Harvard Trained Law Professor Agrees: Family Court Needs Shutting Down

New TV Program Profiles New Zealand Mother

Oct 01, 2023

A New Zealand TV series aims to raise awareness about domestic violence [DV]. A new segment is dedicated to how Family Court is failing women: “Breaking Silence: Family Court” [embedded above; also available for viewing on their website].

Professor Carrie Leonetti, a Harvard Law School graduate currently working in New Zealand, emphatically asserts that family courts need to be shut down. She is outraged at how the entire system operates unjustly for women and children. Her verdict comports with the Coalition’s new platform that Family Court needs to be dismantled entirely.

Although Professor Leonetti gets the shutting it down part right, the new system she proposes will not likely provide women justice or children protection, nor prevent financial devastation post-separation. We will take a deeper look at why this is.

But first, the women’s stories.

SAMURAI ATTACK

Simonne Butler is the host conducting the interview of the victim of Family Court profiled in this segment. Simonne’s own backstory is a harrowing account of DV. Her partner had come at her with a samurai sword intending to chop off her head. When she put her arms up to defend herself, he chopped off her hands instead.

Miraculously, surgeons were able to reattach her hands and they are quite functional after long years of physical therapy. You even have to look closely to notice the scars.

She also underwent psychological therapy which helped her survive the ordeal emotionally and has helped make her strong enough to engage in activism. She is now dedicated to supporting victims and raising awareness, hence her work on this Breaking Silence series.

Simonne’s account of DV is told in two other segments of the program: Part 1 and Part 2. [Her story does not involve Family Court.]

MOTHER VICTIM

For the Family Court segment, Simonne interviews a mother who's been unable to protect her young son from her abusive ex. She exudes much obvious compassion and support for the mother. By the pained look on her face much of the time, it appears she thinks what the mother is going through—being unable to protect her young child—is worse than her having had her hands chopped off.

Since the mother wants to remain anonymous and the program does not give her a pseudonym, we will call her Kaitlyn.

Kaitlyn’s story unfolds like so many other mothers’, starting out with a relationship with a seemingly good man that eventually turns abusive. He would hit her in the head with his fist; he’d strangle her, knock her head against the wall, even hit her arms and legs while driving in the car. One time he hit her so hard he knocked her teeth out.

Kaitlyn lived every day in fear but could not get the strength to leave until after her baby was born. She wanted her son to be safe. So she left, believing she had done the right thing and gotten herself to a safe space.

But he stalked her daily via texts and calls, continuing to intimidate and infuse fear into her being. She feared he would harm herself or their child, even possibly murder them.

She tried to get him to stop harassing her but couldn’t, so she sought a Protective Order [PO]. As is so often the case, a temporary PO was granted, and she was safe for a short while. When it came to making the PO permanent (or at least longer), her ex contested it. Not surprisingly, things went downhill from there.

CHRISTINE’S HORRIFIC CASE

At this point, Professor Leonetti recounts the most famous New Zealand Family Court horror story, which turns out to be relevant in more ways than one to Kaitlyn’s case—and quite ironic. The mother, Christine, had three young children whom she had attempted to protect from the father in Family Court. But, instead of protection, he was given custody and, as usual, allowed to keep the kids away and alienate them from her.

One day, the father loaded them into his car in the garage with doors closed and turned the engine on. They were all asphyxiated to death.

Christine was destroyed at the loss of her children. She put much energy into implementing a new law that was meant to better protect children by making it easier to get Protective Orders for children. The new law mandated that an attorney be appointed for children in cases that involve domestic violence.

Thanks to this new law, an attorney was appointed to represent Kaitlyn’s young son. [Coalition followers probably know where this is going…]

This court-appointed attorney aided in minimizing and concealing the father’s abuse. She threatened Kaitlyn with loss of custody if she did not agree to drop the PO for her son. At first she refused to bend to the threats, but another tactic was used to wear her down: unending hearings causing financial devastation. She had spent all her savings—$65,000—and gone into debt of $25,000 and had no way to keep fighting. She says she had no choice but to agree to change it from a Protective Order to an “Undertaking”, the equivalent of dropping it.

This financial devastation tactic is used not only to disempower women like Kaitlyn but to punish them for having had the temerity to interfere with the fathers’ power and control in the family. A twofer. And the Old Boys, along with their lackeys, delight in this persecution of uppity women, laughing all the way from the court to the club.

The irony is that the new law Christine fought for, meant to protect children by mandating a court-appointed attorney, made it easier for Kaitlyn’s judge to give the father custody. The judge is provided with a minion who overtly coerces and threatens the mother into compliance and silence—using the children as hostages.

Professor Leonetti puts it this way (with the gender neutral language fixed!):

The child’s attorney and the perpetrator [father] collude and gang up on the victim [mother].

And there is the added benefit that having a minion do the dirty work shifts the blame from the judge when things go badly or the father murders his children.

PROFESSOR’S VERDICT

Carrie Leonetti, J.D. is an internationally recognized expert on the intersection of science and the law. She has taught at universities in the U.S., Italy, and Sarajevo and is presently an associate professor at New Zealand’s University of Auckland Law School.

Professor Leonetti is a member of the bars of California, Maryland, Oregon, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court.

She is particularly interested in the role that culture, social psychology, and cognitive processes play in the definition, detection, and remedy of miscarriages of justice in the criminal-justice and family-law systems. She has witnessed the injustice and oppression occurring in Family Court and her verdict supports the Coalition’s new platform:

Family Court needs to be shut down entirely.

However, there are a few things Leonetti appears to be mistaken about which has led her to propose a replacement system that is unlikely to provide justice or safety for women and children.

MYTHS & MISUNDERSTANDINGS

Professor Leonetti says there are many myths and misunderstandings in Family Court. She says that court officials don’t have an “evidence-based” understanding of violence.

It’s pretty well documented that the personnel of the family court don’t have evidence-based understanding of family violence. They definitely don’t have an evidence-based understanding of risk assessment or child safety.

This implies that if court officials do have evidence-based training, children will be protected. But this has not borne out.

There are lots of cases in which court appointees are educated in violence and risk, some of whom recommend the children be protected and some of whom collude in the cover up. It makes no difference. Judges can simply ignore those who recommend protection in favor of keeping the father in power and control.

Another “misunderstanding” that a Backbone Collective representative cites is that violence against women is perceived as different than violence against children. If a man is violent with the mother, it doesn’t have anything to do with whether he will commit violence against the children. This is refuted by much research that confirms there is a much greater risk that a father who has abused the mother will abuse the children.

Professor Leonetti points out two main myths. The first is that custody and visitation with an abusive father is better for children than for them to have supervised visits or no contact with him. This is also not supported by research.

One of the pervasive myths is that children will suffer more harm if they don’t have extensive unsupervised contact with a violent father than if they are exposed to additional violence.
The evidence is overwhelming that exposure to violence is devastating for kids. There is no evidence to suggest that losing extensive unsupervised contact w/violent father leaves children worse off.
They don’t like to issue Protective Orders because they don’t want the protection of the victim to interfere with the perpetrator’s contact with the children.

The second myth Leonetti highlights is that the risk to children goes down after separation. It actually goes up.

The fact that there is such solid evidence of the falsity of these myths and misunderstandings supports that they are actually a form of propaganda, narratives that serve the same purpose: to permit judges to give custody to abusive fathers. Maybe some court officials “believe” this obvious BS, but it’s more likely they are simply going along with these narratives because it serves the court’s purpose. And ultimately they work for the court, not the child.

It’s kind of a chicken/egg thing. It’s not that the myths lead to judges giving abusive fathers custody. It’s that the agenda to give fathers custody leads to the creation of myths that support the goal, hence why they all come under Old Boy propaganda.

To cite myths and misunderstandings as the problem is to get diverted from the truth: judges are deliberately forcing kids to live with and visit with abusive and self-serving fathers—knowing full well it is not in their best interests.

That is why Leonetti’s proposed new system will not likely make much, if any, difference.

NEW SYSTEM

The fact that such an accomplished law professor has so much passion, indignation and outrage at the injustices and lack of protection for women and children in family courts and she insists the system be eliminated is encouraging and validating for mothers everywhere.

However, the new system she’s proposing is comprised of a multi-disciplinary team with professionals who have expertise in domestic violence, mental health and substance abuse. But that seems to be just a better version of court officials being trained properly. In the end, the judge is the one with the power. The judge makes the ruling and can override them or just ignore facts and evidence provided by them.

Judges’ power is what needs to be severely restricted, as it is in regular civil courts with juries and rules of evidence, and with appellate courts that uphold the law under a stricter standard than discretionary. Leonetti’s idea of using multi-disciplinary experts can be incorporated into this solution. Mothers can hire experts in DV, child abuse, substance abuse, and parenting who testify to the jury with up-to-date facts and research affirming what is really best and safest for children. The most important thing is that juries of our peers are the fact finders and judges have no more discretion or power than a normal judge.

SISTERS ACTIVISM

This leads to a Sisters in Solidarity activist opportunity!

Sisters will use our stories and knowledge of the Post-Separation Crisis to help Professor Leonetti understand that cases being heard in a regular civil court with the right to a jury trial is the best way to go. Perhaps she will come to agree and get on board with us. These submissions can also be used for future activism.

The Coalition will explain the nuts and bolts of the new system, so Sisters just need to write a brief blurb using their case as an example, showing why trained experts and new laws won’t help.

Send your submission to: womenscoalitioninternational.org with subject: professor. They will be collated and sent to the professor all at once so her inbox isn’t deluged. If you are not sure what to write, we’ll be going over it at our next forum.

NEXT FORUM

Our next forum will be on Saturday, October 14th, 1pm Pacific; 4pm Eastern; 8pm GMT; 9pm BST; Oct. 15th at 9am in New Zealand and 6am on the Australian east coast. A zoom invite will be sent before the forum. Please do not share; it’s only for Sisters.

If you’d like to engage in activism and join Sisters in Solidarity, you need only agree that the core cause of the Post-Separation Crisis is systemic male entitlement/oppression of women and we need a new system (not more training, laws, etc.) Read this column for more information and fill out this form.

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