Cimpl Justice

What follows is a reader’s account of his experience with state “child welfare” bureaucrats. It’s a harrowing look inside the Kafkaesque machinery of The System: 

What word in the English language could adequately describe a circuit court judge, specifically a children’s court judge, that would exploit the natural instinct of a parent to protect his child from all threats to his child’s safety, security and well-being to force that parent’s compliance with an order that same parent deems legally suspect at best (and most likely wholly in violation of the rights of said parent and child)?

What justification could that judge possibly offer up to defend his threat to rip a child from her father’s home if he refused to let CPS agents in that home twice monthly; a home that was inspected and deemed fine in every way by CPS agents already; a child that was examined by a licensed physician and given a clean bill of health without any sign of abuse in any way; a child and home examined by a guardian ad litem designee that certified that the best interests of that child are served by remaining in that home with that parent?

Allow me to give some background that may give more guidance in that search:

I had two children, two girls, one of which I have joint legal custody and shared placement with her mother; to wit, the older of the two. I have not, as of this date, been legally adjudicated the father of my younger daughter and I never married the mother of my two daughters. Per Wisconsin State Statute (the state where my daughters, their mother and I reside), mothers automatically have sole legal custody of any children born to them while unmarried unless the court grants custody to another party [Wis Stats 48.435]. As far as physical placement of my older daughter is concerned, per court order, my daughter’s mother and I retained placement on a rotating weekly basis and alternating holidays along with my daughter’s residency rotating with the placement (i.e., neither parent was granted primary placement under which the child’s residence remained constant throughout the changing of periods of physical placement). We agreed to the day and time of rotation as Sundays @ 9:00 pm. We could not agree on a placement schedule for my younger daughter so the plan was to go to family court for paternity adjudication and disposition of custody, placement and child support (if any).

Next I would like to focus on my younger daughter.

Born on Friday, September 13, 2013, my younger daughter and I had limited contact (due to her mother’s several irrational and immature actions) and the last date of contact was September 30, 2013 at approximately 2:00 pm. Since the last contact, I viewed my younger daughter on October 13, 27, and November 10, 2013 at approximately 9:00 pm on each date (the dates and times I picked up my older daughter from her mother’s home to commence her weeks of placement with me). My younger daughter was found unresponsive by her mother on November 11, 2013 at 4:25 am. Per Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s (MCME) report, E911 received an emergency call to report the circumstances at 4:31 a.m., EMS arrived at 4:37 am, Milwaukee City Police arrived at 4:41 am and my daughter was pronounced dead at 6:12 am. At the time of arrival of EMS personnel, it was concluded my younger daughter was dead approximately 4 hours based on the onset of rigor mortis and body temperature. My daughter’s mother reported last seeing my daughter alive at 10:30 pm on November 10, 2013 after bathing both my daughters, turning my older daughter over to my custody at 9:00 pm, breast feeding my younger daughter and laying her down to sleep.  My daughters’ mother admitted to the MCME that she consumed one 12 ounce alcoholic beverage on November 10, 2013 at approximately 7:00 pm but that there was no history of alcohol abuse or illicit drug abuse during the pregnancy. Of course this case was referred to Wisconsin CPS subordinate agency Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare (BMCW).

Now allow me to focus on the mother of my daughters.

Below I will list facts pertaining to the behavior and mental health of the mother of my daughters (MOD).  Disclaimer:  I didn’t begin to understand the mental, psychological and emotional deficiencies (real or imagined) of MOD until she was pregnant with my first daughter. Wanting to do the right thing I stayed with her and attempted to work things out. In the midst of “working things out,” she became pregnant with my younger daughter. During that pregnancy I finally came to my senses and realized that “working things out” is an impossibility due to her mental, psychological and emotional deficiencies (real or imagined).  Consider the following:

1. March 13, 2010 MOD arrested by the Kenosha Police on an outstanding warrant in Green Bay for soliciting donations without a permit. This arrest arose out of an argument between her and me and me subsequently calling the police to have her removed from my apartment. This was the first time among many that she made an allegation of domestic violence that was subsequently shown to be false.
3. March 28, 2010 MOD and I found out that she is pregnant with my older daughter.
4. April 4, 2010 Went to MOD’s mother’s home for Easter and discovered MOD was intoxicated.
5. Several incidences, between conception and birth of my older daughter, occurred between MOD and me including MOD accusing me of infidelity, destruction of my property by MOD and me discovering evidence of MOD smoking while pregnant.
6. December 6, 2010 my older daughter was born. MOD and I agreed that breast feeding would be best and subsequently followed through with breastfeeding including an agreement to a healthy lifestyle and diet on both our parts.
7. January 17, 2011 MOD called the Kenosha Police falsely alleging domestic abuse. Police subsequently ascertained that there was not domestic abuse but that MOD “feared for her safety” and took her and my daughter to a friend’s home. From this date until July 6, 2011 MOD and I were apart.
8. February 1, 2011 I moved to Georgia. I took a substitute teaching position with a private Christian school.
9. March 11 – 13, 2011 I visited with my daughter while on spring break. During this visit I was only able to have my daughter for periods of 3 hours or less due to my daughter being breastfed and not acclimated to being bottle fed (whether formula or breast milk).
10. In several telephone conversations between MOD and me from March to July of 2011 we discussed several topics pertaining to my older daughter including her moving to Georgia with me due to MOD being unable to parent her singly, us reconciling and both MOD and my older daughter moving with me to Georgia and me moving back to Wisconsin in reconciliation so that we both can parent my older daughter together.
11. July 6, 2011 I moved back to Wisconsin for purposes of reconciliation with MOD. I took a position in the quality department with a local manufacturer.
12. September 25, 2011 MOD called Brown Deer Police alleging domestic abuse. MOD alleged I choked her and punched her in the eye “a few days” prior but could not specify a date to responding officers. It was observed that MOD slurred her speech and her breath smelled of alcohol. It was further observed that there existed no evidence to suggest any domestic violence occurred. In spite of the circumstances, again MOD claimed “fear for her safety” and the officers took her and my older daughter to “a safe place.”
13. February 21, 2012 my daughter was removed from MOD household and placed into a foster home per Wis Stats 48.13(10). MOD called a crisis hotline the night before making several alarming statements threatening to bring fatal harm upon my daughter. As a result of those statements, MOD was transferred to the local mental institution under a Wis Stats Chapter 51 involuntary psychological hold. When admitted, her BAC was .21, nearly 3 times the legal limit for intoxication for purposes of driving. As of this date, I hadn’t seen or had contact with my older daughter since MOD removed her from our home the September prior.
14. April 19, 2012, nearly two months after being remanded to foster care, was the first day I was able to visit (supervised of course) with my daughter since her mother took off with her in September. During this visit and the visit the day after, several things were observed/discovered:
    1. My older daughter was despondent and didn’t smile or laugh
    2. She had several cases of ring worm
    3. Her shoes and clothing were old and in need of replacement
    4. Her hair was broken off and quite unhealthy and disheveled
    5. She had been inoculated no less than six times against my protestations resulting in two cysts on her upper thighs
15. May 15, 2012 after much fighting, my daughter was released from foster care to my physical custody but still remained under the jurisdiction of the Children’s Court due to her mother’s failure to comply with all conditions of her visitation.
16. August 17, 2012 MOD and I again reconcile after observing what I thought was her being on track to completing the conditions of visitation and intention to maintain services to keep her mental health stable.
17. December 5, 2012 MOD and I are granted joint custody and shared placement of my older daughter.  Neither of us had “primary placement” which would dictate a constant address while placement changed hands on a weekly basis.  As a result, my daughter’s address changed in conjunction with the change of placement between MOD and me. Soon after this decision, MOD goes lax on medicine, therapy and church to maintain stable mental health.
18. January 11, 2013 MOD and I learn that she is pregnant with my younger daughter. Soon after this I noticed marked changes in behavior of MOD tending toward past behavior when her mental instabilities went untreated then.
19. March 16, 2013 following the advice of MOD’s father to send her to his home if she ever gets unbearable, I sent MOD by bus to Green Bay to her father. I retained physical custody of my child out of concern for her safety with her mother and her untreated mental, psychological and emotional issues.
20. April 16, 2013 MOD went to Brown County Crisis Center suffering from depression and having suicidal thoughts. 17 weeks pregnant, she admitted to the Crisis Center intake worker that she did not feel a connection with the baby because of alleged domestic violence (she implicated me as the perpetrator) and wanted to get rid of the baby. She felt like suicide was the only option for her as abortion is “against her religion.” She admitted to smoking, starving herself, drinking several beers and taking one shot of brandy daily in an attempt to miscarry the baby.
21. April 19, 2013 MOD was discharged from the Crisis Center and not referred to CPS on the condition that she would obtain prenatal care, eat sufficiently to gain weight and maintain health, abstain from alcohol abuse, take prescribed medication (prenatal pills and mood stabilizer approved for use while pregnant), receive therapy for mental health conditions and keep appointments with Crisis Center case worker assigned to her case.
22. April 20, 2013 I went to pick up MOD from Green Bay and brought her back to Racine where I established residency the month prior.  I did this at the behest of begging of MOD and on the conditions that she would seek help for her mental, psychological and emotional issues, seek prenatal care and return to Green Bay the following Friday.  I was ignorant of the events that occurred on April 16 through 19, 2013.
23. April 26, 2013 May 3 and 10 2013 are dates that MOD went missing to avoid me taking her back to Green Bay. After the third attempt to take her back (I chose Fridays because my work schedule was Monday through Thursday second shift and Fridays worked best), I gave up and allowed her to temporarily reside with me and my older daughter and attempted to get MOD to receive necessary services in Racine.
24. June 15, 2013 MOD and I had a disagreement over her taking our older daughter to her mother’s home for a week without me. MOD informed me some time before that one of her brothers had been convicted of molesting her younger sister while they were in MOD’s mother’s home and I was quite apprehensive about our daughter being there without both her parents especially for an extended period of time. As a result I wouldn’t agree to my daughter going to her maternal grandmother’s home at that time. This seriously angered MOD and for the next week her mood and emotions were quite negative.
25. June 22, 2013 MOD called the Racine Police to report she feared for her safety without my knowledge.  Responding officers transported MOD and our older daughter to “a safe place.”
26. July 8, 2013 MOD returned to my residence with our older daughter indicating intentions of leaving the state and wanted to leave our older daughter with me. I took custody of my daughter and minutes later MOD expressed she wanted to speak with me. I refused and she began a physical altercation. I went into my home and locked the door behind me. MOD called the Racine Police to report assault and battery and kidnapping.
27. July 11, 2013 Racine Police determined that allegations of assault and battery and kidnapping were unsubstantiated and without merit. I retained physical custody of our older daughter since July 8, 2013 and did so under the suspicion MOD was unstable, with untreated mental, psychological and emotional health issues.
28. July 19, 2013 I filed a motion to modify custody, placement and child support due to MOD’s ongoing issues that interfere with her adequately caring for our older daughter and leading her to take actions that are contrary to the best interests of our older daughter.
29. September 22, 2013 I agreed to allow contact between my older daughter and MOD on the condition she submit to me letters of certification from her psychiatrist and psychotherapist indicating she was keeping appointments as scheduled and taking medication as prescribed. Also on this date we agreed to a shared placement schedule with our younger daughter and to begin proceedings in family court to establish legal custody and have our agreement codified into a court order for our younger daughter.
30. September 30, 2013 after spending the only weekend with both of my daughters, MOD rescinded agreement to the placement schedule and providing letters of certification and indicated she would no longer allow me to see my younger daughter.  At this point I inquired about beginning a paternity action with Child Support Enforcement and they indicated that unless I retained counsel and filed a petition to establish paternity that I would otherwise not be able to start an action, especially through their agency and would have to wait until MOD began an action or the State began an action as an interested 3rd party. It was at this point I decided to wait for MOD or the State to begin paternity proceedings for my younger daughter and await our future court date for our older daughter on November 19, 2013, to whom I would like to turn my attention.

As a result of my daughter being in foster care, she exhibits an aversion to strangers and retreats into my protection until she is sure the stranger is someone that I am OK with and is not trying to take her away from me.  She initially exhibited an extreme fear of medical personnel immediately being released from foster care that has only recently subsided. Despite being very close to my mother who babysits her, when I must leave for work, she becomes sad and I must promise her I will return to console her. At times I have had to receive calls from her at work so as to reassure her of my eventual return.  When I am at home with her, she insists on following me wherever I go to ensure that we won’t be separated.  It is in my opinion that at if she were to be separated from me, except to be with her mother or possibly being with my mother, it would severely damage her emotionally and most likely irreversibly.

Now we come to the judge.

On December 5, 2013 I appeared at an initial appearance for a court case started by CPS alleging that my older daughter was a “Child In Need of Protective Services” (referred to as a CHIPS case in Wisconsin.  In a nutshell, as a result of my younger daughter’s passing, a referral was received by CPS to investigate the death as a possible result of abuse or neglect.  Long story short, my older daughter was residing with me when all relevant events took place; the DA filed a petition listing my older daughter’s address as MOD’s address citing jurisdiction based on Wis Stats 48.13(10); all actions were indicative of a threat of bringing emotional damage to my daughter as defined in Wis Stats 48.02(1)(gm); in such a situation, a Child Abuse Restraining Order (Wis Stats 813.122), which I must file, not the government, would effectuate an order of no contact between MOD and my older daughter protecting her from abuse as defined in Wis Stats 48.02(gm) which by the way is the one section of the definition of abuse that would NOT grant jurisdiction to Children’s Court but grants jurisdiction to Family Court.  As a result of all this, I questioned the court’s jurisdiction along with MOD.  I informed my court appointed lawyer of all of this.

On that same date after the hearing, the ongoing case manager that was assigned to this case asked to set up a time to meet with me and my older daughter in my home twice monthly on an ongoing basis.  I requested that she reference the relevant statute(s) and regulation(s) that give(s) CPS the authority to demand meetings with me and my daughter in my home twice monthly on an ongoing basis before I would agree to any meeting(s).  Because CPS could not produce any relevant law that gave them any authority to demand what they demanded of me, they petitioned the judge to order me to let them into my home, which they successfully accomplished through the deceitful and lying assistant district attorney.

On December 18, 2013 I again appeared before the judge in this CHIPS case and the judge asked my attorney why I was denying CPS agents entry to my home and he replied “Honestly your honor, I don’t know.”  This began a barrage of berating by the black robed bully on the bench in such a manner as to think that I was lower than a common criminal of the aggravated felonious kind.  He would not allow me to explain why I held my position and said that unless I obey his order to allow CPS in my home at least twice monthly at reasonable times upon reasonable notice, he would place my child into foster care under Wis Stat 48.19(1)(c).  He justified his unprofessional actions and reprehensible threat disguised as an order by saying he is responsible for the welfare of my child and since he can’t personally appear at my home to verify her safety and well-being that he has appointed CPS agents to carry out that function.

The arrogant, black-dress-wearing, faux-doctorates think they are gods and that their words are law. In fact, the JD assigned to this CHIPS case actually said to me in his fit of foam-mouthed candid professional misconduct that his word is law! After it has already been deemed to be in my daughter’s best interests to remain at my home full time and have no contact with her mother, the judge was willing to order her placed into the hands of agents where children are orders of magnitude more at risk of being neglected, abused and murdered than even at the hands of a parent accused of child abuse (just reference the CDC for those statistics), simply for questioning the authority of the cowardly bureaucrats that didn’t have the slightest bit of courage to come grab my daughter (or even come to my house uninvited), but who instead went whining to Big Brother Government to put the full weight of the thugocracy to force my compliance.

So again I ask, what word in the English language could adequately describe a circuit court judge, specifically a children’s court judge, that would exploit the natural instinct of a parent to protect his child from all threats to his child’s safety, security and well-being to force that parent’s compliance with an order that same parent deems legally suspect at best (and most likely wholly in violation of the rights of said parent and child)?  No one word could even begin to approach an adequacy of description for such a judge.  Justice is the absolute antonym in no uncertain terms.  I posit a conjunction of two words to describe the actions of such a judge:  Cimpl Justice.

Cimpl Justice: Update #1
Cimpl Justice: Update #2