The last few weeks have been utterly eye opening to me on so many levels. In what way you ask???? Well I have spent a great deal of time at our county courthouse with my son who has been fighting for custody of his child. Without getting into specifics of his particular case, I will simply leave it at the fact that since my son and his ex's relationship ship has fallen apart, his ex has filed two PFA's against him. For those of you like myself, whose only experience at the courthouse has been their occasional call to jury duty, a PFA is an order of protection filed against a person in a situation involving "alleged" domestic violence, harassment, stalking or sexual assault. In essence, it is a legal action put in place to protect the filer from any of the stated acts by an individual they view as an "alleged" threat.
Now let me say here, up until these last few weeks, I in my naivety believed that PFA's would only be used for good in the world and to help "real" victims in "real" abuse situations. Boy was I wrong!
Two weeks ago was my first trip to court with my son over a PFA. He was going over the second PFA that had been filed against him. The first one filed, he showed up to court to defend himself and his ex did not. The case was dropped but not before my son lost time at work and pay. This time though, I went because I was curious as to how the legal system worked these situations and because I wanted to support my son. My experience there was eye opening to say the least.
In our particular courthouse, both the accuser and the accused are gathered into a room where accusers sit on one side with their support people and the accused on the other side with their support people. Lawyers sit at the back and at the front of the room sit a panel of "judges" whom will hear each case. Both times I have attended in the last couple of weeks, there have been at least 50-75 cases to be heard in a four hour period of time.
It begins with a quick orientation video of the proceedings to follow and then all support people are asked to leave until they are either called as witnesses or the proceedings are over. We wait outside the glass enclosed room. From that point the judge panel spreads out and each judge takes a case, so that at any point in time there are usually 3-4 cases being heard. Some cases are thrown out because the filer doesn't appear, some a bench warrant is made out because the accused doesn't appear and the rest go before the judge to be hashed out, thrown out or continued. It is a long and tedious process that would get on the nerves of the even the most stoic individual.
As a person who loves to be a mouse on a wall in a crowded situation and just listen and learn, I listened and learned a lot.
I watched intently as each case was called. Many of the cases were called and there were no lawyers present so one or both of those involved pled their case without representation. Being outside the room and only watching through the glass, I could hear nothing but usually the faces of the parties involved spoke volumes.
Many of those who were waiting their turn to be called inside the room couldn't just sit there in silence, so they chose to come outside the room and stand with their support people. This is when the stories started coming to light. Here is just one story I heard.....
One young woman about 20 and her friend stood outside watching the young man she had apparently filed against. The young man was dressed in a work uniform and sat staring straight forward. Neither woman obviously found this man to be a threat and both took great delight in the possibility of him losing his job over having to come to court over this. The girls laughed and whispered back and forth and then the accuser laughed and then whispered a little too loudly, "Let's see if he f&cks around on me again." I couldn't help but turn around and glare at the two who realized I had heard them and immediately went back in the room. All I could think was....For real? They will mess with this guys livelihood and reputation over something like this? What is wrong with people?
In my afternoons there, I heard story after story of young guys coming out frustrated because they were missing work over their PFA's. One guy was facing his fifth PFA from the same girl. According to him, every time he got a new girl friend, she hit him with a new PFA. Another young man was with his mother. His ex was mad because he was moving out of her home and back in with his family because he couldn't stand her crazy (his words not mine). In retaliation, she accused him of stalking her. This was their third time in court over this and it was obvious that his mom was about done with all of it.
The real eye opener though was when I happened to step over to the soda machine where two sheriff's officers were taking to a woman who was apparently an attorney. They were discussing some case where a young woman had accused a guy of hitting her on numerous occasions. In no case had she shown any proof of her "injuries" and she was on her third PFA with him and this one had cost him his job. Then the lawyer broke it down. She said that in this particular courthouse, they literally hear thousands of PFA's per year. Within those PFA's only about 1/3 of them are legitimate. The rest are usually actions used to get even with another person, to cause trouble for another person or to get another persons attention. Then she laughed and said, yeah....PFA's are a gold mine for attorney's but more than that, they are a time consuming and in most cases a pain in the butt for all involved. I stood there stunned. The shame of this all is that these bogus actions then screw up the system and make it very difficult for that 1/3 with legitimate issues whom a PFA is really a life and death necessity.
While I sat there that day, a young man of about 14 sat there by me. He was quiet and sat there reading a library book. Ever so often he would look in at his mom. She sat waiting for her case to be called and she looked tired and nervous. At some point the young man and I began to talk. He was very intelligent and said he was taking some kind of summer workshop at our local university. He was there that day though, to support his mother who had filed a PFA against her ex. Her ex was abusive to not only her but also this young man and his younger brother. The boy talked of having to pull this guy off his mother after he broke in and attacked her. He spoke of not feeling safe in his own home because of this guy and sitting up at night with a baseball bat until his mom would get home from work. This poor kid was not even being able to enjoy the summer workshop he was attending because he had to stay on campus and he wasn't comfortable knowing his mom and brother were alone at home while he was there. He was 14 for goodness sake and no 14 year old should have to worry about those kinds of things. This family obviously needed a PFA! This family needed protection! This family is why PFA's are necessary!
So we are now out of PFA court and God willing my son will never have to go back, although this custody fight I am sure, will give us much more insight into the workings of the court. That being said though, what I saw these last two weeks showed me that our judicial system in so many ways is broken and I don't just blame the system. I feel as if so many people have chosen to abuse the system with bogus filings and using these PFA's to carry out grudges and ridiculous paybacks for hurt feelings that it truly hurts those who need the system to work for them.
Yes, it has been an interesting couple of weeks. Again I ask....what the heck is wrong with people?
