Celebration and Memorial for Marie Hazard – October 29th 5pm – Arlington

We are going to have a celebration and memorial of Marie’s life on October 29th in Arlington.  Possibly at John and Marie’s home, unless anyone comes forward with a suggestion for a better place…hint, hint ;).  For those of you that recall Marie’s festive holidays, we aren’t stopping short to celebrate her life.  Please come dressed for Halloween, pay tribute to Marie by being festive.  We will also be creating a Memorial Book to give to her daughter, as she will most likely not be allowed to attend this celebration.  We would like pictures and stories to include in this, highlighting Marie’s life and the other lives that she has touched.  Your relationships were important to her.

I found the following poem that seemed to be speaking what Marie might be saying to her daughter:

Life is beautiful, my child

Life is beautiful, my child,
Though many things go wrong,
And you may hear much sadness in
Its strange and lovely song.
Though friends and loved ones die, my child,
They’re never really gone.
Nor more nor less than yesterday,
In you they will live on.

They will live on in you, my child,
As everything you see,
Though it must vanish, will remain
Alive in memory.

Alive in what you think and feel
And dream and say and do,
For all who ever were still are
Upon this earth in you.
~Nicholas Gordon

Lastly, I think the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi is how Marie would want all of us to look towards our future and remember her:

Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where this is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light
And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled
as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

We may never understand the purpose of Marie’s death.  We may never be able to fully understand the plan and how we can turn this into something positive.  But maybe, we can turn this tragedy into something positive if we all carry a little bit of Marie with us in our lives.  If we can each turn a little bit of hatred into love, despair into hope, doubt into faith, and sadness into joy; we can all make the world a better place in Marie’s honor.

Sua Sponte – My Favorite Phrase

Wikipedia says:  In law, sua sponte (Latin: “of his, her, its or their own accord.”) describes an act of authority taken without formal prompting from another party. The term is usually applied to actions by a judge taken without a prior motion or request from the parties.

I say:  sua sponte is when an elected Judge is made aware of an unfair and illegal prior ruling and takes it away from the prior Pro Tem Commissioner to ensure they don’t screw it up again.

On August 4th I was found in Contempt by a Pro Tem commissioner, on 2 of 8 baseless, unsupported and vindictive charges.  My attorney and friends and family sat in shock.  We moved into action to file for a Reconsideration with health records that were unavailable.  Due to e-filing issues, the motion for reconsideration was not received until 13 minutes after the deadline and was subsequently “Denied” by the Pro Tem Commissioner.  We then filed for a Revision to the denial of the Reconsideration.  This went before the Judge assigned to our case.  This Judge ordered the Reconsideration to occur based on the Merits by the original Pro Tem Commissioner.

This Reconsideration was to happen on 10/20, without oral arguments.  On 10/11, the Pro Tem Commissioner requested a response from the other party, meaning she was looking at the reconsideration.  Out of nowhere, this morning, our IC Judge submitted and signed a Sua Sponte Order of Reconsideration.  He vacated the Finding of Contempt.  After the initial shock of this wore off and my heart started beating again, I jumped up and did a Happy Dance in my hallway at work.  Then I actually started crying.

Tonight will be the first night in 70 days that I will likely not wake up at 3am with the anxiety of feeling that I will be thrown in jail, or worse, that my children will be taken away from me.  Since that Contempt ruling fiasco 70 days ago, I have been threatened via email and text another 10 times of additional contempt charges being brought against me and 20 times of being put in jail.  I have had 2 separate petitions for anti-harassment protection orders filed against me.  I never imagined that this could end well, as living in the constant state of fear from additional legal threats and actions is horrible.  Again, my biggest fear was never being put in jail, but that my children would be subject to the continued bad behavior from their father, stepmother and stepbrother on a full time basis.  4 days a month is tough enough for them to handle, but it is at least bearable.

After the Commissioner Jeske ruling and now this, my outlook on the Family Court system is taking a drastic turn.  While it has taken a lot out of me, both emotionally and financially, justice finally seems to be prevailing.  Maybe Family Court Circus is the exception rather than the rule, or maybe I am just lucky.  Either way, my advice is to never give up.  Fight for your children and their rights and well-being, even when you keep getting beat down and the outlook is grim.  Eventually, you will get noticed and the Ferris Wheel will end.

Parenting Plan – Written in Stone

When many of us sign off on our Final Parenting Plan, we do not quite understand the finality of the word “Final”.  My children were not even in school yet, so the clauses were more centered around their bedtime and safety issues with carseats.  Fortunately, there were some standard phrases that my attorney added with regards to more mature concepts like telephone contact.  We spent most of our time dickering over things like should the Sunday evening pickup be 6 or 7pm, than we did with our future concepts.

In my mind, I assumed we would keep adding to this as they approached the later milestones in life.  Plus, we had joint decision making and we seemed to agree on the future for our children.

There are 2 major issues with this logic that everyone needs to keep in mind when finalizing your parenting plan:

1. This is the FINAL plan.  To make changes to this plan in the future will require even more work and court processes than your first Parenting Plan.  First, you have to Petition for your changes, then you have to show that you have met threshold for adequate cause.   Only at that point would you even get permission to ask for and negotiate your changes.  Then you can go through the nearly year long and $10K to $100K process of getting those adjustments or modifications.
2. Even if you think you both agree on what you want for the future of your children, there is a huge chance that you won’t in the future.  This is similar to how your marriage went.  While you were in love and committed at the beginning, something changed and most people behave very badly when things don’t go the way they want.  Divorce is no different.  When one or both partners after divorce have expectations that will inevitably fail to come true, adults will act like 2 year olds.  When the only thing they have left to harm you with is joint decision making, that is where they will go.  You will soon find out that your Ivy League Lawyer of an ex-spouse that practically enrolled your child in Law School at birth, is now attempting to get him clown lessons so he can be part of a travelling circus; only because he knows that you have a longstanding fear of clowns.

If I were to do this all over again, I would complete a plan for my children’s lives.  Heck, I completed 10 page birthing plans for each one of them so i’m not sure why I thought a 10 page document for 3 children would last 18 years.  I would have categories for education, social, grooming, extracurricular, religion, entertainment, etc..  For each different 2 year age group, I would list all the given rights and restrictions I feel they should have at each age group.  Some examples of  things to consider would be:  age of ear piercing, choice of hair length, movie rating restrictions, phone usage, email accounts, video game ratings, number of sporting events per season, curfew possibilities, wearing makeup, exposure to weapons, age to get drivers license, how to pay for car, allowance, restrictions on tattoos or body peircings.

While i would like to say that some of these seem to be incredibly ridiculous and no one could possibly ever argue about them, i can’t.  With my oldest not even a teenager yet, my ex and I have had some severe arguments about at least half of these issues; though we used to agree completely on all of them.  Due to a combination of the above tensions, plus involvement of new spouses, there are a number of outside third parties trying to change our previously agreed upon views so they fit better in their lives.

The children are the most damaged in this situation, because there is no consistency or transparency in the values they are raised with.  Certain issues that are disputed begin to take on much more weight than they should and children are caused even more anxiety and conflict. For example, when my son was 8 he had beautifully thick and wavy hair.  Ever since he was a toddler, his hair was longer and curly.  When his father got remarried and had two stepsons that were required to have military style haircuts, my son was then forced to keep his hair short.  They did this with bribes or teasing.  Normally, my children are very good at establishing their own relationship with their father.  My son finally asked me to please contact his dad and request that he did not force him to get his hair cut.  His father reluctantly abided; however, he never failed to complain to me and anyone else that would listen how our son looked like a girl and looked sloppy and lacked proper grooming.  After all this, it took 2 years before I could get my son to even get near the hairdresser to get his haircut.  Even then, it was under the context that he was donating his 12″ long locks to Locks of Love.

Of course, we all change and our values will shift slightly as our children get older.  Even in tact families are adjusting and arguing occasionally about these issues, but the fact is, they don’t need to go to court to have the final determination be made.  And when you have to go to court to have someone else decide, the tendency is to try to prove yourself right by proving how wrong the other parent is.  Neither parent needs any more criticism, it is hard enough being a single parent.

Marie’s Other Obituary

Interestingly enough, there was an obituary posted in the Everett Herald for Marie Hazard today.  You may not recognize it because her loving family that posted it fails to acknowledge her almost 6 year marriage to her husband, by referring to her in her maiden name.  Furthermore, they fail to even mention how she is survived by her husband that was by her side in her final painful days.  John has been by her side for 6 years and he never left, and never turned on her.

As far as her family’s heartfelt words that lack the conviction and sincerity that would truly bless Marie, save it.  Maybe even a simple apology at this point would be gracious.  The only place this gathering of a “loving family” has been over the last 3 1/2 years was sitting opposite Marie in court and testifying against her.  They have held a similar memorial for her every time they stood up against her and turned their backs to her.  They watched her sinking in the quicksand and never extended the olive branch.

Marie Diane Woods

Marie Diane Woods came into this world on January 9, 1970 and on September 27, 2011 this world lost a beautiful spirit, who touched and graced so many lives in her 41 years. Our loving daughter, sister, mother, wife, aunt, niece and cousin, Marie Woods, fell into the Lords loving arms.

This beautiful, bright, funny, intelligent, crafty woman, whom we all miss so dearly, was preceded in death by her daughter, Kalie Rene Aiken. May you walk hand in hand with your baby again. Marie is survived by her beautiful daughter, Samantha Jo Harbaugh; mama, Bobbie Woods; daddy, William J Woods; two sisters, Shelley Johnson, Billie Woods; along with many aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, and nephews, as well as countless friends. A celebration of life will be planned in the months to come and close friends and family will be notified.

Pre-Marriage Prep

As my attorney and I were waiting in the long hallway of the King County Family Courtrooms, a couple and their young son came strolling down past us.  They were all laughing and speaking in Spanish.  Of course my attorney smiled at the young boy and addressed him in Spanish.  I’m convinced now that my attorney should be on those “Most Amazing Man” commercials.  I’m fairly certain he probably left the courthouse and rescued a cat from a tree, saved an old woman from being hit by a bus and delivered a baby on the side of the freeway.  Let’s just say that watching a man defend you and support you in court is like being ambushed by an army of Cupids.

Back to the happy hispanic family in the Family Court circus area.  After my googly eyes were able to remove focus from my attorney for a minute, I realized why this family seemed so out of place.  People don’t laugh and play in the Circus hallway.  People eiher sit in silence, negotiate, or cry; with an occasional unpleasant outburst or two.  My attorney took time out of preparing my orders to talk to the couple in Spanish and help them out.  He really needs to stop being so decent or he will completely ruin my opinion of attorneys, that and I’m going to start having those schoolgirl Cinderalla dreams again.  Not sure he would be able to pull off the white and gold suit look with the crown riding on a white horse!

Eventually, he figured out that they were trying to get a marriage license.  He led them off in the right direction across the street.  Hopefully, they won’t ever need to visit the Family court hallway in the future.

On second thought, what better marriage prep could there be?  Nowadays, in drivers ed they show children all the tragic accidents involved in reckless driving and drinking and driving.  Some of the trainwrecks you see in Family Court are no less tragic than those videos.  If you can imagine the beauty of a new marriage and bringing new lives into the world, and then to have this Garden of Eden doused in gasoline and littered with land mines.  Either party has taken underground to their respective bunkers, periodically having the children run between bunkers in serpentine fashion.  After looking to make sure the kids are safely over, they throw grenades back and forth at each other.

Before you embark on a lifelong journey, before you think you are ready to start a family together…everyone needs to witness the war-ridden landscape of divorce.  If anything, it might just have you take that extra step to reconcile and give in just a little bit more.

 

The Stars Align with Jeske

Somewhere over the rainbow there is a place where children matter and truth prevails.  I don’t want to make it seem like this doesn’t happen in Family Court, because it does and i will ty to write about my good experiences.  Not all of Family Court is a Circus, but it seems that once you get thrown into the Circus you have to work your way through the FunHouse mirrors to get out.  In future posts I hope to give some advice how to avoid the Circus, and then how to dig your way out.

My first experience with Jeske was over a year ago, when I tried a family court motion Pro Se.  I was so nervous, but she made it so easy.  She was soft-spoken and understanding.  She advised us how things were to go and she was firm but understanding when we made mistakes.  She read everything, and further asked questions to clarify meaning beyond our declarations and oral arguments.  She took a holistic approach to my simple motion and added verbiage to the order that touched on areas that were further causing conflict.  I have used peices of her order ever since to help settle disputes.  She could have really slammed my ex on his actions, but she didn’t.  She simply explained her decision, without making him wrong or harshly criticizing him.  The experience was short and sweet, and without conflict.

Today, however, was an experience worthy of a national holiday.  I swear the clouds parted and a bright light shown down around her in the courtroom.  There was also a glow around my attorneys head.  Jeske was like the Fairy Godmother for my children, and Steven Fields, my attorney, was my Fairy Godfather.  After a downward spiral of my summer of courtroom doom, today I saw the light.

We had a simple motion planned, to appoint a Parenting Evaluator and get some Civil Restraining orders placed on my ex’s new wife.  They came back and tried to file another protection order against me.  Seriously, this is the 6th time they have brought up some of the same allegations to ask for restrictions against me, largely infringing on my first amendment rights.  We didn’t expect to have this family court commissioner even touch the protection order since it was improperly before the court.  However, she knew that they would simply turn around and renote it somewhere else.  She gave us the option of waving proper service and offered to conduct an evidentiary hearing.  Right there on the Family Court Cattle Call docket!

My attorney guided me through that like an angel, despite my sheer terror of even being in court, let alone speaking in court.  He asked me questions as if I was on trial, carefully leading me to disclose the evidence and the truth.  The beauty of the truth is that you don’t need to rehearse or practice, it comes out the same everytime!

Jeske listened carefully, and asked some constructive and pointed questions of both of us.  It became very obviuos that she had read everything, even declarations and orders that were from previous motions.  She quoted the law and used the law to make her rulings.  She labeled hearsay as hearsay and tossed it out.  She knew all about CPS and how “unfounded” does not mean it did not happen, and it certainly did not mean it was a “false” report.  She was even versed and knowledgeable about the bankruptcy issues that my ex had drug me into.  If an encyclopedia could be human and have compassion, that would be Jeske.

We still have a long road to go before trial, but we are at least on the right road now and out of the Circus sideshow.  Thank you Jacqueline Jeske for caring and taking the time to rescue us from the Circus.

Marie, I know you are up there taking care of me in your divine way.  God bless you!

Passing the Buck – Marie’s Legacy

Since I wrote Marie’s story, there have been a number of comments attempting to place the blame on the easy target.  Marie herself, and her alcoholism.  Many people, including family court and the GALs, will check this off on their list of “this is what alcoholism does to families.”  But I won’t back down, alcoholism did not kill Marie.  Marie Hazard did not “choose” alcohol over her daughter.  Marie Hazard did not deserve to have her daughter held hostage from her, until the courts and her family decided she was “cured” in the way they felt she should be.  This was about pure and simple control.

Marie dared to turn her back on her family of origin and brought to light the severe dysfunction that surrounded her upbringing.  The only way for their family system to deal with this and cover it up, was to make her wrong placing the easy blame on her sinful choice of alcoholism.  Of course she had chosen a controlling man for her first marriage, this was the only life she was used to.  The fact is that when she pulled out of that system and started to heal, they needed to pull her back in.  This is the story of alcoholism.

In many cases, alcoholism is the symptom of the true underlying disease of the family.  Marie tried to expose the dysfunction and make a better life for her daughter.  Marie did the hard work of looking at her life and why she made the choices she had.  Marie was clearing a path through the unchartered area of functional living so her daughter could break free from the legacy of dysfunction.  The path is left abandoned and unfinished with Marie’s passing, but it still exists.

There is no doubt that the courts and the people raising her daughter will try to cover up this path she built.  They will try to hide the truth.

But those of us that know the truth, and saw the beauty and strength in Marie, will not let her work go to waste.  Someday, when she is ready, her daughter will be given the legacy that Marie created for her.  The truth will live in all of us until that point.  Someday, we will hand over the key to the Secret Garden that Marie started.  This is the legacy that she will receive.

Marie is in peace with her maker and her daughter.  Please comment only on the beautiful person that Marie was, and how she touched your life.  I will not approve comments from people that are self-serving and dishonorable to Marie or her husband.

Please contribute to a Memorial Fund for Marie if you can:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=HU8GVDME8UBUJ&lc=US&item_name=Marie%20Hazard%20Memorial%20Fund&currency_code=USD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF%3abtn_donateCC_LG%2egif%3aNonHosted

 

 

Tribute to Marie Hazard

Two days ago an incredible woman and mother passed away.  It is a travesty and family court is to blame.  They took the one thing she loved more than life away from her 3 and a half years ago, and now her 12 year old daughter will never know the love of her mother.  Her husband and stepchildren will miss her dearly.  Family court didn’t give her a chance.  No matter what she did to “fix” herself they put up more and more roadblocks to prevent her from seeing her daughter.  In fact, she has not been able to spend one minute alone with her daughter in 3 1/2 years.

She was treated like a criminal.  She was an alcoholic, not a criminal.  She went through treatment, she has been sober for over a year.  So why couldn’t she have unsupervised visits with her daughter?  She had never been shown to put her daughter in danger, she had never been drinking and driving, she had never had a DUI.  Yes, she binge drank to deal with the emotional issues of losing her first daughter in a drowning death when she was only 3.  Besides these infrequent binge drinking episodes, she was a good mother.  She loved her daughter and her daughter loved her dearly.  She wasn’t a danger, so why would they order supervised visits for this woman, when alcoholic men simply have to take a breathalizer before a visit?  In fact, the father was the one who had history of a DUI.  But its a double standard.  Marie was uneducated and worked in minimum wage jobs.  She couldn’t afford legal representation.

She fought the courts for 3 1/2 years and never stopped.  She educated herself on the law.  She took speech classes to try and present herself better in court.  It didn’t matter.  She loved her daughter so much that her emotions always got the best of her in front of the Judges.  They labeled her as volatile and emotional and rebellious, because she would cry or she would have to run out to recompose herself.  All the while, her abusive and controlling ex-husband would calmly say, “she is a deadbeat mom.”

Within a year after getting emergency custody awarded, the father moved to Oregon.  Shortly after that he moved to Texas.  He had teamed up with her estranged family to control her time with her daughter and make the determination of when she was “healed”.  As such, they required members of her estranged family to be the supervisors of her visits.  These were members of her family that had betrayes, assaulted or abused her.  They decided that Marie was only “healed” when she reconciled with these family members and “saw the light”.  While part of her intensive alcohol treatment had been to make amends, the other part was to strip away the things in her life that were harmful.  Her family was harmful and dysfunctional, and dependent upon keeping her down and being an alcoholic.  To heal, she needed to make peace and remove them from her life forever.

She had a new life.  She had a husband that loved and supported her.  He stood by her side and helped her help herself.  He admired her and respected her, through good and bad.  He didn’t drink, didn’t do drugs.  He is a wonderful father to his three children and to Marie’s daughter as well.  They all had a very close relationship until this young girl was yanked from her mother and her stepfamily.  Marie waded through all the red tape of family court and objected to the relocations.  She continued to petition to get unsupervised visits, to allow her daughter to come spend time with her and her stepfamily again.  She was continually denied, citing new loopholes on court orders.

Her ex-husband was my boyfriend when he took her daughter from her.  I thought it was temporarily until she went to a treatment center.  The courts turn people nasty, it became about a fight.  The more he went to court, the more he wanted to punish Marie.  He wanted her to never see her daughter again.  There were times he would laugh and say he would just wish the “bag of bones” would die.  He’s a cruel person, and the courts are partly to blame.  It becomes a fight in court, parents battling it out to “win” more time or more money…or both.  The common denominator is that there is always one parent, that no matter how bad they think the other parent is they don’t try to take the kids from them.  These are the parents that truly love their children, these are the parents that the children should be with.

For Marie to see her daughter in Texas the court wrote that she needed to purchase the tickets and then within 30 days, the father would pay her back his 85%.  This was a huge hurdle, as Marie did not even have a credit card; not to mention she was only working part-time.  I fronted the money for her to visit her daughter and she paid me back her portion immediately.  The father then refused to reimburse her the 85%.  He simply told her that she owed him enough in backpay of child support that he would take it off of there.  Marie called me every few days apologizing because she could not pay me back.  I was heartbroken for her.  She tried to motion the courts to get him to pay and they would not listen.

Without his money to reimburse her, she did not have enough money to buy any more tickets to Texas.  She motioned the courts to get unsupervised visits so that her daughter could come spend a weekend or full week here.  The courts denied it, stating the reason being that she had only flown to Texas once to see her daughter.  The courts further told her that she would not be able to get unsupervised visits until she established a consistent pattern of monthly supervised visits in Texas.  I would have left that courtroom and jumped off a bridge.  But not Marie.  She was frustrated, and had a few choice swear words to say when she left the courtroom.  I admire her for that!  All of us want to say those things to Judges, and she did!

I helped her buy another ticket to Texas again early this year.  She would not take the money, knowing that she would not be able to pay me back since the father was again not going to reimburse for his share.  Instead she came to my home and helped me paint and get my house ready for sale.  We had so much fun.  I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time!  She was in absolute pain with a hip injury, but she still managed to find the humor in everything.  Ok, mostly it was about what an absolute moron her ex-husband (my ex-boyfriend) was.  She talked about how amazing her current husband is, how great her step-children are.  We were brought up in totally different worlds, but were similar in so many ways.

She inspired me every day when i thought my life was tough, and my struggles in family court were bad.  Marie had 2 daughters ripped out of her life and never got a break.  The system beat her down over and over again.  She kept getting up and fighting.  She fought for her daughter and cried for her daughter.  She dreamed of the day when they could be a family again, knowing it was so close she could almost taste it.

The stress was too much on her fragile psyche and fragile body.  Curse you family court for the lives you have destroyed and the lives you have taken.  Somebody needs to stand up and make a change!

 

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_donations&business=HU8GVDME8UBUJ&lc=US&item_name=Marie%20Hazard%20Memorial%20Fund&currency_code=USD&bn=PP%2dDonationsBF%3abtn_donateCC_LG%2egif%3aNonHosted

Castleberry Claims Another Victim

Today was a terrible and sad day for a 5 year old boy.  His father was taken away from him by the Circus 3 years ago.  His father was forced into bankruptcy, evicted from his home, and ordered to have an expensive psychiatric evalutation and supervised visits when he could not afford them.  He was stripped of his dignity, his life and his son.  The last time he saw his son unsupervised almost 3 years ago, he was with his mother as his customary exchange witness.  His son was ripped out of his arms by the mother’s new husband with a crowd of onlookers.  The man started singing and whistling to this 2 year old boy saying, “Your dad is going to jail!  Say bye to Daddy because he is going to jail in 6 hours!”  Later that night, they pulled up with a sheriff and pushed up ladders to look in his home.  They gave him 20 minutes to get his stuff and leave, with his son watching from the car.

For the last 3 years this father has been fighting to see his son.  He arranged to have lay supervisors from his church do visits until he could afford them.  The GAL said no.  He researched different supervisors and found 3 of the best ones.  The mother would not cooperate and for various reasons disagreed with the supervisors, after weeks of ignoring requests.  Of course, the mother blamed the father for “stalling” and not wanting to see his son.  Eventually, the GAL said he could not even have supervised visits until the psych eval.  After getting the psych eval, he was deemed absolutely normal.  Furthermore, the psychiatrist went on to criticize the GALs reports and claimed her recommendations were disturbing and baseless.

Judge Castleberry did not care.  The mother and her attorney played him like a fiddle.  He wanted control and domination over the cases.  The attorney simply kept setting the father up to appear to be non-compliant with the orders.  They fed Castleberry with false information to make it appear that the father was defiant.  It did not even matter that there was no credible evidence.  Its the Hitler mentality.  Just keep repeating something enough and people will eventually believe it.  Their story was that this father was the mastermind of a conspiracy to destroy the mother.  They succeeded in getting Castleberry to believe that this father had caused three different people to file false CPS reports.  There was testimony at this trial from all the people that made the CPS reports, 2 of which did not even know the father when they made the reports.  Nonetheless, Castleberry was out to teach this father a lesson in humility.

The father was ordered to begin reunification counseling with anyone but the 3 therapist that the father had carefully selected.  The mother’s attorney lied in court and suggested a therapist, claiming she had tons of experience with reunification.  Turns out she had only done 3 before, all recommended by this attorney.  After 5 months of therapy, the father found out why.  Although the attorney had formally withdrawn from the case, she continued to contact the reunification counselor and inform her of issues concerning the father and his friends.  Finally, the father wrote a formal letter to the therapist requesting that she focus only on the reunification that she was court ordered to do, and requested she no longer maintain contact with the attorney that is not a party to the case.  He also requested she discontinue looking at outdated GAL recommendations or orders and only focus on the current parenting plan.  This therapist became so defensive, she withdrew immediately from the case.

The father spent a couple of weeks contacting new reunification therapists and finally found one that would take the case.  He motioned the court to appoint the new reunification therapist. Upon rumors that the mother was going to flee across the country, he requested a restraint from her move until reunification was complete.  The father has appealed Judge Castleberry’s March ruling on a number of separate issues, so obviously Judge Castleberry is undermined and pissed off.  For some reason, our courts still allow him to declare authority over current rulings.  Judge Castleberry claimed permanent jurisdiction and requires that all decisions regarding this case be heard by him.

Today was the hearing and it was a bloodbath.  Castleberry lied and distorted facts.  He laughed at the father and told him he just could not get along with anyone and obviously stalled and did not want to see his son.  Castleberry claimed to have ordered him to start reunification counseling in January, but the father waited until May.  When the order appointing the reunification counselor was not until mid-April.  Furthermore, Judge Castleberry requested the mother send him a request for an expedited relocation hearing.  He denied the father’s motion to appoint the reunification counselor locally, because he wants to wait until late November when they might be able to relocate.  At which point, the father will be required to travel 7200 miles weekly on his own cost to have an hour and a half reunification session with his son.

So who the heck is considering this 5 year old boy?  He is finally allowed to meet and bond with his father, that he did not even remember.  He sees him weekly for 1 and half hours for 2 months then weekly for 2 hours for another 2 months.  Then this therapist simply quits and won’t even continue reunification until another therapist is appointed; especially since there was only 2 months left.  The son stops seeing his father suddenly.   There was no final goodbye, no final hug.  Then he may be moved across the country and will not see his father for at least 3 months.

Castleberry needs to think about this child and how he needs a father.  Right now this boy feels abandoned and unwanted by his own father.  This boy has no idea the obstacles his father has been fighting to be with him, to love him, to share a life with him.  Instead, Castleberry feels the need to punish this father like a criminal; instead of encouraging him to be a father.  There are enough fathers in this country who have abandoned their children, this harms these children for life.  I fear that this is the final blow for this father.  The more he tries to see his son, the more he gets criticized and rolled over.  It is like watching one of those bad violent films where a gang of people hold someone while he gets the crap beat out of him.  Everyone is frightened to help, because they know they will be next.

If you read this, my dear friend, know that I will always jump in the ring with you.  I know it is hard to keep going and I admire your courage.  Your son will know what you have done for him and he will know your love and dedication.  keep up the good fight!

Castleberry:  PULL the GAVEL out of your rearend!  The crap has blocked your vision and clowded your judgment.  You have no right being a Judge when you let your ego surpass the law.

To Blog or Not To Blog

Since I began this blog last week, and more importantly, since I told people I was doing this blog I have received a number of wonderful comments, careful warnings, encouraging words and a small number of harsh critiques.  My number one fear is that I am scared to death of not protecting my children, my number two fear is that I am scared to death of not preventing harm to other children when I might have made a difference.  I believe in a higher being and a divine plan for my life.  I believe that we are all handed struggles and they are first a lesson learned; secondly, they are a lesson shared with others.

I know many of you think I should keep quiet in order to make my legal situation better, but I am already tarnished.  They have already blackballed me in the family circus.  My last hearing was a threat from a Judge that essentially said that I will lose custody of my children if I keep this up.  Well, that pretty much kills my opportunity to appeal or even motion for a revision.  Furthermore, this Judge sent the copy of this Order to my assigned Family Court Judge to ensure he knew of my actions.  My mistake was making a decision to protect my daughter in the instant that i found out about improper sexual conduct.  Apparently, the Circus does not like when you make a decision on your own.  They need the control, they want to rule everything with regards to our children.  So there was my punishment….no legal basis for a Contempt charge.  Then I had the audacity to challenge the ruling and motion for a reconsideration.  How dare I do that.  Fortunately, my attorney encountered a glitch in the mandatory efiling which led my motion for reconsideration to be transmitted 13 minutes late.  It was denied.  Forget about the victim, forget about the wellbeing of my daughter; it was late darnit.

Then I made my second mistake.  I went online and searched myself to get a protection order that would last until we could motion family court for protection.  It instructed me to go to the nearest district court to get a temporary order.  After explaining my story to the District Court Judge he carefully wrote the order to not interfere with the Contempt Order Purging.  Apparently, this was the biggest insult to Family Court unknown to most lay people simply searching the website.  Never undermine their authority by going to a lower court to fill in the gaps of their timing issues.

My last mistake was then taking the Motion for Reconsideration Denial and filing for a Revision by an elected Judge.  Which brings me where I am today, threatened by the last Judge in a completely frivolous Anti-Harassment Temporary Protection Order hearing.  She read a whole bunch of baseless and unsubstantiated lies which not only did not occur, but even if they had occurred they in no way met the legal definition of harassment.  This Judge knew nothing about the struggles I have endured as primary custodian in the last 6 years.  She had not clue that my children’s father has not been to a single medical appointment, not one parent/teacher conference, has disregarded every court order in the last 3 years, has not paid a penny to any of our children’s activities, and is 6 months behind in his childcare payments.  Regardless of these facts, she had the lack of integrity to threaten me with losing custody of, or possibly never seeing my children again, if i kept up my actions.  The only confrontational thing i have done in 6 years is keep my daughter from going to her father’s home after she and her friend alleged sexual misconduct.  Apparently, my daughter does not even have the right for a fair investigation.  She and I are victims, and now I am being threatened and prosecuted for this.

For this reason, I will blog.  I will not let the system that is supposed to be protecting our constitutional rights, use my children as pawns to threaten me.  If I back down to their threats, they will continue to do this with others.  These are our elected judicial officials that are unconstitutionally chilling my first amendment rights.

I appreciate all of you that have voiced your concern to protect me, but I feel that a judicial system that is purposely trying to control our free speech is the one area that needs to be exposed.  So please pass this on to anyone and everyone you can.