Banned Near Boston - More chicanery from the underworld of family law.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/baskerville9.html

Banned Near Boston
More chicanery from the underworld of family law.
by Stephen Baskerville
by Stephen Baskerville, PhD

Nearly ninety years ago, when divorce liberalization was being advocated by
feminists, G.K. Chesterton warned in The Superstition of Divorce that
undermining the family would imperil civic freedom.

His warning was vindicated recently when Massachusetts family court judge
Mary Manzi outlawed a book that criticizes government officials. Manzi
herself is sharply criticized in the book but obviously did not recuse
herself from the proceeding.

On March 24, Kevin Thompson received an order prohibiting distribution of
his book, Exposing the Corruption in the Massachusetts Family Courts. The
court also impounded the records of Thompson's custody case, reinforcing the
secrecy in which family courts like to operate.

The standard justification for secret courts is the one Judge Manzi now
extends to censorship: "privacy interests of the parties' minor child."
Thompson's son has already been forcibly separated from his father, and his
life is now under the total control of state officials. What "privacy" does
this child have left? Thompson understands that the true reason for the
secrecy and censorship is not to protect privacy but to invade it with
impunity: "The only interests that are protected are the interests of the
racketeers and hypocrites who invade 'family privacy' by removing loving
fathers from the lives of their children against their will and without just
cause to fill their pockets."

Many people have trouble believing the harrowing tales of human rights
abuses now taking place in American family courts and wonder why, if they
are true, we do not hear more about it. Perhaps because in many
jurisdictions it is a crime to criticize family court judges or otherwise
discuss family law cases publicly. In other words, censorship works.

Thompson's case is not isolated. Under the pretext of "family privacy,"
parents are gagged and arrested for criticizing the courts:

a.. Alice Tulanowksi of New Brunswick, New Jersey, was placed under a gag
rule in 2000, though judges and the New Jersey Chapter of the Association of
Family and Conciliation Courts were left "free to discuss the intimate
details of Alice's case" in public.
b.. Stanley Rains of Victoria, Texas, in 2001 was gagged "from speaking,
writing, or publishing his opinions" about why he was cut off from his
daughter for more than two years, according to court documents. The order
covers private conversations and discussions with mental health
professionals and his minister. Issued with no evidentiary hearing, the
order followed an article Rains published in Fathering Magazine. He was also
prohibited from criticizing a city council candidate who was a divorce
lawyer. The order precluded Rains from photographing death threats written
on his mother's car.
c.. The former husband of singer Wynonna Judd was arrested and jailed for
talking to reporters about his divorce.
d.. A California judge shut down the web site of the Committee to Expose
Dishonest and Incompetent Attorneys and Judges in 2001.
e.. In 2005, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott formally asked a federal
court to punish Charles Edward Lincoln, for criticizing the state's family
courts. Abbott termed the criticism, which consisted in filing some court
papers, "bloodless terrorism."
Outright censorship is only the start, since judges usually prefer more
subtle methods for stopping the mouths of their critics. Thompson is also
being forced to pay the attorneys who advocated the book ban. This practice
has the marvelous double effect of providing booty for the judge's cronies
and justifying incarceration of critics who cannot pay the instant "debt."
Following his criticism of the family courts in testimony to Congress, Jim
Wagner of the Georgia Council for Children's Rights was stripped of custody
of his two children and ordered to pay $6,000 in fees of attorneys he had
not hired. He was soon after arrested for nonpayment.

Censorship of speech and press is only the tip of the iceberg and serves to
cloak even more serious constitutional and human rights violations. Writing
in the Rutgers Law Review, David Heleniak recently revealed the "due process
fiasco" of family law. Calling family courts "an area of law mired in
intellectual dishonesty and injustice," Heleniak identifies six major
denials of due process by which courts seize children and railroad innocent
parents into jail: denial of trial by jury, denial of poor defendants to
free counsel, denial of right to take depositions, lack of evidentiary
hearings, lack of notice, and improper standard of proof. In family law,
"the burden of proof may be shifted to the defendant," according to a
handbook for local officials published by the National Conference of State
Legislatures. Dean Roscoe Pound writes that "the powers of the Star Chamber
were a trifle in comparison with those of our juvenile court and courts of
domestic relations."

In fact, even this only scratches the surface. One can run point-by-point
down the Bill of Rights and other constitutional protections, and there is
hardly a clause that is not routinely ignored or violated in family law,
where practices include mass incarcerations without trial, summary
expropriations, presumption of guilt, coerced confessions, ex post facto
provisions, bills of attainder, and more. Family courts and their hangers-on
are by far the greatest violators of constitutional rights in America today.

Journalists of both the left and right studiously ignore these violations,
as do "human rights" groups, even when shown undeniable evidence. It will be
interesting to see if they can ignore censorship that touches their own
profession.

For his part, Thompson says he intends to ignore the censorship. "Everything
that I am doing right now is for my son," he declares. "I will not be shut
up."

April 4, 2006

Stephen Baskerville [send him mail] is a political scientist and president
of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children. The views expressed are
his own.

"Cathcart" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 4 Apr 2006 12:23:24 -0400, in alt.child-support "Dusty"
wrote:

e.. In 2005, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott formally asked a federal
court to punish Charles Edward Lincoln, for criticizing the state's family
courts. Abbott termed the criticism, which consisted in filing some court
papers, "bloodless terrorism."

I haven't researched the rest of these; however, this one is simply
false.

Stating that Lincoln was sanctioned for "criticizing the state's
family courts" is like saying that Joseph McCarthy was sanctioned for
"finding communists in the government". The attorney general asked
the court to punish Lincoln for filing massive numbers of "frivolous,
vexatious" writs, pleadings, and legal actions, all entered "in bad
faith with the intent to annoy and harass" the target of the action.
The court agreed, by the way, and Lincoln was ordered to pay damages
to his victims.

It's important to research your citations.

[snip]

I'm -not- the author. Stephen Baskerville is. Maybe you should read the
post from the beginning. I would suggest starting at the HTML link, move on
to the title and continue from there.