Census Bureau Reports Marriage & Divorce Statistics

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released its report "Marital Events of Americans: 2009," which is the bureau's first such report after including questions about marital events as part of its American Community Survey (ACS), beginning in 2008. The report confirms previous indications from other sources that divorce rates, and marriage rates, are higher in the South than in the Northeast, among other things.  See the bureau's report here or read the summary from Reuters.



From the Reuters news article (August 25, 2011):

....Statistics from "Marital Events of Americans: 2009," show that in the South, per 1,000 men or women, divorce rates were 10.2 and 11.1 percent.

By contrast, Northeastern men and women had divorce rates at 7.2 and 7.5 percent.The national divorce rate was almost 10 percent, at 9.2 for men and 9.7 for women.

The report is the first to examine and detail marriage, divorce and widowhood among Americans ages 15 and older, using data from the 2009 American Community Survey (ACS).

"Divorce rates tend to be higher in the South because marriage rates are also higher in the South," Diana Elliott, a family demographer at the Census Bureau, stated in the report's release.

"In contrast, in the Northeast, first marriages tend to be delayed and the marriage rates are lower, meaning there are also fewer divorces."

Fourteen states had above-average divorce rates for men and women. Southern states such as Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas had divorce rates above the United States average for both genders.

For the 10 or so states that had below-average divorce rates for each gender, about half were in the Northeast.

States like Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York saw fewer divorces than average for men and women.

Divorces did impact the economic well-being of families.

Three quarters of children living with a parent who divorced in 2009 lived in a household headed by their mother.

Of women who divorced in the year studied, 23 percent received public assistance, against 15 percent of recently divorced men who received such assistance.

But such women also reported less household income than recently divorced men, with 27 percent having less than $25,000 in annual household income compared to 17 percent of recently divorced males.

They also were more likely to be in poverty; 22 percent of recently divorced women compared to 11 percent of such men.

Almost 30 percent of children living with a parent who recently divorced lived in a household below the poverty level, compared with 19 percent for other children.

Historically, data on U.S. marriages and divorces were collected from marriage and divorce certificates filed at the state level. According to the report, beginning in 2008, questions about marital events were added to the ACS to fill a void in the data collected in the United States.

Previous Post on Related Issues:

 BASEBALL BRINGS DOWN THE DIVORCE RATE?

For information about Massachusetts divorce and family law, see the divorce and family law page of my law firm website.

Baucus Bullshit

Well, now we know: Baucus outlines health plan without GOP support - AP/Yahoo News. The Max Baucus Plan is awful.

Actually, the Max Baucus Plan Sucks. Well, I'd use even stronger words than that. Baucus Bullshit, I'd call it.

It would cost $856 billion, but some $500 billion of that cost would be paid out of cuts to Medicare. The plan, which would have no public option, would do next to nothing to cut costs, next to nothing to provide competition or otherwise to reduce stealing and killing by the health insurance mafia. In place of the old Kennedy bill, which would have cost much less, at about $600 billion, and which would have had a public option, the "Democrat" Max Baucus has been crafting this crap for the health insurance industry.

And that industry is the only entity that should be happy with it. In fact the industry is directly responsible for it. It comes as little surprise to me that it was actually a former vice president of WellPoint, now working for Baucus, who penned this Bullshit. See The Max Baucus WellPoint/Liz Fowler Plan

Under this plan, in a manner similar to that of the Massachusetts system ushered in by Mitt Romney, the middle class would be forced to buy health insurance from the health insurance mafia - if ineligible for employer-sponsored health insurance - or it would be financially penalized. Far from being "socialistic" this legislation would force individuals to pay too much for crappy coverage directly to the health insurance mafia. It would be like a tax requiring citizens to pay money not to the government, but to a private racket.

Meanwhile, we should expect this same health insurance racket to continue paying out only between 55 to 80 percent of the money it collects from us in premiums to pay claims, while in constrast, the supposedly inefficient government Medicare and Medicaid programs pay out around 95 percent of their funds for actual medical care. The health insurance racket, with the help of its lackeys in Congress, wants us to allow it to keep sucking up 20 to 45 percent of our money for administrative costs and profits, while doing nothing effective to bring overall medical costs down.

Well, I did not expect much more from our Congress. If this passes, in anything like the present form, we will have a "Democratic" bill that truly sucks, and the Republicans will later easily be able to show that it sucks, and then blame the "left" for wasting money on a program that screws the middle class yet again and does nothing to solve any problems. Not enough people will notice that it was the health insurance mafia that brought all this about. Instead they will believe the health insurance racket's propaganda, through the voice of the Republican Party, that it is the "left's" fault.

Machiavelli must be smiling.

Huffington Post on Health Care

More good stuff on the health insurance racket's attempt to prevent even the first step towards its own demise can be found in some recent articles in the Huffington Post. I have my doubts about the emasculated reform legislation that is pending, and am still quite angry that our supposed liberal, alleged representatives in Congress have refused to fight hard for a single-payer system, but if the currently pending health care reform bill, with a true public option, ever sees the light of day, there would indeed be a sliver of hope that eventually we will all have the single-payer system we need, and the health insurance racket would thus end up every bit as dead as the many patients who are now its daily victims.

It is interesting that a majority of doctors support a public option. Majority Of Doctors Back Public Option: New England Journal Of Medicine Study. Makes sense. And to that I say: Why can't we just take it one step further with a single-payer plan. We can't we just pay our doctors for care? Why do we have to pay the health insurance mafia as well?

Economist Dean Baker has predictably intelligent comments on the big government "conservatives" who serve the interests of the health insurance racket while pretending to do otherwise. Dean Baker: The Public Plan Option and the Big Government Conservatives

And finally, although not so recent (this one's from June) here's the following article, about the health insurance mafia. It's an oldie but goodie: Bob Cesca: The Health Insurance Mafia Deserves a Good Screwing

The Health Insurers Have Won Again - Of Course

Well, it seems pretty clear that the health-care "reform" bill will be a joke. Even if it were to have a public option, it would still be a joke, but without one, there will continue to be little to no hope that after several decades of struggle, paralleling the career of our late Senator Ted Kennedy, the good people of this country will ever have a humane and decent health care system.

Of course what we have needed for a long time is a single-payer system, privately delivered - by some of the best medical providers in the world - but publicly financed. It has been very interesting, and ironic, to see that some of the most vociferous supporters of the health insurance racket are in fact older individuals on medicare. All we need is to expand medicare to cover everyone - thus eliminating the waste, greed and inefficiency of the health insurance racket - and then we could join the ranks of the other rich, and not-so-rich, countries, that have long ago created humane health care systems.

But the writing was on the wall a long time ago. In early August, Business Week already reported that The Health Insurers Have Already Won ("The Health Insurers Have Already Won; How UnitedHealth and rival carriers, maneuvering behind the scenes in Washington, shaped health-care reform for their own benefit").

Our supposedly liberal Congressional "leaders" from Massachusetts, which has not a single Republican in Congress, were complete wimps and sounded like it when they wimped out on the issue of a single-payer system. "We don't have the votes," they said, in explaining why they would use their own votes, and clout, in a way to insure that we don't have the votes. Pathetic. Shame on you, Kerry, Frank et al. Your "efforts" should be chronicled in "Profiles in Cowardice."





With "liberal leaders" like these pretending to fight the cause for us, it is no wonder that we the people will once again lose to the health insurance racket, which continues to control Congress, along with all the other corporate lobbies. Whatever shitty bill is eventually passed will simply change our course in an insignificant manner, and the big problems will remain. We will continue to be plagued with an insane health insurance racket and the US will continue to be a place where barbaric social and economic inequality and injustice for the benefit of the rich will be the norm. Brave New Films tells the sad story:




For information about Massachusetts divorce and family law, see the divorce and family law page of my law firm website.

Child Support Blues

If you think you have the child support blues, because of frustration in trying to receive or to pay child support, here's a real story for you. A minimum-wage-earning 29-year-old man in Knoxville, Tennessee, is already the father of 21 children with 11 different mothers. On second thought, I also should have mentioned frustration of the taxpayers, as they will in their own way undoubtedly be sharing the child support blues in this case as well.

Here's daddy on youtube:



Although this story appeared in the Huffington Post last month, I give my hat tip to Family Lore and Divorce Discourse, where I first found this interesting story in the blogosphere today.

For information about Massachusetts divorce and family law, see the divorce and family law page of my law firm website.

Recession, Pink Slips, and Child Support

Yes, we're in a recession, and that's obvious in family court, where pink slips have resulted in more child support modification cases: Fighting Over Child Support After the Pink Slip Arrives - NYTimes.com.

For information about Massachusetts divorce and family law, see the divorce and family law page of my law firm website.

A Fool for a Client? More on DIY Divorce

Now it is often said that he who represents himself has a fool for a client. But is that always true? When something very important is at stake, the answer is usually yes.

However, I was just quoted in today's Boston Globe, by relationship columnist Meredith Goldstein, in her short piece DIY divorce: Is it a good idea? - The Boston Globe. I appear in the article as the attorney who surprised the reporter by favoring do it yourself (DIY) divorce in some cases. Unfortunately, given the shortness of the article, my view that most divorces require legal representation, and that DIY divorces are only advisable, or even possible, in a limited number cases where there is really little in dispute, probably did not come through clearly enough. But the important counterpoint was provided by Attorney Laurie Israel, my friend from Brookline. Of course I think there are important truths in the comments by both of us.

If you're interested in the subject, see my previous post Massachusetts Divorce & Family Law Blog: NOLO, Its New Divorce Blog, and Do It Yourself Divorce and also see the Massachusetts Trial Court Law Library's blog post from back in January, discussing and linking to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's recent report on self-represented litigants: Massachusetts Law Updates: Self-Represented Litigants Report.

The fact is many people are taking their divorces, and family law representation, into their own hands, whether we like it or not. As a result our court system is reacting. Eventually, perhaps, there will be more unbundling of legal services, after the current experimentation with such unbundling of legal services in a few counties in Massachusetts has been sufficiently tested so that the results will give a greater degree of comfort to the judges, lawyers and clients who are trying this out, and consequently also to those of us who have not yet tried this out.

I do not believe one size fits all.

The longer I practice, and the more people I see, the more I am convinced that some people need no lawyers, while others should use a mediator, others could make very brief and efficient use of attorneys outside of court (unbundled legal services), others would be wise to choose collaborative lawyers, and still others should use more traditional divorce lawyers, and yes, sometimes even very aggressive trial lawyers who will have to take their cases all the way to trial.

I do imagine that some day it will not seem odd to find other trial lawyers, like me, who can openly acknowledge that many people should in fact handle their divorces on their own, or with minimal help from a mediator or a few attorneys outside of court.

For information about Massachusetts divorce and family law, see the divorce and family law page of my law firm website.

The Presidential Election and the Latest on Vote Suppression Efforts

The Red Sox and the Tampa Bay Rays just played a great series, and last night, in the seventh game, the Rays won the right to go to the World Series. The series was a close, but fair, contest. Let's hope our own Presidential election, which looks like it may be close as well, will also be fair.

On that issue, here's a must-read article by Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Greg Palast, in Rolling Stone Magazine: Block the Vote: Rolling Stone. It's good to see we don't always have to go to the UK to get decent investigative news reports on our own Presidential election. We just have to look harder.

EXCERPT FROM ROLLING STONE ARTICLE:
....In state after state, Republican operatives — the party's elite commandos of bare-knuckle politics — are wielding new federal legislation to systematically disenfranchise Democrats. If this year's race is as close as the past two elections, the GOP's nationwide campaign could be large enough to determine the presidency in November. "I don't think the Democrats get it," says John Boyd, a voting-rights attorney in Albuquerque who has taken on the Republican Party for impeding access to the ballot. "All these new rules and games are turning voting into an obstacle course that could flip the vote to the GOP in half a dozen states."

.....

ACORN Voter Fraud Hoax: A Case of Projection?

Now here's more on the Presidential election, from the Guardian in England (as I've said here, it seems we have to go to the other side of the Atlantic to get the best reports on our own election): Brad Friedman: The Republican voter fraud hoax guardian.co.uk. Well, some of the real story is also being reported right here in the USA, though not as widely as the ACORN hoax story. The important story, for example, does indeed appear in the current edition of Rolling Stone, Block the Vote: Rolling Stone, an article by Greg Palast and Bobby Kennedy, Jr. To their credit, the New York Times and CBS News(see links in the excerpt below) have actually also reported a bit of the real story.

The Republicans/FOX News have been disseminating their ACORN voter fraud story to distract attention from the main story, in what is sort of the political and journalistic version of "projection."

EXCERPT FROM BRAD FRIEDMAN'S GUARDIAN ARTICLE:
[The Acorn fraud story] is all a hoax. All of it.But it's been an effective one, as it's served to distract from very real concerns about tens of thousands of voters who have been illegally purged from the voting rolls in dozens of states, as the New York Times reported in a remarkable front page investigative story. That story followed a report the week before from CBS News detailing still more wholesale purges of voting rolls in some 20 states.That will be the November surprise, when thousands, if not millions show up to vote only to find they are no longer welcome to do so and are forced to vote on a "provisional ballot" which may or may not be counted.These real concerns of election fraud, such as voting roll purges, electronic voting machines that don't work and so much more that actually matters, have been obscured by the smoke and mirrors and sleight of hand of the Republican party's phoney Acorn voter fraud charade.And where they can, they'll parlay it all into new photo ID restrictions at the polls (knowing full well that some 20m, largely Democratic-leaning voters don't own the type of ID they'd need to jump over that next Republican hurdle.)Yet, with all of the unsubstantiated, wholly bogus claims of voter fraud being carried out by Democrats, there remains at least one case of absolutely ironclad, documented, yet still-unprosecuted case of voter fraud that, for some reason, Republicans don't much like to talk about.We can only wonder why.

www.gregpalast.com
www.stealbackyourvote.org

We Must Watch The BBC To Learn About Our Own Presidential Election

Our American corporate media is still busy spewing Wall Street's propaganda, which is responsible for helping to sell the Great Heist (a/k/a "the bailout") which the Wall Street banking community and its friends in the White House have succeeded in forcing upon a reluctant Congress.

Now it is clear that Congress, in almost complete unanimity, has struck out on three of the most important issues during the Bush Years: 1) Patriot Act, 2) Iraq War authorization, and 3) the bailout for banks. It must be depressing and lonely to be one of the handful in Congress, such as Vermont's Representative Bernie Sanders or Wisconsin's Senator Russ Feingold, who were smart and decent enough to take the lonely, principled position in opposition to each of these wrong moves. It is no coincidence that those few who turned out to have been right on those previously wrongly decided issues are the same ones who have correctly opposed the corporate/bank welfare legislation now.

And it will hardly be any consolation once these few courageous politicians who were right on those other issues are eventually judged by history to have been right again on this latest issue. It is hard to make good judgments and look ahead when the media is so caught up in the government and Wall Street propaganda of the present.

Naturally, this same American corporate media, whose normal modus operandi is to pass off as actual news the many warmed-over press releases from the government, whether on the economy or on war or on almost anything else, despite the huge credibility problems of this government, is now completely ignoring one of the most important news stories of our time. That important news is the greatest unreported story about the current Presidential campaign - the fact that Obama may lose the election due to Republican efforts to reduce, block, or eliminate vast numbers of poor voters in many states, in order to throw the election to the Republicans. Of course, our Republican administration would not be sending out press releases to ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and FOX on all of that.

So once again, just like in 2000 and 2004, we have to go overseas, to the BBC, to get this important news, even though the news comes from an American, Greg Palast, the greatest living investigative reporter in this country. Here are the reports as recently broadcast by the BBC:


BBC Report, by Greg Palast, Part One


BBC Report, by Greg Palast, Part Two

NOLO, Its New Divorce Blog, and Do It Yourself Divorce

Nolo, the very reputable publisher of legal forms, books, and other aids for those with legal problems they can handle on their own ("Do It Yourself" or "DIY") has recently sponsored blogs in various legal areas.

Since April of this year, Nolo’s Divorce, Custody & Family Law Blog has been in operation. Although the blog has not had very many posts to date, the quality is excellent, as the blog is written by California family lawyer Emily Doskow, who is the very author of Nolo's Essential Guide to Divorce.

While on the subject of DIY divorce, I want to say two more things:

1) DIY divorce is not for everyone, and it is best actually to get an initial consultation with a divorce attorney in your state to discern whether you can and should in fact handle your divorce on your own, or whether you need to hire an attorney, mediator, or other professionals. OK, you can stop laughing now. Honest to God, I myself have told many individuals, at their initial free consultations with me, that they should not hire me or anyone else, and should instead consider handling their divorces themselves. Of course, DIY is generally only appropriate when there are few, if any, unresolved issues between the parties, that is, when there is little or nothing in dispute, and also when there are no matters of any complexity.

2) The Nolo book is a good book for general reference and a general understanding of divorce, but one should actually find, if possible, a more specific book applicable to the laws of one's own state. Divorce and family law are governed by state law, and each state's laws, while similar in many respects, are in fact oftentimes quite different.

When I see a good candidate for DIY here in Massachusetts, I show them my copy of How To File For Divorce In Massachusetts, a book written and published by the founders of Divorcenet.com, Massachusetts' own divorce attorney Sharyn T. Sooho, and Steven L. Fuchs.

Full Disclosure: I am not just an ardent admirer of the book and especially the website, divorcenet.com, for which these two are responsible; I am also a longtime member/advertiser on their website, http://www.divorcenet.com/. But I get no benefit from this plug, of which the authors have had no advance notice from me, nor have I even informed them that that I have been quietly promoting their book for years. (As for the Nolo book, I do not even know its author nor have I ever communicated with her.)

Now, my own edition of the Massachusetts book is quite old and I am not sure if it has been updated. But it is still the best book - even the old edition I have - which I have seen for DIY divorce on the market in Massachusetts. I have recently seen another book in several of the big bookstores and it seemed reasonably good as well, but the Sooho-Fuchs one is the best.

For information about Massachusetts divorce and family law, see the divorce and family law page of my law firm website.

Stealing the Vote - Will the Republicans Be Able To Do It Again This Year?

Did Al Gore win in 2000? Yes, he did. The hanging chads, and the corrupt ruling of five members of the US Supreme Court were only part of the story. If thousands upon thousands of black voters had not been deliberately disenfranchised by Jeb Bush's Florida government, as documented and reported by Greg Palast at BBC and elsewhere, and if other intentional Republican cheating had not occurred (e.g., counting overseas military votes although the ballots arrived late), Gore would have been declared President in 2000. Despite Nader. Despite the hanging chads. Even despite a corrupt US Supreme Court which was willing to overturn the Florida Supreme Court in order to put Bush in the White House. Gore would have won, and those problems would not have mattered.

And then did Kerry win in 2004? Greg Palast has made a strong case that he did in fact win - specifically, that he actually won Ohio and New Mexico, and but for Republican cheating in those states, Kerry would have, and should have, been named President in 2004. In 2004, I contributed financially to Kerry's campaign and also I was one of the many lawyers who volunteered to help the Kerry campaign monitor elections in several important states. Given a choice of Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, I chose Pennsylvania, and was therefore responsible for monitoring a particular voting precinct in Scranton. (Afterwards, I joked that Kerry won Pennsylvania because I was there, and that had I opted for Ohio, Kerry would not have "lost.") The discrepancies in Pennsylvania and Florida in 2004 were not so many, but in Ohio and New Mexico they were enough, arguably (see Greg Palast's reports) to rob Kerry of the presidency.

Both Gore and Kerry did the polite, establishment thing and stepped aside for the sake of their own future careers - or whatever. To me, Gore was particularly disappointing in his refusal to fight, not for himself, but for the many disenfranchised voters whose votes were stolen in Florida. Many blamed Ralph Nader for the "loss" but the real blame belongs with the Jeb Bush-Jim Crow tactics that are frighteningly a major part of the Republican playbook, and which continue to threaten our "democracy" - that is, whatever remains of our democracy, now that big business has bought and paid for most of the politicians in Washington.

The mainstream media did not timely, accurately, and fully report the real story of 2000. Instead, weeks after the real story should have been on page one, the corporate media instead made allusions to the real story, as had already been reported in England and elsewhere in Europe, typically in a shamefully short article about the NAACP's "claims" buried on page 26. Nor did the media report on the vote stealing of 2004. The corporate media (General Electric, Disney, Rupert Murdoch, et al.) has also not reported the real story on the "Help America Vote Act" (an Orwellian name for a frighteningly repulsive federal law that continues to threaten our democracy).

For the real story - as there is hardly any guarantee we will get the unvarnished truth from the corporate media just because they have the constitutional "right" of a free press - one must read Greg Palast's articles and books at www.gregpalast.com.

Now Greg Palast has teamed up with Robert Kennedy, Jr., in an effort to prevent a repeat of the Republican vote stealing that has occurred in the last two elections. See www.StealBackYourVote.org. Perhaps Obama will win in a landslide, as Kerry should have done in 2004, and thus it will be impossible for the corrupt Republican machine to steal enough votes to take the election this time. But all who care about democratic values should be vigilant. Vote stealing is a time-honored tradition, both in this country and throughout the world - both "democratic" and "non-democratic". But while Jimmy Carter may monitor the elections in other countries, we can't expect to have outside monitors with any clout monitoring our own elections. We certainly can't count on our media to monitor the election accurately; the media, and not just FOX, has been a huge part of the problem, both in 2000 and 2004.

There is a documentary, now showing in East Cambridge, at Kendall Square's landmark theater, about vote stealing - Stealing America - The Movie - which I have not yet seen but which I will see soon. From the previews, I can see that both Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Greg Palast, among many others, are interviewed in the documentary.

The Alternative to CORI Reform: Let's Just Order Them to Re-Offend

Thanks to John Monahan and the Worcester Telegram and Gazette for an excellent article yesterday about the fact that CORI reform is now unlikely. The CORI reform proposals, introduced and backed by Governor Patrick, and as discussed and strongly supported by me here at this blog,

have run aground in the House Judiciary Committee, and the chances of the law covering criminal records being reformed before the Legislature ends formal sessions for the year in July now seem remote.

The reason? According to the article:

Earlier this week, Rep. Eugene O’Flaherty, D-Boston, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, reported that the bill has run into a lot of “roadblocks” because of the many complicated issues involving reintegration of ex-convicts into communities and the interest of employers to job screen applicants. His comments gave little hope the bill could be acted on soon.

Right. So, in other words, the CORI reform effort, which is in fact the effort to help reintegrate past offenders into society, by giving them a chance to housing and a job, and that is by reducing the extremely overbroad access of employers to information - information about not just convictions, but even about long-ago charges that led to dismissals or acquittals - has been derailed because employers still want that information, and they have the power on Beacon Hill.

This will be great for these employers, as they will continue to be able easily to identify a special kind of underclass, one that they can either avoid hiring altogether or relegate to lower paying, less desirable employment due to its much diminished bargaining power in the labor market.

But the collateral consequences of failure to reform CORI are that taxpayers will have to pay more for social services to make up for the economic deficiencies, and also more for the criminal justice system - including for law enforcement, our overcrowded jails, and the criminal courts and probation departments - as that criminal justice system will continue to be busy, if not busier, as a result.

The big employers blocking change are at the top of the economic ladder. Basically this is just another way in which the most powerful, wealthy interests are asking the majority of us as taxpayers to pay more taxes to cover the collateral damage that inevitably results from a system designed and created more for the benefit of these most powerful, wealthy interests than for anyone else.

I'm not saying individuals are not responsible for their crimes. However, I am a realist, and I believe the evidence is overwhelming that good, sound economic policies reduce crime. The attempt to block CORI reform seems to me to be just another unsound economic policy (and it is assuredly an economic policy as much as it is a criminal policy) and it probably deserves a chapter in the ongoing, unwritten history of Class War.

I have heard fellow criminal defense attorneys complain, often after a judge in a criminal case gives a poor criminal defendant on probation a short period of time to come up with very stiff probation fees, or when a judge sets very onerous conditions on probation, that "the judge just set him up to fail" or even - and this is my personal favorite - that "the judge just ordered him to re-offend."

Sort of a cynical joke among lawyers, maybe, but this is no real joke for those who have been in the world of crime, and now can't get a job or housing because of it. There are certainly criminal defendants on probation who have committed new crimes in order to get the money to pay their probation, court fees, restitution, or other court-related expenses, as they often find it difficult, if not impossible, to find a legitimate job.

And if former criminals, just like those currently on probation, also can't get a legitimate job or housing, they are more likely both to become dependent upon government benefits of one kind or another, and also either to steal, or sell drugs, or commit other crimes, just in order to survive. This is the difficult, cold, hard reality of former criminal offenders.

So I must ask, in that same, lawyerly cynical spirit: Is our legislature, at the behest of employers, going to deny CORI reform and instead "order former criminals to re-offend"?

For information and links related to Massachusetts criminal law see the criminal defense page of my law firm website.

Lawyers Are Good Doobies

Legal Blog Watch recently took note of the fact that about 350 lawyers, a majority of them family law attorneys, in West Texas have volunteered to represent, without any compensation, the 400 children taken by the state in its raid on the polygamist religious sect. Yes, it's true. Many lawyers are good doobies.

Massachusetts and New England Tops for Children

More evidence that Massachusetts, and its sister New England states, are great places for children has just been released by the Every Child Matters Education Fund. Susan Scully Petroni, editor of the Bay State Parent magazine, reports on the good news at the Bay State Parent Blog here. The full report itself: Geography Matters: Child Well-Being in the States.

Excerpt from the Bay State Parent Blog:

"Massachusetts is the second best state in the nation for U.S. children, based on a diverse set of 10 child well-being standards, including lack of access to prenatal care, premature deaths, malnutrition, poverty, child abuse and teen incarceration, according to a major new report released by the non-profit and non-partisan Every Child Matters Education Fund.

In revealing a nation that is starkly divided with what are often 'deadly differences' in how it treats its youths, the report shows 'geography matters' greatly when it comes to the ability of U.S. children to be healthy and survive to adulthood.

For example, children in the bottom of all the states are three times more likely to die before the age of 14; five times more likely to be uninsured; and eight times more likely to be incarcerated as teens.

The states with the best performance for children are (in order) Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Iowa, Minnesota, Washington, & Maine. In fact, all 6 New England states made the top 10, making it the best region in America for children....."

For information about Massachusetts divorce and family law, see the divorce and family law page of my law firm website.

Incarceration Nation

The New York Times yesterday published a good basic primer on a most embarrassing type of American Exceptionalism, i.e., America as Incarceration Nation: Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations’ - New York Times. The first part of the article, written by Adam Liptak, is excerpted below:

"The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.

Indeed, the United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.

Criminologists and legal scholars in other industrialized nations say they are mystified and appalled by the number and length of American prison sentences.

The United States has, for instance, 2.3 million criminals behind bars, more than any other nation, according to data maintained by the International Center for Prison Studies at King’s College London.

China, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million people in prison....

...."

For information about Massachusetts criminal law, see the criminal law page of my law firm website.

Single Parenting Costs Over $112 Billion Per Year in Taxes, Study Claims

As recently reported by the Associated Press, a new study, by Georgia State University economist Ben Scafidi, and sponsored by several "marriage movement" groups, including the New York-based Institute for American Values, purports to show that divorce and unwed childbearing costs Americans over $112 billion a year in extra taxes.

But after my initial, very quick review of the report, I believe this study really does little more than highlight a correlation between single parenthood and poverty. I certainly don't think it proves that the claimed extra billions in tax costs are a direct consequence and result of single parenting itself; in the language of law school torts class, there is no "but for" causation here. Surely, divorce and nonmarital breakups are very costly to splitting families themselves, whether they are in affluent or poor neighborhoods. And yes, some of these costs, not only for the poor but also for the affluent, are passed on to the rest of us through extra taxes.

But the study seems to focus mostly on the most vulnerable of broken families and the supposed extra tax costs of welfare dependency by poor single parents. And for that lower strata of society, this may be like the question about the chicken and the egg. Which comes first, poverty or broken homes? Certainly there is a correlation, but is there causation, and if so what and where is that causation, and which way does it run? I'm not sure. I don't think this study comes close to answering those questions.

Can we really "strengthen marriage" as the sponsors of this study want to do, without first improving economic conditions for people in this segment of our society? I tend to think the critics, who suggest we would do better to focus on education and full employment policies rather than "marriage strengthening" plans, make more sense. You know, it's the economy, stupid. But on the other hand, I am sure there are in fact other, non-economic forces that contribute to the pulling of families apart, and that in turn lead to the duplicate expenses that make life so hard for them, and more costly for all of us.

So it's good that someone is seriously looking at this issue. I hope that further such studies will follow. I have only briefly looked at the study, and I already see some big problems with it, but still, there is a lot of interesting data there and it's well worth a look. You can find the study and related information about it at the Institute for American Values website here, where you can sign up to download the study for free.

EXCERPT FROM AP ARTICLE, APRIL 15, 2008:

NEW YORK - Divorce and out-of-wedlock childbearing cost U.S. taxpayers more than $112 billion a year, according to a study commissioned by four groups advocating more government action to bolster marriages.

Sponsors say the study is the first of its kind and hope it will prompt lawmakers to invest more money in programs aimed at strengthening marriages. Two experts not connected to the study said such programs are of dubious merit and suggested that other investments -- notably job creation -- would be more effective in aiding all types of needy families.

There have been previous attempts to calculate the cost of divorce in America. But the sponsors of the new study, being released Tuesday, said theirs is the first to gauge the broader cost of "family fragmentation" -- both divorce and unwed childbearing.

....

For information about Massachusetts divorce and family law, see the divorce and family law page of my law firm website.

Indigent Parents In CHINS Cases Now Get Free Attorneys

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) recently looked at two CHINS (children in need of services) cases, one from Worcester County and the other from Essex County, in both of which a juvenile court judge had denied a mother legal right to court-appointed counsel. The SJC ruling in this consolidated case In the Matter of Hilary has now established that parents in these cases do indeed have a right to be heard, may have an attorney representing them in these proceedings, and further have a right to an appointed attorney if they cannot afford one.

For more information about the case, see the February 11, 2008 article by David Frank in the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, SJC gives parents right to counsel in CHINS cases.

About this expanded access to justice, the Boston Globe, in an editorial from February 14, A Break For Desperate Parents opined: "Providing lawyers for poor parents could cost roughly $1 million to $2 million a year, according to Mike Dsida, a deputy chief counsel for the state's Committee for Public Counsel Services. This is only fair. Parents accused of abusing their children already have the right to a lawyer if they risk losing custody. Parents in CHINS cases should also have that right."

I completely agree with this recent SJC ruling, which expands in a reasonable way access to justice to parents in CHINS cases, and with its analysis and rationale. I similarly agree with the Boston Globe's commentary.

Furthermore, I believe that this case, and its basic rationale, lend great support to my longstanding position that the SJC should also require the appointment of lawyers to indigent individuals in district courts and family courts when and where they are challenging restraining orders, at the very least when these individuals have children in their home and they risk losing custody. See my previous post touching on this issue here.

The specific issue of access to justice for individuals defending against restraining orders has not yet been before the SJC. I hope that important issue will also be before it at some point soon, and the SJC will fairly and appropriately continue to expand access to justice in a sensible way, as it has done in this recent CHINS case, for which it should be applauded.

Excerpts from IN THE MATTER OF HILARY:

"The issue of first impression that we decide in these consolidated cases from the Worcester County and Essex County Divisions of the Juvenile Court Department, which are here on a reservation and report, without decision, from a single justice of this court, is whether, after a child is adjudicated a child in need of services (CHINS), a parent is entitled to counsel at the dispositional phase of the proceeding, if custody of the child is at issue. G.L. c. 119, § 39G. Two Juvenile Court judges denied, among other things, the indigent mothers' requests for such court-appointed counsel. Because we conclude that, pursuant to G.L. c. 119, § 29, parents are entitled to counsel at the dispositional phase of a CHINS proceeding if the judge is considering awarding custody to the Department of Social Services (department), and have a concomitant right to intervene in the case, see note 18, infra, we reverse the decision of the Worcester County Juvenile Court judge and remand that case for further action consistent with this opinion.

....

For the reasons set forth above, we conclude that, pursuant to G.L. c. 119, § 29, after a child is adjudicated a child in need of services, a parent is entitled to counsel at the dispositional phase of the proceeding if custody of the child could be granted to the department. We reverse the decision of the Worcester County Division of the Juvenile Court Department and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.So ordered. "

For information about Massachusetts divorce and family law, see Law Offices of Steven Ballard.

Governor Patrick Makes First Good Move Toward CORI Reform

Governor Patrick has now decided what to do with CORI reform, as indicated in this press release issued yesterday by the Governor's office. He has filed legislation, which of course has to be acted upon, but has also implemented some changes through executive order. The best article I've seen on this so far is from the Worcester Telegram: CORI Reforms Bill Filed; Changes to Help Ex-Cons Get Jobs, Worcester Telegram & Gazette, by John J. Monahan, January 12, 2008.

The Boston Globe also published yesterday a column by Adrian Walker, who, while praising the Governor for this effort, pointed out both that on the one hand this is a rather timid reform, and on the other, that it may not even be passed by the legislature.

The Walker piece discussed Senator Dianne Wilkerson of Roxbury, who is one of those who believes the reform measure does not go far enough. "She has argued that juvenile records should be inaccessible but aren't," explains Walker. "She also maintained that the proposal does not go to the heart of the issue, which is that people with criminal records have trouble finding work and rebuilding their lives."

And then I think Senator Wilkerson hit the nail on the head when she said, as quoted in the editorial: "I think those people who have difficulty finding work because of CORI are not going to have much relief after the release of the governor's plan, and that to me is the most unfortunate part of it. The only real test is whether last year's no becomes this year's yes."

Although this CORI reform is welcome news, there are some things CORI reform advocates had hoped for, but which are not in the executive order and legislation. The Blue Mass Group Blog has a post and some good accompanying comments on some of the gripes of the reformers, a few of the biggies being that this reform will not clean up the records themselves - records which in many cases contain way too much information, and are inaccurate, inconsistent, and misleading - and also, as indicated by Senator Wilkerson, there is no change in the handling of juvenile records.

It seems the Governor took the cautious approach that the Worcester Telegram advocated some time ago, a cautious approach which I feared and which I spoke out against in this blog.

Too bad. This just means still more reform will be needed later on or else we will continue to live with absurd problems, including more, and unnecessary, government expenses for taxpayers, as we continue to create impossible dilemmas for those lowest on the economic ladder in this state.

Opponents of CORI reform should realize that this reform is about people who are already out of jail. We can't lock everybody up and punish them forever. They are out here. So now what do we want them to do? Enabling these people to get to work, get housing, and otherwise move on with their lives will reduce the rates of recidivism and welfare dependency.

But hats off, Governor Patrick, for having the courage at least to make this very good first step in the right direction. Let's hope our legislature has the decency, intelligence and courage to enact the legislation, and follow up with even stronger reforms later on.

For a good explanation of CORI, see CORI Project - Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, Inc., where you can find the "CORI Reader" - a very instructive article on CORI in a pdf file.

TELEGRAM ARTICLE EXCERPT:

"BOSTON— Gov. Deval L. Patrick filed legislation yesterday that would reduce the time the public could view most criminal records — from 15 years to 10 years for felonies and from 10 years to 5 years for misdemeanors — to make it easier for past offenders to get jobs and to reduce prison recidivism.

The changes are among numerous proposed reforms to the state’s Criminal Offender Record Information law laid out by the governor after a year of study.

'CORI was never intended to turn every offense into a life sentence,' the governor said in a statement announcing the initiative. 'All but a handful of people incarcerated are eventually released, and they need to get back to work.'

While the change in the length of time before records are sealed and some other changes would require legislative approval, several changes were implemented by the governor by executive order yesterday.

The legislation also would increase access to sealed criminal records for police and criminal justice agencies, granting them access to all criminal records sealed by the courts, and would impose a new penalty of $5,000 or one year in prison for those convicted of making unauthorized requests, unauthorized use or dissemination of CORI records.

Handling of juvenile records would not change under the legislation.

Meanwhile, the governor directed state agencies to implement several other changes in the handling of criminal records...."

For information and links related to Massachusetts criminal law see the criminal defense page of my law firm website.

When Child Support Doesn't Get to the Children - Another Way Our Children Are Being Left Behind

Today's New York Times article on child support by reporter Erik Eckholm deserves to be read in full: Mothers Skimp as States Take Child Support - New York Times (December 1, 2007 New York Times Article, By ERIK ECKHOLM)

Not often can one read such an intelligent discussion of the child support collection system. This article examines a particularly troubling current nationwide failure of our child support collection system - that is, the particular failure of our child support collection system within the lower income population of child support obligors and recipients. Sadly, our current system of collecting child support on behalf of poor custodial parents, which does not simply pass on child support to poor custodial parents but funnels collected money first back to the government to reimburse the government for public assistance benefits and collection costs, has failed miserably to do what it was originally designed to do - i.e., actually support children.

As the information in the article suggests, budget and political priorities have stood in the way of reforms desperately needed to protect those who have the weakest political voice, namely the poor, both mothers and fathers, child support recipients and obligors alike. Our child support collection system, even though increasingly effective in collecting more and more money, is about as effective in helping the poor as is "No Child Left Behind" - you know, that educational national law/policy that doesn't put its money where its mouth is, gives unfunded mandates to the states, and is more appropriately called "No Child Left Untested." But of course we are told we have more important things to do, like, for example, we have a few wars to pay for right now....Class War too, you say?

"MILWAUKEE — The collection of child support from absent fathers is failing to help many of the poorest families, in part because the government uses fathers’ payments largely to recoup welfare costs rather than passing on the money to mothers and children. Close to half the states pass along none of collected child support to families on welfare, while most others pay only $50 a month to a custodial parent, usually the mother, even though the father may be paying hundreds of dollars each month. Critics say using child support to repay welfare costs harms children instead of helping them, contradicting the national goal of strengthening families, and is a flaw in the generally lauded national campaign to increase collections.... "