Objections to Restraining Orders AREN’T about Restraining Orders

Moderator

Let’s get something clear: protests against restraining orders aren’t about restraining orders.

Granted, it’s a violation against decency and all things American for the government to casually curtail citizens’ freedoms without even consulting them first. But, seriously, who cares if a judge says one adult can’t talk to some other adult?

Objections to restraining orders are never about not being allowed to talk to the plaintiffs who were treacherous enough seek them. I would imagine (and I don’t strictly have to imagine) that most restraining order defendants’ feelings toward the people they’re prohibited from talking to are considerably less than friendly, anyway.

Here’s what objections to restraining orders are about:

  • On a modicum of evidence of “threat” or none at all, a spouse or boy- or girlfriend can be ejected from his or her home (even if s/he holds the deed) and forbidden access to his or her children, pets, money, and property on pain of police arrest.
  • Allegations ranging from harassment to domestic violence can be permanently stamped on defendants’ (that is, recipients’) records, again based on a modicum of evidence (very possibly misrepresented) or none at all. An allegation amounting to nothing more than “I’m afraid” is sufficient to obtain an “order of protection,” the implications of which phrase alone signify stalking, violence, or violent intent.
  • Restraining orders are public documents that may be accessible to anyone, including employers and would-be employers. Records of their issuance remain on public view even after their expiration and may be entered into public registries.
  • The truth or falsity of allegations that may be as extreme as assault with a deadly weapon, child molestation, or rape is determined according to the same civil standard of evidence as contract and insurance disputes: “preponderance of the evidence.” Regardless of the extremity of allegations on restraining orders, neither a trial by jury nor “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” is ever required for their validation. If a judge feels there’s a better than 50/50 probability that allegations are true, “preponderance of the evidence” is satisfied.
  • Allegations on restraining orders, which may be either criminal or criminal in nature and may besides be entirely false, indefinitely remain on defendants’ public records whether they’re found meritorious or not, that is, even baseless allegations that a judge ignores are never stricken from the record but remain on public view and may reasonably be interpreted as true or valid by anyone who consults those records.
  • The restraining order process is conducted ex parte, which means orders are issued based on one party’s claims alone, and these may be both damning and egregiously false.
  • Statutory penalties for lying to police officers and judges (false reporting and perjury) are never enforced, and allegations of lying are furthermore discounted by the courts.
  • Federal grant monies (average grants being in the neighborhood of $500,000) are awarded to police districts and courts in return for their consenting to have their officers “educated” about how they should respond to allegations of fear and violence. Mandated responses include accepting allegations of violence by women at face value (that is, they’re not to be questioned). This mandated response roughly translates to allegations by anyone being recognized as legitimate.
  • Irrespective of the nature of allegations entered against a defendant, which may be innocuous or false, that defendant is subjected to traumatizing menace, intimidation, and public disparagement by the state. S/he is treated generically like a fiend, the paradigmatic basis for which treatment is the domestic batterer whose conduct restraining orders were originally conceived to check, despite allegations of violence being rare today relative to the vast number of restraining orders issued (estimated at two to three million per annum).
  • Restraining orders, which circumvent due process entirely and which originate in civil court and are therefore subject to no standard of proof, may implicate defendants as criminals and may have criminal consequences if “violated.” Alleged violations, also, may be subject to no standard of proof. In other words, a defendant can find him- or herself locked up, never having been granted his or her constitutional right to a trial and very possibly on maliciously false grounds (based on a decision formed by the court prior to even knowing what that defendant looked like).
  • Opportunities to contest allegations on restraining orders, which defendants may literally have to ask for within a brief window of time, may be assigned no more than a few minutes, and defendants are never provided counsel. An innocent defendant forced to contest utterly malicious allegations may face the quandary of living with them permanently stamped on his or her public record or shelling out $2,500 to $5,000 for an attorney’s representation, which measure is no guarantee of vindication and which measure few can afford even if they’re conscious of the need (which few are).
  • Restraining orders are usually free for the asking and may be petitioned serially or multiply by a single applicant, making them marvelous instruments of harassment and torment. There’s no statutory limit on the number of restraining orders a single applicant may apply for, no penalties for having false or groundless restraining orders dismissed, and of course no penalties for lying.
  • Restraining orders impose no limitations on the actions of plaintiffs (that is, applicants), leaving them free to taunt or stalk defendants, or bait them into violating orders of the court.
  • Courts pander to and reward even those guided by spite, jealousy, malice, and/or personality disorders or mental illness. The interchange between a judge and a plaintiff is no more than five or 10 minutes in duration and is more procedural and perfunctory than probative. A judge authorizes a restraining order, which may permanently alter many lives for the worse (including those of children), based on knowing nothing whatever about its defendant, who’s just a name on a form, and almost nothing about its petitioner, who may be disturbed or even insane.
  • Upon plaintiffs’ successfully making false allegations stick once (or baiting defendants into violating false restraining orders), they now have a foundation upon which to make further falsehoods entirely plausible. Thus can innocent defendants’ lives be scarred or fractured irreparably by chronic abuse (a single potent lie, or a series of them, can be nursed for years). And these defendants may have been the actual victims in the first place.

Most people (including authorities and officers of the court) aren’t conscious that restraining orders are abused, let alone conscious of how they’re abused, why they’re abused, or how extremely they can be abused.

It’s hoped that this synopsis makes the means and motive for restraining order abuse clearer to those in the dark, at sea, or on the ropes. Whether you’re a legislator, a judge, a police officer, an attorney, a counselor, a feminist or feminist partisan, a victim of restraining order fraud, or just someone with reasonable expectations about how the justice system operates, whatever your perceptions were about restraining orders and their administration, those perceptions were probably either naïve or wrong.

The ease and convenience with which restraining orders may be obtained make their attractiveness as instruments of passive-aggressive castigation, spite, and vengeance irresistible.

You’ve seen that game carnival-goers are invited to take a crack at that gives them three tries to drop a seated person into a pool of water? Restraining orders are sort of the same thing, only the cost of a ticket is free, a player doesn’t need to be able to hit the broadside of a barn, and the water beneath the target is scalding.

Copyright © 2013 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

32 thoughts on “Objections to Restraining Orders AREN’T about Restraining Orders”

  1. I think another key compoment is outlining steps to make prosecuters who do not hold false axxusers accountable reposible for explaining why they overlook this crime, but not others. If they want to encourage victims to come forward, and there are so many thoisands of victims of false allegations every year (with zero accountabikity) a very dire message is being sent- you can falsey accuse, and be okay,but IF accused, we will go after you. Is that the message District Attorney Offices across America wish to be perceived as? Abuse of restraining orders, or Orders of Protection as they are called in New York, is as much about prosecutorial misconduct. At minimum, even a “How are we doing” checklist for victims to fill out – this completely unbridled position of power affirded to newbies fresh out of law school is alarming.

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    1. I agree. I think more of these public officials need to be sued, too, in federal court. They bully because they can, and they profit by it. And they’re asking for more money:

      The city’s district attorneys are looking for a fat raise.

      The five DAs penned a letter asking that their pay be hiked to $250,000 a year — up from the $190,000 they make now, a 32% bump.

      http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/exclusive-nyc-district-attorneys-seek-32-pay-raise-article-1.2423992

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  2. It doesn’t matter if you have evidence to squash the abuse. I presented evidence in court that showed she was the actual abuser. I even listed the fact that I was the one who called 911. She had a roommate lie and say I had threatened her life. It did not matter. No matter what I said, she was the petitioner and she got her order. She is a serial restraining order person. It definitely takes a toll. Here I am 11 years later and I am still mad every time I think about how the she and the court robbed me based on false allegations. If they file before you, they are usually going to win. It does not matter the evidence. It messes with you and leaves a scar. Every time I apply for a job I get nervous. I know I can be turned down for a job based on the fraud I received in court 11 years ago.

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    1. I identify. I’m in year nine. I meant to write for children. Not only have I felt the same trepidation about this scat popping up if I apply for, say, a job in child education, I can’t ply myself at what brought me joy and what I’d banked on doing for a living. It is robbery. For almost a decade, I’ve had to watch as everything around me molders and fades. I’ve been through five prosecutions (including two appeals and two lawsuits)—and I know a man who’s been summonsed to court over 30 times (and he’s only in year three or four).

      My accuser was someone I encountered standing outside of my residence one day. She also had a female friend testify for her—fully seven years later (a friend who had asked me to meet with her the year before, apologized to me, and even urged me to hug her, which I did, excusing her six-year silence). Both are professional women with advanced degrees (and there were at least two other women on the sidelines—with the same credentials).

      This sisterly gamesmanship reaches into the highest echelons of government (which is why some men speak of conspiracy). I worked around academic feminists as a grad student, and there was a lot of gender cronyism and whispering behind hands. (Proto-feminist) philosophers Christina Hoff Sommers and Camille Paglia have called today’s academic feminist network “the Sorority.” If you sniff around, you’ll find that the papers and (federally financed) research studies that contend men’s plaints are “unfounded” are produced by members of this network, who all occupy positions of social prominence and authority. Their study “findings” in turn fuel the propaganda of feminism’s broader base (the Internet-savvy, social-media foot soldiers). They’re also used to influence judicial rulings. The so-called National Institute of Justice (an agency of the Justice Department) administers “training seminars” in which officers of the court and its staff are apprised of these studies’ conclusions. Grants to state courts under VAWA, moreover, mandate that judges undergo “remedial education” to sensitize them to the “domestic violence epidemic.” Tens of millions of dollars have gone to courts to “train” their officers and staff, and billions have been invested toward “training” police officers and beefing up arrest policies.

      The latest post on the blog is about the award of a $500,000 study grant to a (female) law professor at George Washington U who proposes to “debunk” male allegations that false accusations of abuse are commonplace in family court. A former senior social science analyst at the National Institute of Justice (the agency that awarded the grant) has partnered with the professor on the study. The analyst is also female.

      If you visit the National Institute of Justice’s website and click on the “Publications and Multimedia” tab, you’ll find the foremost reports featured in the left-hand margin are “Perspectives on Civil Protective Orders in Domestic Violence Cases: The Rural and Urban Divide” (about judicial discrimination against women seeking protection orders in rural areas—and authored by a woman), “The National Institute of Justice Commemorates the 15th Anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act,” “Men Who Murder Their Families: What the Research Tells Us,” and “Voices from the Field: Stalking.”

      The corruption is transparent, but no one looks. It’s become “the way things are.” Try, in fact, to find a comprehensive history of the evolution of restraining orders, and you’ll be disappointed. So great is the public investment in (neo-patriarchal) feminist dogma that almost no one investigates. The priority is punishment; there is no oversight. And what “facts” are available are mostly the “work product” of the people who propagate the dogma.

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    1. You’re having a hard time getting one because (1) you’re male, (2) you’re not alleging you’re in fear for your life, and (3) you’re seeking an order against a woman who successfully petitioned an order against you.

      What’s the most recent “event” you’ve reported? If you’ve reported to the court that you’re “concerned” because of something a woman with an injunction against you did months ago, that’s not likely to move a judge much.

      If you say, on the other hand, that this woman has been nightly calling you threatening to castrate you with a nail file, that likely would.

      What are you alleging?

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  4. Pingback: Minnesota House Passes Bill to Confiscate Guns from Owners Under Restraining and Protective Orders | The Truth About Guns

  5. Maybe, just maybe, if a situation is put out there somehow, someway, will the public finally take notice! I’ll give it a shot for the good of all of us! That being said, here goes…. First of all, I don’t understand the he/she regarding abusive orders of protecton? We’re all human beings, person and person equals just that, universally known as people. In my state of Arizona for example, the laws have changed regarding custidy issues. No more mother/father, it’s now parent/parent. In this age of our parents living longer, siblings are joining in this game in order to take control of the estate. Are you following me? It’s just a matter of easily walking into a court house, lie and obtain an order and there you go…one sibling is now out of the game. Love and War, what happened to the Love? Easy answer, Greed! Now do I have your attention?

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    1. You’re totally right, of course. The “he/she” fracture that I’ve talked about that absolutely is significant is this one: the political muscle behind the perpetuation of bad restraining order laws comes from the feminist establishment (and those under its spell), and to it “we” are not all human beings. There are women…and non-women, and the humanity of non-women is considered suspect. With more women joining the conversation, this stands to change. Meanwhile it’s important to recognize that judges are just people hired to interpret and apply laws, and fraudulent plaintiffs are just people manipulating judges and laws.

      It’s the laws that have to change to bring these sources of injustice to heel.

      The reason there are “orders of protection” is because women campaigned for them 30 years ago. The scions (offshoots) of those early equity feminists (feminists who wanted fairness and fair recognition) have never stopped campaigning, and these gender feminists (today’s “feminist establishment”) are immune to reason and facts. For them, it’s only about he/she.

      Make that she/he.

      Greed may be the motive of the “end-user.” But the motive of those who’ve rejected reform and seen to it that restraining order laws have only gotten harsher over the years is power. It isn’t males who root for restraining orders. In fact men rarely use the process. Four out of five users are women. That’s the “he/she” part. Men don’t have to be convinced that the restraining order process should be reformed or terminated with extreme prejudice; women do. Men who are for restraining orders are for them because they want the “fairer sex” to be secure.

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      1. In my case, it’s she/she false order of protection. I was the defendant and represented myself at hearing. Tip, stay focused, don’t deviate. I made it onto a step by step format and ran with it. Her claims;
        1, My husband died in 2009, I moved back home. (What does that have to do with me?)
        2. I have MS. (What does that have to do with?)
        3. A year later my mother had a stroke. (Wrong, she had a stroke 14 months prior to move. What does that have to do with claim?)
        4, When she drinks, she tries to start fights with me. (She couldn’t elaborate or give examples)
        5. This is mentally and emotionally hard on me. I had to put a lock on my bedroom door as I don’t feel safe. (She put lock on door four years earlier when she moved in for privacy)
        6. She locked me out of the house with no lights on. (She came home late from bar. Front porch light was burned out and she was well aware of hidden key
        7. She won’t move out my way. I came home with groceries and feel against the wall. (I was cleaning carpets and up against the baseboard with the machine. She walked by yelling “Turn that fxcxxxx thing off”! She unplugged it and heaved the cord at me)
        9. My mother wants her to move out and I told her that. (False, I have been caregiving for elderly mother and terminally ill brother for years. He passed away in home, late 2010)
        I presented a number of photos of her passed out from drugging and drinking. Lastly, I showed the court a video of her harassing, and making threats towards me in front of our mother. THE JUDGE LOOKED UP AND ASKED “ARE YOU BOTH SISTERS?” I smiled, nodding my head yes, Conclusion, ORDER QUASHED.

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        1. Congratulations. It still gnaws, I’m sure. You’re the third commenter this week who’s had a restraining order petitioned by a (female) family member (sibling or parent) against him or her. One woman had to fight to regain custody of her son from her mom, who had also gotten a restraining order against her brother previously and asked for her help in getting a restraining order against someone else she was miffed with. Maybe the mom petitioned a restraining order against her, because she was sore that she hadn’t helped her get the restraining order against the other person. This process makes the heart positively swell with civic pride.

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          1. Thank you. More then gnaws, I still haven’t been able to go back to life as I knew it to be before. Even though the hearing was a sucess in my favor, I lost everything I spent my whole life building. The day my sister filed and police came to have me removed from residence (had only ten minutes to take what I could), she burglarized my room. I had lived there for over a decade caring for elderly mother and terminally ill brother. I’m sixty years of age and have two grown sons. You can just imagine, photos, videos all memorabilia gone. All personal belongings, clothes (I left with three sun dresses and two pairs of sandles) and everything else I had collected through out the years. My career in banking to include medical benifi.ts (now I have a record and unemployed). I can’t pay my debits to include student loans. Good thing my car is paid off as I’m sleeping in it (tip, windshield sun screen makes good instilation for warmth). And yes I reported theft to police and they did nothing except ask me to leave the residence again. I don’t think they even know what to do as, I’m sure they’ve never dealt which a situation like this before. In the meantime, I spend my days at the library studying the
            law. My resources are few, no victim services for me as I’m not eligible. Remember, I was labled the perpitator and not a victim.

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            1. That’s desolating to hear. I was misrepresented by some women who hung around my house looking for attention, so blessedly I’ve at least been able to agonize in my own (now neglected and squalid) digs. How horrifying that you’re expected to start over with a car and three sundresses.

              I just posted a response to an entry on the Ms. Magazine Blog whose writer argues for sparing restraining order plaintiffs in Maryland from any burden of proof. It’s stories like yours that I wish were brought to the attention of women like this writer, an obviously intelligent person who is, of course, completely unaware that there are victims like you out there.

              “Available” options (the quotation marks are there because available may just mean offering false hope) are seeking to have the record of the vacated restraining order expunged or sealed, and suing your sister in small claims court or the superior court for your costs and losses (she destroyed your photos?). It’s possible you could craft a motion to the court yourself to have your record cleared. You could also represent yourself in a small claims case (easy peasy). Preparing and prosecuting a lawsuit on your own for your pain, suffering, lost income, and (irreplaceable) memorabilia would be very rough under the best of conditions, and who knows if the judge would even be sympathetic.

              Are you already collecting Social Security? If not, you may be eligible to start, and that would at least ensure you’re not just depleting your savings. If you Google expungement + your state, you may find a law firm that specializes in records clearance and that would quote you a price for its help. You might also find a tutorial online explaining how to have your record expunged or sealed if a lawyer’s help would be too costly. This may allow you to return to work.

              The thing to know about the process you’ve been abused by is that its defendants have no rights and receive no sympathy from the courts or the authorities. You’re exactly right that they don’t know what to do. People imagine judges and cops have all the answers. They don’t. They’re taught how to do their jobs like anyone else, and both statutes and bench books (judicial reference manuals) pretend that this kind of scenario doesn’t occur. A cop probably gets some academy training on restraining orders. Otherwise, it’s all improv. And who’s going to contradict the guy with the cuffs and the gun?

              Who’s the owner of the residence? I don’t know anything about them, but I’ve heard of “notices to vacate.” You might investigate the “notice to vacate” and see what it’s for, whether it exists in your state, and whether you’d be qualified to apply for one. It would depend, I guess, on what entitlement you had to reside in the house you shared with your sister or what claim you had to its ownership.

              The restraining order is a beautifully efficient instrument of evil, because it costs nothing to petition, requires no evidence of anything, and quickly and easily strips a person of all means and agency, which ensures that it’s never criticized—except in peeps and moans—and never challenged, because its victims are rendered impotent.

              I hope you’re at least able to stay safe. Any chance you could move in with one of your sons while you’re weighing your options?

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              1. Thank you. The residence belongs to my 88 year disabled mother (stoke). I had been her primary care giver for years. She is now dying, maybe six months. I called APS and they went to investigate. They were told by my sister that I never took care of my mother and she HAD to file order of protection. End of story. They didn’t want to hear that I’m successor trustee for my mom’s estate as well as conservator her financial affairs. They informed me that sister was putting house in her name. I was dealing with young twenty somethings, probably fresh out of college. The estate is irrivalable and set in stone, what do they know? As successor trustee by law I’m still responsible for the home, taxes ect. I didn’t tell my sons the severity of the situation. One is in tbe Air Force and deployed over in Afghanistan. It wasn’t until my car broke down that my other son came up from Tucson to fix it, he brought me home with him. Needless to say he is livid. He said he told me to get out of that house over a year ago but I wouldn’t listen. He knew my sister was capable of such evil. I couldn’t leave grandma alone with her. That would be elder abuse. Now she is alone with my abusive sister and seems I can’t do anything about it. I have been studying ARS codes and making a plan. I think this story will attract media attention with all of the variables involved.

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                1. I’m in Tucson, also. I worked for an attorney years ago who specializes in Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and is a terrific guy. If you called or emailed him (he may still teach at the University of Arizona), I’m sure he’d offer what guidance he could.

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            2. One thing I forgot to mention. I’m the successor trustee of the estate. You hear all of the time about how people are forced from their homes. Have you ever heard of someone using a false restraining order and try to remove someone as successor trustee from an estate?

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              1. I haven’t, no, and don’t strictly see how it would, unless the grantor (your mom, I guess) is still living and could be influenced to remove you as trustee. The successor trustee is just the estate administrator, though, right? Entitlement to property will depend on the specifications of the trust. Of course, if your mother is still living, and you’re out of the way, your sister could seek to have you denied an inheritance, I suppose.

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                1. It was a revocable trust with my mother the trustee. It was set up to where she became diabled or incompetent (which she is both) that I become the successor trustee making the trust irrivalable. I am to act as conservator and guardian (medical), With the false ordet of protection that hasn’t chsnged. I’m still obligated and responible for her. Do to the system, even though my order was QUASHED, all people hear like APS Order of Protection! They don’t want to touch the situstion. Over their heads and don’t want to touch it. My mother is dying and I can’t get to her. She is helpless there at the house with my drug/alcohlic abusive sister. My mother informed me that my sister took her to a xmas party. Sistet drinking and driving, got lost and couldn’t find her way home. Mom feel out of the car and hit her head. She was bleeding and sister didn’t take her to hospital. You know why don’t you? Sister would have been questioned about drinking. Thinking only of herself, my poor mother.

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                  1. Take a look at this:

                    “Can the executor of an estate evict his sister from their father’s home?”

                    Question: “can the executor of an estate evict his sister from their father’s home. she had been living their and caring for the dad for the past 4 months as he was dying of cancer. she left her home,job,everything from another state to come to washington state to care for him. The house has not even been appraised by probate yet”

                    Answer (by estate attorney): “The executor cannot simply throw the sister out. Even without a lease and though she may not be paying any rent, the sister is going to be considered a month to month tenant. As a month to month tenant, the executor is going to be required to give you at least 30 days written notice to terminate. Then, if the sister does not leave, the law does not allow the executor to forcibly evict her without obtaining an eviction order from a court. What that means is that if termination date comes and the sister doesn’t move out, the executor cannot simply change the locks or throw the sister’s things out. Rather, what the executor has to do is to first deliver a 10-Day Notice to quit…which basically says the sister has 10 days to leave or face formal eviction. But, if the sister still has not left, the executor must then file a petition with the small claims court for an eviction order. Only when a judge has issued the eviction order can the executor have the sister evicted.”

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  6. One of the things that consistently bothers me about restraining orders is that there is no application of the “reasonable doubt” standard. In other words, things are the flip of a coin. However, I wonder if there are ever times where a petitioner files a restraining order while holding reasonable doubt of that the individual that he or she is filing against is not guilty, at least in a criminal way. And an individual who is not holding “absolute certainty” is not holding “reasonable doubt.”

    However, I’m a skeptic. I have the philosophical background to be skeptical. As such, I very often lack absolute certainty. As such, much of my epistemology is based on a “leap of faith” as to the validity of the information that I encounter. However, I believe that many individuals who petition for restraining orders are not asked, “Do you hold reasonable doubt as to the criminality of these allegations?” And if a petitioner were to say “No,” but then criminal court finds the defendant not guilty, then the petitioner was being “unreasonable.”

    And there is a lot to be said about the “reasonableness” of the petitioners who file allegations against to-be respondents: They may not be reasonable people. As such, there are unreasonable people who without malicious intent are unknowingly without recklessness filing false allegations of criminal conduct against other individuals. This category of individuals have no reasonable doubt as to the validity of the allegations and they file a petition anyway: These individuals are not reasonable people.

    However, for the category of individuals who are not “sure” as to the truth of the allegations and the criminality of them, thus question their validity while still filing, I firmly believe that these individuals are reckless in their filing of their petitions: These individuals are abusing the restraining order process with their reckless acts. And then, of course, you have the individuals who are knowingly filing false allegations, despite the potential for other allegations to be doubted or questionable in their minds: This is still, as I consider, restraining order abuse. And then, of course, you have straight-up restraining order abuse: Those who intentionally file false allegations, know that the allegations they are filing are false, and have a complete and utter disregard for the truth. Those individuals are maliciously filing a restraining orders against another individual.

    It is the level of the petitioner’s culpability in filing allegations that largely bothers me.

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    1. Correct: “And an individual who is not holding “absolute certainty” is not holding “reasonable doubt.” — And an individual who is not holding “absolute certainty” is holding “reasonable doubt.”

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      1. A great article that I’m reading through, which should be freely accessible on the Internet, in relation to reasonable doubt is “The Origins of “Reasonable Doubt” by James Q. Whitman. Yale Law School Legal Scholarship Repository. Yale Law School. 3-1-2005.

        It’s well over 100 pages and so far has been a good read. There is a lot to say about a petitioner who fails to hold reasonable doubt vs. a petitioner who holds reasonable doubt. A petitioner who has prosecuted or is prosecuting an individual while holding a reasonable doubt will have the “negative” effects of cause-and-effect placed on his or her life. Some people say God is the ultimate judge, that for when a person is wrongfully prosecuted, God shall smite the wicked. I’ve also read that ignorance is evil, which I believe is an Aristotle quote. I take a Daoist consequentialist approach, however: Cause-and-effect. And it is said that an individual shall not be guilty when in his or her heart and head believes beyond a reasonable doubt that another individual is guilty.

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    2. You’ve touched on all of the essential ills of the process: (1) it proceeds on presumption (namely, that allegations are legit), (2) popular perception is also credulous and presumes representations are true (“Why would someone lie?” or “Why would [Sally, Anne, or Bob] lie?”), and (3) time—as in none is taken by the courts (initial interviews are two to 10 minutes, and appeals hearings may be afforded 20 to 40 minutes), and very little time is provided to defendants to gain their bearings (four to 10 days, often, and no more than two weeks or so at the outside). An officer walks into a person’s yard or knocks on his or her door, delivers a document that could scarcely be more menacing (or horrifying if it’s covered with false allegations), and that person is supposed to be savvy and cool-headed enough to scrape up a few thousand dollars and immediately enlist an attorney and prepare a killer defense over a week (or weekend—or, as in once case reported to me, 48 hours). It doesn’t happen (more than half the time, the accuser is a friend, lover, or spouse, and defendants are most likely to reel from shock and betrayal and sound mortified and lame if they even opt to appeal). And this formula has worked very effectively for the justice system for many years. People are cowed into submission, pray circumstances don’t worsen before the term of the court’s order runs, and just live with it.

      Judges aren’t stupid. The reason this blog still exists is because a judge I faced this summer acknowledged that the system is due some criticism. That judge, though, was also in the dark (or it served his interests to feign a degree of ignorance). He thought restraining orders were issued excessively because judges were overly “paternal.” Few people within the system, beyond attorneys who represent the wrongly accused, grasp that restraining orders are flagrantly abused, that is, that they’re often products of misrepresentation or outright fictions.

      The justice system (all the way up the ladder) works largely by control. And this control is largely accomplished through fear. Judicial staff are afraid to criticize judges and attorneys (job security). Judges are afraid to question other judges or the system itself (job security). Police are the same (job security). Even legislators and members of the executive branch toe the line, because they fear the negative consequences of challenging legal procedures that have become institutions and are represented as protective of women and children (fame and job security). Members of the public, too, don’t want to be involved. Even eyewitnesses may balk at the prospect of becoming embroiled in a legal conflict. (In their cases, it’s just plain security.) Victims of fraud may themselves fear further losses, like permanently being denied access to their kids.

      And so injustices continue (on a mass scale), preserved from scrutiny and reform by political pressures (fear). And anyone who squeaks in protest is easily discounted or dismissed as a crank.

      Or crushed.

      Look around and see if you don’t find this to be universally true: the only people who speak out against this system are a handful of lawyers, who are fairly insulated against attack, or solitaries or older people who don’t have young kids and urgent familial or social obligations to attend to—or careers that demand conformity. They don’t have the usual vulnerabilities.

      Which also makes them easily characterized as queer or off (and some of them may well be—and what surprise in that?).

      The rare exception, and it’s hoped that more of these exceptional people will emerge, is the well-groomed, photogenic, properly pedigreed professional who’s invited to write for Salon or The Huffington Post. It’s all about social perception. And effecting change is going to be about changing social perception on a large scale.

      That’s how this mess started in the first place. When I was a little kid, few moms had jobs, gays and lesbians were social anathema, and the prospect of a black man running the country was preposterous. Positive strides have been made toward social justice and equality, but the feminist agenda has been overindulged. Women are people; they’re not angels. And it needs to be okay again to acknowledge this and question their motives.

      Ironically, the original motive of the feminist movement was to have both of these facts acknowledged: feminists wanted women to be recognized as equals and not as “dolls” or “angels” or “little ladies” (which is how the courts treat them today). They didn’t want to be patronized any more than they wanted to be disregarded. Feminism and its agenda have been coopted and corrupted by extremists (called “the feminist establishment” by dissident feminists), and those extremists have harnessed the momentum and sympathy of the movement’s original voices and made political hay of them. In fact they’ve spun that straw into gold ($$$).

      These are the enemies to reform: fear/ignorance, prejudice, gender politics, and seriously big bucks.

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  7. SAD, but so true my life is a mess all based on, an apprehension towards me, and an appearance of being controlling. Also, abuse claims which I have not been charged for and will not be, but the judge ignored the blatant lies in the affidavit and in the court testimony. How can that be justice?!

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  8. Good morning, I’m suffering from everything in this post. Help me somehow, please? I have a clean for 30 some years and now I’m going to jail for having a child with a very cruel woman. Sincerely, Jeffrey K Larson

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  9. And many of the false accusers don’t realize that they can be sued for malicious prosecution, abuse of process, and/or fraud.

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    1. In the cases I’m most familiar with, I don’t think the false accusers even considered whether lying was a crime or not. A false accuser just walks into a courthouse, fills in a form, signs it, and chats with a judge for a few minutes. Then s/he leaves and expects that to be the end of it. And s/he may previously have lied to police officers and had the officers solicitously steer him or her to the courthouse. Liars’ hands are held and patted the whole way.

      And liars and frauds, who can astonishingly occupy any office and hail from any walk of life, quickly learn if their falsehoods are challenged to commit to them and even embellish upon them.

      In a couple instances very familiar to me, I’ve seen what were probably morally normal or normal-ish people become complete degenerates. It pays, and most outsiders believe them or go along with their stories, because it’s as self-serving or convenient for those outsiders to believe their lies as it is for the liars to tell them.

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