“Gag order” is a term referring to a prohibition by a judge, forbidding attorneys, parties to a case, or witnesses in a case involving a pending lawsuit to talk about material that is considered of critical evidentiary substance dealing with facts that would influence the outcome of the case.
It is a form of restricting information or comment with the goal of protecting the integrity of the case.
However, in family court proceedings where there is often little protection of evidence via a discovery process before trial that vets and explores evidence, there tends to be a global failure of orderly production and /or protection of evidence.
Gag orders imposed by a judge on an off-the-cuff basis are more often meant as a vehicle of coercion, threats, and intimidation spirited by judicial bias and an attempt to control and suppress evidence, as opposed to properly vetting the omission of evidence.
Protecting evidence to be presented is critical to any court proceedings and the viability of any legal process.
The admission of hearsay, libelous statements, and false documents poses an extreme threat to a lawful proceeding.
Family court judges with a penchant toward autocratic and biased/prejudicial directives can use gag orders to clearly direct the outcome of any hearing or legal process.
Just as the failure to admit testimony can have a destructive impact, the admission of testimony that is not properly vetted would qualify as hearsay, because of a lack of authentication.
The admission of unqualified witnesses whose presence is by fiat and directive of the judge also poses a tremendous threat to the authenticity and accuracy of any finding by a judge who runs their courtroom as if they have a God-given right to implement their attitudes and directives.
The rule of law as protected by the United States Constitution still has a presence and a critical role in family court cases despite the all-too-present specter of the violation of such rights implemented by judges who rule by fiat.
Judges are restricting the ability of litigants to access information, to access advocacy and representation in their court case, and ability to have access to documents that are being used to remove rights and privileges guaranteed under the Constitution. This is related to litigants’ ability to view and review any testimony that is being used to prosecute and remove the rights of an individual who is the subject of a court proceeding.
What we have seen in many court proceedings in the age of Gardner parental alienation debunked theory is that judges are ordering litigants to engage so-called professionals whose qualifications, training, and professionalism are viewed by the credible scientific community as at best junk and at worst implements of coercion, threats, intimidation, and torture.
The capacity of judges to attempt to implement unconstitutional orders and then threaten litigants with imprisonment, with loss of their liberty, loss of their income, loss of marital property, and loss of legal services are all Constitutional violations which must be fought by the public who comes under the threat of such imperialistic autocratic actions by judges who have become well established figures in the family court arena.
One example of a judge who has routinely implemented orders and actions that violate constitutional rights are that of Judge Gallina Mecca of New Jersey, who is the presiding judge who has become a prime example of a great majority of the crimes committed by the legal community in family courts across the country.
Gallina Mecca has been discussed as the source of multiple murders of litigants in her court as a result of the removal of protective orders where litigants have come from other states into the New Jersey court, litigants subject to long term protective orders because of acute violence towards their spouses and children.
They appeared before Judge Gallina Mecca and were able to have the protective orders removed, which was then followed by the murders of the subjects of the protective orders.
Short of murder, Gallina Mecca’s track record of implementing long-term massive suffering against protective parents and children has been well established. Her irreverent use of all repressive tools at her disposal have included gag orders.
In one among many infamous cases before Judge Gallina Mecca, she ordered the transfer of custody of two young children into the isolation and control of a parent who had been known to have been a source of physical, sexual, and emotional violence towards the mother and emotional, physical abuse and violence and neglect of the children over the course of a 15-year marriage.
The husband, a Harvard law school graduate and attorney, filed for divorce in 2020 when he suddenly wanted custody of the children. He desired to extract punishment on his spouse and children, extract extraordinary financial advantages, as well as to assert cruel unconscionable punishment against a spouse who he saw as not submitting to his abuse and infidelity as well as defying his will and authority.
Exceptional documentation of the case was well established but entirely suppressed by Gallina Mecca who asserted gag orders, attempts to constrict and control the client’s representation and sources of legal and psychiatric consultation as well as seeking to have a highly intelligent, competent woman declared to be incompetent and in need of conservatorship.
Gallina Mecca’s ruling in a malicious, arbitrary, capricious and biased pattern of rulings consistently against the protective parent was facilitated by her enforcement of suppressing evidence and sealing transcriptions, copies of orders, awareness of motions, and other legal actions filed against the Defendant. Further, Gallina Mecca conscripted any criminal or family court attorney hired by the Plaintiff to represent her .
Gallina Mecca ordered the attorney representing the Defendant to not be allowed to speak about her own case. Attorney after attorney complied with Judge Gallina Mecca and supported the directives of the court. The Defendant had absolutely no representation whatsoever as the judge railroaded her every attempt at legal intervention as presented in the Defendant’s complaints and admonitions of the judge.
When the Defendant fired her attorney, Gallina Mecca barred the attorney once hired by the Defendant from being able to provide his former client with her legal file.
Gallina Mecca attempted to assess that the Defendant was mentally ill and incompetent to manage her own affairs or to have access to her own marital assets or even to be provided alimony support for the years of her marriage in which she was a caretaker and homemaker. The terms of the marriage were based on the expectation that the Defendant would be home and present to be a homemaker and to provide child care for her children.
However, Gallina Mecca has in this case ordered massive amounts of support to the Plaintiff despite the fact that the Defendant has not been employed for more than 15 years of marriage and the Plaintiff is asserted to have been a multimillionaire.
Gallina Mecca has attempted to place a gag order with regard to the consultants that the Defendant was able to seek counsel from. She attempted to threaten and intimidate the Defendant from gaining access to legal representation beyond that which was court appointed.
Each of the attorneys and court-appointed factotum assigned to the Defendant entirely sided with the directives of the court and served only for the purpose of isolating the Defendant from all contact with her children and from all sources of legal defense.
Gallina Mecca was not successful in this regard, and multiple articles about her have been published by Jill Jones Soderman Forensic Expert and Executive Director of the The Foundation for Child Victims of Family Courts. Extensive legal consultation and direction has been provided to the Defendant and her family members as Gallina Mecca and her disciples have continued to be confronted with litigation regarding their anti-democratic, unconstitutional attempts at destroying the viability of the case of the Defendant in favor of the illegitimate case of the Plaintiff.
One indication of the success in the battle against Gallina Mecca—and others of her ilk, but her in particular—is that legal consultation and opposition to her continues as does extensive writing about the criminal practices and constitutional violations constituted by her.
On June 6, 2023, Ms. Magazine published the article “Experts Say Catherine Kassenoff’s Family Court Case Should Alarm America” by Amy Polacko. The article referenced Dr. Bandy Lee.
The attorney for the Plaintiff in a marital dissolution family court custody case demanded that the article be removed, deleted, and unpublished.
As evidence of life support for the United States Constitution, the magazine director is protecting the publication of this article. Having heard from their litigation counsel, Ms. Magazine immediately reposted the article, noting that Ms. Magazine was not a party to the lawsuit, had not received notice that such an order was being sought, and was not in the court’s jurisdiction. The counsel noted that removal of the article would have been functionally and presumably unconstitutional under ongoing publication.
Our message to the public is that threats, intimidation, and coercion must not be allowed to be an intimidating force. The rule of law is that free speech that does not incite lawlessness or threats to others—other than those who wish to restrict the freedoms, speech, thought, rights to assert personal protections from defamation and harm—must be asserted and protected.
Intimidation must never be tolerated when such intimidation seeks to limit rights and privileges related to the greater good of public expression of democratic principles.
As one very well respected law professor noted in his comparison of very difficult family court cases to baseball he said “baseball is a game of the long season. If you are not hitting, nothing is going to happen”. Litigation is about hitting and continuing to hit until you win. You may lose a lot but you keep firing, arguing, presenting your evidence and seeking resolution through solid law and the litigation that advances the protection required for ultimate resolution.
The FCVFC has been and continues to be a believer and activist in pursuing the big picture and the long game!
