Activist Judges
So, the Honorable Judge Punch of Orleans County, New York, has taken it upon himself to Judiciate his beliefs in a seemingly one-sided child-custody case.
While the child in question, Jary Kohl, was born in Orleans County, he has lived almost the entirety of his life in Dallas, Austin, and Georgia, under the care of his mother, Rachael Knight, a chief member of the "Church of the Sub-Genius." For those who don't know, the CSG is a satirical group; essentially it is to organized religion what The Onion is the mainstream journalism. After nearly a decade of bizarre and draconian rulings blindly in favor of the deadbeat father who still resides in Punch's jurisdiction, including forcing the mother to pay for Jary's visits to his father when the father refused to see him otherwise, and requiring that the child never refer to his step-father as "father" or "dad,"Punch has now forcefully removed Jary from Rachael's care, based on photo's from a CSG "X-Day" event satirizing "The Passion of the Christ" as a commercial endeavor. Mrs. Knight is now forbidden even to write to Jary, as the Hon. Punch declared her non-Catholic views to be "mentally ill." Links may be found here, here, and here.
I could ask a thousand questions about this situation. How far can Judiciary decision be carried before it creates it's own fiefdoms, how can Neo-cons berateliberal judges as "Activist" when this sort of conservative activism is occuring, what can be done to salvage a system where a Judge in Upstate New York can decide the fate of a child in Georgia based on where the father lived when he slept with the mother? Instead, I leave the whole atrocity up to you all. I'm simply disturbed by it all.
While the child in question, Jary Kohl, was born in Orleans County, he has lived almost the entirety of his life in Dallas, Austin, and Georgia, under the care of his mother, Rachael Knight, a chief member of the "Church of the Sub-Genius." For those who don't know, the CSG is a satirical group; essentially it is to organized religion what The Onion is the mainstream journalism. After nearly a decade of bizarre and draconian rulings blindly in favor of the deadbeat father who still resides in Punch's jurisdiction, including forcing the mother to pay for Jary's visits to his father when the father refused to see him otherwise, and requiring that the child never refer to his step-father as "father" or "dad,"Punch has now forcefully removed Jary from Rachael's care, based on photo's from a CSG "X-Day" event satirizing "The Passion of the Christ" as a commercial endeavor. Mrs. Knight is now forbidden even to write to Jary, as the Hon. Punch declared her non-Catholic views to be "mentally ill." Links may be found here, here, and here.
I could ask a thousand questions about this situation. How far can Judiciary decision be carried before it creates it's own fiefdoms, how can Neo-cons berateliberal judges as "Activist" when this sort of conservative activism is occuring, what can be done to salvage a system where a Judge in Upstate New York can decide the fate of a child in Georgia based on where the father lived when he slept with the mother? Instead, I leave the whole atrocity up to you all. I'm simply disturbed by it all.
posted by Pascals Bookie @ 11:09 PM
2 Comments:
We are in agreement!
I happen to think that the strength and wisdom of a judge is best revealed when he/she reaches an outcome that he/she may not like for moral or personal reasons, but the law is the law.
I think a really good example of this is Justice Thomas when he dissented and came out against striking down medical marijuana laws.
I'll say more about this in my post to the "ideal state" thread.
Believe me, I searched and searched for an article citing the other side. I don't like to be biased if I can help it, but there were no such articles (that I could find, anyway) and no neutral (read: mainstream) items either. This is one of those situations where the only people who care about it seem to be the ones shouting about it, but the Subgenius site lays out enough facts of the case, once the opinions are stripped away, to make one realize the egregiousness of the Judge's actions. Handing out a raid warrant on the child based on an unconfirmed, uncorroborated affidavit from the father's lawyer is one instance. Legally restricting the step-father, who had been Jary's father-figure for essentially his whole life, from calling him "dad" or "father" is another. It's difficult for me to imagine that in these cases the Judge's bias didn't far outwiegh the concern for Jary's welfare, as any action possibly warranting either of these would be arrestable in and of itself.
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