Pro Per Parties Report Fair, Equal Treatment Continues to Evade Financially Disadvantaged Litigants Without Lawyers

 

Read our Special Report: Sacramento County Family Court Operates as RICO Racketeering Enterprise, Charge Whistleblowers.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye - Quotes of the Month: Sargent Shriver Civil Counsel Act & Public Confidence in Judicial System

Tani Cantil-Sakauye Entrusted with Legacy of Chief Justice Ronald George to Preserve Public Confidence in Courts

Tani Cantil-Sakauye, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is charged with maintaining the vision of former Chief Justice Ronald George to increase the availability of legal representation for indigent litigants. Cantil-Sakauye previously was a judge of Sacramento Superior Court.

"Increasing the availability of legal representation for litigants who must currently represent themselves or face loss of their legal rights is a key priority of the Judicial Council and Chief Justice Ronald M. George. As the Chief Justice has noted, the large and growing number of self-represented litigants is one of the most challenging issues in the coming decade, imposing significant costs on the judicial system and the public by impairing the ability of the courts to efficiently process heavy caseloads, and eroding the public's confidence in our judicial system." 
AB 590 - Sargent Shriver Civil Counsel Act.

Four years ago today a historic vote was held in the California Senate Judiciary Committee. The final vote tally was was 3-2, allowing Assembly Bill 590 to move forward in the legislative process. AB 590 included the Sargent Shriver Civil Counsel Act, which proposed to establish a pilot program for the appointment of legal representation for unrepresented low-income parties in civil matters involving basic human needs. 

"Legal and judicial leaders increasingly recognize the need to fix a system that is not only failing to meet the needs of so many court users, and the courts themselves, but also failing to honor basic constitutional and common law principles underlying the doctrine of equal justice under the law," according to a legislative analysis of the bill. "[AB 590] builds on a 2007 budget proposal advocated by Chief Justice Ronald George and backed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger." 

Current Chief Justice Tani Catil-Sakauye was nominated to the high court by Schwarzenegger on July 22, 2010. Assembly Bill 590 was part of a still expanding, nationwide movement known as "Civil Gideon." In the landmark 1963 United States Supreme Court case of Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court decided that indigent defendants have a constitutional right to be represented by an attorney, at no charge, in state criminal cases. 

The term "Civil Gideon" refers to a growing national movement to provide legal counsel, as a matter of right and at public expense, to low-income persons in civil legal proceedings where basic human needs are at stake, such as those involving housing, and specific family court issues, such as child custody. Civil Gideon advocates cite startling statistics showing that people without lawyers who face off against attorneys in court often lose cases or rulings they should have won. 

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Director Steven Spielberg Releases Lincoln Equal Protection of Law Clip To Sacramento Family Court News - Sunday Funnies

Steven Spielberg Approves Use of Lincoln Clip by Sacramento Family Court News

Sacramento Family Court News has been authorized by 20th Century Fox 
to use a portion of the Steven Spielberg directed film Lincoln. 

Sunday Satire by RoadDog

Sacramento Family Court News is pleased to announce that legendary director, writer and producer Steven Spielberg has authorized SFCN exclusively to use a clip from his award winning movie Lincoln. 

SFCN requested use of the segment for news and educational purposes, and to illustrate the origins of the constitutional right of equal protection of law. In the Lincoln excerpt, Congressional leader Thaddeus Stevens makes an impassioned speech for the then-controversial proposition that all men should be treated equally before the law. Stevens is portrayed by Academy Award winning actor Tommy Lee Jones. 20th Century Fox initially made a copyright claim to prohibit use of the clip, but withdrew the objection after learning of the barbaric, anything-but-equal treatment of unrepresented, financially disadvantaged litigants in Sacramento Family Court. 

"We are grateful to Mr. Spielberg and FOX for allowing us to use the compelling reenactment of this historically important speech," said SFCN corporate counsel Vincent Gambini. "It is repugnant that more than 150 years after Stevens' speech, we still need to be reminded of this bedrock principle of American Democracy. Sacramento Family Court judges, administrators, the Family Law Facilitator, and other court employees act as if they've never heard that all court users, rich and poor alike, are entitled to be treated equally before the law."

Click here to view the website for the movie Lincoln.
Sacramento Family Court News thanks Steven Spielberg, 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight, Dreamworks Pictures and Reliance Entertainment for permission to use the Thaddeus Stevens speech from Lincoln.

Third District Court of Appeal Reaffirms Parent-Child Relationship as Fundamental, Constitutional Right

3rd District Ruling Confirms Illegality of Unjustified "No-Contact" Child Custody Orders

News Analysis & Opinion by PelicanBriefed

In a ruling issued yesterday, the Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento confirmed the illegality of "no-contact" child custody orders issued routinely by Sacramento Family Court judges. As Sacramento Family Court News has reported, court records leaked by family court whistleblowers show that judges often effectively terminate the parental rights of unrepresented, indigent or financially disadvantaged litigants to punish a parent for asserting statutory or constitutional rights in court, or based on personality clashes between judges and pro per litigants. 

Court orders reviewed by SFCN which prohibit a parent from having any contact with their own children - a de facto termination of parental rights - reveal that the rulings are issued without any consideration of the best interests of the child, the only legal justification for such an order. The orders often offer no justification whatsoever. Equally troublesome, the unlawful rulings are almost always issued in cases where the winning parent is represented by a Sacramento County Bar Association Family Law Section divorce attorney who also serves as a temporary judge in the same court, or works at a law firm with a judge pro tem. Yesterday's opinion by the court of appeal, Adoption of HR, reaffirms that the parent-child relationship is a fundamental constitutional right not subject to rash "no-contact" orders which traumatize both parent and child. Click here to view the full 3rd District opinion. The decision includes this section on the parent-child relationship:       

"[E]stablishment of the parent-child relationship is the most fundamental right a child possesses to be equated in importance with personal liberty and the most basic of constitutional rights. [Citation.] Likewise, parents have a fundamental liberty interest in the custody, care, management and companionship of their children. [Citations.] Given the supremacy of these familial rights—of the child and of the parent—a decision to terminate parental rights is one of the gravest a court can make. Thus it is only under specified circumstances, and upon specific findings that include the interests of the child, that a court has authority to terminate parental rights. (Kristine M. v. David P. (2006) 135 Cal.App.4th 783, 791 [37 Cal.Rptr.3d 748].) 

Parenting is a fundamental right, and accordingly, is disturbed only in extreme cases of persons acting in a fashion incompatible with parenthood. (In re Carmaleta B. (1978) 21 Cal.3d 482, 489 [146 Cal.Rptr. 623, 579 P.2d 514].)We have previously recognized that the interest of a parent in the companionship, care, custody, and management of his children is a compelling one, ranked among the most basic of civil rights [citations] .... [Citations.] A parent's interest in maintaining a parent-child relationship is an extremely important interest [citation], and termination of that right by the state must be viewed as a drastic remedy `to be applied only in extreme cases [citation]. (Guardianship of Christian G. (2011) 195 Cal.App.4th 581, 597-598 [124 Cal.Rptr.3d 642].)" Internal quotes omitted. 

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