Tragically, Alice Giordano’s devastating experience with NH Family Court is hardly an exception. For most people, family court is the most important court they will ever face. Criminals are tried in courts where they have Constitutional rights and where 12 people deliberate their fate. But a victim of domestic abuse in family court has no right to due process because the NH family court is an “administrative court,” not bound by Constitutional rights.*
The NH legislature should simply require due process for its administrative courts, starting with Family Court.
And every accusation of domestic abuse deserves investigation. Most victims of domestic abuse who are brave enough to state it as the cause for filing for divorce find that the abusers use the children to claim the mother has poisoned the children’s feelings with “parental alienation,” a concept invented by Richard Gardner, which is now discredited by most professional psychological associations.
Gardner (1931-2003) made a fortune as an expert witness testifying on behalf of wealthy abusers. After his suicide, his so-called research on child sexuality was revealed to be horrendous sexual abuse of children who had no protective parents. What Gardner claimed was that children experiencing “climax” was revealed later to be the children crying out in pain.
Gardner stacked the deck in family court by testifying that children lie, thus barring children from testifying or even being believed. Tragically, NH family courts still do not give children the right to be heard, no matter their age. A judge might allow it, since family court rules can legally be ignored by any family court judge. And tragically, the NH legislature just passed a bill to punish parents for “parental alienation.”
*It is a shock to learn that all over the country are state AND Federal administrative courts with this same devastating shortcoming.
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