Friday, January 22, 2016

Retaliation Against Court Reform Advocates

There have been a growing number of Connecticut citizens speaking out during the last few legislative sessions, sharing their personal stories and fears about judicial retaliation for having spoken out against corruption within the court system. It is not uncommon for those who are without counsel (self represented parties, also called pro se) to be labeled as bitter, angry or disgruntled. Judges and attorneys try to paint them as merely one more person unhappy with a ruling. That may be the case in certain instances, but it becomes harder to ignore the claims of intimidation and retaliation when they come from members of the bar and others who work inside the system.

In the example below, Atty. Rachel Baird and her legal investigator, Ed Peruta, discuss a disturbing occurrence of a search warrant that was served on the home of a Connecticut man who had recently been sentenced following a trial which found him guilty of threatening regarding a family court judge. The alleged threat was said to originate from an email which the accused had sent, not to the judge, but to a small group of similarly frustrated family court victims. One recipient apparently forwarded the email to an attorney who, in turn, contacted authorities, who then in turn contacted the judge. This writer has no personal knowledge of that matter, so will not comment further, but it is concerning at the very least to hear (beginning about the 9 minute mark in the video below) two respected professionals with significant legal and law enforcement knowledge discussing the mechanism now being used to target parents who have mustered up the courage to speak out against long-standing fraud in the Connecticut family court.   



What do you think?