Forthcoming posts on this blog will consider character assassination, and they will critique one of the many execrable ironies of the civil restraining order process. It is possible to falsely accuse a person of anything—literally anything (mooning the neighbors, groping children, chewing the ears off of puppies, rape, you name it)—and the act of false accusation, which is universally deemed a statutory crime (perjury), is not sanctioned by the court. The falsely accused, what’s more, cannot litigate the crime of perjury him- or herself nor apply to the court for relief from the falsehoods or an award for the damages they do, which may include PTSD, loss of home, and financial ruin. But…but if the falsely accused exercises his or her constitutionally protected right to free speech and exposes his or her false accuser, which is his or her only lawful defense (and a feeble one at that), this act may paradoxically be construed as “character assassination” by state prosecutors and judges. This post will ease into the topic of character assassination gently.
An alternative way of understanding the pains inflicted by false accusation, if you’re among the compassionately challenged, is to consider the complaints of those accused of falsely accusing.
They don’t like it much when the table is turned.
A woman I’m in correspondence with and have written about was accused of abuse on a petition for a protection order last year by a scheming long-term domestic partner, a man who’d seemingly been thrilled by the prospect of publicly ruining her and having her tossed to the curb with nothing but the clothes on her back. He probably woke up each morning to find his pillow saturated with drool.
The woman he accused, meanwhile, probably didn’t sleep at all during the weeks of purgatory between the accusation and her hearing. For a while, she had to worry about where she’d be able to sleep.
She successfully had the protection order dismissed and has since publicly exposed her false accuser. She’s also filed a lawsuit and endeavors to have the laws in her state amended so people like her ex face consequences for defrauding the court (which at present they never do…anywhere). After her exoneration in court, she says her ex starting circulating it around town that she tried to kill him.
Now her former boyfriend complains that the stir she’s caused by expressing her outrage in public media is affecting his business, and he reportedly wants to obtain a restraining order to shut her up…for exposing his last attempt to get a restraining order…which was based on fraud.
He feels defamed, you see.
Public exposure is not the same thing as being put on the legal rack, but, oh, how those outed for lying will snivel and pule. They expected their testimony would be neatly kept under wraps, and it’s just…not…fair!
Anyone who doubts or misconceives the torments of legal abuse need only look to the whiners who object to being revealed as its perpetrators to be disabused of illusion.
Copyright © 2015 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com
*First Amendment advocate Matthew Chan, who recently prevailed in a protection order appeal before the Georgia Supreme Court, keeps a constant vigil over what’s said about him by his own accuser, who reportedly began a social media campaign to reboot the conflict after the court ruled against her. Larry Smith, who authors BuncyBlawg.com, was ordered to show cause in 2014 why he shouldn’t be censured for writing about his false accuser, a disturbed woman who complained of grave emotional distress. A sometime commenter here, Sean Heeger, has had a restraining order against him extended, has been jailed, and has had his character and sanity impugned for talking publicly about legal abuse. Neil Shelton, who was jailed for a year, alleges his (now ex-)wife’s divorce attorney, a state congresswoman, conspired to frame him as a terrorist to shut him up after he ridiculed her on Facebook for her efforts to frame him for various violations of a restraining order obtained on false grounds (Neil represented himself in six hearings and each time won). Though Neil’s case is extreme, cases like these are exceptional only insofar as the victims of legal abuse have elected to speak out.
TALKING BACK to restraining orders 
Reblogged this on sweetsurrender922 and commented:
The more I read about how easily people can falsely accuse someone, the more nauseous I become. Unbelievable. Literally. Our laws were made to be innocent until PROVEN guilty not vice versa. We have a a right to be heard, not swept under the rug and not allowed due process. I know in my case 4 Constitutional Amendments were violated and I plan to let EVERYONE know. I too, like the author, gave my accuser, who happens to be my ex boyfriend, several different opportunities to just come clean. The last one was to his attorney at the beginning of the year. But he can’t. Because he has lie on top of lie on top of lie that he has to defend….to his parents who foot the legal bills, to his girlfriend who thinks she is the “chosen one” while he sexts other women behind her back on snapchat. All he has to do is man up, be the so called “Christian man” that he is and tell the truth but honesty eludes him, what better way then to blame everyone else, especially the ones that “betray” him.
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If you plan to write about your accuser, familiarize yourself with First Amendment law (and the distinctions Profs. Eugene Volokh and Aaron Caplan have introduced to the court):
https://restrainingorderabuse.com/2015/03/01/talking-back-to-restraining-orders-online-what-the-first-amendment-says-is-okay/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/09/09/amicus-brief-in-chan-v-ellis-where-a-judge-ordered-a-web-site-operator-to-remove-all-posts-about-a-particular-person/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/08/24/you-are-also-ordered-not-to-post-any-further-information-about-the-plaintiff/
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My emotional ballast perished a month ago (I’ve lived under the onus of false allegations more than a fifth of my life now). I’m morally bled out. But I will do anything I can to support you if you have the will and fortitude to try to mobilize others. The obstacles to garnering support, as you might guess, are humiliation, fear, apathy, and a conditioned sense of powerlessness. Judicial conduct in this arena imposes a firm sense of futility and dread, because reason is mocked, obvious lies are ignored, and often victims must worry what else they might have taken from them if they resist (like already limited access to their kids). The gung-ho advocate soon despairs because comradely response is next to none. When I logged off last night at about 9 p.m. my time, the blog had been visited by around 800 people and viewed well over 1,200 times. The number of people who commented were three, including you. I don’t tell you this to discourage you but to let you know what you’re in for. If you’re someone who networks well, solidifies relationships, rouses spirits, and has stick-to-it-iveness, maybe you could jolt people out of their torpor. This medium is yours to use in any way you’d like.
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I don’t always reply to your posts. Feel like an outsider even here. I will be making noise, in the courts and in the public. We shall see if it works.
Chan never contacted me about my case, not sure if that was how it was supposed to happen or if I am to track him down.
Cannot tell how many times I have been instructed by well meaning friends to just “let it go” as if living with this is somehow an okay state of living, and that is a country that is supposedly free. Gun control advocates say no one is coming for your guns but they would be mistaken. That most basic of right is taken away based on lies and manipulations, not to mention the ease of which one is now considered to be violent and dangerous just because the record now shows such things.
Everyone should be concerned with how easily rights and liberties can be removed by these abominations of justice. They just don’t know what it is like, sadly.
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There aren’t any insiders here.
It’s not in anyone’s interest to commit time to your case but you, so you’d want to find a judicial ruling that clearly represents a “prior restraint” and send the highlighted portion of the ruling to Matthew. Then he would take an interest. It’s not about what happened to you or what the truth is; it’s about the violation of your right to free speech.
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By UCLA Law Prof. Eugene Volokh August 24, 2015:
As many readers of this blog know, I’ve long been interested in how criminal harassment laws and restraining order laws have been morphing from restricting unwanted speech to people into restricting speech about people.
Such laws have traditionally covered unwanted phone calls, unwanted letters, unwanted attempts at face-to-face conversation and the like: again, speech to a particular person. Courts have generally upheld such restrictions on speech, and in many instances, plausibly so. […]
But in recent years, courts and prosecutors have increasingly used these laws to cover statements said to the public at large about particular people. Speakers have been prosecuted for posting repeated offensive messages or distributing offensive flyers about people (including about political and religious figures). Courts have issued orders barring speakers from saying anything about a person and ordering speakers to take down existing posts about that person. […]
A court can’t order someone to just stop saying anything about a person.
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Reblogged this on American Fathers.
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Reblogged this on Falsely Accused.
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https://restrainingorderabuse.com/2015/05/12/if-you-doubt-the-grief-caused-by-false-accusation-consider-the-whimpers-of-false-accusers-when-theyre-exposed/comment-page-1/#comment-78921
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