"Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill it teaches the whole people by its example.
Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself."
–Supreme Court Justice Brandeis

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

KANSAS CASE MANAGERS; CHILD CUSTODY COURT APPOINTED 3RD PARTIES, PSYCHOLOGY; CUSTODY EVALUATIONS; THERAPY, GAURDIAN AD LITEMS, COPARENTING, SUPERVISED VISITATION, ACCESS VISTITATION and ‘Therapeutic Jurisprudence’.

Therapeutic jurisprudence in the family courts, i.e. a "mental health approach to the law" substitutes the opinions of mental health practitioners for traditional evidence and decision-making procedures. Because these persons actually do not have any kind of "expertise" to opine this way, what originally was thought to be a helpful idea (in this medicalized and psychologized world) has become merely economic opportunism, harming not only the litigants and children in the system as well as the court system itself, but also perverting substantive and procedural law. It is not science, but compensated yenta-ism that has permeated the courts under the pretexts that engineering family affectional relationships is within the ability of mental health "science" practitioners to accomplish, and that this is an appropriate goal of the government, court system, and state police power because children "need" something it has to offer.

This completely denies the Constitutional Right to a Court of Law governed by FACT.

Mother Speaks On Case Management Bill

Source: Topeka Capitol Journal

Karen Williams, left, and her husband, Stan, talk to the media Tuesday outside the Statehouse. Williams is fighting a Douglas County case manager's decision to restrict access to her daughter, of whom Williams formerly had full custody.  ANDY MARSO/THE CAPITAL-JOURNALExcerpt;

Karen Williams previously had full custody of her daughter before a case manager appointed by the court to work with her and her ex-husband decided to limit her to one or two hours a week of supervised visitation at a Lawrence facility called The Farm.”

“Williams says her rights to due process were violated when the judge allowed the new custody arrangement without giving Williams a full hearing to respond to any evidence for the case manager's decision.

"I still have parental rights, supposedly, but effectively I've been stripped of them," Williams said.

Williams stopped by the Statehouse on Tuesday after her case was heard by the Kansas Court of Appeals. Continue Reading

 

 

 Caesars Ghost A Commenter sums it up well:

In any other area of law

In any other area of law "confidential conversations between judges and case managers" would constitute ex parte communications that would subject the parties-- including the Judges-- to disciplinary procedures and possible sanctions. This is a joke to provide such exceptions to the due process rights of either parent, as well as the rights of the children whose custody and visitation is being determined by the court.

If the Judges don't want to do their job and wish to abdicate their role to "case managers" then perhaps the Judges need to step down and be replaced by Judges who do want to do their job of hearing all of the facts in a case in full light, view and scrutiny of the opposing parties.

The 6th amendment grants criminals the right to confront their accusers and to be presented with the claims and evidence against them and the right to contest those claims and evidence.

Why does our legislature grant fewer rights to parents than they do to criminals, pedophiles, murders, etc.? And why are children denied access to parents based on what a case manager says.

I don't care if the case manager has specialized training in psychology, family therapy, domestic issues or anything else. That specialty gives the case manager nothing more than "expert witness" status constitutionally speaking. It does NOT make that case manager the default judge.

The best way to fix this is not to revise the statute and required qualifications to serve as a case manager. The best way to fix it would be to repeal the statute that created case managers in the first place and go back to how Kansas handled these cases for nearly a century and a half prior to 2002.

The whole case manager position never existed in Kansas before 2002, and so it isn't like this is just something that HAS to exist for Courts to function. Instead it is part of the reason courts are NOT functioning for families or for those who believe in due process principles of the Constitution or for those of us who abhor seeing more tax dollars going to create quasi authority figures by turning expert witnesses into defacto unlicensed judges while we continue to pay the salaries of both the abdicating judges and the defacto unlicensed judges.


PSYCHOLOGY; CUSTODY EVALUATIONS; THERAPY, CASE MANAGERS, GAURDIAN AD LITEMS, COPARENTING, SUPERVISED VISITATION, ACCESS VISTITATION

Case Managers; Forensic Psychology; Guardians ad Litem; Therapeutic Jurisprudence
The sociological and psychological research on families and child well-being impacts public policy and the issues of child custody in family law. The research frequently is misrepresented, and mis-cited by mental health professionals, lawyers, forensic psychologists and others, as well as interest groups lobbying for laws. Also review the sections pertaining to the issues impacted by the "therapeutic jurisprudence", such as child custody, parental alienation theory, research pertaining to child development, the subsection for research Myths and Facts in FAMILY LAW, and other family law issues. Also see the subsection on Child Custody in FAMILY LAW. The Therapeutic Jurisprudence index page contains links to recommended off-site locations as well as the on-site articles http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/child-custody-evaluations.html

Index: Therapeutic Jurisprudence

  • Are Psychologists Hiding Evidence? A Need for Reform by Lees-Haley and Courtney SCHOLAR
  • Child Custody Evaluations and Measuring Attachment (limited science) by Jean Mercer 2009 PDF SCHOLAR
  • Child sex abuse, the limits of Loftus, and overblowing the memory research LIZNOTES, CITES
  • Children's Associational Rights: Why less is more by Emily Buss PDF SCHOLAR
  • Collaborative Law: What's Wrong with Multidisciplinary Practice? by liz
  • Court-appointed Parenting Evaluators: The Case for Abolition by Margaret Dore PDF SCHOLAR
  • Custody Evaluations: Ten Signs of Questionable Practices by Joel V. Klass, M.D. SCHOLAR
  • Custody evaluators' arguments about test records -- and why they're wrong by liz
  • Custody Evaluators' Beliefs About Domestic Abuse Allegations, U.S. Dept Justice October 31, 2011 PDF SCHOLAR
  • Caveat: recommendations in the above paper are NOT endorsed by thelizlibrary.org
  • Disciplining Divorcing Parents: Social Construction of Parental Alienation by F. Besset PDF SCHOLAR
  • Family Court is Not a Family-Friendly Place by Lisa Marie Macci, Esq.
  • Guardians ad Litem in Custody Litigation: The Case for Abolition by Richard Ducote PDF SCHOLAR
  • Parental Alienation Syndrome -- getting it wrong in child custody cases by Carol S. Bruch PDF SCHOLARChildren Need. . . THIS? A custody evaluation by Martha C. Jacobson, sadistic and stupid PAS 'therapy' by Laura C. Hohnecker
  • Parenting Coordination Issues by liz
  • Psychiatric experts assess parental alienation by David Crary
  • Psychology in Court: A Trial Within a Trial by liz
  • Psychology in Court: The Detectives by liz
  • Psychology in Court:The Diagnosticians by liz
  • Psychology in Court: Discovery of Test Data by liz
  • Psychology in Court: How to Respond to the MMPI-2 by liz
  • Reevaluating the Evaluators (overview of the problem) by liz CITATIONS TO RESEARCH
  • Custody Evaluator Quotes by liz (companion to above article)
  • Signs of a Bad Custody Evaluation by Joel V. Klass, M.D. SCHOLAR
  • Socialization, Personality Development, and the Child's Environments by Judith Rich Harris SCHOLAR
  • Sound Research or Wishful Thinking in Custody Cases? by Carol S. Bruch PDF SCHOLAR
  • Stupidity Inherent in Promoting Supervised Visitation Centers by liz
  • Troubling Admission of Supervised Visitation Records in Court by Stern/Oehme PDF SCHOLAR
  • What Does the Guardian ad Litem do in Family Court? by liz
  • Warren Farrell Does a Custody Evaluation by liz
  • What's Wrong with Parenting Coordination by liz
  • Why "Therapeutic Jurisprudence" Must Be Eliminated From Our Family Courts by liz
  • Why "Therapeutic Jurisprudence" Must Be Eliminated From Our Courts by liz (pub. version)
  • Critical Assessment of Child Custody Evaluations by Emery, Otto, Donohue off-site PDF SCHOLAR
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