I had an exceptional encounter with an exceptional woman this week who was raped as a child (by a child) and later violently raped as a young adult, and whose assailants were never held accountable for their actions. It’s her firm conviction—and one supported by her own experiences and those of women she’s counseled—that allegations of rape and violence in criminal court can too easily be dismissed when, for example, a woman has voluntarily entered a man’s living quarters and an expectation of consent to intercourse has been aroused.
Her perception of judicial bias against criminal plaintiffs is one shared by many and not without cause.
By contrast, I’ve heard from hundreds of people (of both genders) who’ve been violated by false accusers in civil court and who know that frauds are readily and indifferently accepted by judges. (Correspondingly, more than one female victim of civil restraining order abuse has characterized her treatment in court and by the courts as “rape.”)
Their perception of judicial bias against civil defendants is equally validated.
Lapses by the courts have piqued the outrage of victims of both genders against the opposite gender, because most victims of rape are female, and most victims of false allegations are male.
The failures of the court in the prosecution of crimes against women, which arouse feminist ire like nothing else, are largely responsible for the potency of restraining order laws, which are the product of dogged feminist politicking, and which are easily abused to do malice (or psychological “rape”).
In ruminating on sexual politics and the justice system, I’m inexorably reminded of the title of a book by psychologist R. D. Laing that I read years ago: Knots.
In the first title I conceived for this piece, I used the phrase “can’t see eye to eye.” The fact is these issues are so incendiary and prejudicial that no one can see clearly period. Everyone just sees red.
Under the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), federal funds are doled out to police precincts and courts in the form of grants purportedly intended to educate police officers and judges and sensitize them to violations against women, which may have the positive effect of ensuring that more female victims of violent crimes see justice but simultaneously ensures that standards applied to the issuance of civil restraining orders slacken still further, allowing casual abuse of a free process to run rampant and destroy lives. The victim toll of false restraining orders negates strides made toward achieving justice for female victims in criminal prosecutions. What is more, though restraining orders are four times more often applied for by women than men, making women their predominant abusers, the laxity of restraining order administration allows women to be violated by men, too.
Not only was a woman I’ve recently been in correspondence with repeatedly assaulted by her short-term boyfriend, a charming and very cunning guy; he also succeeded in petitioning a false restraining order against her, alleging, among other things, violence. She had even applied for a restraining order against him first, which was dismissed:
There are no words for how I felt as I walked to my car that afternoon. To experience someone I had cared deeply about lying viciously in open court, to have a lawyer infer that I’m a liar, and to be told by a judge that, basically, he didn’t believe me (i.e., again, that I’m a liar), filled me with a despair so intense that I could hardly live with it. You know how, in trauma medicine, doctors will sometimes put grossly brain-injured patients into medically-induced comas so as to facilitate healing? That afternoon, I needed and longed for a medically-induced emotional coma to keep my skull from popping off the top of my head. I don’t know how else to describe it. It was that day that I learned that the justice system is rotten, that the truth doesn’t mean shit, and that to the most depraved liar go the spoils.
As many people who’ve responded to this blog have been, this woman was used and abused then publicly condemned and humiliated to compound the torment. She’s shelled out thousands in legal fees, lost a job, is in therapy to try to maintain her sanity, and is due back in court next week. And she has three kids who depend on her.
The perception that consequences of civil frauds are no big deal is wrong and makes possible the kind of scenario illustrated by this woman’s case: the agony and injury of physical assault being exacerbated by the agony and injury of public shame and humiliation, a psychological assault abetted and intensified by the justice system itself.
The consequences of the haywire circumstance under discussion are that victims multiply, and bureaucrats and those who feed at the bureaucratic trough (or on what spills over the side) thrive. The more victims there are and the more people there are who can be represented as victims, the busier and more prosperous grow courts, the police, attorneys, advocacy groups, therapists, etc.
What’s glaringly absent in all of this is oversight and accountability. Expecting diligence and rigor from any government apparatus is a pipedream. So is expecting people to be honest when they have everything to gain from lying and nothing to lose from getting caught at it, because false allegations to civil courts are never prosecuted.
Expecting that judges will be diligent, rigorous, and fair if failing to do so hazards their job security, and expecting civil plaintiffs to be honest if being caught in a lie means doing a stint in prison for felony perjury—that, at least, is reasonable.
The obstacle is that those who hold political sway object to this change. The feminist establishment, whose concern for women’s welfare is far more dogmatic than conscientious, has a strong handhold and no intention of loosening its grip.
Typically both criminal allegations of assault or rape and civil allegations in restraining order cases (which may be of the same or a similar nature) boil down to he-said-she-said. In criminal cases, the standard of guilt is proof beyond a reasonable doubt, a criterion that may be impossible to establish when one person is saying one thing and the other person another, evidence is uncertain, and there are no witnesses. In civil cases, no proof is necessary. So though feminist outrage is never going to be fully satisfied, for example, with the criminal prosecution of rapists, because some rapists will always get off, feminists can always boast success in the restraining order arena, because the issuance of restraining orders is based on judicial discretion and requires no proof at all; and the courts have been socially, politically, and monetarily influenced to favor female plaintiffs. However thwarted female and feminist interests may be on the criminal front, feminists own the civil front.
And baby hasn’t come a long way only to start checking her rearview mirror for smears on the tarmac now.
Copyright © 2013 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com
Anonymous
November 10, 2013
I was on expertlaw.com and brought up an old thread from years before, said my opinion on these things, and then the thread was deleted (it had 6000 views). I believe the individuals over there try to block out any critical thinkers who are leading people onto the path of truth: How to defend against a restraining order. I think they’re doing that in order to help game the system in order to make money. I did, however, advocate open rebellion against people who abuse the system and killing judges who move toward judicial corruption rather than judicial activism when dealing with restraining order cases.
I think one thing that any individual going into a proceeding on one of these restraining orders should have something in mind: culpability. If the petitioner cannot prove culpability, ideally, the case should be thrown out. So, for any individual facing a restraining order, the person should understand terms, such as “actus reus” and “mens rea.” It’s not enough for the petitioner to say something happened. The petitioner also needs to prove that the respondent (defendant) held the culpability with the act. And with that, if the respondent (defendant) holds belief that he or she is not culpable, then the respondent is well in denying in court allegations.
For instance, if a petitioner alleges an assault occurred (that the petitioner was threatened with physical force), the petitioner needs to prove culpability. It is not on the respondent to disprove culpability. However, the respondent could make an effort to disprove culpability with reasons why something is not the way it is. I think it is safe to say that if a respondent is not sure that he or she did an act with culpability, the respondent can deny knowingly doing it. All the respondent has to consider is whether or not there is evidence from the time of the act or prior to the time of the act that could be used as evidence to support an allegation that culpability existed. Also, as I’ve read a fairly good article titled “True Threats and the Issue of Intent” by Paul T. Crane, I’ve interpreted that a threat is not a true threat unless willful intent exists. Otherwise, it is a false threat either communicated by the speaker or intentionally falsely portrayed to be a true threat by a lying recipient.
The concepts of “preponderance of the evidence,” “clear and convincing evidence,” and “beyond a reasonable doubt” all mean the same thing in an argumentative sense. In each scenario, there are allegations, which may or may not have evidence to support that the “actus reus” and “mens rea” occurred. And not guilty is the same thing, whether it be civil or criminal court. One difference between civil and criminal court is that in criminal court, there is a conviction. Another difference, as I’ve studied, is that preponderance of the evidence tends to rely on the respondent to prove the respondent’s credibility as evidence that the respondent did not hold culpability. If the respondent did not hold culpability, the respondent is not guilty.
I once read someone that an individual was dealing with his ex-partner, attempted to win the legal case, and the defendant’s attorney had remarked that the issue was that they were dealing with the J&D courts: Juvenile and Divorce courts. I read an article by an individual named Jamison Koehler on a juvenile he attempted to defend, and what the judge decided to prosecute and convict on was CREDIBILITY rather than CULPABILITY. That appears to be a serious mishap for justice and juveniles: That individuals are prosecuted because they are considered to not be credible. Ideally, before the law, individuals are to be observed as equals. As such, credibility should not be an issue. Any judge who goes off of this path, as I believe, is showing a bias, thus being partial. And in that, there is judicial corruption. And that, in itself, ought to be grounds to make a “motion to recuse,” thus pushing off the judge from the case and getting a different judge. As I perceive it as judicial corruption, I felt absolutely comfortable with the idea of supporting the murder of these judges to bring public attention to the issue. I have often felt that the route of non-violence is extremely slow, especially when people have to wait to vote someone corrupt out of office.
I do not doubt that many judges and attorneys game the system in order to get funds from woman’s groups. I firmly believe that VAWA is one of those groups that judges are attached to persuades them to wrongfully prosecute people. Similar things happened in the psychiatric industry in the past couple of decades. Doctors were wrongfully prescribing medications that patients did not need. Big pharma influenced doctors to start prescribing various medications, and the doctors would get kickbacks from the pharmaceutical companies. The judges are doing the same thing, but it looks slightly different. And the judges, unfortunately, have judicial immunity. As such, that it why I was in support of killing them: They’re not immune from a bullet.
However, let’s think about this for a moment: Credibility. If these judges are passing judgment on credibility, then it may be that if they prosecute an individual who has social status or wealth, is someone good individual in the community, then the judges and the court system will receive backlash from the community of members that the respondent has ties to in some way or another. When an individual argues against culpability or the need for the establishment of a restraining order, they are saying, “I’m part of the higher social status. If you establish a restraining order against me, you will be effected in some way.”
In that way, in a low and dirty way, an individual should be able to argue against culpability for acts and argue against having committed acts, simply by using credibility. And, sure, it may not be low and dirty, especially when an individual is using credibility to prove how good of a person he or she is, such as getting reference letters.
Nonetheless, credibility is a way of discussing political pull: It’s part of the corruption. It’s something that the judges pay attention to out of fear. It’s part of the game.
Sources:
(#) Crane, Paul T.. True Threats and the Issue of Intent. Virginia Law Review. Vol. 92:1225
(#) Koehler, Jamison. A Lesser Standard for Proving Culpability in Juvenile Cases; by Jamison Koehler on August 26, 2011 (also on archive.org; use link)
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Moderator
November 26, 2013
The vehemence of your feelings toward scrimshanking judges and false accusers is very understandable and brings to mind the rule of the speed bump/crosswalk: government pays attention only after a pedestrian or five get pulped (that’s not hyperbole but a fact). Obviously I can’t get behind assassination or riot, but your frank advocacy of these acts emphasizes something everyone should note: the emotions court injustices arouse are extreme, as are the damages they do.
I’ve lived around horses for about 15 years, and they’re among the most stoical creatures you’ll ever encounter. If a horse is bleeding, everyone will rush from thither and yon to respond. The air will be pungent with hysteria. That those horses stand in place for over 20 hours a day is a fact no one pays much attention to. And many stalled horses develop weird tics and habits, as animals designed to run and roam will when they’re confined all day. I introduce this aside as an allegory for the ease with which people ignore psychological harms.
To third parties who may eavesdrop on this dialogue: Publicly humiliating and menacing people, particularly based on accusations that may be entirely false, is brutal and brutalizing. It may be bloodless, but it’s no less egregious a violent crime than a physical assault, which may in fact be far less deleterious in its consequences. Bodies are much more readily healed than minds (and sundered ambitions and fractured homes and contaminated records). Liars, and I’ve known many, may easily forgive themselves and move on, because their hands are unstained, and they don’t have to witness the fallout of their misconduct. Judges—and I’ve known a few of those now, too—excuse themselves just as conveniently from observing damages they abet. This respondent’s open admission, which may seem wildly reactionary or “crackpot,” is an honest acknowledgment of the volcanic torment that can be stirred and perpetuated with a few base lies validated by judges whose lives and whose families’ lives are comfortably insulated against such attacks and whose lives and whose families’ lives are comfortably provided for by the salaries received for their complicity in undoing other people’s and other people’s families’ lives entirely.
It’s been a repeated source of disgust to me that the court and unaffected third parties expect people who’ve been subjected to grave psychological abuses to respond to those abuses with civil equanimity. One woman I’ve recently corresponded with, a single mother of three quoted above, said that such abuses left her feeling like her head was going to explode and said she would have welcomed a coma. She may continue feeling that way for years (in fact her ordeal has already spanned 24 months, and she’s due back in court soon after stressing over a looming court date and then being told the trial was postponed). The gnawing outrage and anguish inspired by court injustices are violent, their consequences are violent, and those injustices themselves are violent.
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