New Jersey Court Rules clearly require the judge to notate the parties at the appearance; why did the judge violate the court rules and not notate the other side of the case in the court order? What was the judge covering up?

RULE 4:42. Judgment; Orders; Damages; Costs 4:42-1. Form; Settlement

(a) Form; Contents. A judgment or order shall not contain a recital of the pleadings or the record of prior proceedings. It shall, however, include the following:

(1) A designation of the subject of the judgment or order (i.e., Summary Judgment Dismissing Complaint, Order Modifying Alimony);

(2) The date or dates on which the matter was heard or submitted;

(3) The appearances of counsel and parties appearing pro se;

(4) A separate numbered paragraph for each separate substantive provision of the judgment or order;

(5) The effective date of the judgment or order or of each provision if the effective date of any provision is different from the date of entry;

(6) A notation of whether the matter was opposed or unopposed as required by R. 1:6-2(a); and

(7) The notation prescribed by R. 1:6-2(f) respecting findings and conclusions and the annexation of a statement of reasons if required by that rule or by R. 1:7-4.

http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/rules/r4-42.htm

Days since NJ State Disciplinary Review Board remanded Attorney Ethics Case for Investigation

Days since NJ Disciplinary Review Board Remanded Attorney Ethics case for investigation into unethical conduct

Judicial malfeasance, attorney corruption & the NJ family court

Governor Christie, We NJ women and mothers currently suffering through a corrupt family court system implore you to ask the USDOJ to investigate the family court.   I thought that I had seen it all.  I thought that I had endured it all. My divorce was final in the mid 1990’s.  Over the course of the next 15 years, I was criminally stalked and stalked through the family court. The FBI got involved in my case in 1999 after I was stalked to Disneyworld and received calls to my hotel room on my birthday from an individual using the voice changer from the movie Scream to sing Happy Birthday to me.

Beginning in 2000, I was dragged to the family court by an attorney in violation of a judgment of divorce that required mediation before going to court on a child related issue.  In court in 2001, the criminal stalking was used against me to paint me as unstable in an attempt to take my child away from me.  In 2007, another motion seeking custody of my child was filed.  Judge Guadagno resolved the matter entirely in my favor and his decision on the illegal subpoena of police reports I filed to document my stalking became a published opinion. In 2008, Judge Guadagno was transferred to another county and the motions began again under a new judge.  My decade long criminal stalking case was the impetus to update the NJ criminal stalking statute to incorporate third party stalking and elevate the level of the crime.  In 2009, Governor Corzine signed my legislation (A1563) into law.  Around an August 2009 family court hearing meant to resolve all issues I began to receive recorded threats deemed credible by the FBI.  Joe Pate, the suspect in my federal stalking case admitted to the FBI and police he was stalking and threatening to kill me and then Pate committed suicide to avoid federal prosecution.

 

Investigation Discovery Channel filmed a documentary on my 10+ year criminal stalking case entitled Stalked: Someone’s Watching “Dangerous Games”.   After the documentary aired NJ women with similar cases of criminal stalking and stalking through the family court reached out to me.  Through them I learned the family attorney dragging me to court for a decade had a baby fathered by a family court judge.  I realized the judge who presided over my case in 2001 was none other than the baby daddy of the attorney who dragged me to court.  The ethics case against this attorney has been pending  four years after being remanded twice by the NJ State Disciplinary Review Board.   The Advisory Council on Judicial Conduct declined to investigate the judge because he is retired.  This Judge and this attorney had an open relationship in the court house.  In violation of court rules, the court order for the hearing where the Judge’s baby mama attorney appeared before him neglected to include the attorney’s name.  On August 21, 2013, I began asking to inspect my file and get a copy of an order from the first hearing where the judge’s baby mama appeared before him in my case and according to Elisabeth Strom the acting clerk for the Superior Court, my file has gone missing.

 

NJ is run amuck with corruption in the family court.  Good mothers are losing custody of their children and filing for bankruptcy because of unethical attorneys and corrupt judges. 

 

Please Governor Christie – we implore you to call for a Federal investigation into the family court corruption.

Stalking Through the Family Court; How Family Courts Punish Abused Women

I am reprinting an excellent article from Ms Magazine entitled How Family Courts Punish Abused Women .  “The dirtiest little secret in America” is that family courts, in deciding custody, often wreak devastation upon mothers and children. 

So argue Mo Therese Hannah and Barry Goldstein, editors of the new anthology Domestic Violence, Abuse, and Child Custody, which brings to light what many familiar with the family court system have long known: Designed to dispense justice, the system has become instead “an instrument of oppression,” particularly in cases involving domestic violence.
To find a chilling example of what the editors mean, we need look no further than the recent murder of infant Wyatt Garcia, reported in the Daily Beast:

Wyatt Garcia was born in April 2009. Nine months later, he was shot and killed by his father, who then turned the gun on himself.
It might have turned out differently—if a family-court judge had listened to Wyatt’s mother.

Wyatt’s mother, Katie Tagle, had previously filed three motions in family court for an order of protection against the baby’s father, Stephen Garcia, alleging that he had physically assaulted her and harassed her and her family. Garcia was apparently jealous that she was dating again. In the last motion, Tagle charged that Garcia “had threatened to kill her and their baby.”
The San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Robert Lemkau chose to believe Garcia’s denials over the evidence supplied by Tagle–which included emails, text messages, and voice messages, according to the Daily Beast. Tagle says she was treated like a “criminal” and “complaining woman.”
One goal of Hannah and Goldstein’s book is to convince judges, attorneys, and others who work in the court system that all forms of abusive behavior, whether physical, verbal, financial or legal, cause harm to women and children. On the legal side, men who abuse their female intimate partners have successfully used strategies such as false accusations, harassment, manipulation, and intimidation to win custody while often driving their victims into poverty. According to contributing author and lawyer Joan Zorza:

Abusive men not only harass their victims, many harass their partners’ lawyers and manipulate those in and connected with the court system who are supposed to insure that children are placed with their better parent in a safe, nurturing environment.

This makes it all the stranger that about half of the time batterers win custody in family courts. They are actually more likely to win custody than men who do not abuse their partners, according to Zorza. Over the past nine months, 75 children have been murdered by abusive fathers who used custody battles to get even with the mothers, according to the Daily Beast.
Yet Katie Tagle’s dismissive treatment by family courts is all-too-familiar. While there has been a growing awareness over the last 30 years of the harm domestic violence causes, courts are more and more ignoring women’s allegations of domestic violence and holding them responsible for their own abuse. This is largely due to courts’ reliance upon mental health experts who have inadequate training in intimate violence or child sexual abuse and who are easily manipulated by batterers.
Gender bias plays a large role in this backlash, according to the editors:

Compared to men, women are disbelieved more often, held to much higher standards, and judged far more punitively for failings such as drinking, use of drugs, adultery, or hostility to their partners. …Such behaviors are readily seen as grounds for giving the father custody.

Hannah and Goldstein hope to also expose two particularly harmful court practices that have evolved over the last several decades: Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), and “friendly parent” statutes. PAS provides a handy–and utterly without basis–refutation to incest and abuse claims by blaming mothers for any hostility that the children feel towards their fathers, maintaining that children love and respect their fathers unless a “poisonous” mother has convinced them otherwise. Even alleged incest and violence are not deemed reason enough for children to independently turn against their fathers.
Since PAS has been deemed by the American Psychological Association to have no scientific backing, at least 32 states have incorporated the milder sounding “friendly parent” concept into their custody laws. This gives custody to the parent who will encourage the child to have more contact and a better relationship with the other parent. Often mothers are hurt by the friendly parent concept, since they can be deemed “unfriendly” for saying anything against the father, including alleging abuse. Zorza says that, ironically enough:

The unfriendly behavior of noncustodial parents (usually the father), such as not paying child support, physically or verbally abusing the mother, or stalking her, is not considered as meeting the definition of unfriendly.

With such an approach, Zorza says, family violence is discounted, and abusers are empowered while battered women are disempowered. Ultimately, children are harmed.
Domestic Violence, Abuse, and Child Custody will be instructive for policymakers, those working in the family justice system, and members of the media–which the authors say has by-and-large failed to expose custody court scandals. But it is a must-read for any mother involved in a child custody battle, and especially for mothers trying get free from an abusive relationship.
Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com

Presidential Proclamation -- National Stalking Awareness Month, 2013 | The White House

Presidential Proclamation -- National Stalking Awareness Month, 2013 | The White House Each year, millions of Americans face the fear, isolation, and danger of being victims of stalking. At some point in their lives, 1 in 6 women and 1 in 19 men will be stalked, and many of these crimes will go unreported and unprosecuted. During National Stalking Awareness Month, we rededicate ourselves to supporting victims of stalking and sharpen our resolve to bring perpetrators to justice. Stalking is a pattern of unwanted contact that causes victims to fear for their safety or the safety of family members. It can include implied or explicit threats; harassment; or nonconsensual communication through phone calls, text messages, or emails. The perpetrator is usually someone the victim knows. Stalking behaviors may appear innocuous to outside observers, but victims often endure intense physical and emotional distress that affects every aspect of their lives. Many feel forced to move, or change jobs. Tragically, stalking tends to escalate over time, and it is sometimes followed by sexual assault or homicide. My Administration remains committed to building a robust criminal justice response to stalking -- one that holds offenders accountable, offers protection and support to all victims of violence, and empowers them to break the cycle of abuse. In January 2012, we held the first-ever White House stalking roundtable with survivors, law enforcement officers, victim advocates, and researchers. We have built partnerships with communities across the Nation to implement anti-stalking efforts. And we continue to support nonprofit organizations and local, State, and tribal governments as they develop more effective responses to violence against women -- including direct services, crisis intervention, transitional housing, legal assistance to victims, court improvement, and training for law enforcement and courts. We are also working to address the threat of cyberstalking. While advances in technology are making this crime more prevalent, they can also pose unique opportunities to address it. Communities are developing new tools that help connect victims to local services, and State governments are updating statutes to further protect people from cyberstalking. Through our Apps Against Abuse challenge, my Administration recognized mobile applications that are empowering people to defend themselves against dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking. Thanks to the dedicated work of law enforcement officials, community leaders, advocates, organizations, and survivors, our country has made great strides in combating stalking. During National Stalking Awareness Month, we resolve to keep building on this momentum until no American lives in fear of this crime. NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 2013 as National Stalking Awareness Month. I call upon all Americans to recognize the signs of stalking, acknowledge stalking as a serious crime, and urge those impacted not to be afraid to speak out or ask for help. Let us also resolve to support victims and survivors, and to create communities that are secure and supportive for all Americans. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirty-first day of December, in the year of our Lord two thousand twelve, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-seventh. BARACK OBAMA

January 2013 National Stalking Awareness Month

New Apple App for iPhone or iPad, the iEAA (Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit) created by Intimate Partner Violence Expert Susan Murphy Milano

Created by Susan Murphy-Milano, the EAA was developed into the Apple App format by Wetstone Technologies and Chief Scientist, Chet Hosmer.

Myrtle Beach, SC………The Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit is a revolutionary new tool described and detailed in the book, Time’s Up: A Guide on How to Safely Leave an Abusive and Stalking Relationship by Susan Murphy-Milano. Since the release of the book on April 12, 2010, thousands have become aware of a new standard of safety which goes well beyond current planning measures for abuse victims. Used by hundreds of advocates and victims, they are the living testament to the success of the EAA. The Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit (E.A.A.) combines video taping of the victims actual words attesting to the abuse coupled with creative witnessed and notarized legal documents that successfully satisfy legal hurdles often faced in these intimate partner violence and stalking cases. A unique packaging of testimony + documentation + perpetrator historical profiling + pre-collected evidence delivered to established safe and legal persons = a delicate issue brilliantly wrapped up for successful prosecution. Now, with the Apple App available, victims can do almost everything, including recording their video testimony on their iPhone, iPad or iPod. The Apple App makes it easier, safer and effective to create the documents needed for their specific, individualized safety plan. The easy to use instructions included within the Apple App walk the victim through each step, encouraging them all the way and letting them know their information has been created properly. An all-inclusive website for information about the Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit can be found at DocumentTheAbuse.Com which also includes a Lethal Relationship Checklist so abuse victims, as well as law enforcement, first responders, court personnel and attorneys, can recognize often hidden dangers, understand the risk factors, and learn what to do with the information. Taking this assessment to the next level with the EAA is proven to prevent the ultimate abuse, homicide. After working over 20 years in the field of violence and homicide prevention, Susan Murphy-Milano is realizing a dream. Unable to save her own mother in 1989, she has devoted her life and career to making sure the world is a safer place for abuse victims, often using non-conventional methods to keep them alive. The Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit is one such method, born out of the Stacy Peterson case. Murphy-Milano says, “Had either Kathleen Savio or Stacy Peterson prepared an EAA, there would be no question of a prompt arrest. It also gives law enforcement and investigators information about the alleged perpetrator allowing the victim to speak from the grave on her own behalf, should that be necessary. Think of the millions saved in taxpayer dollars!” This is the first phase of the iEAA App. Murphy-Milano, Hosmer and Wetstone are working on an advanced version to be released by Apple later in the year, and are also working on a version for Android products for maximum reach in the marketplace as well as being available to as many victims, advocates and first responders as possible. For further information: SusanMurphy-Milano.Com DocumentTheAbuse.Com WetstoneTechnologies.Com