News of the Day, August 24, 2010 from Delaware Family Court

Today was a good day for justice in Kent County Family Court. It was a good day for men who are victims of abuse that if they were women would land the perpetrator in jail.
In the matter of the woman who had told of the pressure and coercion of domestic violence advocates, encouraging women to fabricate, exaggerate and lie about abuse (constituting false allegations); then flipped again and subjected her ex to a barrage of false civil and criminal allegations, her ex-husband secured a protection order against her. Hers was granted two weeks ago and she has used it like a sword not as a shield as it is intended. Her petition for protection was based on false allegations and implications that he was suspect in criminal acts against her that it was impossible for him to perpetrate. That's the way it goes in family court, not just in the Worst in the First but across the country: allegations from a woman's mouth, without support of any physical evidence, constitute a "preponderance of evidence" in domestic violence cases.
Today it felt good to win one in Family Court. I have sued pro-se in six states and helped others represent themselves in two additional states and winning feels so good.... you just have to experience it to begin to understand it.
Tonight though I feel bad. I feel bad for the woman who was not old enough, not experienced enough to be patient and let things play out longer. There was a good chance that things would have worked out had she given it more time. I feel bad for the ex-husband who is now forced into the position where he has to crush her in the courts as a matter of his own survival and liberty. I am sad for the children who love their father and have not seen him for almost two months. There is no replacement for their biological father who loves them more than anything or anyone in this world. It is a disservice to them to be cut off from him and be collateral damage in the war between their mother and their father.
Soon enough the next battle will commence. The next court date is set for next month. Hopefully the ex-wife is beginning to see the light; that false statements are morally and legally wrong. There will be consequences for false statements under oath and false reports. The allegations lodged against the father are fortunately not only false but he can prove, with receipts, video and physical evidence that they are false, he is innocent of them and the lies alleged are malicious in intent, known to be false and criminal. This could go on for months in Family Court and Superior Court, civil and criminal. His case history is currently in the hands of a nationally renown attorney who specializes in civil rights violations and prosecutes cases in Federal Courts around the country. In the long run the ex-husband will prevail. The more he suffers wrongfully in the short term the greater the monetary damages he will recover in the end.
Is this the best for anyone?
What about the effects on the children being separated from their father? They will suffer the most.
It was certainly good to win in court today but it's sad that this family has come to where they are now. Two people that I liked and their little boys.......
Instead of the rush to put fathers and mothers in the adversarial system maybe we, as a society, should do more to mediate problems rather than tear families apart.

Here it goes again

In May a woman spoke at the Family Law Commission and told the members (and public attending) that DV advocates had encouraged her to exaggerate and fabricate to obtain protection orders (she also told of sexual harassment by a Capitol Police Officer and stated that the 'voice of the victims gets lost').. This was not the first time I had heard that DV advocates encourage what amounts to making false statements to the court which is known as perjury.
Prior to her speaking at the FLC she had met with a Delaware Representative at the request of her ex, the victim of the false allegations. She had also told me when we were alone a weekend before that the "advocates get in your face and they make you feel like you WERE abused. I never felt that I was abused." She told me that her ex had never physically hurt her that he never was violent with her. To her credit she never, despite the coercion from the 'advocates', accused him of hitting, slapping, punching or what is generally considered "violence" toward her.
Well here it goes again, she filed an ex-parte emergency petition for protection, last month, when she knew that he was 800 miles away. What "violence" could anyone perpetrate from hundreds of miles away???? Launch a missile aimed at her house???
Ex-parte motions are to be used when there is immediate "danger". This is an abuse of process. No one can pose a danger to anyone from afar.
Why this woman has gone nuclear again is a mystery to me. I used to like her. She can be a nice person and a lot of fun to be with. She told me that living with her dysfunctional family makes her "mean", that it makes her a person that she doesn't want to be and maybe after two months living with them again she's become "mean". Still, I don't understand it. She and the ex have both moved on and have intimate relationships with other people. The "victims" in this are their children who are now denied contact with their father, the ex.
Stay tuned for more on this case.
The children should not be denied their right to their relationship with their father and he intends to do everything in his power to fight for their right and to defend against a protection order that will interfere with that right, his employability, his constitutional protections and his civil rights.