Vexatious: Divorcing Parents and Killers

Joe Sweeney's Jail

​Killer Put on Lifetime Vexatious Litigant List

Parents fighting for custody of their children in divorce court, without the help of a lawyer, may find themselves in the same legal classification as the Hoodle Street Killer.

​In California Parents who are married and fight for their children or property to support their children , are revered as heroes.

​Parents trapped in divorces who fight for their children are often branded by the courts., placed on a vexatious litigant list and denied access to the courts to legally prevent them from fighting for their own children's health and safety.

​Why is it we revere and are sympatric to  parents who fight for the lives of children with cancer, but we mark and shun parents who fight to keep their children from an abuser or pedophile in a family law case?

​How did we let family courts get so out of control?  How did we ever tolerate letting people involved in divorces being placed on the vexatious litigant list, denying them access to the courts when they need it most.

A vexatious litigant designation  is perhaps the most legally prejudicial label  a person  can bare. Vexatious is the legal  equivalent to  a Scarlett Letter, Yellow Star or being placed on Mc Carthy's List, Californians  deemed vexatious  during a support and custody proceeding find themselves on a state wide list, that limits access to the courts, and that makes getting an equitable divorce a legal impossibility.

​See California's vexatious litigant list : http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/vexlit.pdf



Alarming Judicial Trend:  
The Criminalization of  Innocent Parents Seeking  Equitable Support and Custody  in  Family Courts

​Fueled purely by the lack of legal parity and  access to money during a divorce , many parents find themselves having to suddenly learn the law and fight for their children and  property. For most this is not only overwhelming , but impossible.  Family Courts appear not to be awarding attorney fees under FC2030 and Fc2032, as the state legislature  has intended. As a result,  more and more parents are having to go do family court alone, without a lawyer , and where they are vulnerable to being labeled vexatious and further denied access to the courts. It is unclear how judges have been allowed to make these rulings.

​Socioeconomic bias roars in family court. In divorces today, uneducated parents often face highly educated lawyers  who use the family court system to legally discredit, embarrass and defame an unrepresented spouse. Court files show it is the conduct of attorney's "churning fees "  that clogs our family courts far more than pro per litigants who are ultimately declared vexatious.

Costs of California Divorces : Vexatious Designations a Sham and Cover for Dirty Lawyers

​​Middle Class Divorces that used to cost $10-20,000 to resolve in a year, are now running well over $1,000,000.   Judges appear unconcerned that lawyers are paid $100,000 in a year, and that same year a wealthy parent may be ordered to pay just $24,000 to support their child. This provides incentive for lawyers to continue conflict and avoid settlement, which is proven clog the courts far more than filings of pro per litigants.

California's Judicial Council recently reported it was out of money, partially blaming it on the fact that that overall litigation was down in  2015.  What they didn't report was that family court litigation is up, indicating that the state is now attempting to seize personal property in divorce cases to dig out of their deficit., a deficit caused by years of overspending and mismanagement.

​Family Court Costs Now Replace  Civil and Criminal Court Costs  - Generating Revenue for the State's Bankrupt Legal System  

Private citizens merely seeking equitable divorces are now spending more on court fees and costs, than companies  like Microsoft, Apple and Google spend on their legal expenses.

​In family court each requested order  requires a filing fee. Any average divorce can require hundreds  of orders that must be requested to deal with children, property and pets,. When lawyers are involved research shows these requests can be in the thousands, before the divorce is resolved, earning the courts millions of dollars where lawyers are on the case.

Courts pay back the lawyers by creating bogus and arbitrary  sanctions. The sanctions are paid from the property disputed in the divorce, until there is often none left. There is no impetus for a family court judge to resolve a divorce quickly, so research confirms that they don't , churning millions in fees for lawyers and courts in the process.

In California's Santa Clara County required divorce fees range from $90-1000. Fee churning by the government occurs when counties charge these  fees for requested motions, but never assure that motion is disposed. Judges cry no time and overcrowding, then  continue the simplest of requests, causing more fees to be incurred, and resulting in years of delays. 

Santa Clara County's, Mary Ann Grilli, the county's most seasoned family court  judge, is known for being incapable  of ruling on most issues before her. Court files show she continues the most simple requests for years. when her favorite lawyers represent one side.  This judicial conduct adds to the disputes of parents and places an undue burden on innocent children, who need family courts to function.

Many of Grilli's  cases show court dockets lasting 10-15 years, with up to  50 volumes in one court file, when two lawyers are in a case.

​Parents in today's family courts are waiting months just to get 50% timeshare with their children. Property divisions are talking 10-15 years in Santa Clara County. Research shows many of these divisions are fraudulent as disclosures and accountings are not being done as prescribed by law.   So called experts and fiduciaries charged with preventing this very issue, are not being addressed by the State Bar , California Board of Accountancy or the California Bureau of Real Estate.

​Add to this the court trend of legally alienating innocent parents from their children and depriving  one side access to community property during a lengthy proceeding, and the new formula used by family courts is a legal nightmare for anyone subjected to it.

​Insidious Trend of Declaring One Party Vexatious During a Divorce

​Famed vexatious expert , Archibald Cunningham  has spent the past five years  attempting   to  legally address the insidious and unjust issues related to declaring one party vexatious during a divorce, which inherently  fails to provide legal parity and access to the courts,. as family courts are charged to assure.

​Since Mr. Cunningham's noble efforts, research indicates that the number of vexatious litigant appeals and federal case filings are increasing. These filings are expected  to increase in Santa Clara County alone by over 200% . 

​Are Judges Retaliating Against Vexatious Litigants?

​​Family Court Reform Advocates  ceased to be shocked when Judge Mills put Joe Sweeney in the Richmond detention center two days after Mr. Sweeney's role in obtaining an audit of CJP, the state's judicial watchdog agency.

​Members of Anonymous have leaked information about what happened to Joe in Jail,   Guards inside the jail referred to Joe as the inmate who " pissed off a judge" , making Joe a jailhouse celebrity. 

Given the raging retaliation seen in California's family courts following the Judge Persky Protests, and the CJP audits, advocates were not  surprised to learn that  research points to the state's judicial bench engaging in similar retaliation against thousand in family law litigants, by declaring them vexatious as the attempt to address support and custody issues in family law case.

​​A basic background check where a vexatious litigant  designation turns up is likely to keep a parent from landing a job, causing them to be unable to support their children.

​Not surprisingly research  indicates that the majority of people declared vexatious  in their family law cases spoke up about the lack of fairness, fraud, or an appearance of  corruption.  Once these people spoke up, they were labeled by a network of  family court insiders, legally  alienated from their own children , imputed with income they could never actually earned  and  sanctioned with fees under Family Code 271, that most judges appear to pull out of a hat, .

​It is unlikely that the California State Legislature intended to jail innocent parents for posting text messages of their narcissistic former spouses, or that the translation of "the best interests of the child" could be translated by an idiot judge to mean a child should be legally kept from a parent and the lawyer obtaining  such orders for an ill intended parent  is rewarded in fees that is often 1000% more than the support paid for the child.

​California's Family Courts are at a tipping point. Judges have been granted too much power and immunity to violate federally protected rights.  Too many families and children have suffered as a result. 

The pending  audit of the Commission on Judicial Performance and the debate on blowing up the State Bar are just a start. The Judicial Council will now have to address gross mismanagement of public funds and how that is comprising the state's legal system..

Courts are about to be called out to explain the misconduct that has found countless innocent parents vexatious, denying them access to the courts when they need it most.

A vexatious movement is currently underway. Many of the litigants  wrongly suppressed are organizing, exposing and fighting. The very judiciary  that has tried to suppress them and chill their ability to speak up should be very worried.

​Stay tuned , the group is about to get very, very loud.

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