Mom Imprisoned Yesterday—For Nearly a Half Year
A Louisiana mother was incarcerated in East Baton Rouge Prison yesterday. She’s been sentenced by a Family Court judge to a total of nearly 5 months in the slammer for failing to pony up $75,000—which she does not have—to her ex for legal fees.
This is a local news video of Katherine just before she turned herself in yesterday—with the prison in the background [edited to one minute].
Judge Erika Green knows Katherine cannot come up with that sum, as she has been financially devastated in the process of attempting to get custody back and protect her children from the father’s abuse in the form of alienation of her children from her. Imprisonment is the ultimate card a judge holds to terrorize a mother into silence and punish her for daring to contest judicial rulings.
But Katherine is not the only one punished for speaking up. When her attorney argued that the father had been manipulating their children and the Court, the judge held her in contempt. This retaliating against attorneys who represent women properly in family matters is not uncommon. Many have been disbarred for it. Which explains why so many attorneys sell mothers out—they must go along to get along.
Katherine’s case appears to unfold right out of the FRA [Fathers’ Rights Activists] playbook, with the judges, as per usual, acting as OBM’s [Old Boy Minions]. Many of the tactics are exposed in the FRA manual Screw the Bitch: Divorce Tactics for Men.
KATHERINE’S STORY
Katherine was married in 1997 and the twins were born in 2011. The divorce was finalized in 2018 at which time there was a ruling of joint custody with 50/50 parenting time.
Note that even equal parenting time is not in children’s best interest since their mother is their primary attachment figure and so the kids should live primarily with her. But, OK. The OBN [Old Boy Network] has created and disseminated the false narrative that children do better having equal time with both parents and judges implement it, although research clearly shows otherwise.
At least Katherine’s ex was not given primary custody. Oh wait…
The equal parenting arrangement went on for only about a year when her ex was granted primary custody—for no particular reason, just because he wanted it. Katherine was given the traditional non-custodial visitation despite no change of circumstances warranting change of custody. Not to mention she is still the kids’ primary attachment figure, so the harm done to them by having even less time with her was even greater.
This increase in parenting time, not so coincidentally, gave the father more power and control, which in turn allowed him to more effectively alienate the kids from their mother.
Then comes the coup de grâce.
Her ex staged a scene at a visitation exchange from him to her. The kids were obviously directed to resist getting in Katherine’s car—while he filmed the whole act.
The kids did as expected and the father did nothing to encourage the children to go with their mother. Quite the contrary, he continued filming the debacle of the children running around the parking lot out of control and allowed them to get back into his car—as planned.
The next step in the predictable Screw the Bitch odyssey then unfolds.
Katherine’s ex immediately filed a motion with the video of the premeditated scene as an exhibit, claiming it was Katherine’s fault they wouldn’t get in the car and that she had physically abused her daughter when she was actually just trying to put her in the car. Normally kids’ bad behavior like that is blamed on the custodial parent, but apparently not when it’s the father who’s got primary.
The local news team covering her case had an independent attorney view the video, who confirmed it was impossible to interpret what Katherine did as abuse.
The little girl resists getting into the mom’s vehicle for about 10 seconds. At no time does [the mother] hit or hurt the child. She is simply trying to get her into the car.
Meanwhile, the husband is in his truck filming and does nothing to get the children to cooperate with the transfer and get in the car with their mother.
But Judge Pamela Baker granted the father’s request for a TRO [Temporary Restraining Order] protecting the kids and him from Katherine anyway. Worse, she kept—illegally—granting the father new TRO’s after each present one expired for the next two years without holding the required hearing for a permanent RO at which Katherine could have defended herself, i.e. at which she would have been provided with basic due process regarding the spurious allegation.
In the meantime, the father filed another motion for change of custody. Judge Baker granted him sole custody and placed Katherine on supervised visitation, restricting her to only a couple hours a week with her kids. This severe restriction was inflicted on her (and her twins) despite there not only being no substantiated findings by law enforcement or CPS—there was never any involvement by them or investigation of the alleged abuse.
Now, if a man in his role as a father had been so accused by a woman in her role as an ex-wife, using a video she made which did not show child abuse—simply a father trying to get his court-ordered parenting time, and there was zero corroborating evidence by law enforcement or CPS, well, then, that woman would almost surely have been found to have falsely accused a wonderful, innocent father of abuse in order to alienate him from his children—and be stripped of custody. Instead, she allows him to alienate the children from the mother. You know, the usual. Proof of the gender discrimination/systemic sexism in family courts.
Here is a comment by one local news viewer who happens to get it right:
It’s such an obvious set up with only one possible outcome - failure to satisfy the so-called obligation! No possible solution here! The real goal seems to be this … for her to be financially/mentally/emotionally drained, intimidated into silence, and hopefully locked away so she cannot continue to speak out against the wrongdoing that has and very likely will continue in this circus.
APPELLATE WEASELS
Long story short on the Appellate front: the case made its way to the Appellate Court a couple times and the justices weaseled out of doing the right thing. The weasels affirmed Judge Green’s unjust rulings and horribly draconian punishment of a mother, more accurately of an ex-wife, i.e. ex-property.
In their decision, the Justices opined/whined:
Although the parties' testimony conflicted, in matters of credibility, an appellate court gives great deference to the findings of the trier of fact as the trial court is in the best position to view the demeanor and mannerisms of the witnesses.
The trial court's evaluations of credibility and its inferences of fact were reasonable and we will not disturb them.
Katherine’s case is a good example of how Appellate Courts are not effective oversight for Family Court judges, who are given way too much deference. By design.
Nowhere did these supposedly esteemed justices speak about the best interests of the children and how it is not good for them to be completely severed from their mother. Even if the abuse was true (which it was not), the children should be able to see their mother supervised. After all, children are forced into contact with murderer fathers, often at a prison.
It is obvious that even at the Appellate Court level, this is all about allowing men to dominate in their family. Judges and justices are under the thumb of the OBN and the agenda to empower men/fathers and disempower women/mothers.
This failure of oversight by Appellate Courts supports the Coalition’s position that divorce and custody cases need to be heard in a regular civil court with the right to a jury of our peers. There the appellate standard bar is lower, i.e. judges have less discretion to falsely find mothers to be lying, alienating or mentally ill—the thousands-years-old modus operandi when they challenge male authority.
DEBTOR’S PRISON
Katherine’s case was reassigned at some point to Judge Erika Green, who took up the mantle in torturing her. She is the one who just found Katherine in contempt and is requiring her to pay $75,000 to her ex or face lengthy imprisonment.
At a recent custody hearing, in which Judge Green began the proceeding by operating on the false premise that Katherine had abused her children rather than allow her to dispute that, she walked out. Green characterized this act of civil disobedience as Katherine being “unable to control herself”. Of course this was used as yet another justification to keep her kids away (as if one was needed).
You may be thinking: Wait! Weren’t debtor’s prisons done away with in the 1800’s?
Yes, but that was for men. The OBN created a loophole in the law by making jail time legal in cases of contempt of court, making non-payment of legal fees qualify as contempt. This serves as another, the most potent means of keeping men in control of their families after divorce.
Ironically, an ancestor of Katherine’s was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He later lost his fortune and he himself was sentenced to debtor’s prison. He languished there for three years until the Bankruptcy Act of 1801 set him free. Now his heir is sitting in debtor’s prison—in 2024!
TAKE AWAY
The most important take away from Katherine’s unjust imprisonment is that if divorce/custody cases were being heard in a regular civil court with a jury, Katherine would not be sitting in jail, and she most certainly would still have custody of her kids.
There is no jury of our peers that would do to her what this judge did: take her children away from her completely and sentence her to prison for not having the money to pay her ex’s legal fees—when her ex is the one who is abusing the kids by lying about and alienating them from her. [Note the importance of using the word “alienate” in her case. There is no other word that conveys accurately—and the public can understand well—what her ex is doing to her and the kids.]
Katherine’s case is yet another which demonstrates the need for women to unite and demand the new system the Coalition is proposing.
Join the fight at The Women’s Coalition and/or Sisters in Solidarity our new activist arm.
CREDIT: Thanks to Central City News for following Katherine’s case and getting the truth out to locals about the horrible injustices being meted out to her by Family Court. [Video credit as well.]
IN OTHER NEWS
CHAPTER 3 PUBLISHED!
Chapter 3 of Dr. Blue’s Mother-Fucking: The Saga of One Fucked Mother was published on Wednesday in our new section dedicated to the book. The section is entitled “The Saga of One F**cked Mother” and can be accessed on the top bar of our main page anytime you feel like reading.
The Prologue, Chapter 1: A Couple of Definitions and Chapter 2: How, How in the World Did We Get Here from There? can also be read on the original post which gives a bit of background about the book and Dr. Blue.
A new chapter will be published every Wednesday so keep an eye out—you don’t want to miss it!
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Family court is a chamber of horrors. Women and children are punished for doing nothing wrong. Men are rewarded for doing nothing right and everything wrong. There's strength in numbers. Women joining forces is the only way we can begin to put an end to the horrors of family court.
Thank you for covering this. These cases are despicable and we see them time and time again, aimed against women for the slightest of so called infractions, while men’s abusive behaviors are consistently downplayed and excused.