My Son’s Story
In 2011, my wife Miranda and I separated after about 5 years of her cheating and so much more, but it would not end there. After leaving me once before and taking the kids and hiding them from me for over a month this time after seeing that the kids got in the way of her going to bars. She left the kids with me. I was in court every 6 months fighting for what was best for the kids. They were home schooled in the summer, while she would teach the kids to lie and disrespect me.
In February – March 2016 my daughter started asking me about her body. Soon after, in April – May 2016 I came home to a social worker and cops at my home saying my daughter had said I touched her. My daughter was at their grandmother’s, so I was not able to contact the kids. A placement hearing was done letting the kids stay with my mother, their grandmother, their mother not wanting them.
I was arrested May 2016. Their grandmother started taking her to see a counselor or therapist. My daughter was not telling the truth but the therapist would not ” get involved” with the court. Not ever having more than a traffic ticket I had to trust the public defender assigned to me who had instructed me to waive a preliminary hearing and told me I was guilty and to plead.
My mother and sister spent 10,000 and 5,000 of my money on a lawyer who told us we would go to trial and later told me I was guilty for just being accused. He talked me into a plea by lying to me, when it was not what I was told, he quit and took the money saying we owed him 5,000 more. The bar lost 2 complaints filed against him, and me not knowing the law.
I fell into a black hole of legal theory as I saw no hope. I had a hearing where the judge would go off record without making it clear I had to represent myself at trial.
Trial Part One
If you have never been through the courtsystem, let me just say it is not what you think. I was deemed a flight risk. Bail was set at $75,000, which would have been my whole income for 3 years, yet was what they considered reasonable.
I got a public defender, who didn’t speak with me. He told me I was guilty because I was being charged?! He said there was nothing he could do, telling me to waive my preliminary hearing. My family helped pay for an attorney, who quit after being caught in several lies and keeping the $15,000 paid, then suing for more.
I was given the same public defender that I fired. After asking the public defender’s office for another attorney and being told no. I asked the judge for new counsel, saying my public defender was ineffective. The judge said no, apparently all a public defender needs to do is show up. I fired the public defender, then at a hearing the judge went off the record without notice and told me I could have the same public defender or pay for an attorney or go pro se. He would not give me court appointed counsel or stand by counsel. So I went pro se believing it to be my only choice.
Trial Part Two
The first day of trial, after jury selection, where the prosecutor tried very hard to make all females, who most of whom would call me a monster when questioned. This was the testimony of the state’s expert witness. A psychologist who spoke with the “victim” for maybe an hour, then the recording of which was shown. Though the conducting of the interview left many court rules in question, she, being the psychologist, spent the day vouching for the truthfulness of the prosecution’s witness, as well as dancing around the fact she worked for the state.
Day two started with the detective, with the interview he had with me, shown to the jury. (They say the truth will set you free, no it won’t). And his search of my home, along with his opinion of me (guess what that was). Then their star witness, their “victim”, played her like a fiddle.
Every question I asked was answered with “I don’t remember” or no, always looking past me to the prosecutor’s table and / or her mother in the audience.
I called her Aunts and Grandmother to the stand. They called her out on her lies. She (my daughter) had even threatened to have her Aunt put in jail if she did not get her way, that she was untruthful. The prosecution called them liars.
Day three, I got on the stand and tried to straighten out the twisting of words the prosecutor was doing. But at the closing argument the prosecutor was almost chanting” we don’t need to prove anything you just need to believe he’s guilty”. Where then is the burden of proof? Pennsylvania’s conviction rate is high because they ignore the rules and laws meant to protect us from them!
Timeline After the Trial
After the trial I was convicted on all counts. I was crushed, at sentencing I was given 33 years and a lifetime of S.V.P., Sexually Violent Predator registration. This put me into a state of both shock and depression. Knowing at the time I had to file an appeal, but not understanding the importance, I put it off. After such a blow I was not ready to pick up and fight again.
By the time I realized I had to get an appeal in, I was being shipped around and could not get the courthouse address. Everything was looking hopeless. Almost a year had passed and I needed to file a P.C.R.A., Post Conviction Relief Act. So, without transcripts or an understanding of the rules, I put in the application. I knew the courts did me wrong.
An attorney was appointed to my case. He filed a brief, that may have been okay, but he never once spoke to me or answered any letters, until I filed a complaint with the disciplinary board. Then it was just a letter saying he’d got the complaint. If he would have had meaningful communication with me (per rules of court) I believe the brief would have been more complete and accurate. Instead, the P.C.R.A was rejected without a hearing. So, I told him I wished to appeal to the PA. Superior Court. Again, he refused to communicate with me. The PA Superior Court said my rights were violated but they were not liable? Again, I told the attorney I wanted to appeal, now to the PA Supreme Courts. He sent me a copy of a brief he was supposed to file, and as it came with a Certificate of Service, I thought he had. But he never sent it in, unbeknownst to me.
It was only when I started working with a paralegal to prepare for federal court that I asked the PA Supreme Court for a docket sheet. They told me nothing was ever filed. It turns out I was no longer represented, and I was never told as I should have been per the rules of court.
I then filed the paperwork you see on the website under How Can We Help You? Did it work? No, not yet. It will. But first, I had to ‘run the gantlet’ and be able to show members of Congress that the court system they have saddled us with is useless.
And the Supreme Court? Equally useless. However, the Supremes are not the highest legal authority in the country; Congress is.
Authority to Overrule Wrongly Decided Cases.
Wesson v. United States, 48 F. 3d 894, 901 (5th Cir. 1995)
Congress
…may cure any error made by the courts.
Fast v. School Dist. of City of Ladue, 728 F. 2d 1030, 1034 (8th Cir. 1984) (en banc) (statutory construction)
Congress, Power to Counter Judicial Doctrine.
Belgard v. State of Hawai’i, 883 F. Supp. 510, 514 (D. Hawaii, 1995)
(Which includes the Supreme Court)
When we start telling members of Congress (in sufficient numbers) that either so-and-so gets out or you do, pick one, the likes of Susan Paradise Baxter (and her ilk) will no longer infest the federal bench, and federal habeas corpus relief (28 U.S.C. § 2254) will work the way it is supposed to.