California Court Puts 58,000 Children in Harms Way

Scandal Illuminates Troubled Family Court System

By Byron Williams

The family court system has, in theory, operated on the question, "What is in the best interests of the child?"

But the findings articulated at a one-day workshop hosted by Alameda County Supervisor Gail Steele and the Center for Judicial Excellence suggest that question is more theory than practice.

If the statistics are accurate, the frequency with which children are allowed to have unsupervised contact with physically or sexually abusive parents after divorce in this country is alarming and worthy of the public’s attention.

According to the Center for Judicial Excellence, "Not since the Catholic Church pedophile scandal has the United States seen this level of institutional collusion and corruption harming innocent children."

This may sound like hyperbole, but the comparison holds if, in fact, most family court professionals know the system is broken and are allowing the most vulnerable members of society to potentially suffer lifelong consequences.

It is indeed a broken system that allows 58,000 children each year to be placed in harm’s way simply because the abusive parent also possesses the resources to hire a bevy of professionals who plead his/her case to judges, mediators and other family-law professionals.

Heavy caseloads, bad judges and unqualified mediators, who evaluate families sometimes based on no more than a one-hour meeting, can add up to decisions that permanently

affect families.

As one parent shared with me, "I wouldn’t believe my own story if I didn’t live through it. We trust the courts to do the right thing, but it’s just not that simple."

Those who are not directly involved trust the system to work — but there was a consistent message at the workshop that it does not work, and children are paying the price.

Are these simply the musing of parents and attorneys who did not get their way? No, there is more than enough data to suggest there is a problem that warrants investigation. The primary charge finds that many judges, for reasons ranging from being overworked to becoming jaded by the system, have placed an inordinate reliance on court appointees such as mediators, evaluators, investigators, and minors’ counsel, who may or may not act in the best interest of the children.

This has created a scenario whereby individuals who have no understanding of the law often sway the individual who is appointed to administer justice.

Steele also cites a level of dishonesty that she states is pervasive throughout the system. "It’s not just mediators but social workers who are not telling the truth," she said.

The workshop featured experts in the field and parents sharing their gut-wrenching, first-hand testimony and offering solutions to the problem-plagued system in California.

State Sen. Mark Leno and other members of the Legislature are calling for an audit that will evaluate the magnitude of the concerns expressed over a number of years.

A number of participants also made it clear the problems they cite are not emblematic of the whole, maintaining there are indeed a number of good judges within the system. But there are enough bad ones who are not held accountable, causing the system dysfunction.

Steele should be commended for her willingness to bring attention to an issue that has flown under the radar for years. Investigation is long overdue.

Byron Williams has served as pastor of the Resurrection Community Church in Oakland since 2002. As the only pastor/syndicated columnist in the country, Williams writes a column which appears in 10 publications and several progressive web sites across the country.

Posted on June 15, 2009

Motherhood: Don’t Replace Her

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Consequences

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An Incredible story of survival of a young women who was abused by the Family Courts

42 Filipino women and children killed in Australia by male partners since 1980

Teresita Andalis was murdered August 10, 1980.
Carmelita Lee was murdered on January 21, 1984.
Pauline Kelly was killed on December 23, 1986.
Nenita Evans disappeared on January 8, 1987.
Azucena ‘Asing’ Pollard and her son Harry jnr. disappeared sometime between January 8 and June 4, 1987.
Nenita Westhof was murdered on February 18, 1987; 9 days later her ex-husband was also murdered.
Rowena Sokol 17-years-old, was killed on February 23, 1987.
Lusanta de Groot and baby 1987, Lusanta survived; her baby died.
Bibiana Doria Singh was last seen in 1987.
Socorro North and her child were last seen in 1987.
Jean Strachan Keir was murdered on February 9 or 10, 1988
Bella Rodriguez Elmore was murdered on March 16, 1988.
Nanette Villani found dead in June 1989.
Generosa Bongcodin was killed on July 9, 1989.
Julietta Apacway Herring was murdered on November 25, 1989.
Milagros ‘Mila’ Dark found dead on February 17, 1990.
Eve Roweth found dead in March 1991.
Rosalina Canonizado found dead on April 13, 1991.
Teresita Matan Garrott and Normita Barrios Garrott died on May 1, 1991.
Pia Navida found dead in 1991.
Marylou Orton found dead on March 13, 1992.
Milagros ‘Mila’ Bordador Wills was murdered on April 3, 1993.
Elizabeth Mary Haynes and Yohana Rodriguez 5 and 12-years-old, were killed on April 24, 1993.
Elma Albarracin Young was killed on February 20, 1994.
Priscilla Squires died on November 29, 1995.
Susan Dimatulae Pecson was murdered on September 26, 1996.
Annabel Sabellano Strzelecki is missing since June 6, 1998.
Marie Ann Stanton was murdered on March 11, 1999.
Ruth Amores Butay was killed on June 23, 2000.
Loiva Gonzales, her husband and her 18-year-old daughter, Clodine, were murdered on July 10, 2001.
Jarrod, Ryan and Ashley Fraser 4, 5 and 7-years-old were murdered between 18-20 August, 2001.
Virginia Abad Frost was killed on February 16, 2004.
Flordeliza (Flora) O’Connor was killed on 7 July 2007.
Luvina Dayang was killed on 11 or 12 December 2007.

Domestic Violence

Shining a light into the murky depths of partner violence

• Katie Dunlop
• March 20, 2009

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DOMESTIC violence, family violence, violence against women, intimate partner violence: we definitely have a range of phrases for the abuse men inflict on women and children within what ought to be relationships of trust and love.

Pity we don’t use them to describe the murders we often see on our front pages — the kids driven into the dam or gassed in the car, the wife or girlfriend stabbed in her kitchen, thrown off a cliff or shot in scrubland. Aberrations? Love gone wrong? No. These instances of violence are just the tip of the iceberg. Intimate partner violence (IPV) is everywhere, even if you don’t know it.

It seems the subject of IPV is taboo, so those who experience it assume the abuse is their problem and not the social and public health issue it really is. We need to start talking about IPV and we need to do it now.

I have long known that relationships could be abusive, but it had never occurred to me that IPV was a common experience for so many Australian women. More than a third of Australian women who have had a boyfriend or husband experience abuse. Most shockingly, IPV is the leading contributor to death, disability and illness in women aged between 15 and 44.

Since I began working with women who have experienced abuse, the reality of IPV has become even starker. Rather than numbers on a page, these are real women with faces and histories. Each of them has a unique but common story: of living with control, fear and abuse, and courageously doing all they can to look after themselves and their children who, as IPV witnesses and victims, also suffer devastating effects.

If you are surprised at the extent of IPV, you are not alone. Our awareness of IPV in Australia is very poor. According to a recent Victorian study, many think that women abuse their partners as much as men (false: men are the perpetrators 98 per cent of the time) or that IPV is excusable if it represents a “temporary loss of control”, or if the abuser subsequently apologises (false: many IPV incidents, especially murders, are premeditated).

How can we work together to solve a national crisis if a significant portion of the nation is unaware of the crisis in the first place?

In an atmosphere where IPV is shrouded in silence and myth, asking for help involves the risk of being judged or misunderstood. We must aim for a society in which women can ask for help, secure in the knowledge they will be supported and respected.

Being equipped with the information and ability to talk about IPV also allows us to recognise and respond to the signs of abuse in our own relationships and in those of our friends and family.

By transforming our silence — which implicitly accepts and condones IPV — into a loud and clear conversation, we create a society where IPV has few places to hide. We create a society that expresses zero tolerance for violence against women. The reality is that the creation of this type of society is within our capacity.

Often the media contribute to the silence on IPV by failing to discuss it constructively or not discussing it at all. Rather than leaving us at an impasse, this points us to a valuable opportunity. Imagine the possibilities for socially responsible reporting that would arise out of a collaborative relationship between IPV experts, survivors and volunteers and journalists.

The IPV service community should provide journalists with training on IPV issues and support the media’s coverage of IPV incidents. It should offer information about IPV, advice on sensitive and educational reporting, and the opportunity for journalists to personalise each story by drawing on the perspectives of IPV survivors.

Media collectives of this type would help smash the silence on intimate partner violence by ensuring that, where it is present in the fabric of society, IPV is also present on the pages of our newspapers.

This is one small idea, one small step, but one that might make us a bit more aware of IPV and with that, a bit more eager to act on a phenomenon that is destroying the hearts and bodies of so many Australian women and children. No idea is a silver bullet: solutions happen when small ideas act in concert. If we take this idea of IPV media collectives, add some national, ongoing, school-based healthy relationships education and opportunities for adults to engage with the issue of IPV in a constructive and personal way, I have great faith that we will be taking our first steps in a society where IPV is taken out of the hiding place that to date has afforded it protection.

Katie Dunlop is an outreach worker with the Eastern Domestic Violence Crisis Service and is a contributing author of The Future by Us, published this week by Hardie Grant.

If you are experiencing abuse, the Women’s Domestic Violence Crisis Service is a 24 hour/7 days a week telephone service providing support, information and accommodation. Call 9373 0123, or Country toll free 1800 015 188.

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/shining-a-light-into-the-murky-depths-of-partner-violence-20090319-937y.html?page=-1

Anonymums Message To The Family Court and Fathers Lobby Groups

Hello Family Courts and father lobby groups.
We have been monitoring your alliances, your views promoting pedophilia within your laws,

the destruction of motherhood, the suppression of children and their mothers. We are aware

of the children and women that are killed because you ordered it.

We are aware of the parents who are treated like criminals because you were negligent in

protecting them. We know of the lies you spout everytime the media catches a child killed by

a court order. With the help of your underpaid court staff, we have been able to monitor

your actions closely.

We know of the innocent mothers laying in jail cells because they were against child abuse.

Your malevolent actions for the sake of profit will not go unnoticed. Anonymums has

decided that your organization must be destroyed. For the best interests of the children, for

the good of mothers, fathers and grandparents and for the rest of the community. We shall

expel you from funding and systematically dismantle your powers until your organization

ceases to function. We acknowledge you as a serious opponent.

Your methods, hypocrisy and exploitation will be circulated widely.
You cannot hide as we are everywhere internally and externally.
Like that of anonymous, we are indestructible but we are of our own origin, ideas and

directions.

No doubt you will attempt to suppress and distort our intentions, but the evidence we hold is

beyond your power. We are above your law and adhere to human rights of which you are

violating. We hold you in contempt for every life you order as cheap.

The lives of women and children are not yours to own, nor control.
Silence is control
Control is for the unintelligent.
That is why we are beyond you…
We are anonymums

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Domestic Dispute Miami 5 Dead

Domestic dispute in US leaves five deadMarch 16, 2009, 6:43 am

A man barged into a birthday party in a Cuban neighbourhood of Miami early on Sunday, shot dead his estranged wife and three others, then went home, set his truck and house on fire and killed himself, police said.
Witnesses described a chaotic scene that started when the man showed up uninvited at the party and told about a dozen people there he blamed them for his wife leaving him, said homicide detective Ervens Ford.
Then he opened fire. Some took cover while others, including a pregnant woman, ran into the street.
“It was chaotic,” Ford said. “I can’t imagine what it was like in there.”
The man also killed his 51-year-old wife’s mother and daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend, whose birthday they were celebrating, Ford said.
Police did not release the victims’ names because other family members had not been notified. They said the man and his wife were married about four years and they were not sure when she left him.
Officers got a call shortly after midnight that numerous shots had been fired and a red pickup truck had been spotted leaving the scene.
Juan Sosa, who lives a block away, was out walking his dog early on Sunday when he heard two shots and saw people running toward him, screaming. Then he heard as many as two dozen more shots and ducked behind a large tree to call
police.
“I didn’t want to get hit,” he said.
Soon after, someone called police to say a building about 5km away was on fire and more shots had been fired. That’s where officials found the alleged gunman dead. Ford said the man set fire to both his truck and the building he lived in before shooting himself.
Janseen Almodovar, who lives across the street, rushed outside when he heard people screaming and honking. He said the entire building and a truck out front were in flames.
“We thought the truck was going to blow up,” Almodovar said.
Panicked neighbours were not sure if anyone was
inside the one-storey ivory stucco building, but they could not knock because the fire was so intense.
Landlord Abel Loredo, who owns the building where the alleged gunman shot himself, said the man had lived there for five years and had always been on time with the rent for his one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment.
Loredo declined to identify the man but said he had moved from Cuba about a decade ago and seemed very nice. The man was a cook at a restaurant in nearby Little Havana for a time before becoming an electrician a few years ago.
Neighbours said there had never been any problems with police and the man and his wife were often seen in their yard barbecuing. Loredo said the man’s wife and her son had lived with him at some point, but he did not know if they were still living there.
Sosa, who lives in the quiet neighbourhood where the family gathering took place, said about 20 people ran into the street after the shots were fired. The last person he saw was a limping man who got into a red pickup truck and sped away without turning his lights on.

Stepfather Central Coast NSW

Stepfather jailed over girl’s murderMarch 16, 2009, 4:29 pm

In 2005, a worried neighbour made a triple-0 call saying: “He’s got a little girl in there about three, and she has been screaming for over half an hour.
“I can’t understand what he’s doing to the little child, and he keeps screaming ‘get up, get up’,” the caller continued.
When emergency workers arrived at the blood-stained NSW Central Coast house late on October 29, they found a three-year-old girl dead on the floor. She had been brutally beaten.
As workers tried to revive the infant, her drunk stepfather was berating her nine-year-old sibling, saying: “What did you do to her, what did you do to your sister?”
Despite the stepfather’s contention that the older child must have been the culprit, a NSW Supreme Court jury last November found the now 33-year-old guilty of the horrific murder.
On Friday, Acting Justice Jane Mathews jailed him for at least 20 years, setting a maximum term of 26 years.
The victim’s injuries were too numerous to quantify and resulted in hundreds of bruises on her body and severe haemorrhaging into her brain.
“… one can barely contemplate the horror she must have experienced when the person who was charged with keeping her from harm and protecting her from violence turned on her and inflicted extreme violence over a sustained period,” the judge said.
On the afternoon of October 29, the stepfather had been drinking and after arguing with the mother of the girls, she arranged to stay at a local refuge for the night.
The sisters were alone with him and the oldest was twice sent to a neighbour’s to ask for beer and cigarettes for him.
In her evidence, the woman who made the triple-0 call said: “I heard a lot of banging going on, like the walls were being broken and a lot of crockery being thrown around.”
The stepfather later went to another neighbour’s home, asking for the police and ambulance to be called as his daughter was not breathing.
They found the little girl lying on her back on the kitchen floor, while her older sister was kneeling over her crying.
When told the infant was dead, the stepfather became particularly upset and aggressive, punching the side of the house, and saying to the older girl: “Go on, tell them what you did.”
Justice Mathews referred to photos showing considerable damage to walls and doors, and bloodstains in various parts of the house.
The surviving stepdaughter denied any involvement in the killing.
The judge noted the man’s relationships had been marked by domestic violence, exacerbated by his use of alcohol and cannabis.
He has continued to assert his innocence of the murder.
“I think it is highly possible that the offender was in such an advanced state of intoxication that he had no precise memory of these events,” the judge said.
While he had frequently expressed grief over the death, he had expressed “no remorse whatsoever”.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/5393997/stepfather-jailed-girls-murder/

Relationship Break up Prompts Murder

Accused killer ‘asked for car, clothes’

February 19, 2009, 12:35 pm

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A man accused of gunning down his one-time girlfriend asked a friend for fresh clothes and a loan of a car after the shooting, a Melbourne court has been told.

Leigh Robinson, 60, of Pearcedale, has been charged with murdering 33-year-old mother of two Tracey Greenbury on April 28 last year.

The court earlier heard Ms Greenbury huddled in fear on a neighbour’s doorstep as the accused pointed a gun at her.

Ms Greenbury fell into the Frankston house and crawled along the floor as the door was opened, but died after she was shot by the man in the doorway.

Robinson’s committal hearing on Thursday was told he had called his friend of over 20 years, William Paterson, and told him there had been a shooting.

Mr Paterson said Robinson asked to borrow a car and later requested some clothes which he arranged for him.

Mr Paterson said he learned that night Tracey, who he had known as Robinson’s girlfriend, had been shot dead.

He said shortly after learning that fact Robinson called him and Mr Paterson told him “she’s gone”.

“He was just sort of stuttering and hesitating,” Mr Paterson said.

Mr Paterson said Robinson and Ms Greenbury had been in a relationship, but it appeared to fall apart about two weeks before the shooting.

He said Mr Robinson had said it was over and appeared upset by the breakup.

The pre-trial hearing in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court continues.

From News.com.au 30th April 2008

THE man believed to have shot dead Frankston mother Tracey Greenbury is a convicted killer who was sentenced to death in 1968 for the brutal stabbing murder of his former girlfriend.

Leigh Robinson, 60, is on the run after allegedly blasting Ms Greenbury to death with a shotgun on Monday as she ran from her house in a desperate attempt to escape him.

Police believe he is still armed and have urged people not to approach him.

As the manhunt widened yesterday, Ms Greenbury’s parents spoke of how they had feared for their daughter’s safety in the weeks leading to her murder.

Ms Greenbury, 33, who had only begun seeing Robinson in the past few months, told her parents two weeks ago that he had held her hostage in a caravan and held a gun to her head, threatening to kill her.

Max Greenbury said his daughter had tried to end her relationship with Robinson after discovering his criminal history, but was terrified of him.

“She was so frightened and was convinced he was going to come back. She told me, ‘Dad, I don’t want to die, I am too young’,” Mr Greenbury said.

Robinson has a history of crime and violence dating back to the 1960s. He spent 15 years in prison after he stabbed to death 17-year-old Valerie Ethel Dunn in the kitchen of her Chadstone home in June 1968.

Pentridge Prison psychiatrist Alan Bartholomew told a committal hearing later that year that Robinson, then aged 20, was an “odd” character. “He told me he was having dreams that he would assassinate several people,” Dr Bartholomew told the court.

Legendary Melbourne criminal barrister Frank Galbally, who represented Robinson at the committal, also told the court: “He dreamed he would kill this girl and has since had dreams of killing someone else.”

At Robinson’s trial, evidence was given that he stabbed Ms Dunn 16 times with a carving knife after she refused to go out with him. He had also stabbed and wounded a youth who intervened to help Ms Dunn.

On 28 November, 1968, Robinson was sentenced to hang for Ms Dunn’s murder, but five months later his sentence was commuted to 30 years in prison, with a minimum of 20.

For this Robinson may owe something to the legacy of Ronald Ryan, who in 1967 became the last man to be hanged in Australia. After a massive public campaign to save Ryan, the death penalty was never used again and was formally abolished in Victoria by the Hamer government in 1975.

Having avoided execution, Robinson served 15 years in Pentridge, where he is believed to have been a quiet prisoner, spending much time lifting weights and participating in drama and debating before his release in 1983.

In 1987, in an interview with The Age, he spoke chillingly of how easy it was to murder someone. “The mention of murder strikes awe into people, regardless of what the circumstances might have been,” he said.

“It stirs something in people. People say, ‘You mightn’t have wanted to, but you’ve done the ultimate.’ But anyone could be in the same situation. It’s sometimes only a hair’s breadth away.

“Under the terms of our law, murder is a very fine line. It’s the one crime that, because of its nature, is so nip and tuck. Armed robbery, you’ve got to have an intention of some sort. It’s the spontaneity.”

Robinson, who was then in a de facto relationship with a mother of five, said his time in prison had taught him the value of living a quiet life. “I’ve been in prison and I’ve been there for a long time, but that’s all past,” he said. “I’m not going to make any earth-shattering pronouncements. I’m just going to live an ordinary life. When we’re 60, (my partner and I) are going to get married, when all the kids are off our hands.”

But despite his stated wish for the “ordinary life”, Robinson did not stay out of trouble for too long. In 1991 he was jailed for two years for burglary and handling stolen goods, despite receiving a character reference from television actor Gil Tucker, who played the gormless Constable Roy Baker in Cop Shop.

It is believed Robinson has also done time for rape and was released only five years ago.

Robinson has spent some of his time out of jail working as a truck driver, and until this week was driving for a subcontractor in Pearcedale, about 10 kilometres from where he allegedly shot Ms Greenbury.

At the time he allegedly killed Ms Greenbury, Robinson was living in a caravan on the Pearcedale property of his boss.

When The Age went to the property yesterday, the trucking company owner refused to comment on Robinson, saying only that he would never have suspected he was capable of killing.

Robinson fled the scene of Monday’s killing in a silver Holden Commodore, but later switched to a white Mazda utility with a canopy, registration ETM 150. The Commodore was found early yesterday and four associates of Robinson were later questioned by police.

Police have come under fire for refusing to release Robinson’s name or description until last night. Inspector Steve Clarke, head of the homicide squad, said police had to balance the public’s right to know with the need not to prejudice any future trial.

Ms Greenbury’s children, Harley, 13, and Jamie-Lee, 8, returned to their home yesterday for the first time since their mother was murdered.

Comforted by relatives, they removed some personal items, including a teddy bear.