First Amendment Rights from Beyond the Grave: Defense of a Suicide’s Publication of His Final Words by the Randazza Legal Group

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“I couldn’t flee and I could not fight. I was never going to be allowed to heal or recover. I wish I were better at articulating the psychological and emotional trauma I experienced. I could fill a book with all the lies and mysterious rulings of the Court. Never have I experienced this kind of pain. I asked for help, but good men did nothing and evil prevailed.”

—Chris Mackney (1968–2013)

An emailed riposte from Las Vegas attorney Marc Randazza was introduced to my attention this week. It was an answer to a move by the “estranged wife” of a man who committed suicide in 2013 to have the man’s suicide note removed from the blog A Voice for Men.

The genesis of this dispute appears to be that Mr. Christopher Hines Machnij a/k/a Christopher Hines Mackney and his estranged wife were in an acrimonious relationship. Due to the strains of that relationship, Mr. Mackney started a blog in order to express his thoughts about his treatment in the family law system. This culminated in a suicide note, which he published to his blog from Washington, D.C., on December 29, 2013, and then he committed suicide on December 29, 2013. His writing and his suicide note were admittedly unflattering to your client. Your client then petitioned a Virginia state court to grant her some ambiguous (and questionable) intellectual property rights to the blog’s contents, which she is using to attempt to purge Mr. Mackney’s expression from every corner possible. One of those corners is my client’s blog.

[…]

It is our position that A Voice for Men’s republication of the suicide note is not copyright infringement, pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 107. Accordingly, even if Mr. Mackney were to rise from the dead and insist upon the depublication of the suicide note, it is my client’s position that it has a right to continue publication of the letter.

Perusal of Mr. Randazza’s email, which is masterfully composed, is recommended to anyone invested in the right to redress perceived injustices by the public exercise of his or her voice.

Christopher Mackney

I’ve read Mr. Mackney’s “suicide note,” which is neither a manifesto of hate nor a farewell-cruel-world. It’s a supremely calm and sincere apology that’s all the more haunting for its quiet lucidity and resignation.

What Mr. Mackney describes in his final statement (dated four days after Christmas) will be familiar to anyone who’s endured something similar: the isolation, alienation, and paralysis; the mute indifference from anyone who could have intervened; the loss of identity, emotional decay, and financial ruin; and the hopelessness that comes from repeated confirmations that resistance is futile.

The consequences of the court’s intrusion into family and interpersonal matters—and the imposition of its judgment—are seldom viewed with the gravity they deserve.

Much of the debate of issues orbital to the events that prompted Mr. Mackney’s suicide occurs in the abstract. Commentators’ opinions (and they are legion) can rarely be seen to acknowledge the real-life strains and torments that real, live accused people suffer.

What is animating fodder for conversation to some, however, leads others to kill themselves.

Copyright © 2015 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

*Among Mr. Mackney’s final words are an adjuration to stand up and speak out in defense of the abused (his blog resided at GoodMenDidNothing.com).

33 thoughts on “First Amendment Rights from Beyond the Grave: Defense of a Suicide’s Publication of His Final Words by the Randazza Legal Group”

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  5. Hey all, I’m writing a book on this story, and the copyright notice only scratches the surface on what happened. I should note that Mr. Mackney’s ex-wife didn’t merely copyright his suicide note but nearly everything he ever put on-line and attempted to remove him nearly entirely from cyber existence. After A Voice for Men challenged her dubious copyright notice the suicide note went viral though many other documents have been destroyed. I’ve published one chapter so far, http://www.avoiceformen.com/mens-rights/family-courts/the-murder-of-sam-degelia-jr/

    You can also find more information on the Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bullied-to-Death-The-Chris-Mackney-Story/733210260063564

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    1. This book needs to be written. Chris Mackney’s story needs to be told. However, why would people destroy material taken down? They could have just hidden it or removed it without destroying it.

      If you do a good job with this, I think many people will help promote and support it as a small way to help redeem his death and what he endured.

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      1. There were copies in cyber space which Mackney created using platforms like Scribd and Google docs and there were hard copies which he saved on his computer in order to try and make sure none of these ever appeared on the internet both the web pages were removed and the computer was confiscated.

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    2. Best wishes with the book, Mike. The endeavor is a noble one. Mr. Mackney’s story should be heard. If you’d like to publish something here, you’d be welcome to. The same goes for anyone you know with a stake in these issues.

      Cover-up is often what motivates procedural abuse. Mostly according to hormonal fever, I guess, multitudes on the Internet defend the notion that men who are accused are guilty of whatever they’re accused of, especially abuse of women and children. Court procedures that shut people down and shut people up aren’t only perfect for exacting “revenge”; they also ensure that those people erode (or disappear) silently.

      Many posts here have concerned First Amendment rights because people are traumatized by legal abuse and then they’re menaced further if they exercise their voices and complain about it. They want to recover their sanity, and the system colludes in denying them.

      Worse, good people do nothing, as Mr. Mackney said; they duck and cover. So the lid stays on tight.

      More power to you for trying to pop the seal.

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      1. Thank you for all the encouragement and I will definitely take you up on your offer certainly after the book is published if not sooner. In fact, many of the things you speak about generally happened to Chris including legal abuse which led to a form of PTSD known as legal abuse syndrome. He even went to jail for his exercise of his first amendment. He was the victim of what is referred to as the silver bullet technique, the use of a bogus or dubious claim of abuse to get a restraining order, but all of these things were part of a systematic attempt by his ex-wife and mostly her father to break him and he ultimately broke.

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            1. That’s the best explanation I could find when I looked. It’s kind of sketchy, though, isn’t it? Maybe you should write a better one. Any idea who coined this term?

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        3. I just read the ex-wife makes jewelry. The disturbed woman who hung around outside of my house and later lied to the courts—she made jewelry, too. I think with such people, it’s all about surface, impression, the appearance of propriety, etc.

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              1. I’m not sure, but soon, within a month possibly but ultimately when it’s ready. I’m still editing it and it’s not quite where I’d like it to be.

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                  1. I sent you an email with a story about another guy victimized by the same technique; hopefully you got that.

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                    1. I’ll look for it. Incidentally, I’m going to put a post up tomorrow about Legal Abuse Syndrome, and I’ll add a footnote about your page and your mentioning the term. Are you cool with my using your name, and do you just call yourself a writer?

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                    2. I’m fine with any publicity for the book and the Facebook page for the book. I’m an investigative journalist.

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                    4. http://www.acfc.org/news/new-domestic-violence-research-compilation/ that’s another piece on the silver bullet technique. There’s a lot of research on false or dubious accusations of abuse used in divorces to get a restraining order though the term silver bullet is not always used. It’s also sometimes referred to as the “nuclear option” but because I first heard it as the silver bullet technique that is the term I use.

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  7. The Chris Mackney suicide letter is stunning to read and shows how a well-heeled, and well-financed woman and mother can wreck havoc on an ex-husband. It is abhorrent to me and many others (both men and women) that Dina Mackney tried to use copyright law to squelch Chris’ final communication to the world.

    The Chris Mackney case is an illustration of how a “perfect storm” of circumstances, events, judicial abuse, quite literally destroyed and killed him. It is a cautionary tale of how people need to be very wary.

    A Voice for Men and Marc Randazza is to be given great credit to putting a stop to Dina Mackney’s ongoing efforts to stifle Chris’ final communication to the world.

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  9. today I have been spending most of my time talking to my two friends who still live in the mobile home park where I was so falsely accused of doing things I did not do and have two R.O.’s because of it. One of my two friends has an R.O. against the same man who falsely lied about me and had his girlfriend help film his staged event to use against me. This man, in flagrant failure to obey the R.O., came within three feet of the two women in his car, scaring them both and one managed to get a digital shot of him doing it. The police were called as this was the third time this has happened. The police told my friend who has the R.O. that she has to file a citizen’s arrest because her friend can’t be a witness since she wasn’t on the R.O. This is total jack-off stupidity of the police and failure to protect people who actually need the help. They are so quick to file on people who have done nothing in realty, but when people have a legitimate one against someone and then that person flagrantly violates it, it shows what a worthless paper it is for those in need. Why should she have had to sign a Citizen’s Witness when she had a R.O. and a witness? What utter stupidity. And this guy danced out in the street because the police did absolutely nothing to him though she called them about him coming back numerous times. They don’t want to be bothered in reality to deal with anything that is below their station. Boy, these R.O.’s are totally screwed – they protect people who have no need or no business getting them, but when someone has a legitimate one, it is just nothing but a joke. The creep and his bullie friends who did these things to me are about to do the same things to the two friends I have. One of my friends is moving away on the first and leaving her home in hopes of selling it, while the other one is thinking of killing herself because she knows what hell I have been through. I hope that Karma comes back to haunt every judge who ever wrote an abusive R.O. This is sick, really sick.

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