Domestic Violence in Divorce Proceedings

It is understood that many women are coached by their lawyers to file domestic violence complaints against their spouse as a tactic to get the upper hand in divorce proceedings.  These complaints are very effective and as a result, men need to know what to expect when facing the possibility that it might occur in their divorce.

Even though women are frequently the instigators, the odds are overwhelming that the man will be the one arrested and made to leave the home. Even if the man is defending himself, there is a good possibility that he will suffer that fate.

Veterans are especially vulnerable toDV accusations. If you are not familiar with the impact of a domestic violence conviction or a permanent protection order on a veteran's life, here is a summary of the lifetime penalties.:

* Barred from holding a job,
* Denied a security clearance,
* Unable to rent an apartment,
* Forbidden from obtaining school loans,
* Unable to hold any professional licenses,
* Unable to get or hold a teachers certificate,
* Cannot obtain credit or a financial bond,
* Unable to become police officers or firefighters,
* Cannot hold a commercial drivers license,
* Unable to obtain medical insurance,
* Cannot work with hazardous materials or explosives,
* Often have their children taken from them,
* Subjected to federal felony charges if they are even around a weapon or ammunition,
* Discharged from the service under less than honorable conditions and often lose all benefits, retirement, bonuses, and medical care.

In effect the veteran is a dead man walking after a conviction or court order in one of these cases.

Below is a good site with a lot of information for which you should be familiar so that you will be prepared for this possible occurrence:
http://www.dvmen.org/
http://www.dvmen.org/dv-134.htm#pgfId-1000404
http://www.dvmen.org/dv-127.htm#pgfId-998197

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Watch Out For The Dirty Dog Law

Frustrated by a Deadbeat Parent? Try Invoking the Dog Law
by Judge O.H. Eaton, Jr.

Family practitioners occasionally run into the deadbeat parent who simply refuses to obey the order directing payment of support. These cases are frustrating for several reasons.

True deadbeats have no money or assets. They live off of the income of others, usually day by day, or they rely upon the generosity of friends for assistance through the hard times.

Deadbeats believe they have nothing to lose. They have no job. They have no status. They have no property. They perceive themselves to be creatures deserving of sympathy due to their pathetic state which was caused by the custodial parent who now is to blame for the whole thing.

The usual civil remedies such as income deduction orders and writs of execution or sequestration do not produce needed monetary support. To add to the frustration, the custodial parent is usually destitute, or nearly so, and cannot afford counsel.

Sometimes the court files in these cases are voluminous because the deadbeat is pro se and is making a career out of dragging the custodial parent to court over trivial matters, thus jeopardizing employment and putting the custodial parent even more at the mercy of the deadbeat. How should the family law practitioner and the courts approach these cases?

One approach is to apply “dog law.” Now, I do not claim this concept to be original with me. I learned the concept during a lecture by Professor Calvin Woodard of the University of Virginia College of Law several years ago.

According to Professor Woodard, there are two kinds of law: “human law” and “dog law.”

[READ MORE...]

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Women's Role in the Changing Workplace

With the roles of women switching places with men in the workplace, you can be sure that they will increasingly be affected by permanent lifetime alimony in upcoming divorce cases. The eventual and logical outcome of it will be a growing demand from the women to reform the outmoded alimony laws that will put them at risk of supporting someone for the rest of their lives.

As long as they are on the receiving end, little will be done towards this end. Their tune will change when they are on the giving end of permanent lifetime alimony and finally see the injustice that prevails.

Statistics showing this role-changing phenomena can be seen in such articles as the ones below:

Women gain as men lose jobs
By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY

Women are on the verge of outnumbering men in the workforce for the first time, a historic reversal caused by long-term changes in women's roles and massive job losses for men during this recession.

Women held 49.83% of the nation's 132 million jobs in June and they're gaining the vast majority of jobs in the few sectors of the economy that are growing, according to the most recent numbers available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That's a record high for a measure that's been growing steadily for decades and accelerating during the recession. At the current pace, women will become a majority of workers in October or November. The data for July will be released Friday.

"It was a long historical slog to get to this point," says labor economist Heidi Hartmann, president of the Institute for Women's Policy Research.

The change reflects the growing importance of women as wage earners, but it doesn't show full equality, Hartmann says. On average, women work fewer hours than men, hold more part-time jobs and earn 77% of what men make, she says. Men also still dominate higher-paying executive ranks.
[READ ARTICLE...]

Combine the above article with the facts of how more men are being hurt by the current recession and you can extrapolate the consequences of this as relates to men in their major role of paying alimony and continued ability to do so.

Older white males hurt more by this recession
By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY

Dean Canaris, 56, a quality engineer for a Honda automotive supplier, was laid off in April and out the door in 30 minutes with no severance.

Harry Jackson, 55, an airline pilot and supervisor, lost his job in 2007 and, to his surprise, has found it nearly impossible to get another job.

Mark Montgomery, 53, was let go from an Owens Corning insulation factory in April and can't afford his $575 monthly mortgage payment.

These men from the Columbus, Ohio, area are the unusual new faces of joblessness in this groundbreaking recession: older men cut loose from employment at the peak of their earning power and work experience.

In previous recessions, veteran workers were largely spared the pain of widespread job cutbacks, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Layoffs tended to be concentrated among younger workers: The younger you were, the more likely you were to get fired. Traditional, bread-winning older males — especially white men — were the least vulnerable.

Not so today. Aging Baby Boomers are suffering a harsh employment bust.
[READ MORE....]

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The "Final Solution" to the Alimony Problem

James S. Irwin called it a "death sentence."

The 73-year-old international businessman and philanthropist would have to pay his wife alimony and attorney fees totaling more than $2 million, as part of their ongoing divorce proceedings.

That decision, Irwin wrote in a letter mailed to the Sun, would be his undoing.

And he wanted the judge who signed the order to know it.

Irwin, chairman of Integrated Control Systems Inc. and IMPAC University in Punta Gorda, shot and killed himself Monday at his Litchfield, Conn., farm.

Earlier that day, a two-page letter with Irwin's name and Connecticut address was sent to 20th Judicial Circuit Judge John Dommerich, cursing his handling of Irwin's divorce. A copy was forwarded to the Sun.

In the letter, Irwin blames Dommerich and his wife, Linda Scott-Irwin, for his "financial destruction."
[READ MORE...]

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The Fraternity: Lawyers and Judges in Collusion

Below is an article written by John F. Molloy who was elected to the Arizona Court of Appeals, where he served as chief justice and authored more than 300 appellate opinions. Molloy wrote the final Miranda decision for the Arizona Supreme Court.

This is an insider's observation of his profession. This should confirm what you have suspected all along about the legal industry.

The Fraternity:
Lawyers and Judges in Collusion
....Law loses its way
By John F. Molloy

When I began practicing law in 1946, justice was much simpler. I joined a small Tucson practice at a salary of $250 a month, excellent compensation for a beginning lawyer. There was no paralegal staff or expensive artwork on the walls.

In those days, the judicial system was straightforward and efficient. Decisions were handed down by judges who applied the law as outlined by the Constitution and state legislatures. Cases went to trial in a month or two, not years. In the courtroom, the focus was on uncovering and determining truth and fact.

I charged clients by what I was able to accomplish for them. The clock did not start ticking the minute they walked through the door.

Looking back

The legal profession has evolved dramatically during my 87 years. I am a second-generation lawyer from an Irish immigrant family that settled in Yuma. My father, who passed the Bar with a fifth-grade education, ended up arguing a case before the U.S. Supreme Court during his career.

The law changed dramatically during my years in the profession. For example, when I accepted my first appointment as a Pima County judge in 1957, I saw that lawyers expected me to act more as a referee than a judge. The county court I presided over resembled a gladiator arena,
with dueling lawyers jockeying for points and one-upping each other with calculated and ingenuous briefs.

That was just the beginning.

By the time I ended my 50-year career as a trial attorney, judge and president of southern Arizona's largest law firm, I no longer had confidence in the legal fraternity I had participated in and, yes, profited from.

I was the ultimate insider, but as I looked back, I felt I had to write a book about serious issues in the legal profession and the implications for clients and society as a whole. The Fraternity: Lawyers and Judges in Collusion was 10 years in the making and has become my call to action
for legal reform.

Disturbing evolution

Our Constitution intended that only elected lawmakers be permitted to create law.

Yet judges create their own law in the judicial system based on their own opinions and rulings. It's called case law, and it is churned out daily through the rulings of judges. When a judge hands down a ruling and that ruling survives appeal with the next tier of judges, it then becomes case law, or legal precedent. This now happens so consistently that we've become more subject to the case rulings of judges rather than to laws made by the lawmaking bodies outlined in our Constitution.

This case-law system is a constitutional nightmare because it continuously modifies Constitutional intent. For lawyers, however, it creates endless business opportunities. That's because case law is technically complicated and requires a lawyer's expertise to guide and move you through the system. The judicial system may begin with enacted laws, but the variations that result from a judge's application of case law all too often change the ultimate meaning.

Lawyer domination

When a lawyer puts on a robe and takes the bench, he or she is called a
judge. But in reality, when judges look down from the bench they are
lawyers looking upon fellow members of their fraternity. In any other
area of the free-enterprise system, this would be seen as a conflict of
interest.

When a lawyer takes an oath as a judge, it merely enhances the ruling
class of lawyers and judges. First of all, in Maricopa and Pima
counties, judges are not elected but nominated by committees of lawyers,
along with concerned citizens.How can they be expected not to be
beholden to those who elevated them to the bench?

When they leave the bench, many return to large and successful law firms
that leverage their names and relationships.


Business of law

The concept of "time" has been converted into enormous revenue for
lawyers. The profession has adopted elaborate systems where clients are
billed for a lawyer's time in six-minute increments. The paralegal
profession is another brainchild of the fraternity, created as an
additional tracking and revenue center. High-powered firms have
departmentalized their services into separate profit centers for probate
and trusts, trial, commercial, and so forth.

The once-honorable profession of law now fully functions as a
bottom-line business, driven by greed and the pursuit of power and
wealth, even shaping the laws of the United States outside the elected
Congress and state legislatures.


Bureaucratic design

Today the skill and gamesmanship of lawyers, not the truth, often
determine the outcome of a case. And we lawyers love it. All the tools
are there to obscure and confound. The system's process of discovery and
the exclusionary rule often work to keep vital information off-limits to
jurors and make cases so convoluted and complex that only lawyers and
judges understand them.

The net effect has been to increase our need for lawyers, create more work for them, clog the courts and ensure that most cases never go to trial and are, instead, plea-bargained and compromised. All the while the clock is ticking, and the monster is being fed.

The sullying of American law has resulted in a fountain of money for law professionals while the common people, who are increasingly affected by lawyer-driven changes and an expensive, self-serving bureaucracy, are left confused and ill-served.

Today, it is estimated that 70 percent of low- to middle-income citizens can no longer afford the cost of justice in America. What would our Founding Fathers think?

This devolution of lawmaking by the judiciary has been subtle, taking place incrementally over decades. But today, it's engrained in our legal system, and few even question it. But the result is clear. Individuals can no longer participate in the legal system.

It has become too complex and too expensive, all the while feeding our dependency on lawyers.

By complicating the law, lawyers have achieved the ultimate job security. Gone are the days when American courts functioned to serve justice simply and swiftly.

It is estimated that 95 million legal actions now pass through the courts annually, and the time and expense for a plaintiff or defendant in our legal system can be absolutely overwhelming.

Surely it's time to question what has happened to our justice system and to wonder if it is possible to return to a system that truly does protect us from wrongs.

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We Need New Leadership! Our Democratic System Is Failing

This is a YouTube video that you need to watch to find out what is our main problem in righting the wrongs that exist in our society today.

“This source of corruption, alas, is inherent in the democratic system itself, and it can only be controlled, if at all, by finding ways to encourage legislators to subordinate ambition to principle.” –James L. Buckley

All along we have wondered why the yoke of servitude and peonage could have been placed on innocent American under the color of law. These are laws that are facially unconstitutional and violate the most basic of citizens rights….The Right To Privacy in decisions relating to marriage.

Innocent citizens are criminalized by the imposition of laws that are lacking adequate guidelines and are so vague and unclear, judges are unable to rule with any degree of consistency. They are
criminalized by imposing laws under which no two judges are able to arrive at the same conclusion given the same facts of a case. They are criminalized by imposing laws by which the participants are subject to the whims and prejudices of the individual judges.

When the laws are unclear and uncertain, as are those of Florida Statute 61.08, which govern the alimony statutes, the only way the judge can rule on the case is by, in effect, clearly creating a new law (ruling) governing in each case and that follows no rigid guideline as required to do equity between the parties.

Creating laws by the judiciary is a violation of the Separation of Powers between the Judiciary (who administer the laws) and the Legislature (who make the laws) as mandated by the Constitution

Did this happen by accident or was it well planned out by a group of self-serving people who swore am oath of office to uphold the constitutional rights of those whom they purport to represent?

The alimony burdens that have been imposed upon unsuspecting spouses in direct violation of their constitutional right can be traced back to our legislatures and the legislators who pass these
self-serving laws that primarily benefit the state, the legal industry and all the parasites that feed off it to the tune of multi-billions of dollars each year..

Ask yourself: “for what other reason would laws support the lifetime strangle-hold on spouses by retaining jurisdiction over them in the final judgment of dissolution?”

In two separate Florida judicial jurisdictions, the circuit courts, the district court of appeals, and the Florida Supreme Court abrogated their duty to provide a citizen with a declaratory judgment on whether or not the Florida alimony statute 61.08 violated the state constitution.

The cowardly act of the courts refusal to rule on a constitutional issue was simply because the far reaching effect of such a ruling would not only destroy the legal industry’s multi-billion dollar

cash cow but would invalidate, ab initio (back to the beginning), the statute that was unconstitutional as of it’s date of enactment. Follow the filed cases by clicking here.

In reading the following article, it was felt that it accurately reflects where the blame should be placed for such inequitable laws. Even though the article references the U.S. Congress, we can equally apply it to a state congress.

Charley Reese, a writer with the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper has offered a rather fresh look at the national leaders who are responsible for most of the mess we find our nation in. Might mention that Charley is a bonafide "southerner".

THE 545 PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE FOR AMERICA'S WOES!!

By Charley Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don't write the tax code. Congress does.You and I don't set fiscal policy. Congress does. You and I don't control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court Justices - 545 human beings out of the 300 million - are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered but private central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman or a president to do one cotton- picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it.

No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

A CONFIDENCE CONSPIRACY

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a SPEAKER, who stood up and criticized G.W. BUSH for creating deficits.

The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes.

Who is the speaker of the House? She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow Democrats, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto.

REPLACE THE SCOUNDRELS

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts - of incompetence and irresponsibility.

I can't think of a single domestic problem, from an unfair tax code to defense overruns, that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.

When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red. If the Marines are in IRAQ, it's because they want them in IRAQ.

There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom theygive the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.

Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exist disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation" or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible. They, and they alone, have the power. They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses - provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees. We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess.

National Organization of Women Supports Alimony Reform

For those of you who think that alimony reform is just a men's issue brought on by a bunch of whining, alimony paying spouses, please be aware that the National Organization of Women [NOW] "Statement of Purpose" endorsed the cause for alimony reform as far back as 1966. In it, they stated:

"We, men and women who hereby constitute ourselves as the National Organization for Women, believe that the time has come for a new movement toward true equality for all women in America, and toward a fully equal partnership of the sexes, as part of the world-wide revolution of human rights now taking place within and beyond our national borders.....

.....WE REJECT the current assumptions that a man must carry the sole burden of supporting himself, his wife, and family, and that a woman is automatically entitled to lifelong support by a man upon her marriage, or that marriage, home and family are primarily woman's world and responsibility -- hers, to dominate -- his to support. We believe that a true partnership between the sexes demands a different concept of marriage, an equitable sharing of the responsibilities of home and children and of the economic burdens of their support. We believe that proper recognition should be given to the economic and social value of homemaking and child-care. To these ends, we will seek to open a reexamination of laws and mores governing marriage and divorce, for we believe that the current state of `half-equity" between the sexes discriminates against both men and women, and is the cause of much unnecessary hostility between the sexes."

As you can see, even though NOW agrees with the position that lifetime alimony is unwarranted, the judges, lawyers and the rest of the legal industry are determined to degrade women by granting awards of alimony that make the statement that women are unable to care for themselves. These rulings are declaring that women are not the equal of men. The principles that NOW has fought for over 50 years are ignored by the courts, and by NOW itself.

You have to ask yourself why, with this statement of purpose displayed so boldly on the NOW site, they aren't fighting with more zeal to demand that lifetime alimony be abolished as they did in seeking equality in the first place. Could it be that as long as women are allowed to collect alimony welfare through some sort of imagined "entitlement" for being married that they are justified in violating their advocacy of equality.

Maybe they should change their statement of purpose from that of "seeking true equality for all women......exercising all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men" to a more realistic one that includes the comment from George Orwell's 1984 where it stated that: "some people are created more equal than others."

To compound things, when you look at the realities of the situation in the light of a profit motive for the legal industry, adversarial divorces are simply a way of transferring the bulk of the family assets to the legal industry in the form of exorbitant fees, costs and a myriad of other court mandated requirements such as mediation, counseling, expert testimony, etc. in order to obtain a divorce.

Is this justice or just a way to fund a multi-billion dollar industry that builds it's success on the destruction of spouses and families in the name of equity and under color of law?

Where will it all end?? Project the statistics and the answer will be self-evident. The end effect of this apparent hypocrisy is the contribution to the destruction of the institution of marriage and families in this country [Read about the Marriage Strike]. Added to that is the creation of a spousal class of alimony welfare recipients who are no longer useful and self-sufficient members of society.

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Family Law Reform Necessity Recognized by Ohio

The fact that "lifetime" alimony does not work and is an injustice wreaked upon spouses and families to the detriment of society has also been recognized and reported by the State of Ohio.

In October of 1997, a thesis was submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Judicial Studies in Trial Court Judge Major by Judge Leslie Herndon Spillane titled "Spousal Support: The Other Ohio Lottery."

Then in January of 1999, an Ohio Task Force on Family Law and Children consisting of twenty-four individuals from nine different disciplines were selected by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio, Governors Voinovich and Taft, the Ohio Association of Domestic Relations Judges, the Ohio Association of Juvenile and Family Judges, the Ohio State Bar Association, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate to research the state of family law in Ohio and make recommendations for enhancements to processes that will put children first, ensure that families have choices during the divorce and dissolution process, minimize conflict, and emphasize problem solving.

Of particular significance are the comments at the end of the study:

"We have relinquished to the Child Support Advisory Council all matters relating to financial child support, but several of these issues deserve our attention. For example, as noted by Ohio Appellate Court Judge Gwinn (1999), at the upper levels of income, child support awards clearly represent thinly disguised alimony in that amounts awarded are far in excess of what is required for reasonable child support, and no accountability for the expenditure of funds is required. Issues of exorbitant or extended spousal support and unreasonably high child support payments are predicated on the assumption that a spouse (almost always the wife) or a child is entitled to be kept in the style to which they have become accustomed. This deep pockets orientation provides a windfall for the recipient with no obligation to provide anything in return.

Child support obligations are determined according to tables that are seriously flawed in their underlying loose-estimate assumptions, and based on averages that obscure different costs of child rearing according to age of the child or location of residence. Moreover, it is difficult for recipients of court-ordered awards to respond to the donor with gratitude, or respect on the part of children, when they have accepted the notion that these monies are their entitlement. The frequently found alienation of children from their non-resident fathers is exacerbated by this condition, in that this support continues regardless of behavioral compliance with parental rules, child's work ethic, or reciprocity of caring in the father-child relationship. From a child development point of view, more money is not correlated with better child adjustment.

In the case of spousal support, there is a prevailing assumption that a due bill is owed by the breadwinner at the culmination of marriage, regardless of who initiated the divorce, the cause of the divorce, or the degree to which the parties provided benefits to each other during the marriage. Only good providers are penalized in these cases, since those without the means to pay have little or no continuing financial obligation to ex-spouses, and only minimal and often insufficient support payments to children. Our group has also avoided discussion of spousal support even though the Ohio Bar Association is currently addressing that issue in committee. At the very least, I believe we should have examined the existing problems independently and offered our perspectives to the legislature. The major purpose underlying our appointments to this Task Force was to broaden the legislative advisory group. There are profound problems in spousal support and it is debatable whether the only voices heard by the legislature should be those of Ohio attorneys.

We had neither the time nor the collective willingness to resolve most of these problems, but I had hoped we could give guidance to the legislature on some of the more blatant injustices that have gone on for so long that they are perceived as legitimate. From an optimistic posture, if we could have agreed on some of the financial issues that impede cooperative parenting, our proposed legislation might have incorporated language that had the potential to remedy longstanding grievances at the root of bitter post-divorce relationships.

My third conclusion is that we gave no attention to the issue of prenuptial contracts. Yet, judicial respect for the decision-making authority of marital aspirants would seem to be a core requirement for resolution of financial and child rearing matters in the event of divorce. Rather than basing decisions on the adversarial and often irrational conditions prevailing at the time of divorce, fairer adjudication of both financial and child rearing matters could be accomplished by honoring agreements made at the onset of the marriage when commitments are defined cooperatively and with due regard for the rights of the other party. Attempts to undermine prior contractual agreements through legal manipulations should be deterred by judicial policy that protects the integrity of these agreements and implements them as intended. It is likely to believe that couples may increase their propensity to marry if they were provided assurances at the outset that their contractual obligations, mutually agreed upon, would be the foundation for problem resolution if needed in the future."

[Read the full report...]

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Cohabiting Spouses Can Be Liable For Alimony Received By Them During The Cohabitation Period

For all you cohabiting spouses who are still collecting alimony and reading this post, it is time to realize that the tide is turning and that your misadventures might cost you a tidy sum in the near future.

Until now the courts in Florida have been very lenient in declaring that miscreants who were cohabiting were in a supportive relationship. This past leniency has permitted them to flaunt their association and get away with it. But now the courts are tightening up their decisions as to what constitutes a supportive relationship and in the below case, requiring the alimony recipient to repay their ill gotten gains.

Do you still want to gamble and stand to face a situation like that depicted in the below article???

Palm Beach County judge's ex-wife ordered to repay $151,000 in alimony.

WEST PALM BEACH — Palm Beach Circuit Court Judge David French not only won his long-running battle to get out of paying his ex-wife alimony. A judge also ordered her to repay him $151,000.

In a decision this month, Broward Circuit Judge Arthur M. Birken ruled that French should not be required to pay his ex-wife $3,400-a-month alimony because she has been living with another man for nearly 20 years. [Read more...]

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Till Death Do Us Pay

The poster child for progressive marriage laws, Massachusetts is also a singularly nightmarish place to get a divorce—especially for the better-off spouse. Now a brewing reform movement is pushing to rewrite the state's outdated alimony rules, led by one very fed-up ex-husband....

.....Despite these dire straits—Hitner relies on his second wife, Jeanie, to pay most of the household expenses plus the part of the monthly alimony bill he can't cover—he isn't optimistic that Judge Kaplan will be moved. Four years ago, he'd sought a modification from this same judge. "I told her, 'I really need help here, because I'm running out of credit cards to borrow on to pay this alimony,'" says Hitner. "The judge's response was, like, 'Lemme know when you run out of credit cards and I'll put you in jail.'"

He ended up filing for bankruptcy in December 2006. A separate court battle with Joan (who declined to be interviewed for this article) over stock in his company has dragged on for 10 years. Hitner estimates that he's spent, at minimum, $200,000 in legal costs just to get where he is today. Which is to say, exactly where he was in 1999.

[Read more...]

Video interview on Fox News

Note: Steve Hitner is part of the Massachusetts Chapter of the Alliance for Freedom From Alimony, Inc.
www.alimonyreform.org

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Do You Have a Grievance Against the Judge in Your Case?

Do you feel that the judge in your case was biased against you, ruled unfairly, ignored the law, treated you with hostility, etc.? Do you think that you have a chance to appeal to a higher authority to seek relief?

THINK AGAIN!!!

One of the several things you will discover in your battle against judicial or legal wrongdoing, is that it can be almost impossible to find a lawyer who will help you file lawsuits and complaints against judges, or against other lawyers.

One reason for this is because the judges generally control the Bar in your state, which means they have total instant control over whether a lawyer is even allowed to continue working as a lawyer.
[Read more...]

Check out the other FAQ's in this blog.

Going after a judge can be an exercise in futility. If you have to appeal to a higher court or even the do so in the federal courts, your ability to do so, even if you do this on your own [Pro Se] is a monumental task wrought with traps and pitfalls created by those you are going after and control the system.

It is a daunting task to try to follow the laws and procedures necessary to appeal to higher courts and they are extremely resistant to your efforts. Even if you were able to master the requirements of filing a case, the odds of you winning are extremely small.

The closest analogy comes to mind is that of a barnyard rooster arguing with the foxes over their right to guard the henhouse. GOOD LUCK!!!

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Fourteen Years in Jail on Alimony Contempt Charges

If you weren't aware, due process of law does not apply in family law cases.

In due process for criminal cases you get the following:
1. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.
2. You are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
3. You are entitled to a trial by jury.
4. You are given a sentence with a definite time period of incarceration.

In family law, you get the following if you are held in contempt [such as when you are unable to pay your alimony and the court thinks you can.]
1. If you cannot afford an attorney, you are out of luck. Not only that, but the court will asses you with the fees and costs incurred by your ex-spouse.
2. You have the burden of proving that you were unable to pay your ex-spouse.
3. You are not entitled to a trial by jury.
4. The courts will assign you a purge amount that you have to pay in order to be kept out of jail. If you are unable to pay, and can't prove it to the courts satisfaction, you will be kept in jail until you cough up the purge amount as the court considers that you have the "keys to your cell" and can get out whenever you decide to pay the extortion amount.

Apparently, the courts consider the inability to pay alimony as a more serious crime than murder, rape, robbery, etc. for which your constitutional rights are able to be suspended.

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Saturday, July 11, 2009

By Mari A. Schaefer, Philadelphia Inquirer

PHILADELPHIA -- H. Beatty Chadwick, imprisoned in Delaware County for the last 14 years, was in the jail library yesterday giving legal advice to female inmates when a prison official walked up and gave him the news.

He was a free man.

Minutes earlier a Delaware County Common Pleas judge issued an order granting Mr. Chadwick's petition for freedom, thus ending his incarceration for contempt of court -- a U.S. record for the charge.

"We want you out of here right away," Mr. Chadwick, 73, said the official told him.

In 1995 -- the year "Apollo 13" was a box-office hit, O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murder and 169 people were killed in the bombing of an Oklahoma federal building -- Mr. Chadwick was a corporate lawyer who grew up in Bryn Mawr and became embroiled in a nasty divorce. In April that year, he was arrested by two sheriff's deputies at his dentist's dowtown Philadelphia office and landed in jail.

A Delaware County judge issued an order to jail Mr. Chadwick for failing to deposit $2.5 million in a court-controlled account that would be used to pay alimony to his ex-wife, Barbara "Bobbie" Applegate.

Mr. Chadwick contended he no longer had the money, saying he lost it in a bad overseas investment. The judge believed he hid the money after divorce proceedings were started. Court-ordered investigations after he was jailed turned up no money.

The couple were married for 15 years. Mr. Chadwick called their marriage happy; she said he was stubborn and controlled her every move.

Efforts to reach Ms. Applegate's attorney, Albert Momjian, yesterday were unsuccessful.

In yesterday's ruling, Judge Joseph P. Cronin said Mr. Chadwick had the ability to comply with the 1995 court order to make the bank deposit and willfully refused to do so. But, after 14 years, Judge Cronin said, the contempt order had lost its coercive effect and instead had become punitive.

At the prison yesterday, when Mr. Chadwick's attorney, Michael J. Malloy, arrived to pick him up, about 50 people -- prison staff, correction officers and inmates -- were gathered inside and out to see him off.

"It was pretty remarkable scene," said Mr. Malloy. He added people were crying, shaking hands and hugging Mr. Chadwick. When he walked out into the brilliant, blue sky day, Mr. Malloy said everyone applauded.

The two packed 14 years of clothes, books, magazines -- including Bon Appetit -- and boxes of legal filings into the backseat and trunk of Mr. Malloy's Honda Accord, and then they drove off.

"I really missed being free and being able to have interactions with other people," said Mr. Chadwick, who was dressed in a dapper green suit and maroon tie for the occasion. "Jail is really a very artificial society."

Later in Mr. Malloy's office, Mr. Chadwick talked about his legal battles, the judicial system, his life in prison and his future.

He said he held no anger about the imprisonment or toward his ex-wife, to whom he has not spoken in more than a decade.

"The dark moments always came when I had a turndown from some court," said Mr. Chadwick, who had repeatedly sought release over the years. He said he kept his spirits up helping others with their legal issues.

For more than six years, Mr. Malloy worked pro bono on the case.

"I always thought if I could take this to a jury, he would have been home in a week," said Mr. Malloy.

When Mr. Chadwick's son, William, 41, walked into the office, the two embraced.

"It was so tough to keep up hopes at these hearings," said William Chadwick.

"We were concentrating so much on getting him out, we haven't thought what we'd do immediately afterward."

Beatty Chadwick will stay at his son's house in King of Prussia until he can set up his own apartment. He has no firm plans beyond that.

"I have to get out and make a living," said Mr. Chadwick, who has no income other than Social Security.

He is considering possibly teaching, trying to see what he can do in a corporate advisory role, and he will try to get his law license reinstated.

"I'm really thinking about what I'm going to do with the rest of my life," Mr. Chadwick said.

He would like to use his "skills and talent and time" to benefit others.

As Mr. Chadwick walked outside to transfer his belongings into his son's Prius, a man driving a car along Veteran's Square in Media honked, cheered and gave the thumbs-up sign, all while hanging out the car window.

"Good job, buddy," said the former fellow inmate, who declined to give his name. "You deserve to be out." [Read the article]

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Why You Can't Get Help With Court Injustices

Did you ever want a lawyer to take up your defense in what you thought was an unjust way you were treated in court? Then read this article and check out some of the other FAQ's in this blog article:

FAQ on US Judicial and Legal Corruption :

It's true that there are lots of bogus, malicious, and perverted lawsuits filed in America, for all sorts of trivial and dishonest reasons. And it's true that some of these lawsuits even win money, where somebody gets a big pile of money for some silly complaint.

But that doesn't mean you will be able to get legal help to fight a crooked lawyer or judge, even though you have massive proof of misconduct and felony crime by the lawyers and the judges.

The legal profession likes the media to tell all those general lawsuit stories. They like the way these stories create terror among people and small businesses, and help induce people to pay more money for lawyers. [Read More.....]

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More Feminist Backlash

A recent article by Phyllis Schlafly supports our previous article: "A Feminist's Daughter's Views on the Feminist Approach" that the feminist movement has not really benefited women in the long run as regards their married and family life.

Why Women Are Unhappy

The National Bureau of Economic Research released a study to be published soon in the American Economic Journal that shows women's happiness has measurably declined since 1970. It's no surprise that this has stimulated much comment.

This study covers the same time period as the rise of the so-called women's liberation or feminist movement. The correlation demands an explanation. You can read the entire study at www.eagleforum.org/links.

One theory advanced by the authors, University of Pennsylvania economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, is that the women's liberation movement "raised women's expectations" (sold them a bill of goods), making them feel inadequate when they fail to have it all. A second theory is that the demands on women who are both mothers and jobholders in the labor force are overwhelming. [Read the entire article.]

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A Feminist's Daughter's Views on the Feminist Approach

This insider article says it all and represents the backlash that the feminist movement has created.

Rebecca Walker, daughter of trail-blazing feminist author Alice Walker tells her story of life with her mother and the resulting fallout that feminism is generating in our society.
[Read the article here....]

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