Hannah, Hannah, Hannah Is Coming

This may be the week.

Roach Returns From Goodwill Effort

http://www.pnwlocalnews.com/south_king/aub/news/49649097.html
This story was printed in the local Auburn Reporter.

www.tinyurl.com/ldlh9g

Marin County, CA To Look For Possible Government Corruption In Child Services

State orders audit of Marin family court
Gary Klien
Posted: 07/01/2009 06:58:10 PM PDT


Prodded by Sen. Mark Leno and other lawmakers, the state Joint Legislative Audit Committee voted Wednesday to investigate the family courts in Marin and Sacramento counties. The audit will focus on the use, and potential misuse, of court-appointed specialists in family-law disputes, such as mediators, investigators and therapists.

Critics say such appointees can form incestuous and incompetent networks more concerned with generating fees than helping children through painful custody fights.

"It becomes a service mill, a cottage industry of sorts," Leno said in an interview Wednesday. "Maybe state law needs to be changed."

Marin and Sacramento counties were chosen for the audit because of the number of litigants reporting problems and filing complaints, said Ali Bay, a spokeswoman for Leno. But any changes recommended by the auditors could inspire new statewide legislation.

The audit is expected to take four months and cost about $160,000. The start date has not been determined.

Leno said that because of the state budget crisis, the audit committee - which consists of seven assembly members and seven senators - could only approve two audits Wednesday. Six were under consideration, he said.

Leno, a Democrat representing Marin and parts of San Francisco and Sonoma County, said the committee voted unanimously for the family court audit, demonstrating the widespread doubts about the system.

"People are concerned the health and well-being of children might be at risk," Leno said. "I've had mothers and fathers in tears in my office, telling me their sad stories. Minimally, we have to look into this and see what the truth is."
The audit was approved two months after Marin Superior Court issued a report extolling its efforts to increase public confidence in its family-law division. The changes followed a turbulent decade for the family court, whose critics launched a fierce but unsuccessful recall campaign against several judges and a former district attorney.

To improve the system, the court announced, officials cleared a backlog of 1,500 stalled family law cases; translated legal forms and instructions in Spanish; conducted a public survey on court performance; and established a special twice-monthly calendar to help litigants who are representing themselves, according to the report.

But the report still didn't address the core issue of the mediators and other specialists appointed to advise the courts, said Kathleen Russell of the Center for Judicial Excellence, a Marin watchdog organization.

"Needless to say, we're thrilled that we had such unanimous support from the committee for the audit request," Russell said. "We spent 17 months working with legislators to educate them about the problems. It's really the end of a long journey, but we'll be working with the auditors as well."

The state auditors are expected to investigate how court appointees are selected, how they are trained and evaluated, how their fees are established, and how complaints against them are resolved, among other issues.

Judge Verna Adams, a former divorce lawyer who is Marin's presiding judge, said she welcomes the audit because it could clear the record and instill more confidence in the court.

"We're happy to have this happen," Adams said. "We really would welcome a well-designed, professional review of our family law procedures.

"We're confident that we're following the law. If they want to do an audit of best practices, Marin is the best place for them to be."

Contact Gary Klien via e-mail at gklien@marinij.com

Hondurans Follow Their Constitution To Oust Marxist

NOTE: THIS ENTRY IS FOR THE INDIVIDUALS WHO CARE ABOUT STABILITY IN CENTRAL AMERICA OTHERS WILL BE BORED. THE UNITED STATES IS BACKING MEL ZALAYA TO THE DISMAY OF ALL OF MY FRIENDS IN HONDURAS.

I asked an American residing in Tegucigalpa, Honduras if the removal of Manuel "Mel" Zalaya was constitutional. The following was the answer:

"They acted in a legal fashion according to the Constitution. They had a basis for taking him out of office; however, the problem is the way that he was actually “ousted” on Sunday, June 28, leaves some question in the minds of anyone. The military was ONLY involved in removing him from his residence and the country; they were NOT in power here. Power was constitutionally given to the next-in-line after the president. For this reason, the government here insists this was not your old-fashioned military coup. But, since it was the military involved in the ousting (not the police), the appearance has caused problems for the media and everyone else, and rightly so. The basis for removing him, though, was a legal procedure with the courts ordering the military to remove him. The reason they give for removing (rather than arresting) him is because of the chaos that would have ensued. There is not a jail that would have been adequate to keep Mr. Zelaya in; he does have supporters, of course, and they really felt it would be a much more dangerous situation to have him here and one that really was not possible.



Are these reasons good enough to justify the military’s involvement in his removal? I don’t know. How we have wished they could go back and change a few of the ways the did things, but the showdown was coming for awhile. On June 25, Mr. Zelaya, with a group of supporters, went to the Air Force base here to reclaim the ballot boxes/ballots that had been confiscated. It was peaceful because the military simply let him do what he wanted to do, but it was a wild display of defiance and unwillingness to abide by the regulations put on him by the courts, Congress and election officials. None of these things have been explained to the average American although the U.S. government must be aware of his actions. It was on T.V. for all of us to see here, and it was quite the scene. The defiance towards the courts and other institutions here has been going on for awhile. The problem, as well, is the counsel he continually received from Venezuela. He didn’t listen to the counsel given here. The U.S. ambassador here worked hard to help the situation not come to a head on Sunday, but it just seems that Mr. Zelaya finally pushed too many buttons.



It is so difficult, we know, for our government to respond to what looks like an old-fashioned coup, but it was not as the military did not control this country. They followed the orders of the courts, removed the president, and a new president (next in line) was reinstated. We hope & pray that somehow the US can help Honduras work through this in a way that will be best for the present and future of this country … Even better would be that all countries, including Venezuela, leave Honduras to solve their own problems. We realize, though, that Venezuela will not do that while others (including our own country) may … then, there will not be anyone to come to Honduras’ defense when we need it, and we may just be swept up by Mr. Chavez using Mr. Zelaya. This is the danger that looms. We hope that the OAS will see this and begin to condemn the threats that have been made by Mr. Chavez which go directly against the OAS policy of non-intervention. Honduras needs many changes, but they do not need to be included in the list of countries under Mr. Chavez. That would change the very fabric of this country. Although Honduras is poor and struggles with so many things, they have liberties that they don’t realize they have until they are taken away. And, the majority of the population is not in favor of such a change (probably about 80%, although it is impossible to have some kind of official number)."

(This answer is in line with everything I have heard. And yet, with US backing the United Nations and the Organization of American States is backing the Marxist the Hondurans have constitutionally removed.)

This Sunday's Highlights

* Woke up to a gun shot. King County police killed a moose on our frontage. It had been hit by a car. Female.

* Finished, To Have and Have Not... by Hemingway. A short read...makes me want to write. I am nearing a subject.

* Took out the ride...top down...ACDC very loud (in honor of Captain John who plays "Highway to Hell")

* Solved the problem of helping a Honduran doctor in Guatemala, from the US, on a Sunday

* And now..."Desperate Housewives"

Jersey whistleblower on data protection offences

Jersey whistleblower on data protection offences

Stuart Syvret, the Jersey "whistleblower" who claimed island officials covered up child abuse, has been charged with two data protection offences following his internet blogs. The politician criticised the establishment's handling of claims that over many years youngsters at Jersey's Haut de la Garenne children's home were sexually and violently abused. Arrests and charges were made and he called for an independent inquiry but was accused by a minister of damaging Jersey's reputation and dismissed as health minister. Syvret, 44, who denies any wrongdoing, appears before Jersey magistrates on 16 July.

Illegal adoptions contribute to child trafficking

Illegal adoptions contribute to child trafficking

In a new report, World Vision highlights illegal adoption as a contributing factor to child trafficking.

The report, 10 Things You Need To Know About Human Trafficking, warns of situations in which desperation and vulnerability may lead to parties overlooking both the law and child rights in the adoption process.

`Mistaken orphan' to meet lost father after 34 years

`Mistaken orphan' to meet lost father after 34 years

Thirty-four years after he was mistakenly whisked away from a Saigon orphanage, Thanh Campbell - Orphan 32 - is returning to his homeland.

Stormans, Inc. v. Selecky

(U.S. 9th Cir., Administrative Law, Constitutional Law, Drugs & Biotech, Health Law) In a First Amendment challenge to rules promulgated by the Washington State Board of Pharmacy requiring pharmacies to deliver lawfully prescribed FDA-approved medications, a preliminary injunction in favor of Plaintiffs is reversed, where the District Court erroneously treated Plaintiffs' as-applied challenge as a facial challenge.

McCullen v. Coakley

(U.S. 1st Cir., Constitutional Law, Government Law, Health Law) In an action challenging a statute creating a fixed buffer zone around reproductive health care facilities, district court judgment rejecting the facial challenge and refuseing to enjoin enforcement of the new law is affirmed where: 1) there is nothing in the text or the legislative history of the statute that deprives that statute of content-neutral status, and thus an intermediate scrutiny analysis applies; 2) the statute is a valid time-place-manner regulation that advances a significant governmental interest without burdening substantially more speech than necessary and leaves open adequate alternative channels of communication; 3) plaintiffs' overbreadth argument is without merit as the increased degree of the expansion of the buffer zone in the statute is reasonable, and thus the expansion is not a matter of constitutional significance; and 4) plaintiffs' vagueness argument fails as plaintiffs want to engage in the anti-abortion protests that are proscribed in the attorney general's challenged guidance letter, and a party to whose conduct a statute clearly applies may not successfully challenge it for vagueness.

Pilgrim v. Luther

(U.S. 2d Cir., Constitutional Law, Criminal Law & Procedure) In a prisoner civil rights action, district court's grant of summary judgment for defendant is affirmed where: 1) plaintiff's First Amendment retaliation claim fails as a matter of law as entreaties to activity such as petitions protesting prison conditions are not entitled to First Amendment protection where other less disruptive means of airing grievances are available; and 2) plaintiff's claims that defendant violated his due process rights are without merit as any error on the part of the corrections officer assigned to assisting plaintiff was harmless in light of defendant's owns failures.

Pleus v. Crist

(Fla., Constitutional Law) Petition for writ of mandamus compelling the Governor of the State of Florida to fill a vacancy created in the state's Fifth District Court is granted where the Florida Constitution mandates that the Governor appoint a judicial nominee within sixty days of the certification of nominees by the Judicial Nominating Commission. The Governor also lacks authority under the constitution to seek a new list of nominees from the Judicial Nominating Commission and has a mandatory duty to fill the vacancy with an appointment from the list certified to him.

Kleinsmith v. Shurtleff

(U.S. 10th Cir., Constitutional Law, Property Law & Real Estate) In a constitutional challenge to a Utah statute requiring attorneys who acted as trustees of real property trust deeds in Utah to maintain a place within the state to meet with trustors in connection with foreclosures, summary judgment for Defendant is affirmed where Plaintiff failed to present evidence that could satisfy his burden to establish a discriminatory effect.