WHERE VOICES OF VICTIMS AND ADVOCATES MATTER
"The hardest part isn’t that I’m legally stopped from helping my child. It’s watching her adapt to survive a situation that is still harming her AND knowing that intervening could make it worse. There is a pain I don’t think anyone prepares you for. Knowing your child is suffering & not being able to do a single dam thing to take that pain away. You feel it before they ever say it. The distance, the shorter replies, the shutting down. The way they give you surface level answers because going deeper feels too dangerous. Your whole body knows they are not okay. Every instinct in you wants to move, to reach, to pull them back into your arms, your body, your safety. To hold them until the pain eases. But you can’t.
You’ve been warned. Ordered. Taught that if you step in, if you push, if you ask the wrong question, it will make things worse for THEM. So, you stand still.
And that grief, that helplessness, has nowhere to go. You watch your child adapt to survive; you see them learn to hide parts of themselves. Sometimes even hide their love for you. This is not because it’s gone, it's because loving you openly costs them too much where they are.
That does something to a mother. It rises up from the pit of your stomach like a wave. It burns its way into your chest, up into your throat. You work so hard to keep it there. To swallow it. Because letting it spill feels like it would destroy everything. You are parenting under restraint, loving under threat, holding yourself together while your heart is breaking. And NO ONE tells you where to put this pain. There is no guidance for it. No language for knowing what’s happening & being forced to stay still. No support for the mother who sees clearly but has had her power taken away. So, women turn it inwards, they question themselves. They try to mute their instincts. They tell themselves they should cope better. But this is not weakness, this is not over attachment, or being overly protective or worried & this absolutely is not failure. This is what happens when a mother is made to witness her child’s distress & is denied the ability to protect them. That bind is unbearable. If you’re living inside it, you are not imagining it & you certainly are not alone, even if it feels like you are carrying it in silence. This is exactly what we are holding inside the Sanctuary this week. The grief. The restraint. The love that has nowhere to land.
You don’t need answers. You don’t need to be composed here. You don’t need to make sense of it yet. You just need somewhere this heartbreak doesn’t have to be carried on your own."
-Lisa Arterton
19-Year-Old Sues Family Court Officials for $250 Million..
for Taking Her Away from Mom; Giving Custody to Father. Defendants Include Lawyers, Social Workers, Evaluators, GAL’s “The defendants conspired to deny Annelise access to the courts and intentionally inflicted emotional distress on Annelise while she was still a minor. Defendants knowingly interfered with Annelise’s constitutional right to a relationship with her mother and four siblings, causing inordinate stress and difficulty.” - Dede Evavold, blogger at Red Herring Alert
Annelise Rice, a hockey player at UND [University of North Dakota] and graduate of Minnetonka High School, filed a lawsuit on March 17, 2017, in Minnesota federal court seeking damages for deprivation of civil rights by tortuous [sic] intervention [interference] in a mother-child relationship and deprivation of rights under color of the law (Civil Action No. 17-cv-796 ADM/HB).
*The defendants include court-appointed Guardians at litem, Social Workers, and lawyers who were involved in the custody evaluation and CHIPS (Child in Need of Protection or Services) proceedings for Annelise Rice.
*Judges, lawyers, and social workers no longer have absolute immunity and can be held responsible for their actions that deprive Constitutional rights, even if they are acting in an official role.
This case is highly unusual due to the large amount of defendants involved.
*Annelise asks the court for relief in an amount great enough to deter defendants and others in similar positions from engaging in this egregious misconduct in the future. There have been many cases of negligence by social services that have put young lives at risk.
Social workers, Guardians at litem, lawyers, and judges need to be held accountable to prevent further neglect, abuse, and deaths of children in protective care. This lawsuit could potentially turn into a class action suit, because of the amount of families that have been mistreated in this way.
EXCERPTS from: 19-YEAR-OLD SUES FOR DEPRIVATION OF CIVIL RIGHTS
https://redherringalert.wordpress.com/.../comment-page-1/...
SUMMARY: Annelise’s mom, Caroline, went from being a stay-at-home mom to losing custody of her five children. When the father decided he wanted to take the kids away from his ex, family court officials, led by Judge Richard Perkins, kicked into gear and made that happen. Full custody was awarded to the father, even though the children testified to horrible physical abuse by him.
At one point, Annelise ran away from her father and fled to Canada with her mom, however they were caught and Caroline was jailed. Caroline was jailed three times in her many attempts to protect her children, and she was tormented there in an effort to break and silence her.
Judge Perkins presided over the prosecution of Caroline for "abduction", which was a clear conflict of interest, and at which she, not surprisingly, was convicted. But the appellate court actually overturned her conviction citing Judge Perkins' biased handling of the case, including exclusion of evidence of the father’s abuse from the jury. So there was some due process for Caroline at the appellate level, which is unusual.
The children have spoken about the pain of losing their mother for many years.
COALITION NOTE: The sheer number of court-affiliated officials whom Annelise is suing spotlights the systemic coordination to empower fathers to take custody of their children—and that is not an exhaustive list. There are likely many more professionals who participated. Most cases in which a mother is trying to keep or protect her children involves many court-affiliated professionals who go along with the agenda and help the father win custody—whether he is abusive or just wants to avoid child support.
It is unclear why Judge Richard Perkins is not included in the lawsuit, since the article asserts that judges can now be held accountable through these civil rights lawsuits, and especially since an appellate court found Judge Perkins to have been biased.
It is also unclear who the judge is on Annelise's federal civil rights case. The docket states that it is Judge Ann Montgomery, but that it is referred to Judge Hildy Bowbeer.
Hopefully, whoever it is will not dismiss the case and will make fair rulings.
Answers to Annelise's complaint are due in June.
The Guardian ad Litem Is Not a Guardian — It Is an Unchecked Weapon
I was told the Guardian ad Litem existed to protect children.
What I experienced was something very different.
I experienced a system where one unelected individual—operating without adversarial testing, without constitutional safeguards, and without meaningful oversight—was allowed to shape the outcome of my children’s lives based on subjective judgment, narrative framing, and institutional convenience.
This is not a personal grievance. It is a structural failure.
And it is happening to families everywhere.
What Parents Are Not Told About Guardian ad Litem Reports
Guardian ad Litem reports are treated as neutral, authoritative, and child centered.
In reality, they operate as unreviewable power instruments inside family court.
They are not sworn testimony. They are not subject to cross-examination in any meaningful way. They are not produced under evidentiary rules.
Yet they often carry more weight than police reports, medical records, or sworn statements.
Once written, the narrative hardens.
Once hardened, it becomes reality—no matter how flawed the process behind it was.
Narrative Replaces Evidence
In my case, the report did not function as an objective investigation. It functioned as a storytelling device—one that framed behaviors through interpretation rather than proof.
Trauma responses were reframed as instability. Context was stripped away. Patterns were reduced to character judgments.
Allegations were dismissed not through forensic inquiry, but through plausibility assessments that favored one party’s explanations over another’s—without equal scrutiny.
This is not investigation. This is narrative selection.
The Illusion of Neutrality
Guardian ad Litems are often described as “neutral.” But neutrality requires structure—and this system has none.
There is no meaningful mechanism for parents to challenge: • interpretive bias • selective emphasis • omission of relevant context • reliance on disputed psychological characterizations • moral judgments disguised as child-centered reasoning
Once the report is filed, parents are told they cannot publicly discuss it. They cannot quote it. They cannot show it. They cannot meaningfully defend themselves against it in the public square.
Meanwhile, the report quietly shapes judicial outcomes behind closed doors.
That is not neutrality. That is insulation.
Due Process Ends Where GAL Power Begins
In constitutional systems, power is checked through transparency and challenge.
The GAL system bypasses both.
Parents are stripped of: • confrontation rights • evidentiary standards • meaningful appeal mechanisms • timely review • proportional accountability
The result is a private administrative regime operating inside public courts—one where constitutional protections quietly dissolve.
Family court does not operate like criminal court because it claims to act “in the best interest of the child.”
But when “best interest” becomes a shield against scrutiny, it becomes dangerous.
The Human Cost Is Invisible — Until It Isn’t
The consequences of these reports are not theoretical.
They result in: • forced separation between parents and children • financial collapse • prolonged litigation • psychological harm • relational rupture that may never fully heal
Children are told this is for their protection—while the adults they depend on are silenced, discredited, and removed from their lives through administrative storytelling rather than due process.
Parents are expected to endure this quietly.
I refuse.
Speaking Out Is Civic Duty
I have petitioned every available arm of government. I have followed every prescribed channel.
I have waited, complied, absorbed loss, and documented harm.
When institutions fail to respond to lawful petitions for redress, the First Amendment does not end.
It escalates.
The right to speak. The right to publish. The right to petition.
These rights were written for moments when power becomes unaccountable.
Social media is today’s press. Public exposure is today’s last remaining check.
This Is Bigger Than One Family
The Guardian ad Litem system is structurally incapable of protecting children because it is structurally insulated from accountability.
No transparency. No adversarial testing. No constitutional guardrails.
Until that changes, families will continue to be dismantled under the guise of protection.
This is not justice. It is administrative harm.
And it must be confronted—publicly.
Guardians' ad Litem should not be attorneys.
They should not be drawn from the same profession that profits from prolonged litigation, strategic delay, or adversarial framing. They should not be trained in winning cases, managing narratives, or negotiating outcomes between adults.
A Guardian ad Litem is supposed to protect children—not advance legal strategies.
That role requires an entirely different skill set.
GALs should be independent child-advocacy professionals, trained extensively in: • trauma dynamics • domestic violence and coercive control • child development and attachment injury • nervous system dysregulation • high-conflict abuse patterns • post-separation abuse and litigation abuse
They should be able to recognize when a parent’s behavior reflects trauma, fear, or survival response—not mislabel it as instability or unfitness.
They should understand how abuse mutates inside court systems, how power imbalances distort behavior, and how children are harmed when safety signals are misread.
The conflict of interest is structural
Lawyers are trained to: • advocate for positions • weigh credibility strategically • prioritize procedural outcomes • operate inside adversarial systems
Children do not need an advocate trained in adversarial combat. They need a protector trained in truth-discernment and safety assessment.
When GALs are attorneys: • bias is inevitable • collusion risk increases • institutional loyalty overrides child-centered judgment • due process quietly erodes
This is not a personal flaw. It is a design flaw.
Independence must be real, not symbolic
A true Guardian ad Litem must have: • no financial dependence on court actors • no professional overlap with custody litigators • no incentive to preserve system harmony over child safety • full background screening for conflicts, collusion, and prior misconduct • external oversight with enforceable accountability
Without this, “best interest of the child” becomes a slogan—not a safeguard.
Children deserve specialists, not system insiders
We do not appoint prosecutors to serve as defense counsel. We do not appoint insurance adjusters to evaluate injury claims for victims.
So why do we appoint litigation professionals to determine children’s futures?
This model fails children because it was never designed for them.
If we are serious about protecting children, we must separate child advocacy from the legal industry entirely.
Anything less is not reform. It is rebranding harm.
-Carey Ann George
Trauma Expert & Independent Investigator On Family Court Corruption & Failures
"Your kid has been given permission to disrespect you. In fact, they’re rewarded for it.
When a high-conflict parent wants to minimize you, the fastest way to do it is NOT through courts or custody schedules, but through conditioning your child to see you as someone who can be dismissed, challenged, or punished without consequence. When a child is given emotional permission to disrespect you and is rewarded for it with approval, protection, or affection from the other parent, they quickly learn that rejecting you is not only allowed, it is beneficial.
What looks like attitude, teenage rebellion, or a child “just being difficult” is often a carefully trained survival strategy. The child stays aligned with the more powerful, emotionally volatile parent because that is where safety, stability, and love seem to live. They learn that siding with that parent keeps them out of trouble and keeps them emotionally protected, even if it means sacrificing their relationship with you.
This is why every eye roll, ignored call, or cruel word hits so deeply. It is not just about disrespect. It is about a child being placed in an impossible loyalty bind where loving you feels dangerous. In that environment, rejecting you becomes a form of self-preservation, not a reflection of who you are as a parent.
And that is the quiet tragedy of parental alienation: a child is taught to abandon a loving parent in order to survive the emotional world they are trapped inside."
-VIP Stepmom by Naja Hall
