Commissioner Debra Losnick is running for judge and this turns our collective eyes back to Family Law Los Angeles Style.

Can we coin the phrase Kindercaust to describe what happened to the first generation of children who fell under the court’s authority due to the desire of their parents to get a divorce?

Judges did not march children into ovens, but they destroyed countless lives and left these children emotionally, educationally and sometimes physically crippled. Biased judges separated children from perfectly good parents and left children in the homes of probable abusers.

Some of the judges were motivated by drumming up business for their friends in the cottage industry. Some were sickos. Some were stupid.

When a parent-litigant began to make strides against the family court, often, the case would be transferred to the Dependency Court.

The dependency court was able to operate like the Star Chamber. There was little transparency. Somehow, not allowing open court was supposed to protect the young kids from embarrassment and stigma, but it really just protected abusive parents and less than adequate judges and commissioners.

Commissioner Debra Losnick served in the dependency court for many years. She is running for judge now, and thinks her longevity entitles her to the respect and power that comes with the upgraded title. She turns her memory from 1996, when the following report was made by County Counsel as told in the L.A. Times.

“The county counsel said two toddlers had been ordered by Commissioner Debra Losnick back to the home of their father, who was shown on a confiscated videotape lying on a bed, nude except for a T-shirt, having his son demonstrate how an older cousin had sexually abused him.

“The counsel’s report said that Losnick rejected an allegation of sexual abuse and ‘found that there was no risk to the child.’

“In fact, the [offended] judges said, Losnick rejected a sexual abuse finding but affirmed ‘inappropriate conduct by the father which placed the child at risk of harm.’ Losnick’s order allows the father to see the 3-year-old boy and his 1-year-old sister only with a monitor present, an arrangement that even the county’s own social workers have supported since this spring, the rebuttal states.

“On Aug. 27, the state Court of Appeal served notice that it would overrule Losnick and send the case back to another judge. The order admonished the lower court that the ‘purpose of Juvenile Court Law is to protect minors.'”