CJE Advocacy: Judicial Performance Evaluations

Whilst I believe that the movies below are 99% on point, I have to disagree with the position they take on PAS. In my humble opinion of being on the inside of the problem faced by fathers - I believe it is a real issue that needs to be expanded to cover both partial alienation of the children against the targeted spouse but also to include consideration of what the Ex Spouse does to achieve wholesale outright alienation of the other Spouse from the children. The biggest sign of this is when unsubstantiated facts appear in the moving parties motions alleging abuse, danger to Ex/Children - alcohol abuse - allegations THAT ARE NEEDED to fabricate a call for the mother being granted SLPC and near zero visitation to the father. This fact always alleges ex husband as a violent/Angry man, even though their is no history of this behavior(ever). Its more likely the reality is the mother wants dissolution because she could not deal with living a lie any longer through an undisclosed relationship (best friends husband in my case + her former X boyfriend). See the book below for info about why this can happen (womens infidelity). The accusation is utterly absurd to suggest that the spouse is now a danger when truth is he is likely a deer in the headlights and still in love with his X wife because he is only just getting up to speed on the fact that his wife wants a divorce when she has in contrast been been use to the idea because she had been planning it with her secret lover for a year or more ;-)

In my case, the Ex's first indication that she wanted a divorce was a server dropping her motion on the door mat in front of the family house for dissolution while she was traveling out of state with the children. No warning! Amazingly she included in her allegations that I somehow posed a threat to her ~ even though she was the last person on the planet that I could harm. The fact was I never so much as touched a hair on her head ever even when her affairs with her ex and all of the sordid details were fully known to me.

If you look at the history of a similar mother you will see she is always the moving party and always alleging abuse which is always coinciding with requested alienation of the father using the courts to acheieve the outcome. Unsubstantiated or fabricated Allegation and pushing for custody and visitation never seems to be a subject that evaluators mention. Its seems they are to ignorant and stupid to comment on it being a possibility. Their reports don't ever say; suspects mother is a Sociopath and practicing PAS. Meaning mother dragging Ex through courts to relieve him of the children and his money while mother actively encourages kids to say certain things to evaluators to set up father. In my case my daughter walked out of a custody assessment with the court approved evaluator with a note book that I had never seen before that was full of things that daddy apparently said ~ comments that I had never heard before in my life! Sure enough - the judge went on to quote from the notes... DUuuuuhhh!

With this exception on PAS the producers of this movie are absolutely on point especially about how mediation services mediators do not even read the files before a court mandated hearing - they don't read the pleadings of the court record and yet they make their decisions favoring mother against the local rules of the court.

This happens when their is absolutely no reason to have a new hearing because there is no REAL EVIDENCE showing just cause for a change in custody or visitation other than BS allegations by the woman holding the gun and now openly hooked up with her her best friends husband.

The purpose of the mother winning custody is so that they can start a which hunt and find a reason or create one by escalating a peaceful working custody process in to one that is now charged and hostile simply because the mediator granted the mother a shot at screwing over husband in the courts (by hook or crook) and during the witch hunt evaluation. Now she just needs to pay off a court clerk and pay him to not tell father about a hearing (father then becomes a no show and court rules against him which happens all of the time), or they buy services of someone like Rhonda Barovsky to load dice against father in an evaluation and misrepresent the evidence... If the father is in pro per now he is pretty much screwed - he will loose custody - its just a matter of how much. Of course now he has lost it it now means he now needs to pay the lying toad that stole his time away from his children...not that would make a man angry - someone stealing his kids on lies and manipulation.... it only gets better from here on out!

This is exactly what happened in my case. I filed a formal complaint with the head of mediation services after he ordered a full custody evaluation after 10 minutes in to the hearing. The head of CE advised me that each mediator only has four hours to go through each file - I explained - "is four hours not enough to open the court record to see if he is dealing with a litigant with a history of lying, litigation. Does this not allow enough time to look at the motion for - the motion against"... she fumbled... I then asked her "what is there to stop a scheming manipulating woman forcing a custody evaluation to try and then further manipulate the court in the process" ~ as women do. She concluded that the system was not perfect. I call this imperfection fraudulent, fixed, loaded against men - especially when you consider that 9 times out of 10 the judge follows the mediators advice. It means the system can easily be gamed when there is absolutely no reason for a case to be in the court system in the first place. In this I can only conclude they want every case to go through the courts whether warranted or not so that work loads drive fees and work loads and head count. You have to feed the machine right!

Fathers - there is nothing stopping you being played by the system once the custody evaluation process is ordered. Its now a role of the dice - its already loaded against you. Even though you are being forced in to the system and forced to pay for year long dog and pony show that the mediator just signed you up for with out your agreement - Please don't get frustrated about the fact your Ex and her pit-bull is playing you - trying to steal your children with no evidence - because if you do, you will be seen by the court to be an angry guy and that means you are not a fit parent according to Alameda Kangaroo Court Judges and that you will need to go to anger management class for 12 weeks before you can go and see your children again!!!

Now I know that when you are on the street and someone steals your kids they will be an all points bulletin out for the kidnappers, their will Amber alerts on the highways - when you are being accused of abuse by an ignorant judge that cant tell the difference between a banana and an orange who then steals your children from you because some one in the court was paid off or he did not bother reading the pleadings before the court. In this situation - remember you are not allowed to say anything and you are supposed to speak calmly to the Gods in the court. You should allow the judge to put his foot up your arse - and turn around and smile ask him/her and to kick you with the other foot and then say thank you. You should applaud at having your children kidnapped by the court and tell the judge that despite the national statistics on fatherless children - he is a very wise man and that you respect his deep wisdom and profound sense of justice! If you scream out like you would if someone other than a judge stole your children - then you will likely go to prison for contempt of court! Welcome to Kangaroo Court in Alameda county.



Judicial Performance Evaluations

Community Outreach & Education

CJE hosts public forums, hearings and presentations to encourage an ongoing community dialogue about the judicial system in general, and our county in particular. Click here to learn more about our public events or watch a forum video. CJE also recently produced a 42-minute documentary addressing the serious systemic breakdown of our family courts. Click here to view the 12-minute documentary trailer or click here order your own copy of the DVD. To arrange for a screening in Marin, contact Steve at 415-459-9211 ext. 25.

Advocacy

CJE is introducing the idea of a Judicial Performance Evaluation (JPE) program for California to our State legislators. JPE programs already exist in 19 other states and are generally popular among judges and voters alike where they have been established. Colorado and Alaska are two great examples of states with successful JPE programs. To learn more about JPEs visit the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System (University of Denver) online or click here to download a one-page pdf about CJE's advocacy work.

Members of the Center for Judicial Excellence have had productive meetings with the following individuals to discuss our proposed 2008 legislation:

o Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata’s Consultant Shelley Curran
o Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata’s Consultant Lindy Rose Graham
o Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez’s General Counsel Fredericka McGee
o Gene Wong, Chief Counsel, Senate Judiciary Committee
o Drew Liebert, Chief Counsel, Assembly Judiciary Committee
o Senator Dick Ackerman, Senate Minority Leader, Judiciary Committee member
o Senator Tom Harman, Ranking Republican, Senate Judiciary Committee
o Senator Carole Migden’s Legislative Director Laura Metune
o Assemblymember Mark Leno and his Legislative Director Carlos Machado
o Assemblymember Van Tran, Ranking Republican, Judiciary Committee
o Assemblymember Jared Huffman, D-Marin/Sonoma
o Assemblymember Lloyd Levine’s Judiciary Committee staffer Greg Girvan
o Assemblymember John Laird’s Consultant Janus Norman
o Assemblymember Sally Lieber’s Principal Assistant Barry Steinhart
o Donna Hershkowitz, Assistant Director of Governmental Affairs, Judicial Council of
California/Administrative Office of the Courts

We are encouraged by the positive feedback we’re receiving about developing a statewide Judicial Performance Evaluation (JPE) program for California, similar to those working in 19 other states. Our preferred model for California’s JPE program is Colorado, where volunteer commissions at the state and local levels conduct evaluations, and the program is funded using revenue from traffic violations. CJE is currently focusing on building support for JPEs among diverse statewide organizations and drafting legislation to be introduced in 2008.

Basic Assumptions of a Judicial Performance Evaluation Program
Each sitting judge should be evaluated on a regular schedule, at least twice during each term. Evaluations should emphasize apolitical metrics of judicial performance, and should be based primarily on performance against predetermined benchmarks.
An evaluation committee should gather a broad and deep set of information on the judge’s performance, including survey data, review of case management skills and written opinions, courtroom observation, and information gained from interviews with the judge. The committee should issue a report concerning each judge’s performance.
The evaluation committee should be independent, and should consist both of lawyers and nonlawyers. The evaluation process should be transparent both to the judge being evaluated and to the public. Evaluation results, and information on the evaluation process itself, should be widely disseminated to the public.

SOURCE: Shared Expectations: Judicial Accountability in Context , Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, www.du.edu/legalinstitute

Please call Kathleen Russell or Erin Fogg at 415-459-9211 for more information about JPEs.