superior Court Assignment Judge Patricia Costello disputed Stark's assessment of family court judges.

"They don't punt on the tough issues to avoid tough decisions," Costello said. "They make tough decisions. When the parents can't decide who raises the children, the judge makes the call."

All judges are bound by the rules of evidence and their rulings must be based on careful consideration and backed by detailed documentation, the judge said. All the while, the family court judge must remain dispassionate during proceedings that are often highly emotional, she added.

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Rape. It is about power, not sex.

Sometimes, You Gotta Do What You Gotta Do

Rape. It is about power, not sex. Supposedly the hardest crime to prove because it is she said and he said. We know these things.
Men's groups will have you thinking that women are just running around reporting false rapes just to get their panties wet. Denial. Do they know what it is like to file a rape report? Not any more than a male gynecologist knows what a pap smear feels like.
I don't know who is believed less, women or children? 
I suppose sometimes, women must take things into their own hands...until people start listening.

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Protesters say NJ court denies justice to women

Protesters say NJ court denies justice to women

Participants allege ‘bias’ in decisions involving abuse

 njProtestersSayNJCourt

Women picket outside the family court building in Newark, demanding justice for women and children who allege abuse.

Photo by Robert Wiene

by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

April 30, 2009

More than 100 women, many active in several local and national Jewish organizations, picketed outside the family courts in downtown Newark Monday, demanding that its judges give more equitable treatment to alleged victims of physical and mental abuse.

Organizers charged that male judges often side with their fellow men and tend to disbelieve women’s allegations that they and their children have been physically and sometimes sexually abused by former husbands.

“We are very concerned that custody is given to abusive parents, especially fathers who abuse their children. There are judges who are biased, and terrible things are happening. Women are not believed when they or their children are abused,” said Sylvia Steiner of West Orange, a principal organizer of the demonstration.

In an interview after the rally, Irene Weiser, executive director of a website called StopFamilyViolence.org, told NJ Jewish News that “New Jersey is no better or worse than other states” when it comes to judges’ gender bias.

Citing national studies, she said “there is a history of domestic violence involved in child custody disputes in a majority of high-conflict divorce cases….”

“When abusive men contest and fight for custody, too often they get it. Judges ignore evidence of family violence and sexual abuse, decide mothers are lying, and order children into the hands of an abuser. It defies all logic and any semblance of justice,” she said.

IMPORTANT: The following audiovisual piece includes real-life interviews featuring disturbing verbal content and statements on child abuse and domestic violence. Viewer discretion is advised.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5viwjaIorU8]

Prof. Garland Waller produced "Small Justice: Little Justice in America's Family Courts" which is an independent documentary that explores the relationship between domestic violence, child sexual abuse and custody laws in America. To learn more about the stories of the women seen in this 10 minute clip, please go to http://batteredmotherscustodyconferen...

 

Weiser urged that independent panels be appointed to investigate abuse allegations to avoid judicial bias.

Gathering on Washington Street shortly after 11 a.m. and rallying through the lunch hour, the demonstrators chanted, “We demand justice for battered women and children.”

Among those at the rally was “Rebecca,” who did not wish to be identified because her case is still pending in family court.

She identified herself as a suburban Jewish woman with a professional career. She alleged that her ex-husband sexually abused their two children.

After a custody battle lasting three years, Rebecca said, she lost her home and most of her assets. She and her husband currently take turns caring for their two young girls.

“I have not been given a fair trial in family court,” she told NJJN. “I am trying to protect my daughters. I believed they were harmed. I am so scared of retaliation.

“I have invested every resource I’ve had and fought long and hard within the system. I do believe there was a lot of evidence in support of our allegations of abuse and violence, but it was swept under the rug.”

Many in the crowd said they had joined the rally to demand fair treatment for Rebecca and her children.

Shelli Brosh of West Orange, an organizer of Mothers for Legal Justice, told her sidewalk audience that the judge in Rebecca’s case denied an independent investigation of the child molestation charges, which were confirmed by six of seven experts who examined the children. The seventh said the evidence was inconclusive.

“Citizens of New Jersey have a right to demand higher standards for our judges,” Brosh said, “particularly when the lives of a mother and two little girls hang in the balance.”

Others who carried signs demanding greater justice for women and children told NJJN they had faced their own problems in family court.

“I’ve seen, as a school teacher, children who have suffered from the injustice of court decisions that are tearing them apart,” said Elaine Brown of Florham Park, a former director of education at Temple B’nai Jeshurun in Short Hills. “We should take a look at the justice system so that we can have a more impartial, unbiased system. The focus should be on what is best for the children without judicial bias” or reference to “money or influence.”

Following the rally, Superior Court assignment judge Patricia Costello told The Star-Ledger that family court judges are fair-minded people who make “tough decisions.”

“All judges are bound by the rules of evidence, and their rulings must be based on careful consideration and backed by detailed documentation,” she said. “All the while, the family court judge must remain dispassionate during proceedings that are often highly emotional.”

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Father got custody; mother's sex abuse claims vindicated 6 years later when other children come forward

 

Father got custody; mother's sex abuse claims vindicated 6 years later when other children come forward

La Jolla, California -- Henry Parson's behavior turned from initially charming to more and more aggressive and perverted through the marriage, but the child protective services and the courts refused to believe Joyce Murphy, who ran with her daughter to Florida and then served time for kidnapping. Court therapist Marilyn Marshall said that neither the 6-year-old girl nor anyone else was at risk from the man. Like she had any basis to know. Too late, of course, to recoup the forever-lost years in the lives of this mother and her daughter that Marshall fucked up. http://www.10news.com/news/19265275/detail.html http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/custody-evaluator-questions.html

 

Apr 29, 2009

Read more: "Father got custody; mother's sex abuse claims vindicated 6 years later when other children come forward - justice's posterous" - http://justice.posterous.com/father-got-custody-6-years-later-mothers-sex#ixzz0E98wK4Lt&A
Read more: "Father got custody; mother's sex abuse claims vindicated 6 years later when other children come forward - justice's posterous" - http://justice.posterous.com/father-got-custody-6-years-later-mothers-sex#ixzz0E98wK4Lt&A

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4.25.2009

Happy Abusers Awareness Day!

 

Happy Abusers Awareness Day!

Filed under: Activism, Alec Baldwin, CSPAS, Child Abuse, Child Custody Battle, Child custody for fathers, Children and Domestic Violence, Children's rights, Custody Evaluators, Domestic Violence, Dr. Richard Gardner, Family Courts, Fatherhood groups, Fathers Rights, Getting Screwed by the Whores of the Court, Getting screwed by the Family Courts, Getting screwed by the politicians, Help for Victims of Domestic Violence, Judicial Immunity, Legal abuse, Maternal Deprivation, Mother Child Relationship, Noncustodial Mothers, Parental Alienation Syndrome, Protect yourself from FR groups, Psychologists, Rachel Foundation, Raving lunatics, Speak Out, Violence against women, fathers fighting for custody —

investigatepas

Thanks Anonymums for the great graphic!

Father’s Rights groups ran wild trying to get our governors to proclaim today “Parental Alienation Awareness Day.”  Of the few governors that signed, I believe most were duped about this claim often used by abusive parents, being such an easy online process for the most part.  One state even states on their website when applying for a proclamation:

“Issuance of a proclamation does not constitute an endorsement by the Governor.”

Good try guys.  People are learning the truth of the “Parental Alienation” scam meant to support the Whores of the Court by the abusers who hire them.  Your cult even had to run to Canada to hold a conference on this.

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

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

Yes, they really did report this.  Family court judges should be made to read this!  See Page 24 of the report below.

Navigating Custody & Visitation Evaluations in Cases with Domestic Violence: A Judge’s Guide by Clare Dalton LLM, et.al., please click here.

Are good fathers sucked in by this?  You betcha.  With all due respect to several fathers who respectfully comment here, you guys have been duped too.  Call it what it is….if your child has been turned from you, don’t allow someone to label it parental alienation, call it what it is….parental kidnapping, parent-bashing, whatever.  Call it what it is.

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4.20.2009

Houston we have a problem-The shooters are all men

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/18-8

Published on Saturday, April 18, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Denormalizing the Signs of Impending Disaster

by Michael Schwalbe

Warning signs can go unheeded because we normalize them. According to some analysts, this is what happened in the case of the Challenger space shuttle disaster. On January 28, 1986, less than two minutes after taking off, the shuttle's solid rocket boosters exploded, killing all seven astronauts aboard.
In her book The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA, sociologist Diane Vaughan asks why NASA managers decided to launch the shuttle, despite warnings from engineers that the mission should be delayed because of potential problems with the solid rocket boosters in the below-normal January cold.

Vaughan's answer points to what was normal in the social world of NASA at that time: minor compromises in design and performance; equipment that deviated slightly from specifications; and pushing ahead with flight schedules, despite engineers' worries over seemingly small technical anomalies.

According to Vaughan, the recommendation to delay the flight was ignored because having problems and anomalies on the shuttle were taken-for-granted aspects of NASA culture. So was the tendency for engineers to worry. Against this backdrop, Vaughan says, signals of danger appeared mixed, weak, and routine, and thus were not taken seriously enough.

So far this year, eight mass shootings have resulted in nearly 60 deaths. As at NASA in the case of the Challenger, there have been ample warning signs. But because these signs are so commonplace in our culture, we have either ignored or failed to see them.

After each shooting, the question has been asked, Why do people do this sort of thing? The experts typically consulted are psychologists, who cite depression, social isolation, anger, and shame as causes. The most often mentioned contextual factor is the easy availability of guns.

But to ask, Why do people do this sort of thing?, is already to ignore the obvious pattern. It is not people of all kinds who kill because they are depressed, isolated, despairing, angry, or feeling shame. The shooters are all men. So the question we should be asking is, Why do men do this sort of thing?

One reason this question is seldom asked is that violence and manhood in U.S. culture are thoroughly normalized. As anti-violence educator Jackson Katz documents in his film "Tough Guise," over the past twenty years violence has come to be the defining feature of manhood in America. Violence and masculinity have become nearly synonymous.

This is not to say that all men are violent, or even that all men go around pretending to be Rambo just beneath the surface. Of course not. Yet all men are judged by a cultural standard that says a real man -- one who deserves all the privileges of being a member of the dominant gender group -- should have a capacity for violence and a willingness to use it when necessary.

The same cultural standard says that real men are able to exert control over the environment, over others, and over themselves. To be a victim of external forces is thus nearly the opposite of what it means to be a man in U.S. culture. It is hard to feel put upon, demeaned, or controlled by others, and still feel worthy of respect as a man.

The great contradiction, however, is that in a capitalist society most men don't have much power. A relative handful of men control vast economic resources, make laws, control the police, and command armies. These men can indeed make decisions, backed by force, that deny most other men and nearly all women control over their own lives.

On the one hand, then, real men are expected to be able to exert control; on the other hand, they lack the resources -- wealth, status, institutional authority -- to do so. Under these conditions, it is not surprising that some men try to compensate for their lack of power by displaying a capacity for violence, or a lack of fear of other men's violence.

Most of the time, most men are not overtly violent. But when a man tries to exert control and then rages against people and circumstances that frustrate these efforts, we are not necessarily alarmed. We are not alarmed because he is doing what we expect men to do.

Fortunately, such frustration does not usually lead to mass killing. Yet this is simply the logical extreme to which violent masculinity leads. When the burden of shame for failing to meet the cultural standards of manhood becomes unbearable, and a man feels there is nothing left to lose, mass killing may be a perverse attempt to restore, with irreversible finality, a sense of control.

As at NASA, the warning signs today are abundant. But they are mixed, weak, and routine.

Not all men are violent. Nor are men who occasionally commit acts of violence always violent; they can often be kind and gentle, too. And because it is possible to point to rare instances when women are violent, we can be misled into thinking there is nothing special about men that should compel our attention.

But the most serious problem is that we normalize the relationship between manhood and violence, and thus we take for granted what should be clear warnings about the potential for violence that our society instills in every man. When men learn to stake their self-worth on having power and being in control, and yet live under conditions that frustrate and humiliate them, we should not be surprised when explosions occur.

It may be strangely comforting to see the problem of mass shootings as a psychological one. If the problem stems from psychopathology, then we don't have to look critically at our culture of manhood or at how our society concentrates power in a few hands. Certainly, men suffering from depression and excessive anger may benefit from support and therapy. But therapy will never solve our collective violence problem.

If we understand the problem in cultural terms, we can see that the dangers go beyond being the victim of a "random" shooting. The logic of violent masculinity puts the whole planet at risk. By this logic, the natural world has no value in itself, but exists mainly to provide resources for expanding one's power. By the same logic, which is also the logic of U.S. imperialism, it is better to destroy the world than to fail to dominate it.

What we need is a cultural shift away from defining manhood and nationhood in terms of a capacity to dominate. We need to reject the worship of power and of "commanders-in-chief," and instead make democracy the primary value by which we judge our social institutions. The warning signs are all around, writ small in every mass shooting and writ large in every war. Our survival depends on denormalizing these signs and heeding them soon.

Michael Schwalbe is a professor of sociology at North Carolina State University.  He can be reached at MLSchwalbe@nc.rr.com.   

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4.16.2009

KS Judges Give Abusers their own children to KILL (severing the protective parents contact –usually mom in Abuse noted Court Cases)

  • Step-Mom Charged In Death of Toddler

    The mother of two year old Daytona Robertson had 50/50 Custody and filed motion to protect Daytona because someone was abusing her!

     There was no evidence to indicate the mother was abusing Daytona, but  Judge Tony Powell terminated Daytona's time with her mother and placed her solely with her dad and step-mom.

       Daytona died in dad's home a couple weeks later due to new abuse. 

    The one thing that the Judges here care about more than the children, is covering for their error even though Kansas Statutes have provisions for Custody changes if the children are suffering due to a Judge's Custody error.

    After Tony Powell made his Custody Ruling and placed Daytona solely in dad's home and Daytona was killed a couple weeks later in dad's home, the Wichita Eagle then came out with a story quoting Judge Tony Powell as saying

    “...that he did not believe he made a custody error and other Judge's told him that they would have done the same.  That needs to change and I have no intention of being a coward or going away unless they illegally put me in jail again.  Yes I can show it was illegal. “

    How can any person or God be so blind as to claim they did not make a custody error when there was no evidence against the mother and then the little girl ends up dead.

    In a late 2008 hearing Judge Powell was informed my children's mother has been reported to SRS for the fifth time by the WPD and Mandated Reporters at two or three different schools (what rightly concerned parent would not point this out to a Professional like Judge Powell that is supposed to be concerned about children?!).

    The children's mother also got fired from Kinder-Care after being warned about her behaviors around other people's children!

    Then Judge Powell stated in Court that these people (all these Mandated Reporters) might simply be people that dislike the children's mother, and the Court fabricated a reason to cut the children off from me because

    when  “ the Court is wrong, it pushes in the direction of a greater wrong!”

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