12-27-06 --A judge won't lower bail for a Nashua woman accused of making her 10-year-old daughter stand in one place for hours. . . . Bergeron remains jailed on a charge of second-degree assault. She had asked that bail be reduced because of her poor health. She is a diabetic. . . . Police arrested her earlier this month following an investigation initiated by her daughter's teacher. The teacher noticed that the girl was limping and falling asleep in class. The girl said her mother had made her stand throughout the night as punishment and had sprayed her with water to keep her awake. . . . The school called police after a nurse examined the girl's feet and found them bruised and swollen.

New York Lawyer, By Jim Fitzgerald, The Associated Press

12-20-06 -- The recording industry is giving up its lawsuit against Patti Santangelo, a mother of five who became the best-known defendant in the industry's battle against music piracy. . . . However, two of her children are still being sued. . . . The five companies suing Santangelo, of Wappingers Falls, filed a motion Tuesday in federal court in White Plains asking Judge Colleen McMahon to dismiss the case. Their lead counsel, Richard Gabriel, wrote in court papers that the record companies still believe they could win damages against Santangelo but their preference was to "pursue defendant's children." . . .Santangelo's lawyer, Jordan Glass, said the dismissal bid "shows defendants can stand up to powerful plaintiffs." He noted, however, that the companies were seeking a dismissal "without prejudice," meaning they could bring the action again, "so I'm not sure what that's worth." . . . The companies, coordinated by the Recording Industry Association of America, have sued more than 18,000 people, including many minors, accusing them of pirating music through file-sharing computer networks, most of which have been forced out of business. Typically, the industry tracked downloads to a computer address and learned the name of the computer owner from the Internet service provider. . . . When Santangelo, 42, was sued last year, she said she had never downloaded music and was unaware of her children doing it. If children download, she said, file-sharing programs like Kazaa should be blamed, not the parents. The judge called her an "Internet-illiterate parent, who does not know Kazaa from kazoo."

12-14-06 -- A Florida woman was fined by a judge for her civil disobedience in a family court lawsuit. Judge Jeffrey Colbath ordered Dr. Kathy Garcia-Lawson, a well-respected clinical psychologist, to pay a “family” lawyer $15,000 within 24 hours as a penalty in a Palm Beach County case.  The reason for the big fine?  Dr. Lawson refused to produce “settlement” paperwork the lawyer said was needed to finalize a divorce. As a mental-health professional with a Ph.D. and three Master’s degrees, Dr. Lawson wonders why she is being punished for shielding her child from harm. 

In 2005 Mrs. Lawson’s husband filed for a “No-Fault” divorce – the only kind there is in Florida – and she soon learned that Florida’s “forced divorce” system guarantees a divorce in every case, even when there is a child involved.  Social science studies have conclusively shown that an intact marriage is the best “child protection agency,” and that divorce is incredibly harmful to children of all ages.  After hundreds of hours of research, Dr. Lawson thinks that in divorce cases with minor children, Florida should offer help to the struggling couple before terminating the marriage, because divorce is so destructive to children. 

Mr. Lawson did agree for a period of 15 months to halt the process.  Now he has decided to move forward, and Dr. Lawson is standing up against the forced divorce system to protect their twelve-year-old daughter. Florida lawmakers have outlawed her right to defend her marriage and intact family, so there is only one way for her to defend her child – civil disobedience. Instead of paying the $15,000 fine, she hand-delivered a four-page letter to the Court, in which she told what was in her heart. 

Dr. Lawson just wants to see the process in her case do what Florida public policy says – uphold the State’s “compelling interest in marriage.” To her, that means that Florida family court judges’ first duty is to help each family, not callously dis-member it. And to minimize the devastating effects of divorce on children, Florida couples with children should move toward divorce only as a last resort, after other remedies have been diligently tried.  The approach is called “therapeutic jurisprudence.” It is not a new concept, but the local court does not embrace it.  Where courts have used the therapeutic jurisprudence model, there has been an astonishing conciliation rate. So Dr. Lawson believes before a Florida court decrees a quick divorce involving a minor child, the best interest of the child requires the court to use therapeutic jurisprudence.

In the very first court hearing, Judge Colbath announced he would make the process as “quick and painless as possible.” Mr. Lawson’s attorney, in fact, told Mrs. Lawson over the phone early in the case:  “I can get him divorced in two weeks!” That was 20 months ago.   Using “standard operating procedures,” her husband’s attorneys have generated a six-inch stack of documents on “important financial matters” as well as huge legal fees, but nothing has been done to help the Lawson Family.

Now that Dr. Lawson has decided to use civil disobedience to oppose a rush to judgment without any effort to help the Lawson Family or protect their child, it will be interesting to see how the system responds.

By Jeffery M. Leving/ Glenn Sacks
12-4-06 -- The recent announcement from the National Center for Health Statistics that the out-of-wedlock birth rate is at an all-time high is bad news for America's children. It would be easier to understand, perhaps, if naive teenage mothers were creating this trend. . . . However, according to the new NCHS study, the trend -- which is creating 1.5 million babies a year -- is driven by adult women, many of them in their 30s and 40s and choosing single motherhood. They should know better. . . . The rates of the four major youth pathologies -- teen pregnancy, teen drug abuse, school dropouts and juvenile crime -- are tightly correlated with fatherlessness, often more so than with any other socioeconomic factor, including income and race. The research is clear that children need fathers, not simply as breadwinners, but also for the valuable parenting -- and fathering -- they provide. . . . For example, a long-term study of teen pregnancy rates was conducted in the United States and in New Zealand and published in the journal Child Development. The study concluded that a father's absence greatly increases the risk of teen pregnancy. The researchers found it mattered little whether the child was rich or poor, black or white, born to a teen mother or an adult mother, or raised by parents with functional or dysfunctional marriages. What mattered was dad.

12-06-06 – (AP) New moms face increased risks for a variety of mental problems, not just postpartum depression, according to one of the largest studies of psychiatric illness after childbirth. . . . New dads aren’t as vulnerable, probably because they don’t experience the same physical and social changes associated with having a baby, the researchers and other experts said. . . . The study, based on medical records of 2.3 million people over a 30-year period in Denmark, found that the first three months after women have their first baby is riskiest, especially the first few weeks. That’s when the tremendous responsibility of caring for a newborn hits home. . . . During the first 10 to 19 days, new mothers were seven times more likely to be hospitalized with some form of mental illness than women with older infants. Compared to women with no children, new mothers were four times more likely to be hospitalized with mental problems. . . . New mothers also were more likely than other women to get outpatient psychiatric treatment. . . . However, new fathers did not have a higher risk of mental problems when compared with fathers of older infants and men without children. . . . The prevalence of mental disorders was about 1 per 1,000 births for women and just .37 per 1,000 births for men.

By Gabrielle Banks, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

12-01-06  -- The state Supreme Court let stand a lower court decision giving a non-biological, lesbian mother primary custody of the children she helped raise with their biological mother. . . . Generally, courts favor a biological parent in custody disputes. But in this case, the Pennsylvania Superior Court upheld a ruling by a Bucks County judge who had found it was in the two children's best interest to stay with their non-biological mother because she was more stable and capable of complying with the custody agreement order. . . . It was not necessary to find the natural mother "unfit" as a parent, Judge Susan Devlin Scott had said. The non-biological other mother only had to show "clear and convincing evidence" that it was in the children's best interests to reside with her. . . . The couple, Ellen Boring and Patricia Jones, began living together in 1988. Ms. Boring was artificially inseminated, with sperm from an anonymous donor, and gave birth to twin boys in December 1996. The women raised the boys together until they split in January 2001. . . . During their relationship, the non-biological mother, Ms. Jones, was unable to adopt the children because such adoptions were not legalized in Pennsylvania until 2002. . . . In 2001, after Ms. Jones and Ms. Boring broke up, Ms. Jones was recognized by the court as "in loco parentis," meaning that she had cared for the children sufficiently to have legal standing as a parent. Ms. Boring never challenged that standing. . . . Later that year, Ms. Boring was granted primary custody and filed for child support. . . . The children wanted to see both of their parents and did not prefer one over the other.

A forthcoming Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) study shows mothers at all income levels dropping out of the workforce, not just the highly educated, prosperous moms examined in many recent studies, says Sue Shellenbarger in the Wall Street Journal. . . . According to the BLS analysis: . . . As expected, the biggest percentage-point declines in workforce participation did come among mothers with a bachelor's degree or more, followed by women with husbands in the top 20 percent of earners. . . . But all other demographic categories showed declines too, including women with husbands whose earnings fell into the middle range, the 40th to 80th percentiles. . . . In addition, children's age appeared to play a factor: . . . The dropping-out trend was most pronounced among mothers of children under age 1, whose labor force participation fell about 8 percentage points from 1997 to 2004, to 51 percent. . . . The decline for mothers of 3- to 5-year-old children was less than half as large, down 3.4 percentage points to 63.6 percent. . . . And for mothers of older children up to age 17, the decline was just 1.6 percentage points. . . . Whether the balance will continue to shift toward new mothers staying home remains to be seen, says Shellenbarger.  Historically, women's movement in and out of the work force over the course of their careers has ebbed and flowed. . . . One factor that might help bring them back is the importance of their paychecks.  BLS data show wives' average contribution to U.S. family income rose to 34.8 percent in 2004 from 32.7 percent in 1997 -- the year work-force participation by new mothers first turned south.

Source: Sue Shellenbarger, "More New Mothers Are Staying Home Even When It Causes Financial Pain," Wall Street Journal, November 30, 2006.

By Lee Romney, Times Staff Writer
11-29-06 -- A Virginia appellate court ruled Tuesday in a closely watched lesbian custody dispute that the biological mother must answer to the laws of Vermont, where she and her former partner entered into a civil union and raised a child together. . . . The ruling skirted a broader question key to the national debate: whether Virginia can be forced to recognize such a union sanctioned in another state. . . . But it was celebrated by gay and lesbian organizations across the country for treating the parental relationship as it would any heterosexual one. . . . Lisa Miller, who was ordered by the Vermont courts to grant her former partner visitation, is barred by the federal Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act from turning to a different state to seek a more favorable outcome, the Virginia court ruled. . . . "It is a big deal," said Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which filed briefs in support of the non-biological parent, Janet Jenkins.

A Nashua mother has been arrested in the Virgin Islands on allegations that she took her young children there in a custody dispute. . . . Iniabelle Alamo, 36, disappeared a month ago with the 3-and 4-year-olds, police said. Investigators say they believe she was trying to escape her ex-husband, who wants custody of the children. . . . U.S. Marshals arrested Alamo on Friday on the island of St. Croix. She was charged with interference with custody of the children. . . . The children have been returned to their father. Alamo is in custody and will be returned to the state.

By Taffy Rice , Copyright Taffy Rice

11-06-06 -- When a young mother Bahji Adams, raising an autistic child went through an ugly divorce from her ASA Pilot husband, she quickly began to recognize the uneven playing field, along with the associated travesty being peddled as "justice" in the Cobb County Courts, where mothers and children do NOT fair well. Bahji had endured an injury in a car wreck, which would have sidelined any hard working individual, but her pursuit of justice, was no less than stellar and consistent, despite the court climate and ever escalating complications. Perhaps one of the most shocking realizations early on was the negative and unlawful efforts by Judge George Kreeger, a long time judge currently being challenged by newcomer Attorney Joan Davis, who chose to ignore the rights of the mother in a manner akin to efforts by Judge Adele Grubbs in the Marla Ailion Wright case. Grubbs just happens to be a close and personal friend of Kreeger, who recently officiated her latest wedding! . . . For readers aware of the criminal acts by judges being accepted and ignored in the Cobb County Courts, you might remember it was none other than Judge George Kreeger, head of the Drug Court, who provided a fraudulent document in a hearing scheduled on an Emergency Motion to Declare Judge Arthur Fudger's fraudulent Order Void. Fudger without being assigned to the 'Writ of Prohibition against Judge Adele Grubbs', allegedly dismissed the subject 'Writ of Prohibition against Kreeger's friend and fellow member of the bench, Judge Adele Grubbs, without ever being assigned to the case. Judge Kreeger provided a clearly falsified document with a fax header from the night before the hearing (8/10/05), with a 20:44 pm transmission notation, allegedly signed by Judge Jon Bolling Wood, faxed by Clerk Jody Overcash of Cartersville (7th Judicial District Court Offices - 770-387-5479). Also Kreeger asserted the document he provided was contained the in the Civil Action Number (CAN) for the Writ (05-1-0437-18). But in fact, the validity of the document provided by Kreeger in open court, regarding an alleged but belated assignment of Fudger to a 'Recusal for Judge Ingram,' though such a pleading was NEVER filed, nor contained in the Writ case file. Contrary to fact, the document Kreeger supplied was NEVER physically filed in the Writ matter, yet Kreeger repeatedly insisted via false statements from the bench in open court, it was. Such willful and false statements were clearly KNOWN to be incorrect based upon the document alone, but Judge George Kreeger at the time bellowed false statements with confidence in open court before witnesses.

By: Alexandra Bogdanovic

As more people across the country begin to question the validity of "parental alienation syndrome" and other tactics used in child custody cases, the effectiveness of the guardian ad litem system is also coming under fire -- from at least one Fauquier County mother. . . . Parental alienation syndrome is a term used to describe behavior in which a parent involved in a custody battle, often the mother, allegedly tries to turn the child against the father by insinuating that he is somehow "bad." In some cases, proponents say, the mother will deliberately make false allegations of physical, sexual or emotional abuse. . . . But advocates for abused children and protective parents say so-called "parental alienation syndrome" is unfounded "junk science." They say lawyers and judges tend to believe in the concept and disbelieve allegations of abuse even when they are true. They also say that guardians ad litem - people assigned to represent the children's interests during a custody case - also disbelieve allegations of abuse. . . . Now the issue has surfaced in a local case.

By Terri Lynn Tersak, NewsWithViews.com

As I reflect on my own experiences with domestic violence and the pretense of help our abuse system claims to offer, I find myself feeling most sorry for today’s victims. As the years pass, our domestic violence systems under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) offer less and less help to the most severely battered, but ever increasing rewards for those who operate the systems. . . . I encounter a frightening number of victims of severe battery with the same story to tell; they went through the courts and things got worse for them, almost immediately. I have experienced this myself, personally. An expansive annotated list of government and academic studies supporting these concerns is in the article “Domestic Violence Awareness Month” by Richard L. Davis. . . . For the past twelve years, the American taxpayers have supported VAWA and other domestic violence programs, which have grown to $1 billion a year. Why do we not only keep such a failure operating, but also expand its influences and funding year after year? . . . I believe it follows the same logic as our society’s affinity for fast food -- instant gratification. It is quick, easy to get and satisfies an immediate personal desire. However, that satisfaction is hollow and short lived, and often creates unintended, unexpected problems for the consumer. . . . Meanwhile the sellers make a fortune selling their ineffective and often harmful product. In order to keep the money rolling in, they must actively promote it to keep people accepting it, wanting it, and believing it is a good thing for everyone, regardless of the facts. . . . To these ends, each year we dedicate a month to promote everything the Violence Against Women Act pretends to bring us, under the guise of protecting women from abuse and providing service to those that have suffered it. . . . Prior to the July 19, 2005 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for the reauthorization of VAWA, many people, including myself, tried to tell our side about the failures of VAWA. Several scientists with decades of experience studying the dynamics of intimate partner violence also requested to testify at this hearing. However, even after running full-page ads in the Washington D.C. based newspapers expressing our concerns, we were all denied time to speak at the hearing.

A group of mothers plan to present a petition for a judge's removal after he threw out the confessions of two men charged in the death of 18-year-old Ana Maria Angel. . . . Angel was kidnapped, raped and killed in April 2002. . . . Five men were arrested and two confessed to the crime, but recently Judge William Thomas threw out the confessions, saying the men's Miranda rights were not given properly. . . . Angel's mother, Margarita Osorio, now wants Thomas off the case. . . . "I want to remove the judge," she said. . . . Osorio and about a dozen other mothers protested outside the Miami-Dade County justice building on Tuesday. . . . In the span of a month, Osorio has collected more than 11,000 signatures calling for the judge's removal.

Daniel Ostrovsky, Daily Business Review

10-6-06 -- A Weston, Fla., woman who spoke out publicly against a Utah-based company affiliated with a controversial chain of boarding schools for troubled teens around the world has won an $11.3 million Internet defamation verdict. . . . On Sept. 19, Susan Scheff and her Weston-based company, Parents Universal Resource Experts Inc., won the jury verdict in Broward Circuit Court against Carey Bock, a woman whom Scheff helped in getting Bock's two sons out of a school in Costa Rica. The judgment included $5 million in punitive damages. . . . Scheff filed the suit in December 2003, alleging that Bock posted defamatory statements about her on an Internet bulletin board viewed by parents of troubled teens, according to court pleadings. . . . The verdict is the latest chapter in the increasing volume of litigation around the country over the content of Internet sites, blogs and online bulletin boards. . . . "This is a new area of law," said Scheff's attorney, David H. Pollack of Miami. "The problem with the Internet is people can post anything about you and it can destroy you."

"It is beyond tragic that Ms. Magazine is encouraging women to celebrate an act of violence that has proven traumatic for millions of mothers and deadly for their innocent preborn children," said Judie Brown, president of American Life League. "Abortion does nothing positive for women. Each abortion kills a living, human being. It is disgusting that these abortion proponents are using the deaths of children in an attempt to make a statement." . . . The campaign waged by Ms. Magazine encourages women who have had abortions to sign a petition in order to "change the public debate" about the gruesome procedure. The petition is published in the October issue of the magazine which hits stands today. The "We Had Abortions" petition campaign takes specific aim at the South Dakota law that prohibits surgical and medical abortions in that state.

By Emily Previti,

9-29-06 -- A group of about 10 women waved documents and talked to reporters outside of a courtroom of the Lake County 19th Judicial Circuit Court. . . . Little of interest had happened in their case; it will continue on Oct. 4. . . . Yet the women exuded energy as they chatted. . . . Annette Zender stood watchfully on the periphery of the group. . . . Zender, of Woodstock, attended court on Sept. 20 to continue to appeal a 2001 custody decision that gave her ex-partner Thomas Boettcher, of Silver Bay, Minn., custody of their child. The couple lived in Lake County at the time. . . . That day, Associate Judge Jorge Ortiz ordered Zender to pay fees to her child's guardian ad litem, Gary Schlesinger, a Libertyville attorney who has practiced family law for 20 years. . . . The Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act defines a guardian ad litem as a person, whom the court appoints to make recommendations to the court in the best interests of the child. Those recommendations come only after he or she has interviewed "the child and all parties." . . . Though Zender and Boettcher did not marry, provisions under acts that govern paternity and adoption extend certain provisions of the Marriage Act regardless of a parent's marital status or biological relationship to the child. . . . The women who gathered outside of the courtroom belong to the Illinois Coalition for Family Court Reform (ICFCR), which Zender spearheads. The coalition alleges corruption in, and maltreatment by, Cook, DuPage, Kane and Lake Counties' family courts in their dealings with divorce disputes and custody cases. Zender has said she has more than 200 women whose cases illustrate these claims. . . . On Aug. 30, Judge Joseph Waldeck issued a gag order in Zender's case, which has received extensive coverage by Chicago-area media because of Zender's activities with the coalition. . . . The order prohibits all parties in the case from speaking to the media regarding the case.

Case to Consider Fitness of Lesbian Aunt in Adoption Matter
(AgapePress) - A pro-family First Amendment law firm is assisting in a case in Texas involving opposition to the attempted adoption of two siblings, ages seven years and five months, by an aunt who lives in a lesbian lifestyle. . . . According to an attorney for the American Family Association's Center for Law & Policy (AFA Law Center), the issues in question in the Lufkin County case styled "In the Interest of Taylor Emory Menefee," include whether Texas law distinguishes any difference between the sexual orientations of potential adoptive parents. Steve Crampton, chief counsel for the Law Center, says the aunt lives with a same-sex partner in New Mexico, and has also been diagnosed with a "major depressive disorder." Crampton says those facts should merit some questions from the state of Texas about fitness for adoption. . . . “Regardless of your view on same-sex sexual practices, this is not what would be held up as an ideal home within which to place these two children, one of whom is an infant," says the attorney. It is unfortunate, he adds, that the issue of sexual orientation as a prohibition to adoption is one that is increasingly being done away with my modern courts -- which is why the attorney ad litem in the case has asked the Law Center to help.

Vt. high court: Mom must pay child support despite beliefs
By The Associated Press
The state Supreme Court has ruled that a former Vermont resident must pay child support despite her religious beliefs. . . . In a split decision, the court said the state can revoke the driver's license of Joyce Stanzione, a member of Twelve Tribes Messianic Community in Arcadia, Fla., who has not paid child support since 1991. . . . Stanzione was ordered to pay $50 per week in child support when she and her husband divorced and he left the religious community to return to Vermont along with three of the couple's five children, according to court papers. . . . She never contested the order but made no payments, court papers said. . . . In 2002, Stanzione was ordered to pay $4,800 to the state to make up for the welfare payments Vermont taxpayers supplied her children while they lived with their father. . . . Stanzione again made no payments, and in 2003 the Office of Child Support successfully moved to have her driver's license suspended.. . . Stanzione, 54, appealed that order.

by Jeffrey Leving and Glenn Sacks, NewsWithViews.com

Call it the backlash against the backlash. Over the past decade, Americans have increasingly understood that the divorce revolution, fatherlessness and single parent households are harming our children. Now those who view the traditional family as disadvantageous to women are firing back, defending women who choose single motherhood and depicting fathers as superfluous. . . . Last fall Stanford University Gender Scholar Peggy Drexler penned the highly-publicized book "Raising Boys Without Men: How Maverick Moms Are Creating the Next Generation of Exceptional Men." This month Oxford Press released Wellesley College Women's Studies professor Rosanna Hertz's "Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice: How Women Are Choosing Parenthood Without Marriage and Creating the New American Family." . . . Certainly one can sympathize with those single mothers whose husbands or lovers abandoned or mistreated them, and who soldiered on in the raising of their children without the father those children should have had. However, Drexler and Hertz go well beyond this, openly advocating single motherhood as a lifestyle choice.

By John Mott Coffey

The state Supreme Court ruled that Lowndes County Judge Beverley Mitchell Franklin unjustly terminated the parental rights of a former drug addict she determined was unfit to be a mother. . . . In a decision issued last week, the high court ordered Franklin to consider whether the woman can at least visit her daughter, who's living in a foster home. . . . “Though (the mother) may not be fit to be awarded custody, the termination of her parental rights is inappropriate and is not justified from the record before us and the applicable law,” Supreme Court Justice George Carlson wrote for the court. . . . The court did not disclose the names of the mother and daughter to protect the child's right to privacy. . . . While the mother abused drugs and had sex in front of her daughter, according to court records, she's gone through rehabilitation and been sober for several years.

September 29, 2006

COLORADO   

Paralyzed mom sworn in as lawyer

Gary Massaro

Janette Lawler could have given up a long time ago when doctors told her she'd never walk again. . . . But she didn't. . . . "How boring would that have been?" she asked. . . . Instead, she went back to school - twice - and now is ready to begin her newest career as a lawyer. . . . She spends most of her time in a wheelchair that she maneuvers with a mouthstick. . . . She also uses the stick as a finger to poke her computer keyboard. . . . "My laptop and I are close friends," she said. "I wouldn't have been able to accomplish what I have without it." . . . Lawler, 41, graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in 1983. . . . "I went straight up to Boulder," she said. . . . She graduated from the University of Colorado, where she studied advertising.

ILLINOIS  

Courts critic ordered to pay attorney's fees

By Judy Masterson

Annette Zender of Woodstock half expected to be thrown in the hoosegow during a court appearance Wednesday. . . . But Lake County Circuit Judge Jorge Ortiz only ordered her to pay attorney Gary Schlesinger of Libertyville $125 per month. . . . Zender, one of a growing number of women in Illinois and across the nation who are battling a court system they argue awards custody to fathers despite evidence of domestic violence, was slapped with a gag order Aug. 30 by Associate Judge Joseph Waldeck. She visited the Lake County News-Sun later the same day to publicize what she considers a violation of her constitutional right to free speech. . . . The ban was urged by Norman Kurtz, attorney for Thomas Boettcher of Minnesota, who gained sole custody of his child with Zender in 2001 — and Schlesinger, guardian ad litem in the ongoing custody dispute. . . . More than a dozen women, all embroiled in battles over custody and child support in Lake County, showed up to lend Zender support. All wore purple gags around their necks. . . . Two of the women, Catherine Campbell of Gurnee and Erin McRaith of Glenview, last year filed suit against officials of Lake County Circuit, alleging a pattern of discrimination against women who act as their own attorneys in child custody and divorce cases. . . . The suit was dismissed by a federal judge in March. An appeal is pending, McRaith said.

Zender is the founder of the
Illinois Coalition for Family Court Reform

September 20, 2006

Battered spouses take aim at a controversial custody strategy.

Fighting Over the Kids

By Sarah Childress, Newsweek

Sept. 25, 2006 issue - It took six years for Genia Shockome to gather the courage to leave her husband, Tim. He pushed her, kicked her and insulted her almost from the moment they married in 1994, she says. She tried to start over with their children when the family moved from Texas to Poughkeepsie, N.Y. It didn't last long. Tim called her constantly at work and, after they split up, pounded on her door and screamed obscenities, she alleged in a complaint filed in 2001. Tim was charged with harassment. As part of a plea deal, Tim agreed to a stay-away order—but denies ever abusing her or the children. In custody hearings over the past six years, Tim has insisted that he's been a good father, and argued that Genia's allegations poisoned their children against him. The judge sided with Tim. This summer he was granted full custody of the kids, now 11 and 9. Genia was barred from contacting them. . . . Genia is one of many parents nationwide who have lost custody due to a controversial concept known as parental alienation. Under the theory, children fear or reject one parent because they have been corrupted or coached to lie by the other. Parental alienation is now the leading defense for parents accused of abuse in custody cases, according to domestic-violence advocates. And it's working. The few current studies done on the subject consider only small samples. But according to one 2004 survey in Massachusetts by Harvard's Jay Silverman, 54 percent of custody cases involving documented spousal abuse were decided in favor of the alleged batterers. Parental alienation was used as an argument in nearly every case.

MASSACHUSETTS

Birth mother of brain-injured girl sues state to visit daughter

(AP) The biological mother of a girl police say suffered severe brain injuries inflicted by her adoptive parents has sued the state Department of Social Services seeking to visit her daughter in the hospital, to have the state share documentation regarding the girl's care and adoption, and to get $12.5 million in damages. . . . The suit was filed yesterday in Suffolk Superior Court, one year to the day that Haleigh Poutre, then 11, was admitted to a hospital with a severe head injury. She had been the focus of a right-to-die case last year before she showed improvement and was transferred to a rehabilitation hospital.

September 11, 2006

WISCONSIN

Abandoned mom, sons may find justice

Mike Nichols

Diane Brayshaw was just about to head off to an 8:30 a.m. service Sunday, and she knew exactly what her prayer of thanksgiving was going to be. . . . "Thank you, Lord, that justice is done, or will be." . . . For years, that seemed unlikely. . . . Diane married a guy by the name of John Brayshaw in 1985 and, for a time, they had a beautiful 3,300-square-foot house in the Town of Farmington in Washington County. . . . They also had two little boys who were both under 10 years old when he abandoned them more than a decade ago, left without so much as an occasional long-distance phone call. . . . It's not like he couldn't afford it. Divorce documents described him as a self-employed electrician with an income of more than $60,000 a year back in 1997 - and absolutely no inclination to share it. . . . A Washington County judge in the divorce case at the time found that "the actions of the respondent, including his departure from this state . . . constitute a total rejection of his children and also constitute a fraud on his wife." . . . An expensive one.

August 29, 2006

Videos – A Way to Connect with Alienated Children

Dad, K. Pat Brady, Rochester, NY, has come up with a unique idea for ‘abandoned’ dads and moms. He’s praying that it’ll catch on and children will start looking on the Internet to hear from their alienated parent.

Check out the video he did for his daughter and make sure you give it a great rating.

"Whitney Muh Dear"
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lsx0JCBpMbc

Please pass this message on.

CONNECTICUT

Mother's Conviction in Son's Suicide Overturned

New York Lawyer, By John Christoffersen, The Associated Press

The Connecticut Supreme Court on Monday overturned a mother's conviction on charges that she contributed to her 12-year-old son's suicide by creating an unsafe and unhealthy home. . . . Judith Scruggs of Meriden was convicted of risk of injury to a minor in 2003, a year and a half after her son, J. Daniel, hanged himself with a necktie in his closet. . . . Legal experts said it was thought to be the first time a parent had been convicted over a child's suicide. . . . Scruggs said her son killed himself because he was bullied at school, and she filed a federal lawsuit against Meriden school officials contending they should have stopped it. The case inspired a new state law requiring schools to report bullies to authorities, and many school districts revamped bullying policies.

August 25, 2006

A Single Mother

by Doug French

What do you suppose the prospects are for a single mother who drops out of high school? Big government types point to these women as a shining example of a group that any rich, compassionate society needs to take care of. "What would happen if we turn our backs on these women and their families?" "We can’t let them fall through the cracks."  . . . Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) costs taxpayers close to $20 billion a year. Unfortunately all this taxpayer money only serves to make young mothers dependent on the federal government, with perhaps many living on the government dole for all of their lives: A very unfulfilling life indeed. . . . In Salt Lake City, back in the 1970’s, a teenage girl dropped out of high school, left her parents’ home, got pregnant and married. But, while still a teenager, she soon left her husband when her little girl was one year old. No doubt there was plenty of government money available for a girl in her situation. But nobody in her family had ever asked for a hand out from Uncle Sam. Her father scratched out a living working on cars, and she was taught that if you want to eat you have to work and "make hay while the sun shines." But, she humbly admits looking back on those lean times, "I didn’t know the government would take care of us, if I had, we might have taken the money and food stamps." . . . And this story would have a much different end.

But instead, she didn’t take government money, and despite being on her own with no family help she found a place to live in a basement that she had to beg her way into. "The first place we lived wasn't even zoned as a living space," her daughter remembers, "but, she got us in there and fixed it up so it was nice enough to live in."

In honor of single mothers everywhere who decline government help, pull themselves up by their bootstraps and
"make hay while the sun shines."

Doug French [send him mail] is executive vice president of a Nevada bank and associate editor for Liberty Watch Magazine. He received the Murray N. Rothbard Award from the Center for Libertarian Studies.

August 22, 2006

AUSTRALIA

Royal son reunited with mother after 14 years

By Sally Pickering,National Nine News reporter
A boy smuggled out of Australia by his father, Malaysian prince Raja Bahrin, has been reunited with his mother after 14 years. . . . In an exclusive report, National Nine News revealed that the 23-year-old Iddin arrived in Melbourne this morning. He joins his sister Shahirah, who was reunited with her mother, Jacqueline Pascarl-Gillespie, in April. . . . Iddin and Shahirah were smuggled out of Australia by Prince Bahrin in 1992 during an access visit. . . . Their disappearance sparked a diplomatic row between Australia and Malaysia. . . . Shahirah, who has been studying since arriving in Australia, says she and her mother hoped Iddin would one day make the journey here.

TEXAS

Children Fight to Save Comatose Mom From Life Support Removal

Challenge Texas Law Allowing Hospital to make final decision

By Peter J. Smith
(LifeSiteNews.com) – The children of a comatose woman are challenging in court the “compassionate reasons” for a Texas hospital’s decision to remove their mother’s life-saving treatment, asserting that their mother, a devout Baptist woman, never would consent to anyone but God ending her life. . . . On August 8, just days after 61-year-old Ruthie Webster's insurance stopped full coverage of her long-term care, the Regency Hospital’s bioethics committee in North Dallas, Texas, unanimously told the Webster family that they would discontinue life-preserving dialysis treatment for their mother within 10 days. The hospital claimed that Ruthie Webster's physician "has seen no appreciable change in your mother's medical condition" and that continued treatment was an exercise in futility. . . . The decision shocked family members, since their mother is not brain-dead, but comatose, and has been making slow progress, breathing now on her own without a ventilator, ever since she suffered a bad reaction after undergoing kidney dialysis in June rendering her mostly unresponsive. The family, however, has said their mother told them to take care of her in such a situation, saying that she believes only God has the right to take life away. . . . "My mom spent her life in the church. She always felt like, 'Who are we to decide? God decides,'” said Lacresia Webster on Thursday. "If this is the way she's going to be, she's still my mom. I'm not giving up on her."

August 14, 2006

Mothers Who Used Same Sperm Donor Meet

Web Site Allows Children Fathered by the Same Sperm Donor to Find One Another

By Kim Nguyen

(AP)— Michelle Jorgenson thought it was odd that her 8-year-old daughter Cheyenne conceived with sperm from a mystery man known to Jorgenson only as Donor 3066 was extremely sensitive to sound and walked on her toes. . . . Jorgenson started checking on the Internet and soon learned of at least six other children around the country who were fathered by 3066. And of those seven, she discovered to her alarm, two have autism, and two others, Cheyenne included, show signs of a sensory disorder tied closely to autism. . . . The children's mothers located one another beginning a year ago through the Donor Sibling Registry, a Web site run out of this Colorado mountain town. It enables mothers artificially inseminated by the same donor and children fathered by the same man to find each other. . . . In this case, the women all used 3066, whose sperm was provided by the California Cryobank, based in Los Angeles. . . . "Pretty much you're thinking this person has a perfect medical history," said Jorgenson, who lives in Sacramento, Calif. "And then later I find out that some of the other siblings have other disabilities that are or are not attributed to the donor. I wouldn't have chose him had I known this had existed." . . . The Web site that brought them together is run out of Wendy Kramer's home in Nederland. Kramer started the registry so her son Ryan could find his siblings, and she said it has led to family reunions and brought joy to people who send out e-mail inquiries that typically begin, "Hi, you don't know me, but we're related." . . . But the site has also become a clearinghouse for those seeking answers about everything from potentially dangerous medical conditions to personality quirks. Often, they come away with more questions than answers because most sperm banks and clinics refuse to share confidential files about donors. . . . "There are people on our Web site seeking siblings because their kids have medical issues, for sure, and even in a medical emergency the sperm banks won't facilitate any contact, which is kind of frustrating," Kramer said.

MASSACHUSETTS

Mother’s defiance is praised

Judge’s call unpopular, but father has rights

Dianne Williamson, T&G Staff

Columnists routinely get phone calls and letters from people wishing to relate their experience in Probate and Family Court. Suffice to say that these people are rarely seeking a forum to praise the wisdom of the presiding judge. . . . I avoid these stories, frankly, and typically explain to callers that I hesitate to take sides in such emotional disputes and substitute my judgment for that of the judge, who is more knowledgable about the law in general, and their case specifically. I tell them what they already know — that matters of family law are volatile, that they’re difficult to synopsize, and that nothing evokes more emotion in people than when the state intervenes in family life. . . . I occasionally make exceptions, however, such as when I wrote July 30 about Judge Susan Ricci’s ruling to sentence a custodial mother to 15 days in Framingham state prison unless she complies with an order that her young children speak on the telephone to their father, an inmate at Shirley state prison. The mother said that her two kids, 12 and 8, barely know their dad and basically want nothing to do with him. The father, David P. Furey, was sentenced on drug charges to eight to 10 years in state prison in 1998 and has had little contact with his kids. . . . “My children are being forced to speak to this man they don’t even know,” said their mother, Janet Lawrence. “How can inmates have all of these rights? I always thought the court was supposed to consider the best interest of the children.”

August 10, 2006

Undermining the Covenant between Mother and Child
By Nancy Salvato
This is a piece written for divorced parents. It needs to be written on behalf of the non-custodial parent; who wants a relationship with the kids, yet finds the relationship compromised by the other parent. All too often, the non custodial parent is written about as if he/she is deadbeat and has no interest in the children -when that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I am one such parent and the tears I have shed over this situation are far too many to count. . . . Many partners entering into a marriage have a fantasy that there will be a “happily ever after.” Too many of us, however, have unresolved issues that bear intense self-evaluation before seriously considering tying the knot. Unfortunately, there are no pre-Cana programs for those who aren’t Catholic. Indeed, not everyone recognizes their own unresolved issues. This results in a large percentage of people entering into a marital contract for all the wrong reasons, or without a realistic idea of what marriage really entails. Let me clear up a few misconceptions. . . . I recently learned about covenants and contracts during a class on the Constitution. The Constitution is a covenant between the people of this country, who have the power to dissolve the government, whose form is more like a contract. Those who hold office are supposed to uphold the covenant. They are contracted to do this. There is a huge difference between these two words. A contract implies that it can be broken if one or the other parties reneges on their obligations. On the other hand, a covenant is a promise to live your life by certain values and meeting certain obligations in order to be assured certain conditions. Breaking a covenant is a much larger ordeal; sort of like having a revolution instead of just changing a few laws or electing different representatives to office. . . . A marriage should be thought of as a covenant; not to be broken because of the exceptionally large cost which will be wreaked on all the family and friends related to the partners as a married couple. Marriage should not be entered into lightly. It takes a lifelong commitment. If that cannot be absolutely promised, it should not happen. A contract implies that there is an escape clause. Too many people think of marriage as a contract. That is why, in many cases, there are prenuptial agreements between partners in the event that something should go wrong. . . . Unfortunately, I entered my first marriage for all the wrong reasons. I wanted to break the contract, however, the advice that I received from the counselor who I most trusted was to stay in the marriage. Her reasoning was that if his qualities were over 50% good, if he didn’t beat me, cheat, nurse an addiction, and brought home a decent wage, I was doing well. However, I eventually left the marriage because there was one important ingredient that was left out: I wasn’t devoted to him or in love with him. I couldn’t reconcile spending my life with a person with whom I couldn’t put ahead of myself.

August 4, 2006

FLORIDA

Fighting a ‘renegade court’

By Nicol Jenkins

Adele Guadalupe of Boca Raton says she’s no stranger to judicial indifference.

Her daughter, Caren MacDonald, sits in a Broward jail cell after a custody battle decision left her fleeing the country with her son.

Prior to that, Guadalupe said MacDonald lost custody of her 11-year-old son to her ex-husband because of what she called an unfair judge and her husband’s expensive lawyer.

During visitation, her son claimed her ex-husband’s male lover gave him massages. Shortly after, MacDonald took her son from school and fled to Costa Rica for about a year. Upon return, she was sentenced to house arrest while awaiting a trial.

After much media attention, Guadalupe said letters from parents who had lost children under similar circumstances flooded her mailbox.

This outreach of support sparked an idea for Guadalupe and her daughter to start a support group for these families who feel their concerns are overlooked by the court system. As a result, “Families Against Court Travesties” (FACTS) was formed. Now, with 75 members and volunteers, the group periodically meets in Boca Raton to discuss their experiences with the judicial system, go on court watches and file petitions to make judges accountable.    

MacDonald was found guilty and sentenced to a year in jail. With good behavior, it was shortened, and she has three months left to serve. But the judge prohibited her from seeing her son until he turns 18 and a half - when he finishes high school.
Until her daughter returns home to Boca, Guadalupe has taken over as president of FACTS. Her mission is to help families, change laws, and get “bad” judges off the bench. FACTS receives support from the National Organization of Women (NOW).

“We want to get all [family court] judges to go on the ballots. We don’t want them to keep getting a free ride,” said Guadalupe. “I would like family judges to be held to the same standard of law as all other judges. It’s just a renegade court. They do what they want and get away with murder.

Guadalupe said each family member has a different tale of troubles with the courts. However, the cases all have a single thread.
“They don’t allow due process,” she said. “Once a judge makes a final decision, no matter what proof you have that it was not proper, it will carry with you for the rest of your life.” <more>

For more information on FACTS, contact
www.FactsCourtWatch.org or 561-338-9280.

MARYLAND   

Embattled Md. Judge To Retire For Health

Departure Precedes Misconduct Hearing

By Ruben Castaneda, Washington Post Staff Writer
A Prince George's County judge accused of misconduct submitted a letter yesterday saying he is retiring, a month before he was to face a public hearing for allegedly making disparaging comments to and about women seeking protective orders. . . . In one of those cases, that of a woman later badly burned by her estranged husband, District Court Judge Richard A. Palumbo's actions drew national attention. He also was accused of disparaging three women seeking protective orders by likening them to buses that come along every 10 minutes.

Click for Yvette Cade's Website

July 20, 2006

MISSOURI  

Ruling confirms abortion rights for Missouri prisoners

By Jo Mannies, Post-Dispatch Political Correspondent

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered that the state of Missouri provide transportation for any woman prisoner seeking an abortion, saying that even an inmate had the constitutional right to the legal procedure. . . . The decision by U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple in Jefferson City stems from last fall's contentious battle between Missouri officials and the American Civil Liberties Union over an inmate seeking an abortion. . . . After a legal fight that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, the woman - who used the name "Jane Roe" in her lawsuit - had her abortion at a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis on Oct. 20. . . . Under a temporary order that Whipple imposed last fall, several other Missouri inmates subsequently have been transported to St. Louis for abortions, said Tom Blumenthal, a St. Louis lawyer who assisted the ACLU in the case. / Click to read the ruling