Our Court System: The New American Ghetto

Do Profits Trump Poetic Justice?

The American state court systems are owned, operated and run by each state within the United States, including California. Within each state, state courts operate within designated municipal areas of the state by county, and are typically run by a Court Chief Executive Officer and Presiding Judge at the county level. In California, the Judicial Council, formerly known as the “Administrative Office of the Courts” is designated as the policy-making authority for the state court system, and serves as the “nerve center” for the state court system in California. Court CEOs, such as the Contra Costa County Superior Court CEO position, are paid more than the governor of the state of California. Presiding Judges typically earn around $20,000 more annually than regular sitting judges.

Many Americans have woken up to the fact that the state court systems are run, by design, like for-profit corporations. This means that the courts are incentivized to find wrongdoings of the accused. The money motive of the court system becomes known to many who encounter the bail system, and to those who end up in litigation with an insurance company where the insurance company prevails, to name several examples. Those studying the involvement of the justice system with insurance companies allege that the for-profit bail system has taken over the pre-trial system and operates with minimal oversight.

Family Court May have the Highest Profit Margins, But Lacks Oversight--Is this Intentional?

The family court system has more money flowing through it than all of the other courts combined, estimated at over $50 billion dollars a year. Recent documentary films such as Divorce Corp. have effectively provided an insightful view into the patterns of the family law industry. This film also explores how divorce cases often drag out for years as attorneys, judges and other court-connected workers are poised to usurp all of a family’s resources throughout the period of their family court case.

Divorce Corp. focused its research and interviews within the Sacramento County Superior Court System as the foundation for the film’s narrative. In parallel to the Sacramento family court’s emphasis on profitability and also on the profit margins of family court cases, local court activists and watchdog groups in Contra Costa County have identified similar practices in Contra Costa Superior Court to those discussed in Divorce Corp, as well as a host of associated bad actors.

Judge Jill Fannin Is Among the Judges Up for Recall in Contra Costa Superior Court

Currently, three embattled judges are under recall: Judge Lois Haight, Judge Rebecca Hardie and Judge Jill Fannin. Of these three judges, Judge Fannin has spent time on the bench in both the juvenile court as well as the family court, and currently serves as the court’s Presiding Judge. Fannin was appointed to the bench in April 2003 by Governor Gray Davis.

Judge Jill Fannin is the daughter of Judge “Coley” Fannin (Ret.) who also sat on the bench of the Contra Costa Superior Court, prior to Jill Fannin’s appointment there. During Jill Fannin’s childhood, she claims that she was interested in the law, as she grew up in a family where her father was an attorney. Before Jill Fannin worked at the court, she worked at JAMS as a mediator. JAMS is a global Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) company that her father helped form, which aims to settle legal matters privately for-profit without such matters going to court and airing in the public’s eye. Judge Coleman Fannin also served as Chairman of the Board at JAMS for five years, during which time Jill Fannin gained her mediator position at JAMS, from 2000-2003 [click here for Jill Fannin’s CV].

Outcomes of the Superior Court of Contra Costa Cases in Juvenile and Family Court Suggests Financial Interest of the County is Tantamount

The Contra Costa County 2018-2019 Recommended Budget reveals that as of 2017, 95.5% of cases in Contra Costa County have active child support orders, and that year-over-year, the number of child support orders issued by Contra Costa County in family court cases is higher than other counties (p.199). In spite of the high number of child support orders issued by the County and its Superior Court, approximately 70% of the cases are in arrears, which means those obligated to fulfill monetary child support orders do not do so.

During Judge Jill Fannin’s stint in Contra Costa Superior Court’s family division, Judge Fannin’s rulings repeatedly resulted in child support orders and the issuance of court-ordered services by Fannin that outstripped many families’ abilities to pay for these costs. These unreasonable financial burdens placed upon families result in increased incarcerations for the parents, and decreased scholastic achievement for the children, which also results in increased future incarcerations for these children. It appears this is a pattern and practice in Contra Costa’s alleged school-to-prison pipeline, which is exactly the type of system in Broward County, Florida that led to a mass school shooting.

Is Contra Costa County running a school-to-prison pipeline via its family and CPS courts?

How invested in the retirement portfolios are the judges and other court actors in the for-profit prison system in the State of California?

Long-Term Economic Distress, Toxic Stress, and a Compromised Career Due to Over-Work Leads to Disability

One parent who found herself in Judge Fannin’s courtroom in 2012, Laurie Smith Zalewski, a registered nurse, reported that she paid about half a million dollars in child support over the life of her family court case, which lasted around 11 years. Zalewski reported that Contra Costa County Department of Child Support Services demanded that she pay 5 years worth of arrears of child support, after they claimed that the proof of payments Zalewski had made from 2007-2012 were “not in their system.” Zalewski stated, “They [Department of Child Support] won’t admit they lost the information. They just said they don’t have proof of payment.“

Zalewski worked many long, 7 day workweeks for years to fulfill her child support obligation [click here for supporting affidavit], and in order to pay fees and costs associated with her case. Eventually, she took a leave of absence from work, utilizing a work-sponsored disability program to help her rehabilitate. She attributes this to a combination of over-work and stress. Although the mother is relieved that the family court case ended when her youngest turned 18 this year, she reports that the proceedings in Judge Fannin’s court room and the resultant rulings in a case spanning over a decade, caused long-term damage to her relationships with her children.

“I wish that the support order had been more reasonable, because working 7 days a week harmed my ability to spend more time with my children, not to mention this put me out on disability and harmed my health, and temporarily, my career,” Zalewski lamented. She added, "I am glad to be recovering from this nightmare, and returning to a more healthy work-life balance.

Does Judge Jill Fannin Overreach by Exceeding her Authority and Jurisdiction?

Despite Judge Jill Fannin and the court not being mental health professionals, one of the recurring themes in Judge Fannin’s courtroom and the Superior Court’s family law and CPS cases appears to be the allegation from the court that one of the parents is suffering from a nondescript mental illness or other mental health issue. The court then is not only able to justify its orders, but then orders the parent to services using a “court-recommended” service provider list [click here for the court-connected provider list].

Why would the court make up a mental health illness for one of the parents, and then provide that parent a list of court-recommended professionals? Could this have something to do with the fact that the Contra Costa County court’s judicially-appointed, former CEO of the court, Stephen Nash, was hired to be the Legislative Director of SB56? SB56 deals specifically with inter-county billing related to court-ordered services.

Throughout the lifespan of Zalewski’s family court case, which started with a divorce in 2007 and ended this year once her youngest son turned 18 this year, Zalewski had spent well over $600,000 on not only child support, but on attorney’s fees, on court-ordered services such as reunification therapy, and on other court costs such as filing fees.

Follow The Money: How Often is Evidence and Rule of Law Ignored in Favor of Funding and Financial Motive?

We the taxpayers are funding the court’s operations via state and federal title funding. Unbeknownst to many taxpayers, the court’s operations appear to prioritize profitability for the court system over the application of rule of law in a way that serves the public.

The Office of Child Support Enforcement receives millions of dollars annually from the federal government [click here for more information] and agencies such as Health and Human Services (HHS) which we the taxpayers are funding. HHS programs such as the Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Funding Initiative* [click here for more information] provides millions of dollars to the Office of Child Support Enforcement. Effectively, this funding initiative has caused parents who ordinarily might not pursue repeated court actions or custody litigation to continue their use of the family court to eliminate support payments. (*note: the naming of this specific initiative may vary by state, and the funding information may be difficult to obtain from the State of California’s Judicial Branch, aka Judicial Council).

Additionally, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) federal funding is received by the County of Contra Costa by the District Attorney’s Office and other County offices, and is also received by the State of California’s Judicial Branch. Many domestic violence victim’s advocates have been led to believe that this federal funding provides huge protections for victims of domestic violence, however, according to a litany of investigative journalists who have studied the Act, VAWA’s statistical claim to fame is the number of illegal immigrants who have been able to gain citizenship into the United States using what is referred to by critics of the VAWA Act as “VAWA’s Immigration Backdoor.” [click here for source] In these cases, immigrants are encouraged to make false claims of abuse in order to gain an upper hand in child custody cases to anchor them in the United States for gaining US citizenship status.

In these VAWA immigration marriage fraud schemes, there appears to be certain locations in America that may be championing these schemes. Contra Costa County appears to be one such hub, based upon research and qualitative information examined by court watchdogs.

Judge Fannin Has Repeatedly Made False Statements in Her Court Orders and Refused to Conduct Proceedings On-Record

A paralegal and ADA-trained advocate, Ronald Pierce, discovered through the Contra Costa Superior Court in case Paclik v. Paclik that Judge Fannin denied creation of any record of the case. In this case, Fannin’s alleged motive for force-enrolling the two Paclik children into Contra Costa County’s Mount Diablo School District, against the agreement of the parents, was to keep the children’s school-based federal and state Title funding dollars within Contra Costa County [click here for Ronald Pierce’s investigative report]. Ronald Pierce witnessed proceedings in Paclik v. Paclik in the capacity of someone who offers support for disabled litigants. In this case, Mr. Paclik and his eldest son have been force-separated from his two youngest school-aged sons for years at a time by Contra Costa County. This has led to several disturbing, potentially life-threatening health conditions from which Mr. Paclik suffers due to the stress of the prolonged separations.

According to records and according to State Appeal administrative hearings regarding the Paclik children’s Medi-cal, it became evident that Contra Costa refused to transfer the family’s state Medi-cal benefits to the county where the children were primarily living [click here for the investigative report]. During the time that the children resided mostly with Mr. Paclik, who resided out of the county of Contra Costa, Contra Costa County ensured that the children’s benefits remained filed and maintained by Contra Costa County. As justification for refusal to transfer the state benefits out of the county, Judge Jill Fannin terminated father Charles Paclik’s parental rights through ex-parte hearings and resultant court orders.

As a result of Ronald Pierce's experience and observations of Paclik v. Paclik, Pierce became more compelled and driven to compile analyses and overviews of the most charged issues facing the California judicial system [click here for Pierce's whistleblower YouTube channel].

Forced Participation in Family Court-Ordered Services Enables the Profitability of Civil Servant’s Retirement Accounts

Could it be that California is decimating its families through court in order to fund its unsustainable civil servant retirement programs?

A lot of the public funds that California courts collect, including Contra Costa Superior Court, after being locally deposited and harvested for interest dividends, eventually find their way into each county’s Children’s Trust Fund; money that is never given to children, by the way. The Judicial Council has enabled each Superior Court, including Contra Costa Superior Court to act as a depositor pursuant to Government Code § 68085.9 (source: Pierce, 2015 – click here for article).

The accrued interest form the Children’s Trust Fund is divided equally between the local county and court, while the original quarterly principal is transferred to the State Controller’s office. After the original quarterly principal is transferred to the State Controller’s Office, it is funneled through a hive of judicial branch accounts such as the Trial Court Judges Retirement Fund (see 68085.1(e)(1)). This demonstrates a direct link between forced participation in judicial branch services, through local county clinic networks and through Family Court Services mediation, and judicial retirement benefits (source: Pierce, 2015 – click here for article).

For Decades on End, California’s Judicial Branch Has Used Immunity and Quasi-Immunity to Wreak Mayhem on The People

A number of parents with Contra Costa Superior cases before Judge Fannin admitted that they developed significant and life-altering health problems. These health problems have resulted due to the severity of the ongoing stress related to prolonged litigation. A handful of parents interviewed for this piece have applied for disability benefits as their health deteriorated under the conditions imposed upon them by the orders of Judge Jill Fannin and the courts.

Inflicting harm upon a person to the point in which they are significantly or permanently harmed is characterized under Penal Code Section 203, "Mayhem", and Penal Code Section 205, "Aggravated Mayhem". These laws prohibit a crime in which, unlawfully or maliciously, a person is made permanently or substantially disabled. Under the definition of Penal Code Section 205:

“A person is guilty of aggravated mayhem when he or she unlawfully, under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the physical or psychological well-being of another person, intentionally causes permanent disability or disfigurement of another human being…”

For many years, there has been an ongoing media blackout on the topic of family and CPS courts. Many taxpayers have been led to believe by way of the mainstream media that the typical administration of justice is lawful. In recent years, judge recall campaigns in California, including one in Santa Clara County which resulted in the removal of Judge Aaron Persky from the Santa Clara Superior Court, have prompted additional scrutiny of judges. Increasing examination by the public of judges, judicial independence and the application of rule of law in the courts has raised legitimate concerns about a fair and impartial judiciary.

Do Immigrant Children Deserve Their Parents More Than American Children?

Many Americans are still not aware of the common practice of separating parents and children by way of family and CPS court. Many Americans have recently been outraged to discover that family separations of immigrants have been occurring en masse at the United States-Mexico border.

These same Americans would be similarly outraged, if not more alarmed, to discover that removing healthy, fit, well-taken care of children from loving and fit American parents is a common established practice in our court system, including the Contra Costa Superior Court in Northern California [click here for more information].

Can We Reclaim Our Constitutionally-Protected Rights?

New judges are being seated on the bench throughout the United States as we speak. It remains yet to be seen if these incoming judges will honor their oath of office and put the public they are supposed to serve ahead of profit.

After all, at the end of Judge Jill Fannin’s published biography from the Daily Journal from 2006, she stated, “You see the system works…and families get back together.” [click here for the Daily Journal biography].

We all know now that is simply not true.

www.recallcccjudges.com