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Domestic
Violence: the haves and the have-nots.
We
live in hypocrisy. The state says it is wrong to kill. Mortal man who make
up the state punish with killing.
The state says it is wrong to fight or
use violence, yet the police of the state use violent force to subdue.
When the
state prosecuted O.J. Simpson for murder, and failed early on to prosecute
him because of his position, for domestic violence it led to murder. This
mistake by the state would lead to totally unreasonable domestic violence
laws. Zero tolerance is unreasonable tolerance.
There
should be varied degrees of domestic violence.
1.
Harsh language resulting from strong feelings or emotions;
vehement; furious. That does not mean a person or persons that are
extremely loud is engaged in domestic violence, unless their loudness
about their difference of opinion is manifested in lies. Loud,
unreasonable language would be the first degree of domestic violence.
2.
The second degree is when the disgust is so intense that a person
breaks something in warning of their total disgust of a situation.
3.
Thirdly, the most severe degree is when a person actually
physically harms another. Even in this situation we have degrees of
intensity and control.
I
believe we should not harm one another. But I have lived in a world where
violence is a part of our life because of injustice.
To
calm a violent nature does not come through counter violence or man
punishment, rather love, compassion, and understanding.
Abrupt
excessive punishment (which is cruel and unusual) leads to the breakdown
in the individual and the family structure. If a person is put in jail for
six months he learns nothing about the pattern of behavior that led him
there. Punishment for no good reason is not fair punishment.
With
the cost of living, a struggling person jailed for six months will be put
behind for years. Many people in a month could start to lose their
material goods.
If
punishment destroys the quality of the individual life and does not have
redeeming qualities, it is cruel and unusual.
Case
1
“A
Call In The Night”
In
the beginning of “final challenge vol.1" I wrote that the mayor of
Akron helped obstruct the truth relevant to a domestic violence charge
against the previous police chief In a Tuesday July 25, 2000, Akron
Beacon Journal article, Akron city councilman Bob Otterman said the mayor
could fire the chief or any civil employee if the transgressions are well
documented according to charter rules.
The
police chiefs' wife told enough credible witnesses about the chief
physically abusing her. (A judges wife, friends and doctors.) When she
didn't want to face the responsibility of her accusations she fled. With
common citizens the state would take this case on and pursue it.
When
the press pursued the truth, her and her husband were allowed to obstruct
justice. They even sued the newspaper and were awarded $250,000 for
harassment by the press. They betray their world and are rewarded. This is
not just.
Suddenly
the chief has to retire for health reasons. A full pension at public
expense. Betraying his society and abusing his power, he is rewarded. The
mayor of Akron (a major American city) helps in this offense to the common
good.
On
April 7, 2001, at about 4:00am I was awakened by a call from my longtime
friend Deborah Alexander. She proceeded to tell me how her husband was
taken to jail on a domestic violence charge. I have known these people for
years. Their daughters are the closest I have been to any children. I have
known them before birth. I would guard them with my life.
I
have known Glen Alexander from when he first met his wife. He is not a
perfect man, but he is not a bad man. He is just a mortal man. I am
certain he cares about his daughters and would die for them. He is a
struggling workingman in tough times. Our inflated economy (rising energy
costs) buries the common person deeper in debt. Wages have not kept up
with the cost of living. The rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer.
Glen
and Debbie live in the lower half of a house in Kenmore (a burg of Akron).
The landlord promised them new windows and to redo the bathroom and fix a
leaky basement, plus new carpeting over five years ago. That is when they
first moved in. None of these promises have been honored.
They
have been on time, behind time and ahead of time on rent over those years.
They always had paid their rent to him.
Steve,
the landlord, does not honor the twenty-four hour notice required of
landlords before entering their house, He has flirted with Debbie and the
two underage daughters when Glen wasn't around. Once, last winter, he
grabbed Shirley, my 15-yr old friend, and dipped her as in a semi-romantic
dance move. This made Shirley very uneasy and I advised Glen and Debbie to
take Shirley to the prosecutor's office to make record of this forced
flirtation on a minor female child. Shirley was embarrassed and didn't
want to go, so they refused obedience to my sound advice. I know this
would at least record a complaint. If anything of that nature
happened again, there would be a record of this previous offense. Numerous
families have come and gone in the upstairs apartments. Steve has always
improved it for re-rental, while always neglecting his duties at Glen and
Debbie's apartment. Finally he would start to rework the bathroom in their
apartment, never truly finishing it while tying up one of their bedrooms
for some 8 to 10 months. This has diminished their living space with no
compensation or mention of it. Steve does these things because he's been
allowed to get away with it. The health department has ordered many
repairs and then left Steve to further neglect his obligations. When
Debbie complained about the ineptness of the health departments inability
to monitor Steve and protect the families health and safety, the woman
representing the department acted like Debbie should have called to remind
her about Steve's negligence. We are not supposed to enforce the rules or
take the law into our own hands. It is a shame those sworn to serve
neglect their duties. They always put everything back on the common
person. (There are rules to monitor the landlords neglect.)
May 12, 2001 Akron Beacon Journal “Landlord Laws”
Glen
and Debbie are financially strapped. They are behind in rent because they
want to move since they lost faith that Steve would ever treat them
decently.
If they put money in escrow, as the court would
advise, there is no assurance they would ever get any relief from Steve's
negligence and offenses to their lives. How can they get an attorney and
sue when they are struggling to exist? I have helped others in similar
situations only to find that the court does not protect the renter, or in
many cases, the landlords' rights.
Steve should never have disrespected them as he
has, but he knew their circumstance and felt he could get away with it.
Since Steve has gotten away with so much and he
has many other rentals, it is reasonable to believe his offenses towards
good landlording are many. He truly is a slumlord. Does as little as he
can and get as much as he can.
They go to court and the court only sees their
refusal to update their rent, but does not want to hear the reason why.
The judicial system is not fair when it comes to tenant landlord rights.
No one wants to hear the whole story.
Glen
is a truck driver He is laid-off from his winter job since the economy is
slow. He has always tried to support his family to what he feels is the
best of his abilities.
As
I originally said, Debbie called me at 4 o'clock in the morning because
she realized I might have a just resolution to the dilemma over Glen's
arrest.
What had happened was the two daughters got into
an altercation and Glen stepped in to correct the circumstance. Glen
wanted to ground the girls for their unreasonable behavior, but Debbie
contradicted his discipline. Samantha, seeing the breakdown in authority,
knowing her father does not brutalize her, overstepped her boundaries and
verbally assaulted her fathers pride and authority. As police do nightly
on television, he resorted to the use of marshal law to restore control.
(A slap, not a punch.) This action was an exception to the rule, not the
norm. I do not personally believe that brute force is the way to a passive
world, but when the beast is offended (our body), its immediate response
is to strike back. I try to believe that I am a total pacifist, but years
ago a friend of mine had children that were raised with very little
discipline. The way I worked to try to get close to them in their
turbulent state was to play fight. His daughter, who was about five at the
time, was sitting on my lap facing me as we wrestled with each other's
arms in a playful manner. Suddenly she spit right in my face. The beast
was offended and before I had a chance to think or pacify my position,
reflex caused me to slap her face. No time for thought or self-control.
Should I have been incarcerated for domestic violence or child abuse?
In Akron a 15-year-old boy shot his father to
death over years of intimidation and abuse. Agencies knew about these
abuses, yet they continued. (They have persecuted this boy for his
defensive action.) Total inconsistencies have left unreasonable
applications to punishment. Glen has several character witnesses to
testify on his behalf about him not brutalizing his children. In fact Glen
was brutalized as a child. It is to his credit that he did not use
corporal punishment over the years as a rule in their home.
Jesus cracked the whip in the temple. Since he
used a loud, abrasive voice towards the moneychangers and he knocked over
the tables in anger over their offense to his father's house, he should
have been arrested for domestic violence and locked up for six months
according to today's unreasonable standards.
Love and not vengeance is the way to the more
perfect union. Our world today is self-indicting because of its vengeful
rule.
In any event, the neighbor upstairs heard the
commotion from downstairs and called the police. The new laws on domestic
violence trap the police. If there's a commotion, someone must go to jail.
The police came in the house. Took over their
home. Questioned Glen and Debbie to the events that had occurred and once
determining Glen had slapped Sammy, they arrested him. They both, by now,
realized Glen was not a bad guy and the one officer told of a similar
circumstance he had with his own child. Neither cop at this point really
wanted to take Glen to jail, but because of an unreasonable law they had
to do what they didn't feel was right but they had to protect their own
position. They would even defend him and praise his cooperation to the
prosecutor. They didn't feel jail would do him or the circumstance any
good. Glen over heard them the day of the pre-trial. The cops told the
prosecutor that Glen was highly cooperative. They told Glen they didn't
like arresting him.
Debbie
called me the morning of April 7. I immediately looked into my files to
find two articles in reference to the Miranda Act.
Articles 1 – June 27, 2000 “Supreme Court Rejects Miranda
Rights Challenge” and Article 2 – June 28, 2000 Editorial page
“Miranda Stands” The Supreme court held that the Miranda is an
ingrained part of our way of life. By now Glen was not arrested properly
and the state had no true case.
I
would get these copied and take them to Debbie so she could take them to
the prosecutor and Carla Moore “the judge” in this matter. The judge
and prosecutor would ignore them. Debbie said they said it had no
relevance in the case. Debbie called me and I called Carla Moores office
where they would be out to lunch. I left a message. Jeremy “the
prosecutor” would call me back about an hour later. I would tell him I
would defend this case and the importance of the Miranda act relevant to
this matter. At arraignment, Carla would tell Debbie that she would have
to take the Miranda issue up with Glens next judge at pretrial. I had sent
Carla a copy of the materials about the Hannah Hill murder. Debbie would
leave a copy the day of the arraignment. Ignoring the Miranda issue,
Jeremy and Carla would be willing to bully people they feel are
defenseless but are willing to obstruct the just resolution of a murder.
This is evil and unfortunately right now we are in an evil empire.
Knowing
they would persist in persecuting the Alexander family by separating Glen
and Sammy until pretrial two weeks later. They threatened to keep them
separated if they wished to take this matter to trial, which would
eventually lead him to plead under duress. This is a typical tactic. He
would be left to be around Shirley, Sammy's older sister. If they felt
Glen to be an unreasonable brute, it would have been irresponsible on the
courts part to allow him around his other daughter. They knew he was not a
brutal threat, but they would still abuse their positions to persecute
these people’s lives.
The
public defender, the prosecutor and the judge all refused obedience to the
law. They expect us to respect the law.
April
16, 2001, was pretrial day. Carla was still judge. Jeremy, after seeing
the Miranda papers, still wanted to give Glen six months in jail. They are
so bold with their abuse of power; they no longer believe the truth.
When
Debbie protested the six month sentence, Jeremy tried for three months,
then house arrest, and finally agreed to community service and anger
management, even though he knew by law they had no case. They try to say
the Miranda did not apply in this circumstance, another blatant lie.
Even
to be somewhat fair, family counseling should have been offered. Debbie
did more to defend Glen then the "public defender" hired by the
state. (Debbie used my name liberally in court). The anger management
night program was filled. Glen would have to go days, which would hinder
his ability to gain new employment. When Carla was asked about this she
didn't care as long as he complied with her orders. To attend 13 classes
costing thirty-five dollars a class is ridiculous. The public service work
would end up being nothing more than slave labor. In the paper work it
stated a fine of $250.00 or public service. Carla would not let Glen just
pay the fine.
To
be fair, the punishment must match the crime and it must have socially
redeeming value or else it is cruel and unusual. Without positive purpose,
punishment destroys law and order. This is true of our society today. This
is self-indicting. The truth is always the truth.
This
punishment would only add more pressure on their domestic tranquility and
served no socially redeeming purpose. The courts ignore the rules; tamper
with the merits of a case. Carla stayed in her back room ignoring the deal
the prosecutor and Debbie worked out. She is the judge, how can she be
with her head in the dark? They
worked to destroy rather than salvage relationships.
In
a criminal world it was the Alexander's fault. They created a circumstance
where heartless individuals are allowed to overpower and disrupt the
continuity of their lives.
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