Carol Burnett ~ Court Reporter

Carol Burnett to Harvey Korman, "Where did you learn to practice law, the White House?"

Throw her into an institution

Just throw her into an institution? This is cooperative parenting? This is in the best interest of the child?

"Dear Mom...I had to go to Susan Boyans EEEEEUUUU!!!! She said that you had a sickness. I yelled at her alot and said she was lieng and eager for money. She said I was desparate. So I yelled at her more. Then she said if I did that more I would be put in an institution so I stopped."

Non-cust mom appeals pro se case

Should state pay for divorce lawyer?

Brenda King stood in divorce court, completely unsure about what she was legally allowed to do or say to help show she should have custody of her children.

As a high school dropout with a GED but no legal training, she didn't know what evidence was off-limits. She didn't know when to object. She hadn't subpoenaed witnesses, and she had the uncomfortable task of having to cross-examine her former husband and his new girlfriend.

"I'm a good mother," the Everett woman told the judge, whose patience had worn thin. "I'm a lousy lawyer."

On Thursday, the Washington Supreme Court will hear arguments about whether people who can't afford a lawyer for their divorce -- particularly when children are involved -- should be given one at public expense.

[...]

In the trial, she claimed he had anger problems. He claimed she was mentally unfit. In the end, Michael King won custody of the children, leaving Brenda King -- who'd done most of the caring for the children -- limited to seeing them every other weekend.

The outcome devastated the woman, said attorney Katie O'Sullivan, whose firm, Perkins Coie, is now representing her for free.

"This case is an effort to get her a new trial, with a lawyer, and an opportunity to have both sides of the story told," O'Sullivan said.

She contends that people in Brenda King's situation have a right, under the state constitution, to have an attorney represent them in court.

Brenda King could have used some help from the Minnesota Judicial Branch. Too bad she didn't live there.

If all else fails go pro se when you live in Minnesota.

Courting the boom of do-it-yourselfers

As more people are handling their own legal cases, Minnesota courts try to find more ways to give them a helping hand.

Dana McKenzie was busy Thursday dispensing free expert advice to a bunch of do-it-yourselfers. But this wasn't a hardware store, and they weren't learning how to replace a faucet.
They were at the Ramsey County Courthouse, finding out how to represent themselves in court in family-law cases -- divorce, child support and child custody.

Anecdotal evidence and national studies suggest that more people are going to court on their own behalf without the help of an attorney. And while Minnesota courts don't keep statistics about the number of cases involving parties that the legal system calls pro se litigants -- a Latin term meaning "for self" -- local courts are expanding efforts to meet the demand and finding new ways to help.

There are two Hennepin County District Court self-help centers, one in the Government Center and one at the family courts building.

Together, the centers helped 35,000 people last year. Many of those people, if not most of them, were there to get help with representing themselves.

With legal forms and basic information available through such centers or on the Internet, "There are very few [family-law] issues where people can't make a decent effort at doing it themselves," said McKenzie, a St. Paul family-law attorney.

Darren Mack on CBS 48 Hours

Caught In The Crossfire: Who Is To Blame For A Wife's Death And A Judge's Shooting?

Darren Mack blames his ex-wife and a judge for her own murder because their custody case made him go berserk. He said he was broke. His attorney says he is broke. Yet he inherited millions of dollars from his dad and signed over $10M to his mom shortly before his divorce. After the court ruled that he had to pay up, Charla Mack was found stabbed to death and Judge Chuck Weller and his assistant were shot.

“Mack was a co-owner of Palace Jewelry & Loan Co. Inc., a pawn shop, until he turned over control in 2005 to his mother, a lawyer for the business said. He had a net worth of $9.4 million as recently as 2004, according to court documents.”

"But Darren Mack had been down the aisle before. Darren and his ex-wife Debbie had two children together but the marriage did not end well. "He would not stop fighting with Debbie. She spent more than a quarter of a million dollars in legal fees just responding to him," says Robb, who knows Debbie. "And Charla was on his side at the time."

From everything I have read and heard about Rita Hardin's case, Darren Mack reminds me of Rita's ex-husband, Andy. Both Darren Mack and Andy Hardin won custody of their two children from their ex-wives. According to sources, they both own arsenals. Darren Mack allegedly couldn’t stop himself from swinging, and Rita filed for divorce when Andy allegedly ran with the kids to his girlfriend's house where she lived with her husband and hid them there for a couple of weeks. Also, both Darren Mack and Andy Hardin claim that they're the injured parties, that Rita and Charla were the violent aggressors. The only difference is in Charla's case is that Judge Weller didn't fall for Darren Mack's prevarications.

“Mack's attorneys say this may be a case of self defense. "If our investigation shows that this woman was violent and could get angry and do things that were inappropriate, that may actually raise the question of self-defense," explains David Chesnoff.

“But Charla's friend Christine Libert tells Roberts, "She would never try to attack Darren or do anything like that. Even if she would, which I don't think she ever would, she would certainly have never even considered it with her daughter around. Ever. Period. It just wouldn't have happened."

Domestic Violence and the Darren Mack Case

Charla didn't stab herself to death. It's more like Darren Mack didn't get his way this time and his pattern of control, as evidenced in both custody cases, escalated to murder. Especially since Charla Mack said, "He is out to get me and someday he will probably kill me." It shouldn't have been a surprise that he would murder her. Had he said he would shoot a judge, I'm sure he would have been taken more seriously.

Some say the CBS 48 Hours story was overly biased toward fathers.

On Tuesday 48 hours showed a story of Darren Mack who killed his wife and attempted to kill the family judge in his case. Though the story showed the horrifics of the act it gave much attention to the "Father's Rights" movement, casting him as a victim and how mothers and family judges drive men to this.

At no time was any time given to discuss mothers, child/domestic violence issues, how often batterers seek and gain custody and how this behavior is reflection of how abusive people will go and the risk mothers/children are in.

As for the father’s rights elements of the CBS 48 Hours broadcast – I didn’t get to see it – but going by this web version Darren Mack is not going to be successful as a poster boy for them anymore than Alec Baldwin will be. They're all to busy back peddling. For instance, Dean Tong, Darren Mack's so-called false allegations trial consultant, who is affiliated with father’s rights groups, doesn’t make Darren Mack out to be deserving of anyone’s sympathy at least not on this CBS 48 Hours report.

“Dean Tong was part of Darren Mack’s divorce legal team and says Mack had said Weller was a "anti-father's rights judge."

“Tong also says Darren was a difficult client. "He seemed like a guy who would have trouble listening to others. He wanted to basically call the shots," he remembers.

“Tong, who specializes in custody issues, warned Darren there are certain things that just won’t sit well with any judge when it comes to deciding who gets custody. "He wanted to still continue to do what he was doing, which was the sex swinging on the side," Tong explains.

“Tong says he explained to his client that his extra-curricular activities could jeopardize the case.

“Mack's response? "He took a deep breath and said 'Well you know, we’ll address it. We’ll talk about it,'" Tong tells Roberts.

“Apparently Darren didn’t take the warning seriously. In fact, he later took a trip to the famous Moonlite Bunny Ranch, a legal, licensed brothel, to celebrate his impending divorce

“But back at home the party was over.

"When it comes to court, people are very naïve. They don’t understand until it hits them on paper that a judge can alter your life in a New York minute. And that’s what happened here," says Tong.

“Judge Weller had repeatedly asked Darren and Charla to try to reach some kind of financial agreement on their own, so he wouldn’t be forced to do it for them. They did hammer out a deal, but when that fell apart the judge stepped in and ordered Darren to pay up.

"He had to pay her a lump sum of $480,000, out of which she was supposed to buy a home and a car. And then over the next five years, she was supposed to receive $10,000 a month in spousal support," Robb explains.

“Michael says the ruling left his friend Darren disillusioned and frightened. "Could not believe this was happening. He was about to lose a lot of his money," he says.

“Darren was ordered to make that payment of close to half a million dollars to Charla, but soon after that hearing she was dead.

“Asked if he thinks Weller's rulings against Darren pushed him over the edge, Michael says, "I can’t say Darren did this. Do I think Judge Weller's rulings added to all that is enough to push someone over the edge? One hundred percent. Yes sir. "

[…]

"What has this case done to the father's rights movement in this country?" Roberts asks Tong.

"And it's certainly slapped me in the face," Tong says. "How dare you be a martyr for this, for what we've worked so hard for."

“But Michael Small, released from jail and back home with his new wife and family in Reno, disagrees with Tong. "Do I think the movement has been set back? Just the opposite. I think it’s just going to go forward and be more in the forefront,” he says.

“Darren Mack, though now behind bars, still sees himself as a father’s rights advocate. His daughter, Erika, visits him in jail and had been living with Charla's mother.

In Darren Mack's own words

“A series of e-mails Mack was sending while he was still on the run reveal a disturbing picture of this man. For example, in one message he holds himself up as a martyr for the father's rights movement saying, "remember, they want me as a sacrificial lamb. They want the pleasure of executing me."

“In the same vain, he later writes that his story must get attention "To save the hundreds of thousands yet to go through little Nazi Germany in the divorce industry."

Dean Tong had a different attitude in a Nancy Grace interview while Darren Mack was on the run.

Father’s rights commentator Glenn Sacks trying furtively to distance himself from Darren Mack

I'm not sure that this even needs to be said but I will say it anyway--I condemn without qualification the crimes allegedly committed by Darren Mack in Nevada last week. Mack was angered by his divorce and custody case. Some on the not insubstantial lunatic fringe of the fathers' rights movement see Mack as some sort of freedom fighter. Most of the commentary by other fathers' rights advocates seem to be of the "he couldn't take it any more and snapped" variety.

I don't buy it. Though everyone is focusing on Mack's attempted murder of a judge, everyone seems to forget that he first stabbed and killed his ex-wife. After murdering her, he shot the judge through the judge's third-floor office window with a sniper rifle from over 100 yards away. That's not "snapping"--that's premeditated murder. Mack is not a good man trapped in a bad system. He is a bad guy. Because of men like him the system had to create protections for women, and unscrupulous women have misused those protections to victimize countless innocent men. Men like Mack aren't the byproducts of the system's problems--they are the problem.

Faux FoxNews feminist Wendy McElroy scolding NOW for their supportive stance on Andrea Yates

“When Andrea Yates murdered her five children, the National Organization for Women turned their sympathy for her into a crusade; NOW accused the 'system' of insensitivity to women with post-partum depression. Some voices on the forums I monitored were equally sympathetic to Mack, and callous toward both Charla and Weller. For example, one man wrote, "I consider Mack a hero. I consider the judge evil. If he dies or is permanently disabled that would be a-ok with me."

Father’s rights activist Randy Dickinson, vice president of the Coalition of Fathers and Families New York, sends e-mail on the Darren Mack case quoting John F. Kennedy to New York legislators and is investigated by state police: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
“The quote, he said, “was meant to emphasize that one of their own heroes and an icon of the Democratic Party warned them that the lid cannot be kept on people’s passions forever, without expecting trouble.”