I'm determined to fight for my daughter. This issue is not over yet. After my February court disaster I felt I was finished. It took me some time to get a grip on what had happened. As I mentioned in my previous post Letter to the Judge, The System Stinks!, I can't understand how after nearly four year of trying to get child support, I would have to start over. There are various reasons floating around from incompetent representation to pay-offs to just bad luck. I later found ex-parte communications from the father to the judge in my court files, which is absolutely inappropriate. These letters contain a bunch of lies and untruths about my character to make the judge bias against me. Did it work? Continue reading and you decide for yourself. In either case, I couldn't worry about that right now. I had to focus on what to do next.
First, I forwarded a copy of my Letter to the Judge, The System Stinks! to all my government legislators. I received only one response, from the Governor's office. They sent me a long e-mail and promising to have Child Support Enforcement look into the matter. I asked the State's Attorney office, through CSE to take over the case. Because of the intervention of the Governor's office, I have received a couple support checks from an initial temporary CS order, but it is less than one-fifth of the amount I was original set to receive.
As far as the State's Attorney taking over, that's another mess. They said they needed clarification on some matters before they could decide to take over my case. So, here I go (Pro Se), before the Judge asking for clarification on some matters. I swear, it must now be the judges
evil twin personality who has taken over this case. The judge is now treating me like I have the plague. He wouldn't even listen to me, only to ask "did you file a motion". Okay, so I go and file a motion, asking for clarification. The judge treats me even worse. He wouldn't even address me or my questions. When he did, he addressed the other attorney, laughing at my request. It was horrible! He was totally disrespectable and demeaning.
Now, I know I'm not an attorney, but I consider myself pretty smart. After four years of attorney filings and documents, I feel I put my motion together in a way that showed I wasn't completely ignorant of procedure. We all know that the 'system' is geared towards everyone having to pay for an attorney. They all work together and that's how they keep a monoply on those services. Remember, judges came from lawyers.
Well, I told the judge I couldn't believe he was treating me that way and my daughter deserved to get child support fairly. This didn't help, he looked at me smugly and said "request denied". Afterwards, two attorneys came up to me saying they could believe how the judge was acting. They were sincere because they didn't solicit any service. One attorney even gave me free advice (it's hard for me to believe, but there still may be a 'few good attorneys' out there :-) I must be fair to my last attorney Stephen B., who is an extremely, intelligent attorney. I believe he was just as surprised by the wrench the judge threw as I was. Stephen B. is just too expensive and I couldn't afford to hold on to him.
I have received further advice and realize that all is not lost for now, this case "Is Moving Forward". My next court date is late June, so we'll see what happens.
View other post at SystemStinks.
