Friday, October 19, 2007

Upcoming 209A Forum - Recommended

False Allegations Restraining Order Forum

Defending Yourself in Court

Thursday November 8th from 7pm to 9:30pm

Marriot Courtyard Westboro at Route 495 and Route 20 intersection. One
block West of 495

Massachusetts courts have been issuing domestic abuse restraining orders (Ch. 209A) at the rate of about 40,000 per year. Judges give them out even if a person claims to have a vague fear. Once an order is issued, the defendant can lose his house, his children, his guns, his livelihood, and sometimes his life.

Something must be done to help those who are falsely accused. Of course, no one defends actual abuse. However, some lawyers say that as many as 95% of restraining orders are issued on false allegations, for reasons like breaking up with a boyfriend, or getting a leg up in a divorce. This is abuse of the purpose of these orders. The phrase used by lawyers is that they are “given out like candy”. At this
point, a mere claim of “Fear” is sufficient to issue these devastating restraining orders. Even though the Mass. Appeals Court has said this is NOT lawful most judges are ignoring the Appeal Court guidelines. The result is destroying parents and children’s lives.

Education and legislative efforts are underway to stop this unconstitutional law and prosecute false accusations to stop this destruction. False accusations and restraining orders have become a tool to tear apart families, and traumatize children, when no domestic violence has occurred and there is no proof that
they help anyone. In fact some studies show they cause far more problems than they prevent.

LEARN HOW TO FIGHT A FALSE 209A RESTRAINING ORDER IN COURT INCLUDING:
1. What to do when you suspect an order is on the way.
2. How to prepare for your day in court.
3. How you can defend yourself against false allegations and claims of fear.
4. How to get evidence that will win.
5. Skits on how to present your court case the WRONG way, and the RIGHT way.
6. Take home valuable and practical written information to use in Court, including key cases and legal arguments.

Who Should Attend: Anyone involved in a divorce proceeding, anyone under a restraining order now, anyone in a relationship going sour.

Call (617) SAD-DADS to reserve your seat. Just leave your name, phone and email address.

Requested Donation is $5-$10 to cover hotel and refreshment costs.

Sponsored by: www.FatherhoodCoalition.org and www.FathersUnite.org where much more information can be found on these and related divorce issues.

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Sunday, October 07, 2007

Victims of false domestic violence reporting detail experiences

An eye opening article appears in The West Virginia Record detailing two studies into the abuse of restraining orders. The article is here, and I'll cite it extensively after the jump in case the article expires from the WVR website.

I'd like to connect it to the same problem in Massachusetts, but the Commonwealth has done it's very best to see that this doesn't happen. You see, a gentleman by the name of Steve Basile conducted a similar study, focusing on orders issued in the Gardner District Court in the year 1997. As Basile and others began to expand the scope of the original study, the Commonwealth and Jane Doe, Inc responded with a successful effort to restrict access to the orders and to the data, ensuring that no such study could ever be completed.

They don't want the truth getting out. Lies are their livelihood, and that hasn't changed under the reign of Martha Coakley.

The WVR article follows:


Victims of false domestic violence reporting detail experiences

10/5/2007 9:00 AM
By Lawrence Smith -Kanawha Bureau

CHARLESTON - The release of a study indicating that most of the petitions for domestic violence protection orders may be used for leverage in a divorce or child custody proceeding comes as cold comfort to those who've experienced it firsthand.

"I was so innocent, and the evidence was so profound, I was able to beat that in court myself," said Teresa Lowe.

Lowe was among the 25 people who gathered along Lee Street in front of the Charleston Town Center Mall Monday, Oct. 1 as part of a rally and press conference held by Men and Women Against Discrimination.

To kick off National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, the Vienna-based children's advocacy group staged the event to release two studies showing inequities in the West Virginia judicial system when it comes to domestic violence.

The first study was an analysis of all petitions for domestic violence protective orders filed in Cabell County Family Court during the 2006 calendar year. According the study, 76 percent of all petitions are dismissed.

Using the Cabell County statistics as a model, the second study showed that the time and resources lost in dealing with those dismissed petitions is $18 million.

Though she now lives in her native Wood County, Lowe, 38, says the analysis of Cabell County holds true in Jackson County, where she used to live with her now ex-husband. In the course of their divorce proceeding, Lowe says he leveled accusations against her of child abuse in an attempt to gain custody of their children.

Though the tactic eventually failed, Lowe says she and her children are still feeling the repercussions of those allegations.

"I've spent six years of my life tied up in court," Lowe said.

Likewise, Chris Saunders says the same holds true in Wayne County which not only neighbors Cabell County, but also shares part of Huntington. According to Saunders, accusations of domestic violence were leveled against him on nine different occasions by his ex-wife, not including additional allegations he molested his daughter, which led to two warrants being issued for his arrest.

Now since exonerated of all the charges leveled against him, Saunders, 37, who now lives in Burlington, Ohio, says the studies MAWAD released has a therapeutic effect for him.

"I just like seeing the information get out," Saunders said. "Nobody should have their children torn away for making false allegations."

Hopefully, Sanders says, the studies will convince lawmakers to pass bills criminalizing false reporting of domestic violence, and creating 50/50 parenting plan.

"What we're talking about is children having a right to both halves of themselves," Saunders said.

Charles Pope says both he and wife were victims of domestic violence. He for not being provided assistance after she battered him one night, and her for being provided too much assistance under the assumption she was the victim.

According to Pope, who lives on Charleston's West Side, his wife become violent one night in January. Unbeknownst to him, Pope says, his wife was taking medication for depression, and had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

"She just snapped," Pope said.

When police came to their house at her urging, Pope says they were prepared to arrest him. However, with the intervention of his pastor, police placed her in custody.

Instead of being arrested, Pope says, his wife was taken to CAMC for evaluation. Believing she was the victim of domestic violence, the hospital referred her to a local shelter for battered women.

Later, when he attempted to have a mental hygiene warrant served on her by Kanawha County Sheriff's Department, Pope says, people at the shelter told deputies she was not there. However, when he publicly detailed his ordeal at a conference on male victimization in April, his wife was released from the shelter.

"And she really never got the help," Pope said.

Pope says he hopes that police will begin to investigate each domestic violence-related case on its merits instead of arriving on the scene with the assumption the man is the guilty party.

Likewise, he would like to see more services, especially overnight shelter, provided to male victims of domestic violence.

"There's too many politicians hooked up in the foolishness of all this," Pope said. "They don't believe a man can be a victim of domestic violence."

"I'm living proof of it," he added

Charly Young says she knows too well of the man-is-guilty mentality many law enforcement officers have. Though she was not formally part of MAWAD's rally, Young, 29, who lives in downtown Charleston, donned one of their T-shirts and joined them in a march around the Town Center on her way to the transit mall.

About two weeks ago, Young says, she and her fiancee got into a heated argument. The argument centered about coping with financial difficulties they are experiencing.

Needless to say, police were summoned to their apartment. Despite telling police no blows were struck, and she shared part of the blame in creating the disturbance, Young said police encouraged her to press charges against her fiancee.

"The police really didn't care," Young said. "They just wanted to take somebody down."

For Young, the matter was "culture shock." A native of Washington, D.C., Young said she moved to Charleston after leaving an abusive relationship in Baltimore in 2003.

After being nearly choked to death by her former boyfriend, Young says she found it incomprehensible that her word alone could have sent her fiancee to jail.

According to Young, the financial challenges she and her fiancee are having stem from a gunshot wound he suffered three years ago. He is still rehabilitating from that wound, and has not had steady employment since then.

Though acknowledging money won't solve all their problems, Young says if more were done to alleviate poverty, then that would go a long way in curbing domestic violence.

"That is where domestic violence comes from in the poor neighborhoods," Young said.

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Thursday, October 04, 2007

GET OFF THE BENCH

I was honored to be invited as a guest last Sunday on the internet radio show "Get Off The Bench!"

The topic was "Abuse of Domestic Violence Laws" and as you can imagine, my experience is a classic case study in that phenomenon.

Links to access the show are below the jump.



Click here to download the show as a podcast. Or, you can go here, find Episode 13 and click on the "Listen" link next to it.

I hope you enjoy it. Thanks to Bob Norton and Lary Holland for inviting me on.

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