Oddly, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi who has made sex-trafficking his signature mission seems to have totally missed the Lazzaro ring despite it happening right under his nose. Possibly that is incompetence but I have my doubts. Given that Choi clearly committed obstruction of justice when I presented evidence of a crime by a lawyer to him, I have no doubt he would cover-up or at least ignore crimes by the politically powerful as well.
I ran across a great article on why people lie in family court titled, Yes Virginia, Judges, Lawyers, Custody Experts, Accountants and Realtors Lie In Family Court.
In essence, it argues that people lie in family court because there is no negative consequence in doing so yet much to gain.
One point I disagree with it is that lawyers are legally immune. Lying to deceive is fraud and lawyers hold no special immunity when it comes to fraud. At least in law but sadly in practice it is quite different.
Interestingly, toward the end of the article the argument is made that the only way to change the system for the better is to publicly call out the corrupt lawyers, judges and others who commit crimes in family court.
The only way for all of this to change is for the public to start naming the judges and removing the bad ones from their communities, by way of vote, so that future families are not harmed. Judges who stop paying crooked lawyers and experts to keep the fighting parents in court longer, will succeed in resolving family law issues, not personally profiting from them. Judges have become bullies and villains , not the heroes we once thought them to be. Good judges need to speak up.
I came to the same conclusion recently which is why I created the site, LegalReformMN.org.
I have often wondered whether we as a society should abolish civil marriage. Often this concept is known as marriage privatization, which has support, as well as opposition, from across the political and religious spectrum.
In 2002, Wendy McElroy in an essay for Ifeminists titled "It's Time to Privatize Marriage."
Marriage should be privatized. Let people make their own marriage contracts according to their conscience, religion and common sense. Those contracts could be registered with the state, recognized as legal and arbitrated by the courts, but the terms would be determined by those involved.[2]
McElroy has also said:
Why is marriage declining? One reason is that it has become a three-way contract between two people and the government.
In reality it is already happening. Marriage has become less common and there has been a decoupling of marriage and parenting in many countries. Note that although being single has increased slightly, most are still partnering up just not getting married. One of the greatest benefits of eliminating civil marriage would be the cost savings. All that money wasted in divorce suits could be put to productive use to benefit the economy as a whole not just a few lawyers and litigants.
Well, hilarious and painful. Sometimes comedy is the best way to tell the truth.
Although different the video below reminds me of Johnathon Swift's essay A Modest Proposal where he proposes selling children as food to rich ladies and gentlemen as the solution to the "Irish problem".
I was looking through some old comments on an MPR article from 8 years ago regarding lifetime alimony and ran into several that are quite poignant. Here are a few:
Jeffrey Dobkin •
Not only is it time to scrap lifetime alimony, the whole so called "Family" court system in New Jersey needs an overhaul. A complete overhaul.
And frankly, so do the matrimonial lawyers. My brother who divorced his abusive wife in NJ, paid his lawyer over $300,000. He now pays over $5,000 each month in lifetime alimony. He works three jobs to do this.
Here's what happens: First, the lawyers look at your assets to see what is being split up. Whoa, did someone just let the fox into the hen house? Now the lawyers know how much they can bill you. Yes, really.
Then, the lawyers bring your case before a judge or arbitrator, and your lawyer brings up a fictional point: "Oh, he dropped his salary over the last few years..." Now both sides argue this fictional point back and forth — bringing up new motions, bringing up added motions as each side adds to their bill, getting ever farther from staying on point - resolution - which by the way is never re-addressed till you - the client - starts to run out of money. I watched my brother pay over $30,000 in one month in attorney fees. I can only surmise they had the whole firm: an entire bank of lawyers, working on his case on non-existent, non-matters.
ElvinaBergmannKallett •
I strongly urge all to support alimony reform to abolish permanent alimony. At the conclusion of a divorce both parties should walk away in an equitable manner. Prior to the marriage they were individuals with separate lives, during marriage they merged, and upon divorce they should be allowed to return to their separate lives. One should not leave the marriage permanently tethered to the other.
One should not reap the benefits of a free lifetime of alimony, while the other spends a lifetime wearing a financial yoke. By providing permanent alimony, Florida’s law today does just that. The current law rewards one spouse at the expense of the other. It took two people to make the marriage, and two people to make the divorce. In Florida, a no-fault divorce state, the permanent alimony provision certainly runs counter to the fairness and equality that is the spirit of the law, punishing the person forced to make lifetime alimony payments. It’s not fair. It’s not right. It needs to change!
Naturally there are comments taking the other side but virtually all of them assume the wife sacrificed her career to take care of the children. In my case that absolutely was not the situation and the court even agreed so.
Lifetime alimony is ridiculous and misogynistic in virtually all cases. Women should not be treated like children who are incapable of responsible behavior.
Spring was rewarded with lifetime alimony by the court despite the fact that she was not the primary parent during the marriage (according to the court appointed custody evaluator), could earn as much money as me (according to the vocational evaluator) and clearly committed fraud numerous times during the proceedings. Family court is a court where crime and unethical behavior is rewarded.
Police have a duty to act when a crime is occurring. They cannot ignore it. Even if the perpetrator is a fellow police officer. Yet, rarely, if ever, are police officers punished for failure to act when the person committing the crime is a fellow officer.
If cops and lawyers are above the law and their own rules, is it any wonder why we have bad cops and lawyers?
I have created an offshoot site to DivorceInjustice.org called LegalReformMN.org which has the narrow purpose of informing the public of the unethical and criminal actions of several public officials related to my case. I dislike calling people out by name but the people in question, namely Ramsey county attorney John Choi, his criminal division director Richard Dusterhoft as well as judges William Leary III and Mark Ireland, have all acted with callus disregard to the law and principles of justice and equality under the law. They deserve to be removed from office for their actions if not outright prosecuted. Note that unlike Divorceinjustice.org, LegalReformMN.org uses real name.
I hope my efforts will shed some light on how bad the situation is and motivate at least a few people to change the system for the better. Time will tell.
