Connecticut Family Court Corruption Discussed at Public Forum Held at State Capital

Several brave parents appeared in Hartford on Tuesday, February 5, 2019 to give public testimony at a special event about the 'Family Court System & Parental Alienation Informational Forum and Public Hearing.' It's difficult testimony to listen to, but it exposes some of the practices that are commonplace in the Connecticut Superior Court each and every day in all eight counties of Connecticut. Sadly, we are aware of several parents who wanted to speak, but were and are so fearful of retaliation by judges and others, that they remained silent for fear that speaking out might jeopardize their ability to see their children.

If Chief Justice Richard A. Robinson had the courage to do the right thing, he would immediately commence an internal and open review of the ongoing practices that have eroded public faith in our entire judicial system. Retaliation is reality, but is done in a careful way to fly under the radar. Give the testimony a listen. You can judge for yourself if you think these are just individuals with nothing better to do with their time (as the Judicial Branch likes to suggest, calling them 'disgruntled litigants.'). This is discussed every legislative session, but what will it take for our elected officials to actually do something? Many of them are practicing attorneys and are reluctant (some have confessed scared) to vote against their careers.

You can jump right to some brief closing remarks by Rep. Michael DiMassa, Rep. Minnie Gonzalez and at this link, including the important comment by Speaker of the House Joseph Aresimowicz about notice of judicial retaliation.

Supreme Fraud in Divorce Opinion

Once again, the highest level of our state legal system demonstrates how it cares only about generating revenue for the legal community and NOT actually working to resolve matters that impact residents of our state. Case in point, the October 25, 2016 Supreme Court opinion in Keller v. Keller.

In a Per Curiam opinion (meaning, a court in unanimous agreement), the Connecticut Supreme Court dismissed the appeal which would have reviewed an Appellate Court opinion, upholding findings of contempt against a plaintiff in a dissolution of marriage action. According to the opinion: "After examining the entire record on appeal and considering the briefs and oral arguments of the parties, we have determined that the appeal in this case should be dismissed on the ground that certification was improvidently granted."

Note, only after allowing the parties, both of whom were represented by appellate counsel, to expend significant fees pursuing and defending the appeal to the Supreme Court, did that Court then decline to address the merits of the underlying legal issues - ones which are sure to arise again in the future given the ambiguous language in Practice Book Rules established by members of the Judicial Branch.

In the underlying appellate matter, Keller v. Keller, 158 Conn. App. 538 (2015), the Plaintiff, Beth Keller,  "appeals from an order of contempt entered against her by the trial court in the course of the proceedings dissolving her marriage to the defendant, Richard Keller. The plaintiff claims that the court erred in finding her in contempt for failing to provide the defendant with her address after leaving the family home. The defendant argues that the appeal is moot. We do not agree that the appeal is moot, and we affirm the judgment of the trial court."

Time and again, we see examples at the Trial Court, Appellate Court, and Supreme Court level where individual jurists or panels of jurists side step resolution of legal issues, enabling - and in fact, practically providing a guarantee that - future litigants to get caught in the same trap with no legal clarification to turn to which could easily short-circuit the issue with much less time and expense. The reason, of course, is that our legal system needs to, first and foremost, ensure future business for itself and the many employees which comprise the criminal enterprise doing business as the State of Connecticut Judicial Branch.

We take no particular position on whether the plaintiff was correct in her legal argument or whether she should have indeed provided written notice of her address to the defendant, Mr. Keller, as he asserted in his original motion for contempt against her. You can follow the links above and form your own opinion on that, but it is clear that the legal community is concerned about declining revenues, especially in the family and civil arena, and it is an outright fraud by members of our Supreme Court for failing to do their job and issue an opinion which would clarify, one way or another, the possible ambiguity in existing statutes or rules, which contribute to ongoing conflict. 

6/24/2016 - Annual Judges Meeting

The Annual Judges Meeting was held once again and, as expected, the dominant theme involved budget cuts and closure of Judicial Branch facilities. More analysis to come.