parenting rights institute prospectus version 5
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Executive Summary Page 1
Meaningful Reform Page 3
Organizational Structure Page 5
Professional Background Page 6
Organizational Scope Page 8
Constitution Based Reform Page 9
Due Process of Law Page 10
The Custodial Institution of Childrearing Page 12
Gender Discrimination Page 14
A Collapsing Framework Page 16
Conclusion Page 17
Appendices Page 19
Contact Information Page 21
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people.
As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children,
the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any
deprivation
Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf
Today in America, children and parents are being deprived of one another in a most insidious
fashion. Through an ever expanding bureaucracy of government agents and forensic
appointments made in our domestic relations courts, children are coming under the control of the
state in a manner never before seen in human history. All of it is being carried out in the so-called best interests of our children.
Child control agendas have been orchestrated by lawmakers and special interests to address
every imaginable issue attributed to our offspring. In the process, mainstream parents have been
compelled to endure a very serious curtailment of liberties contrary to the laws of nature. The
states propaganda is so powerful that many victims remain wholly unaware that their
childrearing freedoms have been unlawfully seized.
This parenting rights institute was formed to provide a check upon abuses of power exercised by
our federal and state governments in the context of parent-child relations. Our prospectus may
become the most important work you will ever read on the subject. It represents a very timely
call for a joint undertaking by every person who visits us at www.leonkoziol.com.
As the author of this prospectus, my goal is to enlighten you to an alarming trend in child control
laws that impair a natural order of childrearing. Many of these laws, particularly those dealing
with child custody and support, carry a revenue generating purpose that actually harms
parents, children and their families. The state is not inclined to rectify such harm without a public
demand for reform. This requires research, organization, financial support and a plan of action,
precisely the purpose behind this submission to you.
The alarming trend is found in domestic relations processes where child alienation and parentingdeprivations combine to produce costly conflict, declines in workplace productivity, increased
criminal behavior, unwanted teen pregnancies, avoidable suicides and, among other things, an
unparalleled decline in moral values. The impacts are upon each and every one of us on a daily
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basis. Any effort to reverse this trend requires serious support and private contributions insofar
as the state is unlikely to fund a risk to its own money making systems.
In this prospectus, we show how our domestic relations laws provide incentives for divorce,
child exploitation and family conflict. We explain why untold numbers of people are being
drawn unnecessarily into the states institutionalized framework and how our productivity as anation is being consequently harmed. When families are compelled by law into court for dispute
resolution, their members do not realize how much childrearing freedoms they surrender to
outsiders. The arbitrary mandate of naming a custodial parent begins the damaging process.
During my 23 year professional career as a constitutional and civil rights attorney, I have
observed countless families needlessly damaged and financially exploited by this system.
Predictably, my efforts to reform the same system from within were answered by government
retaliation and career damage described, in part, on our website. Fate has therefore compelled me
to establish this institute. The cause must go on for the sake of future generations.
In July, 2010, I was a featured speaker at a family preservation conference in Washington D.C.
Following my presentation, I was privileged to hear a speaker describe her work as a domestic
relations counselor. She related personal horrors as an alienated child and later, an alienating
mother. She then broke down emotionally after sharing with her audience the pending death of
her father. The immense pain and suffering which she visibly depicted at the hands of the state
could not be remedied for a middle aged victim. Years of deprivations could not be regained.
The comparable injuries to innocent victims everywhere must be presented to policymakers and
our courts. Physical, financial and psycho-social harm caused by this system is leading to
premature death among countless victimized Americans. Had this effort been properly made inearlier decades, such harm could have been prevented. It is a timely issue which touches upon all
others in dramatic fashion. Crucial reform will not occur by ignoring this call for assistance.
Our statement of goals is found throughout this prospectus. Put simply, this is a long overdue
reform movement which must be understood for its profound nature by a full reading of this
submission to you. As will be explained, our institute is presently engaged in test litigation in
both federal and state courts seeking to establish a constitutional limit upon state invasions of
family privacy. One action is now ripe for consideration by the United States Supreme Court,
however, financial shortcomings are preventing its consummation.
A constitutional amendment and lobbying initiative comprise additional goals that our institute
shares with similar reform groups across the country. However, litigation remains the fast track,
and no one that we can find is on course for any such primary goal. We believe that the
influences of powerful lawyer groups and entrenched special interests are among the reasons.
Obviously anyone seeking to reform the court system faces an immensely difficult challenge. As
Americans, our Constitution assures us that we should have no fear of government retaliation,
even where the subject necessarily involves the judicial branch.
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In addition to the maintenance of costly test cases, our institute is focused upon arrangements for
a national convention of parenting rights advocates. Upstate New York may appear to be an
unlikely location for such a convocation, but parallels can be made to the National Womens
Rights Convention of 1848 in a more unlikely community at Seneca Falls, New York. Certainly
every reader here will agree that bold initiatives such as these are required. All that is needed
then to execute this profound cause is competent leadership, organization and collective
financing.
MEANINGFUL REFORM
This institute is maintained by a partnership of concerned parents. To achieve our crucial goals,
seed money and successively broader investments are required. Facilitation of our test cases
alone is critical to any sound reform movement. History has shown that nationwide precedent isoften made in New York. Hence, our institute is presently focused on two parenting rights
actions which I have brought personally before the states high court in Albany and federal
district court in New York State.
Civil rights litigation constitutes the fast track for parenting reform. We saw this occur in such
test cases as Brown v Board of Education, 347 US 483 (1954), where a century of established
government policy (separate but equal doctrine) was overturned in a single decision. Similarly,
when women sought to challenge gender based abortion laws, they filed Roe v Wade to
circumvent arduous and preclusive processes behind a constitutional amendment in the states.
These reform cases occurred within present day lifetimes, but none could claim a subject so
profound as the preservation of parent-child relations. Embedded within every relationship are
all the human rights which have existed since the beginning of civilization. Indeed the Supreme
Court continues to refer to parenting rights as the oldest liberty interest recognized under our
Constitution. It deserves our utmost vigilance, because, wherever and whenever this interest is
impaired, human morality degenerates to the levels we see rampant in America today.
The impairment of fundamental liberty rights in the parenting context has now reached
intolerable extremes. It is executed routinely in our domestic relations courts through the
mandatory imposition of a custodial institution of childrearing as I call it. Here, the state takesvirtual control of our children, and through its dysfunctional system, justifies sweeping intrusions
upon historically private family matters. The interests of parents are at best, secondary
according to lead lawyer consultants, see Scheinkman, New York Law of Domestic Relations,
Vol. 12, sec. 21.13 (1996).
This government seizure of power over children, better known in lawyer circles as parens
patriae authority, seriously impairs the capacity of parents to make independent workable
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arrangements in the joint or separated setting. Instead they are encouraged and even forced to
fight over their own children in a most barbaric fashion to secure money and power awards that
in turn yield immense profits for lawyers, facilitators and the state itself. The true interests of
children are thereby compromised, particularly in mainstream cases which require no state
intervention.
Left unchecked by our citizenry over the past few decades, this custodial institution has
evolved into a multi-billion dollar child industry despite the increasingly archaic nature of the
custodial process. As this prospectus will further demonstrate, money interests are
systematically replacing child interests as a driving force behind the vast erosion of our most
important rights in these courts. Money has become a root cause of widespread child injury
because the state has simply transferred its dysfunction to the parents.
Meaningful relief is best achieved through a writ or appeal before the United States Supreme
Court. This can only come by way of a ruling from a states highest court or a federal appeals
court. As referenced, our institute is currently engaged with test cases in both judicial tracks.Unfortunately, present day litigation is heavily burdened by processing fees, transcript costs,
staff and administrative expenses. Combining resources into a single reform movement will save
individual victims duplicative and unmanageable court costs.
The concern here is that any failure or delay in the current test litigation, occasioned simply by
financial shortcomings, will constitute one more day of irretrievable parenting time lost to our
children and one more day of oppressive laws that force parents to flee their own offspring.
Crucial reform might then be pushed off for years and even decades, leaving individual victims
to their costly processes. The last time our Supreme Court addressed related parenting issues was
in the year 2000, and that was a grandparent rights case, Troxel v Granville, 530 U.S. 57.
As stated, my goal is to alert you to a growing crisis in domestic relations across America so that
our governments attention can become properly captivated. In the sections which follow, I
develop a perspective which is very distinct from the propaganda which feeds this multi-billion
dollar child industry. It is a perspective that provides you with a real world understanding of our
divorce and family courts. The short of it: avoiding lawyer abuse, preserving family relations and
securing long overdue reform.
This prospectus is designed ultimately to cement your participation and financial support in our
cause. It will be continued and updated from time to time. We welcome your own perspectives toprovide greater justification behind our reform movement. You are no longer alone in your trials
and tribulations. Together we can secure long overdue changes to an archaic and barbaric
process that places power and money over the true interests of our children. We are available to
address any person, entity or audience for further elaboration.
As the first version of this prospectus went to print in July, 2010, breaking news featured the
racially charged firing of USDA official Shirley Sherrod. Based upon a rush to judgment
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influenced by slanted media reports, the full and true story revealed that Ms. Sherrod was
anything but racist. Government apologies and rehire offers followed. It was a fiasco which
brings to mind the ease with which politicians can become misguided by select interests,
resulting in laws and actions which are destroying the fabric of an entire nation.
Such presumptive activity is routinely found in domestic relations courts. At the outset of everydivorce, a support order is required on the presumption that parents are incompetent to arrange
their own childrearing agreements. All officially separated parents are lumped into a
classification which is breathtakingly wide. It includes convicts, absentees and child abusers.
Good parents are then forced to prove their competency to the state through custody decisions,
arbitrary formulas and a best interests of the child standard which is vague by design.
Irresponsible parents are treated the same as mainstream victims under this socialized
framework.
Parents across America are simply not so incompetent. However, as Adolph Hitler once
declared, parents will accept anything for the purported sake of their children. Simply mask agiven agenda, no matter how intrusive, behind a declaration for the children and the state will get
away with virtually any impairment of our constitutionally protected interests. As you will see,
such propaganda is further supported by invidious stereotyping of fathers as unfit caregivers and
mothers as antiquated welfare dependents. The state is essentially building a custody war
machine on the backs of its people.
The Sherrod story calls to mind my own comparable experience in February, 2010. A rush to
judgment was made by certain media in upstate New York surrounding my professional license
and sacrificial stance against this child control system. The complete story reads like a John
Grisham novel or, more strikingly, a modern day civil rights ordeal.
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
This parenting rights institute is structured as a research, educational and litigation entity capable
of initiating or intervening in any case where meaningful reform can be achieved. It relies
entirely upon donations. It is significant to note that there may be no other entity quite like this
one. It has the potential for becoming a powerful force in government and the people here arevery motivated and highly qualified. One of them, a childless attorney, has even provided legal
aid to aggrieved callers.
In discussions among our contributors, a number of organizational challenges have been
identified. Among them are the lease and overhead expenses at our main office and the
establishment of satellite locations. This office has a conference room and law library, however,
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speaking engagements and information sharing require staff development. Each time a document
is expedited to any person, or a legal activity advanced, a basic cost is incurred. Our professional
environment is well illustrated by photographs found under Appendix A.
Contemplated in the near future is the indoctrination of Family Court monitors from among our
volunteers. These members of our institute would be assigned to monitor select cases in ourdomestic relations courts. Much like the YWCA designees sent to advocate for victims of
domestic violence, these monitors would be sent to advocate for victims of government abuse in
those cases where injustices are found to exist.
The information reported out of court in this fashion would then be added to the information
generated by litigation processes, subpoenaed and foiled government documents, and witness
statements. These would be incorporated into various products available for public consumption,
including complaints, grievances and petitions to various governmental departments. Our reports
would also be shared with national, state and local media in addition to our followers at this site.
We would be prepared to publish evaluations and ratings concerning judicial performances.
Ultimately our goal is to establish a Domestic Justice network across the country to coincide
with our test cases when they reach the doorstep of the United States Supreme Court. The high
court accepts relatively few cases for consideration each year. Our chances will be very much
improved if we can show how widespread the government sponsored child abuse is today. Such
a network would feature exemplary cases which demonstrate the vast injury and injustices
caused by this federalized child custody system.
PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND
In contrast with traditional forms of discrimination, the abuse routinely found in the parenting
context is occurring in places we would least expect it, our courts of law. Here our government
actors find themselves benefitted by various immunities, preclusion doctrines and administrative
privileges. Anyone seeking reform in this environment assuredly possesses an uphill battle. For
this reason, a related background in the courts is crucial.
For purposes of this prospectus, the test cases which comprise our current focus have beenprocessed by a lawyer, litigant, parent and civil rights expert all combined into the same person.
Adding to that my former status as a city councilman, school board attorney, manufacturing
supervisor for a Fortune 500 firm and trial attorney for an insurance mutual, there is barely an
issue which cannot be tackled from any angle of argument.
Some of my civil rights work has been featured on the CBS program 60 Minutes, New York
Times, CNN and other national media. This can be independently verified by consulting with
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news items featured on our website. As a trial attorney, I secured six figure recoveries, successful
criminal defense verdicts, and high profile outcomes. In 2004, I was able to secure a final
judgment in New York Supreme Court which declared unconstitutional the operation of the
largest casino in our state. I did this against prominent national law firms with a small staff.
Unlike most attorneys, I had no mentor or apprenticing experience. I learned litigation andpolitical strategy from the school of hard knocks. This had the beneficial consequence of
removing me from lawyer and party collegiality of the kind which can compromise genuine
client and constituent loyalty. Political savvy is another critical ingredient for success here, and
my prominent campaigns for Congress and state Senate in 2005 and 2006 provide additional
invaluable expertise behind this reform institute.
Until the time of my public challenges to New Yorks dysfunctional court system, my 23 year
professional career remained unblemished. Now, in retaliation, the state has strategically eroded
my credibility, standing and financial resources for continuing this reform movement. Elsewhere
on our website, my accomplishments as an attorney can be seen, removing any doubt as to myqualifications and commitments. Indeed, even after the state suspended my capacity for litigating
civil rights cases, I managed to secure a favorable ruling in federal court in July, 2010 based
upon prior arguments in a constitutional rights case.
The referenced test cases have been amended or commenced to assure that I remain personally in
control of their progress until such time as they reach the Supreme Court on either the state or
federal track. Such litigation is unlikely to succeed on an individual basis. The four level appeals
process, bifurcated custody and support proceedings and the daily developing nature of
childrearing are unique characteristics of domestic relations litigation. A committed litigant can
become financially and emotionally drained long before the case reaches a high court.Jurisdictional and policy pitfalls to the inexperienced legal representative are related elsewhere in
this document.
Other obstacles are illustrative. In 2008, one of my clients directed me to file a test case in our
state capital of Albany, New York. Opposing lawyers responded with an (unsuccessful) claim forcounsel fees on grounds that he was exploiting his children to achieve wider reform. They even
managed to concoct a basis for an ethics prosecution. Our goal, therefore, in assisting parents
similarly situated, people you may even know, is to avert retaliatory impacts upon individualvictims.
Perhaps the most important qualification that would support a constitution based case is theadvocates passion for human rights. Many have asked why I regularly commit my career to
public and client causes. This is answered by a personal theme behind this entire effort: my own
parents. I continue to maintain that our human traits derive most prevalently from our immediate
ancestors. Knowingly or not, parents leave unfinished business to their immediate offspring.
To place this in perspective, my father spent five years in a Nazi concentration camp. His
experiences formed a part of my mindset during late night chats at the dinner table. Even today,
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more than a decade after his departure from this world, we continue to share a pride and
commitment to our American way of life which knows no fear. Those who are assisting me inthis endeavor possess similar qualities. Our collective sacrifices would be in vain if all we could
show at the end of our lives was money and self achievements.
As stated, our website, www.leonkoziol.com continues to provide updates and network activitywith groups having a similar mindset across the country. Although we have no political ideology
other than one which advances parent-child integrity, we must treat this movement as acampaign. Personal and monetary contributions are crucial to our goals. The reader will find a
related background summarized under Appendix A.
ORGANIZATIONAL SCOPE
Briefly, it must be emphasized that the purpose of this institute is to advocate for parents in the
mainstream context. By that we mean to exclude those who possess no interest in childrearing.
Certainly this effort might form an inspiration for those parents outside our scope to rejoin theirchildren. However, the immediate threat upon our society is the breakdown of family units
caused by this custodial institution of childrearing. Such units include both custodial and
non-custodial settings made subject to separate but unequal treatment under current laws.
This institute possesses no political ideology. Children are not subjects to be exploited for
monetary gain or political opportunity. Yet we see this occurring all too often with politicians,
legislators and the legal profession. Laws and taxpayer dollars are thrown at every isolated orminority crisis with little concern for their impact upon the innocent mainstream. A major
purpose of our organization is to limit government activity in our private lives by making it
accountable to the Constitution and, more particularly, our Bill of Rights.
Beyond that, assorted opportunists have seized our organization as a platform to vent bitter
diatribes regarding their ex-spouses, family planning failures and absentee parents that clearlyfall outside our scope. A pertinent response is found on our website, a column published this year
entitled Child Support is Welfare Because it Lacks Accountability. A major part of the
institutes purpose is to reverse negative male stereotypes and the disparagement of good womenwho find themselves relegated to the unfit role of non-custodial parent. Such a classification
carries with it an arbitrary stigma and often bears no relationship to so called parenting skills.
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CONSTITUTION BASED REFORM
Meaningful reform begins with our American Constitution. This venerable document is not mere
parchment but a framework of government designed to provide direct protection of the people
from government abuse. Such abuse in the parenting context comes in varied forms. Countlessadult victims find themselves unable to reconcile our constitutional protections with the abuses
they see regularly in domestic courts due to propaganda which also exploits child victims.
Children, by definition, are far too undeveloped to participate meaningfully in courtroom
processes. Yet, using the fiction of a lawyer representative and a declaration of neutrality
between the parents, the state is able to invade our private lives with impunity. A typical
rationale has the state merely rearranging parenting relationships between two equal butseparated litigants to provide stability in the childrens lives. As will be seen in later segments,
an opposite effect is actually occurring.
Nowhere in this arbitrary process is the question asked whether the states involvement is neededin the first place. Prevailing principles of Constitutional Law require that the state articulate and
show in every case that serious harm or neglect to the child is occurring before it can lawfullyinterfere with parental decision making. In domestic matters, the state is simply assuming that in
all separated environments, children are at risk and require its utopian parenting skills.
When custody and support laws were made uniformly applicable to all separated parents byour state governments, the people were immediately deprived of a wide range of freedoms
without so much as a whimper or complaint. We were deceived into believing that the state was
acting in our childrens best interests. However, over time, the intrusions upon our private livesbecame more devastating to the point where, today, every aspect is being closely monitored and
children are being placed above their parents against a natural order of childrearing.
Most parents do not realize how much their protections are being relinquished when they enter a
domestic relations court often times against their will. The mandatory custodial institution of
childrearing is mindlessly accepted because, in addition to its arbitrary declarations, the stateprovides a power and money award to the parent who can best destroy the other in a custody
battle. As the Supreme Court long ago found, the power to tax is the power to destroy.
Yet state appointed custodial parents are routinely given a more insidious power thangovernment can seize itself because the parents are enticed by law to destroy each other to the
clear detriment of their children. The evidence of this is everywhere. Apart from the aggravated
controversies which lead to greater discord among family members, the combined financialestate in needless custody battles is always reduced. There are no exceptions and no refunds from
the state and its agents. Increasingly, parents are litigating themselves into bankruptcy, leaving
their children without college education funds and incentive based productivity which lies at theheart of our American system. Highly controlled opt out agreements actually encourage
litigation.
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In the custodial system, the state delegates its powers, often times to a malicious and
irresponsible parent, based upon arbitrary caregiver doctrines. The delegation comes without anychecks or balances. A child support order carries little or no accountability requirement and the
monies can easily be diverted for a variety of illegal or irrelevant purposes without detection.
Similarly, child alienation practices are executed off the radar screen and go largely unremedied
even where they are proven to occur. Propaganda phraseology is set out in this prospectus withinquotations and explained throughout.
The state is not a neutral arbiter, but an actively involved litigant without formal recognition in
these proceedings. Child support units, child advocacy centers, child attorney appointments and
even a parent education program comprise only a few of the state sponsored entities brought in tothe childrearing process. The parenting environment can become swollen and hopelessly
regulated even though no one can agree on the definition of a good parent or child relationship.
Our Constitution has left this decision logically to the people.
Absent serious harm or neglect to a child proven by the state itself through clear and convincing
evidence, parents are entitled to share equally in the raising of their own children. Unless eitherbecomes a public charge, government possesses no similar interest in setting money awards. Thecustodial institution is the exception and not the rule in a Constitution based government. Parents
are accorded the freedom of negotiating and mediating childrearing responsibilities unmolested
by state mandates consistent with a least restrictive approach to domestic relations. Our goal is toreinstate this principle consistent with American ideology in our courts.
DUE PROCESS OF LAW
Before any state intrusion can be made into the substantive right of parenting summarized above,our Constitution requires that the impacted parties receive an opportunity to be heard at a
meaningful time and in a meaningful manner before a neutral decision maker. The states
increased focus upon money and child control has produced a systematic torturing of this right, abasic protection of civilized societies which precedes our very existence as a nation.
Once the state has seized the parent-child relationship, it maintains long term institutional controlthrough a legal fiction known as continuing jurisdiction. In plain terms, this means endless and
recurring petitions which generate new monies to every participant except the parents and their
children. There is rarely a meaningful time and manner principle involved in these proceedings
because they lack the finality element found in other forms of litigation. Divorce decrees
proclaiming finality may contain conflicting provisions which retain or refer continuing matters.
Continuing jurisdiction is a nice sounding term of art which translates into more money forlawyers and state agents. The fleecing process can easily be indentified in countless cases. The
products sold in this child business, as one Family Court put it, are controversies. They are
often cheaply crafted products which are marketed to unsuspecting parents at great profit.Inevitably the exploited victims find themselves endlessly mired in costly conflict with decision
makers hopelessly impaired with overburdened caseloads.
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Existing cases can be identified which exemplify the damage to our due process rights when thestate thrusts half the parenting population into its system with the stroke of a pen. In one case, a
Family Court magistrate carried over irrelevant rulings and financial information from a separate
case to achieve a predetermined outcome. Transcripts in other cases show expert witnesses with
fraudulent credentials, judges devoid of basic familiarity with pending petitions and disparagingstatements having no foundation in fact. The late Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas once
referred to these forums as Kangaroo Courts.
Due process is severely compromised because the state is placing money over principle. The
federal Title IV-D program (child support standards) provides incentive payments to the statesbased upon the number and magnitude of child support orders mass produced in our domestic
relations courts. Damage caused to family relations is increasingly glossed over because the
prevailing child standard is now money. As one judge put it, unless (this parent) is eating air
and living in the streets, I want to know how (s)he gets (the) money.
This accumulated money is then placed into state banks known as child support collectioncenters. Displacing the proper role of private banks in free enterprise and the liberties of parentsto earn their own interest for the true sake of their children, these state owned banks draw
immense interest revenues off of these mass produced support orders. Imputed income is
one of many ruthless tactics invented by lawyers and judges to manufacture increased revenuesand salaries. In turn, the coerced dollars are pumped back into the vicious Family Court cycle to
feed a growing child industry in a manner never envisioned even by Adolph Hitler.
To place this in a more ominous perspective for the incredulous reader, consider the mass influxof lawyers entering the professional market today. When I earned my Juris Doctorate degree
only 25 years ago, there were as many candidates in law school as there were practicing
attorneys, approximately one million at the time. Today, in California alone, we find nearly300,000 lawyers seeking to expand their income base. Countless others remain unemployed
while television executives, book writers and film makers instigate a greater influx of lawyers
into our hostage economy through addictive and deceptive programming.
This custodial institution of childrearing is obviously out of control. It needs to be reined in by
the people through their Constitution. A mainstream parenting population must be carved out of
this intangible control system if for no other reason than its original design to target welfareabuses and absentee parents. Indeed Title IV-D is a part of the governments welfare law. Good
parents should not be incorporated wholesale into a welfare program simply to fund its costs.
Such objectives have no rational connection to any true child purpose.
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THE CUSTODIAL INSTITUTION OF CHILDREARING
In some cases, the seizure of our children by the state is overt and easily recognized. Where a
child is severely neglected or abused, most of us will approve of a process which removes the
victim from his or her parents. However, when government expands its reach through the use ofvague standards to intrude upon every aspect of privacy right retained by parents, the child
seizure is less transparent.
A parallel may be made here to land use doctrine known as inverse condemnation. This occurs
when government regulation becomes so intrusive that all meaningful use of private property is
made unlawful. A taking of land has effectively occurred but without the compensation
required of the state by the due process clauses of both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
Inverse condemnation became a process fashioned by our courts to provide proper compensation
for victims of government overregulation.
In Finlay v Finlay, 240 NY 429 (1925), the high court of New York fleshed out the rule which
authorized the state to make similar invasions of parental privacy rights to serve the so-called
best interests of the child. Eventually adopted by state courts and legislators throughout the
country, this single pronouncement became the workhorse for child controls of every kind. The
seizure of power remains unparalleled because it enabled the state to control not only our
children, but families and businesses through a later enactment known as the Child Support
Standards Act.
When Finlay was decided, American society was much different and the seizure of power less
noticed. Families were predominantly intact, divorce and single parent households were few, andcommunications were not so instantaneously damaging. The dynamics have changed to the point
where separated family units are now the mainstream, parenting roles are becoming obsolete and
the people are content to accept what is fed to them. Complacency is a leading cause of
government dysfunction and the continuing erosion of our basic rights.
Applying the foregoing to every day child control cases, parents should consider filing claims for
compensation based upon the logic of inverse condemnation. In proper cases, the effective taking
of our children by the judicial branch of government should result in monetary awards diverted
from the state bank to aggrieved parents instead of lawyer trainees in Family Court. This is one
of the precedent seeking aspects behind our test litigation pending in federal and state court.
This litigation comes in the face of a system incapable of justifying the logic of present day
processes. Little distinction, for example, can be attributed today to married couples having
presumptive joint custody and unmarried parents made subject to presumptive sole custody.
Custody and support awards are not mandated in the married context despite the fact that
parents often live apart, i.e. military and career service, and feature issues similarly applicable to
their childrens best interests. Conversely, the simple act of separation, often designed to
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improve childrearing environments, is punished with this barbaric mandate of a custody title and
public court battle.
The official act of separation, particularly in this day and age, does not trigger sufficient state
interest to justify such a sweeping application of laws that together create this custodial
institution of childrearing. My own case is illustrative. A state judge refused to grant a divorcedespite 18 months of successfully performed parenting (separation) agreements. He forced
controversy simply because private financial information of the parties was not included with the
uncontested petition and the presumptively correct support formula required custody titles.
Essentially, he was professing to raise my children better than the natural parents could.
After more than two years of consequential court battles, the same judge concluded that I had
been overpaying so-called child support obligations, but by then, severe damage to my
children and our families was irreversible. Today, every issue comes before the money seekers
because the parents no longer communicate on the risk that it could be used against them in these
never ending court processes. Even discussions with our little ones are hampered by attorney-client privileges claimed by the so-called attorney for the child.
Over time, extensive harm can occur to countless extended relationships. Fathers and mothers
become incapable of moving on with their lives when new partners find themselves alienated by
child support and custody controversies. In order to maintain sustenance, a delinquent support
obligor deprived of licensing, passport, bankruptcy and other government privileges becomes
reliant upon the partner and family in order to avoid a life in the streets. Irrational support
formulas, imputed income doctrines and a dead beat stigma can make such a life inevitable.
The states seizure of parenting rights enables lawyers to examine every aspect of a familysprivate life in a public courtroom. Once the financial information is extracted, lawyers are able to
gage how much liquid assets are available from the combatants for fee generating purposes.
Child interests provide fertile ground for endless disputes and settlement efforts are often
promoted only when the money runs out. This gold mine is highly protected despite its
undeniable damage to parent child relations.
Support for our position is everywhere evident in daily news accounts and court reports. In July,
2010, an upstate New York reporter unwittingly placed an exclamation point upon the problem
in a story about the proposed increase of Family Court judges statewide. The judge quoted in the
feature article gave a most startling justification for the expansionist proposal by concluding thathe wanted to better serve our Family Court customers. The comment evidently escaped public
notice due to the powerful influence of growing government sponsored propaganda.
Our government courts were never created as instruments of profit. There has never been a
conferral of jurisdiction by the People which authorized any child business as one court
described it. Moreover, the First Amendment alone would prohibit yet another Family Court
judge from proclaiming an engagement in Gods work. These are courts of limited jurisdiction
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made available for free access by our people in accordance with founding principles of our
Constitution. Their entire purpose under that document is to provide the people with a substitute
forum for taking the law into ones own hands.
Yet this purpose is becoming highly undermined by an inflated sense of power and a dangerous
mindset which promote controversy and lawlessness. We the People are not customers of agovernment industry profiting upon our children and the demise of parenting relationships. We
are properly described as petitioners under the very First Amendment of our Constitution, and
Family Court judges, like all other government officials, remain our public servants. It has
become painfully clear that a movement such as this is vital to a restoration of such principles in
our society.
GENDER DISCRIMINATION
When the parenting environment becomes unstable, many victims rely upon self help remedies.
This is certainly not unusual and most prevalent in protracted domestic processes. It is typically
triggered by a belief that a parents interests are being ignored or abused. Under our
constitutional framework, domestic controversies, including those caused by the state itself, are
committed to special courts for resolution. Such forums are supposed to substitute for uncivilized
behavior of the kind once common in the days of Alexander Hamilton or the Wild West.
Unfortunately, many of the practices found in domestic courts today are themselves uncivilized.
Parents are made to fight over their own children in order to secure a money and power awardincluding situations which call for their rejection. A committed mother or father will sacrifice
everything to protect the offspring even against a threatened or perceived seizure from the other
parent. The state capitalizes upon this long established rule of nature by forcing barbaric
controversy in our public courtrooms in a manner reminiscent of the Roman Coliseum.
All sorts of tactics are employed to humiliate the other party in these needless state promoted
battles. Perjury is commonplace and beyond correction because our criminal courts and prison
facilities would become equally overburdened. As a result, truth seeking is elusive and decisions
become a product of guesswork and irrelevant factors. One factor, privately and conveniently
relied upon, is gender discrimination. Fathers possess inherent characteristics that make themeasy targets for rejection under that all important caregiver standard for custody decisions.
Every logical person will tell you that fathers are prejudiced in domestic relations courts. Our
Census Bureau supports this with routine reports showing that 85% of those paying support are
men. Contested custody cases result in a womans favor 90% of the time. Yet the state
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continues to market the propaganda that all parents possess fair and equal status in these courts.
Truth once again takes a back seat to money because of a system that is inherently fraudulent.
The propaganda begins with the typical statutory declaration the neither parent has a prima facie
right to custody of their own children, see i.e. New York Domestic Relations Law section 240.
Again reduced to plain terms, prima facie means a level of proof needed to make out a case. Itassumes that a court contest is already underway. More disturbing, it comprises an automatic
seizure of parenting rights by the state. The prima facie right to child control has always resided
with both parents, since a time immemorial, and under our constitution, it is the states burden to
show a prima facie case for interference whenever it intends to diminish or terminate one parent.
In this one statement, parents who have had no need for courtroom battles are deprived of their
oldest liberty interest without any due process. Contrary to related propaganda, the custodial
framework calls for a reduction or elimination of one parent and a simultaneous elevation of the
other in every case. I call this a gender cleansing process because traditional mother and father
roles are merged and then cast aside. Fathers are remanded to the arbitrary and standard everyother weekend roles and forced to pay for their replacement under penalty of incarceration.
Custody contests are typically promoted under another fiction that a child requires a single home.
There is no sound evidence to support this rule in modern times. Each case stands on a unique
footing and cannot be made subject to this child taking presumption. It is simply a tool for
maintaining a dysfunctional system that yields easy profits to outsiders. Children are bused to
school and placed in the care of substitute parents all the time, often with greater time and
authority than that conveyed to the non-custodial parent. Yet there is no custody hearing to
determine whether these life altering events are in a childs best interests.
In Wisconsin v Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972), the Supreme Court ruled that Amish families could
avoid state compulsory education laws by educating their children at home. During the 1960s,
children were bused in and out of inner cities to remote school districts to correct longstanding
discrimination practices made unlawful in Brown v Board of Education. If our children can be
subjected to such harsh impacts without a hearing, what rational justification remains of a state
custodial system which requires a father residing in the same school district to justify his
natural status by fighting for equal time and meaningful access to his offspring?
These and other fundamental questions remain obscured. Unlike the race and gender prejudice of
an earlier era, this environment persists as the last bastion of institutionalized discriminationremaining alive and well in America today. It is causing parents to defy these demonstrably
unjust laws not unlike the heroic actions of Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King. It is also
causing desperate victims to take the law into their own hands with murder-suicide and violence.
Domestic relations judges preoccupied with congested court dockets are ill equipped to identify
the true problem cases. Instead they are programmed to issue protection orders based upon the
slightest one-sided accusations. Increasingly, these devices are being exploited by abusive
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petitioners simply to gain an edge in custody and support battles. Overriding due process, judges
issue orders to satisfy politically correct better safe than sorry policies which cause the true
victim to react in a manner contrary to character. The state is, in effect, fueling the violence.
Federal courts, the principal protectors of our American Constitution, stay out of these domestic
matters not because they lack jurisdiction, but because of various abstention, immunity andpreclusion policies. The plain reason can be seen as an elitist one. Family Court is held in low
esteem according to the 2006 Matrimonial Commission Report to the (New York) Chief Justice.
Indeed this Miller report disclosed a survey of judges who considered domestic relations
responsibilities to be punishment assignments.
Quite the contrary, domestic relations courts are having a profound adverse effect upon our
productivity as a nation. Increasing numbers of workers, entrepreneurs, forensic experts,
businesses and even medical personnel are being hauled into our Family Court systems to
account for every imaginable dispute concocted often by lawyers for fee generating purposes.
Needless Child support garnishments impair payroll departments across America. Yet nowherein the Obama economic or health care plans was this quiet and dramatic impact even mentioned.
Nowhere in the Miller Report was the father gender impacts even acknowledged.
A COLLAPSING FRAMEWORK
When Roe v Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) was decided, a trimester framework was orchestrated
by Justice Harry Blackmun to govern abortion decisions under the newly recognized womansprivacy right. Over time, this framework collapsed from within due to advances in medical
technology. In an opinion twenty years later, the trimester framework was rejected as antiquated
in favor of an undue burden analysis, Casey v Planned Parenthood, 505 U.S. 833 (1992).
With the custody (power) title still routinely conveyed to the female parent and support
obligation imposed upon the male parent, a similar collapse is underway here.Institutionalized
parents are made to feel adequate by state fiat, but it is as deceiving as fatherhood is to an every
other weekend role in childrens lives. Unstable effects are being produced upon entire extended
families because the custodial framework is obsolete and collapsing on its own weight.
A custodial parent is expected to merge traditional roles of mother and father contrary to the
laws of nature in order to make this institution work. A non-custodial parent is relegated to
visitor status and made to feel irrelevant to his own natural function. Once the parents are so
defined, the environment is ripe for a never ending series of court battles, literally a lawyers
paradise steeped in futility. Custody changes are few, and equal or shared parenting is
regularly opposed because it would negate all justification behind the lucrative institution.
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It is an institution that by definition incorporates the custodial parent into the states
bureaucracy. In order to maintain a regular flow of welfare payments (child support), this
creature of statute is given every incentive to limit the other parents time and involvement in the
childrens lives so as not to jeopardize that all important custody factor known as primary
care giving. A punch list of mindless tactics is routinely provided to keep the war going.
Conversely, the non-custodial creation is forced out of the childrens lives. He is lumped into a
succession of parental substitutes needed to facilitate the custodial appointment. In my test
cases, I describe this as the states parenting hierarchy. Day care providers, babysitters, step-
parents and significant others collectively replace the ousted parents childrearing time and
authority. When this replacement process is naturally resisted, a good parent may face
incarceration and career loss, precisely what these welfare laws were designed to prevent.
The damage to children is particularly insidious. Like the black and white dolls used to overturn
separate but equal doctrine in Brown v Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), the very title
non-custodial conveys the stigma of inferiority. Even a three year old will understand that avisitor is not a real parent regardless of the propaganda used to nurture the institutional
framework. This damage is so easily avoided in modern times by simply discarding the titles.
Such a solution is not new. A veteran Family Court judge in Albany, New York recommended
discontinuance of custody and visitation titles due to their oppositional and antiquated
framework, see Webster v Ryan, 729 NYS2d 315 (Fam. Ct, 2001).
CONCLUSION
In Tropea v Tropea, 87 NY2d 727 (1996), the high court of New York handed down a decision
in a joined relocation case which pitted two custodial mothers against two non-custodial fathers.
Removing a three tiered analysis fashioned by our middle level appeals courts essentially to
protect the interests of alienated fathers, the court reverted analysis back to the vague best
interests of the child standard. It then permitted relocation of the children based upon the
mothers exclusive interests in starting new lives.
Nowhere in the opinion could a reader find any similar concerns for the fathers interests. The
real victims were awarded no compensation for the effective child takings by the state andits appointed custodial agents. Such monetary deprivations run contrary to centuries old tort
doctrine and due process. Instead the harsh outcome reinforced the oppressive and
discriminatory custodial framework with an analogy to the nursery character Humpty-
Dumpty. All blame was laid at the feet of the parents because the pieces of the former marriages
could not be put back together again. Wholly absent from the opinion was the states role in
pushing Humpty-Dumpty off the wall.
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One of our test cases before this same high is now ripe for the filing of a writ to the United States
Supreme Court. Hopefully it will be heard so that the states role is properly factored into the
legal analysis. However significant financial contributions are required to finance this appeal and
others as part of our ongoing efforts. This institute has come too far to surrender to this
antiquated custodial system. It is all too important for our parents, families and future
generations of Americans. When our country begins losing its decorated military personnel to
domestic custody wars instead of our foreign wars, the call for reform is never more urgent.
The reader will find a number of fledgling and defunct groups across America seeking similar
reform. Parental Rights. Org., Fathers and Families, Inc. and Fathers 4 Justice are among the
more noteworthy that we have interacted with over the years. However our travels and
experiences have shown that meaningful reform remains elusive simply due to a great void in
effective lawyer advocacy. Retaliation by judges and bar associations highlights only some of the
reasons identified behind this great void in participation by Americas architects of justice as
they are called.
Thirty years ago, a consumer group was substituted for the proper parties (lawyers and bar
associations) in a case which eventually brought First Amendment protection for unrestricted
lawyer advertising. The substitution was made out of a fear of retaliation from the Virginia
Supreme Court as the licensing agent for lawyers in that state, see Supreme Court of Virginia v
Consumers Union, 446 U.S.
Reference is now made to our website www.leonkoziol.com for a video link regarding a
decorated Iraqi war veteran. Upon returning to the states from active duty, he found himself
facing an empty home and divorce because his wife was not happy. The video graphically
depicts the experience of countless fathers who lose their children to this custodial institution.Unable to maintain a job and satisfy court ordered support obligations, a jail sentence was
imposed. Major Lance Waldorf then took his life fully dressed in uniform with the last words: I
love my country, but my country does not love me.
Please consider a financial contribution. Time is of the essence. This institute promises to
become one of the most profound investments you could make to any cause. Thank you for your
time and interest.
October 10, 2010 Respectfully submitted,
Leon R. Koziol, J.D.
http://www.leonkoziol.com/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_StCzStBy0&feature=player_embeddedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_StCzStBy0&feature=player_embeddedhttp://www.leonkoziol.com/ -
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AAPPPPEENNDDIIXX AA
PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND
Leon R. Koziol, J.D., is a civil rights advocate who has practiced law for nearly a quartercentury in New York State. He has been a spokesperson for parenting rights and currently
publishes an Internet blog site known as LeonKoziol.Com, focused upon reform in our domestic
relations courts. Featured over the years on the CBS news program 60 Minutes, New York
Times and CNN, Leon Koziol remains a fearless advocate for human rights and a profoundcheck upon government abuse.
Among his career highlights, Mr. Koziol secured a final judgment in New York Supreme Court
declaring unconstitutional the operation of the largest casino in the state. Prior to obtaining his
doctorate degree, he joined the management team of a Fortune 500 manufacturing firm. He has
published various literary works including his most recent novel entitled Western Door. Aformer city councilman and municipal attorney, Mr. Koziol has secured a number of jury
verdicts, settlement recoveries and a precedent in New York City for diverse civil rights victims.
He was a recent endorsed candidate for state senate and county executive.
In February, 2010, Mr. Koziol took a sacrificial stance against parental abuse in domestic
relations courts. After criticizing a money generating process which needlessly harms parent-child relations, he was subjected to retaliatory suspension of his professional license. For nearly
ten months he was denied all meaningful contact with his two children without any allegation or
evidence of neglect, abuse or abandonment. On May 23, 2010, he was reunited with his precious
daughters after a state court threw out a petition by the so-called custodial parent containing
false allegations after a hearing. Four years of needless court battles damaged his incomeproducing capacities needed to benefit his children.
These and other events have led Mr. Koziol to file petitions and test cases seeking to remedy
human rights violations before the United Nations, Department of Justice, Federal Court, theNew York Court of Appeals and state Human Rights Division. The overriding objective of these
ongoing proceedings is to establish a limit upon ever-escalating government invasions of privacy
in child rearing matters. Equal rights among the genders in family issues and a greater respect forparenthood remain the hallmark of his latest civil rights initiatives.
Mr. Koziol is available for media interviews, commentary and public speaking engagements on
contemporary civil rights issues which are impacting our productivity as a nation.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/33080442/Guy-Tosti-Letter-to-Leon-Koziolhttp://www.leonkoziol.com/http://www.westerndoornovel.net/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9wrHdhBlG8&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6Hrr3uyh8w&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6Hrr3uyh8w&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9wrHdhBlG8&feature=relatedhttp://www.westerndoornovel.net/http://www.leonkoziol.com/http://www.scribd.com/doc/33080442/Guy-Tosti-Letter-to-Leon-Koziol -
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MAIN OFFICE PHOTOS
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CCOONNTTAACCTT IINNFFOORRMMAATTIIOONN
The Parenting Rights Institute offices are located at:
1518 Genesee Street
Utica, NY 13502
(315) 735-2271
Mr. Koziol may be contacted directly at:
(315) 796-4000 or [email protected]
Website:
www.leonkoziol.com
To Support Our Cause:
Your financial contribution may be made payable to Leon Koziol as Director of the Parenting
Rights Institute at the above address.
mailto:[email protected]://www.leonkoziol.com/http://www.leonkoziol.com/mailto:[email protected] -
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