Church and State: Attacked from Within

I’d like to thank the creators of the YouTube channel Texas 25.03 for making the videos posted on the linked site freely available for inclusion in this blog. Although the State of Texas hosts the videos on its official website, obtaining an electronic copy to upload costs “$25 in addition to a $15 processing fee,” according to Sandy Canizales of Senate Media Services of the Texas Senate.

Texas Penal Code §25.03 defines the offense of Interference with Child Custody, making it a crime to take or retain a child in violation of a court order. My heart goes out to other parents who have been separated from their children by court orders with no clear justification. This post is not an endorsement of violating those often Draconian orders—but it is a call to examine how unjust they can be.

I fought the separation from my children as a pro se litigant. The California Supreme Court acknowledged that the judge who originally terminated my parental rights appeared biased and improperly involved in the case. Still, the Court did nothing to restore my relationship with my children. My younger son was barred from all contact with me from the day he turned 13 until his 18th birthday.

He died at 30 from methadone toxicity. It’s hard to imagine that being cut off from a loving mother throughout his adolescence was ever in the best interest of the child.

Commissioner Alan Friedenthal—the man who issued what amounted to an early death sentence—is no longer able to destroy lives; he lost his own. I still hope that minor’s counsel Kenneth P. Sherman and Judges Thomas Trent Lewis, Marjorie Steinberg, and Elizabeth Feffer will someday acknowledge their roles in this devastation and make amends.

As the creators of Texas 25.03 and the Texas Senators pushing for reform have made clear, a few corrupt judges—if left unchecked—can ruin countless lives. Most judicial ethics committees, and frankly, most appellate courts as they exist now, are little more than rubber stamps for injustice, funded by the public.