Friday, July 31, 2009

Back in Cmr. Joseph's court

My ex-wife and I were back in Commissioner Irwin Joseph's court yesterday, just before he moves to juvenile delinquency court. There were several issues pending. For the most part, he rejected the motions and left us in limbo. He refused to address any of the obvious ongoing injustices.

The only motion he granted was to seal the reports from the gay shrink, the inkblot tester, and the AWOL court lawyer. The first one said that I was unorthodox, but recommended 50-50 custody anyway. The second had computer-generated Rorschach inkblot analyses. The third was just a short statement from a court-appointed lawyer endorsing the court doing whatever it was going to do. I don't know what is so secret about any of this stuff, except that it embarrasses the court that it would make decisions based on such superficial, biased, and indefensible opinions.

The oddest part of the hearing was when Cmr. Joseph rejected AngryMom's motion to order certain reports from the next evaluation. She wanted to use the reports favorable to her, and to exclude the reports favorable to me. Cmr. Joseph just couldn't bring himself to issue an order that was so obviously and transparently biased, but he couldn't seem to be able to say that he was rejecting the motion either.

So instead he recited statutes and rules for evaluations, and babbled about how a couple of the reports were evaluations of me only, and therefore would not have met the requirements of a court-ordered evaluation of both of us. He also said that we are to provide only those reports that are requested by the evaluator, and to give copies to the other party. Then he announced that he was finished ruling on the matter.

But he had not ruled on the motion, so I asked, "So if the evaluator asks for the reports on me, am I prohibited from giving them or not?"

Then the Commissioner said, "He won't know about them unless you tell him about them. ... I am sure you are going to find a way to give these reports to the evaluator, if that is what you really want to do. What you should not do is misrepresent those reports as something that they are not."

I don't know why he would say something so silly. It is not a matter of me finding a way to give the reports. The way these evaluations work, the first think the shrink asks for is copies of previous reports. Always. If you do not provide every single previous report, then he gets suspicious and writes you up as uncooperative. The Commissioner was writing the order for how the evaluation is to be done. If he did not want certain reports to be considered, then all he has to do is to put that in the order. He did not. As it is, I will have to disclose the reports whether I like it or not.

I also have no power to misrepresent the reports, even if I wanted to. The reports themselves say who and what was being evaluated, and why. I could not possibly pretend that an evaluation report of just me was really an evaluation of both of us. Each report is completely obvious for what it is. I don't see any reason to explain any of them. They are self-explanatory.

Unfortunately, the psychologist is now unhappy with the wording of the court order for an evaluation. He says that it does not make any sense. But there is not much we can do about it. I have made repeated attempts to get clarifications from the court, without success, and now my ex-wife has also. The Commissioner insists on just using the boilerplate form with a few confusing checkboxes checked. He does not seem to even understand why no one can make sense out of it. The three local psychologists in town are able to do evaluations without even looking at the order, so he doesn't see how the order could be defective.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's obvious JJJ was and is in way over his head. In short, the more you stir you-know-what, the more it stinks. I fee so sorry for the juveniles and their families that are going to have to face him. Talk about the Peter Principle. Why doesn't the SC Sentinel do a little investigative reporting on why he was demoted and so quickly? They were quick to jump on that asst DA who crashed the car with his mistress and lied about it to everyone. Though of course only got a slight slap on the wrist because he was so inept he was caught. What a system, what incompetence....

Anonymous said...

ok, it's sort of not silly, in a way. he's being vague, ambiguous, and setting up a minefield for you.

first, the eval.s that were of solely you don't meet the requirements of "court ordered", so, he's supposed to say that these should not be given to the evaluator, but he didn't want to be clear, so he didn't say that. instead, he said that "if you want him to have them, i'm sure you'll find a way."

if he WANTED to be clear, he would have said, "please make sure that you don't give them these reports that i'm telling you not to provide him with."

next, "he won't know about them, unless you tell him about them." LOOK OUT ! joseph KNOWS you'll be asked about all the previous eval.s.

here's where he SCREWED YOU !! the " if you want him to have them..i'm sure you'll find a way..and.."unless you tell him about them"..etc. PLUS the "don't misrepresent them " ALL equal.." i'm warning you right now..don't find some way to sleaze these in there and get them to him. tell him about them, like you're supposed to, and you're guilty of just that ! you didn't follow his orders, right ? don't tell the evaluator about them..and you weren't honest and forthcoming about all the previous eval.s as you are required to do.

either way, you're in trouble and the eval. you paid for is compromised/invalidated, and you need another.. number 10, is it ?

just leave it up to the evaluator. till he solves the mystery..he doesn't get paid. ask him to write the judge asking which/what eval.s all, some, or none are to be reviewed before the eval. by him is to commence.

don't guess. you can't guess right. it's a set up.

doesn't matter anyway. it's all just leading up to the revocation of the M.S.A., re-division of assets. 10 year old checks. your house. stocks, earning potential/history/ability, and everything, except this phony crap about the kids.

if they wanted you to see your kids.. you would. if they wanted to keep demandING financial info. and stalling on the kids..this is what they'd do.

watch..in the end..it will all come down to community property, assets, etc. the kids "best interests" is just there to divert attention from the whole M.S.A. "MISUNDERSTANDING."

Anonymous said...

excellent points and concerns from poster #2. However, it would be worth seeing what was actually entered into the hearing record as that's what'll be recalled in any followup. Secondly, as part of that, will you ever have to deal w/JJJ again now that he's demoted to juvenile court? Does this mean every time you have a motion filed you have to go back to him for a special hearing because Salazar washed his hands of your case that one time?

George said...

I have no idea who will hear the next motion. You would think that someone would have told us, but no one did.

BusyHandz said...

I don't know whether to laugh or cry, this brings back such horrible memories of being in JJJ's court and walking out with my head spinning in confusion and disbelief.

I used to think it was just me. Then I thought it was just JJJ. Now I know this particular type of legal insanity goes on all over the place.

JJJ's been way over his head since the first week he took the bench. I know. I was before him on his 3rd day. It never got better, he just got more verbose.

If an order is vague, you can't be held in contempt. Except that we're talking about JJJ, so ya never know what he's gonna decide next. It certainly won't be based on the LAW.

I'm glad to see that he's not able to violate your 1st Amendment rights (yet) and shut down this blog.