NOTES BETWEEN PRINTED EDITIONS
by Alice Giordano
The Twilight Zone is no longer just an imaginary place for the bizarre.
It’s a real place, about an hour north of Boston in a land called New Hampshire where the same group of lawmakers who introduced legislation to end the family courts — recognizing its judges are beyond reform — have in the meantime introduced bills to give the cureless cabal even more power to abuse.
House Bill 194 is slated for a floor debate on Jan. 7 after being passed through with flying colors by none other than the New Hampshire Children and Family Law Committee, a cabal in itself that seems to have breathed in a little too much of the gaslighting pixie dust that has saturated the very courts that fall under its legislative reign.
The bill, led by a family court attorney and retired family court-appointed guardian ad litem, seeks to throw a parent in jail for not complying with the custody orders of a judge.
So in other words, these flaky frontbenchers’ solution is — if you can’t beat ’em join ’em.
Meanwhile, my money remains on the table as a challenge to anyone to find a single order issued by a family court judge in New Hampshire that complies with custody laws, child endangerment laws, child abuse laws, and oh yeah — a little something called the Constitution.
Perhaps some of these Live Free or Die solons are undergoing routine lobotomies.
Afterall — can anyone say “Harmony Montgomery?”
The little girl met a tragic ending thanks to one of these very same kinds of reckless custody orders these double-faced legislators want to throw parents in the brink for not complying with.
It gets better.
Aside from pushing to put an even bigger and more dangerous sword in the hands of their sworn enemy, these pixilated pols want to create an Orwellian family court system.
They have dubbed this very ambition the Uniform Child Abduction Prevention Act — HB1710.
It’s hard to say if these zombiesque lawmakers even know about the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA) that already governs parental kidnapping.
It’s been kicking around for like forever and was adopted by all 50 states. While the law isn’t perfect, it does follow a judicial process.
HB1710 on the other hand wildly endeavors to strip a parent of custody if someone, really anyone — thinks that a parent might possibly, maybe, as in had a dream about it, thinking about fleeing the state with their kids.
Some of the risk factors that could legally trigger this enforceable hunch include: possessing a passport, selling your house, leaving a job, and my personal favorite “engaged in active military action or war, including a civil war, to which the child may be exposed.”
Hello George: I know it’s been 41 years since 1984, but YourThought Police have been located.
You might want to be careful in New Hampshire if you have a six pack in the fridge and a car in the driveway ‘cuz you could get arrested and thrown in the hoosegow if someone hypothesizes that you could theoretically be thinking about driving drunk some day.
Today, these bills are led mostly by Republicans. In the past, a bipartisan mix has blocked Republican-led efforts to reform family courts judges, so it’s hard to say it’s a party issue, although they certainly seem to have their priorities screwed up compared to their GOP counterparts in other states.
In the red state of Tennessee, Republicans just passed a bill to create a domestic violence registry as part of a commitment to ensure safer outcomes for victims in family court cases.
In New Hampshire where two women were killed and another critically wounded after being denied protective orders by judges — domestic violence continues to remain the well-ignored elephant in the room — seated right next to the 800-pound gorilla — good, existing laws that the state’s family court judges thumb their nose at.
Before there was Harmony Montgomery, there was 9-year old Joshua Savyon.
He was shot to death in 2013 by his father in New Hampshire after a family court judge mandated he have visits with him despite multiple warnings it wouldn’t be safe.
And yet — still — the gatekeepers chronically refuse to ban two extremely unconstitutional provisions that uniquely allows family court judges to disregard rules of evidence and rules of civil procedure – leaving them to essentially — issue willy-nilly, wet finger custody orders.
Insurmountable cronyism and a shameless bevy of has-beens thriving off a system hellbent on — not fixing domestic violence, seems as much a part of New Hampshire culture as its celebratory absences of a sales and income tax.
Not to miss an opportunity to embrace legislative vacuity — the same office bearers who want to enforce lawless custody orders and expedient, opportunistic fantasies took a recent interest in the state’s existing child endangerment laws.
Under HB1185, the would-be offender could be charged for engaging in a “pattern of conduct” that leads to child endangerment.
There could be no better example of a pattern of conduct than family court judges handing children over to abusers — with elected officials eagerly providing the zip ties.
But who exactly is subject to or better yet — exempt from the proposed law.
My money’s on the family courts judges and the lawmakers who can’t make up their mind between which agenda means more to them.
