OR, Anna --
I read that OR has a medical report on her soon to be X which he is not aware that she has.
I read that this may be a key piece of documentation supporting her.
Question: what does lawyer say about admissability of this information into court? Depending on how the information was obtained, it may or may not be something that can be introduced depending on state laws...
Anna, you probably know more about this, a lot more, than I do. Any thoughts? I would just hate it if OR doesn't take steps to make sure that the most important information she has can actually be used when she needs it....
well.... hmmmm... funny you should ask becuase i was just thinking about this... i really dont want to burden this list with a bunch of offtopic info. and, i definitely dont want to be overly negative. BUT i believe there is less concern as to whether the report is admissable, then whether it will be admitted and then ignored or dismissed... its very good, he has such a history of threatening people though.
here is what im finding.
i can name at least five women i personally know, two who have written books about it, who have lost custody to -documented- sexual abusers...... some of those men had criminal records for pedophilia... many had extensive documentation, from all types of experts... there are hundreds of such cases, in every state...
very very often what would be considered by normal people to be very compelling evidence, will go totally ignored in the family court setting. family court does not have the same standards of evidence as criminal court. there is much greater leeway afforded to judges in how to interpret and use evidence offered them. and they have very minimal training in this type of stuff.
even if you can get your evidence admitted, often the abuser will try to neutralise it by aggressively shifting the focus onto the mother and try to make her appear 'worse'. (worse than a pedophile/?) its at this time that he will say, her 'accusations' of his 'danger to kids' is a tactic and shes making it up. this is surprisingly easy to accomplish, because frankly most judges arent too educated on abuse and n's. if the judge gets confused and think its a 'he-said/she-said', a lot of times benefit goes against the mother, becuase she 'appears' more unstable than he does in the court situation. this is just flat prejudice beucase almost always women will be perceived as more emotional, and therefore less believable, during the few hours the judge has to observe them. i think we all know how well n's can hide their true colors, and shift blame to the target.
the fact that OR seems to have more money than her ex, will probably do her much more good in the long run than this report, which is extremley likely to be challenged and minimised anyway. (its still very good she has it....). just, i would not plan to rely on it tooo heavily.
now in my case, which was in california, i repeatedly told everyone what my father was up to, and i had plenty of evidence to back it, but nobody considered it the slightest bit important. i was actually advised repeatedly not to bring it up, and told it was 'irrelevent' and 'fighting below the belt'. this is common and serves again to deny the judge ability to see the reality of the abuser. they seem to see it as character assassination, rather than evidence of personality disorder. otoh, nobody stops them from assasinating the woman's character!
additionally, i had *piles* of hard, cold, 'evidence'. school records. doctors records. dental records. therapy records. this was public documentation from schools and hospitals that anyone could obtain and see, which i thought should be more than enough to substantiate the things i said and claimed.
i had myself evaluated personally at a value of $1000, which the evaluator (with 30 years experience) did for -free-, because she believed in my case so much. i worked very very hard to build a solid, respectable case with what seemed to me to be inarguably clear 'evidence'.
but it meant absolutely -nothing-.
in court, things move -fast-. time is not on your side. they wont sit around to get to the bottom of anything. its easy for them to get stuck on the surface appearance and just 'move things along'. im really hoping that OR's ex will be goofy enough to hang himself in front of the judge. but the man has to -really- be visibly out to lunch in order to be judged negatively. all the woman has to do is cry openly: and it can be all over. (i did not cry in court, btw).
further in our case, our evaluator was not allowed to even testify. this was a professional family evaluator whose sole job was to testify in court about families, and she was not even allowed to give her findings. that was an appealable offense, but since i didnt have money to appeal it, it effectively didnt matter. thats why sometimes it comes down to how much money you can spend.
the only 'evidence' entered against me, in comparison, was -one- drawing my daughter had made, of her imaginary friend at the time, a dragon named frisky.
one -drawing-.
this they claimed was 'evidence' of the fact that she was mentally ill herself, from having contact with me. that was the only peice of evidence they entered.
instead they spun a very dramatic tale about her 'malnutrition' - but they showed no medical records. i had medical records from the time of her birth, but they were just ignored. they waxed eloquent about her 'dental problems' - but they showed no dental records. i had dental records showing completely normal dental health, but also - ignored. they practically cried about how i was 'neglecting her schooling'. i brought piles of report cards that showed straight a's. they accused me of forging them!. they had -nothing- to back up what they said. i had piles to disprove it.
but they were believed, becuase they were able to *shift* the focus, onto 'me and my problems', spin a good story, and look good doing it. judges like everyone want their job easy. picking apart messy details isnt easy. they dont understand abuse, and if a man looks good for that couple of hours, and tells a good story, which often n's can capably do, it is way too frequently enough. 'reports' can be a dime a dozen to a judge.
we just hear this all over and over and over again. i cant tell you how many women i hear this from. this is not to be depressing or negative in -any- way. i have faith in OR and i know she will do well, and she has a lot of important stuff on her side, mainly his history of openly threatening people and his lack of funds.
i think she is very smart to get together all the evidence she can about his instability, his history of threatening people, his drug use, and be ready to present it, not in the context of bringing him down but in the context of what would be best for the childs health. but what we are seing is that being successful is often a lot more about staying power, resources, and having a really good lawyer than any kind of actual evidence or anything else that makes any sense to normal humans......
this is california NOW's site, which talks some about the system in california. theyve done a lot of research on it, becuase they got so many phone calls complaining.
<http://www.canow.org/issues/family.html>
this is *not* meant to seem negative!!!! i just dont like to see people walking into lions dens basically wearing a big steak on their head, and not say anything..
its just information. use or ignore at will.
take care all
anna
