"Louisiana Becomes the 35th State Sued for Constitutional Rights
Violations"
Parents File Class Action Custody Lawsuits All Across America
New Orleans, LA:
September 29, 2004 -
Over the past two weeks, advocate groups
have been filing multiple federal class action lawsuits, on behalf of an
estimated 25 million noncustodial parents, demanding that rights to equal
custody of their children be restored by the federal courts. Louisiana became
the 35th state to be sued for Constitutional abuses to Non Custodial Parents by
the Indiana Civil Rights Council class action lawsuit relief.
Reminiscent to the start of the American Revolutionary War, groups in thirteen
states fired the opening salvos on September 17, 2004 - the anniversary of the
U.S. Constitution. Interestingly, groups in South Carolina were the very first,
also strangely familiar with the opening sequences of the Civil War. The groups
promise their resolve in obtaining victory on a national scale.
In what some are calling "the granddaddy of all lawsuits", the parents
will challenge widespread practices by the states in determining care, custody,
and support of children. "Parents are tired of being mistreated as second
class citizens by state courts," according to Torm L. Howse, President of
the Indiana Civil Rights Council, which is coordinating the national effort.
"Most parents say they care about their children, their families, and the
related unnecessary waste of their hard-earned taxdollars by the government,
more than all other political issues combined."
The coalition is comprised of various leaders from family rights, fathers
rights, mothers rights, and shared parenting groups, as well as political
candidates, doctors, and other activists committed to dramatic social, taxation,
and government reform in the area of family law. The effort is also backed by
several prominent family rights organizations.
"We're trying to protect the right of all fit parents to share equally in
the custody and care of their children," says Howse. "The time has
come for a drastic reform of government practices that harm children and
parents." "Kids need both parents," adds Rachel Forrest, a leader
with the National Congress for Fathers and Children. "We hope that this
landmark action will wake up the government and make it aware of the inequities
in family courts and social services that prevent our children from having equal
access to both of their parents."
According to attorney Garrett C. Dailey, who successfully obtained a recent
landmark California Supreme Court decision, "children of divorced parents
who have two primary parents in their lives do better in school, are better
adjusted and happier than children raised by only one primary parent."
Likewise, the American Psychological Association, the world’s largest such
group, confirmed through an exhaustive study that children in joint custody
arrangements have less behavior and emotional problems, higher self-esteem,
better family relations, and better school performance than children who are
subjected to sole custody arrangements. Agreeing in a decision long-touted by
parental rights advocates, Judge Dorothy T. Beasley of the Georgia Court of
Appeals ruled: "Inherent in the express public policy is a recognition of
the child's right to equal access and opportunity with both parents, the right
to be guided and nurtured by both parents, the right to have major decisions
made by the application of both parents' wisdom, judgement and experience. The
child does not forfeit these rights when the parents divorce."
When asked to elaborate on the amount of damages being sought, Howse clarified,
"Oh, yes. I suppose the initial appearance of damages being sought seems
staggering - even unbelievable. However, those numbers only reflect the fact
that the sheer number of parents who have been wronged by family courts is
equally staggering." He also added, "It has never been about winning
large amounts of money from the states. That would hurt the innocent taxpayers,
and as noncustodial parents, we are very familiar with suffering under
backbreaking financial pressures. It's about restoring the lives of our
children, and restoring our own lives, all in accordance with law. In fact, we
are preparing, very soon, to offer proposed settlements that would alleviate the
vast majority of these damages, among other things, in exchange for a quick
restoration of equal custody rights, a few forms of tax abatements and credits
to balance what custodial parents have enjoyed for years, and some other basic
and related issues, like the setting up of neutral visitation exchange centers.
We will encourage state governments to accept the overwhelming facts, and to
thereby avoid any necessity for a prolonged court battle."
In addition to challenging standard practices pertaining to family law, the
coalition also alleges that while nearly every state has recognized catastrophic
budgetary failures, the states still recklessly refuse to consider the financial
devastation involved with encouraging routine awards of sole custody, reminding
that such patterns dramatically increase crime, poverty, drug use, suicides,
dropouts, teenage pregnancies, and other forms of direct harm and costs against
children, families, taxpayers, and society in general. Professor Stephen
Baskerville, distinguished master of political science at Howard University, and
one of the world’s foremost experts on various custody and child support
issues, explains: "Politicians often spend money to avoid confronting
problems. Yet marshaling the government to strengthen families seems especially
pointless when it is government that weakened the family in the first
place."
The plaintiffs further allege that the relocation of children away from one
parent radically increases the incidence of parental kidnappings, which dwarf
all other types of kidnappings, and wastes additional taxdollars in the ensuing
processes. An in-depth analysis, conducted in 1990 by the U.S. Department of
Justice, confirmed that over 350,000 children were abducted that year by a
family member - typically a parent involved in a custody dispute - while the
number of stereotypical kidnappings of children for ransom amounted only to a
few hundred nationwide.
The parents say that common inequities in state family courts are also directly
and indirectly responsible for murders and suicides amongst the most estranged
families. Every week, they note, approximately 300 fathers and 75 mothers commit
suicide in this country, with the majority of these senseless deaths directly
attributable to victimization by family courts. These suicides are often
committed by passive parents, due to hopelessness in a system fraught with
injustice, but the more aggressive parents occasionally snap at the weight of
suffering such anguish, and violently take out their desperation on estranged
partners, sometimes even murdering them, and possibly the children, before also
killing themselves.
They also allege that the states are recklessly responsible for much of the
abuse and neglect experienced by children in this country. The National
Clearinghouse for Child Abuse and Neglect Information, a service of the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, consistently reports that, year after
year, single parents are responsible for almost two-thirds of all substantiated
cases of abuse and neglect committed against children - more than all other
classes of perpetrators combined. The national costs of these child abuse and
neglect incidents surpassed $94 billion in 2001, according to Prevent Child
Abuse America. "It’s painfully obvious that the majority of child abuse
can be easily prevented, by simply ensuring the regular presence of both parents
in the daily lives of children," notes Howse. "Involving the eyes and
ears of both parents creates a naturally self-balancing situation, wherein a
child’s health and safety is automatically monitored by opposing sides who
stand to gain if the other side fails."
The Plaintiffs further charge that because parents are generally treated
unfairly in family courts, the results are also directly or indirectly
responsible for very large, and otherwise unnecessary, additional tax burdens
upon every citizen, through increased welfare spending and self-serving
enlargement of state family agencies and entities, and that such inequities are
also indirectly responsible for vast numbers of personal and corporate
bankruptcies, which are absorbed into even more future taxation. Additionally,
they note a pattern of fraud and abuse being progressively reported about
various state family bureaucracies, which they say are very costly in terms of
taxdollars, and which violate the rights of American citizens on an
unprecedented scale.
"It is high time for costly government to get out of the lives of most
parents and children," says Howse. "American taxpayers should no
longer be forced to fund systematic violations against parents and children, and
the needless progressive destruction of our society."
While the current class actions deal exclusively with conventional aspects of
child custody, leaders of related parents groups report they have already begun
the processes for raising similar legal challenges in the near future, on behalf
of alleged victims of CPS, paternity fraud, and the progressive institutional
drugging of children in this nation.
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