Parents Rights in Georgia Law and Rule 22 Application
Rule 22 Governs Permission for Recording Court Proceedings
Parents in Georgia have rights that are often not applied in child custody cases, including when someone other than a natural parent is seeking custody of the children. But is anyone paying attention to this type of loss and trauma?
If you are paying attention or are interested in increasing this focus, contact me here.
Protecting the right to record and maintaining open access to courtrooms does improve protections for families and children.
The content to follow is a developing body of work revealing clear examples of the difference it makes to have cameras allowed in courtrooms and to avoid restricting our press.
While I have much more to do here I wanted you to have access now to documents and videos as I upload them and welcome your questions and feedback as this story unfolds. Your attention is needed to ensure we protect access to our judiciary and ensure our courtrooms remain open.
Two problems are ripe to be solved:
1. Missing clarification of Georgia’s laws on the rights of natural parents.
Georgia judges and domestic lawyers expressed interest in this case because it could help clarify what was previously an uncertain matter left to the court’s discretion. Let’s address this issue first.
In the case featured in this article, the lawyer for the maternal grandmother convinced the court that the children would be at risk if they were left in the care of their father. The father was able to receive help thanks to volunteer lawyers through the Atlanta Volunteer Lawyers Foundation and successfully appealed the trial court’s order giving custody to the grandmother.
With no evidence in support of the grandmother’s claims that the father was a violent man, the trial court gave custody for a second time to the grandmother. This time the Court of Appeals made sure the message was received, that the rights of natural parents should be taken seriously and that absent clear proof of ongoing or future danger to the children the natural parent’s rights are above those of a grandparent. Attached first is the June 24th ruling by the Georgia Court of Appeals, the final ruling driving home the instructions to adhere to the law and facts of the case. Additional filings and orders follow in reverse order.
Rights of Parents Georgia COA Jun 24 2016 by Deb Beacham on Scribd
2. A lack of transparency or ability to review proceedings in child custody matters
You might say this is the problem in all types of judicial proceedings, hence the attention given to the proposed amendments to Georgia’s Rule 22 governing decisions to allow filming or other types of recordings in courtrooms. Changes were proposed by Georgia’s judiciary and only a few organizations and individuals are focused on the flaws which could further restrict public access to court proceedings and discourage open records.
The focus here on child custody is due to the high volume of cases wherein children are used for leverage and/or to punish the other parent by moving to restrict rights, to cause pain and suffering or to avoid paying child support, for example. This is a widespread problem with almost nothing being done to curtail damaging tactics which exploit children and vulnerable parents.
Given the question of law governing the rights of natural parents and the opportunity to observe and film three pro bono lawyers fighting for a wrongfully accused father, I filed a Rule 22 Request to record this Hart County hearing. I learned about the case because the Court of Appeals had twice reversed the trial court’s ruling and remanded the case.
When I began my investigation into the case history and factors that caused the reversal, I recognized the pattern of abusive litigation that is causing so many of Georgia’s children to lose access to loving, available parents. When you’ve seen this pattern of foul play unfold nearly one hundred times, it becomes obvious pretty quickly that intervention and transparency are needed.
There are several videos to this story:
Initially the hearing was set for late summer in 2016, and the grandmother’s attorney argued vehemently against having the proceeding filmed. This video portion will be added shortly.
After listening to her argument, the judge allowed the recording to go forward. The lawyer was not about to give up on her strategy for denying the father custody, so another tactic was put into play that would either prejudice the court against the father or cause another delay, or both. This clip will be added.
Rather than allow the grandmother’s surprise expert to testify without fair notice and a deposition, the father’s counsel objected and moved to continue the hearing to allow for their deposition of this child custody psychologist Dr. Barbara Oxley.
The argument made by Athens attorney Ed Tolley is one often missed in similar proceedings. His argument and commentary from our interview will be added here.
The continued hearing was reset for December, 2016, and again the court ruled in favor of my Rule 22 Request, saying afterwards, “These days you’re afraid not to grant these things.” Interesting perspective and statement, but I’ll take it.
I’ll be back to complete this story and share the outcome, which will definitely surprise you! In the meantime, please let me know if you’d like to contribute to additional use of Rule 22 Requests and other forms of increasing both public safety and especially better protections for parents and children.
The rest of the footage of the trial above will be shared in the coming days, and admittedly it will have much more meaning to children taken from safe parents, and for parents stripped of their right to nurture children without cause.
In the meantime, here’s another sampling of images and news reports that have meaning and which support protecting the intent and integrity of Rule 22.
Where There’s a Will
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
We believe that to be true, but another way to put it, especially if you’re caught in a family conflict or in our court system, is where there’s willpower (and a fat checkbook), there’s a way to avoid accountability and even to harm an innocent party.
In every jurisdiction we’ve studied, multiple cases have surfaced in which innocent parties – especially parents – are being set up to fail. This happens frequently in the form of false allegations of some form of abuse or fraud, targeting the innocent party to take the blame and the consequences of the party actually breaking the law and doing damage to the children and other parent. Our mission began with sorting out why this was happening in family law or domestic cases but the same foul play occurs, of course, in other types of cases.
Our priority at My Advocate Center is the children who are caught in these battles and getting dropped through the cracks in our system, regardless of which court or which type of process is being used.
When children are suffering because someone they need is being intentionally and wrongfully targeted for failure, and when a judge, attorneys, guardians and especially DOCTORS just stand by or even participate in this foul play, we should all stop what we are doing and do not pass go until this problem is solved. And that is where we are in Georgia.
To learn more, to offer support, present a useful resource or to report a case, contact us here.
Psychology Today Contributor Gets It
No, it’s not your imagination. You heard correctly: a judge ordered children into a detention center and then into a special “camp” because they reported on family violence and asked to not be subjected to further abuse. The children spoke up because they did not want to be separated from the parent protecting them.
This issue is not about gender but about ignored facts and profit motives of certain professionals; it is just a game that is played in family court, and it harms mothers, fathers, grandparents and always the children.
At My Advocate Center in Atlanta, Georgia, we have been receiving data from and reporting on cases involving (equally) damages to good fathers and to good mothers, cases in which nothing makes sense when you look at the facts and available evidence and testimony.
The gender war (along with racial bias) is encouraged by the professionals profiting from the conflict, so that one group believes the other is benefitting from a bias or “unfair advantage.” Money does often play a role, but it is not always the person with access to money and status who is driving or benefitting from the foul play. This is why our data and reports are valuable to authorities, and why we support both professionals and parties in organizing facts and outcomes; it is overwhelming for those subjected to this misconduct, and even to professionals trying to unwind the case and assist the victims. You might not see who is causing the damages, how they are doing it and how it is being covered up if you do not look closely enough, or look at enough cases, including transcripts, billing records and custody reports (if the report has not been put under seal, if the transcripts are accurate and complete, and if the billing records or file are not withheld.)
The Michigan story this Psychology Today writer reports on could almost as easily be featuring a father who has been wrongfully separated from children who have asked for protection from their mother. That is the situation in an Augusta case covered by The Augusta Chronicle. It was not the father who was violent (per DFCS records which were hidden from the father), the child did testify on his behalf as did a competent, ethical guardian, but the facts and the needs of the child were ignored…while the father was stripped of everything – his rights to and time with his child, his financial assets, his job, and he was put in jail.
This Augusta case and other cases we have investigated show that men also are abused, and men can be the “protective parent” while the mother is the one involved in a “pay to play” game to avoid consequences for her own misconduct. What is being done to parents, to both mothers and fathers, sends the message that you are better off staying quiet about abuse (from addiction, violence, financial or fraud-related abuse) than asking for the court’s help. Ask for help at your own peril…and at your children’s peril…not that you are better off if you stay quiet, mind you. But many are told, “Do nothing, say nothing, or this will get worse; you will never see your child…”
The wrong outcomes are being forced upon good people and abused children as frequently as you see panhandlers near a highway or intersection; it is just something that happens and that many people have become numb to, but this happens to an unsuspecting public and causes irreparable harm. Currently there is no way to recover, including no way to recover or to bring home these children.
Coercion and intimidation tactics, and retaliation methods, rule the day, just like we see in this Michigan case with the children put in detention centers, cut off from their mother and the mother put under a gag order.
As in other cases, the children are old enough to be heard and to be believed, and they were clearly not represented properly by professionals charged with the duty of representing their best interests.
Psychology Today contributor Jennifer Baker, PhD, nails this story and the problems emphatically with her pen, in this article and in others, including this one and this one. This case and the issues is raises are not going away anytime soon.
This is one reason we focus on the needs of children consistently when noting questionable conduct and outcomes. The term best interest has been so badly misconstrued or even corrupted that it has become meaningless, at least in terms of the results shown in thousands of cases across the country, and around the world. Children are being betrayed when they ask for help and often silenced as the judge did in this case.
It is almost impossible to fathom that this is happening, let alone that it is often intentional and done in bad faith and with a complete lack of empathy for the trauma being caused to children and to the parents they need and want.
This is also a reason we emphasize to legislators that loopholes must be closed that allow certain court professionals to block evidence and testimony that should be used to protect children and victims of abuse. Evidence and testimony should be recorded and used for the benefit of our most vulnerable citizens; it is just not that complicated, but our data reveals that the opposite is taking place when cases are easily manipulated and controlled by certain attorneys and select child custody experts. If you read the transcript of this Michigan case and the associated articles, you’ll see what we mean.
What is consistent across these cases is the motive:
It is simply more profitable to keep children and safe parents off-balance, unprotected and ignored. They have to spend money to fight back, until there is nothing left to spend. But typically the other side – the side driving the stress and trauma – will keep on spending. Profit over protection has become a pattern or a formula followed by professionals who typically lack oversight and who believe there will never be any consequences for causing harm to children.
We advocate for children to have the best of both parents, meaning the best that each has to offer, and that sometimes means one or both parents need to receive a “tough love” message from the court or the right treatment for addiction or counseling to manage bad behavior, but it that message should NEVER mean sentencing and locking up children who have not done anything wrong. Unfortunately, children in many states are being convicted and locked away – from safe, loving and available parents and families – when they asked to have a voice and to be protected.
To learn more or to report details of similar cases, please visit our Report Cases form on MyAdvocateCenter.com.
Deb Beacham, Founder and Director
Call to Action: Release Father from FALSE Allegations
CALL TO ACTION FOR MAY: Ask the Augusta Assistant DA and the Court to not prosecute this innocent father.
COURT WATCH AUGUSTA: MAY 19-23 IN COLUMBIA COUNT. https://www.facebook.com/events/1424811577781088/
The Georgia Court of Appeals and Supreme Court are also asked to review this case and understand how this case went from a clear civil matter to what it is now.
This is wrong, and the same bad practices are affecting many good and innocent mothers and fathers in Georgia.
PRESS UPDATE:
WFXG Augusta Fox54 reported last night about the innocent father jailed for going to see his daughter.
This group of supporters is building in strength and number, and showing how effective you can be when supporting both fathers and mothers who are being damaged by the same unethical custody experts on these cases.
This father believed he was not violating a court order when he went to see his daughter, but he had been set up to fail.
This is the problem created when certain attorneys use select custody experts to do the dirty work of suppressing evidence and creating or supporting what they know are FALSE allegations. The attorney working this case with the father was told by the judge to stay on this case, but it appears the “work” being done was more that of a collection agent rather than advocate. Now is the time for all Augusta professionals to abandon the bad practices that undermine cases and damage children and good parents. It is time to Turn this Around! No, not too late…
What started this? A psychologist decided this father should not have such a strong bond with his daughter so he cut them off from each other for weeks (6-8 weeks).
When a good, nurturing parent is cut off from a child who truly needs that parent…it causes severe damages for both. Can you imagine being the parent your child relies on the most, and being told you have to avoid seeing her and that she can’t be told what is going on?
Can you imagine also having your career taken from you, your vehicle and work tools, so that you have to leave town to find income to pay the fees put on you by this same custody “expert” who is destroying your child?
She now feels abandoned and confused, and it will take time to learn the depth of her suffering. How can she know what has really happened to her father and why?
Because this father has been denied medical treatment, and is being denied a real defense with full access to the evidence and testimony to support his case, the court found him guilty on civil contempt charges. He is now facing the criminal charges that would not exist but for the bad practices of the custody experts on this case.
Keep it going advocates, supporters and Augusta news media!
If you are outside of Augusta or interested in learning how good parents are being set up to fail, and how our child custody laws are being undermined and our criminal justice system is being misused, this is a good case to examine and follow.
Parents around Georgia and the US who are struggling with similar cases: this is a true team effort here. This group has found a way to strengthen each other, and to leverage the information and tools demonstrated by @MyAdvocateCentr in the Atlanta area cases and news reports. Find people in your area and repeat what we are doing in Augusta – – this is possible!
Augusta:
Keep telling this court:
“Protect children first.”
“No More Fatherless Daughters – and Children deserve the Best of Both Parents”
“False allegations hurt children.”
“Open up the custody records and cases associated with GAL Doug Nelson and Dr. Jody Frey, and others.”
WFXG FOX54 Augusta – Your News One Hour Earlier
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If you haven’t yet read “Green Light Augusta” and seen the series of stories here in Georgia spelling out how parents and professionals are pulling together to undo and recover from bad family court practices, this is a good time to get up to speed and take action.
You’ve heard most likely about false allegations being used to give one parent an advantage over another, right?
Now we can show how certain custody experts play a key role in carrying those false allegations through the process to help the Court reach the wrong outcome in select cases. Join the Augusta Court Watch going on now.
Observe, learn, ask questions and report on how this innocent father is being treated. Ask what can be done to ensure the available evidence and testimony are used to not only exonerate him, but help him restore his life and career – and more importantly get his daughter back in his care. We are expanding on this case and other critical situations on Facebook and Twitter, and using LinkedIn as well.
#GreenLightAugusta
See this Event Page on Facebook to join & follow the updates.
We know that a GAL in Augusta was guiding the Courts there to take custody away from mothers who would not give in to his demands, but other very harmful situations are happening involving fathers as well.
This post is about yet another case manipulated and “thrown” by suspect practices inside of a child custody case in the Augusta district.
Now – this week in early May 2014 – this father is being held while a jury is selected, when he knows that transcripts and other evidence and testimony have been blocked by this court in the past, so that he could not prevail. It is a dire situation for him and his family, but the community is beginning to rally around him. How can YOU help out?
Will you be there to watch how the court handles the evidence and testimony? Will they continue to deny him due process and insist that he serve time when it was the custody experts who suppressed evidence and set him up to fail?
The court has left him jailed for many weeks without bond and has denied him due process throughout his custody case and now into this criminal case (one that never should have been taken in the criminal court to begin with). He was taken into custody because he mistakenly believed he should be allowed to call his daughter and to see her before he left town to start a new job.
WHY was he having to leave town to start a new job? Because the Court and these custody experts made him turn over his work vehicle and tools – and all of his premarital assets – to cover their fees. Fees that were NOT necessary on this case. He lost his ability to work there near his daughter, so he was forced to take a job out of STATE in order to earn enough to pay both child support AND the outrageous and unnecessary fees on his case. He merely wanted to say goodbye to his daughter before leaving town. He tried to file an appeal to better manage an unmanageable custody outcome, and the Court chose to jail him instead of allowing him to move forward on appeal.
Can you even fathom how complicated and challenging it is to defend yourself against something like this? Unfortunately this is the reality in many counties when the wrong custody experts get involved in your case. This is the reality for many families in the Augusta and Atlanta areas.
Back to this case and to this father. This is URGENT that leaders and news media learn more and investigate this case!
His daughter needs him and misses him, and doesn’t understand why her good father cannot provide for her as he was doing before this case was interfered with like it was. The mother in this case was led to believe it was right to allow the Court and police to believe he posed a threat, when he did not. Now she and her daughter are unable to get child support, and her daughter faces losing a devoted father on top of that financial support.
Yes, this case shows the same issues as the cases that have been in the Augusta and Atlanta news. The custody experts used on these cases should be investigated and have their billing records and reports thoroughly reviewed.
