President Obama reads 10 letters a day from the American public. Knowing the chances of my letter actually making the cut are remote, yet knowing the chances are nonexistent if I send no letter, I had to at least try.
Following is the letter I sent to President Obama and the First Lady, which proposes a solution. Please join me in this grass roots effort by writing your own letter to the President.
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington,DC 20500
Washington,
Dear Mr. President and First Lady,
I am writing about the Family Court system. Thousands of domestic violence victims, both women and children, are failed every day, at every level, in this venue. The number of children alone is estimated to be 58,000 per year. The abusive parent (usually the father) is awarded unsupervised visitation, or worse, sole custody, and the protective parent (usually the mother) is vilified. These children have been verbally, emotionally, physically and sexually abused at the hands of their own fathers. The mother is left helpless, often in financial ruin.
The system as a whole is a complete and total failure and accomplishes the exact opposite of what it was designed to do. It cannot be reformed; it cannot be repaired. A shattered glass cannot be glued back together. I believe a solution exists which I will outline at the conclusion of my letter, one that could easily be implemented on a national level.
The ripple effect of the detritus left behind by Family Court is inestimable in terms of the continued physical danger and emotional harm to the victims. Add to this the academic and social impact on the children, the psychological scars all victims bear, the staggering financial costs to the mothers and, on top of that, the cost to society as a whole as the cycle continues and it is clear that drastic changes must be made.
My own experience is not sensational or newsworthy, yet it represents what occurs on a daily basis in Family Courts nationwide. One of the primary reasons I did not leave my abusive spouse was the oft-repeated threat he would destroy me in court if I ever left him. It was not an idle threat. He filed suit a year after the divorce was finalized requesting that child support go down to $0 and that I be incarcerated.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, in particular the eloquent narrative from my then 16-year-old son describing our emotional and physical abuse at the hands of his father, the court evaluator reported there was no domestic violence and, with no supporting data, conversely portrayed me as a liar with an explosive temper. The Judge demonized me in court, increased parenting time with the father despite both children’s express wishes to live with me exclusively and, astonishingly, ordered me to pay $10,000 of my ex-spouse’s legal fees. I earn $8.04 per hour and he earns well over $150,000 annually.
Criminals, including foreign nationals, are provided free legal counsel, yet abused women, who have committed no crime, are afforded none. I was turned away from every agency and advocacy group I contacted.
For those of us who left our abusers believing there is a way out, that there are resources and advocates who will assist us, we discover, with jaw-dropping disbelief, that none of that is true. We are thrown to the wolves. There is no such thing as having our “day in court,” because Family Court has nothing to do with the truth, the facts, the evidence or “the best interests of the children.” It is easy to be skeptical when you hear stories like mine. I regret to say, until it happened to me, I was one of those skeptics.
Family Court judges and court evaluators should not play any part in these proceedings. As it is now, Family Court is a surreal netherworld in which judges are granted full discretion and impunity, meaning they are not required to adhere to the laws. They can break every rule of judicial conduct and they do. The same holds true for court behavioral health evaluators. And the victims are left powerless. Again.
Court behavioral health evaluators are paid directly by the litigants with no limits on the fees they may charge and, as such, no incentive for them to keep costs down, creating a clear conflict of interest. The evaluator in my case was hired to perform one simple task which should have taken, by any measure, 3 or 4 hours to complete. Yet she delayed my trial for 6 months while performing a staggering amount of unsolicited, costly work, driving me to financial ruin. Meanwhile the judge, duty bound to prevent unnecessary delays and costs, did nothing to intervene.
Sadly, there is no cause for celebration when seemingly progressive laws are passed or reforms are adopted for the severe issues prevalent in Family Court because they are wholly ignored. The system remains unchanged as it has for decades.
I believe the following solution would achieve what Family Court was designed to accomplish and at the same time cost less than the current system:
- Relieve all Family Court judges of their duties;
- Relieve all Court Behavioral Health Evaluators of their duties; neither they nor judges should be allowed anywhere near child custody cases;
- Replace all judges and court evaluators with salaried, verified domestic violence experts, such as those currently working in non-profit organizations, such as the Center for Judicial Excellence, Justice for Children and the Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project.
Following the
Mr. President, First Lady, we don’t even come close.
Sincerely,
“You will never change what you tolerate.” ~ Joel Osteen~
