We've posted on this case many times, but it still infuriates me. This mom KNEW that her ex-boyfriend STEPHEN GARCIA was violent and threatening to kill her and their 9-month-old son. But THREE JUDGES turned down her requests for help. The baby was later murdered by his father during court-ordered visitation.
Due to a TREMENDOUS public outcry, Judge Robert Lemkau finally apologized to this mother. This is extremely rare for a judge. As an "Internet forum specializing in family court issues," I'd like to think that Dastardly Dads played some small role is extracting this apology.
None of this restores this murdered baby to his mother's arms. But perhaps some other child will be spared in the future. One can only hope....
http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_14524931
Grieving mother hopes others will benefit from her tragedy
Mike Cruz, Staff Writer
Posted: 03/06/2010 06:12:39 AM PST
SAN BERNARDINO - Katie Tagle had the evidence in her hands that she believes could have prevented the death of her 9-month-old son, Wyatt.
Threatening e-mails and text messages from her son's father. Police reports that told of danger brewing for Wyatt and his mother. And frightening postings on the social network Facebook.
But none of that mattered when the 23-year-old Yucca Valley mother sought an emergency restraining order against the boy's father, Stephen Garcia.
Judge Robert Lemkau denied Tagle's request at a Jan. 21 hearing in Victorville Superior Court, but not before he accused her several times of lying and threatened her with "adverse consequences," according to transcripts of the hearing.
"God, I'm just sitting there crying, and I'm so, so angry," the young mother recalled last week. "I remember when I walked out of the courtroom, Stephen was holding open the door and he was just smiling at me."
Tagle was shocked by the judge's decision.
"I wish he would have just listened to me," she said.
The day of the hearing, Tagle had left Wyatt at home in Yucca Valley.
She was sure the judge would find in her favor and protect her son.
Instead, she had to drive home right away, get Wyatt and hand him over to Garcia to comply with a court-ordered visitation.
Garcia was waiting with a deputy for Tagle to exchange Wyatt.
"I had to do it," Tagle said. "I didn't want to get in trouble.
I didn't want to get Wyatt fully taken away from me."
Ten days later, authorities say, Garcia loaded Wyatt into his car, drove to Old Toll Road, an isolated dirt road near Twin Peaks, then fatally shot Wyatt before turning the gun on himself.
With a heart weighed down by the pain of a lost child, Tagle now hopes her story generates change.
"I just don't want this to happen to somebody else," Tagle said, as a large photo of a smiling Wyatt lay on a table before her.
After weeks of silence, Lemkau on Wednesday apologized to Tagle from the bench - a rare move for a jurist - and said he was sorry for his comments to her during a roughly 2-minute mea culpa.
Tagle said she could see the judge was reading from a prepared statement and felt Lemkau's words lacked feeling.
"He said that he never meant to put Wyatt or any child in harm's way," Tagle said. The judge also said he was father and a grandfather and that Tagle's case had affected him, too.
Lemkau did not return several messages left seeking comment for this story. The court's presiding judge has said it would be unethical for Lemkau to discuss the case with the media.
As a result of the decision, Deputy District Attorney James Hoskins said he plans to challenge Lemkau for his seat on the bench.
A march is also planned by Tagle's supporters early Monday morning in front of the Victorville courthouse. Other media outlets have interviewed Tagle, and Internet forums specializing in family court issues are abuzz with news of her case.
A FATEFUL HEARING
Supported by her sister Andrea Rodriguez, mother Maria Brown and other family and friends, Tagle recalled some of the events that preceded the tragedy.
Another Superior Court judge, David Mazurek in Joshua Tree, initially denied an emergency protective order for Tagle, before granting it on Jan. 14. Mazurek's order ran out on Jan. 21, and Tagle had planned to present all the e-mails, text messages and police reports on that day to Lemkau.
But before the proceedings even got underway, Lemkau appeared to have already made his decision, according to the court transcript.
"One of you is lying and I am very concerned," Lemkau said, just moments after he identified the parties involved and announced good morning. Garcia had claimed the e-mails and alleged threats were fabricated in his written response to the court.
But Tagle continued to try to relay to the judge that Garcia had indeed threatened to kill Wyatt.
"(Garcia) sent my mother a text message asking me to go to the lake with him and Wyatt," Tagle told Lemkau. "And when I get home from work at 11:00, I have these e-mails saying that he's going to take his life and our son's life at the lake the next time he gets him.
"And if he doesn't do it that day, he will finish the job later," Tagle said.
The judge denied her request and left the visitation orders in place.
"My supposition, ma'am, is that you're lying, but if I'm incorrect, you can always bring another ex-parte motion," Lemkau said. "But don't misrepresent the situation. If you're lying about this, there's going to be adverse consequences. My supposition is that you're lying."
Tagle said she hoped to get supervised visits for Wyatt and his father.
"I never wanted Wyatt to go without a dad," Tagle said. "Everybody thinks I just wanted to take Wyatt away from Stephen, and that wasn't the case at all.
"Stephen needed help. He started saying he was going to kill me, kill the baby, kill himself and that's when... He needed help, and everybody just ignored it and sugar-coated it," said Tagle.
Tagle's mother, Maria Brown, said the judge had a number of options before him instead of just denying her daughter's request. Wyatt could have been temporarily given to Tagle's sister.
"He could have protected Wyatt in a number of ways," Brown said. "If he doubted her and he doubted Stephen, he could have taken custody away from both of them at that point and protected that baby."
`HE DID IT'
The evening before Wyatt and Garcia died, Tagle said they were hopeful they would the baby back from his father's visitation.
The mother and her family had been up all night, and they were getting little information from the Sheriff's Department.
Finally, around 5 a.m. on Jan. 31, dispatchers told Tagle that detectives wanted to come out to her home in Yucca Valley and talk to her. When detectives called her 15 minutes later, she asked where Wyatt was.
Detectives simply responded that that was why they wanted to talk to her.
Tagle called Garcia's mom, because detectives had told her they wanted to talk to Garcia's parents too.
"Did they call you?" Tagle said she asked Garcia's mom. "And that's when she started crying. She said, 'You didn't hear?' And I said, 'No.' She said, 'Just go home. Just go home. Just let the detectives talk to you."'
Garcia's father had also been searching for his son, the mother said, then offered a cryptic but chilling explanation.
"He did it. He did it," Tagle recalled being told.
At 9:30 a.m., detectives arrived at Tagle's home. Wyatt wasn't with them.
"I was hoping to God that they had Wyatt in the back seat and they were bringing him to me," Tagle said. "Even though what she had told me, I was like, `no, he's going to be in the back seat. He's going to be in the back seat.' And he wasn't."
Detectives asked if she wanted to hear the details, but Tagle couldn't handle the news.
"I ran out in the middle of the desert," Tagle said. "My brother came chasing after me. He grabbed me and made me stop. I didn't want to hear it.
"I couldn't be around anybody anymore. But they said there was two confirmed (dead), and that was it," she said.
Tagle doesn't want to be pitied by people who hear her story. Instead, she and her family want justice for Wyatt.
"I know people feel bad for me and stuff," the young mother said.
"They want to help and they want to give me money and everything. I'm not looking for that.
"I just... I just don't want this to happen to somebody else."
Read more: http://www.sbsun.com/news/ci_14524931#ixzz0hSNC9jHD
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Saturday, March 6, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Pursuit ends in father shooting to death 9-month-old son during court-ordered visitation (Pinon Hills, California)
As the mainstream media hopefully emerges from its slumbers regarding family violence and child custody issues, more and more information is coming out on STEPHEN CHARLES GARCIA, who shot to death his 9-month-old son during court-ordered visitation. Judges need to be held accountable for these outrages.
http://www.mountain-news.com/articles/2010/02/04/news/news1.txt
Pursuit Ends in Murder-Suicide
A two-and-a-half-year romantic relationship gone sour came to a tragic end early Sunday when a distraught father led sheriff's deputies on a chase through the mountains before pulling into a snowbank in Blue Jay and killing his infant son and himself.
Deputies said Stephen Charles Garcia, 25, of Pinon Hills, shot his 9-month-old son Wyatt at 1:19 a.m. before turning his Walther P-99 pistol on himself on a lonely stretch of Old Toll Road.
Aided by a department helicopter, sheriff's deputies, who had pursued Garcia after deputies from the Hesperia station had trailed him into the mountains, arrived at the scene only seconds after the fatal shots were fired, said Twin Peaks Lt. Dwight Brink.
"Deputies from the Hesperia station were following him," Brink said. "Local deputies were staged, and intercepted him. It was hard to keep him in sight," he added, given the icy condition of roads in the Twin Peaks and Blue Jay areas that night.
Twin Peaks deputies backed off their pursuit, Brink said, for fear that an innocent person might be injured.
"It was pretty miraculous that no one was hurt in the chase," Brink said, "and that there was no damage to any other vehicles. There were very treacherous conditions for a chase."
According to a Twin Peaks crime report, members of the family of Katie Tagle, Wyatt's mother, own three homes on Peak Spur Road in Twin Peaks, perhaps offering an explanation for why Garcia fled into the mountains.
FORMER ARROWHEAD RESIDENTS
Another possible explanation is that, according to a statement filed in court by Tagle during her legal wrangles with Garcia, the two had lived together in Lake Arrowhead at an unspecified previous time.
Throughout the day on Jan. 30, Garcia reportedly was in near constant phone or texting contact with Tagle, repeating threats to kill their son if they could not reconcile and inviting her to join them so he could kill them all and they could be together in heaven.
Garcia left a rambling, emotional 17-paragraph suicide note in his white Toyota Tacoma pickup truck. Until the chase reached its fatal conclusion, Wyatt sat, strapped in a child's seat, in the back seat of the extended-cab truck. A copy of the note was obtained by this newspaper.
Throughout the note, titled "So This is Goodbye," Garcia stressed his great disappointment over not being able to reconcile with Tagle, with whom he had lived in his parents' home before-reportedly tired of being physically abused by him-she moved to Yucca Valley.
"Everyone kept saying give it time, keep going to court, keep doing what your doing," Garcia's farewell letter stated. "No body got it. Not even Katie. I didn't want to fight Katie. I didn't want shared custody of Wyatt. I wanted my family back.
"What good is having Wyatt full time, or 50/50 without Katie. I would of had to live with my parents forever, be alone, have Wyatt go back and forth for years to the guy Katie cheated on me with," Garcia wrote. "I would of never been happy."
'LOVE YOUR FAMILY'
The note, obtained from Tagle's family by the Hi-Desert Star of Yucca Valley, this newspaper's sister publication, finished by stating, "I'm sorry. We love all of you. Be with your family. Live out your lives, be happy. Do not dwell on what I have done. Move on with your lives and cherish every minute of it. HOLD AND LOVE YOUR FAMILY! PLEASE IT'S MY FINAL WISH."
The note also has a paragraph addressed to members of Katie's family and certain of the couple's acquaintances, who apparently attempted to head off any possible reconciliation.
"I will see you in f______ hell," the bitterly worded paragraph reads. "I held the gun, you pulled the trigger. I cried for help. I told you this would happen. I told you to help me get my family back but you laughed at me...the blood is on your hands."
Along with the note, this newspaper also obtained from Tagle's family a copy of a court document which suggests Wyatt might still be alive had a judge ruled differently on a petition Tagle filed in a Victorville court just 10 days before the murder-suicide.
In her petition, heard by Judge Robert Lemkau, Tagle requested a restraining order against Garcia and a permanent end to his unsupervised Thursday-through-Sunday visits with Wyatt. Instead, Tagle requested supervised-only visits, said Stacy Moore, managing editor of the Hi-Desert Star, who interviewed members of Tagle's family.
A week earlier, Moore said, Judge David Mazurek, assigned to the Joshua Tree courthouse, had issued an emergency protective order, temporarily banning Garcia from unsupervised visits with Wyatt.
'DIDN'T WANT TO LISTEN'
Moore quoted Rick Tagle, Katie's ex-husband and father of her son Dakota, as telling her, "The (Victorville) judge had not read the exhibits. Just from the very beginning, he didn't want to listen. He started out by saying, 'one of you is lying. I think it's you,' and pointed to Katie."
Moore said Rick Tagle told her Lemkau ordered Katie and Garcia to work out their differences in mediation. He then reinstated Garcia's unsupervised visits, Tagle's family told Moore.
In her petition, Tagle claims Garcia is mentally ill. She states he had sent her an e-mail on Jan. 13 under the pseudonym "John Hancock." The e-mail included a story he'd written, titled Necessary Evil, which told how he views their relationship.
The narrative unfolds in a way "ultimately leaving the petitioner (Tagle) with the ultimatum of reconciling or otherwise respondent (Garcia) was going to drug parties' nine-month-old son to death before respondent takes his own life. This was to take place by the 'lake,' referring to Lake Arrowhead where parties used to reside together."
The petition does not state where the couple had lived locally, nor how long they lived here.
The short story, a copy of which was also obtained by this newspaper, lists two endings, one happy and another tragic. In the first the couple reconciles, while in the second the father kills himself and his sons.
HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
The petition also claims Garcia "has a history of hitting petitioner." She quoted an e-mail he had sent her, in which he reportedly said, "I'm sorry for hitting you."
Another document from Tagle's family is a printout from Garcia's MySpace page in which he refers to Rylee Skye Garcia. Moore said she was told Rylee is the daughter Stephen Garcia fantasized having with Tagle. Rylee's mythical life span is listed as 5/9/2007 through 12/9/09. Moore said the former date was when Garcia met Tagle, while the latter is when he reportedly learned Tagle was in a relationship with another man.
The materials from Tagle's family also include a document described as Garcia's second-to-last letter to her. It's a single-spaced, six-page missive which caustically attacks Tagle for hiding the identity of her new lover and, with the extensive use of profanity in capital letters, challenges her to examine her life.
A final document from Tagle's family purports to be a Facebook message, running five pages long, sent to Katie on Jan. 17. It has countless repetitions of the same eight words: "How is he, is he ok? call now," apparently referring to Wyatt.
Detectives from the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department are investigating the murder-suicide. The department asks anyone with information about the incident to contact Sgt. Frank Montanez or Detective Ryan Ford of the department's Division of Specialized Investigations at (909) 387-3589.
http://www.mountain-news.com/articles/2010/02/04/news/news1.txt
Pursuit Ends in Murder-Suicide
A two-and-a-half-year romantic relationship gone sour came to a tragic end early Sunday when a distraught father led sheriff's deputies on a chase through the mountains before pulling into a snowbank in Blue Jay and killing his infant son and himself.
Deputies said Stephen Charles Garcia, 25, of Pinon Hills, shot his 9-month-old son Wyatt at 1:19 a.m. before turning his Walther P-99 pistol on himself on a lonely stretch of Old Toll Road.
Aided by a department helicopter, sheriff's deputies, who had pursued Garcia after deputies from the Hesperia station had trailed him into the mountains, arrived at the scene only seconds after the fatal shots were fired, said Twin Peaks Lt. Dwight Brink.
"Deputies from the Hesperia station were following him," Brink said. "Local deputies were staged, and intercepted him. It was hard to keep him in sight," he added, given the icy condition of roads in the Twin Peaks and Blue Jay areas that night.
Twin Peaks deputies backed off their pursuit, Brink said, for fear that an innocent person might be injured.
"It was pretty miraculous that no one was hurt in the chase," Brink said, "and that there was no damage to any other vehicles. There were very treacherous conditions for a chase."
According to a Twin Peaks crime report, members of the family of Katie Tagle, Wyatt's mother, own three homes on Peak Spur Road in Twin Peaks, perhaps offering an explanation for why Garcia fled into the mountains.
FORMER ARROWHEAD RESIDENTS
Another possible explanation is that, according to a statement filed in court by Tagle during her legal wrangles with Garcia, the two had lived together in Lake Arrowhead at an unspecified previous time.
Throughout the day on Jan. 30, Garcia reportedly was in near constant phone or texting contact with Tagle, repeating threats to kill their son if they could not reconcile and inviting her to join them so he could kill them all and they could be together in heaven.
Garcia left a rambling, emotional 17-paragraph suicide note in his white Toyota Tacoma pickup truck. Until the chase reached its fatal conclusion, Wyatt sat, strapped in a child's seat, in the back seat of the extended-cab truck. A copy of the note was obtained by this newspaper.
Throughout the note, titled "So This is Goodbye," Garcia stressed his great disappointment over not being able to reconcile with Tagle, with whom he had lived in his parents' home before-reportedly tired of being physically abused by him-she moved to Yucca Valley.
"Everyone kept saying give it time, keep going to court, keep doing what your doing," Garcia's farewell letter stated. "No body got it. Not even Katie. I didn't want to fight Katie. I didn't want shared custody of Wyatt. I wanted my family back.
"What good is having Wyatt full time, or 50/50 without Katie. I would of had to live with my parents forever, be alone, have Wyatt go back and forth for years to the guy Katie cheated on me with," Garcia wrote. "I would of never been happy."
'LOVE YOUR FAMILY'
The note, obtained from Tagle's family by the Hi-Desert Star of Yucca Valley, this newspaper's sister publication, finished by stating, "I'm sorry. We love all of you. Be with your family. Live out your lives, be happy. Do not dwell on what I have done. Move on with your lives and cherish every minute of it. HOLD AND LOVE YOUR FAMILY! PLEASE IT'S MY FINAL WISH."
The note also has a paragraph addressed to members of Katie's family and certain of the couple's acquaintances, who apparently attempted to head off any possible reconciliation.
"I will see you in f______ hell," the bitterly worded paragraph reads. "I held the gun, you pulled the trigger. I cried for help. I told you this would happen. I told you to help me get my family back but you laughed at me...the blood is on your hands."
Along with the note, this newspaper also obtained from Tagle's family a copy of a court document which suggests Wyatt might still be alive had a judge ruled differently on a petition Tagle filed in a Victorville court just 10 days before the murder-suicide.
In her petition, heard by Judge Robert Lemkau, Tagle requested a restraining order against Garcia and a permanent end to his unsupervised Thursday-through-Sunday visits with Wyatt. Instead, Tagle requested supervised-only visits, said Stacy Moore, managing editor of the Hi-Desert Star, who interviewed members of Tagle's family.
A week earlier, Moore said, Judge David Mazurek, assigned to the Joshua Tree courthouse, had issued an emergency protective order, temporarily banning Garcia from unsupervised visits with Wyatt.
'DIDN'T WANT TO LISTEN'
Moore quoted Rick Tagle, Katie's ex-husband and father of her son Dakota, as telling her, "The (Victorville) judge had not read the exhibits. Just from the very beginning, he didn't want to listen. He started out by saying, 'one of you is lying. I think it's you,' and pointed to Katie."
Moore said Rick Tagle told her Lemkau ordered Katie and Garcia to work out their differences in mediation. He then reinstated Garcia's unsupervised visits, Tagle's family told Moore.
In her petition, Tagle claims Garcia is mentally ill. She states he had sent her an e-mail on Jan. 13 under the pseudonym "John Hancock." The e-mail included a story he'd written, titled Necessary Evil, which told how he views their relationship.
The narrative unfolds in a way "ultimately leaving the petitioner (Tagle) with the ultimatum of reconciling or otherwise respondent (Garcia) was going to drug parties' nine-month-old son to death before respondent takes his own life. This was to take place by the 'lake,' referring to Lake Arrowhead where parties used to reside together."
The petition does not state where the couple had lived locally, nor how long they lived here.
The short story, a copy of which was also obtained by this newspaper, lists two endings, one happy and another tragic. In the first the couple reconciles, while in the second the father kills himself and his sons.
HISTORY OF VIOLENCE
The petition also claims Garcia "has a history of hitting petitioner." She quoted an e-mail he had sent her, in which he reportedly said, "I'm sorry for hitting you."
Another document from Tagle's family is a printout from Garcia's MySpace page in which he refers to Rylee Skye Garcia. Moore said she was told Rylee is the daughter Stephen Garcia fantasized having with Tagle. Rylee's mythical life span is listed as 5/9/2007 through 12/9/09. Moore said the former date was when Garcia met Tagle, while the latter is when he reportedly learned Tagle was in a relationship with another man.
The materials from Tagle's family also include a document described as Garcia's second-to-last letter to her. It's a single-spaced, six-page missive which caustically attacks Tagle for hiding the identity of her new lover and, with the extensive use of profanity in capital letters, challenges her to examine her life.
A final document from Tagle's family purports to be a Facebook message, running five pages long, sent to Katie on Jan. 17. It has countless repetitions of the same eight words: "How is he, is he ok? call now," apparently referring to Wyatt.
Detectives from the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department are investigating the murder-suicide. The department asks anyone with information about the incident to contact Sgt. Frank Montanez or Detective Ryan Ford of the department's Division of Specialized Investigations at (909) 387-3589.
Judge Debra Harris, Judge David Mazurek, and Judge Robert Lemkau have a lot to answer for: baby dead because of their idiocy (Twin Peaks, California)
Still think that poor daddies are constrained by bogus restraining orders (RO) that are handed out like candy? Get a clue.
This mother was completely unable to get any help from Judge Debra Harris, Judge David Mazurek, or Judge Robert Lemkau. The evidence of the father's abuse, violence, and threats was there in plain sight, but they ignored it. In fact, the mother was one that was smeared as a liar. So basically these three judicial incompetents gave dad STEPHEN GARCIA the green light to slaughter his infant son during court-ordered (unsupervised) visitation. Note for the record that Daddy also had "shared custody."
I think it's time for the three stooges to resign.
Go here, just to see more on Judge Lemkau's decision:
http://photos.vvdailypress.com/files/multimedia/soundslides/Court.pdf
We have several posts on this case, all recent. Scroll down for more entries.
http://www.hidesertstar.com/articles/2010/02/03/news/doc4b69381ed5e05699313614.txt
Family say courts shut down restraining orders
By Stacy Moore
Hi-Desert Star
Published: Wednesday, February 3, 2010 3:01 AM CST
TWIN PEAKS — Sunday’s murder-suicide was the culmination of months of threats and online and text rants from Stephen Garcia to Katie Tagle of Yucca Valley and her family.
The mother of a 9-month-old boy, Wyatt, with Garcia, Tagle was never able to secure a restraining order against him for herself or an order for supervised visitations for their son.
“This was preventable. This didn’t have to happen,” Tagle’s mother, Maria Brown said the day after Wyatt’s death.
“The system failed Wyatt. It cost him his life.”
Her family said Garcia abused Tagle throughout their two-year relationship, which ended in August 2009, when, her family said, he punched her in the face, knocking her unconscious.
Tagle brought Wyatt back to her family house in Yucca Valley, but frequently took him to visit Garcia’s parents in Piñon Hills.
Garcia, her family said, did not seem especially interested in Tagle or their son until December 2009, when he discovered she was involved with another man.
“That’s when he wigged out,” Tagle’s sister Andrea Rodriguez of Hesperia said.
In letters on a Web site he set up to chronicle his communications to her and her friends, Garcia cursed at Tagle and told her to return to him.
During one custody exchange with Wyatt, he proposed to her, then knocked her to the ground.
Judge denies first restraining order
On Dec. 15, Tagle asked for an emergency restraining order against Garcia, telling Judge Debra Harris in a Joshua Tree courtroom that Garcia had threatened Wyatt.
“He had sent me text messages before that if his son was around certain people … that he would kill him,” Tagle told the judge, according to transcripts of the hearing.
“And that if I wasn’t where I was supposed to be, he’d find me and kill me.”
“What about the threat to shoot you, where did that occur, to hunt you down and shoot you with a gun?” the judge asked.
“That was in a text message, Tagle replied.
When Harris asked for copies of the text messages, Tagle said she had no way of printing them out and her phone was shut off.
The judge denied the emergency order and set a hearing.
Garcia ‘doesn’t pose a threat’
At that hearing, on Jan. 12, Tagle went before Judge David Mazurek in the Joshua Tree courthouse to show cause for a restraining order.
“…On Dec. 31, we were doing our exchange, and he proposed to me, and I said no. He got angry and stole my phone and pushed me down. I made a police report about that,” Tagle told the judge, according to a transcript.
Garcia told the judge the report was “falsely made up.”
Mazurek denied Tagle the restraining order.
“If I grant the restraining order, how do you think that’s going to help with respect to you two being able to raise Wyatt together or work together to make sure Wyatt grows up happy and healthy?” the judge asked, according to the transcripts.
“He would have both of us still,” Tagle responded.
Asked about an e-mail in which he confessed to hitting Tagle, Garcia told the judge he had slapped her during a fight, but it was Tagle’s fault for “pushing and pushing and pushing until she could get something from me.”
Tagle pointed out she was nine months pregnant when Garcia hit her.
“I kind of get an idea of what’s going on,” Mazurek said.
He denied the restraining order, saying, “I don’t think that Mr. Garcia poses a threat to Ms. Tagle.”
Mazurek went on to suggest Tagle might have ulterior motives for alleging domestic violence.
“I get concerned when there’s a pending child custody and visitation issue and in between that, one party or the other claims that there’s some violence in between. It raises the court’s eyebrows because based on my experience, it’s a way for one party to try to gain an advantage over the other,” he said, according to the transcripts.
Story predicts real-life ending
The day after the hearing in Mazurek’s courtroom, Garcia sent a text message telling Tagle to check her e-mail. In it was an anonymous message containing a story called “Necessary Evil.”
The story describes in detail Tagle’s and Garcia’s relationship, from their fights over his video-game addiction, to their breakup, to her new relationship and his failed proposal.
In the end, the story has two endings. In “Happy Ending,” the female character returns to the man.
In “Tragic Ending,” the character takes his son to a lake, puts him to sleep with Benadryl and the baby dies. “He will have a better life with you then (sic) we can give him here,” the man tells God before taking his own life.
Tagle called 9-1-1 after reading the story, and the responding deputy immediately went to the courthouse and obtained an emergency restraining order for her, signed by Mazurek.
However, in Victorville court Jan. 14, Judge Robert Lemkau would not uphold the restraining order and ordered Tagle to immediately give Wyatt to Garcia, as it was the day his scheduled visitation was to begin.
Transcripts from that hearing are not yet available, but family and friends who were in the court that day with Tagle said the judge appeared not to have read the evidence she presented, including the “Necessary Evil” story and the emergency restraining order obtained by a sheriff’s deputy.
“Just from the very beginning, he didn’t want to listen,” said Rick Tagle, who was in the courtroom. “He started out by saying, ‘One of you is lying and I think it’s you,’ and pointing at Katie.”
The judge also allegedly warned Tagle there would be consequences for lying.
Lemkau did not respond to an e-mail request for comment; the county does not provide judges’ office telephone numbers.
The following Sunday, when Garcia missed his arranged custody transfer with Tagle, she had to call a deputy to get Wyatt back from Garcia’s house.
Friends say discouraged and frightened by her last appearance in court, she did not seek another restraining order or custody change.
“She was afraid she would go before the judge who called her a liar,” her sister said.
This mother was completely unable to get any help from Judge Debra Harris, Judge David Mazurek, or Judge Robert Lemkau. The evidence of the father's abuse, violence, and threats was there in plain sight, but they ignored it. In fact, the mother was one that was smeared as a liar. So basically these three judicial incompetents gave dad STEPHEN GARCIA the green light to slaughter his infant son during court-ordered (unsupervised) visitation. Note for the record that Daddy also had "shared custody."
I think it's time for the three stooges to resign.
Go here, just to see more on Judge Lemkau's decision:
http://photos.vvdailypress.com/files/multimedia/soundslides/Court.pdf
We have several posts on this case, all recent. Scroll down for more entries.
http://www.hidesertstar.com/articles/2010/02/03/news/doc4b69381ed5e05699313614.txt
Family say courts shut down restraining orders
By Stacy Moore
Hi-Desert Star
Published: Wednesday, February 3, 2010 3:01 AM CST
TWIN PEAKS — Sunday’s murder-suicide was the culmination of months of threats and online and text rants from Stephen Garcia to Katie Tagle of Yucca Valley and her family.
The mother of a 9-month-old boy, Wyatt, with Garcia, Tagle was never able to secure a restraining order against him for herself or an order for supervised visitations for their son.
“This was preventable. This didn’t have to happen,” Tagle’s mother, Maria Brown said the day after Wyatt’s death.
“The system failed Wyatt. It cost him his life.”
Her family said Garcia abused Tagle throughout their two-year relationship, which ended in August 2009, when, her family said, he punched her in the face, knocking her unconscious.
Tagle brought Wyatt back to her family house in Yucca Valley, but frequently took him to visit Garcia’s parents in Piñon Hills.
Garcia, her family said, did not seem especially interested in Tagle or their son until December 2009, when he discovered she was involved with another man.
“That’s when he wigged out,” Tagle’s sister Andrea Rodriguez of Hesperia said.
In letters on a Web site he set up to chronicle his communications to her and her friends, Garcia cursed at Tagle and told her to return to him.
During one custody exchange with Wyatt, he proposed to her, then knocked her to the ground.
Judge denies first restraining order
On Dec. 15, Tagle asked for an emergency restraining order against Garcia, telling Judge Debra Harris in a Joshua Tree courtroom that Garcia had threatened Wyatt.
“He had sent me text messages before that if his son was around certain people … that he would kill him,” Tagle told the judge, according to transcripts of the hearing.
“And that if I wasn’t where I was supposed to be, he’d find me and kill me.”
“What about the threat to shoot you, where did that occur, to hunt you down and shoot you with a gun?” the judge asked.
“That was in a text message, Tagle replied.
When Harris asked for copies of the text messages, Tagle said she had no way of printing them out and her phone was shut off.
The judge denied the emergency order and set a hearing.
Garcia ‘doesn’t pose a threat’
At that hearing, on Jan. 12, Tagle went before Judge David Mazurek in the Joshua Tree courthouse to show cause for a restraining order.
“…On Dec. 31, we were doing our exchange, and he proposed to me, and I said no. He got angry and stole my phone and pushed me down. I made a police report about that,” Tagle told the judge, according to a transcript.
Garcia told the judge the report was “falsely made up.”
Mazurek denied Tagle the restraining order.
“If I grant the restraining order, how do you think that’s going to help with respect to you two being able to raise Wyatt together or work together to make sure Wyatt grows up happy and healthy?” the judge asked, according to the transcripts.
“He would have both of us still,” Tagle responded.
Asked about an e-mail in which he confessed to hitting Tagle, Garcia told the judge he had slapped her during a fight, but it was Tagle’s fault for “pushing and pushing and pushing until she could get something from me.”
Tagle pointed out she was nine months pregnant when Garcia hit her.
“I kind of get an idea of what’s going on,” Mazurek said.
He denied the restraining order, saying, “I don’t think that Mr. Garcia poses a threat to Ms. Tagle.”
Mazurek went on to suggest Tagle might have ulterior motives for alleging domestic violence.
“I get concerned when there’s a pending child custody and visitation issue and in between that, one party or the other claims that there’s some violence in between. It raises the court’s eyebrows because based on my experience, it’s a way for one party to try to gain an advantage over the other,” he said, according to the transcripts.
Story predicts real-life ending
The day after the hearing in Mazurek’s courtroom, Garcia sent a text message telling Tagle to check her e-mail. In it was an anonymous message containing a story called “Necessary Evil.”
The story describes in detail Tagle’s and Garcia’s relationship, from their fights over his video-game addiction, to their breakup, to her new relationship and his failed proposal.
In the end, the story has two endings. In “Happy Ending,” the female character returns to the man.
In “Tragic Ending,” the character takes his son to a lake, puts him to sleep with Benadryl and the baby dies. “He will have a better life with you then (sic) we can give him here,” the man tells God before taking his own life.
Tagle called 9-1-1 after reading the story, and the responding deputy immediately went to the courthouse and obtained an emergency restraining order for her, signed by Mazurek.
However, in Victorville court Jan. 14, Judge Robert Lemkau would not uphold the restraining order and ordered Tagle to immediately give Wyatt to Garcia, as it was the day his scheduled visitation was to begin.
Transcripts from that hearing are not yet available, but family and friends who were in the court that day with Tagle said the judge appeared not to have read the evidence she presented, including the “Necessary Evil” story and the emergency restraining order obtained by a sheriff’s deputy.
“Just from the very beginning, he didn’t want to listen,” said Rick Tagle, who was in the courtroom. “He started out by saying, ‘One of you is lying and I think it’s you,’ and pointing at Katie.”
The judge also allegedly warned Tagle there would be consequences for lying.
Lemkau did not respond to an e-mail request for comment; the county does not provide judges’ office telephone numbers.
The following Sunday, when Garcia missed his arranged custody transfer with Tagle, she had to call a deputy to get Wyatt back from Garcia’s house.
Friends say discouraged and frightened by her last appearance in court, she did not seek another restraining order or custody change.
“She was afraid she would go before the judge who called her a liar,” her sister said.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Failure to Protect: The Crisis in America's Family Courts -- by Cara Tabachnick
Excellent post by Cara Tobachnick, the news editor of The Crime Report.
Failure to Protect: The Crisis in America’s Family Courts
by Cara Tabachnick
Thursday, May 6th, 2010 2:00 am
When a mother’s bitter custody battle ends with the death of her child, something has gone terribly wrong with the system.
Wyatt Garcia was born in April 2009. Nine months later, he was shot and killed by his father, who then turned the gun on himself.
It might have turned out differently—if a family court judge had listened to Wyatt’s mother.
Stephen Garcia, 25, a Pinon Hills, California contractor, had been allowed unsupervised visits with his son only a few days earlier by San Bernardino County Superior Judge Robert Lemkau, who was adjudicating a bitter custody battle between Garcia and the boy’s mother, Katie Tagle. The judge had refused to take seriously her repeated warnings of her ex-boyfriend’s violent and abusive behavior.
Shortly after Wyatt was born, she left Garcia after he hit her so hard during an argument about his video-game addiction that “he knocked me out” Tagle said. After she moved home to her parents, her ex-boyfriend began harassing her and her family when he learned she was dating again, and he filed a motion for custody of little Wyatt. In turn she filed three motions for an order of protection against Garcia, which were ignored: in the last motion she charged that he had threatened to kill her and their baby.
Judge Lemkau, however, chose to believe her former boyfriend’s denials rather than the evidence she supplied of Garcia’s threats―including e-mails, text messages and voice messages. Although no extenuating circumstances were raised in court transcripts of the case, the judge simply accused Tagle of lying, and ordered that she turn Wyatt over to his father—with fatal results.
Tagle, 23, believes the odds against her and Wyatt were stacked the moment her case entered the emotional, chaotic world of the family court system.
“I was treated like a criminal, like a complaining woman,” she says.
The story of baby Wyatt Garcia is, sadly, not unusual.
In the nine months between June 2009 and April 2010, 75 children have been killed by fathers involved in volatile custody battles with their former partners, according to the Center for Judicial Excellence, a court advocacy organization which has been tracking news articles of such deaths around the U.S. Based in San Rafael, California, the Center focuses on strengthening court integrity as well as improving public accountability of the judiciary.
Some recent examples from the dockets of Family Courts around the country:
Teigan Peters Brown (3 years old), shot to death by his father during a court-ordered visit. (Arizona June 2009)
Bekm Bacon (8 months), killed by father, who then killed himself during overnight visitation. (Idaho Feb 2010)
Janiyah Nicole Hale (1 year), father is charged with her death during an overnight visitation. He is a registered sex offender. (Alabama July 2009)
How did a system set up to protect families and children allow this to happen?
An investigation by The Crime Report shows such tragedies are the consequences of family court procedures that allow abusive spouses to manipulate the system and leave at-risk children at the mercy of prolonged, expensive court battles over custody. These battles end all too often with a parent forced to share unsupervised custody with an abusive spouse.
The problems have been complicated by systemic flaws in the nation’s family courts that have gone unaddressed far too long.
A Broken System
Lawyers, judges, psychologists and representatives of women’s groups interviewed by The Crime Report describe a broken family court system that is already burdened with a heavy caseload and too few judges—many of whom are forced to rotate between cases—and in which serious criminal allegations of domestic or sexual abuse are routinely ignored. The crushing financial costs of pursuing long custody battles is an additional burden on indigent mothers, who get little or no legal support. The odds are particularly stacked against children at risk when the court battle revolves over “he said, she said” arguments.
The system has particularly failed parents―usually mothers―whose efforts to protect their children collide with an approach to custody issues that is based on narrow legal concepts of balance and fair treatment rather than psychological or medical evidence. “Courts assume mothers are orchestrating misinformation, instead of trying to protect their children,” said Kathleen Russell, director of the Center for Judicial Excellence.
The idea of family courts or dockets began with the best of intentions. Established in the early nineteenth century, they were designed to protect the equitable rights of both parents and children and protect the family. Too often, however, that creates a built-in conflict. Judges, as in the case of Katie Tagle, adopt a skeptical attitude towards abuse charges, which most often come from the mother, on the grounds that it is hard to distinguish fact from fiction in arguments between quarreling parents.
“The problem is that family court is not set up to protect children,” says Joyanna Silberg, PhD,Executive Vice President of the Leadership Council. “It is set up with the intent of equitable division for families. And this presents an overwhelming paradigm: how can you equitably divide a child?”
And while the deaths of children are the public face of family court tragedies, the daily reality is that thousands of parents are trapped in prolonged court battles where they either lose their children to their alleged abuser, or are forced to share unsupervised custody.
Advocacy groups interviewed for this story reported receiving between 450 and 1,000 requests for help in contested custody battles this year. The National Network to End Domestic Violence, a prominent national not-for-profit, says it is the biggest problem they are now facing. And the Leadership Council on Child Abuse & Interpersonal Violence, an independent scientific organization, estimates that each year more than 58,000 children are ordered by family courts into unsupervised contact with physically or sexually abusive parents following divorce in the United States
Experts say abusers use the court system to exercise control over their former partner’s lives, manipulating the players and risking the safety and well being of the children’s lives the courts are sworn to protect.
“Family courts are trained to look for cooperative behavior,” says Rob (Roberta) Valente, general counsel for the National Network to End Domestic Violence, which is based in Washington D.C. “When someone raises an abuse allegation, the court sees it as uncooperative behavior. The result, advocates say, is that the abuser is able to manipulate the court, while a child’s safety and well-being is placed at risk. Many judges are likely to view abuse complaints as a tactic to win custody battles. What the courts have failed to take into account but research has clearly shown time and time again, is that most of the cases that make it to trial in family court are high-risk abuse cases.
Compounding the problem is that judges, attorneys and custody evaluators have little or no training in detecting signs of abuse.
Just 20 per cent of the almost one million divorces and separations registered every year in the U.S. actually land in court. Most are settled in the pre-trial phase, according to Prof. Janet Johnston of San Jose State University, in research studies written for the journal, The Family Court Review.
But of the few who make it to a judge, over 75 percent of these cases are victims of some form of domestic or sexual abuse, according to a 1995 paper by Prof. Peter Jaffe of the University of Western Ontario, who studies children and violence in U.S. and Canadian court systems.
He Said, She said
Today’s family courts have also been affected by the rise of the Fathers Rights movement. During the 1950s, family courts almost exclusively awarded custody to mothers. But complaints by fathers that their rights were ignored in custody battles led to a shift in the 1970s to awarding shared custody, on the grounds that it was in the best interest of the child to maintain a relationship with both parents.
Nevertheless, only a small percentage of high-conflict cases require judges to act as conciliators between parties locked in otherwise endless litigation. The majority involve mothers and children that are suffering from serious sexual or domestic abuse.
The National Father Resource Center disputes this, claiming that its member organizations report that 80 percent of mothers’ abuse allegations are false. Although Canadian research from the University of Toronto studying false allegations in U.S. and Canadian custody cases has found that between one and two percent of mothers make false allegations, the fathers’ rights argument has had a powerful impact. As shown by the Tagle case, courts don’t want to hear the mothers’ allegations.
“Historically, allegations of abuse and incest are [met] with a great deal of suspicion, and there is a tremendous resistance to hearing these types of allegations,” said Eileen King, director of Justice for Children, a national non-profit that works to protect children involved in contested custody cases.
Such resistance has already cost Deborah Hicks, 46, a former New York City television editor, six years of pain. In 2003, she filed for sole custody of her son, then three years old, when he came home from a visit to his father with suspicious signs of sexual abuse. There was reason to be worried. Her ex-partner had already been convicted of molesting a two-year old boy in Florida for which he served eight years in prison, and he was a registered sex offender in New York City. Despite her ex-boyfriend’s record, the judges who heard the case (there have been two), decided they had to give a fair hearing to his denials.
She has already spent almost $100,000 on the case, with no end in sight. Nevertheless, she still shares custody with her ex, and says, “I am not about to give up on my child.”
Even for those mothers who can afford it, the battle can take a psychological toll. Even when the evidence of risk to their children seems impossible to deny, the family court system that has proven incapable of treating these high-conflict cases with the serious attention and professionalism they require.
Moreover, courts are now often swayed by a concept called “parental alienation syndrome” (PAS), coined by the late psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Dr. Richard A. Gardner in the 1980s to describe situations in which one parent is trying to turn the children against the parent during a divorce process. Dr. Gardner, a former professor of child psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, testified in more than 400 child custody cases about its effect on children.
PAS has been seized by the Fathers Rights movement as a way to defend husbands and other male partners from what they consider unjust accusations, and it has received support from other psychologists, who deny that it allows genuine child abuse to go unpunished. “If attorneys, child care evaluators, and judges were all doing their job, protective mothers wouldn’t have anything to fear,” says psychologist Amy J. Baker, author of Adult Children of Parental Alienation Syndrome: Breaking the Ties that Bind.
The concept has made little documented headway in the professional and legal field, and the syndrome has been used very rarely in legal precedent. PAS is not included in the most recent American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, although the association is currently weighing whether to include it in the 2013 issue of the manual.
It may be ironic that efforts to give fathers more rights in custody cases have increased the odds against victimized mothers and children,
“When the pendulum swung to shared custody somewhere in the midst of that (fathers) movement, the safety of children was compromised,” argues Helga Luest, founder of Witness Justice, a group that helps heal victims of violence.
A Complex Web
Tears fill Amy Leichtenberg’s voice as she recounts the horrible months before her two young boys, Duncan and Jack Connolly, ages 9 and 7, were killed by their father last March. “I felt like I did everything right, I sat there, I didn’t speak out of turn,” she said of her courtroom experience. After a 20-year abusive relationship with her ex-husband Michael Connolly, she finally gathered the strength to leave him. But he wouldn’t let her go. . Each time she moved her address, he showed up at her house. She got numerous orders of protection; he violated them repeatedly.
Every six or seven weeks, the couple was back in court, following a motion filed by Connolly for one reason or another. Representing himself, he would badger Leichtenberg on the stand. Yet despite his behavior, the court allowed him unsupervised access to his young sons.
“The ball was dropped in so many places,” said Leichtenberg. “Court was just one of them.”
That points to another problem. Once a family enters the family court system, other forms of protection of women and children often fall by the wayside. Typically, law enforcement agencies are reluctant to investigate abuse charges if they learn that the parties are involved in a custody battle, said Karen Borders, a former police officer and victim of a contested abuse case, who now runs an forensic risk assessment company called Borders McLaughlin. Orders of protection that are filed in criminal court often don’t make its way over to the civil system. Child protective services (CPS), which investigate allegations of child abuse, usually close or suspend a case if the child is involved in a custody battle, she said.
In the 450 high-risk custody evaluations her company investigated over the past five years, almost 90 percent of the children were abused.
“One of the things you see very often is when there is a custody case pending, child protection services, prosecutors and law enforcement will not take the charges seriously or be willing to investigate because they think it is about custody instead of a crime,” says Barry Goldstein, author of Domestic Violence, Abuse and Child Custody: Legal Strategies and Policy Issues.
Decision-making in these highly volatile cases are left to an army of custody evaluators, guardians ad litem (volunteer lawyers who are assigned by the court to represent the child), and other members of the court who may not have experience in domestic violence issues.
Custody evaluators can be assigned by the court or hired by one of the parties. The cost, which can run from $5,000 to $20,000, can be picked up by the parent who hired the evaluator, or it can be split by both parties. The custody system is beset by charges of cronyism―arising from evaluators’ employee relationship with the court―and incompetence. Advocates charge that evaluators are often poorly trained on how to handle or detect an abuser.
There is scant research on decision-making by custody evaluators and how they effect their cases. “Many child custody evaluators are not comprehensive (and ) their work is not buttressed by collateral evidence,” says psychologist Eugenia Patru, who has worked as a custody examiner in Louisiana and Michigan for the past 30 years.
According to Patru, the difficulty of custody cases increases when domestic violence is an issue. “Most (evaluators) are not educated enough and just in for the money,” she says.
In the saddest irony of all, attorneys have learned to caution their clients not to reveal abuse allegations in custody cases since research suggests that such allegations can work against mothers fighting for custody. A National Institute of Justice-funded study found that 35 percent of mothers who alleged abuse got primary custody, while mothers who said nothing got custody 42 percent of the time.
Moreover, when abuse allegations are raised, judges tend to suppress or not enter the abuse into evidence, making it harder to try these cases at the appellate level. “Family courts don’t adequately deal with abuse by refusing to hear the evidence,” charges Joan Meier, director of the Domestic Violence Legal Empowerment and Appeals Project, which provides legal representation at the appellate level, trains trial lawyers and has represented the domestic violence advocacy community in Supreme Court briefs.
Meier, a professor at George Washington University Law School who has been appealing contested custody cases for the past decade, says such suppression of evidence makes it very hard to overturn bad case precedent on appeal. Additionally, cases tend to be an intense financial and time drain, with the average case running over $100,000 in costs and lasting eight years.
Signs of a Shift?
“There are thousands of good decisions being made by judges each day who err on the side of safety,” says Judge Janice Rosa, who sits on New York Supreme Court in the 8th Judicial District and is chair of the Family Violence Department Advisory Committee for National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.
Judge Rosa points to New York’s practice of appointing a separate attorney for the children as a best practice in sorting out custody cases. Another breakthrough idea has been integrated domestic violence courts. There are approximately 40 such courts in New York State, which has become the trendsetter in this area. These courts, which have civil and criminal jurisdiction, could offer women and children a way to get the protection they need.
In 2002, the Office of Violence Against Women developed and implemented a four-year demonstration initiative to examine promising practices in the field of supervised visitation and safe exchanges called Safe Haven.
Grants were awarded to four demonstration sites: the Bay Area, California; the City of Chicago, Illinois; the City of Kent, Washington; and the State of Michigan for four years. Praxis International, a nonprofit research and training organization that works toward the elimination of violence in the lives of women and children, and oversaw these projects still offers technical assistance and advice for visitation centers.
Praxis International also partnered with The Battered Women’s Justice Project starting a two-year research project to determine a best model and legislation for Family Courts.
But the resources are not in place now for children and mothers who need a way to safety now. One of the more promising projects The ABA Child Custody and Adoption Pro Bono Project ended in August, 2008.
“For the moment, abused mothers who are trying to protect their children through the overworked family court system have the cards stacked against them,” says Silberg of the Leadership Council.
“I did everything right, and my children are in a cemetery now right now,” said Leichtenberg, who founded “In Loving Memory” to in order to lobby for changes in legislation relating to the response of family court and law enforcement to abuse cases. “I have a lot of ‘what could have, what should haves’ every day. But with my last breath, I will make sure they did not die in vain.”
Cara Tabachnick is news editor of The Crime Report. Additional reporting by John Jay Center on Media, Crime and Justice researcher Daonese Johnson-Colon
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Fatal Judgment in Yucca Valley (San Bernadino, California)
This is not real recent--it's from the February 11-17, 2010 issue of the Desert Valley & American Free Journal. But it's a great article called "Fatal Judgment" by Fritz Koening on Judge Robert Lemkau (of San Bernadino County, California) and the murder of Wyatt Garcia by his father, STEPHEN GARCIA, during court-ordered visitation. I cannot post the entire article, so I will merely reproduce two exerpts.
http://www.mygazines.com/issue/6836/23
The murder of nine month old baby Wyatt Garcia was apparently a surprise to Judges David J. Mazurek, Debra Harris, and Robert Lemkau, who only days before the murder denied that the killer [Stephen Garcia] was a threat. But it is no surprise to citizens who have been involved with civil harrassment 527.6 hearings in California Courts, and especially so in the desert courts of corrupt San Bernadino County. Investigations whould continue because the tragedy of baby Wyatt Garcia's murder is not an anomoly, but rather it is a spotlight upon the state-wide systematic failure to rationally, logically and fairly administer justice and keep the peace.
As we learn from the transcripts in this case, judges guard against abuses in the system. Why the judges in this case thought mother Katie Tagle was lying remains a mystery of stunning proportions. In other cases, judges have restrained two neighbors squabbling over property lines. Why get involved in a fence line dispute but not restrain a homicidal father? The judges involved are not required to explain. However it would be wise for them to attempt to answer the public's bewilderment.
http://www.mygazines.com/issue/6836/23
The murder of nine month old baby Wyatt Garcia was apparently a surprise to Judges David J. Mazurek, Debra Harris, and Robert Lemkau, who only days before the murder denied that the killer [Stephen Garcia] was a threat. But it is no surprise to citizens who have been involved with civil harrassment 527.6 hearings in California Courts, and especially so in the desert courts of corrupt San Bernadino County. Investigations whould continue because the tragedy of baby Wyatt Garcia's murder is not an anomoly, but rather it is a spotlight upon the state-wide systematic failure to rationally, logically and fairly administer justice and keep the peace.
As we learn from the transcripts in this case, judges guard against abuses in the system. Why the judges in this case thought mother Katie Tagle was lying remains a mystery of stunning proportions. In other cases, judges have restrained two neighbors squabbling over property lines. Why get involved in a fence line dispute but not restrain a homicidal father? The judges involved are not required to explain. However it would be wise for them to attempt to answer the public's bewilderment.
***
While judges who wield enormous power with practically unlimited personal discretion spend extremely expensive court time on low level threats, other victims who truly need protection die from lack of proper attention. It is a public policy disaster screaming for reform. We should all be screaming for Baby Wyatt, Ms. Tagle, her family, even Mr. Garcia and his family, and the thousands of people each year who receive no justice from the judiciary.
I found the link for this article on the facebook page for James Hoskin, who is opposing Judge Lemkau's re-election. If you are on facebook, you may want to join. I have.
Monday, May 17, 2010
How Family Courts Punish Abused Women - by R. Dianne Bartlow
Great book review by R. Dianne Bartlow at the Ms. Magazine blog. (Full disclosure here: I wrote one of the chapters in the book below. Friends will know which one, clever people will be able to guess. As for the rest of my Dastardly readers....)
http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2010/05/17/how-family-courts-punish-abused-women
How Family Courts Punish Abused Women
May 17, 2010 by R. Dianne Bartlow
“The dirtiest little secret in America” is that family courts, in deciding custody, often wreak devastation upon mothers and children.
So argue Mo Therese Hannah and Barry Goldstein, editors of the new anthology Domestic Violence, Abuse, and Child Custody, which brings to light what many familiar with the family court system have long known: Designed to dispense justice, the system has become instead “an instrument of oppression,” particularly in cases involving domestic violence.
To find a chilling example of what the editors mean, we need look no further than the recent murder of infant Wyatt Garcia, reported in the Daily Beast:
Wyatt Garcia was born in April 2009. Nine months later, he was shot and killed by his father, who then turned the gun on himself.
It might have turned out differently—if a family-court judge had listened to Wyatt’s mother.
Wyatt’s mother, Katie Tagle, had previously filed three motions in family court for an order of protection against the baby’s father, Stephen Garcia, alleging that he had physically assaulted her and harassed her and her family. Garcia was apparently jealous that she was dating again. In the last motion, Tagle charged that Garcia “had threatened to kill her and their baby.”
The San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Robert Lemkau chose to believe Garcia’s denials over than evidence supplied by Tagle–which included emails, text messages, and voice messages, according to the Daily Beast. Tagle says she was treated like a “criminal” and “complaining woman.”
One goal of Hannah and Goldstein’s book is to convince judges, attorneys, and others who work in the court system that all forms of abusive behavior, whether physical, verbal, financial or legal, cause harm to women and children. On the legal side, men who abuse their female intimate partners have successfully used strategies such as false accusations, harassment, manipulation, and intimidation to win custody while often driving their victims into poverty. According to contributing author and lawyer Joan Zorza:
Abusive men not only harass their victims, many harass their partners’ lawyers and manipulate those in and connected with the court system who are supposed to insure that children are placed with their better parent in a safe, nurturing environment.
This makes it all the stranger that about half of the time batterers win custody in family courts. They are actually more likely to win custody than men who do not abuse their partners, according to Zorza. Over the past nine months, 75 children have been murdered by abusive fathers who used custody battles to get even with the mothers, according to the Daily Beast.
Yet Katie Tagle’s dismissive treatment by family courts is all-too-familiar. While there has been a growing awareness over the last 30 years of the harm domestic violence causes, courts are more and more ignoring women’s allegations of domestic violence and holding them responsible for their own abuse. This is largely due to courts’ reliance upon mental health experts who have inadequate training in intimate violence or child sexual abuse and who are easily manipulated by batterers.
Gender bias plays a large role in this backlash, according to the editors:
Compared to men, women are disbelieved more often, held to much higher standards, and judged far more punitively for failings such as drinking, use of drugs, adultery, or hostility to their partners. …Such behaviors are readily seen as grounds for giving the father custody.
Hannah and Goldstein hope to also expose two particularly harmful court practices that have evolved over the last several decades: Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), and “friendly parent” statutes. PAS provides a handy–and utterly without basis–refutation to incest and abuse claims by blaming mothers for any hostility that the children feel towards their fathers, maintaining that children love and respect their fathers unless a “poisonous” mother has convinced them otherwise. Even alleged incest and violence are not deemed reason enough for children to independently turn against their fathers.
Since PAS has been deemed by the American Psychological Association to have no scientific backing, at least 32 states have incorporated the milder sounding “friendly parent” concept into their custody laws. This gives custody to the parent who will encourage the child to have more contact and a better relationship with the other parent. Often mothers are hurt by the friendly parent concept, since they can be deemed “unfriendly” for saying anything against the father, including alleging abuse. Zorza says that, ironically enough:
The unfriendly behavior of noncustodial parents (usually the father), such as not paying child support, physically or verbally abusing the mother, or stalking her, is not considered as meeting the definition of unfriendly.
With such an approach, Zorza says, family violence is discounted, and abusers are empowered while battered women are disempowered. Ultimately, children are harmed.
Domestic Violence, Abuse, and Child Custody will be instructive for policymakers, those working in the family justice system, and members of the media–which the authors say has by-and-large failed to expose custody court scandals. But it is a must-read for any mother involved in a child custody battle, and especially for mothers trying get free from an abusive relationship.
http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2010/05/17/how-family-courts-punish-abused-women
How Family Courts Punish Abused Women
May 17, 2010 by R. Dianne Bartlow
“The dirtiest little secret in America” is that family courts, in deciding custody, often wreak devastation upon mothers and children.
So argue Mo Therese Hannah and Barry Goldstein, editors of the new anthology Domestic Violence, Abuse, and Child Custody, which brings to light what many familiar with the family court system have long known: Designed to dispense justice, the system has become instead “an instrument of oppression,” particularly in cases involving domestic violence.
To find a chilling example of what the editors mean, we need look no further than the recent murder of infant Wyatt Garcia, reported in the Daily Beast:
Wyatt Garcia was born in April 2009. Nine months later, he was shot and killed by his father, who then turned the gun on himself.
It might have turned out differently—if a family-court judge had listened to Wyatt’s mother.
Wyatt’s mother, Katie Tagle, had previously filed three motions in family court for an order of protection against the baby’s father, Stephen Garcia, alleging that he had physically assaulted her and harassed her and her family. Garcia was apparently jealous that she was dating again. In the last motion, Tagle charged that Garcia “had threatened to kill her and their baby.”
The San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Robert Lemkau chose to believe Garcia’s denials over than evidence supplied by Tagle–which included emails, text messages, and voice messages, according to the Daily Beast. Tagle says she was treated like a “criminal” and “complaining woman.”
One goal of Hannah and Goldstein’s book is to convince judges, attorneys, and others who work in the court system that all forms of abusive behavior, whether physical, verbal, financial or legal, cause harm to women and children. On the legal side, men who abuse their female intimate partners have successfully used strategies such as false accusations, harassment, manipulation, and intimidation to win custody while often driving their victims into poverty. According to contributing author and lawyer Joan Zorza:
Abusive men not only harass their victims, many harass their partners’ lawyers and manipulate those in and connected with the court system who are supposed to insure that children are placed with their better parent in a safe, nurturing environment.
This makes it all the stranger that about half of the time batterers win custody in family courts. They are actually more likely to win custody than men who do not abuse their partners, according to Zorza. Over the past nine months, 75 children have been murdered by abusive fathers who used custody battles to get even with the mothers, according to the Daily Beast.
Yet Katie Tagle’s dismissive treatment by family courts is all-too-familiar. While there has been a growing awareness over the last 30 years of the harm domestic violence causes, courts are more and more ignoring women’s allegations of domestic violence and holding them responsible for their own abuse. This is largely due to courts’ reliance upon mental health experts who have inadequate training in intimate violence or child sexual abuse and who are easily manipulated by batterers.
Gender bias plays a large role in this backlash, according to the editors:
Compared to men, women are disbelieved more often, held to much higher standards, and judged far more punitively for failings such as drinking, use of drugs, adultery, or hostility to their partners. …Such behaviors are readily seen as grounds for giving the father custody.
Hannah and Goldstein hope to also expose two particularly harmful court practices that have evolved over the last several decades: Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), and “friendly parent” statutes. PAS provides a handy–and utterly without basis–refutation to incest and abuse claims by blaming mothers for any hostility that the children feel towards their fathers, maintaining that children love and respect their fathers unless a “poisonous” mother has convinced them otherwise. Even alleged incest and violence are not deemed reason enough for children to independently turn against their fathers.
Since PAS has been deemed by the American Psychological Association to have no scientific backing, at least 32 states have incorporated the milder sounding “friendly parent” concept into their custody laws. This gives custody to the parent who will encourage the child to have more contact and a better relationship with the other parent. Often mothers are hurt by the friendly parent concept, since they can be deemed “unfriendly” for saying anything against the father, including alleging abuse. Zorza says that, ironically enough:
The unfriendly behavior of noncustodial parents (usually the father), such as not paying child support, physically or verbally abusing the mother, or stalking her, is not considered as meeting the definition of unfriendly.
With such an approach, Zorza says, family violence is discounted, and abusers are empowered while battered women are disempowered. Ultimately, children are harmed.
Domestic Violence, Abuse, and Child Custody will be instructive for policymakers, those working in the family justice system, and members of the media–which the authors say has by-and-large failed to expose custody court scandals. But it is a must-read for any mother involved in a child custody battle, and especially for mothers trying get free from an abusive relationship.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Grieving mom aims to change system (Yucca Valley, California)
Katie Tagle's 9-month-old son was murdered by his father, STEPHEN GARCIA, during court-ordered visitation. Now this brave mom is trying to change the family court system, so no other families will suffer as hers has.
First step: Get Judge Robert Lemkau out of office. Vote for James Hosking!
http://www.hidesertstar.com/articles/2010/04/14/news/doc4bc56a7e252c8625220883.txt
Grieving mom aims to change system
By Stacy Moore
Hi-Desert Star
Published: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 2:43 AM CDT
Every time Katie Tagle’s 4-year-old son picks a dandelion, tosses a coin in a fountain or sees a falling star, he makes one wish, and he makes it with all his heart: he wishes the angels would give him his baby brother back. “He wishes it so hard,” says grandmother Maria Brown, squeezing her eyes tight to illustrate the little boy’s screwed-up face of concentration. It’s a wish Tagle shares, but the Yucca Valley woman can’t count on wishes any more — she’s trying to stay focused on the future, on fixing a family-court system she says is so broken, it cost her 9-month-old son his life.
After Wyatt Garcia’s father, Stephen, shot the infant before turning the gun on himself Jan. 31, Tagle and her family were approached for interviews from newspapers, radio shows and TV hosts.
“The Dr. Phil Show” airing at 3 p.m. today (Wednesday) on CBS channel 2 will feature Tagle telling the story of her own family tragedy, and urging changes in the judicial system.
The Web site for the show calls today’s broadcast “Crisis in Family Court,” and is accompanied by a family photo of Tagle hugging Wyatt.
“Dr. Phil is definitely helping shed light on this,” Tagle said in an April 7 interview.
She also has been a guest the John and Ken talk radio show on 640-AM several times, and has given interviews to desert-area newspapers.
Going over and over the details of her ordeal in the family courts and the murder of her son isn’t easy, but Tagle, who doesn’t receive money for her appearances, said she’s doing it for others in similar circumstances.
“It’s hard, but I hope I give other moms hope that maybe because I’m talking, their situation can take a turn for the better, instead of a turn for the worse,” she said.
“And the judges know they’re being watched.”
It’s those judges who are part of Tagle’s long-term plan to improve the family law system.
Tagle’s first step is to tell everyone who will listen about how family-court judges in Joshua Tree and Victorville ignored her pleas and evidence and gave Stephen Garcia unsupervised partial custody of their son.
Her most immediate goal: convince enough voters to replace Robert Lemkau, the judge who granted Garcia unsupervised custody rights, in the June 8 election.
She and her family are campaigning for deputy district attorney James Hosking, who filed to run against Lemkau June 8 after hearing Tagle’s story.
Her long-term aim is to change the way judges in family courts are chosen and trained.
“I’m hoping family-law judges will be experts in family law. Most of them today are coming from criminal law,” Tagle said.
“They’ll be better at reading people. They’ll see this guy does need help, this mom does need help — and they’ll get them that help,” Tagle predicted. “I’m hoping they’ll do their job the way they’re supposed to.”
“Train them,” added her mother. “Train them before you put them there. Lemkau had only 16 hours of experience in family court before he was sent to Victorville.”
Looking back on her experience with family law and the sheriff’s department, whom she often called to report Garcia’s harassment and once, his refusal to return Wyatt, Tagle can see plenty of room for training and improvement.
“Everybody blew her off as a complaining woman,” Brown said, something one of Tagle’s sisters had described in an interview the day after Wyatt’s death.
“They treated her like she was the one who was going to harm the child,” Andrea Rodriguez of Hesperia said.
In a call history for a Jan. 25 incident, when Tagle called the sheriff’s substation in Phelan because Garcia would not return Wyatt, the responding deputy reported he threatened both parents if they couldn’t “get their heads straight,” he would give the child to the Department of Children’s Services.
It was during Garcia’s turn at custody the following week that he e-mailed Tagle his suicide letter.
The sheriff’s substation in Phelan classified the call as “missing person,” but the call history shows the deputy also classified it as a possible false report of a crime.
Parents need resources, advice
Tagle and Brown say parents of threatened children need more resources and information about how to navigate the criminal justice system and what tools are available.
For example, Tagle did not know she could subpoena a sheriff’s deputy who believed Garcia was a threat and obtained an emergency restraining order for her.
“Nobody gives you this information. There should be a Web site with legitimate advice for moms,” she said.
“It’s hard to get help. You shouldn’t have to rely on a lawyer. You should be able to go into court and tell the truth and get a fair hearing. I should have gotten a fair hearing.”
And the problem is not just in Victorville, or San Bernardino County, she added — something her newfound publicity and her appearance on “Dr. Phil” taught her.
I hadn’t realized there were judges like this all over the country. I thought it was just a few cases here and there, but it’s not. It’s everywhere.”
Despite their experiences, and recent harassment by Garcia’s friends and an Internet group that reveres him as a hero, the women advise mothers who are being abused or who fear for their children to never give up.
“I’m hoping they won’t stop fighting. They’ll just keep fighting and fighting,” she said.
It’s her plan, too.
“We’re going to keep this going until something changes. They can harass me, but they’re not going to break my will. I am here, I’m going to be heard.”
First step: Get Judge Robert Lemkau out of office. Vote for James Hosking!
http://www.hidesertstar.com/articles/2010/04/14/news/doc4bc56a7e252c8625220883.txt
Grieving mom aims to change system
By Stacy Moore
Hi-Desert Star
Published: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 2:43 AM CDT
Every time Katie Tagle’s 4-year-old son picks a dandelion, tosses a coin in a fountain or sees a falling star, he makes one wish, and he makes it with all his heart: he wishes the angels would give him his baby brother back. “He wishes it so hard,” says grandmother Maria Brown, squeezing her eyes tight to illustrate the little boy’s screwed-up face of concentration. It’s a wish Tagle shares, but the Yucca Valley woman can’t count on wishes any more — she’s trying to stay focused on the future, on fixing a family-court system she says is so broken, it cost her 9-month-old son his life.
After Wyatt Garcia’s father, Stephen, shot the infant before turning the gun on himself Jan. 31, Tagle and her family were approached for interviews from newspapers, radio shows and TV hosts.
“The Dr. Phil Show” airing at 3 p.m. today (Wednesday) on CBS channel 2 will feature Tagle telling the story of her own family tragedy, and urging changes in the judicial system.
The Web site for the show calls today’s broadcast “Crisis in Family Court,” and is accompanied by a family photo of Tagle hugging Wyatt.
“Dr. Phil is definitely helping shed light on this,” Tagle said in an April 7 interview.
She also has been a guest the John and Ken talk radio show on 640-AM several times, and has given interviews to desert-area newspapers.
Going over and over the details of her ordeal in the family courts and the murder of her son isn’t easy, but Tagle, who doesn’t receive money for her appearances, said she’s doing it for others in similar circumstances.
“It’s hard, but I hope I give other moms hope that maybe because I’m talking, their situation can take a turn for the better, instead of a turn for the worse,” she said.
“And the judges know they’re being watched.”
It’s those judges who are part of Tagle’s long-term plan to improve the family law system.
Tagle’s first step is to tell everyone who will listen about how family-court judges in Joshua Tree and Victorville ignored her pleas and evidence and gave Stephen Garcia unsupervised partial custody of their son.
Her most immediate goal: convince enough voters to replace Robert Lemkau, the judge who granted Garcia unsupervised custody rights, in the June 8 election.
She and her family are campaigning for deputy district attorney James Hosking, who filed to run against Lemkau June 8 after hearing Tagle’s story.
Her long-term aim is to change the way judges in family courts are chosen and trained.
“I’m hoping family-law judges will be experts in family law. Most of them today are coming from criminal law,” Tagle said.
“They’ll be better at reading people. They’ll see this guy does need help, this mom does need help — and they’ll get them that help,” Tagle predicted. “I’m hoping they’ll do their job the way they’re supposed to.”
“Train them,” added her mother. “Train them before you put them there. Lemkau had only 16 hours of experience in family court before he was sent to Victorville.”
Looking back on her experience with family law and the sheriff’s department, whom she often called to report Garcia’s harassment and once, his refusal to return Wyatt, Tagle can see plenty of room for training and improvement.
“Everybody blew her off as a complaining woman,” Brown said, something one of Tagle’s sisters had described in an interview the day after Wyatt’s death.
“They treated her like she was the one who was going to harm the child,” Andrea Rodriguez of Hesperia said.
In a call history for a Jan. 25 incident, when Tagle called the sheriff’s substation in Phelan because Garcia would not return Wyatt, the responding deputy reported he threatened both parents if they couldn’t “get their heads straight,” he would give the child to the Department of Children’s Services.
It was during Garcia’s turn at custody the following week that he e-mailed Tagle his suicide letter.
The sheriff’s substation in Phelan classified the call as “missing person,” but the call history shows the deputy also classified it as a possible false report of a crime.
Parents need resources, advice
Tagle and Brown say parents of threatened children need more resources and information about how to navigate the criminal justice system and what tools are available.
For example, Tagle did not know she could subpoena a sheriff’s deputy who believed Garcia was a threat and obtained an emergency restraining order for her.
“Nobody gives you this information. There should be a Web site with legitimate advice for moms,” she said.
“It’s hard to get help. You shouldn’t have to rely on a lawyer. You should be able to go into court and tell the truth and get a fair hearing. I should have gotten a fair hearing.”
And the problem is not just in Victorville, or San Bernardino County, she added — something her newfound publicity and her appearance on “Dr. Phil” taught her.
I hadn’t realized there were judges like this all over the country. I thought it was just a few cases here and there, but it’s not. It’s everywhere.”
Despite their experiences, and recent harassment by Garcia’s friends and an Internet group that reveres him as a hero, the women advise mothers who are being abused or who fear for their children to never give up.
“I’m hoping they won’t stop fighting. They’ll just keep fighting and fighting,” she said.
It’s her plan, too.
“We’re going to keep this going until something changes. They can harass me, but they’re not going to break my will. I am here, I’m going to be heard.”
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Voters have right to remove Lemkau through election (San Bernadino County, California)
Great editorial by Jeff Belmont at the Hi-Desert Star. Regular Dastardly readers should remember this case, where abusive father STEPHEN GARCIA murdered his 9-month-old son during court-ordered visitation.
http://www.hidesertstar.com/articles/2010/05/15/editorial/doc4bee49868db42189538935.txt
Guest Soapbox
Voters have right to remove Lemkau through election
By Jeff Belmont
Citizens to Remove Judge Robert Lemkau
Published: Saturday, May 15, 2010 2:19 AM CDT
The shocking murder of 9-month-old baby Wyatt has received national attention, and has brought to light the troubling reality that bad decisions by some judges can lead to tragedy. It is the duty of all family court judges to prioritize children’s safety. When judges fail to uphold that responsibility, voters have the right to remove those judges from the bench.
As elected officials, judges can and should be held accountable by voters when they fail to do their job. As Judge Robert Lemkau has failed to protect children or prioritize their safety, as shown by his bad judgment in Wyatt’s murder case, voters should cast their ballots to remove him on June 8.
As tragically illustrated by the baby Wyatt murder, the decisions made by family court judges can have life-and-death implications for children. Judges must carefully assess and consider the evidence presented, and must avoid making assumptions or snap judgments.
In family court cases where allegations are made that a child’s life has been threatened, judges should immediately put protections in place to ensure the child’s safety, while ordering a thorough investigation into the matter.
After reviewing the court transcript and media reports of the Tagle case, it is clear that Judge Lemkau made many grave errors in judgment that led to this tragedy.
First, Lemkau placed a baby in danger by failing to order an investigation into the allegations that the father, Stephen Garcia, made death threats to kill Baby Wyatt. Lemkau also failed to ensure baby’s Wyatt’s safety — he refused to grant the mother’s request for supervised visitation. Instead, Lemkau ordered the mother to turn her baby over to the father the same day of the hearing — a fatal error. It was during an unsupervised visitation granted by Lemkau that the father, Stephen Garcia, shot the baby to death, then killed himself.
According to media reports, the mother, Katie Tagle, presented e-mails as evidence of death threats by the father. Lemkau claims in the media that the source of the e-mails could not be authenticated — however, the reality is that Lemkau could have easily authenticated the e-mail’s source by requesting that the Sheriff’s Department trace the ISP (Internet service provider) to confirm if the e-mail was sent by Stephen Garcia’s Internet account. A baby’s life hung in the balance, yet Lemkau did nothing to investigate.
Lemkau showed further bad judgment when he failed to take into account that Judge David Mazurek recognized the danger of the situation and granted an emergency protective order (EPO) to Ms. Tagle. Judge Mazurek took action to protect baby Wyatt in issuing that EPO, but it was Lemkau who refused to uphold that protective order.
Equally troubling is that court transcripts show Lemkau appeared to have already made his decision, before hearing any evidence. Lemkau assumed without investigation that the allegations of death threats were false — almost immediately after the hearing began, he declared, “One of you is lying, and I’m very concerned.”
Also, it is clear Lemkau does not recognize his grave errors in judgment, and he will continue to put children in danger — in a media interview discussing the case, he stated, “I made the appropriate decision.”
Finally, the fact that Lemkau essentially called a litigant a liar in his courtroom is a possible violation of judicial ethics. Court transcripts show Lemkau stated to the mother, “My supposition is that you’re lying.” Such unprofessional conduct is unbecoming of a judge.
…Lemkau has failed in his job to protect children, and unless Lemkau is removed, he will continue to endanger children. Therefore, Judge Lemkau should be held accountable by voters, by being removed from the bench on election day.
——
Jeff Belmont is the founder of Citizens to Remove Judge Robert Lemkau, formed in response to the murder of 9-month old Wyatt Garcia. The group’s website is http://www.removelemkau.com/.
http://www.hidesertstar.com/articles/2010/05/15/editorial/doc4bee49868db42189538935.txt
Guest Soapbox
Voters have right to remove Lemkau through election
By Jeff Belmont
Citizens to Remove Judge Robert Lemkau
Published: Saturday, May 15, 2010 2:19 AM CDT
The shocking murder of 9-month-old baby Wyatt has received national attention, and has brought to light the troubling reality that bad decisions by some judges can lead to tragedy. It is the duty of all family court judges to prioritize children’s safety. When judges fail to uphold that responsibility, voters have the right to remove those judges from the bench.
As elected officials, judges can and should be held accountable by voters when they fail to do their job. As Judge Robert Lemkau has failed to protect children or prioritize their safety, as shown by his bad judgment in Wyatt’s murder case, voters should cast their ballots to remove him on June 8.
As tragically illustrated by the baby Wyatt murder, the decisions made by family court judges can have life-and-death implications for children. Judges must carefully assess and consider the evidence presented, and must avoid making assumptions or snap judgments.
In family court cases where allegations are made that a child’s life has been threatened, judges should immediately put protections in place to ensure the child’s safety, while ordering a thorough investigation into the matter.
After reviewing the court transcript and media reports of the Tagle case, it is clear that Judge Lemkau made many grave errors in judgment that led to this tragedy.
First, Lemkau placed a baby in danger by failing to order an investigation into the allegations that the father, Stephen Garcia, made death threats to kill Baby Wyatt. Lemkau also failed to ensure baby’s Wyatt’s safety — he refused to grant the mother’s request for supervised visitation. Instead, Lemkau ordered the mother to turn her baby over to the father the same day of the hearing — a fatal error. It was during an unsupervised visitation granted by Lemkau that the father, Stephen Garcia, shot the baby to death, then killed himself.
According to media reports, the mother, Katie Tagle, presented e-mails as evidence of death threats by the father. Lemkau claims in the media that the source of the e-mails could not be authenticated — however, the reality is that Lemkau could have easily authenticated the e-mail’s source by requesting that the Sheriff’s Department trace the ISP (Internet service provider) to confirm if the e-mail was sent by Stephen Garcia’s Internet account. A baby’s life hung in the balance, yet Lemkau did nothing to investigate.
Lemkau showed further bad judgment when he failed to take into account that Judge David Mazurek recognized the danger of the situation and granted an emergency protective order (EPO) to Ms. Tagle. Judge Mazurek took action to protect baby Wyatt in issuing that EPO, but it was Lemkau who refused to uphold that protective order.
Equally troubling is that court transcripts show Lemkau appeared to have already made his decision, before hearing any evidence. Lemkau assumed without investigation that the allegations of death threats were false — almost immediately after the hearing began, he declared, “One of you is lying, and I’m very concerned.”
Also, it is clear Lemkau does not recognize his grave errors in judgment, and he will continue to put children in danger — in a media interview discussing the case, he stated, “I made the appropriate decision.”
Finally, the fact that Lemkau essentially called a litigant a liar in his courtroom is a possible violation of judicial ethics. Court transcripts show Lemkau stated to the mother, “My supposition is that you’re lying.” Such unprofessional conduct is unbecoming of a judge.
…Lemkau has failed in his job to protect children, and unless Lemkau is removed, he will continue to endanger children. Therefore, Judge Lemkau should be held accountable by voters, by being removed from the bench on election day.
——
Jeff Belmont is the founder of Citizens to Remove Judge Robert Lemkau, formed in response to the murder of 9-month old Wyatt Garcia. The group’s website is http://www.removelemkau.com/.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Daddy planned murder of infant son on Facebook, so why did the Judge David Mazurek give him visitation? (Pinon Hills, California)
We posted on dad STEPHEN GARCIA yesterday, and how he murdered his 9-month-old son during court-ordered visitation.
We also revealed how Judge David Mazurek REJECTED the mother's request for a domestic violence restraining order. In the judge's august opinion, Daddy wasn't a "threat to the petitioner or to the minor child." Well, that call turned out to be just a tad mistaken, wasn't it Judge? Not that you're going to own up to your wretchedly poor judgement or anything.
Now evidence has surfaced on Facebook showing Daddy's twisted and murderous intentions have been out in the open, in plain sight, all along. Short of shouting his intentions from a rooftop while on primetime TV, what else did the court need to hear? But that's the problem. They don't investigate, they don't listen to the evidence. They just slap down moms as liars.
http://www.vvdailypress.com/news/hills-17062-son-pinon.html
Pinon Hills man plans murder of infant son, suicide on Facebook
February 01, 2010 11:19 PM
Beatriz Valenzuela
In a chilling letter posted on Facebook for anyone to see, Stephen Garcia, 25, of Pinon Hills appears to detail how he planned his suicide and the murder of his 9-month-old son.
“I led everyone on my side of the family to believe I wouldn’t of done this because I did not want them to know...” the letter reads. “I had been thinking about doing this for months.”
The post may help San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Homicide investigators piece together what led to the Sunday morning tragedy, when Garcia took his infant son during a court-ordered visitation, drove to a dirt road in Twin Peaks and ended both of their lives.
In the letter posted to his Facebook profile, Garcia claimed the deaths were an attempt to save his son from a difficult life — and to punish the baby’s mother, Katie Tagle, for refusing to come back to him.
“Our deaths are a lot for her,” the post continues. “It will have to suffice as her punishment. But that is not the reason I did it. It was the only way we could be happy without Katie. I did this out of love for our son, to protect him and myself.”
Saved letters, text messages and massive files containing e-mails and other correspondence give a glimpse into Garcia’s obsession, cursing Tagle and her family in some posts and asking her to return to him in others.
Court documents tell more of the story, with Tagle filing a request for a domestic violence restraining order on Dec. 11, 2009. On Jan. 12 that order was denied, as it was found Garcia was not a “threat to petitioner or the minor child.”
A search of his criminal record showed no history of domestic violence, battery or similar offenses in San Bernardino County. However, in one of a slew of other online letters attributed to Garcia, it states, “I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry for hitting you. I’m sorry I made the wrong choices.”
On Jan. 17, shortly after the final visit with Judge David Mazurek, Garcia joined a Facebook group called “Organ Donor.”
In the days leading up to the murder-suicide, Garcia posted a half-dozen videos and dozens of photos of Wyatt with cryptic captions such as, “Please, it’s not too late.”
On his MySpace page, his mood over the last week was listed as “tested,” “bummed” and “scared,” with “one more day :(” his final post.
Hours before officials got a call Saturday night that Wyatt was missing and Garcia had threatened to kill him, he made his final online post: “We love you all.”
The suicide note was posted on Garcia’s Facebook profile Sunday, about eight hours after Hesperia Sheriff’s deputies found the bodies in Garcia’s car. It appears Garcia left directions for someone to post the letter and make it public for everyone to see.
The lengthy post also reads as a will, with directions for how to distribute his possessions and personal notes to family members and friends. It also states that Garcia left a signed letter in his truck, confessing to the killings and explaining why he did them.
Though Garcia mentions using a gun, investigators have not released information on how he killed Wyatt and himself, stating only that they both died from “traumatic injuries.”
Anyone who may have information about this case is asked to call Detective Ryan Ford or Sgt. Frank Montanez at the Sheriff’s Homicide Detail at (909) 387-3589 or call WeTip at (800) 78-CRIME.
Brooke Edwards and Natasha Lindstrom contributed to this report.
We also revealed how Judge David Mazurek REJECTED the mother's request for a domestic violence restraining order. In the judge's august opinion, Daddy wasn't a "threat to the petitioner or to the minor child." Well, that call turned out to be just a tad mistaken, wasn't it Judge? Not that you're going to own up to your wretchedly poor judgement or anything.
Now evidence has surfaced on Facebook showing Daddy's twisted and murderous intentions have been out in the open, in plain sight, all along. Short of shouting his intentions from a rooftop while on primetime TV, what else did the court need to hear? But that's the problem. They don't investigate, they don't listen to the evidence. They just slap down moms as liars.
http://www.vvdailypress.com/news/hills-17062-son-pinon.html
Pinon Hills man plans murder of infant son, suicide on Facebook
February 01, 2010 11:19 PM
Beatriz Valenzuela
In a chilling letter posted on Facebook for anyone to see, Stephen Garcia, 25, of Pinon Hills appears to detail how he planned his suicide and the murder of his 9-month-old son.
“I led everyone on my side of the family to believe I wouldn’t of done this because I did not want them to know...” the letter reads. “I had been thinking about doing this for months.”
The post may help San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Homicide investigators piece together what led to the Sunday morning tragedy, when Garcia took his infant son during a court-ordered visitation, drove to a dirt road in Twin Peaks and ended both of their lives.
In the letter posted to his Facebook profile, Garcia claimed the deaths were an attempt to save his son from a difficult life — and to punish the baby’s mother, Katie Tagle, for refusing to come back to him.
“Our deaths are a lot for her,” the post continues. “It will have to suffice as her punishment. But that is not the reason I did it. It was the only way we could be happy without Katie. I did this out of love for our son, to protect him and myself.”
Saved letters, text messages and massive files containing e-mails and other correspondence give a glimpse into Garcia’s obsession, cursing Tagle and her family in some posts and asking her to return to him in others.
Court documents tell more of the story, with Tagle filing a request for a domestic violence restraining order on Dec. 11, 2009. On Jan. 12 that order was denied, as it was found Garcia was not a “threat to petitioner or the minor child.”
A search of his criminal record showed no history of domestic violence, battery or similar offenses in San Bernardino County. However, in one of a slew of other online letters attributed to Garcia, it states, “I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry for hitting you. I’m sorry I made the wrong choices.”
On Jan. 17, shortly after the final visit with Judge David Mazurek, Garcia joined a Facebook group called “Organ Donor.”
In the days leading up to the murder-suicide, Garcia posted a half-dozen videos and dozens of photos of Wyatt with cryptic captions such as, “Please, it’s not too late.”
On his MySpace page, his mood over the last week was listed as “tested,” “bummed” and “scared,” with “one more day :(” his final post.
Hours before officials got a call Saturday night that Wyatt was missing and Garcia had threatened to kill him, he made his final online post: “We love you all.”
The suicide note was posted on Garcia’s Facebook profile Sunday, about eight hours after Hesperia Sheriff’s deputies found the bodies in Garcia’s car. It appears Garcia left directions for someone to post the letter and make it public for everyone to see.
The lengthy post also reads as a will, with directions for how to distribute his possessions and personal notes to family members and friends. It also states that Garcia left a signed letter in his truck, confessing to the killings and explaining why he did them.
Though Garcia mentions using a gun, investigators have not released information on how he killed Wyatt and himself, stating only that they both died from “traumatic injuries.”
Anyone who may have information about this case is asked to call Detective Ryan Ford or Sgt. Frank Montanez at the Sheriff’s Homicide Detail at (909) 387-3589 or call WeTip at (800) 78-CRIME.
Brooke Edwards and Natasha Lindstrom contributed to this report.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Voters should judge Lemkau on failure to protect child (San Bernadino, California)
Another great editorial--this one by Randy Burton of the Harris County, Texas District Attorney's Office--at the Hi-Desert Star. Regular Dastardly readers will recall that Judge Robert Lemkau granted a psychotic father, STEPHEN GARCIA, unsupervised visitation. Garcia then murdered his 9-month-old son.
http://www.hidesertstar.com/articles/2010/05/22/editorial/doc4bf7869f5f69c688393931.txt
Guest Soapbox
Voters should judge Lemkau on failure to protect child
By Randy Burton
Founder, Justice for Children
Published: Saturday, May 22, 2010 2:34 AM CDT
“My supposition, ma’am, is that you’re lying.” Judge Robert Lemkau’s presumptuous statement made to Katie Tagle on Jan. 21, 2010, would have far-reaching and tragic effects. In denying this mother’s basic request for a protective order against her former boyfriend and father of her infant child, Judge Lemkau threatened there would be “adverse consequences” for Katie if she had lied to him. The grim reality is that Katie was telling the truth, and it would be Katie Tagle’s 9-month-old son, Wyatt Garcia, who suffered the consequences of Lemkau’s bad judgment when the father, Stephen Garcia, shot the baby to death 10 days later.
Though judges do, indeed, pass judgment on others, they are ethically obligated to be impartial. However, in spite of the evidence Ms. Tagle presented of Wyatt Garcia’s e-mails threatening to kill their son and himself, Judge Lemkau denied her plea for protection.
Rather than take the law into her own hands, Ms. Tagle trusted the legal system to protect her and her infant son from her abusive, homicidal ex-boyfriend, the boy’s father. Instead, Judge Lemkau treated her claims and evidence with skepticism and disbelief. Rather than give Ms. Tagle and her baby the benefit of the doubt in the interest of safety, Judge Lemkau’s supposition was that she was a liar. By definition, “supposition” is “an opinion or judgment based on little or no evidence.”
This morality play is not just about the re-election of a sitting judge. It is first and foremost about an elected official’s accountability to the voters for his actions and the sorry state of children’s rights in our country.
…Judge Lemkau and many of his male counterparts in family courts across our country assume that when a woman alleges child abuse in court, she is doing so solely for strategic advantage. Frequently indifferent to the allegations of abuse, particularly allegations of sexual abuse, judges assume that claims of child abuse in custody cases are false, despite numerous national studies indicating that the number of false allegations of sexual abuse in custody cases is very small, and punish those who dare to make such allegations. As a result, the protection of the child and any due process to which he is entitled are given little or no consideration, and the abuser is frequently given unrestricted visitation with the child, if not total custody. Child abuse, whether sexual or physical, and child protection becomes only incidentally a custody question.
With a baby’s life on the line, Judge Lemkau reportedly spent a total of about five minutes on the entire hearing. Lemkau stated, “All I had were the e-mails,” but that is untrue. Police reports and an emergency protective order issued eight days earlier by Judge David Mazurek were also admitted into evidence. Clearly, Judge Lemkau chose to ignore Judge Mazurek’s prior decision recognizing the danger posed to baby Wyatt and his mother.
It is every judge’s job to carefully consider all the evidence before making a decision. Judge Lemkau failed to do so and wrongly pre-judged the case. The court transcript shows Lemkau issued his decision almost immediately after the hearing began, without giving baby Wyatt’s mother, Katie Tagle, an opportunity to fully present her evidence. In fact, Lemkau interrupted Ms. Tagle virtually every time she attempted to speak and present her side of the case.
Judge Lemkau stated in a recent media interview that what’s important is not what was said in court that day, but what he did. What Judge Lemkau did and what voters should judge him on was his decision to ignore the credible evidence before him, his failure to investigate threats against a child’s life, his apparent bias against allegations of abuse and his failure to ensure a baby’s safety.
——
Randy Burton is a former assistant district attorney for the Harris County District Attorney’s Office in Houston, Texas, where he served as the chief prosecutor of family offenses.
http://www.hidesertstar.com/articles/2010/05/22/editorial/doc4bf7869f5f69c688393931.txt
Guest Soapbox
Voters should judge Lemkau on failure to protect child
By Randy Burton
Founder, Justice for Children
Published: Saturday, May 22, 2010 2:34 AM CDT
“My supposition, ma’am, is that you’re lying.” Judge Robert Lemkau’s presumptuous statement made to Katie Tagle on Jan. 21, 2010, would have far-reaching and tragic effects. In denying this mother’s basic request for a protective order against her former boyfriend and father of her infant child, Judge Lemkau threatened there would be “adverse consequences” for Katie if she had lied to him. The grim reality is that Katie was telling the truth, and it would be Katie Tagle’s 9-month-old son, Wyatt Garcia, who suffered the consequences of Lemkau’s bad judgment when the father, Stephen Garcia, shot the baby to death 10 days later.
Though judges do, indeed, pass judgment on others, they are ethically obligated to be impartial. However, in spite of the evidence Ms. Tagle presented of Wyatt Garcia’s e-mails threatening to kill their son and himself, Judge Lemkau denied her plea for protection.
Rather than take the law into her own hands, Ms. Tagle trusted the legal system to protect her and her infant son from her abusive, homicidal ex-boyfriend, the boy’s father. Instead, Judge Lemkau treated her claims and evidence with skepticism and disbelief. Rather than give Ms. Tagle and her baby the benefit of the doubt in the interest of safety, Judge Lemkau’s supposition was that she was a liar. By definition, “supposition” is “an opinion or judgment based on little or no evidence.”
This morality play is not just about the re-election of a sitting judge. It is first and foremost about an elected official’s accountability to the voters for his actions and the sorry state of children’s rights in our country.
…Judge Lemkau and many of his male counterparts in family courts across our country assume that when a woman alleges child abuse in court, she is doing so solely for strategic advantage. Frequently indifferent to the allegations of abuse, particularly allegations of sexual abuse, judges assume that claims of child abuse in custody cases are false, despite numerous national studies indicating that the number of false allegations of sexual abuse in custody cases is very small, and punish those who dare to make such allegations. As a result, the protection of the child and any due process to which he is entitled are given little or no consideration, and the abuser is frequently given unrestricted visitation with the child, if not total custody. Child abuse, whether sexual or physical, and child protection becomes only incidentally a custody question.
With a baby’s life on the line, Judge Lemkau reportedly spent a total of about five minutes on the entire hearing. Lemkau stated, “All I had were the e-mails,” but that is untrue. Police reports and an emergency protective order issued eight days earlier by Judge David Mazurek were also admitted into evidence. Clearly, Judge Lemkau chose to ignore Judge Mazurek’s prior decision recognizing the danger posed to baby Wyatt and his mother.
It is every judge’s job to carefully consider all the evidence before making a decision. Judge Lemkau failed to do so and wrongly pre-judged the case. The court transcript shows Lemkau issued his decision almost immediately after the hearing began, without giving baby Wyatt’s mother, Katie Tagle, an opportunity to fully present her evidence. In fact, Lemkau interrupted Ms. Tagle virtually every time she attempted to speak and present her side of the case.
Judge Lemkau stated in a recent media interview that what’s important is not what was said in court that day, but what he did. What Judge Lemkau did and what voters should judge him on was his decision to ignore the credible evidence before him, his failure to investigate threats against a child’s life, his apparent bias against allegations of abuse and his failure to ensure a baby’s safety.
——
Randy Burton is a former assistant district attorney for the Harris County District Attorney’s Office in Houston, Texas, where he served as the chief prosecutor of family offenses.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Facebook Gives Murdering Father the Last Word (Twin Peaks, California)
Excellent post from Elizabeth C. at CrabbyGolightly regarding father/killer STEPHEN GARCIA.
Hat tip to Annie for finding this.
http://crabbygolightly.com/mt/2010/02/facebook_lets_murdering_father_get_the_last_word.html
Facebook Gives Murdering Father The Last Word
By Elizabeth C.
TO THE TWISTED AND CONTROLLING MIND OF STEPHEN GARCIA, it wasn't enough to kill himself and his nine-month-old son to spite an ex-girlfriend. He had to have the last word.
In his final vengeful and selfish act, Garcia, 25, shot his son Wyatt to death before turning the gun on himself in a parked vehicle on a rural road in Twin Peaks, Calif.
The murder-suicide was the final act of a tragedy that had played for weeks on the social medium Facebook, the Internet, and in a Joshua Tree, Calif. superior courtrooms.
Garcia was enraged and bitter that his ex-girlfriend, whom I will not mention out of spite to him, had become involved with another man.
So in exhaustive, obsessive detail, he had for weeks begged, pleaded and threatened his ex-girlfriend through Facebook, text messages and his personal website.
"HOW DO YOU THINK THIS IS GOING TO AFFECT ME FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE?," Garcia wrote. "HOW IS IT GOING TO AFFECT WYATT? DO YOU HONESTLY BELIEVE IM (sic) GOING TO JUST SIT BACK AND WATCH WYATT BE RAISED BY ANOTHER MAN? HOW LONG BEFORE I DO SOMETHING STUPID?"
A final video and obituary was posted on Garcia's Facebook page within hours of Garcia's death but it remains unclear if it was posted before or after the crime. In it, he makes the ridiculous claim that he killed his son to protect him. He also characterized the deaths as "punishment" to his exgirlfriend.
In another post, he wrote, “I am crazy, crazy in love, YOU did this to me. YOU. I'm not psycho, I'm not obsessive, I'm not a stalker.”
Garcia’s words and deeds were so threatening that his ex-girlfriend of two years unsuccessfully sought a restraining order against him in court.
Three judges denied her request -- with one going so far as to accuse her of lying to bolster her case in a pending custody matter, according to published reports.
"I get concerned when there’s a pending child custody and visitation issue and in between that, one party or the other claims that there’s some violence in between,’’ Judge David Mazurek said in denying the woman’s request for a restraining order. “It raises the court’s eyebrows because based on my experience, it’s a way for one party to try to gain an advantage over the other.”
A day after Mazurek's ruling, after being told by Garcia to check her email, the mother received an anonymous email containing a story entitled Necessary Evil that had alternate endings.
One ending depicted the female character happily returning to her estranged partner; in the second, the male kills his son with Benadryl. The estranged girlfriend immediately notified authorities who obtained an emergency restraining order. But the following day, a third judge refused to uphold that order.
A family member told reporters that that judge, Robert Lemkau, had pointed to the mother in court said, “One of you is lying and I think it’s you.”
Justifiably so, the case have provoked an uproar over the jurists’ indifference to the mother’s claims.
“This was preventable. This didn’t have to happen,” the child’s grandmother told a Hi-Desert Star reporter. “The system failed Wyatt. It cost him his life.”
Hat tip to Annie for finding this.
http://crabbygolightly.com/mt/2010/02/facebook_lets_murdering_father_get_the_last_word.html
Facebook Gives Murdering Father The Last Word
By Elizabeth C.
TO THE TWISTED AND CONTROLLING MIND OF STEPHEN GARCIA, it wasn't enough to kill himself and his nine-month-old son to spite an ex-girlfriend. He had to have the last word.
In his final vengeful and selfish act, Garcia, 25, shot his son Wyatt to death before turning the gun on himself in a parked vehicle on a rural road in Twin Peaks, Calif.
The murder-suicide was the final act of a tragedy that had played for weeks on the social medium Facebook, the Internet, and in a Joshua Tree, Calif. superior courtrooms.
Garcia was enraged and bitter that his ex-girlfriend, whom I will not mention out of spite to him, had become involved with another man.
So in exhaustive, obsessive detail, he had for weeks begged, pleaded and threatened his ex-girlfriend through Facebook, text messages and his personal website.
"HOW DO YOU THINK THIS IS GOING TO AFFECT ME FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE?," Garcia wrote. "HOW IS IT GOING TO AFFECT WYATT? DO YOU HONESTLY BELIEVE IM (sic) GOING TO JUST SIT BACK AND WATCH WYATT BE RAISED BY ANOTHER MAN? HOW LONG BEFORE I DO SOMETHING STUPID?"
A final video and obituary was posted on Garcia's Facebook page within hours of Garcia's death but it remains unclear if it was posted before or after the crime. In it, he makes the ridiculous claim that he killed his son to protect him. He also characterized the deaths as "punishment" to his exgirlfriend.
In another post, he wrote, “I am crazy, crazy in love, YOU did this to me. YOU. I'm not psycho, I'm not obsessive, I'm not a stalker.”
Garcia’s words and deeds were so threatening that his ex-girlfriend of two years unsuccessfully sought a restraining order against him in court.
Three judges denied her request -- with one going so far as to accuse her of lying to bolster her case in a pending custody matter, according to published reports.
"I get concerned when there’s a pending child custody and visitation issue and in between that, one party or the other claims that there’s some violence in between,’’ Judge David Mazurek said in denying the woman’s request for a restraining order. “It raises the court’s eyebrows because based on my experience, it’s a way for one party to try to gain an advantage over the other.”
A day after Mazurek's ruling, after being told by Garcia to check her email, the mother received an anonymous email containing a story entitled Necessary Evil that had alternate endings.
One ending depicted the female character happily returning to her estranged partner; in the second, the male kills his son with Benadryl. The estranged girlfriend immediately notified authorities who obtained an emergency restraining order. But the following day, a third judge refused to uphold that order.
A family member told reporters that that judge, Robert Lemkau, had pointed to the mother in court said, “One of you is lying and I think it’s you.”
Justifiably so, the case have provoked an uproar over the jurists’ indifference to the mother’s claims.
“This was preventable. This didn’t have to happen,” the child’s grandmother told a Hi-Desert Star reporter. “The system failed Wyatt. It cost him his life.”
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Dad who murdered 9-month-old son during court-ordered visitation had SHARED CUSTODY (Pinon Hills, California)
More information on dad STEPHEN GARCIA, who murdered his 9-month-old son during a court-ordered visitation. Now we find out that this @$$wipe actually had shared custody!
Wait! Haven't the fathers rights people told us over and over again that if daddies get shared custody, no more atrocities like this would take place? Doesn't look like it, does it? On the contrary. In the U.S., Australia, Canada, and elsewhere, we're developing quite an impressive list of murdering fathers who, in fact, had shared custody. Just like they demanded. And children are still getting slaughtered. The problem is NOT that these daddies had been "unfairly shut out" of their children's lives. No, the problem seems to be that these violent pieces of sh-- had any access at all. Maybe if they didn't have access, there would be a lot more living children.
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/books/story/1013650.html
Man suspected of killing son, self had posted details on Facebook page
By By DAVID KELLY Los Angeles Times
A Pinon Hills man suspected of killing his 9-month old son before committing suicide apparently posted details of the plans on his Facebook page in an emotional, rambling letter beginning with, "So This Is Goodbye."
"I led everyone on my side of the family to believe I wouldn't have done this because I did not want them to know....," reads the post attributed to Stephen Garcia, 25. "I did this out of love for our son, to protect him and myself. I am sorry.... Do not dwell on what I did, it's something you could not fix."
San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department investigators found Garcia and his son Wyatt at 1:30 a.m. Sunday inside his car on a dirt road in Twin Peaks. Both had sustained "traumatic injuries" and were pronounced dead at the scene.
Earlier that day, deputies had received a report that Garcia had taken his son during a court-ordered visitation and threatened to kill the boy and commit suicide.
Garcia was apparently distraught over having to share custody of the boy with his former girlfriend, Katie Tagle.
He had set up an elaborate Web site with photos, text messages, love letters and angry denunciations of Tagle's family and friends, people he thought were breaking up his family. The site included pictures of himself, his son and Tagle in happier times.
"You are THE missing piece in my life," he wrote. "I hope we can be a family together forever and I will be there for you every day."
But his efforts to bring them back together failed.
The suicide note was discovered on Garcia's Facebook page Sunday, after deputies found the bodies.
"Do not blame her.... " it says of Tagle. "Our deaths are a lot for her. It will have to suffice as her punishment."
Authorities have not said how the pair died, but the letter lashes out at those whom Garcia felt had conspired against him saying, "I HELD THE GUN, YOU PULLED THE TRIGGER.... YOU HELPED CAUSE THE DEATH OF WYATT."
The message instructs his family to sell his property except the guns, knives and snowboarding gear, which he bequeaths to his brother.
"There are so many things I wish I could have done before I died. There are so many places I wanted to go, so many things I wanted to do," the message reads. "I wanted a family of my own so bad.... I wish we could have had Wyatt's first birthday together."
Jodie Miller, a sheriff's spokeswoman, said detectives were examining the letter for further clues into the murder-suicide.
"They are looking into every avenue right now," she said.
Tagle could not be reached for comment.
Toward the end of the post, Garcia apologized for punching Tagle and making "bad choices." He asked to be buried beside Wyatt near the sea.
"Pay whatever it costs... pick a nice green place... next to the ocean and lay us to rest," he writes. "Sell my car, my items, whatever it takes but please give me this wish as a father to be with my son in that beautiful place."
Wait! Haven't the fathers rights people told us over and over again that if daddies get shared custody, no more atrocities like this would take place? Doesn't look like it, does it? On the contrary. In the U.S., Australia, Canada, and elsewhere, we're developing quite an impressive list of murdering fathers who, in fact, had shared custody. Just like they demanded. And children are still getting slaughtered. The problem is NOT that these daddies had been "unfairly shut out" of their children's lives. No, the problem seems to be that these violent pieces of sh-- had any access at all. Maybe if they didn't have access, there would be a lot more living children.
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/books/story/1013650.html
Man suspected of killing son, self had posted details on Facebook page
By By DAVID KELLY Los Angeles Times
A Pinon Hills man suspected of killing his 9-month old son before committing suicide apparently posted details of the plans on his Facebook page in an emotional, rambling letter beginning with, "So This Is Goodbye."
"I led everyone on my side of the family to believe I wouldn't have done this because I did not want them to know....," reads the post attributed to Stephen Garcia, 25. "I did this out of love for our son, to protect him and myself. I am sorry.... Do not dwell on what I did, it's something you could not fix."
San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department investigators found Garcia and his son Wyatt at 1:30 a.m. Sunday inside his car on a dirt road in Twin Peaks. Both had sustained "traumatic injuries" and were pronounced dead at the scene.
Earlier that day, deputies had received a report that Garcia had taken his son during a court-ordered visitation and threatened to kill the boy and commit suicide.
Garcia was apparently distraught over having to share custody of the boy with his former girlfriend, Katie Tagle.
He had set up an elaborate Web site with photos, text messages, love letters and angry denunciations of Tagle's family and friends, people he thought were breaking up his family. The site included pictures of himself, his son and Tagle in happier times.
"You are THE missing piece in my life," he wrote. "I hope we can be a family together forever and I will be there for you every day."
But his efforts to bring them back together failed.
The suicide note was discovered on Garcia's Facebook page Sunday, after deputies found the bodies.
"Do not blame her.... " it says of Tagle. "Our deaths are a lot for her. It will have to suffice as her punishment."
Authorities have not said how the pair died, but the letter lashes out at those whom Garcia felt had conspired against him saying, "I HELD THE GUN, YOU PULLED THE TRIGGER.... YOU HELPED CAUSE THE DEATH OF WYATT."
The message instructs his family to sell his property except the guns, knives and snowboarding gear, which he bequeaths to his brother.
"There are so many things I wish I could have done before I died. There are so many places I wanted to go, so many things I wanted to do," the message reads. "I wanted a family of my own so bad.... I wish we could have had Wyatt's first birthday together."
Jodie Miller, a sheriff's spokeswoman, said detectives were examining the letter for further clues into the murder-suicide.
"They are looking into every avenue right now," she said.
Tagle could not be reached for comment.
Toward the end of the post, Garcia apologized for punching Tagle and making "bad choices." He asked to be buried beside Wyatt near the sea.
"Pay whatever it costs... pick a nice green place... next to the ocean and lay us to rest," he writes. "Sell my car, my items, whatever it takes but please give me this wish as a father to be with my son in that beautiful place."
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Disciplining the Judge - by Cara Tabachnick
Excellent post by Cara Tabachnik at the Crime Report
http://thecrimereport.org/2010/07/05/disciplining-the-judge/#more-43517
Disciplining the Judge
By Cara Tabachnick
Monday, July 5th, 2010 8:45 am
The Crime Report in May told the story of a nine-month old infant murdered in the midst of a bitter California custody battle. Last month, the presiding judge in the case lost his battle for re-election.
Could the death of little Wyatt Garcia have been prevented? Supporters of the boy’s mother, Katie Tagle, have charged that a San Bernardino, CA family court judge who refused to accept her plea for custody was indirectly responsible for the chain of events that ended when her estranged husband shot the boy and then turned the gun on himself last year. (See “Failure to Protect“, The Crime Report, May 26, 2010)
California Superior Court Judge Robert Lemkau vehemently defended his actions. But last month, local voters came to their own conclusions about his judgment on the bench.
He lost his position after an election swept him out of office with just 35 percent of the vote, in favor of his opponent, a local deputy assistant district attorney named James Hosking.
Lemkau had refused to sign a protective order against the boy’s father, 25-year-old Stephen Garcia, even though his ex-girlfriend supplied evidence of Garcia’s threats to harm the boy and herself, including e-mails, text messages and voice messages. Although no extenuating circumstances were raised in court transcripts of the case, Lemkau simply accused Tagle of lying, and ordered that she turn Wyatt over to his father—with fatal results. “I was treated like a criminal, like a complaining woman,” Tagle told The Crime Report.
Following the tragedy, the judge expressed some remorse for Wyatt’s death, but refused to acknowledge that he had made a wrong decision instead saying on his re-election Web site, “ I ruled the way I did because there wasn’t enough substantiated evidence to support the request.”
While it’s unclear whether the election results had any specific relationship to the Wyatt Garcia case, Lemkau’s defeat underscores one of the most difficult issues in U.S. jurisprudence: the difficulty of calling judges to account for their actions While in theory, elected judges are held accountable to voters, narrowly contested elections are rare in most jurisdictions around the U.S. Few local voters pay attention to such races, and even fewer feel competent to decide on a candidate’s judicial qualifications. .
At the same time, as an investigation by The Crime Report shows, censuring or recusing a judge through official channels is extremely rare, if not impossible.
Both Sides Need Judicial Safeguards
It’s one reason court experts argue that having powerful safeguards in place for judicial protection is extremely important. Such safeguards are needed not just for the injured parties in a case― but for the judges themselves.
Disgruntled litigants can file complaints over and over again tying up the judge in an endless process. Furthermore, judges can be unfairly targeted in acrimonious cases when so much is at stake.
That was the case, for example, in the 2006 shooting of Nevada Family Court Judge Chuck Weller by a man he decided against in a divorce case. The suspect, Darren Mack, shot Weller because he was unhappy with the judge’s rulings, and he later stabbed his wife, Charla Mack, to death.
“In terms of checks and balances there is (only) the appeal process and the right to ask for a recusal,” said Bill Raftery, Knowledge and Information Services Office Research and Communications Specialist at National Center for State Courts, a national not-for profit that seeks to improve the administration of justice.
Litigants have few options. They can try to reverse a decision on appeal, have the judge removed from an ongoing trial with a disqualification motion, move to impeach a judge through the legislative body or file an ethics complaint. However since 1991, only one state judge has been removed through the impeachment process, the American Judicature Society found in 2006. In that year, the latest in which numbers are available, 12 judges were removed from office as a result of state judicial proceedings.
But while appeals are public record, in many states ethics complaints and recusals for individual judges rates are not available, making it hard for litigants to track a judge’s record.
And in the murky and chaotic world of family court, where parents can remain locked for years in volatile custody battles over their children, a judge can sometimes mean the difference between life and death.
If Lemkau had not been up for election in June, it is quite possible he could have remained a sitting judge in family court―leaving the family of baby Wyatt without any recourse―and continuing to render decisions on other custody cases.
And though it may seem that this case is highly unusual, in the U.S. family court system, sadly, it is not.
Kids Are The Victims
Previous articles by The Crime Report found that children are the victims in the contested custody cases that fill the family court dockets. Not only can they be killed, more often than not the children are left in the custody of an abuser who can continue to sexually or physically assault them.
Another article looked at the systemic issues behind the chaotic and overburdened courtrooms that manage these emotional cases. The contributing factors include: a dearth of judges caused by budget constraints; parents that represent themselves, thus backlogging the system with procedural mistakes; the explosion of custody disputes in cases with adoptive gay parents; and the high percentage of children born to single parents who are requesting child support. Together these have narrowed the average time a judge spends on a family court case to 3.5 minutes, according to a report by the New York State Senate Committee on the Judiciary.
The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges with the Office on Violence Against Women started the National Judicial Institute on Domestic Violence over a decade ago to address these problems and train judges to recognize and handle domestic violence. Together these non-profit organizations provided recommendations to judges who hear family court cases on how to recognize high-risk abuse situations.
Advocates contend that many family court judges are not properly trained or ignore abuse guidelines. And such judges tend to view protective mothers as not trustworthy and overwrought, making biased decisions on which they have no true recourse, according to Darby Mangen , chapter president of the San Bernardino National Organization of Women (NOW). “No matter how exiguous the case there is no help for the victim,” added Mangen, who was active in the campaign to remove Judge Lemkau.
Furthermore, since so much of the decision making in custody cases relies on the judge’s discretion, litigants are fearful of bringing any motions against the judge.
“Family judges have so much power over cases that you can not afford to challenge the judge,” says Tony Tanke, a former senior judicial staff attorney for the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, who advises on family court cases pro-bono.
Moreover, the often tight relationships between local bar associations and judges make it difficult to find an attorney who wants to take on a complaint against a powerful judge, according to Tanke. Indeed, in the Lemkau v. Hoskings election, Lemkau received endorsements from the local Family Law Bar association and other area attorneys, who supported his decision in baby Wyatt’s case
The result: parties who feel victimized by a judge’s biased decision are left with nowhere to turn.
Appeals Get Nowhere
Things are further complicated by the appeals process,. A main point of contention in contested custody cases is the judge’s discretion on deciding whether abuse exists and whether it will be allowed into the legal record. If a mother makes an accusation of abuse in a lower court, but the judge dismisses it under their discretion, as happened in the Garcia case, the judgment will not be overturned at the appellate level. Technically, the judges are not doing anything wrong, they are just making a decision based on their evidence. But that, advocates say, strikes at the heart of the issue.
In fact, almost always the higher court will defer to lower courts on the question of whether or not an abuse claim is unfounded, leaving an enormous amount of power in the hands of the family court judge.
These claims are buttressed by a 2008 report, “Fair Courts: Setting Recusal Standards,” issued by Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, a national think tank focusing on justice matters. The authors found, “On appeal, odds of success are even worse. Nearly every appellate court, state and federal, will overturn a lower court’s disqualification or recusal decision only for an “abuse of discretion.”
Sometimes advocates try to apply some unsubtle pressure, such as attending family court hearings wearing NOW stickers, said Magen. But there have been more formal attempts to establish a watchdog presence in the courtoom.
A national court watch project has established pilot programs in five states that involves sending a team of students and volunteers to sit in on family court cases and report any abuses. So far this year, observers sat in on 560 family court rooms, according to Renee Beeker, Executive Director of National Family Court Watch Project. Although they are still evaluating the watchers’ results, volunteers have found that courtrooms take note of the outside set of eyes on them.
“The court can change their behavior just because they know people are there,” reports Beeker. “And that is a win for us.”
Cara Tabachnick is News Editor of The Crime Report
http://thecrimereport.org/2010/07/05/disciplining-the-judge/#more-43517
Disciplining the Judge
By Cara Tabachnick
Monday, July 5th, 2010 8:45 am
The Crime Report in May told the story of a nine-month old infant murdered in the midst of a bitter California custody battle. Last month, the presiding judge in the case lost his battle for re-election.
Could the death of little Wyatt Garcia have been prevented? Supporters of the boy’s mother, Katie Tagle, have charged that a San Bernardino, CA family court judge who refused to accept her plea for custody was indirectly responsible for the chain of events that ended when her estranged husband shot the boy and then turned the gun on himself last year. (See “Failure to Protect“, The Crime Report, May 26, 2010)
California Superior Court Judge Robert Lemkau vehemently defended his actions. But last month, local voters came to their own conclusions about his judgment on the bench.
He lost his position after an election swept him out of office with just 35 percent of the vote, in favor of his opponent, a local deputy assistant district attorney named James Hosking.
Lemkau had refused to sign a protective order against the boy’s father, 25-year-old Stephen Garcia, even though his ex-girlfriend supplied evidence of Garcia’s threats to harm the boy and herself, including e-mails, text messages and voice messages. Although no extenuating circumstances were raised in court transcripts of the case, Lemkau simply accused Tagle of lying, and ordered that she turn Wyatt over to his father—with fatal results. “I was treated like a criminal, like a complaining woman,” Tagle told The Crime Report.
Following the tragedy, the judge expressed some remorse for Wyatt’s death, but refused to acknowledge that he had made a wrong decision instead saying on his re-election Web site, “ I ruled the way I did because there wasn’t enough substantiated evidence to support the request.”
While it’s unclear whether the election results had any specific relationship to the Wyatt Garcia case, Lemkau’s defeat underscores one of the most difficult issues in U.S. jurisprudence: the difficulty of calling judges to account for their actions While in theory, elected judges are held accountable to voters, narrowly contested elections are rare in most jurisdictions around the U.S. Few local voters pay attention to such races, and even fewer feel competent to decide on a candidate’s judicial qualifications. .
At the same time, as an investigation by The Crime Report shows, censuring or recusing a judge through official channels is extremely rare, if not impossible.
Both Sides Need Judicial Safeguards
It’s one reason court experts argue that having powerful safeguards in place for judicial protection is extremely important. Such safeguards are needed not just for the injured parties in a case― but for the judges themselves.
Disgruntled litigants can file complaints over and over again tying up the judge in an endless process. Furthermore, judges can be unfairly targeted in acrimonious cases when so much is at stake.
That was the case, for example, in the 2006 shooting of Nevada Family Court Judge Chuck Weller by a man he decided against in a divorce case. The suspect, Darren Mack, shot Weller because he was unhappy with the judge’s rulings, and he later stabbed his wife, Charla Mack, to death.
“In terms of checks and balances there is (only) the appeal process and the right to ask for a recusal,” said Bill Raftery, Knowledge and Information Services Office Research and Communications Specialist at National Center for State Courts, a national not-for profit that seeks to improve the administration of justice.
Litigants have few options. They can try to reverse a decision on appeal, have the judge removed from an ongoing trial with a disqualification motion, move to impeach a judge through the legislative body or file an ethics complaint. However since 1991, only one state judge has been removed through the impeachment process, the American Judicature Society found in 2006. In that year, the latest in which numbers are available, 12 judges were removed from office as a result of state judicial proceedings.
But while appeals are public record, in many states ethics complaints and recusals for individual judges rates are not available, making it hard for litigants to track a judge’s record.
And in the murky and chaotic world of family court, where parents can remain locked for years in volatile custody battles over their children, a judge can sometimes mean the difference between life and death.
If Lemkau had not been up for election in June, it is quite possible he could have remained a sitting judge in family court―leaving the family of baby Wyatt without any recourse―and continuing to render decisions on other custody cases.
And though it may seem that this case is highly unusual, in the U.S. family court system, sadly, it is not.
Kids Are The Victims
Previous articles by The Crime Report found that children are the victims in the contested custody cases that fill the family court dockets. Not only can they be killed, more often than not the children are left in the custody of an abuser who can continue to sexually or physically assault them.
Another article looked at the systemic issues behind the chaotic and overburdened courtrooms that manage these emotional cases. The contributing factors include: a dearth of judges caused by budget constraints; parents that represent themselves, thus backlogging the system with procedural mistakes; the explosion of custody disputes in cases with adoptive gay parents; and the high percentage of children born to single parents who are requesting child support. Together these have narrowed the average time a judge spends on a family court case to 3.5 minutes, according to a report by the New York State Senate Committee on the Judiciary.
The National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges with the Office on Violence Against Women started the National Judicial Institute on Domestic Violence over a decade ago to address these problems and train judges to recognize and handle domestic violence. Together these non-profit organizations provided recommendations to judges who hear family court cases on how to recognize high-risk abuse situations.
Advocates contend that many family court judges are not properly trained or ignore abuse guidelines. And such judges tend to view protective mothers as not trustworthy and overwrought, making biased decisions on which they have no true recourse, according to Darby Mangen , chapter president of the San Bernardino National Organization of Women (NOW). “No matter how exiguous the case there is no help for the victim,” added Mangen, who was active in the campaign to remove Judge Lemkau.
Furthermore, since so much of the decision making in custody cases relies on the judge’s discretion, litigants are fearful of bringing any motions against the judge.
“Family judges have so much power over cases that you can not afford to challenge the judge,” says Tony Tanke, a former senior judicial staff attorney for the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, who advises on family court cases pro-bono.
Moreover, the often tight relationships between local bar associations and judges make it difficult to find an attorney who wants to take on a complaint against a powerful judge, according to Tanke. Indeed, in the Lemkau v. Hoskings election, Lemkau received endorsements from the local Family Law Bar association and other area attorneys, who supported his decision in baby Wyatt’s case
The result: parties who feel victimized by a judge’s biased decision are left with nowhere to turn.
Appeals Get Nowhere
Things are further complicated by the appeals process,. A main point of contention in contested custody cases is the judge’s discretion on deciding whether abuse exists and whether it will be allowed into the legal record. If a mother makes an accusation of abuse in a lower court, but the judge dismisses it under their discretion, as happened in the Garcia case, the judgment will not be overturned at the appellate level. Technically, the judges are not doing anything wrong, they are just making a decision based on their evidence. But that, advocates say, strikes at the heart of the issue.
In fact, almost always the higher court will defer to lower courts on the question of whether or not an abuse claim is unfounded, leaving an enormous amount of power in the hands of the family court judge.
These claims are buttressed by a 2008 report, “Fair Courts: Setting Recusal Standards,” issued by Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, a national think tank focusing on justice matters. The authors found, “On appeal, odds of success are even worse. Nearly every appellate court, state and federal, will overturn a lower court’s disqualification or recusal decision only for an “abuse of discretion.”
Sometimes advocates try to apply some unsubtle pressure, such as attending family court hearings wearing NOW stickers, said Magen. But there have been more formal attempts to establish a watchdog presence in the courtoom.
A national court watch project has established pilot programs in five states that involves sending a team of students and volunteers to sit in on family court cases and report any abuses. So far this year, observers sat in on 560 family court rooms, according to Renee Beeker, Executive Director of National Family Court Watch Project. Although they are still evaluating the watchers’ results, volunteers have found that courtrooms take note of the outside set of eyes on them.
“The court can change their behavior just because they know people are there,” reports Beeker. “And that is a win for us.”
Cara Tabachnick is News Editor of The Crime Report
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Deadly consequences: Judge rejected mom's bid for restraining order (Victorville, California)
More information on daddy/killer STEPHEN GARCIA from Victorville Daily Press.
http://www.vvdailypress.com/news/order-17122-bid-rejected.html
Deadly consequences: Judges rejected mom's bid for restraining order
February 03, 2010 5:39 PM
Beatriz Valenzuela
VICTORVILLE • A woman whose ex-boyfriend murdered their infant son and then killed himself had sought a restraining order from two San Bernardino County judges only days before the murder-suicide, according to court records (click here to view records) obtained by the Daily Press.
Katie Tagle petitioned two San Bernardino County court judges for a restraining order only days before her former boyfriend, Stephen Garcia, killed himself and their 9-month-old son, Wyatt. Both requests were denied — in spite of Tagle telling a local judge that Garcia had threatened to kill their son.
“My suspicion is you’re lying,” Judge Robert Lemkau said, according to transcripts from a Jan. 21 hearing in Victorville court, “but I’m keeping the custody orders in full force and effect.”
Wyatt was then turned over to Garcia that day. Both Garcia and the child were found dead 10 days later on a Twin Peaks dirt road, after Garcia took Wyatt during a court-ordered visitation.
“Having that restraining order really could’ve helped this situation and possibly may have swayed a judge to grant supervised visitations,” said Anita Gomez, case manager for A Better Way Domestic Violence Shelter.
Lemkau, who couldn’t be reached for comment, denied to make permanent a temporary restraining order signed by another judge — who at first denied Tagle’s original restraining order request.
Family members said when Tagle went in front of Judge David Mazurek in a Joshua Tree courtroom on Jan. 12, Mazurek denied the permanent restraining order despite the 23-year-old reporting Garcia had recently been abusive to her.
http://www.vvdailypress.com/news/order-17122-bid-rejected.html
Deadly consequences: Judges rejected mom's bid for restraining order
February 03, 2010 5:39 PM
Beatriz Valenzuela
VICTORVILLE • A woman whose ex-boyfriend murdered their infant son and then killed himself had sought a restraining order from two San Bernardino County judges only days before the murder-suicide, according to court records (click here to view records) obtained by the Daily Press.
Katie Tagle petitioned two San Bernardino County court judges for a restraining order only days before her former boyfriend, Stephen Garcia, killed himself and their 9-month-old son, Wyatt. Both requests were denied — in spite of Tagle telling a local judge that Garcia had threatened to kill their son.
“My suspicion is you’re lying,” Judge Robert Lemkau said, according to transcripts from a Jan. 21 hearing in Victorville court, “but I’m keeping the custody orders in full force and effect.”
Wyatt was then turned over to Garcia that day. Both Garcia and the child were found dead 10 days later on a Twin Peaks dirt road, after Garcia took Wyatt during a court-ordered visitation.
“Having that restraining order really could’ve helped this situation and possibly may have swayed a judge to grant supervised visitations,” said Anita Gomez, case manager for A Better Way Domestic Violence Shelter.
Lemkau, who couldn’t be reached for comment, denied to make permanent a temporary restraining order signed by another judge — who at first denied Tagle’s original restraining order request.
Family members said when Tagle went in front of Judge David Mazurek in a Joshua Tree courtroom on Jan. 12, Mazurek denied the permanent restraining order despite the 23-year-old reporting Garcia had recently been abusive to her.
How Judge Lemkau set up a murder (Victorville, California)
Want to know how a biased, incompetent judge sets the stage for the murder of a helpless infant?
Read this partial transcript from the court proceedings held on January 21, 2010 in Victorville, California. The judge is Robert Lemkau. The plaintiff is Katie Nagle, the infant's mother, and the defendant is STEPHEN GARCIA, the infant's father (the name is misspelled as Steven below).
You almost need a calculator to keep track of how many times Judge Lemkau smears the mother as a liar. Note that he expresses no interest in examining any of her claims or looking at any evidence she may have had. His mind is made up, and that's that.
Keep in mind that after Ms. Nagle's request for an ex parte hearing was denied, Mr. Garcia murdered their 9-month-old son during court-ordered visitation.
THE COURT: Okay, Good morning, ma'am. I'm very concerned. You are Kathy Tagle and you're Steven Garcia?
MR. GARCIA: I am.
THE COURT: And you have an ex parte request calendered for tomorrow which I am advancing to today. One of you is lying, and I'm very concerned. You already have a Family Court Services appearance on February the 2nd; is that correct?
MS. TAGLE: February 4th is our mediation date and March 3rd is our next court date that you --
THE COURT: Okay. I'm inclined to deny your ex parte request. I feel that, if you're lying to me, ma'am, there's going to be adverse consequences. Mr. Garcia claims it's total fabrication on your part, but I'm going to deny ex parte basis and you have mediation and you're back in court. All existing orders remain in full force and effect. I urge you to work out your -- you have visitation plans. I'm going to keep all existing orders in full force and effect. Yes, sir?
MR. GARCIA: I'm supposed to get by son back today at 10:000 and so far I've not seen him in two weeks or have been able to talk to him.
MS. TAGLE: The police officer --
THE COURT: I'm denying your request, ma'am. I think -- there's insuficient evidence in my mind. Mr. Garcia claims it's total fabrication on your part that this is -- but I'm going to leave all existing orders in full force and effect which means the visitation previously ordered which you agreed to, you had an agreement for visitation, which was on December the 14th; correct?
MR. GARCIA: Yes.
THE COURT: Okay. That's the order. That will remain in full force and effect. So he should have visitation.
MS. NAGLE: He didn't threaten to kill our son at that time, though and now he has.
THE COURT: Well, ma'am, there's a real dispute about whether that's even true or not. I'm going to deny ex parte basis. He claims this is a total fabrication on your part, that these email communications are total fabrication.
MS. NAGLE: He sent my mother a text message asking me to go the lake with him and Wyatt, and when I get home from work at 11:00 I have these e-mails saying that he's going to take his life and our son's life at the lake the next time he gets him, and if he doesn't do it that day, he will finish the job later and it says it in the story that he would kill our son with Benadryl, that he will put it in his juice bottle and kill him.
MR. GARCIA: Your Honor, I have a time line of all of the little stunts and games I'd like to show you that she's trying to keep me out of my son's life. She even brought her new boyfriend --
THE COURT: I'm going to deny it, ma'am. My suspicion is that you're lying, but I'm going to keep the custody orders in full force and effect. You're going to mediation, coming back to court. Okay. In any event your ex parte request is denied. Continue it to -- the next hearing is 3/1 and, sir, your ex parte request, I'm advancing it to today and I'm basically denying it as well, but I'm keeping all orders -- you had an agreement back in December. All orders remain in full force and effect, okay? Yes, sir.
MR. GARCIA: So it's my understanding you got my paperwork?
THE COURT: Yes, I did. I reviewed it and that's why I'm -- my supposition, ma'am, is that you're lying, but if I'm incorrect, you can always bring another ex parte motion but don't misrepresent the situation. If you're lying about this, there's going to be adverse consequences. My supposition is that you're lying. Yes, sir?
MR. GARCIA: Would you like the paperwork that I brought today?
THE COURT: Keep in in hand. In any event, so have your mediation date and come back to court. Okay. Thank you.
(Whereupon an adjournment was taken.)
Read this partial transcript from the court proceedings held on January 21, 2010 in Victorville, California. The judge is Robert Lemkau. The plaintiff is Katie Nagle, the infant's mother, and the defendant is STEPHEN GARCIA, the infant's father (the name is misspelled as Steven below).
You almost need a calculator to keep track of how many times Judge Lemkau smears the mother as a liar. Note that he expresses no interest in examining any of her claims or looking at any evidence she may have had. His mind is made up, and that's that.
Keep in mind that after Ms. Nagle's request for an ex parte hearing was denied, Mr. Garcia murdered their 9-month-old son during court-ordered visitation.
http://photos.vvdailypress.com/files/multimedia/soundslides/Court.pdf
THE COURT: Number 2. Steven Garcia and Kathy Nagle.
MS. TAGLE: It's Katie.THE COURT: Okay, Good morning, ma'am. I'm very concerned. You are Kathy Tagle and you're Steven Garcia?
MR. GARCIA: I am.
THE COURT: And you have an ex parte request calendered for tomorrow which I am advancing to today. One of you is lying, and I'm very concerned. You already have a Family Court Services appearance on February the 2nd; is that correct?
MS. TAGLE: February 4th is our mediation date and March 3rd is our next court date that you --
THE COURT: Okay. I'm inclined to deny your ex parte request. I feel that, if you're lying to me, ma'am, there's going to be adverse consequences. Mr. Garcia claims it's total fabrication on your part, but I'm going to deny ex parte basis and you have mediation and you're back in court. All existing orders remain in full force and effect. I urge you to work out your -- you have visitation plans. I'm going to keep all existing orders in full force and effect. Yes, sir?
MR. GARCIA: I'm supposed to get by son back today at 10:000 and so far I've not seen him in two weeks or have been able to talk to him.
MS. TAGLE: The police officer --
THE COURT: I'm denying your request, ma'am. I think -- there's insuficient evidence in my mind. Mr. Garcia claims it's total fabrication on your part that this is -- but I'm going to leave all existing orders in full force and effect which means the visitation previously ordered which you agreed to, you had an agreement for visitation, which was on December the 14th; correct?
MR. GARCIA: Yes.
THE COURT: Okay. That's the order. That will remain in full force and effect. So he should have visitation.
MS. NAGLE: He didn't threaten to kill our son at that time, though and now he has.
THE COURT: Well, ma'am, there's a real dispute about whether that's even true or not. I'm going to deny ex parte basis. He claims this is a total fabrication on your part, that these email communications are total fabrication.
MS. NAGLE: He sent my mother a text message asking me to go the lake with him and Wyatt, and when I get home from work at 11:00 I have these e-mails saying that he's going to take his life and our son's life at the lake the next time he gets him, and if he doesn't do it that day, he will finish the job later and it says it in the story that he would kill our son with Benadryl, that he will put it in his juice bottle and kill him.
MR. GARCIA: Your Honor, I have a time line of all of the little stunts and games I'd like to show you that she's trying to keep me out of my son's life. She even brought her new boyfriend --
THE COURT: I'm going to deny it, ma'am. My suspicion is that you're lying, but I'm going to keep the custody orders in full force and effect. You're going to mediation, coming back to court. Okay. In any event your ex parte request is denied. Continue it to -- the next hearing is 3/1 and, sir, your ex parte request, I'm advancing it to today and I'm basically denying it as well, but I'm keeping all orders -- you had an agreement back in December. All orders remain in full force and effect, okay? Yes, sir.
MR. GARCIA: So it's my understanding you got my paperwork?
THE COURT: Yes, I did. I reviewed it and that's why I'm -- my supposition, ma'am, is that you're lying, but if I'm incorrect, you can always bring another ex parte motion but don't misrepresent the situation. If you're lying about this, there's going to be adverse consequences. My supposition is that you're lying. Yes, sir?
MR. GARCIA: Would you like the paperwork that I brought today?
THE COURT: Keep in in hand. In any event, so have your mediation date and come back to court. Okay. Thank you.
(Whereupon an adjournment was taken.)
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