STOP UNFAIR AND ABUSIVE TREATMENT OF SELF-REPRESENTED LITIGANTS IN FULTON COUNTY, GEORGIA
- Joseph L. Delgado (P.U.L.S.E.)
- Closed on
- Target:
- CYNTHIA D. WRIGHT, Chief Judge Of The Superior Court Of Fulton County, Georgia, USA
- Region:
- United States of America
Thank you SOOOO VERY MUCH for all of your support regarding this Petition. You folks are AWESOME!! Blessings to each and every one of you and see you at the next cause for justice!!
GEORGIA -- the birthplace of the civil rights movement and home of justice advocates as historically important as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and as politically significant as Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter -- is budgeted to spend nearly $154 MILLION DOLLARS on its legal system in 2011.
Where does that money come from? Georgia’s TAXPAYERS, OF COURSE, and what they want for their money is a system of courts that treat each and every litigant with fairness, justice, equality, and respect -- whether he or she has a lawyer or not!
One of those taxpayers is EDWARD J. DORT -- an upstanding, hard-working, community-minded, law-abiding resident of Fulton County, Georgia, and father of three. In 2008, Mr. Dort’s former wife, Karen J. Davare, instituted divorce proceedings against him in the Superior Court of Fulton County. Ms. Davare launched the case by using knowingly false allegations of “threats of domestic violence” to have the Family Court remove Mr. Dort from the marital home -- a painful spectacle she perpetrated in the presence of their children. As devastating and demoralizing as that experience was, Mr. Dort would later come to learn that the greatest miscarriage of justice was to come later not from Ms. Davare herself, but from the Fulton County Superior Court itself.
In August 2009, Mr. Dort’s divorce went to trial before Judge Gail S. Tusan. Financially distressed from having previously spent tens of thousands of dollars on attorneys, Mr. Dort was forced to go it alone as a Self-Represented Litigant (also known as a “Pro Se Litigant”). Taking to heart Judge Tusan’s public statement that “all persons and entities coming before me are treated fairly, equally with courtesy and respect,” which is prominently stated in her re-election campaign website, Mr. Dort decided to put all of his trust in the Georgia court system and all his faith in domestic democracy.
Unfortunately for Mr. Dort, as well as the cause for justice, the trial turned out to be a travesty of justice, resulting in various inequities which continue to plague Mr. Dort to this day, including, but not limited to, the following:
* Judge Tusan failed to voluntarily recuse herself from the case even though Mr. Robert D. Boyd, a member of Ms. Davare’s litigation team, was and still is a member of Tusan’s judicial re-election committee.
* Judge Tusan never addressed Mr. Dort’s repeated allegations of parental alienation by Ms. Davare regarding the parties’ teenage daughter, resulting in Mr. Dort not seeing his daughter in nearly two years.
* Relinquishing her responsibility as a judge in preparing final judgments, Judge Tusan adopted and entered, almost verbatim, opposing counsel’s draft of the final judgment, which was replete with pronouncements and monetary damages that unjustly favored Ms. Davare.
* With regard to child support and alimony, Judge Tusan permitted unlawful calculation favoring Ms. Davare by accepting opposing counsel’s misrepresentation of additional income that did not exist.
* To assist her in the administration of post-trial petitions that have ensued, Judge Tusan appointed Gary M. Alembik as her “Judicial Officer,” despite the fact that Mr. Alembik is associated with a law firm that practices family law in Georgia. Family Law attorneys functioning as judicial officers in FAMILY COURT?
* Both Judge Tusan and Mr. Alembik have permitted opposing counsel to submit “evidentiary” documents at hearings at the last minute, preventing Mr. Dort from having adequate time to review them, let alone to rebut them with evidence or witnesses of his own.
* With regard to the requirement that financial information submitted by both parties must be affirmed under oath as true and accurate, Mr. Dort complied as directed, but Judge Tusan and Mr. Alembik have unlawfully and prejudicially waived Ms. Davare’s compliance with the same.
To aid Mr. Dort and HUNDREDS of other Self-Represented Litigants in Fulton County Superior Court who suffer untold judicial bias, litigation abuse, and misconduct from opposing attorneys and judges, PULSE sent a letter to the Honorable Chief Judge CYNTHIA D. WRIGHT, dated March 23, 2011, seeking her intervention and investigation. Sadly, there has been NO RESPONSE to said letter -- not even the courtesy of an acknowledgement of its receipt.
The basic intention of this Petition is to hold Chief Judge Wright accountable for the conduct of the judges under her direction, namely Judge Tusan and Mr. Alembik, with regard to the unfair, improper, and prejudicial treatment they are inflicting on numerous Self-Represented Litigants. Fulton County residents, like Mr. Dort, who approach the Court unrepresented (many of whom are taxpaying, contributing members of society) should be respectfully and justly treated as “PEOPLE without lawyers” by the PUBLIC SERVANTS of the Court, and not as some sort of pestilence deserving mistreatment.
TO ALL JUSTICE-BELIEVING CITIZENS .... WHETHER YOU ARE RESIDENTS OF THE STATE OF GEORGIA OR NOT .... PLEASE HELP THIS CAUSE BY SIGNING THIS PETITION!!
Let us send a message to Chief Judge Wright and to all of the other judges of the Fulton County Superior Court that ALL LITIGANTS, those with and without lawyers, are entitled to a legal system that is unbiased, equitable, and just. Tell them, with your signature to this Petition, that we want our PUBLICLY FUNDED legal institutions to be MORE RESPONSIVE and ACCOUNTABLE to the adjudication needs of THE PEOPLE rather than to the career and economic interests of judges and lawyers.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
WE, THE UNDERSIGNED, in support of the PEOPLE UNITED FOR LEGAL SYSTEM EQUALITY (P.U.L.S.E.) and its mission to seek immediate protections and reforms for all Self-Represented Litigants appearing before said Court, and to stop and further prevent judicial bias, opposing attorney abuse, litigation misconduct, and other injustice and unfairness inflicted upon such Litigants, do hereby advocate for the following relief:
1. That Chief Judge Wright immediately recuse Judge Gail S. Tusan from the case of Edward J. Dort vs. Karen J. Davare on the grounds that at the time prior to and during the August 2009 trial, Judge Tusan had a conflict of interest with regard to Robert D. Boyd, Esq., who was co-counsel or otherwise professionally affiliated with Ms. Davare’s litigation effort.
2. That Chief Judge Wright immediately create and administer a procedure for accepting, reviewing, and investigating written complaints of judicial and/or opposing attorney abuse submitted by Mr. Edward J. Dort and other Self-Represented Litigants who still have cases in Fulton County Superior Court.
3. That Chief Judge Wright, pending such review and investigation, order that all trial or hearing schedules involving complaining Self-Represented Litigants be temporarily suspended, and that Case Status Conferences, with mandatory appearances by all litigants and their attorney, be held as soon as possible to determine how those cases shall proceed.
4. That all newly retained judges of the Fulton County Superior Court received two hours orientation detailing the plight and litigation concerns of Self-Represented Litigants, and once annually for all current judges.
5. That all current judges, magistrates, or judicial officers with affiliations with law firms that practice in the State of Georgia be immediately dismissed on the grounds that such is or can potentially result in a conflict of interest.
6. That, in cases involving Self-Represented Litigants, the practice of allowing opposing counsel to fashion orders and final judgments for the judge be prohibited in favor of restricting this critical duty to judges only.
7. That, in cases involving Self-Represented Litigants, the practice of allowing parties to submit evidence for a hearing at the last minute be prohibited in favor of restricting such submissions to deadlines of no less than 10 days prior to the subject hearing.
8. That, in cases involving Self-Represented Litigants, the practice of allowing judges, their staff, and opposing counsel to unilaterally schedule court dates without a verified attempt to coordinate such dates with said Litigants be prohibited.
9. That, in cases involving Self-Represented Litigants, hearing notices and orders must include clear and concise language advising that Litigants are solely responsible for securing the services and expense of an authorized court reporter if they later seek to appeal rulings or judgments.
10. That, in cases involving Self-Represented Litigants, the practice of allowing judges to “piggy back” or “lump together” two or more subject matters in a single proceeding be restricted to those instances in which such Litigants agree, in writing, to such maneuvers. Even then, hearings involving multiple issues should be scheduled for no less than 45 days in order to allow all parties adequate time to prepare.
The STOP UNFAIR AND ABUSIVE TREATMENT OF SELF-REPRESENTED LITIGANTS IN FULTON COUNTY, GEORGIA petition to CYNTHIA D. WRIGHT, Chief Judge Of The Superior Court Of Fulton County, Georgia, USA was written by Joseph L. Delgado (P.U.L.S.E.) and is in the category Justice at GoPetition.