The Fraternity: Lawyers and Judges in Collusion by Justice John F. Molloy

The late Justice John F. Molloy had an illustrious career serving on the Arizona Superior Court bench as well as the Chief Justice to Court of Appeals for the State of Arizona.

“The once honorable profession of law now fully functions as a bottom-line business, driven by greed and the pursuit of power and wealth, even shaping the laws of the United States outside the elected Congress and state legislatures.”
-- Justice John F. Molloy

A few years before he died in 2008 he published The Fraternity: Lawyers and Judges in Collusion which exposed wide spread unethical actions and criminal corruption within the legal system.

There are ethical lawyers and judges but very few of them are willing to speak out on corruption within the legal system. John Molloy was one who did and will be forever be remembered as true advocate for justice.

The book can be purchased at Amazon (non affiliate link) - Be sure to read the comments.

New York Makes Some Progress on Alimony Reform.

The New York State Legislature has passed significant revisions to the state's alimony laws. The revisions are modest but at least they seem to be moving in the right direction.

Ta-Nehisi Coates On Police Brutality

Fresh Air has an interview today with The Atlantic magazine's national corespondent Ta-Nehisi Coates on growing up black and in fear of the police. As with lawyers there are many fine police officers but the culture too often tends to protect the bad ones. Often with devastating results.

According to Coates, despite the media's recent attention to police violence against black men, he does not believe such incidents are on the rise; rather, he says, injustices have been occurring for years — and many of them can be traced to America's flawed judicial system.

As a non-minority (although as an Irish Catholic American from Minnesota I have about the same loathing for institutions such as the Klu Klux Klan and confederate symbols as most blacks), I'll admit that in the past I may not have had as much sympathy for allegations of discrimination and brutality by public officials as I now have after seeing just how dysfunctional and often criminal the justice system can be.

When you experience injustice yourself, it binds you in a deep way to others who have also experienced injustice.

Darryl Hamilton Murder

The recent murder of former Major League Baseball player and MLB Network analyst Darryl Hamilton by his wife Monica Jordan, who afterward killer herself, is an amazing and telling tale of the realities of our justice system. 

In 2008, Jordan, a lawyer, admitted to chasing her former husband around the home, trying to douse him with gasoline.  Their house was burned to the ground as a result. Jordan was sentenced to 10 years of probation after pleading guilty. Yet amazingly the fact that she committed arson and tried to burn her husband alive was not enough for the Texas Bar Association to revoke her license to practice law or sanction her in any way. 

The sad reality of our justice system is that lawyers such as Jordan and Nelly Wince can commit the moist heinous crimes and get away with them because lawyers are held to a different standard of justice than non-lawyers. Bar associations, judges and prosecutors are all lawyers and they tend more than any other profession to cover up crimes within their ranks. 

Sadly, the behavior of lawyers such as Nelly Wince is incredibly common and thus leads to far more pain and death than the more sensational cases such as Jordan's murder of Darryl Hamilton. 

Why Do Bar Associations Oppose Alimony Reform?

The National Coalition for Men has a article from 2013 on why Bar Associations generally oppose alimony reform.  The answer if of course money.

The Bar’s goal is simple: write family law to maximize judicial discretion in order to maximize litigation. The Bar wants to maximize litigation so that divorce lawyers can charge vast sums to pick the last remaining dollars off the bones of the formerly intact family.

Divorce lawyers bread and butter is litigation. A quick cheap settlement that makes both parties happy is not in their financial interest so they use whatever tactics they can, legal or not, to extend litigation and generate animosity between the parties. It really is that simple.

I have talked to divorce lawyers who have told me they disagree with the stance on alimony the Bar and divorce lawyer associations take but for all practical purposes they are required to be members of those associations. If they speak out too strongly in an attempt to reform their associations's positions, they risk their careers.

I also find it incredible that people who oppose alimony reform simply assume that people paying lifetime alimony were not an equal or primary parent during the marriage, did not have joint custody after the marriage and that the person receiving alimony cannot earn the same amount of income as the person paying. All three of these are not patently not true in my case as was determined by the custody evaluator, employment evaluation and decree.

A Pleas for Prenuptial Agreements

Although published almost 10 years ago, Preventing Financial Suicide Through Prenuptial Agreements still rings true today. If you are considering getting married, my strong recommendation is to get a prenuptial. Yes, you are in love and think your partner is perfect but, believe me, people can and do change. It is incredible what evil people will commit to for money. The temptation is often just too great for those without a strong moral compass especially when encouraged by unscrupulous lawyers. 

Another way to look at a prenuptial is that having one makes it more likely your marriage will last as it reduces the incentive to divorce. So if you really want to be married forever then get the prenup! 

"Ours is a sick profession marked by incompetence, lack of training, misconduct and bad manners. Ineptness, bungling, malpractice, and bad ethics can be observed in court houses all over this country every day. (...these incompetents have) a seeming unawareness of the fundamental ethics of the profession. ... the harsh truth is that ... we may well be on our way to a society overrun by hordes of lawyers, hungry as locusts, and brigades of judges in numbers never before contemplated."
--Chief Justice of the United States, Warren Burger

Prenups for Lovers: A Romantic Guide to Prenuptial Agreements (Amazon link non-affiliate) by Arlene Dubin looks to be a nice overview of them.

Man Forced to Work 80 Hours a Week to Pay Alimony

Many people such as myself are forced to work extra hours to pay alimony. If we worked extra hours during the marriage in order to make up for a spouse who was capable but refused to work or worked below his or her ability, then the court assumes that is our natural state and can, again like in my case, force us to work just as hard until we die. That is the reality of my situation. Others are in similar situations.