Barb's thoughts on the days . . .




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      Barb's thoughts on the day, August 7th:
      Please read Barb's thoughs on the day, August 5th, for the ways in which you can help with the fight  A loyal fan from North Dakota has sent me around 200 names.  How about those of you from other States jumping in and helping!!

      Inmate letters uploaded, by the way, are up to 32.  More coming.  See the Innocence Insisted by . . . Series.

      Barb's thoughts on the day, August 5th:
      Do not let Barb's thoughts mislead you: the alphabetical list of files on this website and the Drano Series table are still below.  The VAWA materials in the column a bit below on the right-hand side of your screen will be avaiable fot archival purposes in a separate file as soon as we get to August 18th, when the lobbying and the DCFestival have played out.
      Why, I'll even put Barb's thoughts in a separate file, too.  Maybe I'll keep a week of my thoughts here at the top of the page.  I have not yet made up my mind.  What I HAVE made up my mind about is something that popped into it tonight, when I was trying to fall asleep but couldn't:

      Many of you have read my emails scolding everyone about endlessly complaining on the e-lists to other people who are endlessly complaining about the courts and lawyers and corruption. "You are sending coals to Newcastle.  Let's send those complaints to people who have no idea about the injustice in the courts."  And . . . let's send those complaints to people who have not only an idea about the injustice in the courts but also have the knowledge and power to do
      something about it.

      Many of you have also written me asking, How can I help?  I finally have the answer!!!

      We have to create a buzz in places where the buzz will have an impact on those who are holding the power but have refused to use it to correct injustice within the Halls of Justice.   Clerks of all kinds in the courts from coast to coast.  Assistants in law offices from coast to coast.  Soooooooooooooooo. 

      Look up the courts in your area, capture the email addresses of the clerks from the lowest to the highest.  They all have beefs .  That's human nature.  Send those email addresses to me.  I'll add them to the falseallegations_com list on Yahoo (at Yahoo's limited rate of 100 per day).  They will be educated about your problems.  I promise.  But for a few hard-"bums" here and there, they will not ask to be removed from the list.  They will create the buzz we want throughout their court. 
      No one will be able to point fingers, for no one will know where the buzz began.  It will have been able to start with any
      one of them in the clerk's office.  (Maybe we will find a few anonymous whistleblowers!!!)

      Ditto with lawfirms in your area.  During this vacation period, I've gotten auto-reponses from attorneys on vacation. They say "Contact X at ______@_____.com."  Get the email addresses of the attorneys.  Send a test mail, get an auto-reply
      with similar instructions.  Send me the emails of the attorneys and of the administrative assistants and other assistants.
      I'll add those, too, to the       falseallegations_com list on Yahoo.

      In this way, we shall NOT be sending coals to Newcastle but to those areas where there is no coal, no dirty problems created by a justice system that has gone awry.

      Do the same, of course, with State and Federal representatives and senators.  They are the ones who are making badly written laws, laws that do not have the proper set of teeth iin them, laws that allow judges to use tooooooo much discretion to ignore your requests, your motions, and your constitutional civil rights.

      Thanks, thanks , thanks for your anticipated assistance.  I need the assistance badly.   I've begun thinking and drafting
      the outline for my book on court reform.  I can see it will take even more thought.  My ideas are developing more and more each day.  When I begin writing the book, I want it to to take form quickly.  I'll take the time to add the email addresses, but
      I shall not have the time to do the digging for them on the computer.  That's where YOU and YOU and YOU come in.  Thanks, thanks, thanks!!!

      Barb's thoughts on the day, August 4th:
      One of the most important events for the progress in judicial reform is ooming up in 10 days:

      We hope you are making plans to come to Washington DC, August 14th, a week from Thursday and
      participate in the biggest lobbying event our movement has ever held! e       

      We will be distributing the attached flyer [CLICK[ to all 535 Senators and Representatives and holding meetings 
      with legislative aides. This flyer contains the strongest message we have ever delivered on Capitol Hill: 
      “VAWA Has Gone Off the Rails.”              We will meet at 1:00 for a brief orientation, then divide up and fan out 
      across Capitol Hill.       We’ll wrap up around 4:30. If you can join us, please contact Ron Grignol:
      rgrignol@hotmail.com for location in      formation and other details.

      Sincerely,
      The RADAR Team

      Barb's thoughts on the day, August 3d:
      Judging by the quantity of emails I've received on the subject within the last 24 hours, something I wrote on some e-list must have provoked thought on "common law" today.  Rather than get into a rhetorical or esoteric discussion on my Home Page, I suggest that you all put "common law" and "case law" into a Google search tool.  In today's world, the terms "common law" and "case law" have become synonymous despite the difference in their origins.

      In the era of the Star Chamber and the Kangaroo Court, Sir Edward Coke and King James in England--in the early 1600s--got into a debate about whether the King's law came above or below the common law, and Coke, if I remember correctly, was sent to the Tower to cool off.   A little damp stone covered by old and new feces with a few rats running around--even if you do not get the rack-- will be enough to cool you off.   Queen Elizabeth's ancestors or predecessors were not the gentle sovereigns the parade-prone soverieigns of today would like you to think.

      Juries, too, were different.    Juries in Lords' cases were comprised of Lords.  Juries in merchant cases were comprised
      of merchants.   Villagers were judged by other villagers.   The population was small and the juries knew the defendants.  Today, jurors who know the defendant are excused from being on the jury.  
       
      The differences are diverse and many.   In fact, it may be argued that the "common law" has changed in baby steps by court decisions every 10-or-so years.   The merger of law and equity courts only decdes ago has also wrought changes.  

      So, you'll not get too far asking a judge today to rule in your case as a judge or jury would have ruled in 16th or 17th century England.  You can argue the history of Law, you can cite the cases, but you must keep your expectations low. 
      Let them get higher only if our society changes profoundly.

      Postscript: Coke's Reports were written in French and Latin and were not necessarily what happened in the case; they were his personal conclusions or opinions regarding the case.

      Barb's thoughts on the day, August 2d:
      Morning.  Phone rings while I'm in bed.  Having been there only a few hours, I wearily reached over to pick up the
      receiver, rolled over, sat up, put it to my ear, and said "Good morning."   Silence.   "I'm here if you're there," said I. 

      "I said I want to speak to Barbara Johnson.  Is there anything about that you don't understand?"

      "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you."   Silence.   He'd hung up.

      To the Texan (I'm assuming . . . his accent), I'm sorry you were having such a bad day.

      But miracles do happen  If you will all note, I had lost the envelope for Pete Jenkins,  #12 of my Innocence Insisted series, and wrote in "his" file, about 10 days ago:
      Pete Jenkins
      Somewhere
      I lost the envelope with his address. 
      If anyone knows this man and knows where he is, let me know.
      Lo and behold, this morning, I also received a second letter from Pete Jenkins.  He is imprisoned in Tiptonville, Tennessee, on an aggravated rape charge arising from a DHS case, one based only on hearsay and NO physical evidence.

      Barb's thoughts on the day, July 29th:
      Anxiety increasing: The Bar's brief is due on August 15th.
      Will have to write a reply brief when it arrives.
      The non-evidentiary hearing in federal court is scheduled for September 22d at 2:15 PM in Courtroom 22.
      What will Judge Tauro do?  Will he have the courage to reject
      Mass. SJC Chief Judge Margaret Marshall's request to impose identical discipline?

      What do I do about the people who, knowing about the disbarment, still call for help?

      This morning, Jeff G's phone call from New Hampshire.  At the end of January of 2006, the N.H. Supreme Court found in his favor on the custody of his children.  The court simply cannot give the children to a third party under certain circumstances.  See In the Matter of Jeffery G. & Janette P.   Jeffrey is a civil engineer.  Janette, a chemist.   No drugs or alcohol involved here, folks . . . but lots of animosity between Jeff and Jan.  She brought a dozen false accusations of abuse against him, but they were all dismissed or dropped.  (In one phonecall, I did not learn all the gritty details.).

      A day later,  his sister got custody of the couple's children from a Maine court., which ignored the N.H. decision.

      It appears he is ready to go into federal court.  Fortunately he has New Hampshire Tigress-in-your-tank Attorney Paula Werme helping him.

      Maine and his sister are looking for $26,000 in child-support arrears, calculated at the rate of $600 week, based on what
      he made when he was employed.  Now he is self-employed and making nowhere enough to pay that child support . . .
      plus it was he who was to get custody.   (Mom, who had fled twice with the kids, finally returned to her folks in Massachusetts and had agreed in writing to shared custody/parenting.)   NOTE: Maine and his sister are not looking to Mom to contribute to those arrearages.    What to do?

      Did I really need a call like that one to wake me?  Another call proving that the courts should NOT be in the family-law business.  The PKPA and other Uniform laws are useless.  They make "things" worse. 

      To get my mind off the call, I began thinking about plebeian, well, mundane, tasks of my life:

      Where to put on this Home Page the list of inmates' letters in the new Innocence Insisted series?
      Where to put on this Home Page the news alerts about the campaign against VAWA?
      Both the Update and Alerts sections are important.
      Where do I put the new RADAR's Action Alert to email the ABA president.  Hell, right here will be fine!

      On June 2, 2008, RADAR released two special reports, Myths of ABA Commission on Domestic Violence,1,2 that analyzed the 19 statements made in the flyer put out by the American Bar Association (ABA) Commission on Domestic Violence, "10 Myths about Custody and Domestic Violence and How to Counter Them."

      1 Myths of the ABA Commission on Domestic Violence: Summary Report, http://www.mediaradar.org/docs/RADARreport-Myths-of-ABA-Commission-on-DV-Summary.pdf

      2 Myths of the ABA Commission on Domestic Violence: Detailed Report, http://www.mediaradar.org/docs/RADARreport-Myths-of-ABA-Commission-on-DV-Detailed.pdf

      Among the flyer's 19 claims, 11 were found to be false, three misleading, and three unsupported by existing research. Only two claims were found to be correct. And some errors are egregious.

      For example, the flyer states that "False allegations are no more common in divorce or custody disputes than at any time." But this claim, which flies in the face of common sense, is debunked by research showing that false allegations increase four-fold during custody and access disputes.

      The flyer represents a crass attempt by the ABA Commission on Domestic Violence to further bias the administration of family law, to falsely stereotype fathers as abusers, and to force more children into single-parent households.

      Just prior to their public release, RADAR sent the reports to the president of the ABA, William H. Neukom, Esq., with a letter asking that the ABA suspend distribution of the flyer until the errors and misrepresentations are corrected. We requested a response by July 15, 2008. To date, there has been no response.

      With our letter to Mr. Neukom, the ABA was put on notice of the misinformation contained in the flyer. The ABA's decision to do nothing means it stands behind the misrepresentations, falsehoods, and lies.

      This week, we ask that you contact William Neukom and ask him to have the ABA remove "10 Myths about Custody and Domestic Violence and How to Counter Them" from its website and stop selling copies of it. He can be contacted electronically: abapresident@abanet.org.

      Please be courteous but firm. Tell him, as nicely as you can, to get his facts straight.


      To temporarily solve this problem of the other RADAR Alerts, I have added the following multi-column section.