Family
Court Corruption, Part 2: Fathers’ Rights and Conciliation Court Law:
Federally funded misogyny and pedophile protection by Cindy Ross ©
2/19/03
Numerous reports have identified bias against women and corruption
in family courts across the country. In bizarre and illegal rulings,
family court judges ignore or deliberately suppress evidence of male
perpetrated family violence and child molest. Fathers who are batterers
and sex offenders are routinely granted visitation and custody, while
mothers and children trying to escape abuse are punished through
financial sanctions, loss of custody, supervised visitation, jail and
institutionalization. [1]
Very occasionally, men reporting abuse of their children have also
been targeted for retaliation through family court. [2] However, the
systematic mishandling of domestic violence and child molest cases as
“custody disputes” is based in a financial corruption scheme that
calls for diverting grant program funding through “high conflict”
cases, in the guise of promoting “fatherhood” and “shared parenting”
post-divorce. [3]
Rather than assisting men become responsible parents, “Responsible
Fatherhood”, “Access to Visitation Enforcement” (supervised visitation
for noncustodial parents), “Child Support Enforcement” and similar
federal programs perpetuate abuse of women and children through the
legal system. [4] Abusive men striving to maintain control over their
victims are provided an array of benefits, not only to get custody and
get out of paying child support, but to terrorize the mothers of their
children and society in general. [5] Government programs are not
producing responsible fathers, but motherless children, in order to
advance the agenda of the so-called “fathers’ rights” movement.
“Fathers’ rights” as a political agenda, has nothing to do with
actual parenting rights or responsibilities. Fathers’ rights
organizations are misogynist anarchy and militia groups that define
fatherhood in terms of male ownership of children in male-headed
households. In order to maintain control over “families”, fathers’
groups promote violence, advocating the use of “domestic discipline”.
[6] Their membership is comprised of virulent men “fighting feminism”
and affirmative action, establishing “patriarchy under God” and even
trying to repeal the 19th Amendment. [7]
There are women affiliated with fatherhood groups, primarily second
wives who support their husbands in denying ex-wives and biological
mothers the right to parent their own children. Identifying themselves
as “independent feminists”, they also join sociopathic men in fighting
obscenity laws and identifying sex and access to pornography as primary
fathers’ “rights”. [8]
Fathers’ rights groups have devised strategies that normalize
deviant male behavior, while pathologizing normal motherhood. When
mothers report domestic violence or child sexual abuse, their
complaints are dismissed as a matter of “radical feminists” making
malicious and false allegations to turn children against fathers.
“False allegations” is the primary tactic used to provide assistance
with litigation against women trying to maintain custody of their
children in divorces from abusive men. [9]
Criminalizing mothers’ attempts to protect their children,
legalizing corporal punishment and normalizing father-child sex, are
all necessary in order to legitimize court rulings granting pedophiles,
batterers and other abusive men visitation rights and custody of
children. In family court, this is accomplished through the “Parental
Alienation Syndrome” (PAS) legal strategy. [10]
PAS is a fabricated mental disorder, originally coined by Dr.
Richard Gardner as a legal defense of child molesters. PAS calls for
covering up evidence of abuse by shifting blame to mothers. PAS was
crafted into the means for any man to get custody — no matter how
violent or unfit — through the “umbrella” fathers’ rights organization,
the Children’s Rights Council (CRC, formerly called National Council
for Children’s Rights). [11] CRC is cross-affiliated with the
Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC). [12]
While CRC claims to promote “shared parenting” and AFCC represents
itself as “an association of family, court and community professionals”
dedicated to the “constructive resolution of family disputes”, these
groups conceal their role in a perverse fathers’ rights pedophile
“ring” operating through family court. Richard Gardner is only one of
numerous “experts” connected to CRC/AFCC, who not only promote
pedophilia, but seek to destroy children’s relationships with their
mothers in the name of fatherhood. [13]
Steering cases to AFCC court allies, CRC (and other fathers’ group)
members get their cases “fixed” using PAS methodology. CRC devised
custody switching programs are used to procure federal Access to
Visitation Enforcement Program grants for supervised visitation and
“Child Access Transfer Centers”. [14] Through these centers, evidence
of sexual (and physical) abuse is suppressed and mothers are prevented
from having normal contact with their children. Mothers are forced to
stop complaining about “sharing” the children, or to give up their
children altogether, losing all parental rights.
AFCC was originally established in California as the means to enact
Conciliation Court Law (CA Family Codes 1800-1852), an obscure set of
codes used to prevent divorce in counties where the court itself deems
it necessary to “promote the public welfare by preserving, promoting,
and protecting family life and the institution of matrimony”. [15]
While the Conciliation Court identifies children’s rights to “both
parents”, it is used only to assist fathers take custody away from
mothers and/or to otherwise gain inappropriate or illegal “access” to
children.
Enacting Conciliation Court Law gives the family court jurisdiction
over domestic violence cases, in violation of appropriate family codes
and “child’s best interests” laws. For example, in California, while
Family Code §3044 establishes a presumption that sole or joint custody
for a parent convicted of domestic violence is not in the best
interests of children, Conciliation Court codes are used not only to
assist abusive men get custody, but to help them avoid criminal
prosecution. [16] Because blame is shifted to mothers by concealing
evidence of paternal crimes against women and children, in the
Conciliation Court, victims of abuse (not perpetrators) get convicted
in accordance with PAS “threat therapy”. [17]
PAS court-ordered threats include jail terms for mothers and
institutionalization of children to convince them that the abuse never
occurred, but their mothers are crazy. [18] PAS threats have been
linked to the death of at least one child. When forced to “choose”
between visiting his violent father in a positive frame of mind, or
having his mother jailed for his refusal, Nathan Grieco chose suicide
instead. [19]
The Conciliation Court uses PAS methodology to give abusive men the
legal upper hand. However, “shared parenting” has become the rallying
cry of the fathers’ rights movement, primarily because joint custody
also means no child support obligations. When AFCC affiliates assist
fathers get custody and get out of paying child support, they instigate
frivolous litigation for their own financial gain. They take kickbacks
and other improper payments to rig the outcomes of the cases.
Judicial slush funds, such as the “hearts and flowers” fund exposed
in Los Angeles Superior Court, are established using fees charged for
child custody “training” seminars. [20] Because Conciliation Court
codes specify how funding is dispersed to the court itself, huge sums
of money are diverted out of federal and state block grants by AFCC
affiliates, in the guise of “amicable settlement of domestic and family
controversies”. [15] (See Codes 1800-1852).
The National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) was founded in 1994, to
“lead a society-wide movement to confront the problem of father
absence”, i.e., to embed the fathers’ rights agenda into government
policies and programs. [21] In 1995, former President Clinton issued
executive orders that directed federal agencies to review and “modify”
all family programs and initiatives serving primarily mothers and
children, to include fathers and “strengthen their involvement” with
children. [22]
President George W. Bush, has appointed NFI founding officials to
high level positions in the present Administration; Wade Horn is
Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services and Don Eberly is in
the White House Office of Faith Based Initiatives. Under the control
of these and other fathers’ rights allies — especially former OCSE
Commissioner David Gray Ross (a frequent presenter for CRC) — the
federal Department of Health and Human Services Office of Child Support
Enforcement has been turned into a men’s custody agency. While publicly
touted as “responsible fatherhood programs” official federal documents
say the purpose of their programs is to provide noncustodial fathers
with free attorneys to litigate for custody. [4]
AFCC affiliated experts who have established federal “model custody”
programs using PAS methodology, include Joan Kelly, a founding official
of CRC, and Judith Wallerstein of the Center for the Family in
Transition. Richard Gardner originally based his PAS theory on
Wallerstein’s and Kelly’s research. [23]
Joan Kelly sets up family court services programs and trains judges
and “special masters” (mediators with quasi-judicial authority), using
Access to Visitation grant funding. She is also connected — primarily
through CRC — to Michael Lamb, of the National Institute of Child
Health and Human Development. Kelly and Lamb promote materials
developed by Richard Gardner (and other pedophiliac experts), in
conferences and seminars regarding “parenting time” and “alienation”.
[8]
Judith Wallerstein, is an advisor to NFI. According to CA NOW’s
“Family Court Report 2002″, in 1986, Wallerstein provided testimony —
along with David Levy of CRC — to the House committee on Children,
Youth and Families. regarding the “problems of single female parent
families”. [24]
Members of Wallerstein’s Center for the Family in Transition and
Kelly’s Northern CA Mediation Center, have “reformulated” PAS as
“alienated children”, possibly to distance themselves from Richard
Gardner. However, in addition to being connected to some of the most
egregious local (Marin County, CA) PAS cases, as the “Northern CA Task
Force on the Alienated Child”, their group promotes PAS custody
switching methods and “threat therapy” at AFCC conferences around the
country and the world. [25]
Wallerstein, Horn, Eberly and others connected to NFI, CRC and AFCC
have expanded the Conciliation Court agenda to include not only divorce
prevention, but marriage promotion. By merging conciliation court and
fathers’ rights agendas with a “faith based” marriage “movement”, they
call for even more federal programs promoting “two-parent” families,
through “marriage initiatives” funded by TANF/Welfare grants. [26]
In the guise of reducing poverty and promoting child welfare, women
are forced to stay married and mothers are punished for seeking
divorces. In the guise of amicable custody resolution, federal programs
enforce the systematic abuse of women and children. The pretense is
that government programs produce responsible fathers and healthy
families. The reality is that federally funded misogyny and pedophile
protection programs are lining the pockets of corrupted court officials
and appointees.
For further information, visit the website of the National Alliance for Family Court Justice at http://nafcj.org/#_Favorite_Links”>nafcj.org/.
Cindy Ross
California Director
National Alliance for Family Court Justice
Analysis of Judicial Misconduct by Identifying Motive
and Strategy to Expose it Through the Joint Effort of
Judicial Misconduct Complainants and
Citizens Concerned About Judicial Integrity
by
Dr. Richard Cordero, Esq.
To the increasing number of causes for complaining about judicial misconduct is added
the use by courts of an order providing that the decision in the case at bar is non-precedential.
The natural progression therefrom is for the court not even to bother to write a decision, but
rather to issue a summary order that simply affirms or denies a decision on appeal without
providing any explanation whatsoever or any evidence of ever having even read the briefs.
An analysis of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure and the local rules of a federal
court of appeals reveals facts and arguments militating against, in general, non-precedential decisions
and, in particular, ‘appellate review by coin flipping’: affirmed if head, denied if tail. Both
are manifestations of the same underlying problem: judicial unaccountability and the resulting
arrogance of power, contemptuous of the rights of others and the principle that justice must be seen
to be done. (http://Judicial-Discipline-Reform.org/docs/CA2_summary_orders_19dec6.pdf)
In this context, you, the Reader, and the growing number of litigants outraged by their
experience of judicial bias and abuse of power, most obvious in bankruptcy, probate, real estate,
landlord, and family cases, will find useful an analysis of why judges engage in misconduct. That
analysis identifies a motive and, more importantly, leads to the fashioning of a strategy to deal
with the underlying problem. Their detailed statement, found at http://Judicial-Discipline-
Reform.org, is based on public filings and official documents can be summarized as follows:
a. The judicial system that is supposed to administer justice according to law inflicts instead
injustice because a significant number of its judges disregard the law and the facts in a
consistent pattern of conduct that reveals their participation in coordinated wrongdoing.
b. Obtaining justice in that system is not achieved by appearing again before judges immune
to even the best lawyering but sensitive to self-preservation because their rulings, if
lawful and fair, would lead, among other things, to incriminating people who
subsequently would in a plea bargain for leniency expose the judges’ wrongdoing.
c. Rather, justice can eventually be obtained by first identifying the motives for judges to
coordinate, whether implicitly or explicitly, their doing what is wrong or not doing what
is their duty. Given human nature and our society’s values, their common main motive is
likely to be the obtaining of an unethical or illicit benefit, especially a financial one: money.
d. Hence, the strategy is to conduct a highly professional and legal, Watergate-like Follow
the money! investigation to search outside the courts for evidence of judges having
received such benefit, most probably assisted by complicit staff and other officers.
e. The investigation would have two starting points:
2 of 2 Dr. Cordero’s 2/7/7 analysis of motive for judicial misconduct & strategy to expose it through joint effort
i. the financial disclosures that judges must file, yet make so difficult to access, but that
under the Ethics in Government Act, 5 App. 4 §101 et seq., are publicly accessible; and
ii. the petitions for bankruptcy relief and their schedules where bankrupts must declare their
financial affairs and which they must file publicly with the court deciding their petition,
as well as real property declarations, which must be filed with the county clerk’s office.
f. From those documents, the Follow the money! investigation would proceed through the
web of judges and filers’ financial and personal relationships to wherever the money
finds its resting place as hidden assets unaccounted for in such disclosures and
declarations or inconsistent with the investigatees’ stated or known sources of income,
such as the salary of judges, which is fixed by law, or the salary of corporate officers,
which may be found in the corporate by-laws or accounts.
g. The evidence discovered would be brought to the public through the Internet and the traditional
media. The higher in the judicial hierarchy coordinated wrongdoers were found,
i.e., a court of appeals or the U.S. Supreme Court itself, the more the evidence would
outrage the public and the media and the more strongly it would induce them to search
for more evidence, thus triggering a self-reinforcing reaction with multiplying effect.
h. Mounting outrage would cause the authorities, to wit, the federal and state justice departments
as well as Congress and the state legislatures, to heed the public’s demand for
launching their own investigation of the judicial branch in their respective jurisdiction.
i. The authorities’ findings of coordinated judicial wrongdoing, including forms of
corruption such as bribery, extortion, and ruling in financial self-interest although
disqualification was required under 28 U.S.C. §455 or its state law equivalent, would
cause Congress and the legislatures to enact a reform of the judiciary.
j. Years from now, when reform acts are implemented, those stouthearted who were willing
to do an enormous amount of work and undergo a lot of sacrifice at great risk, and the
timorous who watched from the sidelines and helped otherwise, as well as the rest of the
public may obtain justice from judges mostly deciding cases in a just and fair manner and
giving much less cause for complaint…all as the result of a few conscientious individuals
who recognized that only once in a lifetime one has the opportunity to embark on a
mission of superior moral value for the common good. This is such opportunity. The
mission: To undertake a plan of action to reform the judiciary in order to ensure that it
administers to all persons “Equal Justice Under Law”. The reward is 15 minutes of fame or
a Pulitzer Prize or that conferred upon those who render courageous public service.
A draft of such plan of action has been set forth in the Programmatic Proposal at
http://Judicial-Discipline-Reform.org/docs/Programmatic_Proposal.pdf. I respectfully submit it to
you and like-minded people and request that you all consider joining forces to create the virtual
firm of lawyers and investigative journalists that will conduct the Follow the money!
investigation. Working toward that objective, I await with expectation your comments on this
paper, which is also downloadable through http://Judicial-Discipline-Reform.org/Follow_money/
Analysis_Strategy.pdf. For the same purpose, you may without change distribute it to other
members of your group or organization or publish it on your website or newspaper.