Sunday, June 5, 2011

A Possible Solution for Divorce Court: GPS Monitoring

Guest Entry by Bonnie Russell!

Bonnie Russell is a long time legal publicist whose clients are attorneys in a variety of practice areas. Due to the rising numbers of women at risk when they decide to divorce their husbands, in 2001, Bonnie Russell founded Family Law Courts.com to bring awareness to the mainstream media, who seldom venture into the one court most used by the public, most often, and for the longest period of time. Sprocket.

Given family murders are on the rise, (two families wiped out in less than a week in the San Diego area) while Arizona became a laughing stock in family court, my hope is family law attorneys will begin to protect their clients by asking for a GPS with Victim Notification enhancement to any restraining order they might request. If not, as the founder of Family Law Courts.com, I would suggest finding another attorney. Separately, I look forward to reporters asking judges why they're not currently being used.

How it works is the company monitoring (which is wholly separate from "tracking") notifies the potential, intended victims ahead of time, should the restrained person begin to approach the court-ordered stay-away distance, ahead of time, but in time enough for the intended victim to leave the area and save their own life.

Any of these devices feature Victim notification, including one with a siren for a little "mobile neighborhood watch."

This is necessary for four reasons. First and most important;

1. The California Judicial Council decriminalized crimes committed against family members. See the form for supervised visitation which explains how kidnapping become "parental abduction" and sexual molesting becomes mere, "abuse." (A side note being there is no oversight for Supervised visitation monitors.)

2. Often the police refuse to provide police services. This testimony could be before *any* city council in California.

3. Some police officers are killing their wives, girlfriends, and children.

4. The Supreme Court ruled (Castle Rock vs. Gonzales) that police officers aren't mandated to enforce civil restraining orders.

So as long as the criminal attacks continue being adjudicated in family court, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the police do not have to enforce civil restraining orders, a restraining order with an GPS with victim notification enhancement means for the first time, an effective restraining order exists.

In other words for the first time, women would no longer be sitting ducks.

Given the statistics on murder in California GPS with victim notification is long overdue. I look forward to family court judges incorporating GPS monitoring with Victim Notification enhancement to restraining orders they might order when necessary. Family Court judges have the same duty to protect victims from attack in a civil court, as their counter parts already do in criminal court.

Bonnie Russell

2 comments:

Walker said...

thanks for the post guys..family law is the part of legal practice that covers domestic relations. These range between marriage and divorce, to concerns of adoption and surrogacy, and also to issues such as common law marriages and same-sex marriage. In Denver, as anywhere else, you will need a lawyer who has a substantial amount of knowledge within your unique area of need.

Bonnie Russell said...

Thanks for this. In another report today the Atlanta Journal Constitution and various television stations are breathlessly reporting yet another custody exchange, related murder.

http://www.ajc.com/news/north-fulton/police-man-shot-ex-968475.html

However, and once again, media gets the facts correct, but never tells the story of judges who aren't using the GPS with victim notification technology that would enable these murders to be prevented. My questions is - why?