A Good Beginning.

Caught in the cross-hairs of California's state budget crisis, the Los Angeles Superior Court — the largest trial court system in the nation — this week laid off 329 employees and closed 16 courtrooms. Facing an unprecedented $79 million shortfall, Presiding Judge Charles W. McCoy said that the courts will lay-off an additional 500 workers and shutter up to a total of 50 courtrooms come September. Announcing the cutbacks in a courtroom closed months ago to save money, McCoy said, "Today is a sad day for justice in Los Angeles." With attrition, McCoy expects the 5,400-employee court system to lose approximately 1,000 employees, a 20% reduction.

The 16 closed courtrooms handled criminal, family law, civil law along with complex litigation and small claims case loads. Similar cuts are taking place in courts across the state. McCoy says the 100,000 Angelenos who use the courts each day can expect growing case backlogs, longer lines and delays in processing judgments. Among those losing their jobs: clerks, court reporters and supervisors. Judge Marjorie Steinberg says her family law departments are losing mental health professionals who help parents negotiate their disputes before they go to court: "You can imagine how tough that is on a family, and on the children, whose parents are fighting."

The courts, which make up 2% of the state budget, have thus joined the slash-and-cut regimen that has befallen school districts, cities, and social services across California as the state deals with a $21 billion shortfall this year. (That comes on the heels of last year's $40 billion deficit.)

The trial system will not be affected uniformly. Statutory and constitutional guarantees in the criminal justice system protect the right to a speedy trial, says Allan Parachini, spokesman for the Los Angeles Superior Court, so "we really can't go to the criminal courts for the cuts... what is happening is that resources are being bled out of other areas, especially civil, to make sure we can meet all our obligations in criminal." Ten years ago the average time to trial in a general civil case in Los Angeles County was an eye popping five years. Reforms and increased efficiency reduced the wait to 16 months but Parachini says he expects civil case delays to spike again.

"In addition to the impact on the civil courts, our family and juvenile courts are about to take huge hits," says Don Mike Anthony, president of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. He says custody orders, divorce and child support matters that now take 30 days will soon take four months. In addition, the court will no longer provide financial support and supervising personnel to the Court-Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) program which works on behalf of abused, neglected and abandoned children involved in dependency court matters. Among the mundane cuts, a reduction of the popular night traffic court from twice to once a month.

"We have explored every financial scenario before taking this action, but more than 80% of our budget goes to salaries and benefits, which forces today's drastic measures," said McCoy. With annual court budget deficits expected to be as high as $140 million over the next four years, court officials say up to 1,800 staff positions may be eliminated. Last year, the California judicial council instituted a one-day per month closure of all state courts as both a cost-savings.
A series of unprecedented statewide court closures one day each month, while necessary to deal with California's budget crisis, will also bring unwanted case delays to thousands beginning this week, San Francisco's presiding superior court judge said today.

"This is not a proud day for us," Judge James McBride said at a news conference at San Francisco's civil courthouse. The court is one of several in San Francisco and throughout California that will close this Wednesday, and every third Wednesday through June of next year.

But McBride said the decision, made in July by the California Judicial Council, which oversees the state court system, was "the only rational choice to make," as opposed to "massive layoffs" of experienced court employees or cuts in court programs.

The closures, the equivalent of a new court holiday during which employees will not be paid, will affect each of the superior courts of California's 58 counties, as well as the six regional appeals courts and the California Supreme Court.

"We will be, in that week, cramming five days' work into four," McBride said.

"The work's not going to go away," he said.

The Judicial Council ordered the furlough days to help close the state judicial system's estimated $414 million deficit, which McBride called a "devastating crash in our budget."
The closures will save an estimated $94.3 million.

Many state judges, including in San Francisco, have also reportedly agreed to voluntary 5-percent salary givebacks to the courts. Superior court judges in California are paid approximately $179,000 per year.

"The unintended yet inevitable symbolism of 'Closed' signs on our courthouses — institutions that embody our nation's revered democratic ideas — is a graphic indication of the severity of California's economic crisis," said California Chief Justice Ronald George addressing the state legislature last year. "For many Californians the courts represent their primary — and sometimes their most important — interaction with state government. Courts are not a luxury to be funded in good times and ignored in bad times."

Meanwhile, the negative economic ripple effect of cuts to the Los Angeles civil courts could result in a nearly $30 billion hit to the local economy over the next four years, according to a study commissioned by the Los Angeles Superior Court. According to the study, the legal services industry would take an estimated $13 billion loss and businesses operating in uncertainty, because of pending civil disputes, would accumulate another $15 billion in potential losses. The decline in economic activity would then result in an additional $1.6 billion in losses.

A Sacramento judge who fought the once-a-month court closures by the state Judicial Council said the action is unwarranted locally and will result in monstrous new backlogs.

Superior Court Judge Maryanne G. Gilliard said the state could have made up the $94.3 million saved with the closures by cutting the Judicial Council's operational arm, the Administrative Office of the Courts, and scrapping a $1.1 billion computer system that many local judges have harshly criticized.

"I think that statewide closure of the courts by order of the Judicial Council is unprecedented and, beyond that, is unwarranted, especially in light of the fact that there are obvious areas in the AOC's own budget that could have been tapped in order to not restrict the public's constitutional right of access to their courts," Gilliard said in an interview in her chambers.

"This was an unnecessary order," she said.

The judge blasted the growth of the court administrative office's budget from $100 million to $177 million over the past five years and its increase in employees from 491 to 785. Agency officials have defended the increases as a reflection of their taking over executive authority for court operations throughout the state.

Gilliard said that as many as 20 county court systems in the state, including Sacramento's, have the resources to stay in operation and avoid the closures.

"We could keep our doors open, but we're being told we have to shut down because it's more important that there be uniformity rather than access to justice and the courts for those counties able to do so," she said.

In Sacramento, backlogged local courts have forced civil trials into years-long delays and Gilliard said the shutdown will extend delays to other areas.

"Let's talk about abused and neglected children whose cases are going to be delayed," Gilliard said. "Let's talk about crime victims. Let's talk about those accused of crimes. Let's talk about jurors who could be very well in the midst of deliberations on a murder trial being told they have to go home.

"It is significant, and the public should be aware that the Thursday after the Wednesday shutdowns, it's going to be monstrous in terms of dealing with the press of cases (that) we're not going to be able to get to on Wednesday," she said.

An LA Times editorial said that: With the potentially catastrophic effects of court closures and layoffs on our economy, you'd think that the Judicial Council, the statewide body that oversees courts, and its administrative agency, the AOC, would make solving this problem their top priority.

Unfortunately, the AOC and the Judicial Council have busied themselves with other tasks. An unfinished, $2-billion IT project, for example, has mushroomed over the last several years to more than five times its originally projected cost. There's no direct oversight of AOC's budget, no independent audits, no access to its internal records and no whistle-blowing protection for staff. In short, it's an entity that receives special legal protection by the state to operate outside the realm of public scrutiny and accountability, a status the justices who oversee it fiercely protect. The problem is so bad that in just one year, and with no staffing or budget, an organization of dissident judges who want more accountability for the AOC and Judicial Council has already signed on more than 10% of all state judges.

Pay Up or Die In Jail.

Failure to pay cild support lead to the death of R&B singer, Sean Levert, a third of the 1980s R&B trio LeVert and son of lead O'Jays singer Eddie Levert. He died after falling ill while serving a jail term. He was 39. Authorities said on March 31, 2008 that an autopsy was inconclusive but foul play was ruled out.

Levert was sentenced last week to one year and 10 months in jail for failing to pay $89,025 in child support. He died at Lutheran Hospital in Cleveland late Sunday, less than an hour after he was taken there from the jail, said coroner Frank Miller.

Levert was sentenced by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Nancy Margaret Russo, who said a presentence report indicated he had been addicted to marijuana from the time he was 14 until recently. He didn't speak at his sentencing and gave no indication of any health problems, the judge said Monday.

His brother Gerald Levert, who had success as a solo artist after leaving their trio died in 2006 at age 40 of an accidental mix of prescription and over-the-counter drugs.

The brothers had formed LeVert in the 1980s with childhood friend Marc Gordon. Their hits included "Baby I'm Ready," "(Pop, Pop, Pop, Pop) Goes My Mind" and "Casanova."

"Casanova" was nominated for a Grammy in 1988 for best R&B performance by a duo or group with vocal. It was also nominated for best R&B song.

At Gerald Levert's funeral service in November 2006, Sean Levert and his father performed "Dance With My Father" and personalized the words for Gerald. The elder Levert's group, the O'Jays, was known for such smash hits as "Back Stabbers" and "Love Train."

Sean Levert found a new third partner last year and was trying to revive LeVert.
An autopsy was done Monday but no immediate cause of death was determined, according to Powell Caesar, a spokesman for the Cuyahoga County's coroner's office, but he said there was no evidence of foul play or trauma.

Levert suffered from high blood pressure and had been hallucinating in jail, Caesar said. Toxicology reports could take four to six weeks, he said.

Warden Kevin McDonough said earlier that Levert had been sick and guards were watching him at the jail's regular cellblock because he had been acting strangely.

Sean Levert had pleaded guilty last week to six counts of nonsupport involving children ages 11, 15 and 17.

Family Courts are courts of the absurd.

Family courts have become courts of the absurd and they are extorting fathers. Child support enforcement is federally mandated. State Family Courts are using it to destroy families. It is a conspiracy of judges, lawyers, and court administrators fleecing the average citizens.
Massive numbers of fathers who are accused of no wrongdoing now are separated from their children, plundered for everything they have, publicly vilified and incarcerated without trial.
. . About 24 million American children live in homes where the father is not present, with devastating consequences for both the children and society. Crime, drug and alcohol abuse, truancy, teenage pregnancy, suicide and psychological disorders are a few of the tragic consequences. Conventional wisdom assumes that the fathers of these children have abandoned them. In this case the conventional wisdom is dangerously wrong. It is far more likely that an "absent" father is forced away rather than leaving voluntarily.
. . In his new study, Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myths, Sanford Braver of Arizona State University has shown conclusively that the so-called "deadbeat dad," one who deserts his children and evades child support, "does not exist in significant numbers." Braver confirms that, contrary to popular belief, at least two-thirds of divorces are filed by mothers, who have virtual certainty of getting the children and a huge portion of the fathers' income, regardless of any fault on their part. The title of Ashton Applewhite's 1997 book says it succinctly: Cutting Loose: Why Women Who End Their Marriages Do So Well.
. . Other studies have found even higher percentages of divorces filed by mothers, and lawyers report that, when children are involved, divorce is the initiative of the mother in virtually all instances. Moreover, few of these divorces involve grounds such as desertion, adultery or violence. The most frequent reasons given are "growing apart" or "not feeling loved or appreciated." (Surveys consistently show that fathers are much more likely than mothers to believe parents should remain married.) Yet, as Braver reports, despite this involuntary loss of their children, 90 percent of these deserted fathers regularly pay court-ordered child support (unemployment being the main reason for nonpayment), often at exorbitant levels and many without any rights to see their children. Most make heroic efforts to stay in contact with the children from whom they are forcibly separated.
...The voices of fathers rarely are heard in the public arena. Instead we hear the imprecations of a government conducting what may be the most massive witch-hunt in this country's history. Never before have we seen the spectacle of the highest officials in the land -- including the president, the attorney general and other Cabinet secretaries, and leading members of Congress from both parties -- using their offices as platforms from which publicly to vilify private citizens who have been convicted of nothing and who have no opportunity to reply.
. . Under the guise of pursuing deadbeat dads, we now are seeing mass incarcerations without trial, without charge and without counsel, while the media and civil libertarians look the other way. We also have government officials freely entering the homes and raiding the bank accounts of citizens who are accused of nothing and simply helping themselves to whatever they want -- including their children, their life savings and their private papers and effects, all with hardly a word of protest noted.
. . And these are fathers who are accused of nothing. Those who face trumped-up accusations of child abuse also must prove their innocence before they can hope to see their children. Yet now it is well established that most child abuse takes place in the homes of single mothers. A recent study from the Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, found that "almost two-thirds [of child abusers] were females." Given that male perpetrators are not necessarily fathers but much more likely to be boyfriends and stepfathers, fathers emerge as the least likely child abusers. A British study by Robert Whelan in 1993 titled Broken Homes and Battered Children concluded that a child living with a single mother is up to 33 times more likely to be abused than a child living in an intact family. The argument of many men legally separated from their families is that the real abusers have thrown the father out of the family so they can abuse his children with impunity.
...In Virginia alone the state Division of Child Support Enforcement now is "pursuing" 428,000 parents for up to $1.6 billion, according to its director, Nick Young. In a state of fewer than 7 million people, the parents of 552,000 children are being "pursued." That is the parents of roughly half the state's minor dependent children. HHS claims that almost 20 million fathers in the nation are being pursued for something close to $50 billion. We are being asked to believe that half the fathers in America have abandoned their children willfully.
. . . . These figures essentially are meaningless. If they indicate anything it is the scale on which families are being taken over by a destructive and dangerous machine consisting of judges, lawyers, psychotherapists, social workers, bureaucrats and women's groups -- all of whom have a direct financial interest in separating as many children from their fathers as possible, vilifying and plundering the fathers and turning them into criminals. The machine is so riddled with conflicts of interest that it is little less than a system of organized crime. Here is how it works: Judges are appointed and promoted by the lawyers and "custody evaluators," into whose pockets they funnel fees; the judges also are influenced with payments of federal funds from child-support enforcement bureaucracies that depend on a constant supply of ejected fathers; child-support guidelines are written by the bureaucracies that enforce them and by private collection companies that have a financial stake in creating as many arrearages and "deadbeat dads" as possible. These guidelines are then enacted by legislators, some of whom divert the enforcement contracts to their own firms, sometimes even taking personal kickbacks (as charged in a recent federal indictment in Arkansas). Legislators who control judicial appointments also get contracts (and kickbacks, again the case in Arkansas) for providing legal services at government expense in the courts of their appointees. And, of course, custody decisions and child-support awards must be generous enough to entice more mothers to take the children and run, thus bringing a fresh supply of fathers into the system. In short, child support is the financial fuel of the divorce industry. It has very little to do with the needs of children and everything to do with the power and profit of large numbers of adults.
...There is no evidence that endless "crackdowns" on evicted fathers serve any purpose other than enriching those in the cracking-down business. With child- support enforcement now a $3 billion national industry, the pursuit of the elusive deadbeat yields substantial profits, mostly at public expense. "In Florida last year," writes Kathleen Parker in the Orlando Sentinel, "taxpayers paid $4.5 million for the state to collect $162,000 from fathers"; and the story is the same elsewhere.
. . . . Instead of the easy fiction that massive numbers of fathers are suddenly and inexplicably abandoning their children, perhaps what we should believe instead is that a lucrative racket now is cynically using our children as weapons and tools to enrich lawyers and provide employment for judges and bureaucrats. Rather than pursuing ever greater numbers of fathers with ever more Draconian punishments, the Justice Department should be investigating the kind of crimes it was created to pursue -- such as kidnapping, extortion and racketeering -- in the nation's family courts.

...Truth was the first casualty of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s Welfare Reform. The Best Interests of the child was the second.
The Best Interests of the Family was the third.
This is the legacy of Welfare Reform. God only knows what perils we avoided by passing up Hillary’s Health Care Reform package.
Military salaries and federal workers’ salaries come from outside of the state and bring in big money to the state family courts. Stay out of Family Court. You cannot win. Keep your children out of public schools, and never call the police for a domestic problem. Public schools teach children to call 911 for all kinds of things. They teach them to call the police on their parents if they think they are being physically or mentally abused. Police must respond to every 911 call, even from a child’s cell phone. And they must believe the child even when they know the child is not telling the truth. The same goes for a female spouse, if she calls the police. The police must arrest someone. It is usually the man. Once you get to Family Court your financial future is in jeopardy.
..Your salary is the target. The truth is irrelevant. They do not care about the truth. They will make up their own facts to fit the situation. Lawyers distort and even fabricate. Judges are indifferent to both Petitioner and the Respondent.
All they want to know is who makes the most money. The name of the game is “Get the Money”. There is no justice in Family Court.
...They do not care what is in the best interests of the child. Truth is irrelevant.
Fathers and mothers are the greatest experts when it comes to the best interest of the child. The office of child support enforcement, the courts, the district attorney and many experts on children don't have a clue what children really need. Children need time and attention from their parents, not more draconian methods to collect more money.

...Family Courts are worse than organized crime. They are an organized crime, and they are the so-called administrators of the law. So, it is legal, but, it is unconscionable.
...Are you concerned about father's rights? Fathers are routinely discriminated against in family court, the district attorney, and the office of child support enforcement. Parenting includes much more than writing a check once a month. The best interest of the child is served most effectively by shared parenting. Courts all across the nation continue to ignore the importance of fathers in family court. The District Attorney looks upon fathers as mere pay checks.

...I was made aware of this article by ANCPR, Alliance for Non-Custodial Parents Rights.
I urge you to contact them in order to receive an information packet that further substantiates the destructive effect of the draconian child support enforcement laws that have been enacted in recent years. Their address is:
ANCPR http://ancpr.org

Father Jailed 4 Failure to Pay Support shot by police.

Police killed man as he tried to kill self.
A federal lawsuit accuses two Allentown police officers of ''outlandish and outrageous conduct'' in what it calls the unprovoked shooting of a man who tried to kill himself with a box cutter.

James H. Stewart, 24, died from two gunshots to his back after the officers tried to arrest him for failing to return to Northampton County Prison after a work-release assignment. He had been jailed for failing to make child support payments.The suit, filed by attorney John P. Karoly Jr. on March 19, exactly two years after Stewart's death, alleges officer Jeremy Moll shot Stewart twice and that Moll's partner, Wesley Wilcox, yelled at him, ''What the f--- are you doing?''

Filed on behalf of Stewart's estate and his sister, Tonya Stewart, the suit accuses both officers of brutality and using excessive force. Besides Moll and Wilcox, it names former Chief Joseph Blackburn and the city as defendants, and seeks at least $300,000 in punitive and compensatory damages.

Allentown spokesman Joe McDermott said the city would issue no statement on the suit. ''It's litigation, so we can't comment on it,'' he said. ''Our solicitors and lawyers will look over it and proceed accordingly.''

Karoly, of South Whitehall Township, who has won multimillion-dollar settlements against Easton and Bethlehem in police brutality cases, could not be reached for comment.

Stewart, a handyman and father of three, had fallen behind on child support payments and in February 2005 was sent to Northampton County Prison, where he was placed in a work-release program. But he failed to return to the prison March 4, and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Early on March 19, 2005, police received an anonymous tip that Stewart was at his sister's home at 510 Auburn St., Allentown.

According to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court:

Moll and Wilcox arrived minutes later and ''pushed their way'' into the home, where they found Stewart ''sitting harmlessly'' on his bed. The officers ordered him to stand, asked his name and checked his identifying tattoos. When they told Stewart to turn around, he took a box cutter from his belt and ''tried to stab himself.''

One of the officers wrestled the box cutter away and threw it to the floor.

As Stewart stood with his back to the officers and arms to his sides, Moll shot him. Stewart fell to his knees, and Moll shot him again in the back. Stewart dropped to the floor, where he lay dying in a pool of blood.

When Wilcox yelled at Moll, asking what he was doing, Moll replied, ''I don't know! I don't know!'' Tonya Stewart, who stood behind the officers, screamed, ''You killed my brother!''

Wilcox and Moll forced Tonya Stewart to the floor, beside her brother, where she was handcuffed. The officers also handcuffed James Stewart, who was moaning and ''bleeding profusely.''

Wilcox turned to Moll, according to the suit, and said, ''My God, what did you do?''

Stewart was taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest, where he died about 30 minutes later.

At the time of the incident, police said the city's communications center received a call at 2:39 a.m. from the Auburn Street home. The caller told police a wanted man was there and he might have a gun.

As two officers tried to arrest Stewart, according to the police account, he held up a box cutter and a struggle began. One of the officers fired at Stewart, hitting him twice in his upper back.

Besides excessive force and brutality by the officers, the lawsuit alleges wrongful death, unlawful seizure, false imprisonment, denial of medical care, civil conspiracy and assault and battery.

The suit also claims Tonya Stewart suffers from a variety of emotional ailments, including ''severe fright, horror and grief.''

matthew.birkbeck@mcall.com

Lawless Family Courts Extort Money From Fathers.

Failure of Welfare Reform Created Our Lawless Courts Mar 15, 2007

If you have been a defendant in any of our family courts since the “welfare reform” of the 1990’s, you most likely left there with an eerie feeling that the decision was made long before you walked into the courtroom. That should be of no surprise to anyone because the fact is; the decision was made long before your case was even filed.

How and why does this keep happening with such great predictability? That is because our family law operation is that way by design.


Our states’ family law statutes are not designed to dispense justice or operate in “the best interest of the child.” Nor are they the true governance over the daily operations of our courts. Rather, the states family law statutes are designed to ensure the operations of their family courts leverage the maximum return from a vast array of federal grant sources. Most of the programs providing the grant money to family law were major parts of our failed welfare reform effort of the 1990’s.

The legislatures of most of our states have abnegated their authority over the operational guidelines of their courts to committees under their Supreme Courts. These committees produce and manage the states’ courts guidelines, rules and procedures that govern the day-to-day operation of the state’s family courts and that of the court personnel and, in effect, attorneys practicing within them.

These guidelines, rules, and procedures your own attorney will claim they must work within have nothing to do with actual laws. Remember the separation of powers? That’s right. It is against the law for our courts to legislate. So the guidelines, rules and procedures that govern our courts operation aren’t laws. But don’t fool yourself; they do have the full effect and force of law.

To be certain nothing can stop this feeding frenzy off the federal teat, the states have excluded the operation of the courts from their respective Sunshine laws. So you can’t find out in advance what they are planning to do in the next revision. Therefore, you have no say in the matter except after the fact. This for all practical matters is no say at all.

This then raises the question: What was your attorney doing when he or she said you have a “winnable” case and why isn’t he or she filing civil rights violations claims when you get slaughtered? Upon interviewing several dozen family law attorneys throughout the country, my group True Equality Network came to the astounding conclusion that they do not actually practice law at all. Family law attorneys are merely “processors” within a system of very constrictive procedural guidelines.

So your defeat will be due to the practice of law without governing laws.

Then what are these elusive guidelines, rules, and procedures constructed to do? That’s simple. They are designed to make certain that rulings are made that generate the highest return from an assortment of federal “incentive programs.”

It is important to note that the states actually have no legal requirement to do what is required of most, if not all, of the federal incentive programs. Those requirements are only applicable if the state wants to apply for the federal moneys a given program provides.

When the basic concept of “if you violate someone’s civil rights so I make money, I’ll give you some of the money” is applied in the private sector we call it, payola, bribery, or maybe even racketeering, depending on the specifics of what was done and how it was done of course. However, when government violates your civil rights under the color of law it is called an incentive program.

Once the states get the money they can apply it to a host of state level programs, such as retirement funds for court workers and judges and performance incentives for court workers such as child support case administrators.

This has proven to make seeking a fair ruling or other actions within the family courts, like reasonable child support orders, much like asking the county employees involved to take a voluntary pay cut. This also keeps the attorneys inline, since they too know they would be asking the judges to take a pay cut and that won’t help them win their next case.

The failure of “welfare reform” is found in its core principle of basing the federal incentives primarily on the money the state’s collect in child support, not primarily on the percentage of cases they collect successfully.

Since the adoption of the laws collectively known as welfare reform — Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRAWORA) and its ugly step siblings, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Child Support Performance and Incentive Act (CSPIA) — the states have adopted a mindset of taking as much money as possible from their citizens who are almost always parents of minor children to get even more from Uncle Sam.

Since the welfare reform laws were enacted we have seen some horrifying results. Not the least of which is how child support arrearages have grown from being less than ten billion dollars nationally when welfare reform was first being debated in the US Congress in the 1990’s to approaching one hundred billion dollars today.

But worse yet, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) shows that currently the average income of an obligator with high child support arrearages is less than ten thousand dollars a year. So the fact is that the average “dead beat” parent meets the financial qualifications to apply for public assistance themselves. While less than 4% of all arrearages in the United States are owed by obligators earning more than twenty thousand dollars a year.

At first glance one might think the states are run by total financial idiots; they aren’t at all though. They realized early on that the federal incentives pay them for both child support moneys collected and for the enforcement effort on moneys they need to collect (arrearages). The states also know that as you go down through the income classes you will reach a point where the federal incentives for arrearage enforcement exceed the incentives they would get for collecting these cases.

Since 2000 many states have made large cuts to their child support enforcement systems, some as high as 36%. Why? Because they more than meet the federal collection requirements under CSPIA via the collection of the cases of higher wage earners through automatic wage attachments.

Spending money for efforts to collect lower income cases costs more money then they can recover from incentives. So why should they bother? As with so many of our domestic policies, CSPIA serves those that need service the least, or not at all and abandons those with the greatest real need.

So here is where the states’ court committees on rules and procedures come in. Among the battery of “laws” they create, child support guidelines are their big cash cow. Also, beyond its own funding, domestic violence claims are proven to open the door to even more child support and many other funding sources unrelated to domestic violence.

Not only are the states paid for collecting or not collecting child support, those performance figures also play a major role in how much TANF grant money they receive. As an aside; read through TANF sometime, you may be shocked to learn that a large portion of those law’s dialog are covering when and where the states can spend their welfare incentives on highway projects.

However, it isn’t called highway funding in this case. That spending is classified within a category called “improving access to facilities,” which is a perfectly legal and legitimate application of TANF incentives. This spending is then applied toward the state’s percentage of welfare incentives spent on “assistance related programs.”

The important point here is that if the state needs more highway funding, all they need to do is raise the state’s level of child support and they can spend their resulting welfare incentive increases on highway projects and remain in perfect compliance with the relevant programs funding requirements.

In view of the fact that the states child support and welfare incentives are largely based on the child support money on their books, they need to figure out how to get the most money per case out of people. A quick overview of the construct of child support guidelines shows us that in every state child support awards are predominately based on three considerations:

Income of both parents - and the difference between them
Child care costs of both parents - and the difference between them
The amount of time each parent has the child - or the difference between them
The parents’ income is not something the state can control (or legally change), neither are the care costs the parents have, they are pretty much what they are. So the only thing the state can control and manipulate is the time the parents have with the child. We call this “custody and visitation.”

If you poke around the web you can find online child support calculators for every state. If you get bored one day, play around with some example cases for yourself. What you will find is that the time the parents have with the child has the single greatest impact on a child support obligation of the three main considerations.

In many income classes the difference between 50/50 parenting time and 70/30 results in twice the child support awarded to the custodial parent and can double again if the time with the children becomes around 85/15 or less for the non-custodial parent in some states. I assure you that this is no accident.

The abuses by the states of CSPIA funding are well documented. One example is the report prepared for the US Congress by True Equality Network, which you can download from their web site.

If at this point you have any doubts that family law is based on dollars and not on justice, equal protection under the law, or the best interest of the child. Ask North Dakota’s Governor, John Hoeven.

Among the usual and customary items on the ballet in 2006, North Dakota had ballet item for “Presumptive Equal Parenting.” Governor Hoeven himself spoke out against this ballet initiative. Not for the welfare or well-being of his state’s children.

Rather than defending the wellbeing of his state’s children, Governor Hoeven’s stated reason for opposing this initiative was due to the hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grant money such a law would cost his state. That, by the way is a significant portion of the states expected annual revenue and revenue that is considered greatly in the state’s budget requests.

The Governor did this even though he was informed numerous times that scientific studies clearly show children in equal parenting arrangements after a family breakup excel at almost the same levels as those in intact, healthy families with both their biological parents present.

He was also made aware that the large majority of teens in juvenile detention, who become pregnant, smoke, run away, do drugs, and other social problems are in primary custody arrangements.

Governor Hoeven was also aware that in their biennial report, “Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support” (1999, 2001, and 2003) the US Census Bureau reports that of parents with equal parenting arrangements are far more likely to pay their child support, in full and on time without any enforcement actions then any other parenting arrangement. Where parents who have limited, disrupted, or no visitation with their children are likely not to pay a cent.

Governor Hoeven’s decision was not based on the best interest of the child or family values; it was all about the money.

All of the family law actions in your county court yield federal incentive moneys for your state, including domestic violence orders. There is no faster way to reduce the other parent’s visitation than a claim of domestic violence, plus everyone involved gets paid even more. This includes your own attorney is now handling the domestic violence case in addition to your divorce issues.

Moreover, it should be no surprise that no one will stand up against a false allegation of domestic violence, except its victim. Even when everyone knows for a fact the putative victim’s claim is completely fabricated or they openly admits to the court that it is a false claim the orders are often issued anyway. It is no wonder divorce attorneys are eager to tell their clients in divorce cases to file claims of domestic violence and include the children in the claim.

Let’s take look at some actual cases. We begin with the story of Rob Z., which is his real name. Although Rob is a Certified Master Social Worker, he found himself unemployed for over seven years. This was because Rob was the stay-at-home-dad for his son. When the his wife decided it was time for a change she filed a claim of domestic violence against Rob to help the process along.

Despite several witnesses, including neighbors and their own child testifying that the mother was violent partner of the marriage a restraining order was placed against Rob anyway. The order also granted temporary sole custody of their son to the mother and ordered Rob to pay child support.

Rob was removed from his home and was forbidden to have any contact with his son. However, after several months Rob’s wife changed her mind. She wanted a completely clean beginning, free of any prior obligations. So she called Rob and told him to come and pick his son. Rob agreed.

While en route Rob’s wife called him and asked how long it would be until he arrived. He gave her his estimated time and continued to go pick up his son. Upon arrival Rob found his son in the street with his belongings packed in plastic trash bags. As Rob loaded the belongings into the car, a Sheriff’s Deputy arrived.

Unknown to Rob, his wife have called in a violation of the restraining order after asking him how long it would be until he arrived at his former home. Rob was arrested for the restraining order violation and the boy was placed in temporary foster care. Once freed from jail, Rob was able to get his son from state custody.

Being that he was unemployed for so long Rob was having a hard time finding full time work. He had the credentials, but no current experience. Rob and his son ended up living in a tent in a North Carolina State Park for the summer. During this time Rob tried to get the child support order dropped. The courts not only refused to drop the support order, but decided to enforce the no contact with his son provision of the existing domestic violence restraining order they also refused to drop and Rob was arrested again.

Rob says, “That sure kept me from asking again.”

Events like the above went on for the balance of the two years the domestic violence restraining order remained in effect. Rob moved on trying to support himself and his son, while paying a child support order to a parent who refused to have any contact with their own child. Once the restraining order expired the courts finally dropped the child support order against Rob and granted him sole custody of his child.

Cases like this effect everyone. Take another real case, Arlene is her real name. Her son was in the process of splitting up with his wife. She took his leaving out on his entire family by naming them in her domestic violence complaint that ended any visitation for the children with their father and all of his family, including Arlene, their grandmother. The order gets renewed each year without question.

You should also be aware that just because your name appears on the court case as the plaintiff, that doesn’t mean you won’t suddenly find yourself the defacto defendant. Let’s take the case of Dave B, again his real name. His case is among those that illustrates how willing the family courts are to grant domestic violence restraining orders, regardless of what the actual facts of the case are.

Dave’s wife suffers from a serious mental illness. Although when she is on her medication all who know her will profess that she is a delight to be with and was highly regarded by friends and neighbors. However, she chooses to go off her medication regularly.

During these periods without her medication she would act-out very violently towards her husband and child. Following several involuntary committals to in patient mental health hospitals she again decided to stop taking her medications. In this, the last of such events for the family, she beat Dave and their son with a baseball bat. Most of Dave’s injuries were the result of him shielding their son from the blows directed at the child.

Dave was told to file criminal charges. Since repeated efforts to keep his wife on medication had failed, he had to think solely of protecting his son. So he did file complaints of criminal spousal abuse and child abuse on behalf of their son.

The day before the hearing Dave’s wife filed a civil complaint of domestic violence on behalf of herself and their son against Dave in family court. He was arrested entering the courthouse for the hearing for the criminal charges. Having missed the hearing the criminal charges against his wife were dropped.

Later that day Dave was in court again, this time as the defendant in a civil domestic violence case. Without going into great detail, the restraining order, sole custody of the son, and a temporary child support order were granted to the mother. However, review of the court documents showed that all of this was allegedly granted three weeks before Dave’s wife filed her complaint.

An investigation revealed that the court was so predisposed to granting domestic violence restraining orders, with custody and child support that they would preprint the court orders, leaving only the personal information of parties of the case to be added. In this case, someone neglected to dispose of the old forms and Dave’s information was added to a form over three weeks old.

The issues in Dave’s case are as yet unresolved.

One very well publicized case is Ben V’s (story on www.5thEstate.com). Ben was doing his custody exchanges in the lobby of his Pennsylvania city’s main police station to make sure nothing went wrong. After one drop off Ben’s ex-wife filed a domestic violence complaint against him. She claimed she was attacked in the lobby of the police station.

Even though the police department’s own video surveillance system clearly shows that nothing happened, while police officers were present at the reception desk where they met, the restraining order that included his son was issued against Ben anyway. Ben’s case regarding this blatant false claim being supported by the family court is still ongoing.

But not all cases end in disaster, like Bill R’s case; once again that is his real name. Bill wanted the military to be his career. Early on he married, the couple had a son and all looked wonderful. That is until his wife developed a serious substance abuse problem. An intervention hosted by family and friends resulted in Bill’s wife leaving one night without any notice to Bill or anyone he knew and not returning.

Given Bill’s entry level pay scale he was having a hard time financially. So Bill tried to go about what we all know every reasonable single parent does and filed for child support. After two years without receiving a cent he went to the court house for help enforcing the child support order.

To his absolute shock he was told right to his face that, “We don’t enforce against women.” Bill chuckled and replied, “So much for equal protection under the law.” The case worker scolded him and then informed him that if he didn’t watch his mouth she would call children’s services on him and make sure they take his son so he would have no reason to return to her office and give her anymore lip service. Bill never received so much as one cent in child support.

Despite the bad experience Bill had with the family court and having to give up his dream of military service to earn more money, he made the choice to do what was in the best interest of everyone concerned, especially his son.

Bill worked tirelessly to inspire his son to love and respect his mother. Although nearly a decade passed before Bill wife got help for her substance abuse issues, she did reestablish contact her son and today they enjoy a happy and healthy relationship. No matter what goes wrong in a family law case, that should be how it ends.

Bill’s case proves it doesn’t take government interference in your life to do what is in the best interest of a child. Maybe it does prove the absent of government interference in your life helps it happen. But unfortunately, case like those covered above are more the rule than the exception today.

To date, not one person involved in the above cases who wronged the citizens they swore to serve has been so much as reprimanded for their actions, nor have any of the false claims made to our courts been prosecuted. Charges have been filed against Ben V’s ex-wife and her attorney, the first such case I have heard of. But the hearing is still pending and an unending stream of motions to dismiss flood the court.

So if you find yourself in the defendant’s shoes in a family law court, don’t kid yourself. Look around at the people working there. Every one of them stands to make money, somehow, someway, when you lose. Notice that I didn’t say if you lose either. The moral of the story is; When you are wronged by the family courts, don’t look for redress because it doesn’t exist in the family court today. Chances are, you will just be asking for even more abuse.

So, expect your civil rights will be violated in so many ways you may begin to believe the Constitution of the United States of America is just another myth children are told, along with Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny.

Until federal child support incentive programs pay the states the same amount per successfully collected case no matter what the dollar value is this is the way it is going to be. Middle class families will be destroyed while the poor will continue to be underserved. Nothing about this sounds like a public assistance program, does it?

Currently, despite the established facts that children do better with equal access to both of their parents and the most effective, and cost effective method of child support enforcement is enforcing custody and visitation, federal incentive programs under our failed welfare reform are paying your state to limit the time children spend with one of their parents.Moreover, if you file for redress in the federal courts you are likely to be told, as so many before you have been told, that custody is exclusively a state matter and your case will be summarily dismissed.

So, defendant, now you know the truth. You lost before your case was ever filed. This is by design. And it is all about the money.=================================================