JANUARY 31, 2014 TASK FORCE REPORT INSULTS VICTIMS OF FAMILY COURT!

It has taken me a while, but I finally had the opportunity to review the "Report and Recommendations" of the Task Force to Study Legal Disputes involving the Care and Custody of Minor Children. 

After doing so, I will say that I find the Report pretty insulting.  Why?  I'll tell you why. 

If you look at the introduction on page 2 of the Report, there is a lengthy quotation from the December 2002 Governor's Commission on Divorce, Custody, and Children.  Let's start right here with asking why this report would reach back to 2002 in order to describe the events that led up to the establishment of this task force. 

Does the current social movement which led to the establishment of this task force right now in 2014 have no bearing on this report? 

Are we all to be described in terms of a group of people who were working twelve years ago?  

There are very real social changes that have taken place in the last decade which affect people in the present in a very important way. Some of these include changing gender roles, men coming into their own in the light of the father's rights movement, the empowerment of women who are victims of domestic violence, far greater awareness of the rights of children, the massive expansion of access to knowledge through internet programs such as google and yahoo, and the impact of the American's With Disabilities act. 

How can this Task Force proceed with any investigation of what is going on in Family Court in Connecticut today without mentioning all these factors?  Instead, this report depends upon commentary from 2002 which heaps blame on the victims of our corrupt family court here in Connecticut stating that the problem is "a small minority of parents [who engage] in persistent conflict because of anger, characterological or mental health problems, or the force of personality."  It further continues to state, "these families over consume system resources pursuing their conflict and frequently harm their children in the process.  The ability of this population to use the constitutional right of access to the courts as a means for revenge or punishment against the other parent is an unintended negative consequence of the legal process." 

I am not saying that abusive ex spouses aren't stalking their exes through the family court system, because the fact that they do is well documented and I have been a victim of that process. 

However, what about the current legal process which, as it stands, currently is geared towards facilitating legally abusive exes to the fullest extent possible, as long as they have the money.  In fact, I would state that the so-called "minority" engaged in high conflict divorce directly correlates to the income level of the people involved.  Because as the lawyers, judges, and vendors who incentivize these kinds of divorces know, these are the only people who can afford them.

Further, I will say that isn't it about time that Family Court here in Connecticut--the judges, family services, as well as the attorneys--stepped up to the plate and took responsibility for their considerable role in causing these problems. 

Clearly, the members of the Commission in 2002 didn't think they had to, and the current task force doesn't think so since it relied so much on what the earlier Commission had to say. 

And what does the Commission have to say?  Take a look at page 3 where the task force quotes the earlier Commission Item #5 saying, "Connecticut's already excellent judicial Brance [sic] and private sector services..."  "Already excellent?" 

You are kidding me, right? 

Could someone explain to me why it is acceptable to be insulting towards consumers of legal services, but the egos associated with the CT Judicial Branch have to be handled with kid gloves? 

What is this? 

If the CT Judicial Branch was so excellent, and if attorney services were so excellent, the task force would not have had to field almost a hundred concrete suggestions for its improvement and 60 consumers on January 9, 2014, and many more in an informal hearing later on in the month, would not have felt such a burning need to testify to the task force regarding the many serious abuses they have experienced when receiving services from the CT Judicial Branch and from attorneys. 

Why is there such a reaction of horror to the extraordinary concept that the CT Judicial Branch and the people who practice there should be held to account for their negligence and wrongdoing when it occurs? 

Why is there the presumption that they are entitled to be coddled so much?  

For instance, Court Planner Heather Collin's article on the "Secret Shopper" program at the CT Judicial Branch remarks that, "reaction to the program was generally positive because administrators determined that anonymity of the program would...be...extended to observed staff...That means that employees who were observed failing to follow policies and procedures, or who were impolite to the observer or members of the public, were not singled out for punishment or training." 

So how come litigants who are struggling their way through what is probably the most difficult time of their lives, for whom it is not all in a days work, cannot be accorded the same kind of gentle and non-judgmental treatment? 

Why is there such terror at being in the least bit critical of the CT Judicial Branch while simultaneously viciously attacking the victims of family court in some of the most harsh and cruel terms imaginable?  And then publishing it all in this recent introduction to the Task Force Report?  

There is no "excellent" judicial branch as long as a parent can lose her children with a fake Amber Alert.  

There is no "excellent" judicial branch as long as parents report being forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on useless GALs and AMCs. 

There is no "excellent" judicial branch if a judge without any kind of evidence whatsoever can deny parents access to their children based upon fabricated diagnoses of mental illness. 

 

At many points during task force meetings, members of the task force, particularly Dr. Elizabeth Thayer were at pains to state that their work was "not a witch hunt" and that there was no intention to single out any individual legal or mental health practitioners. 

But why not? 

These attorneys and psychologists have had no problem singling out the victims of family court, directly attacking them in court, insulting them and slandering their reputations.  Then judges had no problem publishing all of that misinformation, including confidential psychiatric information such as diagnoses in online Memoranda of Decision which the internet makes available all over the world!  If litigants can survive that surely attorneys and mental health professionals, let alone judges, can endure a little singling out.  What's the big deal!  Yes, Court professionals know exactly what the big deal is, as disingenuous as they may pretend to be.

Moving forward, is the problem that plagues Family Court self-represented parties (see the bottom of page 2)?  No.  The problem is CT Family Court simply ignoring The Practice Book rules as it pleases, disregarding the Rules of Evidence as it pleases, blowing off case law and CT General Statutes and ruling arbitrarily as it pleases and then getting angry when those self-represented parties start challenging the completely tyrannical and lawless behavior of the Court.  Because we actually read those documents when judges and attorneys don't!

That's the real problem, and as long as legislators (most of whom are lawyers themselves), and the CT Judicial Branch continue to remain in denial about it, nothing is going to change. 

And there is no doubt that Attorney Sharon Dornfeld and Attorney Sue Cousineau maintained a stranglehold on this Task Force, talking over everyone else, silencing other members when they tried to speak up, choosing the speakers, determining the structure of the task force report, etc.  as well as attempting to perpetuate the mythology that it is all much too difficult to sort out; it is "he said, she said," it's this small minority, blah, blah, blah--all in an attempt to discredit and marginalize the very people who made this task force possible in the first place.

For those who get suckered into this kind of thinking, it is worth reconsidering.  I say this particularly as an educator.  When you dig a ditch, you get a ditch.  When you build a house, you get a house.  When you build a bridge, you get a bridge.  When you build a piece of crap, you get the CT Judicial Branch and its fallout--corrupt judges and attorneys.  You want something different, make it different and stop coming up with excuses.