Stepford Syndrome: Why Feminist Rape Rhetoric Is Both Tiresome and Disturbing (and How It Hurts Not Only Men, but Women, Too)

“A U.S. law professor, who will be speaking at the Commons, said the UK’s stance on false allegations [of rape] is more aggressive than in countries such as the United States, Canada, and Australia. Prof. Lisa Avalos, of the University of Arkansas, said false allegations in the U.S. were dealt with as a misdemeanour offence, not a felony—and most women were not jailed if found guilty.

“‘In the course of my research, I have not found any country that pursues these cases against women rape complainants in the way the UK does. The UK has an unusual approach, and I think their approach violates human rights,’ she said.”

The Guardian (December 1, 2014)

This quotation about rape “complainants” is drawn from a story that appeared in The Guardian this week (“109 women prosecuted for false rape claims in five years, say campaigners”), a story that’s mirrored on a number of other sites, including Jezebel.com and Salon.com.

Picketers object to the prosecution of 109 British women in recent years for perverting the course of justice by falsely alleging rape. According to the protesters’ signs, all female accusers are “victims” and “rape survivors,” and the men they accuse are all “rapists” (ipso facto).

The story concerns outrage expressed by activist representatives of the charity Women Against Rape, or WAR, whose assertions require no elucidation; they’re clockwork.

Whether WAR’s outrage has merit is difficult to discern.

Obviously lost in the uproar, however, is what the (female) American law professor who’s quoted in the epigraph actually says, which is this: Falsely accusing someone of rape in the United States is merely a misdemeanor offense and one for which an accuser is rarely punished and may never be prosecuted at all.

This fact isn’t perceived as unfair by feminist activists—far from it. It’s touted, rather, as a reason why it’s a “human rights violation” for the United Kingdom to mete out sterner justice.

This writer, for one, would be more sympathetic to the denouncements of WAR if there were any headline-grabbing activist groups tabulating how many men are arrested and/or prosecuted each year for being falsely accused of rape.

In the fictional community of Stepford, all the women have been replaced by robots whose responses are programmed.

Even allowing that the 2 to 8% false allegation rate commonly cited by feminists were true (and it isn’t), the number of men falsely accused of rape is many times greater than the number of women prosecuted for false allegations, in the UK and everywhere else (for analysis of the rate of false allegations of rape, see Cathy Young’s 2014 Slate.com article, “Crying Rape: False rape accusations exist, and they are a serious problem,” and Emily Bazelon and Rachel Larimore’s 2009 piece, “How Often Do Women Falsely Cry Rape?” published in the same outlet).

Feminist outcry is reflexive, even arguably robotic, and invariably insensitive to male victimization. The argument that a majority of rapes goes unpunished in no way (logically, morally, or otherwise) excuses the unjust implication or punishment of even a single person, ever.

Besides being insensitive to male victimization, moreover, feminists evince no awareness that women, too, are victimized by their furor’s trickle-down effect. Feminists’ making an international case of the prosecution of 109 women works a very real influence on how rulings on charges “lesser” than rape are formed by the courts—charges made in restraining order, stalking, domestic violence, and related cases—and the defendants in these cases are far from exclusively men.

False allegations made against women in prosecutions involving or implying violence may only be a fraction of those made against men, but with those prosecutions’ numbering in the millions each year, that fraction is hardly inconsiderable and easily dwarfs a figure like 109. To posit, as activist groups like WAR tacitly do, that accusers’ allegations should be credited on faith means a lot of women (globally) will continue to be falsely implicated or punished based on judicial impulses that have been conditioned by feminist rhetoric. Much of the “social science” that’s used to “train” judges how to rule in prosecutions predicated on allegations of violence or the fear of violence is inspired by groups like WAR.

To illustrate how feminists’ gears turn (and why those gears need retooling), contemplate this letter printed in The Guardian recently that was composed by a 21-year-old man who was accused of rape as a boy: “A letter to…the girl who accused me of rape when I was 15.”

Now consider this steely response to it by Lucia Osborne-Crowley published almost simultaneously (buzz…whir…click) on WomensAgenda.com: “Why did the Guardian publish this letter about false rape accusations?

Need any more really be said?

Copyright © 2014 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

Retracting False Allegations to the Court

Apologies are offered upfront to the reader expecting a tutorial on how to recant false testimony (though here is an explication about how a restraining order may be dismissed by a petitioner who has reconsidered).

The reason this post must disappoint is that to withdraw false allegations would be to confess to lying to the court and would, as well, be to require that the court acknowledge it was snookered. Hence is copping to lies a doubly taboo subject.

A thorough scouring of the Internet for a simple how-to on retracting false allegations to the court will reward an earnest inquirer with virtually nothing.

The fact is that in America, Land of the Brave Knave, the most fundamental legal precept is admit nothing. Application of that precept apparently extends to the court itself, whose officers may practice moral contortionism sooner than own on record that lies are ever detected.

Their reflex, when no amount of revision can redeem a false allegation, is to talk around it or reach for a nonjudgmental word like unfounded or baseless. Complainants never lie; at worst, they err.

The question remains, however, of how “errant” testimony may be retracted.

This writer proposes that since judges provide false accusations with the agency to work their pernicious effects on untold people’s lives, a judge should be the one to fill the informational void presently under consideration.

The judicial impulse to frame rulings according to personal conceptions of “right behavior” must surely reject the qualification of lying as conscionable conduct. Arrogating to themselves the right to prescribe rules for how others should behave, besides, presumes judges have faith in their intelligence. They must therefore know false accusations are made even if it’s against policy to say so. It’s not for nothing, after all, that statutes nominating perjury a crime exist.

Since only ignorant people could innocently deny lying occurs, and since we’ve established judges don’t regard themselves as ignorant, to them is this question humbly put: “How may false allegations to the court be simply taken back?”

Copyright © 2014 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

J’s Story: Restraining Order Abuse and the “Dreaded Crazy”

J, a single dad who lives in Texas with his two kids, submitted his story as a comment to the blog in September, prefacing it: “I am writing this to share [it] with the rest of my fellow male victims [who] fall in with the dreaded Crazy.”

The “dreaded Crazy” in J’s case manifested as an Arkansas woman J began a romance with online, a high-conflict person whom a clinician might diagnose with borderline personality disorder (BPD).

(For an elucidation of BPD, see psychologist Tara Palmatier’s “In His Own Words: Dangerous Crazy Bitch Ahead,” which chronicles a case similar to J’s. See also any of Dr. Palmatier’s detailed explications of personality disorders.)

Here’s J’s story in his own words (lightly edited):

I met a beautiful, sexy, well-educated woman online. We met in person, and I was smitten. We shared our life stories with each other and began to see each other more. Although she lived over 500 miles away with her two children, I visited her every chance I could.

Her past was fraught will evil men who had taken advantage of her. She told me she was a young widow and that her first husband died suddenly of heart failure at a very early age, leaving her and her first child all alone. She said she remarried shortly after and had her second child. Unfortunately the second husband turned out to be a quite the carouser and left suddenly for Europe to be with another woman.

I felt so bad for her. I had two children of my own as a single father, so I was able to connect with how hard it was. She told me how she loved children and had always wanted a big family. She lamented feeling that her own family had deserted her, shunning her because she wasn’t a devout Christian.

There were so many twists and turns to her story. How could all this happen to such a wonderful and beautiful woman? She was such a nice and giving person….

Because it was all complete bullsh*t.

I won’t go into the details of my awakening. Let’s just say dates didn’t match up. Her kids’ (Fruit Loops’) stories didn’t match up. As a matter of fact, just about everything she told me didn’t match up. But I was smitten. So this went on for a long time until one day I just flatly called her on it. Suddenly my little scoop of heaven turned into a raging, clawing, screaming harpy. She accused me of being like every other son of a bitch in her life. Then she was swinging at me and screaming at me to get out.

I was already sprinting backwards, car keys in hand, toward my car. I got inside and sped off as she was chasing me. I was outta there, heading back to Texas never to return.

I did not see, speak, or talk to that woman again for over six months. Then one day a constable walks into my office and says, “Are you so-and-so?” I said yes. “Well, I have a restraining order for you from Arkansas.” Confused, I took it and read it. The constable then said as he was leaving, “I normally don’t read those. But looks like one crazy bitch to me. Better stay away. Ha-ha. Have a nice day.”

I was blown away.

The order claimed that I had snuck inside her house the weekend prior and forced her to call some other guy to tell this other guy (whom I don’t know, never met or heard of) that she was madly in love with me. Then her statement said I “roughed [her] up” then vanished into the night. Damn I was stunned. I did not know what to do. The order stated that I had 14 days to show up in Arkansas! I wasn’t even there. I lived in another state! I had not seen or heard from this woman in six months!

So I called an attorney friend of mine. He jokingly asked, “Did you do it”? I replied, “Hell no!” He then asked me to fax over the order. After he reviewed it, he called back and said, “Yep, it’s a restraining order, and you have 14 days. In the meantime, you have to stay away from her and her children.”

I replied, “This is bullsh*t! What if I just ignore it?” He said, “Well, if you ignore it and don’t show up in court on that day, you will automatically be found guilty. The charge will stay on your record, and you may not be able to buy a firearm.” “What the f—!” I yelled. “Can’t you just send a letter to the court explaining I wasn’t there and live 500 miles away?” He said no. “If you want to fight the charge, you have to show up.” He said he would have gone for me but wasn’t licensed in Arkansas.

He gave me the number of an attorney friend who worked in Little Rock. Next thing I knew, I’m having to fax or email every record I kept that shows my whereabouts on that day: gas receipts, store receipts, etc. I had to get a list of movies that I watched from the video download company we use. Cell phone calls. Text messages. (By the way, they really do monitor those. They can pinpoint your exact location, but you have to send a written request.) All of this to prove I was not there. Once I gave that attorney everything, he told me he would go to court that day and ask for an extension of 60 days. And I would still have to show up in Arkansas. Sh*t!

I cannot express the worry I endured during this time. Here I was falsely accused of something I did not do and was guilty until I proved otherwise in another state!

Prior to my court date, the attorney hired a private detective to run police reports on this woman’s current and former addresses. All you really have to do is call the local police department, and for a small copy fee it will give you all of the police reports related to a specific address for a specified time period. It’s really quite easy to do.

I was shocked when I saw them.

This woman, over a period of five years, had called the police over 20 times between two different addresses claiming either an assault or attempted break-in. All the police reports were noted as unfounded. One was a claim of rape. On that claim, she took some poor guy all the way to a grand jury, which promptly dismissed it. (Grand jury decisions are sealed, but the defendant’s name and attorney were listed. My attorney called that guy’s attorney and got a few details.)

The file on her sordid past was pretty thick. I thought that this was going to be over. Nope! I couldn’t use this information in court. It didn’t pertain to this incident. It was still her word against mine.

The day of the court hearing came. I drove out of state to be there. She actually showed in up in court that day. I suspect she didn’t expect I would show. The judge called out our docket. She sat on one side of the courtroom. My attorney and I sat on the other.

Seconds before the hearing, my attorney asked to briefly speak just to the prosecutor. They met in front of the bench, and my attorney handed him the file with prior police reports and my receipts and information as to my whereabouts on the day in question. The prosecutor then asked the judge if he could take a few minutes with the plaintiff. The prosecutor walked over to her with the file and whispered in her ear as he let her review the contents of the file. You could see the blood drain from her face. She whispered something to him. The prosecutor then stood up and said, “Your Honor, the plaintiff requests to withdraw her charge.” The judge just laughed and said, “Case dismissed.” That was it. It was over, no questions asked: $3,800 bucks and a long drive back home.

I did return to the local sheriff’s office and file an amended police report to state I was falsely accused and the case was dismissed on this date. You can have the dismissal form put in the police record.

I also had a cease-and-desist letter drafted by my attorney stating basically, “Don’t ever do this again, or I will sue you for liability.” You can put that in the police record, as well.

I had a copy of that letter sent to her by certified mail. I also had a copy personally delivered to her place of work by the same investigator who ran the background check. He went to her office and told the receptionist that he had a “special delivery” letter for her and that he needed to deliver it in person.

The receptionist called her to the front office. When she did, the investigator introduced himself and informed her that he had a letter to present. He pulled the letter out and proceeded to read the cease-and-desist letter out loud to her in the crowded waiting room. Then he handed it to her and left. He reported back that she appeared to have been in shock.

That’s it. Haven’t heard from her to date.

Copyright © 2014 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

Interminable Indeterminacy: How False Allegations on Restraining Orders May Be Worse than False Allegations of Rape

 

Journalists who recognize the harm of facile or false allegations invariably focus on rape. This ignores the harm done to women by false allegations, of course, and shows ignorance, besides, of a significantly more fertile yet equally damaging source of wrongful prosecutions: the civil restraining order.

Unarguably there are few miscarriages of justice worse than when rape is falsely alleged and the victim of the false accusation is nevertheless found guilty. That’s a life brutally scarred or ruined for absolutely nothing—and ruined not by a lone malefactor but by the state itself.

Most negative commentary on rape allegations, though, focuses on cases where the evidence is less than conclusive or is found to be utterly false.

Just as there’s no quantifying the effects of being raped, there’s no quantifying the effects of being falsely accused of rape. The stigma is devastating, and public sympathy is nevertheless scant. Even online support groups for victims of false allegations of rape may be accessible to screened subscribers only, so distrustful and averse to scrutiny are the men who are maligned this way.

If, however, an allegation of rape is officially determined baseless, its victim has at least the solace of being able to say so. This hardly dispels the psychic effects, but it does mitigate external ramifications, like access to jobs.

False restraining orders, in contrast, often aren’t discerned as false (and restraining orders may be awarded in spite of false allegations’ being detected), and the consequences their recipients must live with are more than psychological. The damning records are preserved indefinitely. In some regions (like Massachusetts), to merely be accused of domestic violence in an ex parte civil court procedure is to be recorded in a state registry as a violent offender. Even if claims are later dismissed when the accused is given an opportunity to defend him- or herself, that is, even if a judge later recognizes on record that s/he’s “innocent,” s/he’s still “guilty” according to the system, and “guilty” is all a background check will reflect.

The implications of restraining orders, what’s more, are generic. There’s no specific charge associated with them. They’re catchalls that categorically imply everything sordid, violent, and creepy. They most urgently suggest stalking, violence, and sexual deviance.

Rape, it should be noted, may be among the actual allegations made by a restraining order applicant—and unlike in a criminal trial, a judgment grounded on such an allegation, amid others, may be affirmed in spite of the allegation’s merits’ never having been assessed.

Restraining orders don’t determine anything. The procedures from which they issue are too accelerated and loosey-goosey to be conclusive.

That no punishment attends the issuance of a restraining order is a tacit acknowledgment by the state that it may be based on nothing more substantive than hearsay and innuendo, and that its implications should be discounted.

They aren’t discounted, though. They’re regarded just as gravely in some respects as felony sentences. Restraining order recipients are denied jobs, leases, and loans. Some are prohibited from working with or around children—and even from attending their own children’s school events (sometimes based on accusations they’re never granted the practicable opportunity to contest in court—and always based on accusations they’re at most given a few minutes to controvert, typically without benefit of legal counsel).

Restraining order rulings are inevitably sketchy at best. They’re indeterminate but nevertheless treated as decisive—and they never go away.

“On the force of the plaintiff’s testimony, the court concludes it’s a crocodile.”

Victims of false rape allegations are socially disgraced and alienated, and psychologically tormented. Victims of false restraining orders may be, too, and besides may lose everything of value to them or have it taken from them by the state. People report spending as much as $100,000 or more to defend themselves in protracted litigations whose seed was an accuser’s filling out some paperwork and having a few-minute chinwag with a judge. They report losing their homes, becoming estranged from their children, and being permanently barred from employment in their fields of qualification and expertise.

Negative associations that attend a charge of rape are unquestionably more sensational and severe than those that accompany the issuance of a restraining order, but on balance the lived consequences of a restraining order may be comparable if not worse.

False allegations of rape should emphatically be called out by reporters to check the impulse that prevails today to credit finger-pointing as fact (particularly finger-pointing by women). Because the implications of rape are so loud and urgent, revelations of false allegations are loud and urgent, too. They arouse consciousness and conscience.

The question that they should stimulate and have yet to, however, is that if people will lie about rape, what won’t they lie about and what quieter and subtler lies and their consequences are being overlooked?

Exposure in the press would indicate that newsworthy instances of dubious or false allegations of rape are few. The problem with giving exclusive attention to them is that it hides more than it reveals.

The cancer of false allegations is far more advanced and widespread.

Copyright © 2014 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

Criminalizing Criticism: Restraining Orders, the First Amendment, and Chan v. Ellis

This search term brought a visitor here a day or two ago: “restraining order in ohio because a couple texts.”

It struck a chord with this author, because he himself was issued a restraining order on a similar basis (three emails over a weekend). There were accompanying allegations, but the court’s final ruling was based exclusively on the emails (i.e., speech). They weren’t even judged threatening, just unwanted (the contents, in fact, weren’t read by the court).

Some people are issued restraining orders on even more tenuous bases, like criticizing their plaintiffs on Facebook or in a blog or other online medium. If you’re such a person, you should be aware of a case before the Georgia Supreme Court that’s been the subject of a prior post on this blog: Chan v. Ellis.

The court was scheduled to hear opening arguments on October 7.

A summary of the case by UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh, along with his legal commentary in support of the appellant, Matthew Chan, is here.

The First Amendment protects the right to speak about people, so long as the speech does not fall into an established First Amendment exception (such as those for defamation or for true threats). This includes the right to speak about private figures, especially when they do something that others see—rightly or wrongly—as unethical.

Restraining orders and criminal stalking law may properly restrict unwanted speech to a person. But they may not restrict unwanted speech about a person, again unless the speech falls within a First Amendment exception. The trial court’s order thus violates the First Amendment.

If you’ve been issued an injunction from the court based exclusively on your speaking publicly about its plaintiff (and you didn’t threaten or lie about him or her), a verdict in favor of Mr. Chan could conceivably provide you with grounds for an appeal. FYI.

See Mr. Chan’s website, ExtortionLetterInfo.com, for trial updates. A ruling, he reports, should be returned between mid-January and mid-March.

The case stands to highlight judicial abuse of discretion and power and is one anybody who’s been put through the restraining order wringer will want to track.

Copyright © 2014 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

*Update: The Georgia Supreme Court returned a verdict in favor of Matthew Chan on March 27, 2015.

Hocus-Pocus: More on False Restraining Orders and the Five Magic Words

Some recent posts on this blog have touched on what might be called the five magic words, because their utterance may be all that’s required of a petitioner to obtain a restraining order. The five magic words are these: “I’m afraid for my life.”

Cops, it’s even reported, tell women whom they goad to get restraining orders that they should recite this magical phrase to the judge (wink, wink)—and some of these women complain later that they felt forced onto a course that they regretted pursuing but weren’t permitted to correct.

(Notably, billions in federal tax dollars have been invested under the Violence Against Women Act in so-called STOP grants—“Services and Training for Officers and Prosecutors”—as well as in grants to encourage arrests, according to which VAWA grants police officers have essentially been instructed to promote restraining orders.)

The I’m-afraid-for-my-life enchantment has variant forms. This writer’s accuser, who had for months nightly hung around outside of his residence alone in the dark, used this one: “Will I be attacked?”

The abbreviated version, “I’m afraid,” can even suffice. What’s more, judges in some jurisdictions may cue a restraining order applicant to say it, because they’re not authorized to issue the requested injunction unless s/he does (e.g., “I can only issue a restraining order if you tell me you’re afraid of [him or her]. I’m going to ask you one more time: Are you afraid?”).

Gamesmanship in this arena is both bottom-up and top-down. Liars hustle judges…and judges hustle liars along.

Claims of fear are seldom unaccompanied by specific for-instances (sometimes real, sometimes not), but typically if it weren’t for the magic words’ coloring the for-instances, they would signify little by themselves.

(A California man employed as a little league umpire, for example, had a restraining order petitioned against him this year by his sister-in-law. She alleged that looks the man had cast in his nephew’s direction—while the boy was playing baseball, and the man was in the park to perform his job—caused his nephew grave emotional upset. She also cited an incident when she said her brother-in-law had aggressively honked and waved at her and her son from his car. The so-called relevant facts were only made sinister by their reporter’s alleged apprehension.)

Words aren’t magical, and allegations of fear aren’t facts. In procedures as brief and superficial as those mandated by restraining order laws, even facts aren’t facts. They’re often just innuendo upon which foundation a judge is urged and authorized to erect an outhouse.

Copyright © 2014 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

The Five Magic Words: What Do Restraining Order Defendants Mean when They Say They’ve Been Falsely Accused?

A presumption of people—including even law professors—is that when restraining order defendants say the accusations against them are false, they mean that specific allegations of fact made by their accusers are untrue.

This is a misunderstanding, and it’s a totally understandable one that accounts for the incredulity expressed by proponents of the battered women’s movement when they hear statistics propounded like 50 to 90% of restraining orders are based on “false accusations.” (A family court judge might say 30%. The jaded former director of a woman’s shelter might say 40 or 50%. A men’s rights activist might say 60 to 80%, and a family attorney might well agree.) There are no “official” statistics—and there can’t be, because no records of false accusations are kept, and false accusations, besides, are seldom called “false accusations” in court rulings. Figures put forward are always speculative.)

It must be appreciated that restraining order prosecutions aren’t criminal prosecutions. They don’t evolve from detailed allegations made to the police and vetted by public attorneys; they’re based on forms filled out in 10 or 15 minutes by private litigants who deliver their claims straight to a judge (who meets with them for about the time it takes to make a sandwich).

To falsely accuse someone of “domestic violence,” for example, may just mean putting a check mark in a box on such a form.

That’s the false accusation—and if a defendant doesn’t show up to court to challenge that check-marked accusation, s/he becomes, by default, a “domestic abuser” according to the various law enforcement and registry databases his or her name is entered into.

hey-prestoPeople on the outside of the restraining order process imagine that the phrase false accusations refers to elaborately contrived frame-ups. Frame-ups certainly occur, but they’re mostly improvised. We’re talking about processes that are mere minutes in duration (that includes the follow-up hearings that purport to give defendants the chance to refute the allegations against them).

The fact is when defendants say accusers lie, they may just mean those accusers uttered the five magic words: “I’m afraid for my life.”

The magic words, which may of course be untrue, aren’t even susceptible to contradiction. They can’t be refuted; what they represent is an alleged feeling, not a fact that can be disproved. You can’t even really call them an accusation.

Contrary to all things reasonable and sound, a restraining order may be issued on the basis of the five magic words alone.

Copyright © 2014 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

“Predator” v. “Porn Star”: Restraining Order Fraud, False Allegations, and Suing for Defamation

destroyPeople falsely alleged to be abusers on restraining order petitions, particularly men, are treated like brutes, sex offenders, and scum by officers of the court and its staff, besides by authorities and any number of others. Some report their own relatives remain suspicious—often based merely on finger-pointing that’s validated by some judge in a few-minute procedure (and that’s when relatives aren’t the ones making the false allegations).

The social alienation and emotional distress felt by the falsely accused may be both extreme and persistent.

The urge to credit accusations of abuse has been sharpened to a reflex in recent decades by feminist propaganda and its ill begot progeny, the Violence Against Women Act. No one thinks twice about it.

Using four-letter words in court is strictly policed. Even judges can’t do it without risking censure. Falsely implicating someone, however, as a stalker, for example, or a child molester—that isn’t policed at all. Commerce in lies, whether by accusers, their representatives, or even judges themselves is unregulated. No one is answerable for sh* s/he makes up.

Accordingly, false allegations and fraud are rewarding and therefore commonplace.

It should be noted that false allegations and fraud can be distinctly different. For example, David Letterman famously had a restraining order petitioned against him by a woman who was seemingly convinced he was communicating to her through her TV, and her interpretations of his “coded messages” probably were genuinely oppressive to her. David Letterman lived in another state, had never met her, and assuredly had no idea who she was. Her allegations of misconduct weren’t true, but they weren’t intended to mislead (and the fact that they did mislead a judge into signing off on her petition only underscores the complete absence of judicial responsibility in this legal arena).

Fraud, in contrast, is manipulative and deceptive by design. It occurs when an accuser intentionally lies (or spins the facts) to give a false impression and steer a judge toward a wrong conclusion that serves the interests of the fraudster.

Regardless, though, of whether false allegations are made knowingly or unknowingly, they’re rarely discerned as false by the court, are seldom acknowledged as false even if recognized as such, and are always destructive when treated as real, urgent, and true, which they commonly are.

The falsely accused (often private citizens who’ve never had a prior brush with the law) are publicly humiliated and shamed, which by itself is predictably traumatizing. They are besides invariably (and indefinitely) entered into police databases, both local and national, and may be entered into one or more domestic violence registries, too (also indefinitely). These facts pop up on background checks, and defendants in some states may even appear in registries accessible by anyone (including friends, neighbors, family members, boy- and girlfriends, employers, colleagues, students, patients, and/or clients).

This costs the falsely accused leases, loans, and jobs (being turned down for which, of course, aggravates the gnawing indignity and outrage they already feel). Those falsely accused of domestic violence may further be prohibited from attending school functions or working with or around children (permanently). Defendants of false restraining orders may besides be barred from their homes, children, assets, and possessions. Some (including salaried, professional men and women) are left ostracized and destitute. Retirees report having to live out of their cars.

This, remember, is the result of someone’s lodging a superficial complaint against them in a procedure that only requires that the accuser fill out some paperwork and briefly talk to a judge. A successful fraud may be based on nothing more substantive, in fact, than five “magic” words: “I’m afraid for my life” (which can be directed against anyone: a friend, a neighbor, an intimate, a spouse, a relative, a coworker—even a TV celebrity their speaker has never met).

This incantation takes a little over a second to utter (and its speaker, who can be a criminal or a mental case, need not even live in the same state as the accused).

Accordingly, people’s names and lives are trashed—and no surprise if they become unhinged. (Those five “magic” words, what’s more, may be uttered by the actual abusers in relationships to conceal their own misconduct and redirect blame. That includes, for example, stalkers. Those “magic” words may also be used to cover up any nature of other misbehavior, including criminal. They instantly discredit anything the accused might say about their speakers.)

The prescribed course of action to redress slanders and libels is a defamation suit, but allegations of defamation brought by those falsely accused on restraining orders or in related prosecutions are typically discounted by the court. Perjury (lying to the court) can’t be prosecuted by a private litigant (only by the district attorney’s office, which never does), and those who allege defamation are typically told the court has already ruled on the factualness of the restraining order petitioner’s testimony and that it can’t be reviewed (the facts may not even be reviewed by appellate judges, who may only consider whether the conduct of the previous judge demonstrated “clear abuse of discretion”). The plaintiff’s testimony, they’re told, is a res judicata—an already “decided thing.” (Never mind that docket time dedicated to the formation of that “decision” may literally have been a couple of minutes.)

So…slanders and libels made by abuse of court process aren’t actionable, slanders and libels that completely sunder the lives of the wrongly accused, who can’t even get them expunged from their records to simply reset their fractured lives to zero.

Such slanders and libels may include false allegations of stalking, physical or sexual aggression, assault, child abuse, or even rape. In the eyes of the court, someone’s being falsely implicated as a monster, publicly and for life, is no biggie.

In contrast, it was reported last month that the court awarded a Kansas woman $1,000,000 in a defamation suit brought against a radio station that falsely called her a “porn star.”

When violated people speak of legal inequities, this exemplifies what they’re talking about: Falsely and publicly implicating someone as a sex offender is fine and no grounds for complaint in the eyes of the justice system, but for the act of falsely and publicly calling someone a mere sex performer, someone may be fined a million bucks.

Copyright © 2014 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

Larry’s Story, Part 2: Suing a False Accuser and the Judge She Rode in On

Buncombe County, North Carolina, where Larry Smith has for three years been harried by relentless false allegations from a disturbed neighbor, is the source of the word bunkum.

Bunkum (or bunk) is more familiarly called BS, which is what Larry’s been daily forced to tolerate for three years. He’s 70, and the time he’s had stolen from him was precious.

Larry filed a lawsuit in federal district court this week (pro se) against the State of North Carolina, his neighbor-cum-accuser, the judge who encouraged her reign of terror, and a number of other public officials to be named later in an amendment to his complaint.

Larry, a grandfather living on Social Security who practiced law in his salad days, is an object lesson about why it’s ill-advised to poke a sleeping bear.

Despite suffering from agonizing scoliosis (a degenerative spinal disorder), Larry’s been summoned to court over 30 times since 2011, locked in a cell, and had a gun pointed at him consequent to crank allegations from a vengeful neighbor who’s publicly accused him of being a disbarred attorney, an embezzler, and a psychopath (including on Facebook).

She says he’s “barked like a dog” at her, recruited “mentally challenged adults” to harass her while shopping, and mooned her friends. She says he’s cyberstalked her, too, besides hacking into her phone and computer.

Larry, who’s in pain even when he’s sitting down, has been reported to the police a dozen times or more while out walking his toy poodles or just puttering around his house. His accuser has also twice filed restraining orders against him since he took exception to her cat’s killing the local songbirds that have always been a source of joy to him to watch. The first time she petitioned a restraining order, she reported that he violated it later the same day.

Larry hadn’t even seen the woman.

Larry’s accuser’s is an extreme version of the mischief that’s widely reported by targets of restraining orders. Notable (and telling) is that even the outrageous degree of flagrant procedural abuse Larry’s been subjected to is winked at by authorities and judges.

There’s liable to be more blinking than winking this time around: Mr. Smith is going to Washington—and circumventing the local old boy’s network.

Larry’s lawsuit alleges deception; fraud; judicial dereliction; frivolous and malicious prosecution; fundamental constitutional rights violations; false imprisonment; unjust stigmatization; judicial politicking; collusion, conspiracy, and tyrannical oppression by representatives of regional government; and felonious forgery of a criminal complaint.

It also requests a jury.

One man’s debunking procedures this country and many others have invested faith and a fortune in is probably a forlorn hope, but the endeavor is nothing shy of heroic (and may at least restore to a sorely hectored man his peace of mind).

Copyright © 2014 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

Representatives of the Israeli Bar Association Report False Accusations of Domestic Violence Have “Reached Epidemic Proportions”

Unlike the American Bar Association, the Israeli Bar Association has a Committee on False Accusations and Parental Alienation. Also unlike its American counterpart, its representatives have chutzpah.

The lawyers who chair the Committee on False Accusations and Parental Alienation in the Tel Aviv district last month told the Israeli parliament (the Knesset) that false allegations of domestic violence are “a daily occurrence” (“Female Lawyers Decry False Accusations in Divorce”).

In fact, they reported (“with complete confidence”) that “false accusations of violence filed against spouses in divorce proceedings have reached epidemic proportions.”

Feminists don’t shout “shame!” at women who lie to the court; they shout “shame!” at women who report women lie to the court.

Advocates for women’s groups predictably countered with hollered scoldings and denials.

The chairperson of the Committee for Advancement of the Status of Women (which represents the interests of women’s groups) said her figures showed “the annual total of false accusations filed by women is about 11, and the number for men is similar.”

To this, one of the attorneys on the Committee on False Accusations and Parental Alienation answered she personally knew “more than 11 people who have suffered false accusations, and promised to bring the [Committee for Advancement of the Status of Women] more detailed information.”

(She might, too, have pointed out that more than 11 false accusations can be made by a single false accuser in a single false prosecution.)

Childish is what it’s tempting to comment about the faith of women’s advocates that false accusations filed by Israeli women each year are “about 11.” It’s also tempting to say the same of their need to assert that false accusations from men are equally low but about the same in number.

Criticizing feminists, however, never seems to inspire self-reflection.

Allowing for argument’s sake that the Israeli Bar Association is right that false allegations are a daily occurrence, a question Americans might ask themselves is this: Is the reason why the American Bar Association hasn’t reported the same thing that Israelis are bigger liars than we are, or is the reason that Israel’s legal critics are braver and more principled than ours?

Copyright © 2014 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

When Girls’ Being Girls Isn’t Cute: False Allegations of Violence and Rape

I was just contemplating what I’ve come to think of as “estrogen rage”—a peculiarly feminine mode of violence that orbits around false allegations to authority figures. Furious men do violence, which is why domestic violence and restraining order laws exist. Furious women delegate violence (by lying), which is why the abuse of domestic violence and restraining order laws is rampant.

I was distracted from this rumination by two accounts that emerged in the press recently of women accusing men of rape to conceal affairs:

Ex-Counselor Gets up to 18 Months in Prison for False Reports of Abduction, Assault” (Bellefonte, Pennsylvania)

Sheriff: Woman Files False Rape Report to Cover up Affair” (Athens, Alabama)

Their motive wasn’t rage; it was selfishness. That same theme is present, however: using others (cops and judges) as tools of violence.

When stories like this are bruited, it’s always to show that, hey, women lie about rape: See! That’s not what people should find disturbing about these stories, though.

whateverWhat people should find disturbing about these stories is how feminine false accusers think about lying, including lying about physical and sexual violence (or their threat). They think it’s no big deal—or they don’t think about it at all.

If false accusers regard lying about rape as no biggie, then what does that say not only about how they regard other types of false allegations but about how they regard rape itself? Right, they regard rape as no biggie.

This is what no one ever confronts head-on.

Even feminists who regard false allegations of physical and sexual violence as insignificant must regard acts of physical and sexual violence as insignificant. You can’t say the acts are ghastly and in the same breath say being falsely accused of them isn’t.

Either both are consequential, or neither is.

Feminists are more prone to denounce even the falsely accused (that is, to blame the victims) than they are to denounce false accusers (their “sisters”). Feminists’ denunciations, then, aren’t ultimately of (sexual) violence; their denunciations are of men. Here we come back to the topic of estrogen.

Feminine and feminist psychology are due more scrutiny than they receive. I can’t count the number of times I’ve read even sympathetic reporters of false allegations say they recognize that the more urgent problem is (sexual) violence against women—a sentiment that, intentionally or not, motivates false allegations. False accusers aren’t just aided and abetted by this pronouncement of priority; they’re encouraged by it.

Trivializing false allegations can hardly be said to deter women from making them. The message it conveys, rather, is that false accusers can and should expect sympathy and attention (because all women who make allegations can and should expect sympathy and attention).

The idea that men do evil in response to their hormonal urges is broadly promulgated, and the influence of that idea is to be seen plainly in our laws and in how our courts administer those laws.

Women have hormonal urges, too, and they’re not just toward maternity.

Consider that the women in the stories highlighted in this post falsely accused men of rape whom they’d just been rolling beneath the sheets with…and put a name to that act.

Both women’s lies, incidentally, were undone by text messages they’d exchanged with their lovers that showed the sex was consensual.

Girls will be girls.

Copyright © 2014 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

The Relationship between False Allegations of Rape and Restraining Order Abuse

It’s not without regret for how they may affect victims of sexual violence that a number of journalistic reports that expose false rape allegations have been highlighted on this blog. Although the blog’s focus is restraining order abuse, the potency of restraining orders and the laxity applied to the allegations they’re based on derive from the specter of domestic and sexual violence, the shadow of which has infected and jaundiced the perceptions of our legislators and judges.

The volume of false rape allegations that have been brought to public attention this year—mostly in the U.K., which is less squeamish about acknowledging fraud of this sort—will probably make further mention excessive, because it threatens to distract from reports and explications more directly relevant to the blog’s primary concern, which is restraining order injustice (a redundant phrase). Several news stories were noted this month, and some of these stories are each but one of a series that trace the same saga of mischief.

Law Graduate Falsely Accused Boyfriend of Rape and Assault as Excuse, Jury Told” (Steven Morris, The Guardian, 2014)

Oxford Union ‘Rape Victim Knew Her Claim Was False’” (Oliver Duggan, Amelia Hamer, and James Rothwell, The Telegraph, 2014)

Woman Accused of Making Repeated False Rape Allegations(The Inquisitr, 2014)

Woman Sentenced after Falsely Accusing Two Men of Rape” (UPI, 2014) (see also commentary by attorney and former Houston Law Review editor Robert Franklin)

Woman Who Cut Herself with Razor and Claimed She’d Been Raped Is Jailed” (Michael Donnelly, Belfast Telegraph, 2014)

Victim of False Rape Accusation Seeks Compensation(The Northern Echo, 2014)

Man Wrongly Accused of Sexual Assault Sues Police” (Rachel Olding, Sydney Morning Herald, 2014)

The purpose of collecting these reports of false rape allegations hasn’t been to discount the claims of real victims or even to reveal that false allegations are made, which should be unsurprising in a sociopolitical climate that’s eager to credit allegations of violence against women; the purpose, rather, is to reveal the motives of false accusers and to emphasize that there’s no lie that a dedicated false accuser will balk at telling and holding fast to. It happens that when false accusers frame people for a crime society holds in the highest contempt, their motives become more noteworthy.

If accusers are willing to falsely allege even rape (and casually), there’s no estimating how many “lesser” false accusations are made routinely, particularly when no risk or serious investment is entailed. Civil restraining orders are had in hours if not minutes based on brief interviews with judges, and there are no repercussions to their plaintiffs if the allegations they’re based on are untrue. They can furthermore instantly gratify multiple motives for false allegations at the same time.

These motives are sorted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under five broad rubrics: mental illness (or aberrance), attention-seeking/sympathy, profit, alibi (blame-shifting or cover-up), and revenge (or spite).

A false restraining order litigant with a malicious yen may leave a courthouse shortly after entering it having gained sole entitlement to a residence, attendant properties, and children, possibly while displacing blame from him- or herself for misconduct, and having enjoyed the reward of an authority figure’s undivided attention won at the expense of his or her victim.

S/he may, besides, be crackerjacks.

The exposure of false allegations of rape shouldn’t be interpreted as denying the reality or brutality of sexual violence. What it should do, however, is serve as a rude awakening to those who believe (and promote the belief) that allegations of abuse should be accepted without suspicion. It should also stress that false allegations aren’t negligible, rare, or harmless.

They’re anything but.

Copyright © 2014 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

Restraining Orders Based on Fraud Falsely Imprison Defendants Whether They’re Incarcerated or Not

“Forensic psychiatrists and other mental health professionals must remember that although allegations are often genuine, there is an almost equal number of cases…in which they are not. Complete and objective assessment is always required, and especially so when accusations emerge in contexts such as the following:

  • Certain kinds of mental illness and character traits (particularly in allegations against clinicians). One should note poor doctor-patient relationships, whether real or perceived, patients with psychotic or delusional symptoms, certain hysterical and factitious disorders, some fragmenting or dissociative disorders, and those with substantial borderline, inadequate, and/or passive personality traits
  • Divorce proceedings
  • Child custody proceedings
  • Situations with the potential for substantial financial reward
  • Situations in which the accuser has an emotional or characterological reason to avoid discovery, prosecution, or confrontation with legal (or parental) authority (e.g., those with antisocial personality traits, some substance abusers)
  • A history of repeated past allegations, particularly if they have not been fully investigated
  • Unusual timing of the accusation or alleged event (e.g., alleged ‘date rape’ within an otherwise close and stable relationship, or accusations made only when some sort of secondary purpose or reward is evident).”

—“False Allegations: The Role of the Forensic Psychiatrist

The previous post called attention to an excerpt from a story featured in The Times of Malta this month that concluded that incidences of false allegations weren’t “one-offs,” meaning they’re not singular occurrences but more common than the public imagines.

The lawyers quoted by reporter, what’s more, refer to criminal cases in which sexual abuse is alleged and, consequently, in which the accused are afforded attorney representation.

By contrast, civil restraining order hearings are mere minutes long, defendants aren’t afforded counsel, and fraud is typically ignored by the court even if it’s perceived. There is, therefore, no accurately determining the pervasiveness or degree of lying in such adjudications.

Many authoritative sources conclude it’s rampant, and anecdotal reports concur.

The application process for restraining orders is typically free, it’s concluded in an afternoon if not within minutes, and there are no consequences for lying. Why, then, shouldn’t the process be broadly and routinely abused?

To believe that such a process wouldn’t be abused would depend on an unshakably naïve conviction in the inherent goodness of people, and such a belief would determine the process unnecessary. Anyone who believes people are capable of beastly behavior and that restraining orders are necessary—take, for example, feminists—must believe people are capable of lying hurtfully to get them.

Exposing the flaws in the belief that anyone who points a finger must necessarily be telling the truth doesn’t take a professor of philosophy.

Consider, then, that allegations made in civil court may be identical to those introduced against defendants in criminal court—and can include rape, child molestation, or even murder. The only difference between civil and criminal rulings is legal consequence.

This is the source of the cognitive disconnect exemplified by judges and, largely, everyone else. Because civil restraining orders only threaten incarceration rather than mandate it, they’re considered “no biggie.”

The conceit is that though falsely accused restraining order defendants may be denied access to their homes, money, property, and children—besides facing other privations—they aren’t denied their freedom; it’s only curtailed somewhat (“Here are your shoes—you’re free to leave”).

Faith in the conceit that restraining orders are minor impingements on defendants’ lives depends on accepting that being falsely, publically, and permanently labeled a stalker or batterer, for example, shouldn’t interfere with a person’s comfort, equanimity, or ability to realize his or her dreams. Such faith is founded, in other words, on the fantastical belief that wrongful vilification won’t exercise a detrimental influence on a person’s mental state, won’t affect his or her familial and social relationships, won’t negatively impact his or her employment and employability, etc.

Clearly such faith is beyond unreasonable; it’s inane. Being forced to live with false allegations can be crippling—for painfully obvious reasons. Whether a person is forced to agonize in a cell or is permitted to agonize in his or her place of choice is of scant significance to the psycho-emotional well-being of the sufferer. Prison isn’t just an environment, and arresting someone doesn’t require handcuffs.

Copyright © 2014 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

“American Law is Irresponsible”: The American Civil Standard of Evidence and Abuse of Restraining Orders

“On the European continent, for the court to hold against the defendant, the judge must be convinced that the facts brought forward by the plaintiff in support of the claim are indeed true. In principle, continental law does not make a difference between civil law and criminal law […]. By contrast, U.S. law has three different standards of proof […]. In criminal law, the charge must be established ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’ In civil law, normally the plaintiff wins if only ‘the preponderance of the evidence’ is in [his or] her favour. Only in a limited number of civil law matters, of particular gravity for the defendant, the intermediate standard of ‘clear and convincing evidence’ must be met.”

—Dr. Cristoph Engel

The monograph from which this quotation is excerpted, which is by a professor of experimental law and economics, begins by candidly remarking that “American law is irresponsible.”

No argument here.

At the root of restraining order injustice is the lax evidentiary standard applied to plaintiffs’ allegations. Not only may allegations on restraining orders be false; a judge doesn’t have to be convinced that they’re not false to find in favor of their plaintiff.

Excepting in Maryland, which adjudicates the merits of civil restraining order allegations based on the intermediate standard of “clear and convincing evidence,” the standard applied to restraining orders is “preponderance of the evidence.”

If claims seem more likely true than false, “preponderance of the evidence” is satisfied.

In other words, the law is contented if a single judge (not a jury of independent thinkers) reckons the allegations against a defendant are “probably true” (or “maybe true” or “true enough”). To be effective, all allegations have to be is compelling.

Making allegations compelling isn’t a tall task for people in the throes of bitter animosity, as restraining order plaintiffs typically are, and it’s a cakewalk for unscrupulous liars, who are hardly rare among restraining order plaintiffs.

Officers of our courts have furthermore had it impressed upon them that they shouldn’t question allegations made pursuant to the procurement of restraining orders, which are presumed to be sought by those in need of protection.

The legal standard familiar from TV and the movies, “proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” is reserved for criminal prosecutions. For a judge to find in favor of a civil restraining order plaintiff, no proof of his or her allegations is necessary.

Why this is a big deal is that being publically accused is agonizing. Cops and constables serve restraining orders on people at their homes, and just the documents themselves terrorize and shame (as they’re meant to). Allegations on restraining orders, what’s more, are never harmless. Even alleged minor offenses like harassment are inevitably tinged with overtones of danger and/or sexual deviancy. Plaintiffs are inclined to make their allegations as sensational as possible to justify their applications to the courts, and the courts are inclined to find threat or perversion even where none may exist to justify their intrusions into defendants’ lives.

Defendants are met with damning fingers from all directions—and enduringly, because restraining orders (and the allegations on them) are public records, accessible by anyone, that never disappear.

What makes this an even bigger deal, especially when evidence is fraudulently represented or allegations are false, is that restraining order defendants further face loss of employment and employability, as well as loss of access to kids, home, and property in a majority of cases.

Revisiting a phrase used by the author of the epigraph, such losses easily qualify as “particularly grave” and should therefore require the application of a more conclusive standard of evidence by our courts than “close enough.”

Exacerbating the injustice of this tenuous standard is that restraining orders are issued based solely on the word of their plaintiffs (ex parte). Decisions that may result in the losses enumerated above proceed from testimony given in interviews rarely lasting longer than 10 minutes.

Such hearings are far more perfunctory than probative. Basically a judge is just looking for a few cue words to run with and may literally be satisfied by a plaintiff’s saying, “I’m afraid.” (Talk show host David Letterman was notoriously issued a restraining order based on the petition of a woman who accused him of mentally oppressing her through her TV.)

What you have, then, on top of the presupposition of guilt, is a wishy-washy protocol yoked to a wishy-washy evidentiary standard.

It’s true that defendants are afforded the opportunity to challenge allegations leveled against them and actually address the court, but these follow-up hearings, also mere minutes long, are necessarily biased by the court’s prior findings.

The issuance of a restraining order (based on a few-minute chitchat) already represents a ruling, and the court’s disposition isn’t to contradict itself. This bias, authorized by a low evidentiary bar, too often translates to follow-up hearings’ being little more than theater—and an opportunity to subject defendants to additional humiliation and scorn.

Judges coyly criticize their partiality as “paternal.” Considering, however, the steep toll that that partiality may exact from innocent defendants, this self-excuse is nothing shy of obscene (and underscores the cognitive disconnect to which judges are prone between their performances in the courtroom and the effects of those performances on people’s lives).

Clearly the motive for applying a diminished standard of evidence to any courtroom procedure is not to decrease the likelihood of error. The lower the standard of evidence is, that much greater is the probability that miscarriages of justice will occur. When such miscarriages equate to innocent defendants’ being subjected to public humiliation and defamation, loss of employment, and effacement from their former lives, besides their having to tolerate the ever-looming possibility of incarceration following further false allegations’ being made against them, nothing less than the highest standard of evidence is conscionable.

The criticism of the writer of this post’s epigraph that “American law is irresponsible” doesn’t even begin to say it.

Copyright © 2014 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

Claiming Fear and Harassment to Terrorize and Harass: How to Deal with Serial Restraining Order Abuse

“Can anything be done when someone constantly gets TROs [temporary restraining orders] falsely…?”

—Search term leading to this blog

This conduct is properly labeled harassment and stalking, and (absurdly) deterrence of this conduct is properly achieved by applying to the court for a restraining order.

The court may be resistant to acknowledging that this sort of thing happens, but it’s in fact a wonder that it doesn’t happen on a larger scale. Restraining orders are free and easily got by claims of apprehension or by outright and calculated fraud, including false allegations of dismaying specificity or even manufactured evidence. (You can’t make this stuff up: I remember reading several years ago of a false accuser’s situating a chainsaw in her driveway and then summoning police to photograph the tableau, which she represented as a “warning” from an ex—vivid, indeed.)

Victims of serial restraining order petitioners must be assertive and present their cases reasonably. Harassment is, by definition, behavior that’s intended to disturb, disrupt, and wear down, and that’s repeated over time. As easy as it is for a crank or a sociopath to continuously obtain restraining orders, it nevertheless represents a very deliberate and sustained course of action that’s furthermore clearly evident of fixation (i.e., stalking).

Provided that a separate case is opened by the victim who alleges chronic harassment by restraining orders, the fact that his or her abuser applied for restraining orders against him or her first isn’t an obstacle.

Essential is showing a pattern of deviant and repetitively malicious misconduct.

Short of applying for a restraining order to arrest this misconduct, the value of which is to discredit false allegations a malicious accuser may make in the future, a victim’s only “easy” remedy is to relocate beyond a false accuser’s reach. Restraining orders may still be issued but cannot be served.

(Yes, dealing with these obscenities forces people to completely uproot their lives.)

Filing a lawsuit is always an option, but it’s never one easily realized, and a successful prosecution is very demanding and stressful, and is only reliably accomplished with the aid of an attorney, making it very expensive besides.

I live in the formerly Wild West. One brush with a nut who exploits the system this way makes you yearn for the lawless days when you could call someone into the street and settle a dispute with an expeditious showdown…and then grab a slice of pie at the diner while the undertaker tidied up.

Copyright © 2014 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

“Three Times She Said I Ran Her Over”: On the Nature of False Allegations and False Accusers

There was a story out of England last summer about a Zimbabwean refugee, a mom, who clashed with a neighbor over a parking place—a parking place—shortly after moving into her cul-de-sac. The dispute was brief but inspired the neighbor to begin accusing her of crimes. She called the police and claimed the Zimbabwean woman had “stabbed her with a screwdriver and a set of keys” and that she had “smashed into her car and used her keys to scratch her vehicle.” Then, after police determined the allegations were baseless and issued the woman a harassment notice, she began keeping her neighbor under video surveillance.

The neighbor’s account:

“It has been a very unhappy nightmare.

“I’ve had so many different people knock on my door questioning me—that is really scary, even if you know you’ve done nothing wrong.

“It’s really difficult to cope.

“I am a quiet person; I don’t like conflict. I don’t understand why she’s doing it.

“Three times she said I ran her over. It frightened me, because I’d look out the window and see police looking underneath my car, and your heart starts pounding.

“Once she phoned the police in front of me and said, ‘Help me, my neighbour’s stabbing me’ and they were out straight away.”

In this story, the fraud was hoist on her own petard and eventually issued a restraining order for her misconduct. The horror is that had this woman sought a restraining order instead and then made her false allegations, the neighbor’s torment could have been magnified manifold. This is particularly easy to accomplish in the United States.

All of her allegations—stabbing, vandalism, vehicular assault—would have remained on her target’s public record had these allegations been made on a restraining order. And the suspicion of the authorities and courts would have been reversed.

This blog was contacted over the summer by a solitary woman in her 60s, living alone, who similarly aroused the wrath of her neighbor, who proceeded to accuse her of threatening behavior, sought a restraining order against her, and eventually accused her of killing her horse. To avoid further false allegations, the formerly independent senior was forced to abandon her home and rely on the kindness of strangers for a roof and a warm bed.

It’s difficult enough impressing upon someone that restraining orders are issued casually through a process that entails no more than a few-minute theatrical audition. Impressing upon him or her that people willfully and persuasively lie without any motive but malice is next to impossible. “Why would people do that?” they ask, incredulous. One answer might be for attention or for kicks. The simple answer, though, is this: “Because they can.” It isn’t just the case that allegations to authorities and judges may be exaggerated or invested with a little hammed hysteria; they may be calculatedly, sadistically, and hugely false.

And when sadistic impulses aren’t discerned and shut down—and, when they’re ventilated on a restraining order, they often aren’t—they may be indulged by the system repeatedly, even over many years, and to the ruination of their victims.

False accusers are never prosecuted in civil cases, and if they’re sanctioned at all, it’s only in highly publicized cases.

The question people should ask is, “Why wouldn’t people lie?” And the answer should be, “Because they’d go to jail.”

Copyright © 2014 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

An American Horror Story: The Institution of Restraining Orders

I’ve just been watching American Horror Story: Asylum. It’s a cable show about a throng of victims who are wrongly labeled deviants by the state and subjected to torturous abuse. Those in authority do what they want with impunity and relish. Threat looms from all sides, and betrayal is the only constant.

If you’ve been put through the restraining order wringer, this scenario will sound familiar.

The show is set in 1964, so we can pretend that we’re looking back at a distant, degenerate period in the past when heinous violations could occur right under everyone’s nose, and no one would lift a finger to intervene. The same political games masked as “conversion therapies” are indulged today, of course, only their abuses are subtler and directed at the psyche instead of being committed with canes, electrodes, tongs, and scalpels.

And those abuses are what this blog is about.

The protagonists on the show, which is set in a mental institution, are all punished brutally for being honest, and those in authority, who are supposed to uncover the truth and restore sanity, are concealing horrible lies of their own and cultivating madness to gratify personal agendas, which they justify to themselves as furthering the common good.

Maybe I’m a little mad myself, but these themes resonate with many that have preoccupied my life since I had my first brush with the “justice system” nearly eight years ago. I rarely watched TV before that. Print was my obsession—and I still nostalgically sniff it sometimes. I’m watching the show this post is about, in fact, on DVDs borrowed from the library. For several years, I didn’t go to the library, and I can’t remember when I last borrowed a novel that I actually finished.

Like the characters in American Horror Story: Asylum, many individuals who’ve visited this blog and I have told our tales repeatedly to figures in authority who’ve discounted or disregarded them, preferring instead to administer the mandated treatment.

A line in the show goes something like, “Go ahead and scream. No one will hear you.” It’s juicily sinister and rings true. Truer yet is that even if someone does hear you, s/he’ll make believe s/he didn’t.

Screaming, though, at least gives you something to do. As a number of those who’ve visited this blog have reported of their own ambitions, what I’d rather be doing has been rankly corrupted.

I haven’t watched the show’s last episodes yet. I’m waiting for the villains in charge to cannibalize one another or get plastered by the karma bus. It could happen. It’s fiction, after all.

Copyright © 2014 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

“perjury and sociopaths”: On the Challenges of Contesting Restraining Orders Sought by the Mentally Aberrant, Deranged, or Ill

A recent respondent to this blog detailed his restraining order ordeal at the hands of a woman who he persuasively alleges is a sociopath. He says this label is generally scoffed at by people he explains the matter to and wonders how he could convince a judge of its accuracy.

Since this blog was published nearly two years ago, hundreds have been led to it by search terms that include words and phrases like “sociopath,” “mental illness,” “narcissist,” and “personality disorder” or “borderline personality disorder” (“bpd”).

This should hardly be a source of surprise.

Restraining order applicants aren’t screened based on their psychiatric histories. Sociopaths and narcissists, who are seldom clinically diagnosed in the first place, are moreover cunning liars and manipulators. Obtaining restraining orders—which are issued solely on the basis of brief interviews between petitioners and judges—is not only a simple matter for them but rewards their pathological drives for dominance and revenge.

Characterized generously, the restraining order process is fast-food justice. The ability and opportunity of most defendants to qualify allegations of sociopathy or insanity against their accusers—assuming these defendants even recognize these conditions—is effectively none at all. And unless a restraining order applicant is completely off the wall, his or her allegations won’t even cause a judge to arch an eyebrow. Applicants are in and out of restraining order interviews in a matter of minutes. Sociopaths are the smoothest liars you’ll ever meet, and the insane may be more convincing yet if they wholeheartedly believe their allegations in spite of those allegations’ possibly having no relationship to reality at all.

The imperceptibility of mental disorders is what makes them so difficult to expose (on this subject, see also these related posts).

I could go on about how easily the restraining order process is abused by sociopaths or the otherwise mentally aberrant. And I could describe to you the devastating effects their false allegations have on the lives of those they abuse. Instead I’ll close with some of the relevant search terms that have brought readers here since this blog’s inception. Identical search terms have been eliminated (“beating a narcissistic sociopath,” for example, rolls in regularly).

  • “beating a narcissistic sociopath”
  • “emotional crimes” “sociopathy”
  • #beating a narcissistic sociopath
  • a crazy person filed a restraining order on me
  • a mentally ill sister files false charges in virginia
  • a narcissist filing pfa
  • a narcissist that plays the victim role
  • abuse by a nsrcisistic sociopath restraining order
  • abusice narcissist ruined my life erased
  • antisocial personality disorder and self-victimizing statements
  • antisocial personality mom filed abuse charges against
  • are narcissists con artists?” for order of protection
  • attention seeker false abuse
  • attorneys lawyer in san jose for emotionally abused men by bpd wife
  • attribute mental illness false allegations
  • bdp, false charges,revenge
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