Behind the Black Robes: Failed Justice

Behind the Black Robes: Failed Justice
By Barbara C. Johnson
Published August 2009

The book addresses a serious problem, the need for court reform and the abolishment of judicial and quasi-judicial immunity. Marinated with the makings of sizzle, the book is filled with the courts’ tricks and traps for the unwary—to alert the readers both why their law cases failed and what must be done to effect court reform.

Each chapter introduces the background of the subject of that chapter and then presents a series of illustrative anecdotes intended to teach the readers by example how to avoid those court tricks and traps people are likely to encounter in their existing or potential court cases.

Its author, Barbara C. Johnson, an unconventional 74-year-old, has long been a fierce advocate for fathers' rights in family courts. She is an outspoken critic of the Massachusetts court system, which she says is rife with corruption.

In 2002, she ran a quixotic campaign for governor, campaigning in an antique fire truck and promising to use creativity, compassion, and a willingness to listen to the People to mend an ailing government.

In 2006, Johnson was barred from practicing law in Massachusetts. “The disbarment by a kangaroo court was an effort to silence my criticism of the courts,” she said.

A newspaper wrote, “While we don't fully agree with either her politics or her methods, Johnson is a character in a humdrum world sorely in need of more characters. She's the thorn in the side, the thumbtack on the chair. . . . Johnson speaks her mind, and loudly.”

Behind the Black Robes: Failed Justice is available for purchase at-

* www.Amazon.com

* www.Abebooks.com

* www.Alibris.com

Barbara C. Johnson, Advocate of Court Reform and Attorney in Fact

Apdo #404-4013 Alajuela, Atenas, Atenas 20501-Costa Rica

barbaracjohnson74@gmail.com SKYPE ID: barbaracjohnson74 Phone 2446-6724

False Allegations: http://www.falseallegations.com

Participating Attorney: http://www.lawguru.com/cgi/bbs2/user/browse.shtml
Campaign 2002: http://www.barbforgovernor.com

The judicial system is very broken. It must be fixed. There are four people who can do the job: Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. Everybody thinks Somebody will surely do it. It is a job Anybody can do. But Nobody is doing it. At least I'm trying. What are you doing?

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. --- VOLTAIRE

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. --- ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER (1788-1860)

Behind the Black Robes: Failed Justice.

Culture Wars - Why Is Government Destroying Families?

Why Is Government Destroying Families?

By Mike McManus
July 22, 2009

Frank Hatley was released from a Georgia jail after more than a year for failure to pay child support even though a DNA test nine years ago proved that he was not the father, reported columnist Phyllis Schlafly this week.

Judge Dane Perkins acknowledged in an August 21, 2001 court order, that Hatley was not the father, but ordered him to pay child support anyway. Although he was freed from making future payments in 2001, Judge Perkins forced Hatley to continue making payments on the $16,000 that he owed.

Why? Because a 1986 federal law prohibits retroactive reduction of alleged child support, even if a DNA test proved he was not the father. Also, when a man is sent to jail for five years, his child support arrearages continue to pile up while he is in prison, when he is incapable of paying.

This law, known as the Bradley Amendment (after then Sen. Bill Bradley), refuses to allow a person who owes back child support to declare bankruptcy, like GM was allowed to do, paying only a fraction of the debt it owed to bondholders.

The Bradley Amendment also forbids judicial consideration of a person's clear inability to pay. In Frank Hatley's case, he paid $6,000 he did not owe before being laid off from his job of unloading charcoal grills from shipping containers. Although he ended up living in his car, he made another $3,500 of payments from his Unemployment Insurance.

Neither Republican nor Democratic Administrations have proposed to repeal the patently unjust Bradley Amendment. Why? The $28 billion collected from largely non-resident fathers, reimbursed the government for $24 billion of its cost of welfare payments to mothers.

They are a source of revenue from an avaricious government, who views every father who falls behind as a "dead-beat dad."

Child support payments are reasonable. If a man fathers a child, he has an obligation to pay for it. And nine out of ten fathers are current in child support if they have joint custody, as are eight of ten with visitation rights.

Relatively few are deadbeat dads.

However, if DNA proves the man is not the father, not only should all child support payments cease, but any past debt should be waived, and past unjust payments should be returned.

A judge should have the freedom to decide whether a man is too poor to make back payments. Certainly, no one's child support arrearages should mount up if he is in prison.

Furthermore, if the parent without child custody is making child support payments, the parent deserves regular access to children. I know of one father who has only seen his child five times in a year. He went to court to get regular access, but lost.

The heavy hand of the law targets the presumed "deadbeat dad," but never lands on the deadbeat mom who refuses dad's access to his children. As Frank Hatley, 50, put it, "Out of it all, I just feel like justice should be served for me in this case," he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution after his release. "I shouldn't have to keep being punished for a child that is not mine."

Admittedly, Hatley's case is extreme in that his DNA proved him innocent. However, it is not extreme that he was sent to jail for non-payment. Students of American history think debtors prison was abolished in America before slavery was abolished.

However, there are 30,000 to 50,000 fathers in jail for non-payment of child support, according to Mike McCormick, president of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children.

Dr. Michael Ross, an emergency room physician in Detroit who created the Family Rights Coalition of Michigan to fight for fairer laws, charges "The American dream has been aborted...Our laws and systems have been jerry-rigged to destroy our family lives in the name of individual freedom.

"It is time to proclaim the vision of our founders and reestablish mankind's biological institutions: marriage and parenting.

"Marriage is the answer for America and for the world."

He notes that only 44 percent of U.S. teenagers live with both married parents. The marriage rate has plunged 50 percent since 1970. Divorce has terminated 44 million marriages shattering the lives of 42 million children. Nearly 40 percent of children are born out-of-wedlock.

Why? Often government programs subsidize cohabitation, not marriage. No Fault Divorce laws reward the destruction of marriage, not its preservation. In four out of five divorces, one spouse wants to preserve the marriage, but is not given an equal voice in court to preserve it.

When will political leaders of either party fight unjust laws that are destroying marriage, and enact laws to restore it?

---Michael J. McManus is a syndicated columnist writing on "Ethics & Religion". He is President & Co-Chair of Marriage Savers. He lives with his wife in Potomac MD.

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