'Nothing is too private for the eyes and ears of the court'
Dusty
Glenn Sacks
Baskerville: In Family Law, 'Nothing is too private for the eyes and ears of
the court'
July 18, 2008
Taken Into Custody by Stephen Baskerville, Ph.D. examines one of the
greatest and most destructive civil rights abuses in America today--our
family law system.
In the Taken Into Custody excerpt below, Baskerville discusses the
extraordinary powers family courts have to reach into the deepest and most
private areas of parents' lives. Baskerville writes:
No one realizes it can happen until it happens to him. A man comes home
one day to find his house empty. On the table is a note from his wife saying
she has taken the children to live with her sister or parents or boyfriend,
or to a "battered women's shelter."
Soon after comes a knock on the door. He is summoned to appear under an
"emergency" motion to a family court within a few hours. In a hearing that
lasts a few minutes his children are legally removed from his care and
protection, his right to make decisions about them is abrogated, and he is
ordered to stay away from them most or all of the time.
He is also ordered to begin making child-support payments, an order is
entered to garnish his wages, and his name is placed on a federal government
data base for monitoring "delinquents." If he tries to see his children
outside the authorized time, or fails to make the payments, he can be
arrested.
The man may be accused of domestic violence or child sexual abuse, in
which case there may be no hearing at all or he is not notified of it, but
the police will simply come to his door and order him to leave his home
within hours, or even minutes, even if no evidence has been presented
against him. Without being formally charged, he will not be allowed to see
his children at all or perhaps only with a supervisor present or at a
visitation center where he and his children will be observed and for which
he will pay an hourly fee.
The man may also be ordered to pay alimony and the fees of lawyers he has
not hired and threatened with arrest if he refuses or is unable.
The state seizes his children with no burden of proof to justify why. The
burden of proof is on the father to demonstrate why they should be returned.
When he goes to "trial" the most private corners of his and his children's
lives will be scrutinized with an intensity that attorney Jed Abraham
characterizes as an "interrogation."
He will be asked if he loves his children, how much does he love them,
does he kiss them, where does he kiss them, what does he say to them, what
does he do with them, what does he feed them, how does he bathe them, where
does he take them, why does he take them there, why doesn't he take them
here, why did he buy this, why didn't he buy that. Nothing is too private
for the eyes and ears of the court.
Baskerville, author of many articles on fatherhood and family issues and a
frequent media commentator, is assistant professor of government at Patrick
Henry College and an Earhart Fellow at the Howard Center for Family,
Religion, and Society.
DB
"Dusty" <no....@home.org> wrote in
> No one realizes it can happen until it happens to him. A man comes home
> one day to find his house empty. On the table is a note from his wife
> saying she has taken the children to live with her sister or parents or
> boyfriend, or to a "battered women's shelter."
We all hear these horror stories but always assume it will never happen to
us and take no action.
Imagine the reaction if people were told that the government would have
direct control over their lives if they did not pay up a $320,000 government
debt tax?