QUACK “PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME” TREATMENT CENTER IN THE NEWS AGAIN

FILED IN: BOB HOCH, CHILD CUSTODY, CHILD CUSTODY BATTLE, CHILD CUSTODY ISSUES, CHILD RAPE, CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE, CHILDREN AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, CHILDREN WHO WITNESS ABUSE, CHILDREN'S RIGHTS,CORRUPT BASTARDS, DR. JOYANNA SILBERG, DR. RICHARD GARDNER, EILEEN KING, FATHERS RIGHTS,GETTING SCREWED BY THE WHORES OF THE COURT, PAS, PAMELA HOCH, PARENTAL ALIENATION DISORDER,PARENTAL ALIENATION DISORDERS, PARENTAL ALIENATION SYNDROME, RACHAEL HOUSE, RACHEL FOUNDATION, WILLIAM BERNET, PARENTAL ALIENATION

This is a very good story that ran recently on that House of Whores Horrors, The Rachel House, which many Whores of the Court hold up as a prison treatment center for unsuspecting children with that so-called syndrome.

Controversial disorder at center of bitter custody cases

By Susan Taylor Martin, Times Senior Correspondent
In Print: Sunday, May 23, 2010

[Photo by ALYSSA CWANGER]

Stephanie Carr, center, sued the Hochs after her daughters Kylie, left, and Kelli were taken to Rachel House by their father. Kelli said they were not allowed to eat until they said nice things about him.

HARPER, Texas — Deep in the Texas Hill Country, off a rutted road with a sign that says “Deer Processing,” sits a three-bedroom mobile home.

This is the Rachel House, run by Pamela and Bob Hoch. Dozens of kids from all over the nation have been brought here for days, even weeks with the goal of making them like a parent they fear or despise.

“The children are expecting an institution, not this,” says Pamela Hoch, gazing out over the 5-acre spread an hour-and-a-half from San Antonio and 22 miles from the nearest bus stop, pay phone or sheriff’s office. It is a hard place to find — and a hard place to run away from.

At 2,400 square feet, the Rachel House is big enough that a child and estranged parent can have separate bedrooms, yet small enough that they have little choice but to spend time together watching TV, eating meals and, presumably, talking.

The idea is that the child will eventually realize the parent isn’t so bad.

Though the Hochs say they have successfully reconciled many kids and parents, it is impossible to verify their claims because the Rachel House is not regulated by any state or federal agency. And its approach is rooted in the controversial notion that the kids they see have a mental disorder: parental alienation syndrome.

The term was coined in 1985 by New York psychiatrist Richard Gardner. He described it as a disorder that causes a child to vilify a parent without reason. It often arises, he said, in bitter custody cases in which one parent brainwashes a child against the other parent by making false accusations of sexual abuse.

Proponents of the theory are pushing to have PAS included in the 2012 edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the “bible” of the psychiatric field. So common is parental alienation, they say, that it could afflict 1 percent of American children. That means 750,000 children could potentially be deemed to have a mental disorder — more than are considered autistic.

“We don’t want to label kids unnecessarily, but these kids are not reacting in a normal way,” says William Bernet, a Vanderbilt University psychiatrist. “We’re talking about kids who have a false belief, a little like a delusion, that the other parent is an evil, dangerous person. To me that looks and sounds like a mental disorder.”

But PAS is fiercely rejected by many child advocates. They call it “junk science” and a tool used to help parents accused of sexual abuse — usually fathers — win custody of their kids.

PAS “is not geared toward helping the diagnosed individual, but assisting a third party — an estranged parent — with a legal or personal goal, and thus appears more to reflect a political agenda than a bona fide mental health disorder,” says psychologist Joyanna Silberg, executive vice president of the Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence.

Classifying PAS as a mental disorder could lead to higher health costs as providers rush to cash in on therapies not now covered by insurance. Among those that could benefit are providers like the Hochs.

The couple say that 93 percent of the kids they have dealt with show an improved relationship with a previously reviled parent. But some children who have gone through the program say they were threatened and cut off from the parent they loved.

“You can’t just open a facility with no accreditation, no oversight and say, ‘This is what we do,’ especially when you’re dealing with vulnerable children,” Silberg says.

Hero to fathers

The controversy over Rachel House and parental alienation syndrome is fanned by what many consider the outrageous ideas of the man who inspired both.

A onetime Columbia University professor, Richard Gardner thought society is too harsh on adults who have sex with kids.

“What I am against is the excessively moralistic and punitive reaction that many members of our society have toward pedophiles . . . far beyond what I consider the gravity of the crime,” he wrote in 1991.

Though he called pedophilia “a bad thing,” Gardner argued that it’s common in many cultures and that children might be less harmed by sex abuse than by the “trauma” of the legal process.
In the late ’80s and early ’90s, Gardner was widely quoted in counterpoint to what some felt were sensationalized allegations of sex abuse in day care centers. He was also a well-paid witness in custody cases, almost always appearing on behalf of the father.

Gardner contended that sex abuse allegations arising from divorce are usually false, made by a vindictive mother trying to cut off a child from the father. His typical advice: Kids should be forced to see the estranged parent, and judges should punish the “alienating” parent.

Those views made Gardner a hero to the fathers’ rights movement and an anathema to child advocacy groups.

“The premise that you can improve a relationship with a parent through force and coercion and isolation from the preferred parent is simply erroneous and unethical,” Silberg says.

In 1998, a Pittsburgh high school student, Nathan Grieco, was found dead with a belt around his neck after complaining that his father had caused him and his brothers “endless torment” in a custody fight. A judge, acting on Gardner’s recommendation, had threatened to jail the mother if the boys refused to see their father.

“These children need coercion,” Gardner had said.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette detailed the case in 2001 — the year Gardner testified in Tampa in a custody battle.

John M. Kilgore, a Brandon doctor, had accused his ex-wife of poisoning their two daughters against him to the point they refused to see him. The oldest had even changed her name.

Hillsborough Circuit Judge Ralph Stoddard allowed Gardner to interview all four family members, ruling that PAS had gained enough acceptance in the scientific community to be admissible as evidence.

But once Gardner got on the stand, his testimony was so biased in favor of the father against the daughters that the judge rejected it.

While interviewing the girls, Gardner “was really trying to get them to admit the facts were as their father saw them,” Stoddard said.

The Tampa case underscored what critics say is a major problem with classifying parental alienation as a mental disorder: It is hard to determine the cause of the alienation, who is to blame or even who has the alleged disorder.

In his ruling, Stoddard said both parents “were pretty much equally scoring out in their bad behavior.”

Few knew of the judge’s rebuke, and Gardner continued testifying in cases until 2003. At age 72, shortly after failing to appear in another Florida courtroom, he repeatedly stabbed himself with a steak knife.

“Let’s pray that his ridiculous, dangerous PAS foolishness died with him,” Richard Ducote, a New Orleans lawyer and child advocate, said at the time.

But the idea that a parent could brainwash a child to hate the other parent had its believers, including Pamela Hoch.

Biblical roots

A former music teacher, Hoch, 58, says she herself was an alienated parent whose first husband turned their four children against her by falsely claiming she belonged to a religious cult. A judge agreed that the father had “deliberately poisoned” the children’s minds, and in 1991 gave Hoch custody of the two youngest kids. (The others were deemed too old to be successfully reunited with her.)

The case drew heavy media attention and led to Hoch and Gardner meeting as guests on a TV program. Partly on his recommendation, she became executive director of a foundation that spread information on parental alienation syndrome.

But Hoch says she didn’t want to talk about alienation; she wanted to find a “solution.”

In 2000, she and her new husband, Robert Hoch, started their own nonprofit organization with $50,000 from the U.S. Justice Department. The Rachel Foundation gets its name from a Bible verse in which Rachel weeps for her descendants’ exile.

“Your children will return,” the Lord tells her.

Parents who go through the program must have legal custody of their kids, though Pamela Hoch acknowledges that most parents they deal with “have been accused of something.” The Hochs don’t do any checking but rely on the courts to ensure that sex abuse allegations “have been clearly investigated and negated,” she says. Referrals come from various sources, including court orders and websites.

At first, the Hochs operated out of a church parsonage in Maryland. One of their early “reunifications” involved a 14-year-old boy who had been on the run with his mother for nearly a decade after she accused her ex-husband of molesting him. (He was not charged.)

In 2000, the FBI arrested the mother for child abduction. Father and son spent weeks in a hotel suite. Each had his own room, separated by a room with a couch where Pamela Hoch slept.

“In the daytime, we would play games designed to help us learn about each other,” the son, now 23, said in a statement to the St. Petersburg Times. “For example: Write 10 things you like about your father so far . . . Things you don’t like . . . Finding positive memories we had of each other.”

A 2002 Readers’ Digest story suggested the reunification had been a success: Rather than run errands with Hoch one day, the son went shopping with his dad.

But the son says his experience with the Rachel Foundation was traumatic.

“I was well aware of parental alienation syndrome already, but I had to hear about it probably every day I was with the Rachel Foundation. Pam would tell me how my mother was disturbed, manipulative and selfish, had deprived me of a life with my father, who would tell me of the life I might have had with him.

“The Rachel Foundation is a scary organization. It’s taken every day of my life since to put myself back together in a way I see fit.”

Treatment disputed

The Hochs say they decided to leave Maryland in 2004 because the church didn’t renew their lease. Records show the couple owed $2,546 in Maryland state income taxes.

They weren’t in Texas long before a controversy erupted.

A New Jersey man who claimed his ex-wife was a “parental alienator” won custody of his two daughters in a 2004 court order and took them to the Rachel House.

At first, “they were very withdrawn and alienated toward their father,” Pamela Hoch says.

A month later, they were doing “very well,” she says, and even baked him a birthday cake. But the girls gave a different view when they testified last year on behalf of a Georgia woman fighting to keep her own daughter from being sent to Texas.

The Hochs “told us that if we didn’t obey our dad and if we didn’t agree to act happy with him that we would never see our mom again,” testified Kelli Carr, now 17.

She said she and her sister weren’t allowed to eat until they agreed to say positive things about their father.

“How many days did you go without being fed?” the judge asked.

“Just the first two days, because then my sister and I just started . . . making things up.”

Pamela Hoch calls the claims “ridiculous.” The girls’ mother, Stephanie Carr, sued the Hochs in 2005, but a judge recently dismissed the case for lack of prosecution. Carr’s lawyers said she let it lapse because she had regained primary custody of her daughters and was short of money.

Soon after Carr sued, the Hochs declared bankruptcy. Their Chapter 7 petition made no reference to the Rachel Foundation. It showed Robert Hoch as “retired” and Pamela as the $1,833-a-month music director of a local church.

The couple say they didn’t list the foundation because they didn’t draw a salary.

“We spend a lot of our own money,” Robert Hoch says.

Questionable ties

On its most recent 990 form, which nonprofits annually file with the IRS, the Rachel Foundation claims an impressive track record:

“Since 2000, reintegration services have been provided to over 1,000 families, 450 legal and mental health professionals and 241 organizations and agencies.”

The Hochs say that 44 parents and 59 children have attended “intense” programs, either at the Rachel House or in other residential settings. The parent who accompanies the child is responsible for costs that include $75 per person a day in room and board and up to $1,500 a day for “professional reunification/reintegration services.”

Verifying the foundation’s claims, like its 93 percent success rate, is stymied by the absence of any regulation. That is a huge problem, critics charge, especially as the Hochs consider expanding the Rachel House concept nationwide.

“I’m just blown away by the lack of information,” says Andrew Vachss, a New York lawyer who represents only children, not parents. “I can’t imagine a judge approving of a child going any place that isn’t monitored.”

Others are concerned that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, largely funded by U.S. taxpayers, has referred cases to the unregulated foundation and its controversial programs.

”It’s a very dubious association,” say Eileen King, regional director of the advocacy group Justice for Children.

The Rachel Foundation’s website says it gets referrals from the children’s center. But the center says it has referred no families there since the Hochs started charging for their services in 2004.

The foundation falls through licensing cracks because it is not a hospital, group home or mental health facility — all of which are regulated by Texas. Professionals connected with the Rachel Foundation are licensed, but several have run afoul of regulators.

The former clinical director, California psychologist Randy Rand, is on five years’ administrative probation for “unprofessional conduct” in child custody cases in Orlando and California.

A former member of the foundation’s advisory board, J. Michael Bone of Orlando, lost his Florida mental health counselor’s license in 2007 for failing to act in the child’s best interest in a custody case.

A Texas psychologist who has worked with the Rachel Foundation was put on probation for failing to disclose a DUI arrest and submitting a custody report with “numerous inaccuracies.”

And a California psychologist who has been to the Rachel House several times to help the Hochs does not have permission to practice in Texas, state regulators say.

Does it even exist?

Criticism of the Rachel Foundation reflects a broader concern — there is little solid research to determine if parental alienation syndrome really exists.

PAS is “highly controversial, and part of the reason for it being controversial is that there is no accepted definition or criteria for having the disorder,” says Mitchell Kroungold, a Clearwater psychologist.

He notes that there can be valid reasons that a child refuses visitation with a parent — “separation anxiety,” which often occurs with young children; or the preference a child feels for the parent who shares similar interests such as horseback riding or camping.

Kroungold, who has evaluated dozens of troubled families, says it would be unprecedented for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual to include parental alienation as a mental disorder.

“All of the diagnoses in this manual are disorders that exist within an individual. My understanding is that when parental alienation is occurring, it’s a family dynamic. It’s describing the nature of communication and dysfunction in a family, and I think that’s a major distinction as to why it’s not in the manual.”

The Hochs say they consider PAS a symptom, not an illness itself, and no longer use the term because of the controversy. “We really don’t care what they call it,” Pamela Hoch says. “We focus on behavior.”

But critics say the Hochs’ methods of altering behavior are highly questionable.

“There are scientific standards and practice standards for how to go about delivering therapy to children,” Silberg of the Leadership Council says, “and nothing I’ve seen from the Rachel House follows any known standards about the delivery of mental health care.”

Times researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report. Susan Taylor Martin can be reached at susan@sptimes.com.

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http://thecrimereport.org/2010/07/05/disciplining-the-judge/#more-43517

The Crime Report in May told the story of a nine-month old infant murdered in the midst of a bitter California custody battle.  Last month, the presiding judge in the case lost his battle for re-election.

Could the death of little Wyatt Garcia have been prevented?  Supporters of the boy’s mother, Katie Tagle, have charged that a San Bernardino, CA family court judge who refused to accept her plea for custody was indirectly responsible for the chain of events that ended when her estranged husband shot the boy and then turned the gun on himself last year. (See “Failure to Protect“, The Crime Report, May 26, 2010)

California Superior Court Judge Robert Lemkau vehemently defended his actions. But last month, local voters came to their own conclusions about his judgment on the bench.

He lost his position after an election swept him out of office with just 35 percent of the vote, in favor of his opponent, a local deputy assistant district attorney named James Hosking.

Lemkau had refused to sign a protective order against the boy’s father, 25-year-old Stephen Garcia, even though his ex-girlfriend supplied evidence of Garcia’s threats to harm the boy and herself, including e-mails, text messages and voice messages. Although no extenuating circumstances were raised in court transcripts of the case, Lemkau simply accused Tagle of lying, and ordered that she turn Wyatt over to his father—with fatal results.  “I was treated like a criminal, like a complaining woman,” Tagle told The Crime Report.

Following the tragedy, the judge expressed some remorse for Wyatt’s death, but refused to acknowledge that he had made a wrong decision instead saying on his re-election Web site, “ I ruled the way I did because there wasn’t enough substantiated evidence to support the request.”

While it’s unclear whether the election results had any specific relationship to the Wyatt Garcia case, Lemkau’s defeat underscores one of the most difficult issues in U.S. jurisprudence: the difficulty of calling judges to account for their actions  While in theory, elected judges are held accountable to voters, narrowly contested elections are rare in most jurisdictions around the U.S. Few local voters pay attention to such races, and even fewer feel competent to decide on a candidate’s judicial qualifications. .

At the same time, as an investigation by The Crime Report shows, censuring or recusing a judge through official channels is extremely rare, if not impossible.

Both Sides Need Judicial Safeguards

It’s one reason court experts argue that having powerful safeguards in place for judicial protection is extremely important.  Such safeguards are needed not just for the injured parties in a case― but for the judges themselves.

Disgruntled litigants can file complaints over and over again tying up the judge in an endless process. Furthermore, judges can be unfairly targeted in acrimonious cases when so much is at stake.

That was the case, for example, in the 2006 shooting of Nevada Family Court Judge Chuck Weller by a man he decided against in a divorce case. The suspect, Darren Mack, shot Weller because he was unhappy with the judge’s rulings, and he later stabbed his wife, Charla Mack, to death.

“In terms of checks and balances there is (only) the appeal process and the right to ask for a recusal,” said Bill Raftery, Knowledge and Information Services Office Research and Communications Specialist at National Center for State Courts, a national not-for profit that seeks to improve the administration of justice.

Litigants have few options.  They can try to reverse a decision on appeal, have the judge removed from an ongoing trial with a disqualification motion, move to impeach a judge through the legislative body or file an ethics complaint. However since 1991, only one state judge has been removed through the impeachment process, the American Judicature Society found in 2006. In that year, the latest in which numbers are available, 12 judges were removed from office as a result of state judicial proceedings.

But while appeals are public record, in many states ethics complaints and recusals for individual judges rates are not available, making it hard for litigants to track a judge’s record.

And in the murky and chaotic world of family court, where parents can remain locked for years in volatile custody battles over their children, a judge can sometimes mean the difference between life and death.

If Lemkau had not been up for election in June, it is quite possible he could have remained a sitting judge in family court―leaving the family of baby Wyatt without any recourse―and continuing to render decisions on other custody cases.

And though it may seem that this case is highly unusual, in the U.S. family court system, sadly, it is not.

Kids Are The Victims

Previous articles by The Crime Report found that children are the victims in the contested custody cases that fill the family court dockets. Not only can they be killed, more often than not the children are left in the custody of an abuser who can continue to sexually or physically assault them.

Another article looked at the systemic issues behind the chaotic and overburdened courtrooms that manage these emotional cases.  The contributing factors include: a dearth of judges caused by budget constraints; parents that represent themselves, thus backlogging the system with procedural mistakes; the explosion of custody disputes in cases with adoptive gay parents; and the high percentage of children born to single parents who are requesting child support. Together these have narrowed the average time a judge spends on a family court case to 3.5 minutes, according to a report by the New York State Senate Committee on the Judiciary.

The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges with the Office on Violence Against Women started the National Judicial Institute on Domestic Violence over a decade ago to address these problems and train judges to recognize and handle domestic violence. Together these non-profit organizations provided recommendations to judges who hear family court cases on how to recognize high-risk abuse situations.

Advocates contend that many family court judges are not properly trained or ignore abuse guidelines.  And such judges tend to view protective mothers as not trustworthy and overwrought, making biased decisions on which they have no true recourse, according to Darby Mangen , chapter president of the San Bernardino National Organization of Women (NOW). “No matter how exiguous the case there is no help for the victim,” added Mangen, who was active in the campaign to remove Judge Lemkau.

Furthermore, since so much of the decision making in custody cases relies on the judge’s discretion, litigants are fearful of bringing any motions against the judge.

“Family judges have so much power over cases that you can not afford to challenge the judge,” says Tony Tanke, a former senior judicial staff attorney for the Chief  Justice of the California Supreme Court, who advises on family court cases pro-bono.

Moreover, the often tight relationships between local bar associations and judges make it difficult to find an attorney who wants to take on a complaint against a powerful judge, according to Tanke. Indeed, in the Lemkau v. Hoskings election, Lemkau received endorsements from the local Family Law Bar association and other area attorneys, who supported his decision in baby Wyatt’s case

The result:  parties who feel victimized by a judge’s biased decision are left with nowhere to turn.

Appeals Get Nowhere

Things are further complicated by the appeals process,. A main point of contention in contested custody cases is the judge’s discretion on deciding whether abuse exists and whether it will be allowed into the legal record. If a mother makes an accusation of abuse in a lower court, but the judge dismisses it under their discretion, as happened in the Garcia case, the judgment will not be overturned at the appellate level. Technically, the judges are not doing anything wrong, they are just making a decision based on their evidence.  But that, advocates say, strikes at the heart of the issue.

In fact, almost always the higher court will defer to lower courts on the question of whether or not an abuse claim is unfounded, leaving an enormous amount of power in the hands of the family court judge.

These claims are buttressed by a 2008 report, “Fair Courts: Setting Recusal Standards,” issued by Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, a national think tank focusing on justice matters. The authors found, “On appeal, odds of success are even worse. Nearly every appellate court, state and federal, will overturn a lower court’s disqualification or recusal decision only for an “abuse of discretion.”

Sometimes advocates try to apply some unsubtle pressure, such as attending family court hearings wearing NOW stickers, said Magen.  But there have been more formal attempts to establish a watchdog presence in the courtoom.

A national court watch project has established pilot programs in five states that involves sending a team of students and volunteers to sit in on family court cases and report any abuses.  So far this year, observers sat in on 560 family court rooms, according to Renee Beeker, Executive Director of National Family Court Watch Project. Although they are still evaluating the watchers’ results, volunteers have found that courtrooms take note of the outside set of eyes on them.

“The court can change their behavior just because they know people are there,” reports Beeker. “And that is a win for us.”

Cara Tabachnick is News Editor of The Crime Report

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American Mothers Political Party

American Mothers Political Party DEMANDS: that WE (THE MOTHERS) NO LONGER BE DENIED  OUR  UNALENABLE RIGHTS, among theses are LIFE, LIBERTY THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS OUR CHILDREN AND THE RIGHT TO PROTECT OUR CHILDREN.

 

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

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Provide a submission HERE

 

Ways and Means to Preserve Fatherhood —

LET THEM KNOW HOW THE FATHERHOOD IS BEING USED TO ABUSE WOMEN AND CHILDREN DEADLINE JULY 1, 2010

______________________

Name: Claudine Dombrowski
Organization: www.AngelFury.org
Address: P.O. Box 4974 Topeka, KS 66604 (SaH, ACP)
Phone: 785-845-3417
Contact Email: AngelFury@AngelFury.org
Title of Hearing: Hearing to Review Responsible Fatherhood Programs

Dear Committee Members:

Please stop the funding on the fatherhood programs. It denies battered women and children safety and in fact enables abusers to get custody of their victims, paid for by the government.

The fatherhood program forces these men to be in the lives of people they do not want to be in any way. The mixture is and has been deadly disaster to the lives of literally thousands of mothers and their children.

See the Leadership Council, Stop Family Violence, and the Civic Research Institute’s “ Domestic Violence, Abuse and Child Custody,” for a more comprehensive and extremely large research and factual studies showing the federally funded ‘genocide’ taking place against mothers and their children- in the name of fatherhood.

I urge this committee to use common sense in making these appropriations. Sometimes you just can’t fix ‘bad dad’ and sometimes is better that these dangerous persons stay away from innocent and vulnerable children and their mothers.

Stop the murder of motherhood and a Nation of motherless children.

PLEASE STOP ALL FUNDING INTO THE FATHERHOOD PROGRAMS!

www.StopFamilyViolence.org

http://www.leadershipcouncil.org

http://www.civicresearchinstitute.com/dvac.html

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RESEARCH INDICATING THAT THE MAJORITY OF CASES THAT GO TO COURT AS "HIGH CONFLICT" CONTESTED CUSTODY CASES HAVE A HISTORY OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Compiled by Professor Joan S. Meier, Esq.
George Washington University Law School

I. Janet Johnston's publications

Janet Johnston is best known as a researcher of high conflict divorce and parental alienation. Not a particular friend of domestic violence advocates or perspectives, she has been one of the first to note that domestic violence issues should be seen as the norm, not the exception, in custody litigation.

Janet R. Johnston et al, "Allegations and Substantiations of Abuse in Custody-Disputing Families," Family Court Review, Vol. 43, No. 2, April 2005, 284-294, p. 284.

Janet R. Johnston, "High-Conflict Divorce," The Future of Children, Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring 1994, 165-182, p. 167.

Johnston has noted that approximately 80% of divorce cases are settled, either up front, or as the case moves through the process. Studies have found that only approximately 20% of divorcing or separating families take the case to court. Only approximately 4-5% ultimately go to trial, with most cases settling at some point earlier in the process. (Citing large study by Maccoby and Mnookin, dividing the child: social and legal dilemmas of custody. Cambridge, MA: Harvard U. Press [1992]).

Johnston cites another study done in California by Depner and colleagues, which found that, among custody litigants referred to mediation, "[p]hysical aggression had occurred between 75% and 70% of the parents . . . even though the couples had been separated. . . [for an average of 30-42 months]". Furthermore, [i]n 35% of the first sample and 48% of the second, [the violence] was denoted as severe and involved battering and threatening to use or using a weapon." -Johnston (1994), supra, citing Depner et al., "Building a uniform statistical reporting system: A snapshot of California Family Court Services," Family and Conciliation Courts Review (1992) 30: 185-206.

After surveying the research, Johnston concludes:

"Taken all together these studies suggest that, in divorces marked by ongoing disputes over the custody and care of children, both inside and outside the court, there is often a history of domestic violence in the family and a likelihood that the violence will continue after the separation." - Id. (1994) at p. 169.

It has previously been observed, based on research which predates the domestic violence/parental alienation battles that are now a feature of the field, that "multiple allegations of abuse are a feature of those higher conflict families" whose cases become contested custody litigation. - Johnston (2005), supra (citing Maccoby and Mnookin (1992).

II. Peter Jaffe's compilation of studies

Peter Jaffe is one of the world's leading experts on children, domestic violence, and custody.

- Peter Jaffe, Michelle Zerwer, & Samantha Poisson, (2004),"ACCESS DENIED: The Barriers of Violence and Poverty for Abused Women and their Children After Separation," p. 1.

In "Access Denied", Jaffe states the following:

"Myth: Domestic violence is rarely a problem for divorcing couples involved in a child custody dispute."
Fact: The majority of parents in "high-conflict divorces" involving child custody disputes report a history of domestic violence."

Jaffe et al also lists the following studies (with the following descriptions) as supporting the position that most custody litigants have had a history of domestic violence:

• In a review of parents referred for child custody evaluations by the court, domestic violence was raised in 75% of the cases. - Jaffe, P.G. & Austin, G. (1995). The Impact of Witnessing Violence on Children in Custody and Visitation Disputes. Paper presented at the Fourth International Family Violence Research Conference, Durham NH (Rep. No. July 1995)

• Of 2,500 families entering mediation in CA, approximately three quarters of parents indicated that domestic violence had occurred during the relationship. -Hirst, 2002

• Between 70-75% of parents referred by the family court for counseling because of failed mediation or continuing disputes over the care of their children, physical aggression had taken place. - Johnston & Campbell, (1988), Impasses of Divorce: The dynamics and resolution of family conflict. New York, NY, US: The Free Press.

• Attempts to leave a violent partner with children, is one of the most significant factors associated with severe domestic violence and death. - Websdale, N. (1999). Understanding Domestic Homicide. Boston, MA: University Press.

• A majority of separating parents are able to develop a post-separation parenting plan for their children with minimal intervention of the family court system. However, in 20% of the cases greater intervention was required by lawyers, court-related personnel (such as mediators and evaluators) and judges. In the majority of these cases, which are commonly referred to as "high-conflict," domestic violence is a significant issue. - Johnston, J. R. (1994). "High-conflict divorce." Future of Children, 4, 165-182.

III. National Center for State Courts

Studies conducted by the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), looking solely at court records, have found documented evidence of domestic violence in 20-55% of contested custody cases.

The NCSC's study, looking only at documented domestic violence in custody court records, found that 24% of court records contained some evidence of domestic violence in Louisville; 27% in Baltimore; and 55% of Las Vegas cases indicated domestic violence. - Susan Keilitz et al, Ðomestic Violence and Child Custody Disputes: A Resource Handbook for Judges and Court Managers, prepared for the National Center for State Courts; State Justice Institute," NCSC Publication Number R- 202, p. 5.

The same study found that a screening process (utilized by the mediation program) "revealed a much higher incidence of domestic violence than a review of court records alone would have indicated." - Id . at 7.

IV. Custody Courts Regularly Fail to Note or Lack Information about history of Domestic Violence

Kernic et al., "Children in the Crossfire: Child Custody Determinations Among Couples With a History of Intimate Partner Violence," Violence Against Women, Vol. 11, No. 8, August 2005, 991-1021, 1013,

Kernic et al. from the Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center in Seattle, studied at divorce cases, including both those with a documented, substantiated, and/or alleged history of domestic violence, and those without. The study found that in 47.6% of cases with a documented, substantiated history, no mention of the abuse was found in the divorce case files. - Id . at 1005.

Kernic et al. found that "the court was made aware of less than one fourth of those cases with a substantiated history of intimate partner violence." - Id. at 1016.

Further, Kernic et al. found that fathers with a history of committing abuse were denied child visitation in only 17% of cases. Mothers in these cases were no more likely to obtain custody than mothers in non-abuse cases. This study found that mothers were "more likely" than fathers to be awarded sole custody, but does not identify what proportion of cases resulted in equal sharing of physical custody (which is available in Washington even when one parent is designated "primary"). - Id. at 1014-1015.

The Virginia Commission on Domestic Violence Prevention commissioned a study of these issues at University of Virginia in 1997-98. The study found that in custody cases where there was also a domestic abuse case in court, only 25% of the custody files referenced the existence of the domestic abuse case. - www.courts.state.va.us/fvp/history.html

ATTACHMENT

Doreen Ludwig’s comments in response to Pennsylvania plan to increase funding of Counselors, Parenting Coordinators, etc. using HHS OSCE and TANF funds.

March 3, 2009 Presentation to Senate Judiciary Chairman in response to Proposed Changes to Child Custody Law.    Doreen Ludwig, PO Box 13778 , Reading PA 19612 , #610-939=1354

I contacted Mr. Warner because I have documented a lack of due process in child custody, especially in cases involving abuse.  Custody decisions are made not by Judges, but by Psychologists who call themselves evaluators.  The custody evaluator does NOT adhere to law or Rules of Evidence.  They do not investigate or verify false allegations.  They often rely solely on hypothetical tests and do not question collateral witnesses such as the children’s school, doctors, family, friends, or police reports.  They have no training or hands-on experience in abuse and control.  They have a profit motive and they are giving custody to abusers to continue cases and award themselves perpetual counseling fees which tend to be higher than the market average.

NO REMEDY FOR AN UNETHICAL, PERJURIOUS CUSTODY EVALUATION 

THERE IS NO REMEDY FOR AN UNETHICAL, PERJURIOUS CUSTODY EVALUATION  THAT DOES NOT PROTECT VICTIMS OF ABUSE!!!!  See Dr. Ring’s report stating “abuse was mutual.” 

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court DENIES appeals, against the PA Constitution, in order to permit custody to be determined solely on the basis of the custody evaluation, even when it is proven to be written for one parent only.  Likewise, Court Administration DENIES that custody evaluators are submitting fictitious reports.  The Rules Committee refuses to hold evaluators to any standard.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court Rules Committee has refused to write standards for custody evaluations.  Reports are submitted as evidence WITHOUT cross-examination. Witnesses and exhibits that disagree with statements contained in the custody evaluation are DENIED or ignored.  Reports are not held to the legal standard of Frye Hearings to determine their admissibility.  Reports do not even address the Best Interests of the Children.  Judges abdicate responsibility to the evaluator.

BIAS REPORT PROVES BREAKDOWN

The “FINAL REPORT OF THE PENNSYLVANIA SUPREME COURT COMMITTEE ON RACIAL AND GENDER BIAS IN THE JUSTICE SYSTEM, 1999-2003” proves a severe breakdown in protection from abuse in issues of family law.   The Bias Report failed to adequately address domestic violence in custody, support and divorce. 

The Bias Report failed to document results of contested custody including use of evaluations.

Page 474 – Custody - County Surveys - None of the counties responded to a survey question concerning the percentage of fathers who were awarded primary physical custody in contested custody actions, nor did any respond to the survey’s request for breakdowns by race and gender of the outcome of plaintiffs’ requests for physical custody for 2000–01.

Judges responsibility -  It is the family court responsibility to facilitate fair, and equitable litigation.  One party shall not maintain sole control of marital assets during pendency of custody litigation.  Parity and equal access to the law is in the best interests of the children.  An interim disbursement may be needed to obtain parity and equal access to the law.  The Bias Report states “The courts rarely grant advance distributions of marital assets. Because most non-consensual divorce cases take more than two years for assets to be distributed, the court’s reluctance to enter interim awards places a burden on the economically dependent spouse and may inhibit his or her full access to the legal system. The spouse controlling the marital estate may also dissipate the assets, leaving no recourse for the dependent spouse.”  “At public hearings throughout Pennsylvania, attorneys and litigants testified that the judicial system often provides little or no help to pro se litigants who are either initiating legal proceedings or responding to actions against them.[i]”

TRADE ASSOCIATIONS MAXIMIZE PROFIT

Since 1999, when the task force developed SB 74, Trade Associations have increased their influence within family court.  Trade Association members include Judges, Court Administrators, lawyers and custody evaluators.  Trade Associations facilitate networking between members, teaching Judges, administrators, lawyers and custody evaluators how to work together for maximum business profit potential. 

Proposed 5332, 5334, 5335, 5339 and 5340 would help trade association, for-profit motivated, members increase business by court appointment and orders for fees.  There are NO limits on fees and NO ethical requirements for practitioners, and NO system for review.  In fact, the proposed 5340 protects unethical custody evaluators!!!  See Dr. Ring charges.

There is already court approval of bankruptcy due to litigation.  See Berks County Court Administrator letter.  Proposed 5332, 5334, 5335, 5339 and 5340 will increase bankruptcy.  There is no protection for equal access to funds for defense.  Abusers are more likely to control finances.  Legal aide and pro bono representation is NOT available for victims of abuse.

Abusers are more likely to seek custody and to take the abuse to court.  See Working Paper, page 91-93, Exhibit K, “Research Indicating That The Majority Of Cases That Go To Court As "High Conflict" Contested Custody Cases Have A History Of Domestic Violence” compiled by Professor Joan S. Meier, Esq., George Washington University Law School . 

Bias Report at Page 402 - While some courts are all too willing to challenge the domestic abuse survivor’s motivations for filing a PFA petition, they often fail to question the abuser’s motive for requesting substantial custody. Research indicates that custody disputes are more frequent when there is a history of domestic violence. Moreover, fathers who are batterers are twice as likely to seek sole custody of their children.62 Such requests for substantial custody may be a misuse of the legal system, motivated by the batterer’s continuing need to control and abuse the mother through harassment and retaliatory legal action. Fathers in such cases may use children as an excuse to have contact with the women they are otherwise prohibited from seeing. Yet, if mothers seek to protect themselves and their children by moving frequently or seeking to limit the father’s contact, the courts may view the mothers as unstable, uncooperative, and unwilling to share access to their children, all in contravention of Pennsylvania’s Custody Act.

Unfortunately for children, the trade association has found abuse and extended litigation good for business!!!  The trade association is NOT motivated by The Best Interests of the Children.  The members are motivated by self-interest of profit!

STATE RESPONSIBLE FOR PROTECTION

The trade association’s minimize abuse and control.  They prefer to give victims equal accountability for the abuse, often dismissing abuse as high conflict or alienation. 

This unequal treatment sends a message that the mother is more responsible for getting help and is more “sick” for being in an abusive relationship than the actual person who committed the violence. As part of their mental abuse, many fathers will tell a woman that if she seeks help to escape the home, the system will turn against her, that she will be blamed for the break up of the family, that she will lose everything and that the abuser will get away with everything because he is in control - the system often perpetuates this belief and reinforces to women that they are powerless and will be punished, no matter what they do. Id. In re Sharline Nicholson, et al., 00-CV-2229 (JBW) (CLP), US Eastern District New York  3/1/2002

The “Nicholson” Opinion was written after abused mothers sued New York Children and Youth for failure to protect victims of abuse.  The Honorable Justice Weinstein addresses Government’s responsibility to victims: 

Responsibility for governmental protection of children rests primarily on the state or municipality. See, e.g. Lois A. Weithorn, Protecting Children from Exposure to Domestic Violence: The Use and Abuse of Child Maltreatment Statutes, 53 Hast. L. J. 1, 19-26 (2001).

In a heterogeneous, non-theocratic and democratic society such as ours, there is enormous diversity in domestic relationships and in the degree that they are founded on mutual respect and love (the norm) or malevolence. Particularly if there is a sexual relationship between the adults, the emotional interaction may be intense, sometimes flaring into psychological or even physical abuse. The abuse may be endemic. It may be directed against the children as well as the mother. The children may be indirectly affected, as when they observe an abusive incident. Even when the abuse is not physical, it may be so fierce as to be the equivalent of a beating. The mother may lack the ability or resources to either protect herself or the children. Economic, emotional, moral or other ties may, as a practical matter, prevent the mother from separating from the abuser or seeking governmental protection against him. She may hope for eventual reconciliation – and sometimes it does occur.

Myriad subtle reasons may prevent her from separating from the abuser, protecting the children, or seeking assistance. In some households ethnic or social mores are relied upon to justify abuse as a “traditional right.” Ability to deal with tensions induced by self, a partner, children, economic and social factors varies enormously among those who become embroiled in domestic violence. In short, this case presents the most intricate and recondite relationships, the stuff of thousands of novels, poems, newspaper accounts, and legal proceedings.

Whatever the explanation, physical abuse of mothers and children, or the imminent threat of such ill treatment is not tolerated in our American society. Whether the mother, the family, or the immediate social group accepts cruelty as the norm or as permitted, it is a minimum assumption of our twenty-first century United States that it will not be tolerated.  The Government has the obligation to stop it and prevent its recurrence whenever it can.

Second, battered women often suffer from behavioral and psychological problems that differentiate them quite sharply from non-battered women. Third, the behavior of social workers and health service providers was a direct, albeit inadvertent, contributor to women’s sense of being trapped in abusive relationships. Tr.1540.  The most dangerous time for a woman and a child appears to be immediately after she leaves the batterer; his threats will usually make her aware of this. Ex. 106 at 16.  The battered woman cannot change or stop the perpetrator’s violence by herself. If she does not have adequate support, resources, and protection, leaving him may simply make it worse for the children.” Id. at 19.

PSYCHOLOGISTS/EVALUATORS DON’T ACT IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF CHILDREN

An influential trade association is the Association of Family Conciliation Courts (AFCC).  This group began in California and has developed to a National organization with extreme influence over family courts.  This group does NOT advocate for victims of abuse.  It does NOT advocate for safety of children.  It advocates for Fathers Rights often by a presumption of shared custody even when the Father is abusive, ranging from physical abuse, verbal and psychological abuse to sexual abuse (looking, touching, to penetration).  Because of the advocacy for abusers, AFCC disseminates legal strategies for abusers to obtain custody.  Legal strategies that proliferate in family court include:

·       Making false allegations of mental illness, drug abuse,

·       Makings claims of alienation or unwillingness to foster a positive abuser/child relationship

Lawyers can obtain a custody evaluator who will write a report awarding custody to the abuser.  Lawyers are coached to have pre-arranged agreement with Judges to let the custody evaluator run the case.  See Dr. Bricklin’s  “SEVERE PARENTAL ALIENATION AND SIMILAR ESTRANGEMENT PATTERNS: OUTPATIENT THERAPEUTIC PROTOCOLS”  Exhibit J, page 82-90 of working paper, proving advocating pre-agreements for judicial orders to administer Threat Therapy to child abuse victims.  These pre-agreements with Judges are common.  All PACE custody evaluators are certified only after submitting a letter from a Judge.  It should be noted that Dr. Barry Bricklin advocates for pedophiles and treatment of children by Threat Therapy.  Dr. Bricklin’s wife is the President of the Pennsylvania Psychological Board.  In Berks County the PACE evaluator is Dr. Timothy Ring.  Charges against Dr. Ring and the transcript of 3/27/06 prove that Dr. Ring was used to award custody to Father, an abuser. 

Even if a parent has a (mildly) “negative” style, a child who interacts with this parent has the opportunity to learn how to deal with it, increasing that child’s available coping and resource-styles throughout life.

Not only must a MHP deal with all of the diagnostic complexities already mentioned, but also with the fact that psychological life is transformational: it is a “work in continual progress.”  A parent who was previously a poor psychological match for a particular child can therapeutically upgrade and transform his or her styles and become a good match for the child. A maturing child may come to see aspects of value in a given parent’s behavior that were initially not perceived by the child, or were perhaps not even in existence prior to the child’s changing his or her own patterns which then could induce change in the parent.  All relationships are continuously interactive and potentially transformative for each member of any given family system.

Hence the best (and probably only) way to ascertain if an alienated or estranged child could profit from an ongoing relation with a “target” parent is to set up the special kind of therapeutic program that has a chance of being successful in such cases and observing what happens.  Once the program is in place one can carefully monitor the therapeutic process for positive and negative prognostic signs.  We rarely mention these emergent signs (signs that usually do not yet exist at the outset of treatment) because some can be “faked” (while others cannot be faked).  In other words, we rarely, at the outset, tell the main therapeutic participants all of the things we are paying attention to.

A therapeutic plan that can be successful in these cases is very different than traditional plans.  For one thing, the Court must be actively involved in the process (specific details are listed later).  For another, the child must rapidly see that he or she is NOT going to be the major (or even minor) decision-maker of importance as to who attends the therapeutic sessions or for how long.  This “tail-wagging-the-dog” phenomenon in which a child gets to exercise control over parents will ultimately not only ensure that an out-patient reunification process fails, but is also ultimately harmful to the child as he or she grows up.

Conservative foundations investments paid off handsomely in 1996, as their grantees were deeply involved in drafting the new welfare legislation. Debate centered on correcting perceived defects in the nation’s welfare system, rather than designing a strategy to reduce child poverty or increase family income. Ending the features of the system that were perceived as encouraging dependency and family instability was stressed more than creating affirmative policies to improve the economic well-being of American’s low-income families. To the extent that enhanced well-being was considered, it was assumed to flow directly from reductions in dependency and non-marital births. The Republican’s Congressional victory in 1994, and the perceived endorsements of the GOP Contract with America – reinforced the conservative message.[1]

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