Resources for fighting back in family court

"There is a national crisis for women and their children in the family law courts of this country. Affirmed by experts and leaders in the women’s movement, the existence of this crisis is verified by women in every state who report injustice in their family law cases, especially battered mothers trying to protect their children from abusive fathers who aggressively litigate against them, using family court to stalk, harass, punish, and impoverish their former partners and children. NOW recognizes this crisis for women and their children and seeks to address discrimination against women in family courts.

The information presented here has been compiled by the National NOW Family Law Advisory Ad Hoc Committee. Created in April 2004, this all-volunteer committee is comprised of parents, grandparents, activists, paralegals, organizers, attorneys, and advocates from across the nation devoting their collective experience and expertise in family law and navigating the family court system to NOW’s work in promoting justice and equality for women."


Click here to access resources available from the National Organization for Women. 

Click here to join the N.O.W. Shreveport-Bossier Chapter.

Louisiana's SB 461 will protect families who are abused by the family court system

Sen. Troy Carter has proposed SB 461 this session.  This bill, if it becomes law, will change EVERYTHING that caused my son's father to abuse us via the court system for 16 years, and eventually steal him away from me for three years.

The bill eliminates a well-hidden aspect of the overt corruption in our family courts: the ability of wealthy, well-connected people to pick and choose custody "evaluators" and "mental health professionals" who will do whatever is required to secure custody for the parent who had them hired by the judge. 

The bill is currently in committee.  You can email the committee members and encourage them to approve the bill.  After they approve it, they will forward it to the legislature for a full vote.  If approved by the full House and Senate, the bill will then go to the governor's desk to be signed into law. 

PLEASE contact your state legislators and tell them to vote FOR this bill.

Children and parents experiencing painful family separation deserve this protection from Louisiana's corrupt, vile, one-sided court system!

Following is the email I sent to my legislators and the committee.  You are welcome to use/modify it as you wish:
_________________________________

Senators,

First, thank you for your service to our state. This has been an especially difficult year for Louisiana, and I appreciate your tenacity and willingness to go the extra mile for your constituents.

Second, I would like to encourage you to support Sen. Troy Carter's SB 461.

As the mother of a son who endured 16 years of family court abuse in Louisiana, I am hopeful that this legislation will eventually reverse the widespread corruption and overt graft in our state's district courts.  This bill represents the only glimmer of hope for systemic improvement and progress in an otherwise notoriously corrupt family court system.

My son's father is an attorney here in Shreveport, and I cannot begin to tell you how harshly he abused my son, me, and the system by using his unfettered access to personal friends who are also court officials.  You are welcome to read a sample of our horrific court transcripts here: http://debbiehollis.blogspot.com/2009/08/top-20-craziest-things-on-record-during.html

Over the years, countless parents across the region have contacted me about their similar painful experiences with custody/divorce trials, and several of us have started a support group for people who have lost children via the courts and their faulty use of unqualified, prejudiced mediators and court-appointed "experts." NOTE: Parents in our group were never reported to or investigated by the Department of Children & Family Services.  Our experiences are all the result of intentional abuse by and through the court system via a circle of attorneys/mediators/judges who have a well-documented history of working together to manipulate the 1st Judicial District court to their financial and personal advantage. In addition, each parent in our group was found 100% fit to rear our children upon being evaluated by independent licensed psychological professionals, despite the findings of court-appointed mediators and judges during the course of our trials.

This type of abuse is rampant and unchecked here in the 1st Judicial District; there is no evidence that other districts in our state operate any differently.

This bill, as I understand it, eliminates a portion of the overt corruption in our family courts: the ability of wealthy, well-connected people to pick and choose custody evaluators and mental health "professionals" who will do whatever is required to secure custody for the parent who (literally) had them hired by the judge.

It also forbids ex parte communication between the court and the mediators, as well as eliminating many other prejudicial practices I have personally witnessed in the courtroom while fighting to rightfully maintain custody of my own son for 16 years.

I encourage you to approve this bill as it is written, and send it for a full vote of the legislature.

Children and parents experiencing painful family separation deserve this legal protection from Louisiana's corrupt, one-sided family court system. 

I trust that you will do what is best for our state's children and families.

Many thanks,

Debbie Hollis

(Address, Phone)

Three Tiger Stadiums Filled With Poor Children: The Scandal of Poverty in Louisiana

Excerpt from the article by Robert Mann:

"...as much as these people needed mercy, they desperately needed someone (a governor, perhaps) to devote his or her energies to achieving something far more valuable.

These people needed justice.

More than thirty years later, I’m ashamed that Louisiana hasn’t done so well in either the mercy or justice department.  More than thirty years of children have been born into poverty-stricken communities that haven’t changed much since the days when I first saw the despair that Monroe welfare office.

The sad fact is that those 30 years represent decades of lost chances to build opportunities for better lives for our children. They represent thirty years of injustice and suffering — because our state and national leadership has regarded poverty as an unfortunate fact of life — and not a scandal and a cause for national shame.

According to the National Priorities Project, almost 19 percent of Louisiana’s citizens, one in five, live in poverty.  Put another way, that’s 825,000 Louisiana residents.  See a chart comparing the states here.

But the numbers are far worse when you look at children.

According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s annual rankings of the states, Louisiana has ranked 49^th among the states in overall child well-being since 2002.  In its most recent collection of data, the Casey Foundation ranked Louisiana among the bottom ten states on nine out of the ten key measures of child well-being.  See a summary of the report here.

If you are a child, Louisiana is one of the worst places in this country to grow up.

Twenty seven percent, almost a third, of all children in this state live in poverty.  That’s 285,000 children. See a chart on Louisiana’s child poverty numbers here.

Louisiana ranks 46^th out of the 50 states in the percentage of children in poverty. Only Alabama, Arkansas, New Mexico and Mississippi fare worse. See the state rankings here.

It’s a depressing situation for a state whose leaders don’t seem even remotely willing to face up to the enormous challenges facing us.

Today, in Louisiana, we have the equivalents of three Tiger Stadiums full to the brim with children living in poverty.

Photo:  www.tigerrag.com

Among our state’s many problems, it’s our largest and most vexing. It should be the top priority of every legislator and our governor.

So, I leave you with these partially rhetorical questions: How much time did legislators devote to addressing poverty in the 2012 legislative session (beyond a half-baked effort to improve the bottom line of faith-based private schools)?

How much do our leaders really care about ridding Louisiana of an economic cancer that threatens the future of 285,000 Louisiana children?

~dedicated to the legislative legacy of LA Rep. Alan Seabaugh (R-Shreveport). - DBE