Human medical experimentation on children: The exploitation of poor children by Big Pharma (part two)
The crimes committed against children define some of the Holocaust's most morally despicable horrors. In It's My Story, Palmer told Handscomb of the abuses she received as a 13-year-old at Auschwitz. As a result of the damage done to her body by the contraceptive drug experiments forced upon her at Auschwitz, she had to undergo several painful surgeries immediately following the war and, even after the surgeries, Palmer remained unable to bear children for the rest of her life. Today, in her 70s, Palmer has cancer.
Now, no one can say for certain whether or not Palmer's cancer is linked to the medical experiments she underwent roughly 60 years earlier, but it is a likely possibility. Exposure to drugs and other chemicals produces extremely negative effects on children, especially those who are even younger than Palmer was during the experiments.
In the April 2004 Pediatrics article "Trends in Environmentally Related Childhood Diseases," Tracey Woodruff, et al. writes, "Children may be particularly susceptible to exposures in utero or during early life because the fetus' or young child’s physiology is undergoing rapid development, such as rapid cell division, changing metabolic activity, and evolving hormonal systems."
With this in mind, running experimental drug studies on children seems especially dangerous and thus horrendous, yet it is still a common occurrence even in modern society. In her Nov. 30, 2004 BBC News article "Guinea Pig Kids" and her subsequent documentary of the same name, Jamie Doran reveals New York City's Administration for Children's Services' (ACS) little-known practice of using HIV-positive children kept in the city's orphanages and foster care homes as human guinea pigs for experimental AIDS drugs. For his documentary and article, Doran interviewed Jacklyn Hoerger, a pediatric nurse who worked at the Catholic Church-run Incarnation Children's Home in Harlem. Hoerger maintains that social work authorities never told her that the drugs she and the other Incarnation employees were administering the orphans and foster care children were experimental. "We were told that if they were vomiting, if they lost their ability to walk, if they were having diarrhea, if they were dying, then all of this was because of their HIV infection," she said to BBC.
In reality, these symptoms were due to the experimental drugs that the workers were giving them. When BBC asked him his opinion on the experimental drug studies done on New York City's orphans and foster children, University of Berkeley visiting scholar Dr. David Rasnick explained, "We're talking about serious, serious side effects. These children are going to be absolutely miserable. They're going to have cramps, diarrhea and their joints are going to swell up. They're going to roll around the ground and you can't touch them." According to BBC reporter Doran, Dr. Rasnick went on to call the experimental AIDS drugs that were given to the children "lethal." If children refused to take them by mouth, workers at Incarnation force-fed them the drugs through feeding tubes inserted into their stomachs.
It's no doubt that these HIV-positive and AIDS symptomatic children needed medication. The question is why were they given experimental drugs, rather than the same medications that a child living in an expensive brownstone on the Upper East Side would have received? In the words of Alliance for Human Research Protection spokesperson Vera Sherav: "They tested these highly experimental drugs. Why didn't they provide the children with the current best treatment? That's the question we have. Why did they expose them to risk and pain, when they were helpless? Would they have done those experiments with their own children? I doubt it." Furthermore -- when you consider the fact that, according to the BBC article, 99 percent of the children in New York City children's homes are either African American or Hispanic -- issues of race and prejudice also come into play.
Hoerger told BBC that she didn't realize what was going on until she later took two children from Incarnation home as foster children. As a trained pediatric nurse, she decided to take the two children she was caring for in her home off the medications given to them while at Incarnation. This resulted in "an immediate boost to their health and happiness," according to BBC. However, soon after her decision, ACS came to her home and took the children out of her care. She was then labeled a child abuser in court and, after that, she never saw the children again.
Performing medical experiments on children is a serious accusation. Realizing this, while working on his documentary and article, Doran went to Incarnation for its side of the story, but it only referred him to its public relations firm. The expensive Manhattan firm told him that it didn't give comments about what goes on inside the home. In light of these accusations, former ACS Commissioner John B. Mattingly ordered a comprehensive review of all ACS records. By early April, based on the records they had examined, ACS staff members revealed just how common the experimentation Hoerger described at Incarnation was throughout the city:
Between 1988 and 2001, 465 foster care children and orphans were used in experimental AIDS drug trials.
Most of these children participated before 1996.
The majority of HIV-positive children living in New York City were diagnosed from the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s.
The highest number of AIDS-related deaths among New York City children happened from 1990 to 1995.
The 465 children used in the studies were in approximately two dozen different independent agencies operating under contract to ACS.
Then, on Apr. 22, 2005, ACS sent out a press release stating that it had "contracted with the Vera Institute of Justice to conduct an independent review of ACS policy and practice regarding the enrollment of HIV-positive children in foster care in clinical drug trials during the late 1980s and 1990s." It also asserted: "The last child to enter an HIV-related clinical trial while in foster care did so in 2001. There are no ongoing HIV-related clinical trials involving children in foster care in New York City." This directly contradicts the conclusion Doran writes in his 2004 article: "The experiments continue to be carried out on the poor children of New York City."
ACS maintains that it ordered the studies with the best interest of HIV-positive children in mind. "The purpose of the drug trials was to develop effective treatments for pediatric AIDS, at a time when there were no known, FDA-approved medications available to treat children with the disease, and many children were dying," reads the press release. As proof of the gravity of the AIDS crisis ACS faced when conducting the trials, the press release cites the following figures from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene:
Out of the 13,927 HIV-positive children under age 13 nationwide prior to 2003 (according to CDC estimates), the percentage of HIV-positive children in New York City was "the highest by far of any jurisdiction in the country."
From 1979 through 2003, 3,634 children living in New York City and under the age of 13 were HIV positive.
Even though ACS believes that its decision to give the experimental AIDS drugs to the 465 foster children and orphans was not wrong, it is nevertheless ordering the Vera Institute to conduct the independent study, so as to assure the public and the media. As Commissioner Mattingly explained, "We are taking this step because, while we believe that the policies in place at the time reflected good practice, we acknowledge the need for transparency in all of our dealings with the public. In order for us to be effective in our mission to protect New York City’s children, we must have a sense of mutual trust with those families we seek to serve." According to the press release, the Vera Institute "will research ACS policies and procedures to ensure that HIV-positive children and children with AIDS who were in the care of ACS were appropriately enrolled in the correct clinical drug trials." This includes finding out whether:
ACS obtained consent from the children's parents or other guardians before enrolling them in the experimental drug studies.
The children enrolled in the trials met the medical criteria to do so.
ACS adequately and properly monitored the children who were enrolled.
Enrollment was "appropriate based on sound medical knowledge at the time."
As of an Oct. 5, 2005 update to its web site regarding the analysis, the Vera Institute still had not completed its investigation. It writes that it is "assembling an advisory board of medical, child welfare, legal, and community experts to review our findings and assure the public of the independence of our research." Meanwhile, in its description of the project, the Vera Institute acknowledges both sides of the controversy:
"Opponents of involving foster children in clinical trials -- where the risks and benefits are often unknown -- worry that this highly vulnerable population may be too-easily neglected or even exploited. When it comes to children of color, in particular, they point to historic examples where the health care system has acted in discriminatory and prejudicial ways.
"On the other hand, those who favor including foster children in clinical trials argue that enrollment can provide high quality care and cutting-edge medicine to children who otherwise would receive only routine medical services. In this view, excluding foster children unfairly bars them from the best the medical profession has to offer."
It will be very interesting to see the Vera Institute's findings -- which are, according to the Institute itself -- "part of Vera's mission to improve government systems." "We hope that the information we provide will contribute to the public debate that will help shape future policies regarding clinical trials and children in government custody," the site reads. On a national level, between 12,000 and 13,000 children under the age of 13 have participated in National Institutes of Health-sponsored AIDS drug trials from 1986 to 2005.
Even though the Vera Institute's findings are not yet complete, the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Apr. 8, 2005 cancellation of its Children's Health Environmental Exposure Research Study (CHEERS) shows what a combination of intense opposition from environmental and public health groups (as well as a little help from Congress) can do to end experimentation on poverty-stricken children.
Child medical experiments at the EPA
In October 2005, the American Chemistry Council gave the EPA $2.1 million to study how children ranging from infancy to three years old ingest, inhale or absorb chemicals. Like IG Farben was for the German pharmaceutical companies of Nazi Germany, the American Chemistry Council acts much like a front group for chemical industry bigwigs like Bayer (which was incidentally also a member of IG Farben), BP, Chevron, Dow, DuPont, Exxon, Honeywell, 3M, Monsanto and Procter & Gamble. Studies have already proven that the chemicals made by these companies have long-term effects on children and adults. A short, two-year study like CHEERS would of course fail to reveal these long-term effects and the American Chemistry Council could then publicize these findings as "proof" that its chemicals were safe.
This represents an ethical problem in itself, but the demographic of the proposed child test subjects worsen the issue, especially in light of the use of foster children (the majority of which were African-American and Hispanic) by both the New York City ACS and the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. According to the EPA's original study proposal, portions of which were reprinted by the Organic Consumers Association, test subjects would be chosen from six health clinics in Duvall County, Fla. Given the characteristics of these health centers, page 23 of the study proposal itself highlights that minority children from low-income families would be the likely test subjects: "Although all Duval County citizens are eligible to use the [health care] centers, they primarily serve individuals with lower incomes. In the year 2000, seventy five percent of the users of the clinics for pregnancy issues were at or below the poverty level ... The percentage of births to individuals classified as black in the U.S. Census is higher at these three hospitals than for the County as a whole."
In fact, the health care centers report that 51 percent of their births are to non-Caucasian mothers, and that 62 percent of mothers received only elementary school or secondary school educations. If the EPA were to have proceeded with CHEERS, children born to these health care centers would have been used as human guinea pigs simply because they belong to minority groups and poverty-stricken families. In return for allowing their children to be exposed to toxic chemicals, the families were to have received $970, a free video camera, a T-shirt and a framed certificate of appreciation.
Fortunately, the EPA decided not to go through with CHEERS, once U.S. Senators Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) decided to put their feet down and block President Bush's nomination of Stephen Johnson for head of the EPA. In his Apr. 8 statement, Johnson reversed the EPA's earlier decision to await a report from an independent science advisory panel before making a decision about CHEERS. He explained his decision as being a result of public and media "misrepresentations" of the study:
"Last fall, in light of questions about the study design, I directed that all work on the study stop immediately and requested an independent review. Since that time, many misrepresentations about the study have been made. EPA senior scientists have briefed me on the impact these misrepresentations have had on the ability to proceed with the study.
"I have concluded that the study cannot go forward, regardless of the outcome of the independent review. EPA must conduct quality, credible research in an atmosphere absent of gross misrepresentation and controversy."
Boxer, who says that she will continue to oppose testing toxins on humans, called CHEERS an "immoral program to test pesticides on children" and "a reprehensible idea that never should have made it out of the boardroom" in her statement to the Associated Press following Johnson's decision. Luckily, unlike Tuskegee, the study was stopped before anyone got hurt.
This story continues in part three.
Or see the Human Medical Experimentation Timeline
Or see the comparison chart: Human medical experiments, Nazi Germany / modern medicine
http://www.naturalnews.com/019192.html
Isabella Brooke Knightly and Austin Gamez-Knightly
In Memory of my Loving Husband, William F. Knightly Jr. Murdered by ILLEGAL Palliative Care at a Nashua, NH Hospital
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Update: Federal Medical Experiments on Foster Children
May 24, 2005
Update: Federal Medical Experiments on Foster Children
As was noted in this space on May 4, the Associated Press has reported that government-funded researchers have tested AIDS drugs on hundreds of foster children over the past two decades without providing a guardian. The foster children received medical care from world-class researchers, which slowed their death rate and extended their lives, but it also exposed them to significant risks. Even though the government was supposed to appoint independent advocates as of 1983, most research institutions promised but did not provide advocates. Some foster children died during the studies, but no agency can find any record that any death was directly caused by experimental treatments.
In response to the AP story, on May 10 the Alliance for Human Research Protection filed a complaint with the FDA and DHHS' Office of Human Research Protection about AIDS drug experiments on foster children in New York City.
In an op-ed piece in the Toledo Blade, Dr. Mark Kline, professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and director of the Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative, responded to an editorial in the Blade that criticized researchers who enrolled foster children with HIV in studies of anti-AIDS drugs without appointing an outside advocate for these children. He wrote that foster children were not singled out but included with other children in the same research. He insisted that the decision to use foster children for research was in part due to the deadliness of AIDS for children during that time since available treatments offered only partial, short-lived benefits. Many of the potent drugs approved for adults in the mid-1990s were not approved for children because no pediatric studies had been done. He stated that researchers did not provide advocates because the treatments could potentially be beneficial and foster children were being put at no more risk than other children in the same situation.
A DHHS official recently stated that "current regulations are adequate to ensure that foster children enlisted in federal medical experiments are protected" (Washington Post).
Thanks to research assistant Lindley Bain for her help with this post. [tm]
May 24, 2005 | Permalink
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/healthlawprof_blog/2005/05/federal_medical.html
Update: Federal Medical Experiments on Foster Children
As was noted in this space on May 4, the Associated Press has reported that government-funded researchers have tested AIDS drugs on hundreds of foster children over the past two decades without providing a guardian. The foster children received medical care from world-class researchers, which slowed their death rate and extended their lives, but it also exposed them to significant risks. Even though the government was supposed to appoint independent advocates as of 1983, most research institutions promised but did not provide advocates. Some foster children died during the studies, but no agency can find any record that any death was directly caused by experimental treatments.
In response to the AP story, on May 10 the Alliance for Human Research Protection filed a complaint with the FDA and DHHS' Office of Human Research Protection about AIDS drug experiments on foster children in New York City.
In an op-ed piece in the Toledo Blade, Dr. Mark Kline, professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and director of the Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative, responded to an editorial in the Blade that criticized researchers who enrolled foster children with HIV in studies of anti-AIDS drugs without appointing an outside advocate for these children. He wrote that foster children were not singled out but included with other children in the same research. He insisted that the decision to use foster children for research was in part due to the deadliness of AIDS for children during that time since available treatments offered only partial, short-lived benefits. Many of the potent drugs approved for adults in the mid-1990s were not approved for children because no pediatric studies had been done. He stated that researchers did not provide advocates because the treatments could potentially be beneficial and foster children were being put at no more risk than other children in the same situation.
A DHHS official recently stated that "current regulations are adequate to ensure that foster children enlisted in federal medical experiments are protected" (Washington Post).
Thanks to research assistant Lindley Bain for her help with this post. [tm]
May 24, 2005 | Permalink
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/healthlawprof_blog/2005/05/federal_medical.html
Unwilling Guinea Pigs: Using Foster Care Children For Forced Drug Experiments
Unwilling Guinea Pigs: Using Foster Care Children For Forced Drug Experiments
Written by Sarah Cain
Wednesday, 18 November 2009 14:10
This article was first published in Naturally Good Magazine, issue 1.
In the summer of 2004, Liam Scheff, an independent investigative journalist published the story of Incarnation Children’s Center in New York City, where experimental and highly toxic AIDS drugs were forcibly administered to foster children of the State. Originally published in the article, The House That AIDS Built, the story was subsequently carried by The New York Press with the title: Orphans on Trial. Children refusing experimental medications were surgically implanted tubes to allow direct injections of drugs into their stomachs against their will. In November of the same year, the BBC broadcast Guinea Pig Kids, a video of the story. After airing the documentary just once, the BBC abruptly changed its position and distanced itself from the controversial story, due to threats which came from the United States.
"The FDA encourages studies in pediatric patients. Clinical trials involving children and orphans are therefore legal and not unusual."
― GlaxoSmithKline, email to Democracy Now!
In order to gain access to hundreds of HIV infected foster children, federally funded researchers promised in writing to provide independent advocates to safeguard the kids’ wellbeing as they tested potent AIDS drugs. The Associated Press discovered that this special protection never materialized in most cases. It is also worth noting that HIV tests are well known for inaccuracy, and false positive tests can be triggered by routine conditions such as flu infections. The research funded by the National Institutes of Health spanned the country. It was most widespread in the 1990’s as foster-care agencies sought experimental treatments for their HIV-infected children which were not yet available in the marketplace. The research was conducted in at least seven states: Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Colorado and Texas. They involved more than four dozen different studies. The foster children ranged from infants to late teens, according to interviews and government records. Several studies enlisting foster children reported that patients suffered side effects such as rashes, vomiting and dramatic drops in their infection-fighting blood cells. One study reported a “disturbing” higher death rate among children who took higher doses of the drugs.
Supposedly, the federal government provided special protections for child wards in 1983. They required researchers and their oversight boards to appoint independent advocates for any foster child enrolled in a narrow class of studies involving greater-than-minimal risk, and which lacked the promise of direct benefit. Agencies in Illinois and New York attempted to displace their responsibility by requiring that pharmaceutical researchers sign a document agreeing to provide this protection on their behalf ― bypassing the spirit and true meaning of the law, in
order to allow the foxes to continue guarding the hen houses. One must wonder just how profitable these partnerships were for the bureaucrats to disregard a law written specifically to address their past behavior. Researchers and foster agencies told The Associated Press that the conductors of AIDS drug trials commonly ignored the requirement to institute impartial child advocates, even though research institutions promised many times in writing to do so.
Illinois officials believe that none of their nearly 200 foster children in AIDS studies received independent monitors. New York City could find records showing 142 (less than a third of the 465 foster children in AIDS drug trials) got such monitors, even though city policy required them.
Remembering 2004: The Foster Care Horrors of New York City
The wicked malfeasance that was discovered in New York City under the leadership of Mayor Giuliani and the financial influence of Merck, BristolMyers Squibb, MicroGeneSys, Biocine, Glaxo Wellcome, and Pfizer has practically disappeared from the sparse media coverage that it once had. It has been easy for the media organizations to sweep the problem under the rug and move on: especially since its pharmaceutical sponsors can be so encouraging. The difficultly in finding information now about the New York City foster care drug experiments that were first reported in 2004 reveals that there has been a full-blown cover-up operation. Alas, the last large media corporation still gutsy enough to carry the archived story is Hustler Magazine, and Hustler still has it viewable online. The Naturally Good Magazine staff finds it both a telling and a troubling sign of the times that Hustler Magazine is one of the last bastions of journalist integrity and courage remaining in the United States.
Hustler Magazine reported:
“Children, too sick to move or speak, lie sprawled around a playroom. Some sit in wheelchairs amid younger kids tottering aimlessly, their coordination hindered by severe brain damage. Others are deformed, their limbs twisted. Many of the little ones have tubes surgically implanted to pump milky-white fluid through holes in their stomachs. These wards of a New York City orphanage are human guinea pigs. HIV-positive and some only a few months old, they have been enrolled in toxic experiments without the consent of guardians or relatives. Many of these children were taken forcibly from their homes by decree of a seemingly benevolent municipal agency, the Administration for Children's Services (ACS). Most of these drug trials were cosponsored by giant pharmaceutical companies and the National Institute of Health (NIH). In conjunction with the ACS, hospital administrators, doctors and their subordinates helped to carry out the experiments, which apparently led to severe injury, deformation, brain damage and even death for some of the subjects.
"In New York City, more than 23,000 children are either in foster care or independent homes supervised by religious organizations on behalf of the local authorities. Most of these kids are black or Hispanic. Some are born addicted to crack; others are HIV-positive. For more than a decade, the ACS admits, 465 children have been forced to receive dubious experimental cocktails provided by such pharmaceutical firms as Merck, BristolMyers Squibb, MicroGeneSys, Biocine, Glaxo Wellcome and Pfizer.
"There have been allegations that these clinical trials have killed children. What is certain is that most of the experiments were cruel and unnecessary. ‘They tested these very highly experimental drugs, Phase 1 and Phase 2,’ says Vera Sharav of the Alliance for Human Research Protection. ‘Why didn’t they provide the children with the current best treatment? That’s the question I have. Why did they expose them to risk and pain when they were helpless? Would they have done those experiments with their own children? I doubt it.’ In studies conducted under the auspices of the foster-care system, children were administered multiple concoctions simultaneously, at up to eight times the usual doses. No one seemed terribly concerned what effects AZT, Nevirapine and vaccines for herpes and chicken pox would have on the kids. ‘We’re talking about serious, serious side effects,’ says Dr. David Rasnick, a visiting scholar at the University of California at Berkeley, who specializes in AIDS research. ‘These children are going to be absolutely miserable… they’re going to have cramps and diarrhea, and their joints are going to swell up. They’re going to roll around the ground, and you can’t touch them.’ Rasnick describes some of the drugs administered in the experiments as ‘lethal’. For example, Nevirapine can cause severe liver toxicity. Another potential side effect is Steven Johnsons Syndrome, which is characterized by painful flaking of the skin. Government documentation (available at ClinicalTrials.gov) lists some of the experiments carried out on children. One involved a herpes treatment; another gave subjects double doses of a measles vaccine. One trial involved administering cocktails of drugs with side effects that included severe abdominal pain, muscle wastage and organ failure.
"How could this happen in America? Since the 1980s, activists have been pressuring the government to rush new AIDS drugs onto the market. Since then, Liam Scheff maintains, the relationship between the NIH, FDA and drug companies has grown incestuous. Scheff, the investigative reporter who originally broke this story and brought it to the BBC, claims that drug companies were motivated to cosponsor orphan drug studies with the NIH ‘to keep old, failed drugs like AZT on the market’.”
"When a profitable drug fails in one population", Scheff explains, "its manufacturer will try to find a use for it in another. With AIDS drugs, they’ve dumped drugs that harmed and even killed adult males into pregnant women and their children. A drug company only has to alter a drug slightly, or simply change its name to be able to claim a new use. They run it through new clinical trials cosponsored by the NIH, a taxpayer-funded government agency. As such, the NIH publishes lots of data and claims it’s fighting the war on AIDS, which justifies its growing budget. Conversely, drug companies get to run their old, failed drugs through new trials subsidized by taxpayers. It’s a win-win situation. The only losers are orphans. The NIH will partner with a hospital and a government-sponsored foster-care system. Suddenly, they have an endless supply of subjects on which to test sick youngsters with no guardians.
"You would not expect too many parents to volunteer their children for such experiments," says the Alliance for Human Research Protection’s, Vera Sharav. "This means that if the researchers want to do the experiments on children, they are going to look for vulnerable children whom they can get. And when you have a city government agency accommodating them, that is the biggest betrayal of those children. They don’t have anyone but the city agency that is their guardian on paper. And how can anyone believe that drugs proven devastatingly toxic in adults might benefit infants or children?"
"The drugs being given to the children are toxic ― they’re known to cause genetic mutation, organ failure, bone marrow death, bodily deformations, brain damage and fatal skin disorders. If the children refuse the drugs, they’re held down and have them force fed. If the children continue to resist, they’re taken to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital where a surgeon puts a plastic tube through their abdominal wall into their stomachs. From then on, the drugs are injected directly into their intestines. In 2003, two children, ages 6 and 12, had debilitating strokes due to drug toxicities. The 6-year-old went blind. They both died shortly after. Another 14-year old died recently. An 8-year-old boy had two plastic surgeries to remove large, fatty, drug-induced lumps from his neck. This isn’t science fiction. This is AIDS research.”
― Liam Scheff, Investigative Reporter
This is the standard label for the drug AZT. Notice the skull and bones on the label ― the warning for deadly poisons. This bottle contains only 100 mg. pills, but humans are prescribed between 300 to 1500 mg. per day. These labels are typically removed before the prescriptions are given to patients, in order to prevent the unintended side effects of informed patients.
“When asked by a reporter or a city council person, the doctors will say they’re offering the most advanced treatment to these kids,” Scheff says. “That's not true. If you review the specific drugs used in the studies, it becomes obvious that that’s totally contradictory. The NIH and the FDA are the drug companies. It’s unclear anymore where one stops and another begins. The NIH is an organization that works as a liaison between the drug companies and the public they too often pretend to serve. The job of the NIH is to keep drug companies in business, and less and less to serve the public.”
Since the late 1990's, children have been used in experiments. If a child refused to take a given medication, he or she was force-fed through a tube surgically inserted into the stomach. Both Incarnation Children's Center and its public-relations firm refused to comment about activities within the facility.
Jacklyn Hoerger was a pediatric nurse at Incarnation for more than five years. She says doctors there insist that any of the children's pain or suffering has nothing to do with the experimental drugs. “At the time, it did not occur to me that anything was wrong,” Hoerger recalls. “If they were vomiting, if they lost their ability to walk, if they were having diarrhea, if they were dying, then all of this was because of their HIV infection.” Hoerger changed her mind after she and her husband had adopted two little girls from the home. Despite receiving the utmost care and attention, their conditions continued to deteriorate. “I gave them good-quality food,” Hoerger says, “and the best private schooling they could get, occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy and tutoring, the best psychologist that I could find on all levels, and I just didn’t seem to be making any headway. The only thing that was left was the medication that I was giving them.”
Hoerger took the children off the drug regime and, almost immediately, their health and happiness visibly improved. For the first time they were able to go swimming and cycling. Both the kids’ social worker and mental health visitor were delighted. But when the ACS (New York City’s Administration for Children's Services) discovered that their mother had stopped administering the girls’ the drugs, there was a knock on the door. “It was a Saturday morning,” Hoerger recalled, “and they had come a few times unannounced. So when I saw them at the door, I invited them in, and they said that this wasn’t a happy visit. And at that point they told me that they were taking the children away. I was in shock. I couldn’t believe it.”
For refusing to administer drugs, Jacklyn Hoerger lost the children and was convicted of child abuse. Many years later, she still has no idea what happened to the girls she grew to love. According to records, more than 50 children in 13 experiments from Incarnation Children’s Center were offered up for experiments. An unknown number of others came from foster homes and other children’s facilities under the supervision of the ACS, which was granted far-reaching powers in the 1990’s by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. After a particularly horrific child abuse case, literally thousands of children were rounded up and placed into foster care. “They're essentially out of control,” expressed David Lansner, a family lawyer in New York. “I’ve had many ACS case workers tell me, ‘We're ACS. We can do whatever we want.’ And they usually get away with it.” Inexplicably in 2002, the trials at Incarnation Children’s Center suddenly stopped, but documentation shows that similar experiments continue at up to six other locations in New York City’s metropolitan area.
The Most Shocking Revelation: The Truth About AIDS Drugs
The remainder of this article is a report copied verbatim from Nobel Prize winner, Doctor J. Michael Bestler, M.D. about the horrors and hysteria unleashed upon the population by the medical establishment in the name of AIDS.
“People like to find a cause for events, preferably a singular cause. And preferably with a little bit of the strange and exotic. HIV fits this perfectly. I just began to doubt the HIV hypothesis about 15 years ago in the infancy of the AIDS hysteria, and then I encountered the work of Peter Duesberg, professor of molecular and cellular biology at the University of California at Berkeley. My doubts coalesced into a conviction, AIDS is not the result of HIV infection. So here goes, and no one is going to like this, but when Duesberg and I share the Nobel Prize in Medicine, remember I told you so. AIDS results from unhealthy circumstances over a prolonged period of time, poor hygiene, poor physical habits, poor diet, chronic use of drugs, or a weird life style combining all of these factors as is found in the active homosexual life.
"We have known for many years the active homosexual has a shortened life span. Blood samples taken from these men while living or at autopsy reveal large volumes of HIV, but HIV did not cause AIDS, which is the name we have given to this pattern of disease and death.
"But in the 1980's and 1990's, when investigators found the HIV, they proudly proclaimed the discovery of the cause of AIDS. It was HIV. Eureka! They were terribly wrong. The cause of AIDS was and is physical debilitation brought on by chosen life style or more commonly, as in Africa, brought on by malnutrition and neglect. HIV is a spectator virus, an opportunistic virus taking advantage of an already weakened immune system. It lives in many of us who are doing just fine. But health investigators under the spur of public concern falsely identified HIV as a killer virus and they began the chemical assault on this innocent bug. Most of the drugs used in their initial assaults were murderous drugs we used in the early 60’s to treat some cancers. We had stopped using them because they were killing more patients than the cancers were, but we reactivated these killer drugs to attack HIV, and the death rate from AIDS shot skywards, but it wasn’t the virus that was killing, but rather these enormously lethal drugs we were pouring into these already severely weakened patients.
"Now in desperation, health officials employed even more lethal drugs, and the death rate climbed again. Panic. It's an epidemic! Do we remember those hysterical claims that soon almost all of us would be struck by AIDS? However, it was an epidemic caused not by HIV, but by deadly poisons posing as medicines. With a little more time researchers developed drugs not quite so toxic, and the death rate from AIDS leveled off, and began to even drop. These facts are ignored, or hotly denied because an entire industry and medical specialty has grown-up directed to the treatment of AIDS, supposedly caused by HIV. HIV was just a poor benign virus just trying to make a living when suddenly all hell broke loose. Crazy-eyed medical investigators and the happily collaborating drug companies are making a handsome living in pursuit and annihilation of HIV. But HIV is tough and it will be around long after this huge industry has gone the way of the Stanley Steamer.”
Prologue
This article is a great example of progress made from standing on the shoulders of giants. Instead of rewriting their work, this article is primarily a condensed volume of dozens of other articles from the past. There are dozens of people who have worked for years to expose the current state of affairs, about how criminal behavior is being conducted in stealth by the pharmaceutical players right below our noses, and with the direct assistance of those who we entrust to make certain that such events do not occur. The behavior of the medical community has literally entailed bloody murder, and it has been that way for a very long time. With this article, we attempted to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the trenches with those heroes who have worked tirelessly to publish this information many times before, often at great personal costs, such as the retributive termination of careers. We cannot possibly thank them all here, but we would like to.
In particular, we give special thanks to the following reporters and agencies:
Brock L. Eide and Fernette F. Eide - The New Atlantis
Dr. J. Michael Bestler
indybay.org
Liam Scheff
Vera Hassner Sharav
Bruce E. Levine
John W. Whitehead
Dr. Julian Whitaker
Ann Blake Tracy - International Coalition for Drug Awareness
teenscreentruth.com
erichufschmid.net
newmediaexplorer.org
narpa.org
infowars.com
Evelyn Pringle - onlinejournal.com
naturalnews.com
The Associated Press
http://healthwyze.org/index.php/children-as-guinea-pigs.html
Written by Sarah Cain
Wednesday, 18 November 2009 14:10
This article was first published in Naturally Good Magazine, issue 1.
In the summer of 2004, Liam Scheff, an independent investigative journalist published the story of Incarnation Children’s Center in New York City, where experimental and highly toxic AIDS drugs were forcibly administered to foster children of the State. Originally published in the article, The House That AIDS Built, the story was subsequently carried by The New York Press with the title: Orphans on Trial. Children refusing experimental medications were surgically implanted tubes to allow direct injections of drugs into their stomachs against their will. In November of the same year, the BBC broadcast Guinea Pig Kids, a video of the story. After airing the documentary just once, the BBC abruptly changed its position and distanced itself from the controversial story, due to threats which came from the United States.
"The FDA encourages studies in pediatric patients. Clinical trials involving children and orphans are therefore legal and not unusual."
― GlaxoSmithKline, email to Democracy Now!
In order to gain access to hundreds of HIV infected foster children, federally funded researchers promised in writing to provide independent advocates to safeguard the kids’ wellbeing as they tested potent AIDS drugs. The Associated Press discovered that this special protection never materialized in most cases. It is also worth noting that HIV tests are well known for inaccuracy, and false positive tests can be triggered by routine conditions such as flu infections. The research funded by the National Institutes of Health spanned the country. It was most widespread in the 1990’s as foster-care agencies sought experimental treatments for their HIV-infected children which were not yet available in the marketplace. The research was conducted in at least seven states: Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Colorado and Texas. They involved more than four dozen different studies. The foster children ranged from infants to late teens, according to interviews and government records. Several studies enlisting foster children reported that patients suffered side effects such as rashes, vomiting and dramatic drops in their infection-fighting blood cells. One study reported a “disturbing” higher death rate among children who took higher doses of the drugs.
Supposedly, the federal government provided special protections for child wards in 1983. They required researchers and their oversight boards to appoint independent advocates for any foster child enrolled in a narrow class of studies involving greater-than-minimal risk, and which lacked the promise of direct benefit. Agencies in Illinois and New York attempted to displace their responsibility by requiring that pharmaceutical researchers sign a document agreeing to provide this protection on their behalf ― bypassing the spirit and true meaning of the law, in
order to allow the foxes to continue guarding the hen houses. One must wonder just how profitable these partnerships were for the bureaucrats to disregard a law written specifically to address their past behavior. Researchers and foster agencies told The Associated Press that the conductors of AIDS drug trials commonly ignored the requirement to institute impartial child advocates, even though research institutions promised many times in writing to do so.
Illinois officials believe that none of their nearly 200 foster children in AIDS studies received independent monitors. New York City could find records showing 142 (less than a third of the 465 foster children in AIDS drug trials) got such monitors, even though city policy required them.
Remembering 2004: The Foster Care Horrors of New York City
The wicked malfeasance that was discovered in New York City under the leadership of Mayor Giuliani and the financial influence of Merck, BristolMyers Squibb, MicroGeneSys, Biocine, Glaxo Wellcome, and Pfizer has practically disappeared from the sparse media coverage that it once had. It has been easy for the media organizations to sweep the problem under the rug and move on: especially since its pharmaceutical sponsors can be so encouraging. The difficultly in finding information now about the New York City foster care drug experiments that were first reported in 2004 reveals that there has been a full-blown cover-up operation. Alas, the last large media corporation still gutsy enough to carry the archived story is Hustler Magazine, and Hustler still has it viewable online. The Naturally Good Magazine staff finds it both a telling and a troubling sign of the times that Hustler Magazine is one of the last bastions of journalist integrity and courage remaining in the United States.
Hustler Magazine reported:
“Children, too sick to move or speak, lie sprawled around a playroom. Some sit in wheelchairs amid younger kids tottering aimlessly, their coordination hindered by severe brain damage. Others are deformed, their limbs twisted. Many of the little ones have tubes surgically implanted to pump milky-white fluid through holes in their stomachs. These wards of a New York City orphanage are human guinea pigs. HIV-positive and some only a few months old, they have been enrolled in toxic experiments without the consent of guardians or relatives. Many of these children were taken forcibly from their homes by decree of a seemingly benevolent municipal agency, the Administration for Children's Services (ACS). Most of these drug trials were cosponsored by giant pharmaceutical companies and the National Institute of Health (NIH). In conjunction with the ACS, hospital administrators, doctors and their subordinates helped to carry out the experiments, which apparently led to severe injury, deformation, brain damage and even death for some of the subjects.
"In New York City, more than 23,000 children are either in foster care or independent homes supervised by religious organizations on behalf of the local authorities. Most of these kids are black or Hispanic. Some are born addicted to crack; others are HIV-positive. For more than a decade, the ACS admits, 465 children have been forced to receive dubious experimental cocktails provided by such pharmaceutical firms as Merck, BristolMyers Squibb, MicroGeneSys, Biocine, Glaxo Wellcome and Pfizer.
"There have been allegations that these clinical trials have killed children. What is certain is that most of the experiments were cruel and unnecessary. ‘They tested these very highly experimental drugs, Phase 1 and Phase 2,’ says Vera Sharav of the Alliance for Human Research Protection. ‘Why didn’t they provide the children with the current best treatment? That’s the question I have. Why did they expose them to risk and pain when they were helpless? Would they have done those experiments with their own children? I doubt it.’ In studies conducted under the auspices of the foster-care system, children were administered multiple concoctions simultaneously, at up to eight times the usual doses. No one seemed terribly concerned what effects AZT, Nevirapine and vaccines for herpes and chicken pox would have on the kids. ‘We’re talking about serious, serious side effects,’ says Dr. David Rasnick, a visiting scholar at the University of California at Berkeley, who specializes in AIDS research. ‘These children are going to be absolutely miserable… they’re going to have cramps and diarrhea, and their joints are going to swell up. They’re going to roll around the ground, and you can’t touch them.’ Rasnick describes some of the drugs administered in the experiments as ‘lethal’. For example, Nevirapine can cause severe liver toxicity. Another potential side effect is Steven Johnsons Syndrome, which is characterized by painful flaking of the skin. Government documentation (available at ClinicalTrials.gov) lists some of the experiments carried out on children. One involved a herpes treatment; another gave subjects double doses of a measles vaccine. One trial involved administering cocktails of drugs with side effects that included severe abdominal pain, muscle wastage and organ failure.
"How could this happen in America? Since the 1980s, activists have been pressuring the government to rush new AIDS drugs onto the market. Since then, Liam Scheff maintains, the relationship between the NIH, FDA and drug companies has grown incestuous. Scheff, the investigative reporter who originally broke this story and brought it to the BBC, claims that drug companies were motivated to cosponsor orphan drug studies with the NIH ‘to keep old, failed drugs like AZT on the market’.”
"When a profitable drug fails in one population", Scheff explains, "its manufacturer will try to find a use for it in another. With AIDS drugs, they’ve dumped drugs that harmed and even killed adult males into pregnant women and their children. A drug company only has to alter a drug slightly, or simply change its name to be able to claim a new use. They run it through new clinical trials cosponsored by the NIH, a taxpayer-funded government agency. As such, the NIH publishes lots of data and claims it’s fighting the war on AIDS, which justifies its growing budget. Conversely, drug companies get to run their old, failed drugs through new trials subsidized by taxpayers. It’s a win-win situation. The only losers are orphans. The NIH will partner with a hospital and a government-sponsored foster-care system. Suddenly, they have an endless supply of subjects on which to test sick youngsters with no guardians.
"You would not expect too many parents to volunteer their children for such experiments," says the Alliance for Human Research Protection’s, Vera Sharav. "This means that if the researchers want to do the experiments on children, they are going to look for vulnerable children whom they can get. And when you have a city government agency accommodating them, that is the biggest betrayal of those children. They don’t have anyone but the city agency that is their guardian on paper. And how can anyone believe that drugs proven devastatingly toxic in adults might benefit infants or children?"
"The drugs being given to the children are toxic ― they’re known to cause genetic mutation, organ failure, bone marrow death, bodily deformations, brain damage and fatal skin disorders. If the children refuse the drugs, they’re held down and have them force fed. If the children continue to resist, they’re taken to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital where a surgeon puts a plastic tube through their abdominal wall into their stomachs. From then on, the drugs are injected directly into their intestines. In 2003, two children, ages 6 and 12, had debilitating strokes due to drug toxicities. The 6-year-old went blind. They both died shortly after. Another 14-year old died recently. An 8-year-old boy had two plastic surgeries to remove large, fatty, drug-induced lumps from his neck. This isn’t science fiction. This is AIDS research.”
― Liam Scheff, Investigative Reporter
This is the standard label for the drug AZT. Notice the skull and bones on the label ― the warning for deadly poisons. This bottle contains only 100 mg. pills, but humans are prescribed between 300 to 1500 mg. per day. These labels are typically removed before the prescriptions are given to patients, in order to prevent the unintended side effects of informed patients.
“When asked by a reporter or a city council person, the doctors will say they’re offering the most advanced treatment to these kids,” Scheff says. “That's not true. If you review the specific drugs used in the studies, it becomes obvious that that’s totally contradictory. The NIH and the FDA are the drug companies. It’s unclear anymore where one stops and another begins. The NIH is an organization that works as a liaison between the drug companies and the public they too often pretend to serve. The job of the NIH is to keep drug companies in business, and less and less to serve the public.”
Since the late 1990's, children have been used in experiments. If a child refused to take a given medication, he or she was force-fed through a tube surgically inserted into the stomach. Both Incarnation Children's Center and its public-relations firm refused to comment about activities within the facility.
Jacklyn Hoerger was a pediatric nurse at Incarnation for more than five years. She says doctors there insist that any of the children's pain or suffering has nothing to do with the experimental drugs. “At the time, it did not occur to me that anything was wrong,” Hoerger recalls. “If they were vomiting, if they lost their ability to walk, if they were having diarrhea, if they were dying, then all of this was because of their HIV infection.” Hoerger changed her mind after she and her husband had adopted two little girls from the home. Despite receiving the utmost care and attention, their conditions continued to deteriorate. “I gave them good-quality food,” Hoerger says, “and the best private schooling they could get, occupational therapy, physical therapy, speech therapy and tutoring, the best psychologist that I could find on all levels, and I just didn’t seem to be making any headway. The only thing that was left was the medication that I was giving them.”
Hoerger took the children off the drug regime and, almost immediately, their health and happiness visibly improved. For the first time they were able to go swimming and cycling. Both the kids’ social worker and mental health visitor were delighted. But when the ACS (New York City’s Administration for Children's Services) discovered that their mother had stopped administering the girls’ the drugs, there was a knock on the door. “It was a Saturday morning,” Hoerger recalled, “and they had come a few times unannounced. So when I saw them at the door, I invited them in, and they said that this wasn’t a happy visit. And at that point they told me that they were taking the children away. I was in shock. I couldn’t believe it.”
For refusing to administer drugs, Jacklyn Hoerger lost the children and was convicted of child abuse. Many years later, she still has no idea what happened to the girls she grew to love. According to records, more than 50 children in 13 experiments from Incarnation Children’s Center were offered up for experiments. An unknown number of others came from foster homes and other children’s facilities under the supervision of the ACS, which was granted far-reaching powers in the 1990’s by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. After a particularly horrific child abuse case, literally thousands of children were rounded up and placed into foster care. “They're essentially out of control,” expressed David Lansner, a family lawyer in New York. “I’ve had many ACS case workers tell me, ‘We're ACS. We can do whatever we want.’ And they usually get away with it.” Inexplicably in 2002, the trials at Incarnation Children’s Center suddenly stopped, but documentation shows that similar experiments continue at up to six other locations in New York City’s metropolitan area.
The Most Shocking Revelation: The Truth About AIDS Drugs
The remainder of this article is a report copied verbatim from Nobel Prize winner, Doctor J. Michael Bestler, M.D. about the horrors and hysteria unleashed upon the population by the medical establishment in the name of AIDS.
“People like to find a cause for events, preferably a singular cause. And preferably with a little bit of the strange and exotic. HIV fits this perfectly. I just began to doubt the HIV hypothesis about 15 years ago in the infancy of the AIDS hysteria, and then I encountered the work of Peter Duesberg, professor of molecular and cellular biology at the University of California at Berkeley. My doubts coalesced into a conviction, AIDS is not the result of HIV infection. So here goes, and no one is going to like this, but when Duesberg and I share the Nobel Prize in Medicine, remember I told you so. AIDS results from unhealthy circumstances over a prolonged period of time, poor hygiene, poor physical habits, poor diet, chronic use of drugs, or a weird life style combining all of these factors as is found in the active homosexual life.
"We have known for many years the active homosexual has a shortened life span. Blood samples taken from these men while living or at autopsy reveal large volumes of HIV, but HIV did not cause AIDS, which is the name we have given to this pattern of disease and death.
"But in the 1980's and 1990's, when investigators found the HIV, they proudly proclaimed the discovery of the cause of AIDS. It was HIV. Eureka! They were terribly wrong. The cause of AIDS was and is physical debilitation brought on by chosen life style or more commonly, as in Africa, brought on by malnutrition and neglect. HIV is a spectator virus, an opportunistic virus taking advantage of an already weakened immune system. It lives in many of us who are doing just fine. But health investigators under the spur of public concern falsely identified HIV as a killer virus and they began the chemical assault on this innocent bug. Most of the drugs used in their initial assaults were murderous drugs we used in the early 60’s to treat some cancers. We had stopped using them because they were killing more patients than the cancers were, but we reactivated these killer drugs to attack HIV, and the death rate from AIDS shot skywards, but it wasn’t the virus that was killing, but rather these enormously lethal drugs we were pouring into these already severely weakened patients.
"Now in desperation, health officials employed even more lethal drugs, and the death rate climbed again. Panic. It's an epidemic! Do we remember those hysterical claims that soon almost all of us would be struck by AIDS? However, it was an epidemic caused not by HIV, but by deadly poisons posing as medicines. With a little more time researchers developed drugs not quite so toxic, and the death rate from AIDS leveled off, and began to even drop. These facts are ignored, or hotly denied because an entire industry and medical specialty has grown-up directed to the treatment of AIDS, supposedly caused by HIV. HIV was just a poor benign virus just trying to make a living when suddenly all hell broke loose. Crazy-eyed medical investigators and the happily collaborating drug companies are making a handsome living in pursuit and annihilation of HIV. But HIV is tough and it will be around long after this huge industry has gone the way of the Stanley Steamer.”
Prologue
This article is a great example of progress made from standing on the shoulders of giants. Instead of rewriting their work, this article is primarily a condensed volume of dozens of other articles from the past. There are dozens of people who have worked for years to expose the current state of affairs, about how criminal behavior is being conducted in stealth by the pharmaceutical players right below our noses, and with the direct assistance of those who we entrust to make certain that such events do not occur. The behavior of the medical community has literally entailed bloody murder, and it has been that way for a very long time. With this article, we attempted to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the trenches with those heroes who have worked tirelessly to publish this information many times before, often at great personal costs, such as the retributive termination of careers. We cannot possibly thank them all here, but we would like to.
In particular, we give special thanks to the following reporters and agencies:
Brock L. Eide and Fernette F. Eide - The New Atlantis
Dr. J. Michael Bestler
indybay.org
Liam Scheff
Vera Hassner Sharav
Bruce E. Levine
John W. Whitehead
Dr. Julian Whitaker
Ann Blake Tracy - International Coalition for Drug Awareness
teenscreentruth.com
erichufschmid.net
newmediaexplorer.org
narpa.org
infowars.com
Evelyn Pringle - onlinejournal.com
naturalnews.com
The Associated Press
http://healthwyze.org/index.php/children-as-guinea-pigs.html
New Tweets on Twitter-May 26,2010-Nashua, NH DCYF
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Former Nashua, NH caseworker was told they were terminating the wrong mans right's. Her response,"Oh well, no big deal."
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Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Impeachment of justices
4. Impeachment of justices
Main article: Impeachment in New Hampshire
The state constitution provides two methods for removing judicial officers, based on whom is bringing such action:
Part II, Article 73 also states that the Governor with consent of the Executive Council may remove any commissioned officer for reasonable cause upon the address of both houses of the legislature; that the cause for removal shall be stated fully and substantially in the address and shall not be a cause which is a sufficient ground for impeachment; and provided further that no officer shall be so removed unless he shall have had an opportunity to be heard in his defense by a joint committee of both houses of the legislature.
Part II, Article 17 states, "The house of representatives shall be the grand inquest of the state; and all impeachments made by them, shall be heard and tried by the senate." Part II, Article 38 provides the grounds for impeachment as bribery, corruption, malpractice or maladministration. The article also provides the framework and requirements for how the Senate will conduct such an impeachment trial.
4. 1. Justice Woodbury Langdon in 1790
In 1790, the first impeachment trial of a Supreme Court justices was commenced against Judge Woodbury Langdon from Portsmouth, a brother of Governor John Langdon. The House of Representatives voted 35-29 to impeach him for neglecting his duties; finding that he had failed to attend sessions of the Supreme Court in outlying counties and that charging the Legislature had failed to provide an honorable salaries for judges and interfered in court decisions. The removal trial in the Senate was postponed, but never took place as Woodbury resigned from the court.
4. 2. Chief Justice David A. Brock in 2000
On March 31, 2000, State Attorney General Philip T. McLaughlin issued a report entitled "In re: W. Stephen Thayer, III and Related Matters," which brought to light information raising concerns about the conduct of justices of the Supreme Court. The key to the investigation was an unsigned memo, attributed to Supreme Court Clerk Howard Zibel, which was delivered to the Attorney General by Brock’s personal lawyer. The Zibel memo detailed ethical violations by members of the Supreme Court witnessed by the author; which surrounded the conduct of Justice W. Steven T. Thayer III in the Feld’s Case and the appeal of Thayer v. Thayer (his own divorce) and resulted in the criminal investigation of Thayer, which resulted in Thayer resigning to avoid prosecution.
On April 9, 2000, the House voted 343 to 7 to approve HR 50 authorizing and directing the House Judiciary Committee "to investigate whether cause exists for the impeachment of David A. Brock, chief justice, and/or any other justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court" and to report to the House "such resolutions, articles of impeachment, or other recommendations that it deems proper."
The committee conducted its investigation and it proposed the House adopt HR 51 "A RESOLUTION recommending impeachment of supreme court chief justice David A. Brock," which it authored. The committee found by clear and convincing evidence that there were constitutional grounds for impeachment and subsequent removal if Brock was found to have committed all or any of the four articles of impeachment. The four articles charged Brock with:
1. Maladministration or malpractice in connection with the case of Home Gas Corp. v. Strafford Fuels, Inc. and Edward C. Dupont;
2. Maladministration or malpractice in connection with the case of Thayer v. Thayer by engaging in ex-parte communications;
3. Knowingly testifying falsely under oath to the house judiciary committee with the intention of hindering the HR 50 investigation;
4. Maladministration by permitting and overseeing a practice whereby recused and disqualified justices were enabled to comment on and influence opinions in the cases from which they were recused and disqualified.
The committee sent two resolutions to the House, HR 52 and HR 53 respectively, recommending that no article of impeachment be brought against Supreme Court justice Sherman D. Horton, Jr. or justice John T. Broderick, Jr. On July 12, 2000, the House debated the articles of impeachment against Brock. Representatives voted by simple majority, 253 to 95, to impeach Brock on all four charges and sent the case to the Senate for trial. The House voted to accept the committee’s recommendation that Horton (187 to 134) and Broderick (176 to 144) not face impeachment.
The state constitution does not provide for the level of evidence required to determine whether such conduct is impeachable, or the number of votes required to convict, unlike the U.S. Constitution. The Senate conducted a three-week trial and ultimately acquitted Brock of all charges, finding the charges were not serious enough to warrant impeachment or that the evidence presented at trial was not persuasive. The Senate chose to require a two-thirds vote to convict, but let each senator to decide for themselves if the evidence rose to the level of finding Brock was "guilty" of the articles of impeachment. Fifteen senators were needed for a conviction, only seven voted to convict and fifteen voted to acquit.
http://wapedia.mobi/en/New_Hampshire_Supreme_Court#4.
Main article: Impeachment in New Hampshire
The state constitution provides two methods for removing judicial officers, based on whom is bringing such action:
Part II, Article 73 also states that the Governor with consent of the Executive Council may remove any commissioned officer for reasonable cause upon the address of both houses of the legislature; that the cause for removal shall be stated fully and substantially in the address and shall not be a cause which is a sufficient ground for impeachment; and provided further that no officer shall be so removed unless he shall have had an opportunity to be heard in his defense by a joint committee of both houses of the legislature.
Part II, Article 17 states, "The house of representatives shall be the grand inquest of the state; and all impeachments made by them, shall be heard and tried by the senate." Part II, Article 38 provides the grounds for impeachment as bribery, corruption, malpractice or maladministration. The article also provides the framework and requirements for how the Senate will conduct such an impeachment trial.
4. 1. Justice Woodbury Langdon in 1790
In 1790, the first impeachment trial of a Supreme Court justices was commenced against Judge Woodbury Langdon from Portsmouth, a brother of Governor John Langdon. The House of Representatives voted 35-29 to impeach him for neglecting his duties; finding that he had failed to attend sessions of the Supreme Court in outlying counties and that charging the Legislature had failed to provide an honorable salaries for judges and interfered in court decisions. The removal trial in the Senate was postponed, but never took place as Woodbury resigned from the court.
4. 2. Chief Justice David A. Brock in 2000
On March 31, 2000, State Attorney General Philip T. McLaughlin issued a report entitled "In re: W. Stephen Thayer, III and Related Matters," which brought to light information raising concerns about the conduct of justices of the Supreme Court. The key to the investigation was an unsigned memo, attributed to Supreme Court Clerk Howard Zibel, which was delivered to the Attorney General by Brock’s personal lawyer. The Zibel memo detailed ethical violations by members of the Supreme Court witnessed by the author; which surrounded the conduct of Justice W. Steven T. Thayer III in the Feld’s Case and the appeal of Thayer v. Thayer (his own divorce) and resulted in the criminal investigation of Thayer, which resulted in Thayer resigning to avoid prosecution.
On April 9, 2000, the House voted 343 to 7 to approve HR 50 authorizing and directing the House Judiciary Committee "to investigate whether cause exists for the impeachment of David A. Brock, chief justice, and/or any other justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court" and to report to the House "such resolutions, articles of impeachment, or other recommendations that it deems proper."
The committee conducted its investigation and it proposed the House adopt HR 51 "A RESOLUTION recommending impeachment of supreme court chief justice David A. Brock," which it authored. The committee found by clear and convincing evidence that there were constitutional grounds for impeachment and subsequent removal if Brock was found to have committed all or any of the four articles of impeachment. The four articles charged Brock with:
1. Maladministration or malpractice in connection with the case of Home Gas Corp. v. Strafford Fuels, Inc. and Edward C. Dupont;
2. Maladministration or malpractice in connection with the case of Thayer v. Thayer by engaging in ex-parte communications;
3. Knowingly testifying falsely under oath to the house judiciary committee with the intention of hindering the HR 50 investigation;
4. Maladministration by permitting and overseeing a practice whereby recused and disqualified justices were enabled to comment on and influence opinions in the cases from which they were recused and disqualified.
The committee sent two resolutions to the House, HR 52 and HR 53 respectively, recommending that no article of impeachment be brought against Supreme Court justice Sherman D. Horton, Jr. or justice John T. Broderick, Jr. On July 12, 2000, the House debated the articles of impeachment against Brock. Representatives voted by simple majority, 253 to 95, to impeach Brock on all four charges and sent the case to the Senate for trial. The House voted to accept the committee’s recommendation that Horton (187 to 134) and Broderick (176 to 144) not face impeachment.
The state constitution does not provide for the level of evidence required to determine whether such conduct is impeachable, or the number of votes required to convict, unlike the U.S. Constitution. The Senate conducted a three-week trial and ultimately acquitted Brock of all charges, finding the charges were not serious enough to warrant impeachment or that the evidence presented at trial was not persuasive. The Senate chose to require a two-thirds vote to convict, but let each senator to decide for themselves if the evidence rose to the level of finding Brock was "guilty" of the articles of impeachment. Fifteen senators were needed for a conviction, only seven voted to convict and fifteen voted to acquit.
http://wapedia.mobi/en/New_Hampshire_Supreme_Court#4.
New Hampshire Family Division
New Hampshire Family Division
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
New Hampshire Judicial Branch Family Division (simply Family Division) operates ten courts in three counties in the U.S. state of New Hampshire that deal with matters impacting families. The Family Division has courts in Grafton, Rockingham and Sullivan Counties which have jurisdiction to hear cases involving cases divorce, parenting disputes, child support, domestic violence, guardianships, termination of parental rights, abuse and neglect cases, children in need of supervision, delinquencies, and some adoptions.
The Family Division is viewed with considerable public scrutiny and is often considered corrupt, gender biased again litigants and deemed to act to promote family breakup and excess litigation. Doing so is not considered by many to be in the "best interests" of children and believed to be done in order to maximize the inflow of federal Title IV-D incentive monetary funds into the state.
Many efforts are underway to reform the family courts which are referred to as "family eating machines". Unfortunately, however, recent efforts such as "The Citizens Commission on the Courts" and the 2004 Report from "The Commission on Child Support and Child Custody Related Issues" (available here: www.cbelow.org/Child Support Commission Final Report 12-1-04.pdf), along with its minority report have been ignored by the state and no action has been taken. For a thorough analysis on what's wrong with our family courts, see also "Taken Into Custody: The War against Fathers, Marriage and the Family," by Stephen Baskerville. See also the reports of the NH Commission on the Status of men downloadable from www.nh.gov/csm.
During the operations of the Citizen's Commission on NH State Courts, "listening sessions" were held around the state. Since this was to be a "CITIZEN'S" commission, it could be assumed that public input would affect the bulk of the commissions' recommendations. This was not to be the case, in a court dominated commission. The issues MOST complained about were almost totally ignored. Issues mentioned by only one person were often the subject of recommendations.
PUBLIC INPUT TO THE SUPREME COURT’S CITIZEN’S COMMISSION ON NH STATE COURTS Compiled by Commission member Paul M. Clements and included as an addendum to the final report.
This Commission was created to gauge public perceptions of the courts in NH, and to receive and formulate recommendations to address their concerns. To that end, the commission held twenty-two “Listening Sessions” in eleven locations around the state. It also distributed surveys and invited contact by email and letter from interested persons. The following represents the criticisms and concerns of the people who responded. In tabulating those responses, people testifying at more than one listening session, or submitting more than one survey, were only counted on the first instance, as far as possible.
71 persons spoke at listening sessions, not including multiple appearances. 67 surveys were returned. (Duplicates eliminated) 56 emails were received. TOTAL CONTACTS: 194
Complaints/concerns involving the Family Courts: 96 Complaints/concerns involving all other courts: 33<> Probate court: 5 <> District court: 12 <> Supreme court: 5 <> Superior court: 10 <> Part time courts: 1 <> Persons expressing a negative perception of the courts: 103
NATURE OF CONCERNS:
Expense of going to court: 79 <>Bias against fathers: 74 <> Suspicion of corruption/criminal acts: 40 <> Allegations of Denial of Rights/Denial of Due Process: 36 <> Profiteering (to benefit courts, lawyers, & others): 23 <> Problems with delays and scheduling: 23 <> Problems with false complaints of domestic violence: 21<> Ineffectiveness of the Committee on Judicial Conduct: 21 <> (NOTE: None of the above issues were addressed by the final report) Filing delays/staff shortages: 7 <> Judicial Activism (legislating from the bench): 6 <> Lack of training for GAL’s: 6 <> Lack of security: 5 <> Need for technical updates: 5 <> Need for assistance for pro-se litigants: 4 <> Bias against women: 3 <> Need for “Restorative Justice” programs: 2 <> More use of Mediation: 2 <>
One response for each of the following: Orientation for jurors; Lack of training for judges;
Bias favoring cities and towns;
Treatment programs for drug offenders;
Access/input to Grand Juries;
Concern about life tenure for judges; Treatment of mental illness programs in prison; Additional funding for indigent defense;
Sentencing of sex offenders;
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR); Alternatives for juvenile offenders;
Need for case managers;
MINORITY REPORT FAMILY LAW RESEARCH COMMITTEE Supreme Court Citizens’ Commission on NH State Courts Paul Clements (NOTE: The members of this commission were invited to submit "minority reports", and Paul M.Clements, member of the Family Law Research Sub-committee submitted the following. Upon doing so, a rule was created requiring ten co-signors for recognition of the report. Only two other members agreed to co-sign, and this report was not included in the commissions final report.) The Supreme Courts’ “Citizens Commission on NH State Courts” was created by Chief Justice John Broderick because of the escalating complaints about the NH court system. Far from being a “Citizen’s” commission, the one hundred and five member group was composed of one third judges and lawyers, and dozens more court hangers-on. There are retired judges, members of the committee on judicial conduct, the executive director of the Judicial Council, court clerks, members of the public defenders office, the Legal aid society, law school professors, the past and present Attorneys-General, law enforcement officers, and others closely connected to the courts. In sum, over 70% of the commission were closely connected to the courts. Members of the general public are in decidedly short supply. As might be expected, the 70% majority seemed more intent in growing the courts’ size, budget, and influence, than in creating real reforms in the way the courts operate, to better serve the public.
Nowhere was this judicial bias more evident than in the Family Law Research (sub) Committee. The Commission was charged with reviewing the reports of several committees which preceded it. One of those reports, issued by the Family Law Task Force, was issued at about the same time as the report of the Commission to Study Child Support and Custody Issues. However, THAT report was not on the list to be studied. Neither was the report by the Commission on the Status of Men. Is it just coincidental that both reports strongly recommended a rebuttable presumption of shared physical custody? The oversight was corrected, and both reports were eventually posted on the Citizen’s Commission web site for review, along with the report of the National Probate Judges College, which also recommended a rebuttable presumption of shared physical custody. It should be noted that the report of the Task Force on Family Law strongly reinforced the idea that shared custody was in the best interests of the children, although the task force stopped short of actually recommending such a presumption.
Individual members of the Family Law Research Committee were charged with condensing the recommendations of each of the reports suggested for study. The judge reporting back on the Child Support and Custody Commission failed to mention their recommendation regarding shared custody. That oversight was brought to his attention, and although he promised to submit a revised report, the shared custody recommendation was omitted once again.
The Citizen’s Commission held “Listening Sessions” at several locations around the state to obtain feedback from the general public. Complaints about the family courts outnumbered complaints about all other courts COMBINED by a ratio of 5:1. Chief among those complaints was the inequity in custody decisions, which were said to favor primary maternal custody in an overwhelming majority of cases. Indeed, statistics from the Department of Vital Statistics indicate that mothers are awarded primary custody in seventy five percent of all cases, while fathers are awarded custody in only 10 – 15% of cases. Complaints about the unfairness of child support orders closely followed the complaints about custody. The nature of those complaints notwithstanding, the family law research committee failed to recommend any of the suggestions from previous commissions regarding either custody or child support. Their actions beg the question, “If the objective of the commission was to make the courts more equitable, just, and user friendly, why not address the concerns most often voiced by the “consumers” of court services?” Instead of taking those complaints seriously, the commission was told that the nature and number of those complaints was due to the “superior organization” of the fathers’ groups, who “rallied the troops” to come out and testify. The obvious obverse observation, that those who are favored by the courts failed to complain because they had no reason to complain, was overlooked. Furthermore, the commission made no plan or attempt to tabulate the public input from the listening sessions and court surveys, until this writer recommended such action, and volunteered to do the work involved. Otherwise, no-one reading the commissions report would know if the commission had addressed any of the public’s concerns.
Instead of addressing “consumer” complaints, the family law research committee chose, instead to focus on recommendations which would increase the size of the court system, add multiple layers of bureaucracy, require the hiring of large numbers of new personnel, and dramatically increase the courts’ budget, without addressing the underlying reasons for re-litigation and conflict. Finding money for all the above was a prime concern. It was suggested that the courts already had a funding source available, in the form of payments from the child support collection agency, amounting to in excess of two million dollars per year. Committee members first tried to deny the existence of those payments, then, simply resorted to ignoring them. One must wonder what becomes of that two million dollars, if it’s not available to fund new court programs. When the legality of those payments, from an executive branch agency to the judicial branch, in violation of the Constitutional mandate for Separation of Powers, was questioned, the question was deferred to the legislature.
Several of the newly sought programs are well intentioned, and could prove beneficial. However, there was exhibited some reluctance to do away with the status quo. Although complaints of gender bias were foremost in the “listening sessions”, precautions against continuing the bias were dismissed out of hand. Mediation, as a method of forestalling conflict and court appearances is a good idea. But the committee balked at the idea of making it mandatory for all parties. They want, instead, to allow one party to opt out of bargaining in good faith by playing the domestic violence card. An unsupported accusation against the other party, a tactic currently in common practice, would throw the case back to the court for decision by a judge or marital master. The same criticism holds true for the parties’ cooperative development of “parenting plans”. When the court is known to be biased, to a statistically provable degree, why bargain away entitlements, monetary advantages, property, and custody? In response to a discerned need to provide for unrepresented “pro-se” litigants, the employment of “case managers” was recommended by the committee. The case manager would provide legal information and guidance to the pro-se litigant. But in each case, mediation, parenting plans, and case management, the committee is recommending that ONLY current court employees with a minimum of five years experience be employed. That’s like drawing water from a contaminated well. The courts have demonstrated gender bias at all levels; to require that new positions are filled by “old” employees would only continue the biases.
Another common complaint heard at the “listening sessions” concerned illegal and discriminatory actions by the presiding judges and marital masters, in support of an obviously gender biased agenda. Speakers told of decisions made on the basis of hearsay evidence, proven perjury being allowed, legitimate motions being denied a hearing, testimony and witnesses not being allowed, false reports submitted by lawyers and GAL’s being accepted without challenge, alteration of transcripts, and decisions which were in violation of state and federal law. It was suggested that the Committee on Judicial Conduct was not performing the function intended, discipline of members of the court. Indeed, it was suggested that the committee sees its function as protecting the judges from complaints, rather than protecting the litigants. However, suggestions for changes as to how the committee operates were ridiculed. Once again, the concerns of the “consumers” were ignored.
In sum, we have a commission, appointed by the courts, composed largely of members and friends of the courts, reviewing the reports from previous court appointed commissions, acting to protect the image of the courts without making any substantial changes to the status quo. Rather than address the legitimate concerns of the public, they propose expansion of a corrupt and biased system. They propose window dressing and band-aid measures to re-assure the public that the court system is functioning in its best interests, while maintaining and increasing their own profitability. They ignore obvious flaws in the court system, institutionalized violations of the Judicial Code of Conduct, in order to protect the political agendas of special interest groups. Had there been any REAL interest in reforming the courts to make them more responsive to the ideals of justice and service to the public, they would have focused more closely on the complaints of litigants. It was a cruel joke to call this a “Citizen’s Commission”. The suggestions below would have addressed some of the citizens’ concerns, but, unfortunately, they will not be found in the commission’s final report. The citizen’s voices were not heard, their concerns will not be addressed.
RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE MINORITY
1: There should be a rebuttable presumption, operative from the first appearance, that shared custody is in the best interests of the children following a divorce, and that both parents deserve equal consideration from the courts. The court should actively promote shared custody in keeping with that presumption. In any case where shared custody is NOT ordered, the decision must be defended by written findings of fact.
2: The courts should support a change in the child support guidelines, from an “income shares” method of calculation, to a “cost shares” method, including a calculation of actual parenting time spent with the children.
3: The court should renounce the “Cooperative Agreement” which provides for payments to the court from the child support collection agency, and promotes the abuse of support orders to enhance state and court revenues.
4: The court should support and promote a Constitutional amendment to remove the Committee on Judicial Conduct from the authority of the courts.
5: Programs providing for mediation, cooperative formulation of parenting plans, and child impact seminars should be required to provide information that is balanced and unbiased. Such programs should be made mandatory, allowing for exceptions only in cases where substantive evidence can show that an exception is warranted. Every exception must be noted in written findings of fact.
6: Training of court personnel on the issue of domestic violence should present a balanced perspective, free of gender bias, and based on verifiable facts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire_Family_Division
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
New Hampshire Judicial Branch Family Division (simply Family Division) operates ten courts in three counties in the U.S. state of New Hampshire that deal with matters impacting families. The Family Division has courts in Grafton, Rockingham and Sullivan Counties which have jurisdiction to hear cases involving cases divorce, parenting disputes, child support, domestic violence, guardianships, termination of parental rights, abuse and neglect cases, children in need of supervision, delinquencies, and some adoptions.
The Family Division is viewed with considerable public scrutiny and is often considered corrupt, gender biased again litigants and deemed to act to promote family breakup and excess litigation. Doing so is not considered by many to be in the "best interests" of children and believed to be done in order to maximize the inflow of federal Title IV-D incentive monetary funds into the state.
Many efforts are underway to reform the family courts which are referred to as "family eating machines". Unfortunately, however, recent efforts such as "The Citizens Commission on the Courts" and the 2004 Report from "The Commission on Child Support and Child Custody Related Issues" (available here: www.cbelow.org/Child Support Commission Final Report 12-1-04.pdf), along with its minority report have been ignored by the state and no action has been taken. For a thorough analysis on what's wrong with our family courts, see also "Taken Into Custody: The War against Fathers, Marriage and the Family," by Stephen Baskerville. See also the reports of the NH Commission on the Status of men downloadable from www.nh.gov/csm.
During the operations of the Citizen's Commission on NH State Courts, "listening sessions" were held around the state. Since this was to be a "CITIZEN'S" commission, it could be assumed that public input would affect the bulk of the commissions' recommendations. This was not to be the case, in a court dominated commission. The issues MOST complained about were almost totally ignored. Issues mentioned by only one person were often the subject of recommendations.
PUBLIC INPUT TO THE SUPREME COURT’S CITIZEN’S COMMISSION ON NH STATE COURTS Compiled by Commission member Paul M. Clements and included as an addendum to the final report.
This Commission was created to gauge public perceptions of the courts in NH, and to receive and formulate recommendations to address their concerns. To that end, the commission held twenty-two “Listening Sessions” in eleven locations around the state. It also distributed surveys and invited contact by email and letter from interested persons. The following represents the criticisms and concerns of the people who responded. In tabulating those responses, people testifying at more than one listening session, or submitting more than one survey, were only counted on the first instance, as far as possible.
71 persons spoke at listening sessions, not including multiple appearances. 67 surveys were returned. (Duplicates eliminated) 56 emails were received. TOTAL CONTACTS: 194
Complaints/concerns involving the Family Courts: 96 Complaints/concerns involving all other courts: 33<> Probate court: 5 <> District court: 12 <> Supreme court: 5 <> Superior court: 10 <> Part time courts: 1 <> Persons expressing a negative perception of the courts: 103
NATURE OF CONCERNS:
Expense of going to court: 79 <>Bias against fathers: 74 <> Suspicion of corruption/criminal acts: 40 <> Allegations of Denial of Rights/Denial of Due Process: 36 <> Profiteering (to benefit courts, lawyers, & others): 23 <> Problems with delays and scheduling: 23 <> Problems with false complaints of domestic violence: 21<> Ineffectiveness of the Committee on Judicial Conduct: 21 <> (NOTE: None of the above issues were addressed by the final report) Filing delays/staff shortages: 7 <> Judicial Activism (legislating from the bench): 6 <> Lack of training for GAL’s: 6 <> Lack of security: 5 <> Need for technical updates: 5 <> Need for assistance for pro-se litigants: 4 <> Bias against women: 3 <> Need for “Restorative Justice” programs: 2 <> More use of Mediation: 2 <>
One response for each of the following: Orientation for jurors; Lack of training for judges;
Bias favoring cities and towns;
Treatment programs for drug offenders;
Access/input to Grand Juries;
Concern about life tenure for judges; Treatment of mental illness programs in prison; Additional funding for indigent defense;
Sentencing of sex offenders;
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR); Alternatives for juvenile offenders;
Need for case managers;
MINORITY REPORT FAMILY LAW RESEARCH COMMITTEE Supreme Court Citizens’ Commission on NH State Courts Paul Clements (NOTE: The members of this commission were invited to submit "minority reports", and Paul M.Clements, member of the Family Law Research Sub-committee submitted the following. Upon doing so, a rule was created requiring ten co-signors for recognition of the report. Only two other members agreed to co-sign, and this report was not included in the commissions final report.) The Supreme Courts’ “Citizens Commission on NH State Courts” was created by Chief Justice John Broderick because of the escalating complaints about the NH court system. Far from being a “Citizen’s” commission, the one hundred and five member group was composed of one third judges and lawyers, and dozens more court hangers-on. There are retired judges, members of the committee on judicial conduct, the executive director of the Judicial Council, court clerks, members of the public defenders office, the Legal aid society, law school professors, the past and present Attorneys-General, law enforcement officers, and others closely connected to the courts. In sum, over 70% of the commission were closely connected to the courts. Members of the general public are in decidedly short supply. As might be expected, the 70% majority seemed more intent in growing the courts’ size, budget, and influence, than in creating real reforms in the way the courts operate, to better serve the public.
Nowhere was this judicial bias more evident than in the Family Law Research (sub) Committee. The Commission was charged with reviewing the reports of several committees which preceded it. One of those reports, issued by the Family Law Task Force, was issued at about the same time as the report of the Commission to Study Child Support and Custody Issues. However, THAT report was not on the list to be studied. Neither was the report by the Commission on the Status of Men. Is it just coincidental that both reports strongly recommended a rebuttable presumption of shared physical custody? The oversight was corrected, and both reports were eventually posted on the Citizen’s Commission web site for review, along with the report of the National Probate Judges College, which also recommended a rebuttable presumption of shared physical custody. It should be noted that the report of the Task Force on Family Law strongly reinforced the idea that shared custody was in the best interests of the children, although the task force stopped short of actually recommending such a presumption.
Individual members of the Family Law Research Committee were charged with condensing the recommendations of each of the reports suggested for study. The judge reporting back on the Child Support and Custody Commission failed to mention their recommendation regarding shared custody. That oversight was brought to his attention, and although he promised to submit a revised report, the shared custody recommendation was omitted once again.
The Citizen’s Commission held “Listening Sessions” at several locations around the state to obtain feedback from the general public. Complaints about the family courts outnumbered complaints about all other courts COMBINED by a ratio of 5:1. Chief among those complaints was the inequity in custody decisions, which were said to favor primary maternal custody in an overwhelming majority of cases. Indeed, statistics from the Department of Vital Statistics indicate that mothers are awarded primary custody in seventy five percent of all cases, while fathers are awarded custody in only 10 – 15% of cases. Complaints about the unfairness of child support orders closely followed the complaints about custody. The nature of those complaints notwithstanding, the family law research committee failed to recommend any of the suggestions from previous commissions regarding either custody or child support. Their actions beg the question, “If the objective of the commission was to make the courts more equitable, just, and user friendly, why not address the concerns most often voiced by the “consumers” of court services?” Instead of taking those complaints seriously, the commission was told that the nature and number of those complaints was due to the “superior organization” of the fathers’ groups, who “rallied the troops” to come out and testify. The obvious obverse observation, that those who are favored by the courts failed to complain because they had no reason to complain, was overlooked. Furthermore, the commission made no plan or attempt to tabulate the public input from the listening sessions and court surveys, until this writer recommended such action, and volunteered to do the work involved. Otherwise, no-one reading the commissions report would know if the commission had addressed any of the public’s concerns.
Instead of addressing “consumer” complaints, the family law research committee chose, instead to focus on recommendations which would increase the size of the court system, add multiple layers of bureaucracy, require the hiring of large numbers of new personnel, and dramatically increase the courts’ budget, without addressing the underlying reasons for re-litigation and conflict. Finding money for all the above was a prime concern. It was suggested that the courts already had a funding source available, in the form of payments from the child support collection agency, amounting to in excess of two million dollars per year. Committee members first tried to deny the existence of those payments, then, simply resorted to ignoring them. One must wonder what becomes of that two million dollars, if it’s not available to fund new court programs. When the legality of those payments, from an executive branch agency to the judicial branch, in violation of the Constitutional mandate for Separation of Powers, was questioned, the question was deferred to the legislature.
Several of the newly sought programs are well intentioned, and could prove beneficial. However, there was exhibited some reluctance to do away with the status quo. Although complaints of gender bias were foremost in the “listening sessions”, precautions against continuing the bias were dismissed out of hand. Mediation, as a method of forestalling conflict and court appearances is a good idea. But the committee balked at the idea of making it mandatory for all parties. They want, instead, to allow one party to opt out of bargaining in good faith by playing the domestic violence card. An unsupported accusation against the other party, a tactic currently in common practice, would throw the case back to the court for decision by a judge or marital master. The same criticism holds true for the parties’ cooperative development of “parenting plans”. When the court is known to be biased, to a statistically provable degree, why bargain away entitlements, monetary advantages, property, and custody? In response to a discerned need to provide for unrepresented “pro-se” litigants, the employment of “case managers” was recommended by the committee. The case manager would provide legal information and guidance to the pro-se litigant. But in each case, mediation, parenting plans, and case management, the committee is recommending that ONLY current court employees with a minimum of five years experience be employed. That’s like drawing water from a contaminated well. The courts have demonstrated gender bias at all levels; to require that new positions are filled by “old” employees would only continue the biases.
Another common complaint heard at the “listening sessions” concerned illegal and discriminatory actions by the presiding judges and marital masters, in support of an obviously gender biased agenda. Speakers told of decisions made on the basis of hearsay evidence, proven perjury being allowed, legitimate motions being denied a hearing, testimony and witnesses not being allowed, false reports submitted by lawyers and GAL’s being accepted without challenge, alteration of transcripts, and decisions which were in violation of state and federal law. It was suggested that the Committee on Judicial Conduct was not performing the function intended, discipline of members of the court. Indeed, it was suggested that the committee sees its function as protecting the judges from complaints, rather than protecting the litigants. However, suggestions for changes as to how the committee operates were ridiculed. Once again, the concerns of the “consumers” were ignored.
In sum, we have a commission, appointed by the courts, composed largely of members and friends of the courts, reviewing the reports from previous court appointed commissions, acting to protect the image of the courts without making any substantial changes to the status quo. Rather than address the legitimate concerns of the public, they propose expansion of a corrupt and biased system. They propose window dressing and band-aid measures to re-assure the public that the court system is functioning in its best interests, while maintaining and increasing their own profitability. They ignore obvious flaws in the court system, institutionalized violations of the Judicial Code of Conduct, in order to protect the political agendas of special interest groups. Had there been any REAL interest in reforming the courts to make them more responsive to the ideals of justice and service to the public, they would have focused more closely on the complaints of litigants. It was a cruel joke to call this a “Citizen’s Commission”. The suggestions below would have addressed some of the citizens’ concerns, but, unfortunately, they will not be found in the commission’s final report. The citizen’s voices were not heard, their concerns will not be addressed.
RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE MINORITY
1: There should be a rebuttable presumption, operative from the first appearance, that shared custody is in the best interests of the children following a divorce, and that both parents deserve equal consideration from the courts. The court should actively promote shared custody in keeping with that presumption. In any case where shared custody is NOT ordered, the decision must be defended by written findings of fact.
2: The courts should support a change in the child support guidelines, from an “income shares” method of calculation, to a “cost shares” method, including a calculation of actual parenting time spent with the children.
3: The court should renounce the “Cooperative Agreement” which provides for payments to the court from the child support collection agency, and promotes the abuse of support orders to enhance state and court revenues.
4: The court should support and promote a Constitutional amendment to remove the Committee on Judicial Conduct from the authority of the courts.
5: Programs providing for mediation, cooperative formulation of parenting plans, and child impact seminars should be required to provide information that is balanced and unbiased. Such programs should be made mandatory, allowing for exceptions only in cases where substantive evidence can show that an exception is warranted. Every exception must be noted in written findings of fact.
6: Training of court personnel on the issue of domestic violence should present a balanced perspective, free of gender bias, and based on verifiable facts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire_Family_Division
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