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

March 1, 2014August 10, 2023Moderator Leave a comment

“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.

“Something Is Very Wrong Here!”: On the “Amazing Ease of Obtaining a Restraining Order against Someone”

February 27, 2014August 10, 2023Moderator 3 Comments

“I just wanted to alert you regarding the amazing ease of obtaining a restraining order against someone.

“I am a landlord, and on Jan. 22, I had the sheriff issue a tenant/roommate a ‘notice to quit’ by the end of the month. The tenant, in retaliation the very next day, requested from the courts that I be slapped with a restraining order and be ordered to stay 100 yards away from her. I guess, lucky for me, the judge did not grant her the 100 yards, which would have gotten me out of my own house.

“This is absolutely outrageous, because the document says the court finds that I ‘constitute a credible threat, that an imminent danger exists to the life and health of the protected persons named in this action.’

“So…if the judge believed the stuff my tenant wrote in her request, why in the world would I be allowed to stay at the house? Now I have to wait two weeks for my hearing to present my side of the story and bring my witnesses.

“I’ve even been advised by my lawyer to leave the house, even though I don’t have to, because who knows what the tenant might claim next?

“How does any landlord in Durango evict a tenant when all the tenant has to do is claim harassment, and the judge will slap a restraining order on the landlord? Something is very wrong here!”

—Letter to the Editor (Durango Herald)

Take a guess when this letter to the editor was published.

It could be 20 years ago. It could be yesterday. The outrage, in either case, would be the same, and its source would be the same. Probably even the phrasing on the injunction would be the same. And possibly the same judge could have issued it.

“I just wanted to alert you regarding the amazing ease of obtaining a restraining order against someone”: The writer’s earnestness is almost heartbreaking. Think any journalists will follow up? That he’ll inspire a series of editorials or investigative exposés? What’s impressive is that he believes he’s saying something new or that what he’s saying only applies to Durango, Colorado. Why it’s impressive is that what he’s saying isn’t common knowledge and of course should be, because it’s been said over and over and over for decades.

The proofreader will have corrected the writer’s grammar without really having appreciated what it is he’s said or its implications. The desk editor will have run his letter, because it’s marginally interesting and maybe not the kind of complaint s/he gets every day. Some readers will have assimilated the letter and registered an instance of crookedness. Some will nod the nod of those who’ve heard it all before.

The letter was published two weeks ago, and whatever limited impression it made will have already faded.

Fantasists Fatales: More on Narcissistic Sociopaths and Restraining Order Abuse to Gratify Stalkers’ Anger and Jealousy

February 27, 2014August 21, 2023Moderator Leave a comment

“Narcissistic people do fall in love, but they usually fall in love with being in love—and not with you. They crave the excitement of love, but are quickly disappointed when it becomes a relationship—and not just a trip into fantasy.”

—Mark Banschick, M.D.

In a recent post, I surveyed some scientific literature about stalking and narcissism, probably to excess, because qualification by experts makes arguments more palatable to a certain audience. That post’s epigraph, by two distinguished researchers, concluded that the motives of stalkers could be reduced in sum to anger and jealousy, both of which emotions are ones to which the narcissistic personality is pathologically prone.

Narcissistic stalkers are anomalous in their abuse of restraining orders (as they are in most respects). Some stalkers use restraining orders serially or as part of a campaign of harassment and attention-seeking, and not always against a current or former romantic partner or love interest. The same qualifications of anger and jealousy apply to the woman who torments a former boyfriend’s or husband’s new girlfriend, fiancée, or wife with restraining orders. Only last week, one such victim wrote to report that as soon as she got one restraining order quashed, another was petitioned.

The narcissistic stalker, by contrast, may pour all of his or her venom into one consummate fraud. The point is to get revenge and discard the offending threat to his or her ego-stability once that person’s use value has been exhausted. A false restraining order may simply represent the final blow that shifts the narcissist’s pathological courtship behavior onto its target. The narcissist walks and leaves his or her victim splayed in the dust.

Essential to bear in mind is that a relationship with a narcissist is always a one-way relationship and always confusing. The only person actually trying to relate is the person the narcissist targeted or baited; the narcissist can’t relate. The narcissist’s intentions—not necessarily understood as such by the narcissist him- or herself—were never real in the first place but based on fantasy fueled by the solicited attention and interest of the other person. Once that other person ceases to mirror back to the narcissist what s/he wants to see, that person is expendable. Some psychologists suggest, moreover, that in his or her paranoia about being rejected/abandoned, s/he may be motivated to act preemptively, that is, to reject first and thereby preserve his or her ego from an imagined injury.

Something I neglected to explicitly observe in the recent post referenced in the introduction that may merit observation is that all narcissists are stalkers (whether latent or active) insofar as the objects of narcissists’ romance fantasies are always merely objects to them (psycho-emotional gas pumps); they’re never subjects. What distinguishes the narcissistic stalker is that s/he’s seldom recognized for what s/he is, so s/he’s seldom rejected for what s/he is. Realize that the difference between normal pursuit behavior and aberrant pursuit behavior may be nothing more than how the pursued feels about it. Narcissists choose targets they perceive as vulnerable (empathic, tolerant, and pliable).

Because narcissists are extroverted, confident, aggressive, and socially commanding, “stalking” is seldom applied to their conduct. Narcissistic pursuit is by allure, false promise, and emotional coercion. The narcissist preys on the expectations of the cognitively normal, which s/he understands intuitively and manipulates with horrible proficiency. S/he often isn’t recognized as a user with no sincere investment in the other’s feelings until it’s too late.

To compound the difficulty either of making categorical pronouncements about narcissistic motives or exposing them, they’re not always known to narcissists themselves. To read most diagnostic explications of their mentality, the uninitiated would come away with the impression that narcissists are sharks, cunning, predatory automatons with false smiles and devious intentions. Anyone who’s had intimate and sustained relations with a narcissist, though, will perceive that s/he’s following what to him or her seem normal, romantic impulses in the moment. The difference is the narcissist is able to disown the moment with reptilian facility when his or her fantasy conflicts with interests of more pressing concern to the narcissist’s ego-preservation—or the interests of the other conflict with the narcissist’s fantasy.

It’s often argued that narcissists aren’t crazy, that they know what they’re doing. But this isn’t strictly so. In the throes of fantasy, narcissistic consciousness may be schizoid. Narcissists may lead parallel lives, even multiple parallel lives, like polygamists with spouses in different cities. And they may indulge an impulse with abandonment…then coldly—oh, so coldly—return to business as usual and plot the necessary steps to erase traces of the lapse. The narcissist runs either hot or cold. There is no warm.

Once the other fails to satisfy the psycho-emotional needs of the narcissist, corrupts his or her fantasy, or by intimacy threatens the autonomy of the narcissist or the reality s/he’s primarily invested in, the narcissist’s pathology is such that s/he can instantly blame the other (whom the narcissist targeted in the first place) for his or her perceived “betrayal.”

It’s at this stage that the anger and jealousy, identified as the germinal motives of the stalker, rear their scaly heads. For the narcissist, a restraining order may not only satisfy his or her lust to scourge and cripple his or her target; it may also be a way to satisfy jealousy: “Now no one else will have you.”

Revenge for the narcissist, too, is an impassioned fantasy. The preternatural vehemence of the narcissist is dismaying to its target. In a sense, though, it’s just a redirection of ardor that provides a different source of narcissistic supply. The restraining order process accommodates the narcissist exquisitely, allowing him or her to summon police like a dignitary and ham it up for a judge or several of them. S/he owns the spotlight. And once in possession of a restraining order, the spotlight will follow him or her wherever s/he wants.

The monstrous caricature of the other s/he’s authorized to present to friends, family, and acquaintances current and future serves as the perfect surrogate for the other. It delivers all of the attention while being free of any of the expectations.

Who or What Can’t Be Published on CafeMom?: On Ad Hominem Attacks, Feminist Hatemongering, and the Victimization of Moms by Both

February 24, 2014August 10, 2023Moderator 2 Comments

I was concerned to see that someone was brought to this site recently by the search term “Tara Palmatier [X].” I’ve omitted the final word of the phrase not because it’s vulgar but because I don’t want an anomalous Google query to put an idea into the head of some crank with too much time on her hands.

Dr. Tara J. Palmatier is a psychotherapist whose writing I’ve come to admire and respect, and which I’ve consequently quoted many times. She has what distinguishes the brilliant from the intelligent: bold candor. I did a hasty Google search of my own to see what would have prompted someone to use the keywords cryptically quoted above and nothing correspondent appeared except a page that appeared to be a spoof.

I did, however, notice this post, published eight months ago, on CafeMom: “Just ‘Who’ or ‘What’ is Dr. Tara J. Palmatier?” (which was deleted subsequent to the publication of this post).

In several pieces I’ve published over the last couple of months, I’ve given critical scrutiny to feminist rhetoric, because I believe the gross civil injustices this blog concerns owe their ontological debt and perpetuation to such rhetoric.

Consider the rhetorical strategies of this writer, who identifies herself with a picture of a kitty cat and the alias “joyfree” (prompting this writer to wonder whether she’d be less catty if she were more joy-ful).

Note first that the question that titles the post disdains to recognize Dr. Palmatier as human. Why? Apparently because she wrote about women’s entrapping men by getting pregnant. Assuming she did, how this observation could be “one-sided against women” is baffling, not for the least of reasons because it’s impossible for men to entrap women by getting pregnant. The actual source of the beef, of course, isn’t its writer’s perception of Dr. Palmatier as unfair; it’s kneejerk resentment of a woman’s criticizing women. That’s why instead of offering a reasoned critical response, the writer simply denounces a (“supposed”) woman with a doctorate in clinical psychology as a “fake.” (William Buckley called this “rebuttal by epithet.”)

There’s little point in my spending an hour parsing (and thereby dignifying) the facile hatemongering of an anonymous writer who probably invested half that time cobbling her post together. What I would bring to the attention of this blog’s audience (particularly its female readers) is that this vitriol was published on a site called CafeMom. This isn’t a forum of radical feminist academicians; these are your everyday householders. And the question I would hope scrutiny of public statements like this arouses is when did it become okay to attack someone’s sexuality and qualification as a human being, because she voiced an eminently informed, professional opinion that wasn’t favorable to female exaltation?

If Dr. Palmatier were black, would it still be okay to suggest she wasn’t human? Not so much, right? Observe, though, that this writer’s rhetorical strategies (like those of any number of like-minded writers) pretty much mirror those of racial bigots of centuries past.

And it slides under the radar.

What shouldn’t slide under the radar of this blog’s readers is that the acceptability of these kinds of views is an indicator of the breadth of feminist influence, and it’s this coercive influence by women that allows this to continue (quoted from the e-petition “Stop False Allegations of Domestic Violence”):

“My ex has used the law and the justice system, and destroyed my life and those of my minor children! He lied and said he had a witness to testify to his false accusations and bullied me into a deal with the devil eight months ago, and has filed five emergency ex parte motions to remove my kids…. He has put me in debt. I lost my job. I have no money, no friends. Therapists will not help my children as they are afraid he will ruin their lives, too…. Lawyers drop the case because of the constant verbal abuse he does to me and eventually to them, too. I have no friends left. Everyone has left me, and my family is far away, and their hands are tied. He has told teachers and principals and camp counselors these horrible accusations and caused me to have to move to a different town. My five-year-old told me his mind is telling him to die because his mommy is never happy. So what about the [woman] who [doesn’t] cry wolf and [leaves] an unhealthy marriage to save [her] kids and [has] a scorned, mentally ill, narcissistic ex-husband who is torturing every single day and using the law to harass [her]? He is a doctor and has deep pockets, and I am now in debt with no income. Had they been ethical the day of the hearing and admitted that they had no witness anymore, this would never have happened. So what about the tortured women?”

Over to you, CafeMom.

Targeted by a Narcissistic Sociopath: When a Stalker Obtains a Restraining Order to Dominate and Destroy

February 19, 2014August 21, 2023Moderator 5 Comments

“Accumulated forensic, clinical, and social research strongly suggests that the two most prominent emotions of most stalkers are anger and jealousy…. Such feelings are often consciously felt and acknowledged by the stalker. Nevertheless, these feelings often serve to defend the stalker against more vulnerable feelings that are outside of the stalker’s awareness. Anger can mask feelings of shame and humiliation, the result of rejection by the once idealized object, and/or feelings of loneliness, isolation, and social incompetency.

“Anger may also fuel the pursuit, motivated by envy to damage or destroy that which cannot be possessed…or triggered by a desire to inflict pain on the one who has inflicted pain, the primitive impulse of lex talionis, an eye for an eye.

“Angry pursuit can also repair narcissistic wounds through a fantasized sense of omnipotence and control of the victim. Victim surveys, in fact, have noted that the most common victim perception of the stalker’s motivations is to achieve control….”

—J. Reid Meloy, Ph.D., and Helen Fisher, Ph.D.

This discussion’s epigraph is drawn from “Some Thoughts on the Neurobiology of Stalking” and touches on a number of the motives of restraining order abuse both by stalkers generally and, in particular, by those stalkers who are most vulnerable to narcissistic wounds, namely, pathological narcissists.

The narcissist is a living emotional pendulum. If [s/he] gets too close to someone emotionally, if [s/he] becomes intimate with someone, [s/he] fears ultimate and inevitable abandonment. [S/he], thus, immediately distances [him- or herself], acts cruelly, and brings about the very abandonment that [s/he] feared in the first place. This is called the ‘approach-avoidance repetition complex’ [Sam Vaknin, Ph.D., “Coping with Various Types of Stalkers: The Narcissist”].

While procurement of a restraining order is commonly perceived as the definitive act of rejection, possibly rejection of a stalker’s advances, it may in fact be an act of possession and control by a stalker (a perverse form of wish fulfillment). A restraining order indelibly stamps the presence of a stalker onto the public face of his or her target (“I own you”). It further disarms the target and mars his or her life, possibly to an extremity. Per Meloy and Fisher, a stalker achieves control and damages or destroys that which cannot be possessed. The “connection,” furthermore, can be repeatedly revisited and harm perpetually refreshed through exploitation of legal process.

The authors of the epigraph use the phrase attachment pathology. For a stalker who’s formed an unreciprocated attachment or an unauthorized one (as in the case of someone who’s married), a restraining order presents the treble satisfactions of counter-rejection (“I reject you back” or “I reject you back first”), revenge for not meeting the authoritarian expectations of the stalker, and possession/control. Procurement of a restraining order literally enables a false petitioner to revise the truth into one more favorable to his or her interests or wishes (cf. DARVO: Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender). A judge is a rapt audience who only has the petitioner’s account on which to base his or her determination. The only “facts” that s/he’s privy to are the ones provided by the restraining order applicant.

In “Female Stalkers, Part 2: Checklist of Stalking and Harassment Behaviors,” psychologist Tara Palmatier identifies use of “the court and law enforcement to harass” as a female stalking tactic (“e.g., making false allegations, filing restraining orders, petitioning the court for frivolous changes in custody, etc.”), and this form of abuse likely is more typically employed by women against men (women tending “to be more ‘creatively aggressive’ in their stalking acts”). Anecdotal reports to this blog’s author, however, indicate that male stalkers (jilted or high-conflict exes and attention-seeking “admirers”) also engage in this form of punitive subversion against women. (Dr. Palmatier acknowledges as much but explains, “I tailor myself writing for a male audience.”)

Clinical terms for this kind of stalking—less stringent in their scope than legal definitions of stalking, which usually concern threat to personal safety—are “obsessive relational intrusion, intrusive contact, aberrant courtship behavior, obsessional pursuit, and unwanted pursuit behavior,” among others (Katherine S-L. Lau and Delroy L. Paulhus, “Profiling the Romantic Stalker”).

For someone with narcissistic personality disorder, someone, that is, who lives for attention (and is only capable of “aberrant courtship behavior”), a restraining order is a cornucopia, a source of infinitely renewing psychic nourishment, because it can’t fail to titillate an audience and excite drama.

(As noted in The Psychology of Stalking: Clinical and Forensic Perspectives, “Axis II personality disorders are…evident in a majority of stalkers, particularly Cluster B [which includes the narcissistic and borderline personality-disordered]”).

Per the DSM-IV, a narcissist evinces:

A. A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

1. Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements).

2. Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.

3. Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions).

4. Requires excessive admiration.

5. Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations.

6. Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends.

7. Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others.

8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her.

9. Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.

Correspondences between this clinical definition and what might popularly be regarded as the traits of a stalker are uncanny (e.g., preoccupation with fantasies of “ideal love,” dependence on admiration not necessarily due, interpersonal exploitation, and an inability to identify with or a disregard for others’ feelings). It further suggests why a narcissist wouldn’t scruple about abusing legal process to realize malicious ends.

In “Threatened Egotism, Narcissism, Self-Esteem, and Direct and Displaced Aggression: Does Self-Love or Self-Hate Lead to Violence?”, psychologists Brad Bushman and Roy Baumeister observe that aggressively hurtful behavior is more likely to originate from narcissistic arrogance than from insecurity:

[I]t has been widely asserted that low self-esteem is a cause of violence (e.g., Kirschner, 1992; Long, 1990; Oates & Forrest, 1985; Schoenfeld, 1988; Wiehe, 1991). According to this theory, certain people are prompted by their inner self-doubts and self-dislike to lash out against other people, possibly as a way of gaining esteem or simply because they have nothing to lose.

A contrary view was proposed by Baumeister, Smart, and Boden (1996). On the basis of an interdisciplinary review of research findings regarding violent, aggressive behavior, they proposed that violence tends to result from very positive views of self that are impugned or threatened by others. In this analysis, hostile aggression was an expression of the self’s rejection of esteem-threatening evaluations received from other people.

The DSM-5 notes that for the narcissist, “positive views of self” are everything (and others’ feelings nothing). Diagnostic criteria are:

A. Significant impairments in personality functioning manifest by:

1. Impairments in self functioning (a or b):

a. Identity: Excessive reference to others for self-definition and self-esteem regulation; exaggerated self-appraisal may be inflated or deflated, or vacillate between extremes; emotional regulation mirrors fluctuations in self-esteem.

b. Self-direction: Goal-setting is based on gaining approval from others; personal standards are unreasonably high in order to see oneself as exceptional, or too low based on a sense of entitlement; often unaware of own motivations.

AND

2. Impairments in interpersonal functions (a or b):

a. Empathy: Impaired ability to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others; excessively attuned to reactions of others, but only if perceived as relevant to self; over- or underestimate of own effect on others.

b. Intimacy: Relationships largely superficial and exist to serve self-esteem regulation; mutuality constrained by little genuine interest in others’ experiences and predominance of a need for personal gain.

B. Pathological personality traits in the following domain:

1. Antagonism, characterized by:

a. Grandiosity: Feelings of entitlement, either overt or covert; self-centeredness; firmly holding to the belief that one is better than others; condescending toward others.

b. Attention seeking: Excessive attempts to attract and be the focus of the attention of others; admiration seeking.

The picture that emerges from clinical observations of the narcissistic personality is one of a person who has no capacity to identify with others’ feelings, a fantastical conception of love, and unreasonable expectations of others and an irrational antagonism toward those who disappoint his or her wishes.

It’s further commonly observed that narcissists’ antagonism toward anyone whom they perceive as critical of them—that is, as a threat to their “positive views of self”—is boundless. The object, then, of a narcissist’s attachment pathology who rejects him or her (disappointing his or her “magical fantasies”), who challenges his or her entitlement, or who manifests disdain or condescension toward the narcissist (even in the form of sympathy) becomes instead the object of the narcissist’s wrath. As psychologist Linda Martinez-Lewi notes, “For the narcissist, revenge is sweet. It’s where they live in their delusional, treacherous minds.”

Narcissists adopt a predictable cycle of Use, Abuse, Dispose. This pathological repetition can last a few weeks or decades…. With a narcissist, there is never an authentic relationship. He/she is a grandiose false self without conscience, empathy, or compassion. Narcissists are ruthless and exploitive to the core [Linda Martinez-Lewi, Ph.D., “Narcissistic Relationship Cycle: Use, Abuse, Dispose”].

The restraining order process, because it enables a petitioner to present a false self and caters to fraudulent representation, is a medium of vengeance ideally suited to a narcissistic stalker. Its exploitation plays to a narcissist’s strengths: social savvy, cunning, and persuasiveness. Its value as an instrument of abuse, furthermore, is unmatched, offering for a minimal investment of time and energy the rewards of public disparagement and alienation of his or her victim, as well as impairment of that victim’s future prospects.

There are sociopathic narcissists who will not be satisfied until their ‘enemy’ is completely vanquished—emotionally, psychologically, financially. They seek revenge, not for what has been done to them but [for] what they perceive in a highly deluded way…has been done to them [Linda Martinez-Lewi, Ph.D., “Sociopathic Narcissists—Relentlessly Cruel”].

Fraudulent abuse of legal process elevates the narcissistic stalker to prime mover and puppet-master over his or her prey and compensates his or her disappointment of “ideal love” with the commensurate satisfactions of “unlimited power” over his or her victim and an infinitely renewable source of ego-fueling attention. By his or her false representations to the court, the narcissist’s fantasies become “the truth.” S/he’s literally able to refashion reality to conform to the false conception s/he favors.

In conclusion, an observation by psychologist Stanton Samenow:

The narcissist may not commit an act that is illegal, but the damage [s/he] does may be devastating. In fact, because the narcissist appears to be law-abiding, others may not be suspicious of him [or her] leaving him [or her] freer to pursue his [or her] objectives, no matter at whose expense. I have found that the main difference between the narcissist and antisocial individual, in most instances, is that the former has been shrewd or slick enough not to get caught…breaking the law.

Why Women Are Abused by the Restraining Order Process So Easily

February 15, 2014August 10, 2023Moderator 1 Comment

People—brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, friends, lovers, spouses, exes, and strangers—abuse women with false restraining orders for the same reason rapists abuse women: because they can. And the reason why women are so easily abused by malicious prosecutors is that the restraining order process is the bowling alley of jurisprudence.

Set ‘em up, knock ‘em down.

Women are abused by restraining orders, because restraining order policy is lax and prejudiced in favor of applicants. Why? Because women are abused.

Sound circular? It is. The social push to address violations against women, agitated by galvanic denunciations of “rape culture” and domestic violence, has unwittingly contributed to violations against women.

Rape and domestic violence happen. There’s no question about it. There’s likewise no question that their effects may be damaging beyond either qualification or quantification.

The overwhelming majority of rapes represent sexual violence against women by men. Social perception to the contrary notwithstanding, however, victims of domestic violence may be of either gender, and the ratio is nearly 50-50.

Perception is the operative word here, and perception is the preeminent concern of this blog, because it’s what informs the bias for plaintiffs and against defendants (of both genders) that’s customary to the restraining order process.

The precedent for this bias reaches back three decades to the institution of the process as a deterrent to domestic violence against women, and the influence exerted by second-wave feminists since has only reinforced the bias to the extent that anyone who’s accused on a restraining order, male or female, is considered guilty, ipso facto.

To assert guilt, in a majority of cases, is to “prove” guilt.

Beyond satisfying social expectations, the court must satisfy its ethical obligation, so guilt is presumed not just of male defendants on restraining orders but of all defendants on restraining orders (to make the process “fair”).

A significant number, if not the majority, of respondents to this blog who report being the victims of false allegations on restraining orders—particularly the ones who detail their stories at length—are women. This doesn’t mean that women, who represent less than 20% of restraining order defendants, are more commonly the victims of false allegations. It’s indicative, rather, of women’s disposition to socially connect and express their pain, indignity, and outrage. (Women, furthermore, aren’t perceived as dangerous and deviant, so they feel less insecure about publicly declaiming their innocence; they have the greater expectation of being believed and receiving sympathy.)

The irony is that it’s this same disposition, the disposition to engage with others and ventilate suffering, that has given feminist propaganda such emotive force, force that has spawned the prejudices endemic to the restraining order process that have trashed these women’s lives.

The metaphor that inevitably presents itself to the writer who contemplates restraining order injustice is the knot, and I’ve used it more than once.

Abuse of restraining orders, which originate with gender loyalty, is sustained by gender loyalty. Who do women who’ve been abused by male restraining order plaintiffs resent? Men. Who do the feminist advocates for restraining orders resent? Men. Who makes it so easy for restraining order plaintiffs to total the lives of female victims of false allegations (including mothers and grandmothers), possibly leaving them destitute besides psychologically shattered? Women.

This is the vicious circle of misattributed blame that has preserved an unjust process from scrutiny and reform.

And this discussion circles back on itself by reintroducing perception as the ultimate culprit.

Victims of restraining order abuse only recognize the immediate causes of their torment: the scabby liars who falsely accused them and the cruel, careless, or clueless judges who validated their false accusers’ lies.

The invisible, germinal cause of that torment is the demonization of men as rapists and batterers. The restraining order process is both fueled and funded by this perception, and until this perception is more actively challenged by women, particularly by women who’ve been victimized by its effects on public policy, the self-perpetuating cycle of grief will grind on.

“Can Someone Get a Restraining Order Against Me if [Fill in the Blank]?” YES.

February 14, 2014August 10, 2023Moderator Leave a comment

If you imagine there are hard-and-fast rules that apply to what a judge can issue a restraining order for, think again. Grounds for establishing “harassment” or vague emotional allegations like fear need only be their plaintiffs’ assertion. Plaintiffs don’t even need to assert apprehension. A judge may ask, “Are you afraid of him/her?” To be granted a restraining order, a plaintiff may only have to chirp, “Yes.”

That’s it? That’s it. Allegations including stalking, battery, and sexual harassment or violence can be made and publicly recorded on a restraining order (indefinitely) based on no concrete proof, and they can be made against men or women.

The conceit is that judges are held to standards of fairness, diligence, etc., but the truth is that the issuance of restraining orders is discretionary, that is, a judge can do what s/he wants. The predominant inclination, what’s more, is to assume where there’s smoke there’s fire. And, yes, a restraining order can also be upheld on appeal on no basis, and judges can reduce innocent defendants to cinders and face no repercussions for it.

Search-term queries that lead visitors here often begin with “Can.” The questions invariably translate to “What’s necessary for authorization?” The answer is nothing. To act is to act with authorization. Restraining orders can be issued on no basis at all other than that they were petitioned, and the process was famously criticized for its availability to all comers fully 20 years ago by Elaine Epstein, former president of the Massachusetts Bar Association—to little effect.

The abuse industry that has cropped up around the restraining order is an extremely lucrative one for the people who service it, including officers and staff of courts and police districts; attorneys and mediators; therapists and anger management counselors; shelters and social workers, etc. Google restraining order + false allegations + attorney + your state, and you’ll discover from the returns that any number of law firms recognize restraining orders are falsely issued and are there to help you beat a bad rap…for a price.

The number of restraining orders issued each year is already two to three million (in the U.S. alone). Were it not for the uncertainty reflected in questions that begin, “Can,” it’s a good bet that that number would be significantly larger.

False Allegations of Rape: A Digression into Taboo Territory from Talking back to the Usual Sorts of False Allegations Made on Restraining Orders

February 12, 2014August 21, 2023Moderator Leave a comment

The prevalence of false allegations of rape is contested. What isn’t contested by anyone is that false allegations of rape are made, and what shouldn’t be contested by anyone is that false allegations of rape (and any number of other offenses) are heinous lies that may end life as they knew it for the falsely accused.

The specter invoked by “rape culture” is what informs public perceptions of allegations of fear and violence made on restraining orders, and has prompted the operant conditioning to which authorities and judges have been subjected for decades and which translates to an accused’s being presumed guilty on little or no more basis than that an accusation was made. So influential has rhetoric like this been that most or all allegations made on restraining orders are perceived as valid, urgent, and sinister, whether they’re made against men or women. Police officers and judges have been conditioned to react reflexively instead of critically in these cases, and they’ve been authorized, moreover, to view and treat the accused with contempt.

Acknowledging that false allegations are made doesn’t discount the reality and trauma of rape, nor does it excuse the act; it isn’t a concession to the “enemy.” Not acknowledging that false allegations are made, however, does make light of human torment and is inexcusable. Also, it’s false accusers, more than anyone, who discredit and mock the trauma of real victims; and for this reason, they should be the targets of feminist ire, instead of those who advocate for the victims of false accusers.

Statistics reported by Cathy Young, whose journalistic integrity is unimpeachable, conservatively put false allegations of rape at 9% (as computed by the FBI). It’s often posited that many more rapes occur than are reported, which is no doubt true. So the percentage of false allegations relative to the number of actual rapes may be less than 9%. This, though, is a misleading observation that mixes apples and oranges. Unreported rapes have nothing to do with the fact that a conservatively estimated 9% of alleged rapes are falsely alleged rapes.

A consideration that isn’t statistically irrelevant, furthermore, is that some false allegations of rape aren’t recognized as false.

To a feminist, even a 9% false-allegation rate is deemed negligible. Maybe it’s statistically negligible—and that’s a BIG maybe—but people aren’t statistics. That nine in a hundred represents nine people. In 1,000 cases, that’s 90 people. In 10,000 cases, that’s 900 people.

According to Wikipedia, “Nearly 90,000 people reported being raped in the United States in 2008.”

What’s evident in the slant of writing that discounts false allegations of rape is that the lives of the falsely accused are somehow less important than the lives of rape victims. Categorically, they are not, and concluding otherwise betrays what psychologists call “emotional reasoning.” The falsely accused have no relationship either to the victims or perpetrators of rape whatsoever.

Falsely accused = innocent.

What’s implicit in the slant of writing that discounts false allegations of rape is that the victims of those allegations are men, and men having it coming to them anyway.

This manner of thinking is wrong. Like a rape victim, someone falsely accused of rape (or anything else) is someone who is guiltless. Period. (S)he is not accountable, by any sane standard, for the actions of rapists (or other offenders). Period.

Thinking to the contrary has infected the perceptions of our administrators, legislators, judges, and police officers to the lasting detriment of every man who’s falsely accused of anything. And not just every man who’s falsely accused. The propagandist rhetoric generated by this thinking is lethal, and it has corrupted our system and our social conscience to their marrows.

Victims of false allegations are casualties—casualties—not trivia.

The Modern-Day Witch Trial: On Using a Restraining Order to Accuse a Mother of Rape

February 9, 2014July 1, 2023Moderator 4 Comments

The last post addressed the case of a mom who’s been accused of serial rape by the father of one of her children.

Ignore whether it’s okay to allow a man’s record to be contaminated with an uncorroborated allegation of rape scrawled on a restraining order application—an allegation, incidentally, that will ruin his life (there’s not an employer on the face of the planet who’s going to respond to “She accused me of rape” with “Oh, fiddlesticks. When can you start?”).

Ignore that and consider what judge, in the “bad old days” before restraining orders existed, would have allowed a woman to be publicly labeled a rapist, merely by implication.

Now consider how far back in history we’d have to reach to find a time when such an unfounded allegation would previously have been taken seriously. I’m not a historian, but my guess would be during the period when we last had witch trials.

It was probably possible, say, as recently as the 1600s to have a woman tried as a succubus (a demon in female form who forcibly copulated with men while they slept) just based on “persuasive” testimony like “She consorts with the devil!”

Our modern-day witch trials, restraining order adjudications, which proceed from the same non-evidentiary basis, don’t threaten penalties like drowning or incineration. I wonder, though, whether their draconian punishments were the only aspects of the original witch trials that were unjust.

Restraining Orders Are Heroin: On Feminists, “Rape Culture,” and Affliction Addiction

February 7, 2014July 1, 2023Moderator 4 Comments

“I have known my ex since 2007, and our relationship was never easy. I stood with him during the affairs, the lies, whatever…. We had a child in 2009, and then the violence started…. After the last failed mediation in Nov[ember] 2012, he again wanted to get back together, [and] I was hit with a new motion to change the parenting time for our child, and he stated that I was harming or endangering our child.

“In Jan[uary] 2013, he again wanted us to work [things] out, and I again agreed…. I began to assist with bills, his house, [and] accommodating his requests with our child. Fast forward to Oct[ober] 2013…after learning once again there were other women involved and accepting his apology at dinner one night, the next day I was served with a temp[orary] restraining order. It was filled with a whole lot of false allegations and a report that he filed with the police. The report with the police came back unfounded, and shortly after that report was put into evidence, he filed an addendum to his original…restraining order in Nov[ember] 2013, adding on 38 more individual allegations dating back to 2007 from when we first met.

“In mid-Nov[ember] 2013, he then filed an additional complaint against [me] through military channels…. He has also filled more in [on] our parenting-time case against me.

“He is now stating that since 2007, he feels I have been forcing him into sex, and he may now need to seek therapy after learning how often he has been raped.

“Since the restraining order has been in effect, my ex has contacted my family, has [had] his new [girlfriend] file complaints with me at my job, has filed additional allegations with my job, and is now saying I am an unfit parent.

“I just am unsure where to turn…or what to do. If this restraining order is found to go permanently against me, I have more to lose with my career and way of providing for my children, and though he is aware of this, he is also not backing down. And now with his new allegations in court about the forced sexual encounters for years, his feelings of being afraid, and his claim that he will need to seek therapy, I am not sure how all of this will play out against me.”

—Blog respondent

I recently acquainted myself with “rape culture,” a term used ubiquitously in feminist screeds, and observed that there’s a contrary case to be made for its being applied to the defenders of court-mediated villainies that emotionally scourge innocents and cripple their lives.

The woman whose story serves as epigraph to this discussion is one such victim. Here’s a woman, a mother, moreover, who has endured beastly treatment with the patience of Job only to be labeled a rapist, terrorist, unfit mother, etc., etc. and who now faces the prospect of having her entire existence tweezed apart.

With regard to so-called rape culture, consider that this woman’s story shows that not only may false allegations of rape be readily put over on the courts through restraining order abuse; it isn’t just men who can be falsely accused.

Maybe feminist readers of this woman’s saga of pain would only conclude that it wasn’t impressed upon her early enough that women need men like fish need bicycles. Or maybe they’d conclude that it just goes to show how awful men can be, disregarding that the woman has also been persecuted by her ex’s new girlfriend.

In fact, what it and any number of others’ ordeals show is that when you offer people an easy means to excite drama and conflict, they’ll exploit it.

There’s a reason why opiates are carefully controlled substances that aren’t freely handed out to everyone who claims to need them for pain relief. If they were, a lot of people would welcome a cheap high.

Process abusers need to be recognized for what they are: substance abusers. Restraining orders, whose injustices persist because they’re vehemently championed by ideologues, are dispensed gratuitously and used gratuitously. For too many users, what’s more, they’re gateway drugs that whet an insatiable, predatory appetite.

Drama and attention junkies are no different from any other kind. Offer them a free narcotic, and they’ll take it and jones for more.

Defenders of restraining orders, who think of them as fixes, don’t realize how right they are.

DARVO and the Diva: A Hypothetical Case in Point of Restraining Order Abuse to Reverse the Roles of Victim and Offender

February 5, 2014August 10, 2023Moderator 2 Comments

“False allegations and bogus calls to the police are an extremely sick form of abuse.”

—Tara J. Palmatier, Psy.D.

I introduced a useful term in my previous post coined by psychologist Jennifer Freyd and adapted by psychologist Tara Palmatier to her own practice and professional writing: DARVO, an acronym of Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.

In sum, the abuser in a relationship denies a behavior s/he’s called on, attacks his or her confronter (the victim of the behavior), and by social manipulation (including false allegations, hysterical protestations, smear tactics, etc.) reverses roles with him or her: the batterer becomes the beaten, the stalker becomes the stalked, the sexual harasser becomes the sexually harassed, etc.

The restraining order process and DARVO are a jigsaw-puzzle fit, because the first party up the courthouse steps is recognized as the victim, that party’s representations are accepted as “the truth,” a restraining order is easily got with a little dramatic legerdemain, and procurement of a restraining order instantly qualifies its plaintiff as the victim and its defendant as the villain in the eyes of nearly everybody. In one fell swoop, the exploiter dodges accountability for his or her misconduct and punishes his or her victim for being intolerant of that misconduct.

To illustrate, a conjectural case in point:

Imagine that a solitary, bookish man, a starving but striving artist working on a project for children, haplessly attracts a group of overeducated and neglected women keen for recognition and attention. Their leader, a brassy, charismatic, married woman, works her wiles on the man to indulge an infatuation, contriving reasons to hang around his house up to and past midnight. He lives remotely, and the secluding darkness and intimacy are delicious and allow the woman to step out of the strictures of her daytime life as easily as she slips off her wedding ring and mutes her cellphone.

Her coterie of girlfriends is transposed straight from the halls of high school. They’re less physically favored than the leader of their pack and content to warm themselves in her aura. The adolescent intrigue injects some color into their treadmill lives, and they savor the vicarious thrill of the hunt. The man is a topic of their daily conversation. The women feel young again for a few months, like conspirators in an unconsummated teen crush.

Eventually, however, the creeping finger of consequence insinuates itself between the pages of the women’s Harlequin-novel holiday, and the game is a lark no more. Realizing the ruse can’t be maintained indefinitely, the married woman abruptly vanishes, and her cronies return where they came from like shadows retreating from the noonday sun.

What no one knows can’t hurt them.

The man, though, nevertheless learns of the deception and confronts the woman in a letter, asking her to meet with him so he can understand her motives and gain some closure. The woman denies understanding the source of his perplexity and represents him (to himself) as a stalker. She then proceeds to represent him as such to her peers at his former place of work and then to her husband, the police, and the court over a period of days and weeks. She publicly alleges the man sexually harassed her, is dangerous, and poses a threat to her and her spouse, and to her friends and family.

Her co-conspirators passively play along. It’s easy: out of sight, out of mind.

The life of the man who’d hospitably welcomed the strangers, shaking hands in good faith and doling out mugs of cheer, is trashed: multiple trips to the police precinct to answer false charges and appeals to the court that only invite censure and further abuse. His record, formerly that of an invisible man, becomes hopelessly corrupted. His artistic endeavor, a labor of love that he’d plied himself at for years and on which he’d banked his future joy and financial comfort, is predictably derailed.

The women blithely return to realizing their ambitions while the man’s life frays and tatters.

Sleepless years go by, the economy tanks, and the man flails to simply keep afloat. The paint flakes on his house and his hopes. His health deteriorates to the extent that he’s daily in physical pain. He finally employs an attorney to craft a letter, pointlessly, undertakes a lawsuit on his own, too late, and maunders on like this, alternately despairing and taking one stab or another at recovering his life and resuscitating his dreams.

The married woman monitors him meanwhile, continuing to represent him as a stalker, both strategically and randomly to titillate and arouse attention, while accruing evidence for a further prosecution, and bides her time until the statute of limitation for her frauds on the court lapses to ensure that she’s immune from the risk of punishment. A little over seven years to the day of her making her original allegations, she takes the man to court all over again, enlisting the ready cooperation of one of her former confederates, to nail the coffin shut.

This is DARVO at its most dedicated and devotional, and it’s pure deviltry and exemplifies the dire effects and havoc potentially wrought by a court process that’s easily and freely exploited and indifferently administered.

In her explication of DARVO, Dr. Palmatier introduces this quotation from attorney and mediator William (Bill) Eddy: “It’s only the Persuasive Blamers of Cluster B [see footnote] who keep high-conflict disputes going. They are persuasive, and to keep the focus off their own behavior (the major source of the problem), they get others to join in the blaming.” As a scenario like the one I’ve posited above illustrates, persuasive blame-shifters may keep high-conflict clashes going for years, clashes that in their enlistment of others verge on lynch-mobbing that includes viral and virulent name-calling and public denigration.

Consider the origins of consequences that cripple lives and can potentially lead to physical violence, including suicide or even homicide, and then consider whether our courts should be the convenient tools of such ends. Absent our courts’ availability as media of malice, the appetite of the practitioner of DARVO would starvo.

Dr. Tara Palmatier: “Cluster B disorders include histrionic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and antisocial personality disorder. At their core, I believe all Cluster B disorders stem from sociopathy (i.e., lack of empathy for others, refusal to hold themselves accountable for their behaviors, and exploitation of others). Bleiberg (2001) refers to these characterological disorders as ‘severe,’ because they chronically engage in extreme conflict [and] drama, and cause the most problems in society.”

Shifting Blame: DARVO, Personality Disorders, and Restraining Order Abuse

February 1, 2014June 23, 2023Moderator 20 Comments

“DARVO refers to a reaction that perpetrators of wrongdoing…display in response to being held accountable for their behavior. The perpetrator or offender may Deny the behavior, Attack the individual doing the confronting, and Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender such that the perpetrator assumes the victim role and turns the true victim into an alleged offender. This occurs, for instance, when an actually guilty perpetrator assumes the role of ‘falsely accused’ and attacks the accuser’s credibility or even blames the accuser of being the perpetrator of a false accusation.”

—Jennifer J. Freyd, Ph.D.

I discovered this quotation and the acronym it unpacks in Dr. Tara Palmatier’s “Presto, Change-o, DARVO: Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender,” one of the most validating explications of the motives of false accusers I’ve read. There’s nothing in it that I can’t identify with personally, and I’ve heard from many others who I know would respond similarly.

DARVO seems to be a combination of projection, denial, lying, blame-shifting, and gaslighting…. It also seems to be common behavior in most predators, bullies, high-conflict individuals, and/or abusive personality-disordered individuals.

Goaded by some instances of blame-shifting that screamed at me from the e-petition “Stop False Allegations of Domestic Violence,” I recently wrote about “Role Reversal: Using Restraining Orders to Conceal Misconduct and Displace Blame.” I even referred to Dr. Palmatier’s work in the post, not yet having come across the above-mentioned entry in her own blog, which incisively exposes the origins of false motives.

Dr. Palmatier is a psychologist who specializes in treating male victims of domestic violence and abuse, but the behaviors she elucidates aren’t gender-specific, and both male and female victims of blame-shifting will be edified by her revelations, among them “why many Narcissists, Borderlines, Histrionics, and Antisocials effectively employ smear-campaign and mobbing tactics when they target someone” (“By blaming others for everything that’s wrong in their lives, they keep the focus off the real problem: themselves”).

At least a few visitors are brought here daily by an evident interest in understanding the motives of personality-disordered individuals—usually their spouses, lovers, or exes—who’ve obtained restraining orders against them by fraud or otherwise abused them through the courts. If you’re such a reader, consider whether this sounds familiar:

The offender takes advantage of the confusion we have in our culture over the relationship between public provability and reality (and a legal system that has a certain history in this regard) in redefining reality. Future research may test the hypothesis that the offender may well come to believe in [his or her] innocence via this logic: if no one can be sure [s/he] is guilty then logically [s/he] is not guilty no matter what really occurred. The reality is thus defined by public proof, not by personal lived experience [quoting Dr. Freyd].

So thorough and laser-sighted is Dr. Palmatier’s topical treatment of “[a]busive, persuasive blamers [who] rely on the force of their emotions to sell their lies, half-truths, and distortions” that there’s little point in my repeatedly quoting it and adding my two cents, but I eagerly bring it to the attention of those who’ve been attacked through the courts by abusers who used them as scapegoats to mask their own misconduct.

Dr. Palmatier remarks, “This behavior is crazy-making if you are the target of it.” If you respond, Amen—and especially if you respond, F*ckin’ A!men—read this.

“Truth,” Ms. Magazine, and Restraining Order Allegations

January 31, 2014July 30, 2023Moderator Leave a comment

In a recent post, I commented on a 2010 entry on the Ms. Magazine Blog whose writer evinced no awareness either of how false allegations work or how damaging they can be, and that advocated for laxer restraining order laws in Maryland. Even if this writer were capable of conceding that false allegations are made, it’s unlikely that she could intuit a subtlety like this: allegations don’t even have to be lies to be frauds. It’s for this reason, not least of all, that higher standards and expectations of verification, equity, and deliberation must be applied to the civil restraining order process.

Consider this scenario:

A man eyes a younger, attractive woman at work every day. She’s impressed by him, also, and reciprocates his interest. They have a brief sexual relationship that, unknown to her, is actually an extramarital affair, because the man is married. The younger woman, having naïvely trusted him, is crushed when the man abruptly drops her, possibly cruelly, and she then discovers he has a wife. Maybe she openly confronts him at work. Maybe she calls or texts him. Maybe repeatedly. The man, concerned to preserve appearances and his marriage, applies for a restraining order alleging the woman is harassing him, has become fixated on him, is unhinged. As evidence, he provides phone records, possibly dating from the beginning of the affair—or pre-dating it—besides intimate texts and emails. He may also provide tokens of affection she’d given him, like a birthday card the woman signed and other romantic trifles, and represent them as unwanted or even (implicitly) disturbing. “I’m a married man, Your Honor,” he testifies, admitting nothing, “and this woman’s conduct is threatening my marriage, besides my status at work.”

Question: Where’s the lie?

The woman, who had fallen for this man, may have been desperate for an explanation for his betrayal, reasonably expecting the man who had courted her with flowers and sweet nothings to reemerge. Maybe she becomes incensed by his disowning his deception, and angrily takes him to task. He may genuinely feel harassed and alarmed by her not simply going away after giving him what he wanted from the relationship, because his marriage and reputation are at stake. His evidence is real. He doesn’t explicitly use the word “stalker”; he just lets the facts speak for him. In a literal sense, he’s telling the truth.

Not so cut-and-dried, is it?

This scenario isn’t fantasy. It roughly corresponds to a story that was shared with me by a woman who had just begun a promising career in law and had bright and lofty ambitions she’d toiled many years to realize. The job she aspired to have is one from which she’s been permanently disqualified by the man’s having (very easily) obtained a restraining order against her to mask his own misconduct and punish her for not minding her place.

In 10 years, the woman, a 20-something attorney who had set her sights on working for the FBI, may instead be a recovering alcoholic working for Legal Aid. Her lover, by contrast, may have made partner at her former law firm. The seniors there may sometimes jokingly speculate, sipping from lowballs and puffing on stogies, about what became of “that crazy stalker who used to work here.”

If this is the justice Ms. Magazine advocates for, it needs a new name.

Rhetoric and Restraining Order Rampancy

January 30, 2014July 6, 2023Moderator Leave a comment

“Rape culture exists because we don’t believe it does. From tacit acceptance of misogyny in everything from casual conversations with our peers to the media we consume, we accept the degradation of women and posit uncontrollable hyper-sexuality of men as the norm. But rape is endemic to our culture because there’s no widely accepted cultural definition of what it actually is.”

—The Nation Magazine (February 4, 2013)

I’m not certain I even know what this means. Rhetorically, though, it’s impressive. In a single sentence, its writers “establish” that we are all of their party and that something exists, because we don’t believe it does.

I won’t pretend to know anything about The Nation, but does a position like this pass for responsible journalism? I’ve surveyed a lot of this kind of writing recently, and it alarms me for more than just the reasons that I (1) don’t believe we do “accept the degradation of women,” (2) don’t believe that rape is “endemic to our culture” any more than it is endemic to the animal kingdom, and (3) do believe the definition of rape is pretty clearly and universally understood.

What the writers mean, I guess, is that rape culture, which they haven’t established exists in the first place, continues to exist, because we unknowingly contribute to its perpetuation by saying and doing things that we are not aware reveal our unconscious hatred of women. You didn’t know you hated women? Well, you do.

We all do, apparently. And shame on us for it.

You see how this rhetoric works. It’s more than just assertive; it’s coercive. A lot of it also betrays patently false reasoning that masks what’s actually propagandist badgering. The source of its outrage is sympathetic; how it expresses that outrage is significantly less so.

Consider this line of argument: “When an instance of sexual assault makes the news and the first questions the media asks [sic]are about the victim’s sobriety, or clothes, or sexuality, we should all be prepared to pivot to ask, instead, what messages the perpetrators received over their lifetime about rape and about ‘being a man.’ Here’s a tip: the right question is not, ‘What was she doing/wearing/saying when she was raped?’ The right question is, ‘What made him think this is acceptable?’”

“During the postwar period of Radical Reconstruction (1867-1877), many white writers argued that without slavery—which supposedly contained their animalistic tendencies—blacks were reverting to criminal savagery. The brute caricature portrayed black men as threatening menaces, fiends, and sociopaths, and as hideous, terrifying predators who targeted helpless victims, especially white women.”

(Note the Freudian slip: “an instance” has “perpetrators,” plural. It’s not for nothing that some have perceived in writing like this the tacit belief that all men are rapists.)

First, how has the postulated “instance of sexual assault” been qualified as such? These writers presume that an incident is an “assault” with a “victim.” The overwhelming likelihood in a case like this is that it is what it appears to be, but it’s not the job of investigators, including journalists, to equate appearances with facts. There are no “right” questions. Some questions may be tactful, some rude or insensitive, some effective at exposing the truth, some less so. The value or “rightness” of a question can only be judged in hindsight, as writers for a news magazine should know.

If all journalists shared these writers’ jaundiced perspective or felt constrained to only ask “appropriate” questions, how many instances of false allegations should we imagine would ever be recognized, let alone sanctioned? I have an interest in false allegations, and the answer to this question disturbs me.

I’ve surveyed studies of the incidence rate of false allegations of rape, and I have no reluctance allowing for argument’s sake that rape is rarely alleged falsely. What I have a problem with is the non-recognition of the harm that’s wrought when rape is alleged falsely—and no one argues that this never happens. The life of an innocent may be destroyed. And we will have destroyed it.

A rape is a fait accompli. Before we know about it, it’s done. Falsely prosecuting someone for rape (or anything else), however, isn’t a case of a bad person doing a bad thing. It’s a case of bringing the full weight and menace of the state to bear on an innocent person. Prosecution is a choice that we are all answerable for.

Although the writers would argue the contrary (and do), society isn’t accountable for the actions of individuals. It is, however, accountable for the actions of its elected officials, agents, and representatives. We are accountable, and we collectively must be guided by a higher moral standard than any one individual. We craft laws and policy, and we have an ethical responsibility to ensure laws and policy are fair and scrupulously applied.

This blog isn’t about rape. But what it is about, restraining order abuse, is a product of the rhetoric exemplified by the article I’ve criticized. Propagandist writing about harassment isn’t what keeps eyes diverted from restraining order injustice, and it isn’t what has spawned the “abuse industry.” Writing about violence against women has.

I could argue that restraining order abuse exists because we don’t believe it does. But it’s more clearly said that it exists because we believe the propaganda—or are too intimidated to scrutinize or take exception to it.

“Rape Culture” and Restraining Order Abuse

January 29, 2014July 1, 2023Moderator 1 Comment

“During the early 1970s, feminists began to engage in consciousness-raising efforts to educate the public about the reality of rape. Until then, rape was rarely discussed or acknowledged: ‘Until the 1970s, most Americans assumed that rape, incest, and wife-beating rarely happened.’ The idea of rape culture was one result of these efforts.”

—Wikipedia, “Rape Culture”

I think I’d heard the phrase rape culture before reading this Wikipedia entry, but I’d never really contemplated its offensiveness. According to this entry, “rape culture is a concept that links rape and sexual violence to the culture of a society…in which prevalent attitudes and practices normalize, excuse, tolerate, and even condone rape.” While I can accept that, prior to the ’70s, people discounted the incidence rates of “rape, incest, and wife-beating,” I find the allegation that Americans as a social collective “excuse, tolerate, and even condone rape” or ever have to be facile and extremist.

I hear weekly if not daily from victims of second-wave feminist rhetoric and the influence it’s exercised over the past 30 years on social perceptions that translate to public policy. Today most Americans assume that the instrument born of 60s and 70s consciousness-raising efforts by equity feminists, the civil restraining order, is rarely abused. This falsehood is promulgated through the unconsciousness-raising efforts of radical feminist usurpers who’ve left proto-feminists like philosopher Christina Hoff Sommers asking, Who Stole Feminism?

Injustice, in the wake of the radical feminist movement, has merely performed an about-face.

Not un-ironically, more than one female respondent to this blog whose life has been trashed by false allegations legitimated through the medium of the restraining order has characterized her treatment by the state as “rape.”

Since it’s been projected that as many as 80% of the two to three million restraining orders issued each year by our courts, instruments that can completely dismantle their targets’ lives and are easily got by fraud, are based on frivolous or false allegations, users of the phrase rape culture—who have unquestionably contributed to the genesis of the “abuse industry”—should assess their own culpability in the manufacture of social injustice.

The Wikipedia entry I’ve cited explains rape culture includes behaviors like “victim-blaming” and “trivializing rape.” Considering that a significant proportion of restraining order abuses may be instances of victim-blaming, that is, of abusers’ (including violent abusers’) inducing the state to harass, humiliate, and drop the hammer on their victims; and considering that this abuse (characterized by some as “rape”) is arguably trivialized by its being categorically ignored or denied, a case arises for the reverse application of the phrase rape culture.

Acknowledging that restraining orders may be motivated by malice and do malice doesn’t somehow trivialize violence against women. I had occasion to talk with a victim of multiple rapes not long ago whose assailants were never held to account for their crimes. I certainly don’t discount either rape’s immediate trauma or the proximal trauma that results when its perpetrator gets off scot-free. Nor do I discount the claim by rape victims that perpetrators too often do walk even when victims are intrepid enough to report them, which may be only a small percentage of the time. Social justice, however, isn’t a zero-sum game played between men and women. Wrong is wrong, whoever its source or target. That’s what equity and equality denote. Since victims of restraining order abuse may be female, moreover, acknowledging the harms done by restraining orders does the opposite of trivializing violence against women. It’s denying that restraining orders are abused and abusive, rather, that trivializes violence against women.

It trivializes people and the value of their lives.

“Clear and Convincing” Evidence: Applying a Standard of Decency to Restraining Order Prosecutions

January 27, 2014July 30, 2023Moderator 3 Comments

“This spring, the Maryland legislature killed a bill that would have brought Maryland’s restraining order policies into line with every other state in the union. Remarkably, in Maryland, a stalking victim seeking help is required to prove her case with ‘clear and convincing’ evidence, a higher standard than ‘preponderance of the evidence,’ which is the universal standard for civil dispute.

“There can be only one reason for this absurd requirement: that the Maryland legislators who voted for the bill…believe that women who testify that they’ve been abused are less credible than men who deny being abusers. That’s not a level playing field, and it’s an absolutely unacceptable attitude for a legislator to hold.”

—Ms. Magazine Blog (May 19, 2010)

It really isn’t an unacceptable attitude.

“Credibility” is not the equivalent of fact. For that matter, requiring substantiation of allegations that can undo a person’s life is hardly unreasonable, let alone “absurd.” What’s absurd is that the author of this blog post assumes that sexism is “the only reason” legislators might find proof to be reasonable standard to apply to restraining order allegations.

Concluding that “‘clear and convincing’ evidence” is an unfair judicial demand betrays a misunderstanding of what fair means.

What the writer’s conclusions also betray are the suppositions that false allegations are never made, that allegations of stalking or domestic violence should be matters of indifference to defendants (no biggie), that restraining orders are only sought by women, and that women are never the victims of false allegations.

Wrong, on all counts.

The Ms. Magazine Blog post features a picture of a woman with bruises on her throat and is titled, “Abused Women in Maryland Aren’t Lying.” There’s little reason to doubt that many women who allege abuses in Maryland aren’t lying. Saying so and posting lurid graphics, however, doesn’t prove that all of them are telling the truth or that all who allege abuses in the future would be. Laws tend to stick around for a while.

Requiring clear and convincing evidence that public accusations are true isn’t absurd; it’s the hallmark of civilization.

The idea that even one perpetrator of violence should escape justice is horrible, but the idea that anyone who’s alleged to have committed a violent offense or act of deviancy should be assumed guilty is far worse.

I don’t fault the writer for her earnestness. I think, rather, that she overestimates what the phrase preponderance of the evidence may signify. Too often in civil prosecutions, this standard may equate to persuasiveness; and false accusers, who may be in the throes of bitter malice or may live for an audience, can be very persuasive…for all the wrong motives. Restraining orders are issued ex parte, which means that in the absence of a standard of proof, anything plaintiffs say during brief interviews with judges is taken at face value and immune from controverting evidence from defendants, who are only inked names on bureaucratic forms. Defendants are excluded from the application process entirely.

No one wants victims’ plaints to go disregarded, but there must be a failsafe in place to protect against false allegations and guarantee a measure of equity. An ex parte ruling is already a prejudicial one.

Expecting less than a standard of clear and convincing evidence is absurd.

J’accuse: On Wikipedia and Restraining Order Abuse

January 26, 2014July 6, 2023Moderator Leave a comment

“Testilying is a portmanteau of testify and lying. Defendants who embellish their own testimony, particularly when no evidence contradicts them, can…be said to be testilying.”

—Wikipedia

I’ve highlighted this coinage because it’s a clever and colorful one. What it’s drawn my attention to is that while Wikipedia, the universal go-to source for information or corroboration, has entries on “Perjury,” “Abuse of process,” “Malicious prosecution,” “False accusation,” “False allegation of child sexual abuse,” “False accusation of rape,” “False evidence,” “Scapegoating,” “Miscarriage of justice,” “Legal abuse,” and “Restraining order,” an entry on restraining order abuse or false allegations on restraining orders is conspicuously absent.

And bump-bump-bum there used to be one.

I’ve resisted joining the conspiracy crowd, because I haven’t frankly detected any intelligence in the administration of restraining orders that would suggest the existence of some sinister, overarching plot. Glad-handing, cronyism, money motives, power mania, and rote automation, yes. Evil ingenuity, no (except in the trenches).

When you perceive a conspicuous absence like this, though, you have to wonder just how nonpartisan and free-ranging Wikipedia really is.

The page that used to be up was discounted as lacking a meritorious basis and not representing a topic of broad social interest (“No indication that this article…covers a notable and/or neutral topic”). It was brief, to be sure, but certainly could have been developed, and my understanding of how Wikipedia works is that pages are fleshed out and refined by the cooperative efforts of various contributors. Since e-How recognizes that restraining order allegations are falsified and offers tutorials on how to combat false restraining orders, move for their vacation and expungement, etc., Wikipedia’s recusancy is curious.

Certainly there are any number of Wikipedia pages devoted to topics of interest to a highly select few. I’m sure I could learn all about the author of some obscure cookbook if I wished. Or a B-movie actress, manga villain, or obsolete gadget.

No topic defies neutral qualification, and since Wikipedia’s own “Restraining order” page recognizes that restraining orders are widely claimed to be misused, and since restraining orders are furthermore issued against millions of people every year across the globe, restraining order abuse can hardly be dismissed as a trivial topic or one unworthy of attention and elucidation. That’s its being disregarded owes to avoidance of a sensitive subject is a more credible explanation.

If Wikipedia has a page on cannibalism—and I’m sure it does—a page devoted to restraining order abuse is palpably overdue.

“Fag,” “Stalker,” “Sicko,” “Brute,” “Creep”: On Labeling and the Psychic Effects of Public Revilement in and out of Court

January 23, 2014January 24, 2018Moderator Leave a comment

One of my favorite puzzles when I was a boy directed the solver to figure out what was different between almost identical pictures. I think it appeared in Highlights for Children. I have a collection of Highlights someplace, because I meant to write for kids and used to study and practice children’s writing daily, but I haven’t looked at them in years.

I’m reminded of this, because, as you might have discerned, one among the epithets in this post’s title is distinct from the others: fag.

When I was growing up, I knew a very simple boy who was singled out at an early age—nine or thereabouts—and routinely ridiculed by the “cool” boys at school. Some girls occasionally joined in, too, albeit half-heartedly, to curry favor with boys they wanted to like them. “Fag!” or “Faggot!” was a favored insult among schoolboys. No other had anything close to its heft as a term of contempt to pierce a man-child to the bone.

The boy I’m recalling happened to be Polish, and Polack was a competing term of derision that might have conveniently been used to hurt him. It didn’t rouse nearly as much pack frenzy, though. His name started with F, besides, so its pairing with fag was poetic kismet. “Fag!” followed this boy from grade to grade like a toxic echo. It was how he was greeted, and he would sometimes mince, affect limp wrists, and swipe at the other boys, because it amused them and won him attention and the closest thing to membership he could hope for.

The boy wasn’t gay; he was just easy meat to sate the bloodlust of cruel kids.

The last time I saw him was when I was a young adult. He was panhandling outside of a drugstore for diaper money. He’d apparently gotten a girl pregnant right out of high school to prove his virility. The abuses to which he’d been relentlessly subjected determined the arc of his life.

I relate this story in the context of restraining order abuse to highlight the grave effects of public humiliation and revilement. Labeling of this sort isn’t just tormenting and alienating but destructive. It corrupts the mind, silently and sinuously. It confounds ambitions, erodes trust, and hobbles lives.

Victims of false allegations made on restraining orders may be labeled “stalker,” “batterer,” “sicko,” “sexual harasser,” “child-abuser,” “whore,” or even “rapist”—publicly and permanently—by accusers whose sole motive is to brutalize. And agents of these victims’ own government(s) arbitrarily authorize this bullying and may baselessly and basely participate in it, compounding the injury exponentially.

I’ve been contacted by people who’ve either been explicitly or implicitly branded with one or several of these labels. Falsely and maliciously. I’ve been branded with more than one myself, and these epithets have been repeatedly used with and among people I don’t even know. For many years. Even at one of my former places of work. And there’s f* all I can do about it, legally.

Labels like these, even when perceived as false by judges, aren’t scrupulously scrubbed away. Resisting them, furthermore, simply invites the application of more of the same. Judges’ turning a blind eye to them, what’s more than that, authorizes their continuously being used with impunity, as the boys in the story I shared used the word fag. Victims of false allegations report being in therapy, being on meds for psychological disturbances like depression and insomnia, leaving or losing jobs—sometimes serially—and entertaining homicidal thoughts and even acting on suicidal ones.

No standard of proof is applied to labels scribbled or check-marked on restraining orders, which to malicious accusers are the documentary equivalents of toilet stalls begging for graffiti.

That the courts may only enable bullying, taunting, and humiliation is no defense, nor is “policy.” Adding muscle to malice is hardly blameless. Anyone occupying a position of public trust who abets this kind of brutality, actively or passively, knowingly or carelessly, should be removed, whether a judge, a police officer, or other government official, agent, or employee.

This hateful misconduct is bad enough when it originates on the playground.

“Why Fix It If It Ain’t Broke?”: On Restraining Order Injustice and the Authority of Usage

January 20, 2014August 21, 2023Moderator Leave a comment

“The greatest absurdities in the world become correct, as soon as they have got Usage fully on their side, just as the worst usurper becomes legitimate, as soon as he is completely established on the throne.”

—Esaias Tegner (1874)

The author of the epigraph, a Swede who popularized linguistic research, was talking about language, but his denunciation is broadly applicable. He deplored that standards of reason and rectitude are easily corrupted when “anything goes” becomes the norm.

He despairingly observed, in other words, that when absurdity becomes customary, it’s accepted without question.

The inanities inherent in the administration of civil restraining orders persist, because the process has enjoyed a 30-year reign virtually uncontested. Those most qualified to protest its inequities and inadequacies are seldom its victims, so their protests (few and far between) have accomplished little toward motivating reform, and those victimized by the process are seldom sufficiently educated in the law or spiritually equipped to defy their lot.

Popularity and rootedness have replaced decency and propriety as the gauges of worthiness, and the authorities who should most be outraged by this misrule have mostly kept mum.

Estimable jurists (legal experts) shouldn’t be contented with the dismissal, “Why fix it if it ain’t broke?” The restraining order process is broke, in more ways than one. It’s not only broken; it’s morally bankrupt, besides.

Elaine Epstein, former president of the Massachusetts Bar Association, acknowledged two decades ago that restraining orders are “granted to virtually all who apply.” Echoes of her critical candor from peers in the legal community have been markedly few, however, during the years since. Disdainful remarks by respected attorneys about how restraining orders are abused, such as those by Terri Weiss in her blog From Bedroom to Courtroom, may appear as asides in treatments of other topics, but seldom are restraining orders categorically denounced at length.

Eminent legal scholars are more likely to parse and weigh in on legal niceties of interest to the highest courts in the land, because such opinions are excellent fodder for curricula vitae (academic résumés). Meanwhile gross abuses of everyday processes that victimize citizens on an epidemic scale go disregarded. Too mundane, wot, wot. In reality, bucking the status quo by observing the obvious isn’t impressive or likely to enhance one’s popular (and thus professional) regard and credibility.

It would, however, promise to do a lot more social good.

Diving into the Shallow End: What It Takes to Disprove and Recover Damages for a Restraining Order Based on Fraud

January 19, 2014July 9, 2023Moderator Leave a comment

Many restraining order recipients are brought to this site wondering how to recover damages for false allegations and the torments and losses that result from them. Not only is perjury (lying to the court) never prosecuted; it’s never explicitly acknowledged. The question arises whether false accusers ever get their just deserts.

It turns out it does happen sometimes. Or has at least once. Kinda.

A news story I came across the other day exemplifies how extreme false allegations must be, how vigorously they must be confuted, and how prominently their victim must stand out from the crowd for a judge to sit up and take notice.

The story concerned a woman’s being ordered to pay her former boyfriend over $55,000 after she “falsely accused him of raping and brutalizing her…during a child-custody dispute.” She had applied for a permanent restraining order against him alleging that he “perpetrated a horrific physical attack.” Her specific allegations to the police and court were that he “knocked her unconscious,” “dragged her in the house,” “sexually assaulted her,” and “burned her with matches and committed other violence.”

The boyfriend was arrested and held without bail for three months before a judge dismissed the charges. To regain his liberty, the man had to hire (besides an attorney, of course) a private investigator, who turned up “10 witnesses who were ready to testify that they saw [him] in other locations at the time of the alleged attack.”

According to his lawyer, he would otherwise have “faced the possibility of five life sentences in prison as a result of [his girlfriend’s] criminal complaint.” The money he was awarded was for legal and travel expenses. Although the lawyer informed the district attorney’s office that she had evidence the girlfriend had committed perjury, the woman wasn’t prosecuted. She had accused her boyfriend of breaking her shoulder during his alleged assault, but, the lawyer said, “her medical records reveal that she broke her shoulder diving into the shallow end of a swimming pool.”

The news story goes on to report that the boyfriend was pursuing a malicious prosecution lawsuit against his accuser, with whom he shares a son, alleging false imprisonment, abuse of process, and infliction of emotional distress.

While the recognition this man received for his suffering may surprise readers who’ve also been victimized by false allegations only to be subjected to further ridicule and disparagement from the court for resisting a bum rap, the fact that this rare recipient of quasi-justice is the senior vice president of a bank won’t be surprising at all.

Restraining Orders Aren’t FOR Their Applicants but AGAINST Their Recipients: On the Gravity of Civil Injunctions

January 18, 2014June 21, 2023Moderator Leave a comment

A couple of recent female respondents to this blog have evinced a misconception about what restraining orders are and how sternly they’re enforced, and my suspicion is this misunderstanding is prevalent and may account for much of the incredulity expressed by the general public when they hear restraining orders are abused or sought for malicious ends.

Restraining orders, which are casually issued by the court, are popularly understood as harmless instruments, that is, ones merely intended to check their recipients’ conduct and only serious if not taken seriously. Plaintiffs may even have the impression that restraining orders are simply warnings issued by authorities to make someone (a boyfriend, for example) clean up his act and that, according to their applicants’ discretion, may be disregarded.

Wrong.

Civil injunctions aren’t warnings; they’re orders of the court. If violated, even by the express invitation of their plaintiffs—and if the search terms that bring people to this blog are any indication (and they are), this happens more than anyone cares to acknowledge—the consequences to their defendants may be extreme, including months of incarceration, loss of employment, and all of the possible ramifications (physical, psychological, and material) that attend both. Police won’t inquire whether renewed relations between a plaintiff and a defendant were consensual, nor will they care. They’ll just slap the cuffs on, and the situation isn’t one that an ill-informed plaintiff can simply “clear up.” It’s out of his or her hands. It’s sufficient, furthermore, for an officer to reasonably believe a violation has occurred. No report by the plaintiff is required to authorize an arrest.

The popular conception of restraining orders as “advisories” that are meant to temporarily put someone on notice is mistaken. Restraining orders are public records that never cease to be public records; may be grounds for dismissal from jobs, as well as impediments to future employment; may be recorded in public registries; and provide authorities with grounds to summarily arrest their defendants and possibly incarcerate them for a considerable period.

Here you see the perceptual schism between what may seem to many applicants (and most disinterested citizens) to be simple expedients to attain relief from a nuisance and what are actually very draconian instruments easily and potently abused by unscrupulous plaintiffs. Restraining orders aren’t color-coded according to “threat level.” They’re generic documents. The average person may genuinely fail to recognize that the measure that stops someone from sending tedious letters is the same one that may strip a defendant of his or her home, children, money, property, and livelihood—very possibly on fraudulent grounds.

The latter scenario, it’s believed, only occurs when real and urgent circumstances exist to justify it, real and urgent circumstances that are diligently ascertained by the courts. Irrespective of the allegations made or the purpose indicated by a plaintiff, in fact, restraining orders are issued based on cursory interviews that require no evidence at all. And they’re as easily and conveniently obtained by the malicious as they are by the earnest—indeed more easily, because malicious accusers are indifferent to lying.

Though it may be the case that restraining orders are perceived as in-structive, they may well be de-structive. Sometimes destruction is the motive of their applicants, but this result occurs even when it’s unintended.

Turning the Tables: Avoiding Service of a Restraining Order and Applying for One Yourself

January 14, 2014August 21, 2023Moderator Leave a comment

I’ve been asked a few times whether avoiding service of a restraining order was advisable, and I’ve recommended that defendants appeal rather than go off the grid. I’m not an attorney, and I don’t strictly know what consequences might befall a defendant who ducked the law and then got caught. To the best of my limited knowledge, s/he’d be subject to arrest. The story that follows, therefore, is posted strictly FYI, and is not intended nor should be construed as advice, legal or otherwise. Its facts, furthermore, may not apply universally, as laws that govern the administration of restraining orders differ from state to state.

I was contacted by a woman a few months ago who was issued a false restraining order sought by a vindictive and parasitic man who meant to use the system to hurt her. She happened to be out of town and timed her return to coincide with the order’s expiration for non-service. (Restraining orders must be served within a specified period, for example, 45 days. If this term elapses, the restraining order is voided, and its applicant must return to the courthouse and start the process over.) This cagey woman actually called the police, explained the situation, and inquired how long they had to serve her. She didn’t hide from them; she simply remained unavailable for that period. Upon her return, she applied for a restraining order against her false accuser…and got it.

While it’s the official position of this ever probative writer that she should be ashamed of herself, some reprobate scofflaws might chalk one up for poetic justice.

“Can I Get a Restraining Order against the Same Person Who Got One on Me?”

January 12, 2014August 21, 2023Moderator 2 Comments

The answer to this question is yes, which doesn’t mean the answer is a simple yes. Laws, which vary from state to state, may disallow mutual orders. What mutual means is that both parties’ restraining orders would issue under the same case number. Even though mutual orders may be prohibited in your state, provisions exist enabling you to obtain a restraining order against your accuser under a separate petition (that is, a separate action with a different case number).

This applies irrespective of whether your state refers to the instrument you seek as a “protection order,” “injunction against harassment,” “peace order,” etc.

Cross-petitioners who meet with resistance must be assertive. More than one resident of Illinois, for example, has reported having to really put his foot down to be afforded consideration by the court (consult the cited statute below to see why). If you’ve been wrongly accused by the actual harasser, abuser, stalker, or “dangerous party” in a relationship, you must make it clear in bald and urgent terms that that party is out to ruin you and that you daily fear for your safety.

Statutory specifics relevant to mutual orders are listed below state by state. This chart, reduced to fit the strictures of this space, was assembled by the American Bar Association in 2009 and can be found here in its original size as a downloadable PDF.

The Court Isn’t against You, It Just Doesn’t Understand You: On Why Restraining Order Defenses often Fail

January 10, 2014August 21, 2023Moderator Leave a comment

Eight years ago, I was a curmudgeon working on a manuscript of humor for kids. I had appeared for jury duty before but was sent home, because the cases were dismissed or settled out of court. The only time I’d ever sat in on a trial—either out of curiosity or because a professor I had recommended I do it—the bailiff banished me, because I was wearing shorts. He invited me to return if I found some pants.

I couldn’t have told you anything about how the justice system works. I have, however, learned a good deal about it since. Mostly involuntarily.

A judge I appeared before last spring memorably remarked to me, “Pretend I don’t know anything.” I didn’t appreciate that he was in earnest. What I appreciate now is that everyone who appears before a judge should always assume the judge knows nothing.

I don’t mean this critically but practically. Judges may know a lot, but the way trials proceed is by each side’s informing the judge of what s/he should know. When lawyers cite legal cases, they’re not just reminding judges; they’re cluing them in to rulings they may well have no familiarity with whatever.

What this means is that it’s insufficient to tell the truth and expect a judge to perceive what action s/he should take. Judges are moved by argument, not facts alone. Put simply, judges should be told how they should rule, and this is what attorneys do. Attorneys don’t always do this because they believe they’re right or even because they anticipate the judge will agree with them. They hurl theories and arguments hoping one will hit home.

Law isn’t about what it should be about: right and wrong, truth and falsity. Law is about persuasion, even domination. I’ve been involved in two superior court actions now. Both times I was astonished by the dictatorial tone of the attorney I opposed. More astonishing to me was that the attorney was never rebuked for his demands but more often than not bowed to.

It’s unlikely that judges will be as obsequious toward non-attorneys, but the self-represented should nevertheless take care to spell out how they think the judge should act and not leave that to interpretation.

Litigants who aren’t attorneys must take care not to come on too strong, because judicial impulse may be to kneecap them for their impudence. It’s a difficult balancing act, but as anyone who’s been wronged by a miscarriage of justice will tell you, the reason his or her opponent “prevailed” had little or nothing to do with truth or reason.

What restraining order plaintiffs seek is understood going in. They don’t have to clarify their expectations. Defendants do: dismissal. And the grounds for dismissal must be argued, not simply articulated, especially if defendants are responding to false allegations, because judges won’t understand that the motives for a restraining order may be completely fraudulent or that the whole thing may be an elaborate and malicious hoax.

Self-represented litigants should be polite but direct and insistent. They shouldn’t, that is, be afraid of playing the legal game, which isn’t a duel of contrasting facts but a Sumo match that terminates with one side’s moving the judge to assume his or her perspective.

If You’re not Part of the Solution, You’re Part of the Problem: On Why Restraining Order Abuses Have Persisted for So Long and How to Do Something about It

January 10, 2014August 21, 2023Moderator Leave a comment

“Men are bastards!”

“Women are cun[ning]!”

I could end this editorial here, and I would have summed up the problem, which originates with hearts but owes its infinitude to different organs entirely.

Predictably, since most restraining orders are sought against a member of the opposite sex, online forums about dirty divorces, domestic abuse, treacherous lovers, vengeful exes, predatory or parasitic whackjobs, etc. often boil down to cross-gender sniping and “team camaraderie.” Women just want to be pissed with men and bitch about them with other women, and men just want to be pissed with women and bitch about them with other men.

Both genders have limitless potential to suck; sex is beside the point.

Those who profit politically and monetarily by the misery inflicted through court processes that are easily abused by the “morally unencumbered” love all this conflict and misdirected rage, which only ensure that these corrupt processes continue to thrive.

They’ve already hummed along without a hitch for over 30 years. In fact, they’ve gained momentum, despite reasoned and articulately critical pans from distinguished members of the legal, journalistic, academic/philosophic, and public policy communities.

Not only does cross-gender bitching by victims of state abuses distract from the actual source of the problem, which is bad laws; it makes those victims sound like the cranks and nuts everyone else is glad to assume they are.

True, the person who betrayed you and lied about you should be subjected to medieval punishment. True, the judge you got may be worthy of the same for his or her cruelty or carelessness or cluelessness. But…the reason either was entitled to abuse and humiliate, rob and defame you was THE LAW.

Except for the statutes that authorized your injuries, those injuries wouldn’t have been possible.

Passive aggression isn’t going to accomplish anything. I can’t imagine venting even makes anyone feel better for very long.

Aggressive aggression holds a lot more promise. If you’ve been wronged, tell your story, and tell it in a way that will count. Sign a petition and add a comment about your own circumstances. You don’t even have to expose your name. Sign several and tweet them, too (a few are below). Start a petition of your own. Tweet that also and post it here. Start a Facebook page. Connect and consolidate forces.

STOP FALSE ALLEGATIONS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

THE SUPREME COURT: FEATHER FOR THE FALSELY ACCUSED

RESTRAINING ORDER LAWS ARE DANGEROUS AND UNFAIR TO MEN

This may seem unthinkable to you, especially if your wounds are fresh, but appreciate that the impulse to conceal shame only potentiates that shame. If you’ve been wronged, the shame isn’t yours. Re-channel your emotions in constructive ways. You’re not alone.

No one wants to do this. No one should have to. I wanted to write humor for kids. Though not a big dream, it contented me, and I think I would have been successful at it by now and that other doors would have opened. I was dragged from my interior world and away from the life I might have enjoyed. Not only am I not a political person; I don’t even like board games.

I do, though, hate bullies, especially ones with gangs behind them.

Recognize that the ringleader of the gang that assaulted you isn’t that petty lowlife you mistakenly invested your trust in; he’s an invisible man who’s represented in posters wearing red, white, and blue, and his gang is everybody.

The only way you can beat him and attain some satisfaction is by taking away his gang and making it yours.

TALKING BACK to restraining orders

THEY’RE NOT JUST ABUSED BUT ABUSIVE

Tag protection orders