HECTOR MORERA RESPONDS TO SMEAR POST FROM CT LAW TRIBUNE RE GALS!

Oct 17, 2014
 

Obviously the person(s) who wrote this story ["Misplaced Furor Over Guardians Ad Litem"] did not listen or listen carefully to the Public Hearing Testimony from January 9, 2014 and March 31, 2014 before the CT Legislature.

I was told that this story was not written by the CT Law Tribune staff but by some outside authors. If that is the case, then the newspaper should correct their byline to NOT mislead the public into believing that the contents of the article are the position of the CT Law Tribune.

I‘ve court watched over 30 cases this past year, many after the passage of PA 14-3 and despite promises of change by Chief Justice Rogers, I continue to see violations of case law, Practice Book and basic protocol with respect to GAL‘s.

I realize litigants can be unreasonable at times. I will not deny that, but GAL‘s and Attorneys are responsible for their own conduct. They can NOT use litigant misconduct as an excuse to break rules.

The State Legislature has gone to great lengths to create statutes that provide guidance in Family Matters. Some of these statutes require further revisions to clarify serious abuse of judicial discretion such as in the misuse of Supervised Visitation, improper use of Reunification, ADA violation, etc., but there are many others which are simply overlooked by the courts.

The Judicial Branch has placed many publications on their website (sadly they do not advertise this well enough to many litigants for some reason). These publications provide guidance also which many judges ignore. We live in a common law state, It is very frustrating to be told by a judge that they refuse to follow case law.

Numerous, indisputable violations of Criminal Statutes and Rules of Professional conduct by the GAL‘s have been brought to the attention of the Statewide Grievance Committee and State‘s Attorney but NO GAL has been sanctioned or disciplined, nor have criminal charges ever been pursued.

Again, as I stated many times before I gladly will welcome anyone to discuss this matter with myself as I have talked to hundreds of persons about their horror stories. 1, 2 or a handful of stories can be attributed to human mistake, NOT hundreds. And this is a nationwide problem. I routinely meet with a group out of NY/NJ and they reinforce my position that this is a systemic problem, not just a few rogue individuals.

And the "good" attorneys fear losing their livelihoods if they point out the misconduct. If the good GAL‘s are upset that they are getting caught in the cross fire, then rather than attack persons with legitimate complaints, they should join ranks with those who wish to minimize the rampant misconduct.

Thank you.

Hector Morera
Glastonbury, CT
917-821-6951