angiEmedia

We thought we would take a break from all the seriousness of the world today and bring you a little spot of lightheartedness from our collection of bathroom reading. Here are some entertaining and senseless bits of trivia for the legally minded. These idiotic laws are excerpted from Uncle John’s Unsinkable Bathroom Reader (Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader).

• In Providence, Rhode Island, it’s illegal to sell toothbrushes on Sundays. (Toothpaste is OK)
• It’s against the law in Washington state to pretend that your parents are rich.
• Women in Corvallis, Oregon, are not legally permitted to drink coffee after 6:00pm
• By law, Washington drivers must carry an anchor to be used as an emergency brake.

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John Van Doorn has announced he is running for San Diego County Supervisor in 2010. We believe he deserves strong consideration for your vote in the June 2010 primaries.

The corruption and abuse within the County of San Diego government threatens the well-being of the citizens and particularly children and parents of the county. Bill Horn, the incumbent candidate, has participated in hiding and continuing these abuses. Despite two decades of San Diego Grand Jury reports detailing how San Diego CPS has wrongly removed children from families, fabricated evidence, perjured, and acted in a malicious fashion against many parents and children, Bill Horn has not lifted a finger to correct these problems despite being a member of the County Board of Supervisors during this long era of egregious CPS misconduct.
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Judge Harry Elias and DA Bonnie Dumanis

Recently San Diego County Superior Court judges including Judge Harry Elias have chastised prosecutors for the San Diego District Attorney’s office for violating the law by withholding potentially exculpatory evidence. He and other judges have dared to make decisions the DA didn’t support. DA Bonnie Dumanis thinks she knows how to handle such judges — refuse to try cases before them and try to push them out of criminal courts. Dumanis seemingly thinks the DA can control judges to make them do what she and her prosecutors want them to do by threatening their careers. But this is a clear violation of the separation of judicial and executive branches of government. It is also directly opposed to the interests of the public to ensure that citizens accused of a crime are given a fair and impartial trial.
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In February 2010, the United States federal government cranked up the pressure on Japan to start cooperating with resolving international parental child abduction cases involving Japanese parents taking kids back to Japan and preventing them from seeing their non-Japanese parents. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell issued a warning to Japan to revise its family law system to permit non-Japanese parents to have contact with their children.
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Judge Lisa Schall

Today we received some interesting feedback on our article regarding San Diego’s abusive reckless drunk driver Judge Lisa Schall from a reader who has experienced what it’s like to appear in front of her. This reader has a lot of experience in courts in multiple states and believes that Schall may be the worst judge the reader has encountered. The reader believes we’ve given Schall and other bad judges too many outs and means to scapegoat others (such as the legislature) for their bad decisions and haven’t pointed out enough effective ways for the public to fight these bad judges. In my view these comments are pretty much on the mark and open up further points for discussion, so I’d like to share them with our other readers. Also, at the end of this posting are two poll questions on which I’d appreciate your feedback.
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Yao Wei Wu After Police Beating

Here’s a story that illustrates just how out of control and violent police and law enforcement are regarding domestic violence calls. Vancouver police were called by a woman claiming she was being beaten by her husband and she was afraid for her child. Plainclothes cops with guns showed up at the address and knocked on the door. A man answered the door and opened it for the police. The cops say they identified themselves as Vancouver police, but the man says he complied not because he knew they were police but because they had guns. The cops then kicked in the open door, grabbed the man and pulled him out of the home, and proceeded to beat him bloody. They smashed in the bones around one of his eyes, badly bruised his back, and left him with abrasions and bruises all over his face, torso, and knees. The cops then arrested and handcuffed him.
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Judge Lisa Schall

People often complain about incompetent, biased, and even vicious judges. That’s especially the case for litigants cursed with enduring the injustices of family law courts in the Western world. Often the judges are causing more destruction by following bad laws as judges can’t make law on their own, aside from the judicial activists who may try only to be often overturned by a higher court. Many times the judges may be more concerned with saving their political futures than with following the laws or dispensing fair rulings. Hence we get illegal and immoral “guilty until proven innocent” rulings that kick a person out of his or her home, ban contact with the kids, and label the person as a pseudo-criminal all without a shred of evidence based upon false allegations or distortions for which the false accuser will never be punished even if his or her lies are proven. For many suffering from the wrongs of the family law courts, this is business as usual. Sometimes, however, a judge really is notably bad in ways beyond the typical judicial incompetence, selfish disregard for the rights of others, and maliciousness when displeased. Based upon public records and accounts of people who have been in her courtroom, Judge Lisa Schall of San Diego County, California, is one such judge.
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As I previously reported in DCF Poaching on the Tiger Woods, Elin Nordegren Kids?, Florida’s Department of Children and Families visited the home of Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren to investigate a child abuse complaint.

Now State Senator Ronda Storms of Florida is calling for an investigation of the complaint that led to this visit. She believes that the complaint was filed falsely and maliciously and if evidence exists to prove this, she wants the Orange County State Attorney to prosecute those responsible for the complaint. She’s concerned that false child abuse reports waste state funds needlessly and take away resources from children who really do need help.
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Update on March 31, 2010:
Eric Moelter has started to speak up a bit about what has happened in the false sexual abuse and child custody abduction case of Cindy Dumas v. Eric Moelter. He believes Cindy Dumas suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder and has been waging a distortion campaign against him for years. Please see our update in Eric Moelter Speaks Against Cindy Dumas Distortion Campaign.

Cindy Dumas
2004

On January 15, 2010, there will be yet another hearing in the long-running and highly destructive San Diego family law case of Cindy Dumas v. Eric Moelter that started in 2003. In this case, Dumas has alleged for years that Moelter sexually abused their children. The children corroborated some of these claims, but were viewed as potentially repeating misinformation and opinions programmed into them by their mother. Despite investigations that don’t agree with Dumas, she would not change her opinion or reach some resolution that would allow the children safe contact with both of their parents.

This article lays out many of the reported facts and statements and observable events and artifacts such as flyers and websites. Later I’ll be writing about my interpretation of the case and some of the problems with the manner in which the courts and law enforcement are handling this case and others like it.
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Los Angeles Judge David Yaffe

Judicial failure to file financial disclosures can be an indicator of a serious problem. The judges involved may be attempting to hide payments they received that could bias them. This at the heart of the controversy over judicial corruption involving allegedly illegal payments by the County of Los Angeles, California, to judges in the county. In that case, judges are being paid money directly by the county as “bonuses” in a manner viewed as subverting their objectivity. Despite the payments of around $46,000 per year per judge, the judges in Los Angeles County have allegedly systematically failed to file financial disclosure form 700 required by state law. One of these judges, David Yaffe, has also jailed Richard Fine, a leading critic of corruption in California courts. He’s been in jail for nearly a year, without any charges or trial, in apparent retaliation for his campaign to clean up the Los Angeles courts.
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