As to divorce and similar (cohabitation, etc.)
situations with child custody involved, 96-98% of all custody "awards" in this
country are flatly unconstitutional, and this has been
going on for soooo long (almost 4 decades now), that even the last couple/few
employment generations of judges and attorneys don't even know what the
real law is anymore, and just conduct "business as usual", violating parental
rights every day of the week, simply because most of them actually
don't even know any better... If you are a so-called "noncustodial"
parent, the *real* law and legal facts directly relevant to you are these three
(3) points:
1) At the very moment of live birth of a child,
BOTH natural (bio) parents are *immediately* and *automatically* vested with
total and full custodial rights, including all aspects of both "physical" and
"legal" custody. Interestingly, a stillborn child is never actually in the
legal custody of anyone, but that's a whole 'nuther story. The point is
that BOTH you AND the other natural
parent *already HAD* full, pre-existing,
totally-vested custodial rights to your child(ren), from the very moment of
birth(s)... the same as every other pair of natural parents out there in
America. You BOTH already HAD full child custodial rights, long before any
court ever got involved... That's main point # 1. Know it.
Remember it --> You already had
*pre-existing* custodial rights to your child(ren), loooong before any court
ever got involved. That includes ALL custodial rights, i.e., often
referred to as those two familiar parts, i.e. again, "physical" custody and
"legal" custody, or, actually, every possible aspect of "custody" you
can ever think of. As a natural parent to any live born child, you
ALREADY had FULL custodial rights, all of it, every bit of it, from the very
moment of the given child's live birth, automatically.
2) The next main point, # 2, is over one hundred years of *absolutely
consistent* U.S. Supreme Court rulings, in that the State (or any agent/arm of
the State) absolutely can NEVER interfere, remove, take away, inhibit,
etc., your well-established, fully vested,
pre-existing custodial
rights to your child(ren), without FIRST finding you *seriously* unfit (and that
is only allowed by full due process with what is known as "clear and
convincing" evidence), in order to even have the first possible "compelling
state interest", to even BEGIN to question whether or not the State
could
even think about interferring with your *pre-existing* custodial
rights... See various "biggie" parental rights cases, like
Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745 (1982) [
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0455_0745_ZO.html ] and
others.. The singular point of all these cases is that the State (and no
part OF the State) can EVER even
begin to question the
superior right of parents to raise their own children without the State's
interference in any manner, without the State FIRST establishing "clear and
convincing" evidence of some VERY serious issues of parental unfitness, i.e.,
very serious abuse, very serious neglect, and/or something else that is
reasonably related to *very serious* parental unfitness. Letting the kids
stay up too late, or drink too much chocolate milk, etc., just doesn't cut
it. We're talking about *serious* stuff, and ONLY serious stuff...
It is *irrelevant* that most of these particular biggie cases are in regards to
various CPS type stuff. The rulings of parental rights ALWAYS being superior to
the State, and the mandates that the State *must* have very serious compelling
reasons to even first *think* about interferring with pre-existing rights,
applies to ALL natural parents, regardless of the type of court scenario.
3) What happens then -- what *really*
happens -- in virtually every single domestic relations (divorce and
similar) case with any children involved, then, is that the State (the
family court judge) is ACTUALLY allowing one parent to RETAIN and KEEP
her/his pre-existing custodial rights, but actually TAKING AWAY the exact
same equally-shared custodial rights of the other parent, i.e., YOU...
And, so, what explicitly makes this unconstitutional, is that the state family
court DID *remove* or *take away* your PRE-EXISTING custodial rights to your
child(ren), but WITHOUT ever finding you seriously unfit.. and
also doing that ONLY by establishing clear and convincing evidence of serious
parental unfitness.. and also doing THAT under full due process procedures
(full discovery, witnesses, cross-examination, etc., etc., etc... even a jury if
timely claimed...). And, since the State never even began to
**lawfully** question - let alone prove - your well established rights to
CONTINUE to raise your children, unfettered, uninterferred with, etc., then the
family court judge's act in summarily REMOVING your **pre-existing**
FULL custodial rights to your child(ren), while still
allowing the OTHER parent to RETAIN and KEEP her/his exact same,
equally-shared FULL custodial rights to your child(ren), was patently
discriminatory, patently unlawful, patently unconstitutional, and flagrantly in
direct violations (multiple..) of your own individual due process rights... It
was, in fact, even criminal. Oh, yes -- see 18 USC 241 and 242, which at
least one of them, if not both of them (i.e., the opposing attorney, the
guardian ad litem against you, the other parent, etc.) does apply. Oh, yes
it does, under the real law, honestly applied.
The same unconstitutional
wrongdoing is routinely done in 96-98% of all other "family court"
(divorce and similar) cases across the nation, every day
of the blessed week... (in the other 2-4% of cases, the court DID -
somehow - allege, and even reasonably prove, to the level of the due
process-required clear and convincing evidence, that at least one of the parents
WAS seriously unfit, at least enough to reasonably terminate their continuing
parental rights that they once HAD without previous question, you see, so the
end results in those fewer/rarer cases is at least *reasonably* compliant to the
constitutional requirements).
Over one hundred-plus years of MANY
consistent rulings by the US Supreme Court, on virtually every conceivable
aspect of parental rights, STILL ensures that everyone typically, inherently and
instantly knows that every regular common parent on the street HAS full and
complete custody to their child(ren). Of course, this is exactly why
still-married parents (who have NEVER been "granted" or "awarded" custodial
rights to their OWN child(ren) by any court, whatsoever...) can instantly and
LEGALLY make all sorts of everyday binding decisions regarding their child(ren),
such as medical exams and treatments, schooling, religious, any activity, what
time to make the kids go to bed, and everything else under the sun. NOBODY
ever even *thinks* of questioning the absolutely superior and well established,
fully legal custodial rights of EITHER the mom OR the dad, in any of those
situations (i.e., still married parents, or cohabitating parents who have never
been involved in a family court, or a single parent who has never been involved
in a family court, etc.), precisely BECAUSE they ALREADY HAVE full legal
custodial rights --- those fully vested, fully legal, absolutely superior
custodial rights to their own children were ALREADY and automatically "in them"
from the very moment of live birth, too, and that's the way it has ALWAYS
been...
If any one (or both) of these such parents (who
have never been involved in a family court) takes their kid to the doctor, then
neither the doctor, nor anybody in the doctor's office/staff, even BEGINS to
question whether or not that parent HAS full legal rights over that sick
child... If any one of these such parents wants to enroll their kid in
school, neither the principal, nor any staff, nor any teacher, even BEGINS to
question whether or not that parent HAS fully established legal rights over that
child, and therefore the unquestionable legal right to enroll the kid in
school. Etc., etc., etc.... precisely because the custodial rights
over a child are ALREADY established at the very moment of birth, and EVERYONE
knows it, and everyone knows that's the way it has ALWAYS been, too. This
is a well-established, universally-solid truth, and everyone
already knows it!
So, then, you finally begin to understand the raw
and horrible, totally unconstitutional problem going on in today's "family"
courts -- the public myth and misperception is that once the mom and dad are
"now" facing each other inside a family court proceeding, everyone (including
modern judges and attorneys) MISTAKENLY believe that it is all going to be about
"he said, she said" stuff, and all of that sub-par nonsense, in order to see
WHICH parent will be "awarded" or "granted" CUSTODY...
BUT THAT IS FLAT, DEAD WRONG!!!
Yes, the actual reality is that BOTH of those same
parents ALREADY HAVE custody, and the State does NOT have any form of custody of
the child(ren) in question. You see, the State has absolutely NO power or
authority or jurisdiction to give away ("grant", "award") something that IT does
NOT have (custody of the child or children in question) to ONLY one parent
who *already* HAS full custody of the same child or children... and yet still
take AWAY the *pre-existing* custodial rights from the OTHER parent, without
even once so much as alleging (let alone proving by constitutional hurdles..)
any *serious* forms of parental unfitness, serious enough to even BEGIN to start
questioning *whether or not* that other parent's pre-existing and
STILL-fully-vested custodial rights should be, "now", somehow, suddenly
taken AWAY from him/her...
By the way, again, when I say "serious" allegations
of parental unfitness, I am not just whistling dixie -- these allegations must
be of such COMPELLING reasons, of such a very high, very strong, and
very serious nature, that the local prosecutor or district attorney would
even stand a fairly good chance at achieving a criminal conviction, in a
full-blown due process criminal trial, with discovery, etc., and finally having
a jury of your peers CONVICT you, under the "beyond a reasonable doubt"
threshold of evidence... I am talking about SERIOUS allegations, because
the "clear and convincing" evidence threshold is just about one gnat's hair
short of the level required under the "beyond a reasonable doubt" evidentiary
standard.... they are VERY close to the same HIGH level of proof threshold as
required by law.
Do you see the flagrantly unconstitutional
wrongdoing that is going on everywhere, everyday??? It is smack FULL of
unlawful gender discrimination, everyday, everywhere (REGARDLESS of which parent
gets "awarded" or "granted" custody.. it is STILL discrimination *between* the
two different-gendered parents..), it is smack FULL of violations of equal
protection of the law, everyday-everywhere, it is also smack FULL of violations
of *individual* due process rights (as to the victimized parent, still typically
the dad in most cases, yet more moms are being violated nowadays, too..), and it
is also often smack FULL of "class discrimination", to boot, in all those
situations where ONE parent has an attorney, and the other parent is being
routinely violated in everything under the sun, simply because they are acting
pro se...
Again, in some 96-98% of ALL "family court" cases
across this country, every day of the week, 1/2 of the citizen-parents ARE being
unconstitutionally violated in more ways than you can shake a stick at....
And, those multiple types of DUE PROCESS violations ARE, in fact, fully solid
*federal* grounds / causes of action for:
-- civil damages against the State, the given judge
(for necessarily acting OUTSIDE of their lawful scope and
authority).
-- civil damages against any opposing attorneys,
(and guardian ad litems, "custody evaluators",
and/or "counselors", who also just happen to be licensed attorneys..) -- all of
whom are mandated by law NOT to unconstitutionally infringe upon the rights of
any opposing parties or third parties, etc....
-- civil damages against your OWN attorney, for
flagrant MALPRACTICE in utterly failing to have been at least minimally
competent enough to have PROPERLY raised (let alone adequately defended..) your
*pre-existing* custodial rights (which are *superior* to "mere" Constitutional
rights, remember), absent very *serious* allegations of parental
unfitness.
-- etc., etc., etc.
Therefore, if YOU are a so-called "noncustodial"
parent, and there was never any full due process determination of VERY serious
parental unfitness, using "clear and convincing" evidence, then YOUR parental
rights (which are, again, SUPERIOR to "mere" Constitutional rights, i.e., which
have *at least* the same legal hurdles required to overcome..) WERE violated,
the "award" or "grant" of child custody to the OTHER parent is and was a total
fraud upon the court (any judgment based upon fraud is VOID, by the way..), and
you HAVE extremely SOLID grounds to have everything turned around, and WITH very
significant civil damages, to boot.
Not sure about "fighting city hall" all by
yourself? Fine -- get together with a few other "similarly situated"
parents (so-called "noncustodial" parents, all victimized by the same State, or
better yet, by the exact same County..), and simply agree to file a federal
classaction lawsuit together. Why not? The actual, real law and
facts are totally and completely on YOUR side...!