justice's posterous

"Adam Croote, 23, whose own childhood was so wrenching that he was invited to the White House... pleaded guilty in March to attacking a child he was babysitting... When he was 2, his father killed his pregnant mother and left him alone with her body in Hinesville, Ga..." http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-04-28/poster-child-missing-kid...

Many people are commenting on this story, mostly going to astonishment that any parents would leave a registered sex offender babysit their children. Perhaps we should go further back. Perhaps Adam Croote shouldn't have been a "poster boy for missing children". What idiot decided that he should be raised by the same people who raised his murderer father? Perhaps if they had not made the maternal grandparents who "kidnapped" him into the bad guys, Croote wouldn't have turned into a multiple sex felon himself.

"...The California woman police say was shot dead by her estranged husband last week was reportedly denied an emergency restraining order just six days before her murder.... [Kim] Conover left behind 21-month-old twins... as well as two daughters, ages 12 and 15, from a previous marriage..." http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/mom-killed-husband-murder-suicide-as... More http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20120418/articles/120419517

Whores of the Court: The Fraud of Psychiatric Testimony and the Rape of American Justice, by Margaret Hagen

      "Let us be very clear about the true state of the psychologist's art. Psychologists do not know any more about behavior than the average man or woman in the jury box or the judge's robes. Psychologists do not know what causes behavior and they are entirely incapable of pinpointing some hypothetical event in the past that has led to the present state of an individual. They do not know what got done, how it got done, or whodunit. And not only are they unable to predict future behavior any better than the man or woman on the street, they are actually worse at it, blinded as they are by the illusion of their own expertise. Diagnostic categories are not validly established and diagnoses cannot be rendered reliably. Neither can therapy be reliably used to change the behavior of our citizens, juvenile or adult, violent or simply wayward.

        "Psychologists have no special ability to read into the soul-or mind or psyche-of another human with any more accuracy than the rest of us. Upon finishing graduate or medical school they are not given special soulographs or psychometers that let them plumb the depths of anyone's psychological being. There simply is no mental stethoscope, no matter how much our justice system wishes there were.

      "Clinicians are not trained to perform the myriad tasks the legal system asks them to perform because no body of knowledge exists to support such training. It is a sorry state of affairs, but it is the only state we've got."

-- Margaret Hagen, Whores of the Court, pp. 98-99
FREE DOWNLOAD from Prof. Hagen's website

"Is there some reason that anti-dv advocates just can't get it? Is there some reason that researchers and activists keep recommending this idiocy? It's a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad idea. Why..." Article at http://www.thelizlibrary.org/

"The boy's mother said she had been warning law enforcement and the court system for months that she and her son were being abused. Friday night, Oakland police notified the Stockton Police Department that a child arrived at Oakland Children's Hospital with life threatening injuries and the father's story was suspicious. police arrested the boy's father, Tushambi Evans, 28, and charged him with felony child abuse...

"'The baby would sit right here, he'd feed him, but the baby would throw it up and he's pick up the throw up and make the baby eat it'... Jamela Evans said she's known her husband since the sixth grade, but the abuse started after their son, Tushambi Evans Jr, was born. Jamela Evans said she left her husband last May, but through legal actions, he ended up with full custody of their son. Jamela Evans said she ran off with her son once, but was arrested for felony child kidnapping..." http://centralstockton.news10.net/news/crime/95664-2-year-old-life-support-af...

"...an underworld of misogynists, woman-haters whose fury goes well beyond criticism of the family court system, domestic violence laws, and false rape accusations. There are literally hundreds of websites, blogs and forums devoted to attacking virtually all women (or, at least, Westernized ones) -- the so-called "manosphere,"... While some of them voice legitimate and sometimes disturbing complaints about the treatment of men, what is most remarkable is the misogynistic tone that pervades so many. Women are routinely maligned as sluts, gold-diggers, temptresses and worse; overly sympathetic men are dubbed "manginas"; and police and other officials are called their armed enablers...

"But some experts argue that men's rights groups have been remarkably successful... have taken over the way courts deal with custody issues, particularly when there are allegations of abuse, largely by convincing them that there is such a thing as 'Parental Alienation Syndrome' (PAS)... have 'been able to get custody evaluators, mediators, guardians ad litem and child protective service workers to believe that women and children lie about abuse.'... http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2...

"A new study of child murders... men and women are equally capable of killing children, but their motives for killing are very different. Men are more likely to kill their children in order to take revenge on ex-partners and to make them suffer... The study, Just Say Goodbye, draws on court documents to analyse cases where children have died at the hands of parents whose relationship has broken down...

"[E]ven more than violence, research shows that a history of obsessive controlling behaviour -- a sense of entitlement -- can be a pointer to a man's inability to accept the separation... vengeful enough to kill their children to punish her for the separation...

"[O]ften obscured is the father's attitude to the mother during and after the relationship, his sense of entitlement to control the family, extreme anger with the mother over separation, and threats to harm the children..." http://www.theage.com.au/national/child-killer-study-finds-diverse-motives-fo...

"Jason Lees, a popular private school teacher and successful international rugby referee, his wife Danielle Cara Sutton, a psychologist. Their two-year-old son a normal, well-adjusted boy. Their seemingly happy life together makes it even harder to understand what could have driven Mr. Lees to take his son to Brisbane's Story Bridge in the early hours of yesterday, throw him over the edge, before jumping himself... Local resident Craig Cooper told Fairfax media he witnessed the tragedy from his nearby balcony, describing a "blood curdling scream"... A few seconds later, he [Lees] jumped... The final journey of Mr Lees and his son began when he took the toddler from their home in Seven Hills... strapped him into the babyseat of his bicycle and rode the remaining couple of hundred metres to the outbound side of the bridge..." http://www.news.com.au/national/fathers-betrayal-of-an-innocent-boy/story-e6f...

WTF is wrong with the media?

"It didn't start with Josh Powell: Dads who kill in situations involving custody/visitation...." http://dastardlydads.blogspot.com/2012/02/it-didnt-start-with-josh-powell-dad...

"GRAHAM, Wash. (AP) An explosion at a Washington state home has killed Josh Powell, the husband of a missing Utah woman, plus their two young sons, officials said Sunday... A Pierce County Sheriff's deputy and Graham Firefighters work around the smoldering remains of a house near Fredrickson, Wash. on Sunday, where the bodies of Josh Powell and his two sons were found. A lawyer for Josh Powell says he received a three-word email from his client just minutes before the explosion. It said, 'I'm sorry, goodbye.' ...Josh was upset after being ordered to undergo a psycho-sexual evaluation recently, but he didn't see this coming. The explosion occurred moments after a Child Protective Services worker brought the two boys to the home for a supervised visit..." http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-02-05/husband-explosion-missin...

"Children are conditioned to trust adults. And for some reason adults are conditioned to almost always believe other adults over children... The sad thing is that children are really more credible than adults because they are not trained liars... Do children lie? Yes. But they're not good at it... Why are we as a society inclined to believe the person that is a skilled liar over the person who is not?" http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20120101/LOCAL/301019940

"It's a new record for Arizona and no one is happy about it. Seventy children died in 2010 from severe abuse... the third straight year of a rise of deaths related to child maltreatment... of the 70 children who died from maltreatment last year, Child Protective Services only knew about 18 of them and had launched investigations into five more. That means, 57 Arizona children were being abused and nobody knew it... 'We're missing something; we're not doing something right,' said Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery..." http://www.azfamily.com/news/Deadly-Child-Abuse-Reaches-New-Record-in-Arizona...

Here is the grand jury report: http://media.nbcphiladelphia.com/documents/Sandusky-Grand-Jury-Presentment.pdf

"Dangerous Instincts: Ex-FBI profiler explains dangers of that 'nice' neighbor... O'Toole worked as a profiler for the FBI for 30 years, headquartered in Quantico... the most dangerous criminals were often the ones who came across as the most harmless. That's how they were able to continue harming people. 'Over the years, I used to hear this all the time. Other investigators would explain to her why they had disregarded suspects: I just looked at him, man to man, and I could tell that he was a good guy'... It bothered her enough that she decided to write a book whose premise goes against everything humans want to believe about their hunches. Your gut instinct? It is wrong..." http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/dangerous-instincts-fbi-profile...

"From what I can tell, it is an absolute travesty that the DA is prosecuting this case. This child was failed by those in authority at every turn. This abuser dad, CHRISTIAN HANS LIEWALD was CUSTODIAL. Meaning somebody in authority granted this violent freak custody and free access to torture this child. Others in authority failed to intervene after this child was abused again and again. And those names are being left out of the story, as the authorities scramble to pin all the blame on a poor 15-year-old who had a right to self-defense, just like anybody else. This boy was NOT ABLE to leave this home... What was this kid supposed to do... ALL THREE OF LIEWALD'S EX-WIVES have testified that he was physically abusive and violent. Including the boy's mother, who lost custody to this criminal. A mom who hadn't been allowed to see her son since he was six. WHY ARE WE NOT TOLD WHO SET UP THIS MURDER? WHY ARE WE NOT TOLD WHO FORCED THIS BOY INTO THE CLUTCHES OF THIS SICKO FATHER AND KEPT HIM THERE? WHY ARE THESE PEOPLE BEING PROTECTED?" http://dastardlydads.blogspot.com/2011/10/da-targets-battered-15-year-old-boy... Story at http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/09/30/2650991/da-teen-planned-to-kill.html

All we can say is that we are very happy that it's the father who has ended up dead; not the boy. What in hell is the matter with the family laws and the family courts.

"Shelby Hodges told Eyewitness News that she has not seen her son, Matthew Liewald, for nine years, since she and her husband Christian Liewald divorced. Early Monday morning police said Matthew shot and killed Christian Liewald and his wife Cassie at their home south of Pineville... 'I think he snapped. I think he just had more abuse than he could handle, and I just hope that now someone will listen to me,' she said. 'This is a mother's nightmare. If people had listened to me when I was begging them to help me, it wouldn't have gotten this far.'" http://www.wsoctv.com/news/29319392/detail.html Commentary at http://dastardlydads.blogspot.com/2011/09/mom-murdered-dad-was-abusive-gained...

"...authorities arrested 39-year-old Brian Montgomery on 13 counts of child sexual abuse and neglect. Deputies say Montgomery's daughter told her middle school counselor last month... The girl's brother also complained of physical abuse..." http://www.kfor.com/news/local/kfor-father-arrested-for-child-sex-abuse-negle... and http://dastardlydads.blogspot.com/2011/09/custodial-dad-arrested-for-child-se...

"The 14-year-old girl who is a suspect in her father's killing told the cops two years ago that he was physically abusing her. 'It was handed over to (child protective services),' Police Chief Joseph Krzeminski said Monday. 'I don't know where it went.' There was no arrest... While the girl remains a suspect in Anthony Guglielmo's weekend stabbing death... [the girl] was allowed to leave with her mother and remains with her. No arrests have been made... Guglielmo had custody of his daughter following the couple's divorce about 10 years ago. The girl has maintained a 'positive' relationship with her mother, Krzeminski said..." http://www.lohud.com/article/20110913/NEWS02/109130335/Port-Chester-slaying-G...

Why did this man have custody of this girl? Why does the media persist in spewing out the "nice guy" comments? Discussion at http://dastardlydads.blogspot.com/2011/09/teen-daughter-suspect-in-murder-of....

To echo Dastardly: "Thank you, Judge Frank D'Addabbo Jr. for being a cool [and unfortunately all too rare] head of reason."

"A Superior Court judge has denied a request by a former state correction officer to regularly visit the daughter he was convicted of plotting to kill. Judge Frank D'Addabbo Jr. ruled against Daniel Swoverland, who served just under two years for the plot to kill his daughter and himself. Swoverland had laid out funeral clothes, wrote a note saying where the bodies could be found, armed himself with a gun..." http://articles.courant.com/2011-09-02/community/hc-swoverland-decision-20110...

Christian Choate and his father Riley Choate were "enjoying building a positive relationship together" according to the custody evaluator's report in 2005... "Police unearthed the boy's body May 1 from a shallow grave underneath a layer of concrete and lime... Christian's father and stepmother, Kimberly Kubina, were arrested and charged... police and Indiana Department of Family Services interviews conducted with children who lived in the home depict an abusive, dangerous household...

"Evaluations conducted in February 2005 by former Southlake Center for Mental Health therapist Angie Cleveland reported that... Choate and Kubina were providing 'a safe, well-structured environment'... As the custody battle brewed, mental health officials provided insight into the family's relationships. Cleveland's evaluation asked the court to consider her report when making a custody decision. 'The family seems to have a bond that is very positive,' Cleveland wrote... Despite the DCS' substantiated claims of abuse in 2004 of children in that household, Choate was granted custody of Christian and his sister in August 2005..." http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/gary/article_2b337896-14ad-5808-b7cd-...